Small pieces loosely joined

In efforts of creativity, innovation, or ideation, often it is not the logical breakdown of a topic that brings success, but instead an ‘ah-ha’ moment happens when two or more seemingly unrelated items come together within the context of a given topic.[1]

When there is a group, the volume of these “small pieces” is obviously multiplied, and easily stimulated by the increase in perspectives - the more people sharing the more likely to spark a connection - as well as by providing fidget toys, trinkets, crayons and scrap paper, anything that folks can pick up and play with during the discussion. However, these sources of inspiration are only effective if within each of us we have sufficient “small pieces” stored in our subconscious.

Outside a group setting, when we need to engage in the same efforts but independently; this store of knowledge, experience, perspective, language, these “small pieces” waiting to be joined, is the resource we better not run out of.

Therefore for those that endeavor to create, build, change, disrupt, cannot afford to sit idle, silo’d ignoring the world around us; we must consume the world around us. Training ourselves to constantly be capturing through observation, reading, listening, smelling, tasting.[2] Building our reserve of those small pieces over time. The good news is just because we haven’t actively been doing it, doesn’t mean our subconscious isn’t doing it for us.

On days when I had a test, my dad would remind me to let my eyes skim the entire test, every question, before starting at the first. I used to give him a hard time about it, but his point was that our minds begin to work out the answers. He was trying to get me to recognize there is a silent worker (our internal agent if you will). Training this agent requires, like our AI agents, vast amounts of data to be effective.[3] Shifting from passive collection to active is the long term shift we can aim for.

Small pieces loosely joined is the reminder of this goal and the basis for what you’ll find here. A sometimes random collection of ah-ha moments and small pieces I’ve stored over the years.