Building Intrigue

Today's Blog Post - When to criticize yourself

When to criticize yourself - Building Intrigue I’ve been seeing a fair number of Facebook posts on this subject lately. We’re entering this kind of era of self-care and wellness which I appreciate and so I thought I’d chime in with my thoughts. The particulars of how we criticize ourselves is bit of a complicated topic. In general, some of...

Today's Blog Post - Finding inspiration

Finding inspiration - Building Intrigue The first rule of finding inspiration is that what inspires you is sacred. If I knew this growing up, I’d be much further along than I am. What I mean by sacred is that when you are inspired, it doesn’t matter what other people say about that inspiration. Just because everyone else is inspired b...

Today's Blog Post - Ideas I can’t pursue #2

Ideas I can't pursue #2 - Building Intrigue I’ve become very interested in the applications of AI that are outside of my personal goals. So, this set of ideas will be different applications of machine learning that I’ve thought about recently. Artificial intelligence has been used in gaming to generate music based on the events occurring ...

Today's Blog Post - More output

More output - Building Intrigue There’s an interesting myth going around these days about focus. Frequently, people suggest that in order to get something done, you must hunker down and work on one thing at a time. I myself have been a culprit of this. Interestingly, the research shows quite the opposite. Of all creatives, those...

Today's Blog Post - Standard values

Standard values - Building Intrigue I like to think about standard values for things. Conceptually, a table has 4 legs, a plane has 2 wings, or a backpack has 2 straps. These aren’t really constrains but when we think about how to design a new one, we tend to forget that these “rules” can be broken. When I start designing …

Today's Blog Post - Association and intersection

Association and intersection - Building Intrigue I talk about intersection and the benefits of cross-disciplinary thinking quite frequently. In my recent readings, I have discovered there is a whole scientific theory linking associative ability with creativity. Until now I’ve been looking at different topics of interest and trying to connect the...

Today's Blog Post - Leadership and Creativity

Leadership and Creativity - Building Intrigue As per the Journal of Creative Behavior, Volume 17, 1983, formal education can be detrimental to leadership and creativity. Creativity increases with formal education until one attains a bachelors degree. Beyond this point, it takes a steep decline. Once the average person gets a PhD, their creativi...

Today's Blog Post - Get out of the way

Get out of the way - Building Intrigue One of the key things that prevents progress is bottle-necking. This usually occurs when one person believes they can do everything. The fact is, if you believe this, you are probably wrong. Even if you are right, you are applying a ceiling to your own progress by limiting the output to only what yo...

Today's Blog Post - Eureka!

Eureka! - Building Intrigue In my experience, Eureka moments are really Eureka weeks or months or years. When you say “aha!”, it’s a culmination of thoughts and experiences. You have finally had the attention span to untangle and organize those thoughts in your brain. Therefore, the aha moment isn’t that moment in whic...

Today's Blog Post - Subject expertise

Subject expertise - Building Intrigue I’m on the fence on this one. On one hand, having expertise in a specific field can help you understand which questions are the right questions to ask. On the other hand, it can also cause you to get stuck in the same pattern of thinking. As an electrical engineer, I have subject expertise on …

Today's Blog Post - Divergent and convergent thinking

Divergent and convergent thinking - Building Intrigue Divergent thinking is defined as thinking that strays from the norm. Some studies in the 1960’s tried to correlate divergent thinking with creativity. Scientists of the time created programs to increase divergent thinking in children. There was a problem with this strategy. Despite all their effor...

Today's Blog Post - It’s all a production

It's all a production - Building Intrigue I’ve been thinking about the ways in which our society is changing. With the current changes in technology, we communicate differently, we value different things, and we have more access to information. As a result, there are people who believe this progress to be positive and people who believe t...