Working Notes of a Practising Neo-Generalist (#4) — On Personal Knowledge Mastery (or 2016: A year in writing)

“If anyone can refute me — show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective — I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.” — Marcus Aurelius in Meditations, Book 6:21 (translated by Gregory Hays, The Modern Library, New York)

On Personal Knowledge Mastery (or 2016: A year in writing)

Harold Jarche’s online course in Personal Knowledge Mastery, made me realise the importance of working out loud. I had already been building an archive of blog posts, articles, talks and numerous other things that got my interest on Twitter, but this was still ‘implicit knowledge.’ Besides, it wasn’t even ‘my’ knowledge, as my tweets were (and are) mostly re-tweets. I merely use Twitter as an online archive, based on the twitter streams of more or less a hundred accounts — interesting people, journals, magazines, and ‘what have you.’ I still do.

All the things I re-tweeted I had read, watched, or listened to, and pondered on (this is also why I can’t follow much more than a hundred accounts). The connections — made in notebooks and above all my head — became, and still become explicit through my work with clients. This is where my thinking as ‘comprehensivist’ — as a ‘specialist’ in curiosity, traversing multiple domains, and sensemaking — pays out.

But there are always ways to work out louder. So, at the beginning of 2016, I decided to make my thinking explicit by writing a weekly curation, called Random Finds. Since the first one in week 5, I have written 43 (I missed one week, and have combined a couple of others). With a read time of ten to twelve minutes, on everage, I don’t expect to attract a large audience. But I don’t really mind. Writing my Random Finds has actually made me a better reader, which, in turn, allows me to make more meaningful connections — not only between ideas and concepts, but also between and with people.

During 2016, I also wrote a chapter on corporate innovation labs for Daniel Egger’s book Future Value Generation, and I started writing a column for Intrapreneurship World on innovation and entrepreneurship. Writing these has helped my find my own voice, which is, when it comes to (corporate) innovation and all things related, rather critical. I have come to realise, not for the first time though, how much of it is bollocks. (And also, if you want people to read it, you need to use the word ‘disrupt(ion)’ in the title. Quod erat demonstrandum.)

In my first three Working Notes of a Practicing Neo-Generalist — I borrowed the title from Gregory Hays, who in the introduction, page xxxvii, to his translation of Meditations, refers to Marcus Aurelius’ work as the “working notes of a practicing philosopher” — I have become more personal. These are my stories, and I owe much of it to Richard Martin and Kenneth Mikkelsen, the authors of The Neo-Generalist. My interview for their book, and the many conversations I have had with Kenneth, made me much more aware of my ‘onlyness’ — a term coined by Nilofer Merchant, meaning the “thing that only you have, coming from that spot in the world in which you stand, a function of your history and experience, visions and hopes. It is everything that you have coming from your past, that only you can see.”

Looking back at last year’s tweets, I can see this ‘change’ happening. They are less about ‘doing,’ more about ‘thinking’ — about philosophy, meaning, purpose, ethics. But maybe I should say about ‘thoughtful doing.’

In 2017 I will continue my search for truth, beauty and goodness — a search for enduring human values that matter. Now, more than ever, it seems.

What I wrote in 2016

• 43 Random Finds (see links below)
• 10 Field Notes on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (a bi-weekly column for Intrapreneurship World; see links below)
• 4 Random Thoughts on polymaths, Frank Gehry, why we always end up where we came from, and mind-wandering
• 3 Working Notes of a Practicing Neo-Generalist on being neither in nor out, return on investment (yours and mine), and wandering minds (and feet)
• 1 Book Review (The Neo-Generalist by Kenneth Mikkelsen and Richard Martin)
• 1 Field Notes on Corporate Innovation Labs (written for Daniel Egger’s Future Value Generation, page 232–236)
• And finally, 2661 tweets

Random Finds

• Random finds (2016, week 51–52) — On the failing religion of business, the place of anger, and Steven Pinker’s conditional optimism
• Random finds (2016, week 50) — On framing the future, Barry Lopez, and the rhetoric of disruption
• Random finds (2016, week 49) — On anger, optimism, and our contradictions
• Random finds (2016, week 48) — On onlyness, trusting technology, and our fear of being irrelevant
• Random finds (2016, week 47) — On philosophy as antidote, the ethics of AI, and post-truth politics
• Random finds (2016, week 45–46) — On populism and loss of reason, rebels with a cause, and our over-reliance on data
• Random finds (2016, week 43–44) — On dumb ‘smart’ devices, artificial intelligence, and the rise of the urbanpreneur
• Random finds (2016, week 42) — On preparing for the Machinocene, Apple’s iBrain, and philanthrocapitalism
• Random finds (2016, week 41) — On the edge of inside, the paradox of automation, and Maggie’s Farm
• Random finds (2016, week 40) — On design thinking, the job of a milkshake, and our lost faith in reason
• Random finds (2016, week 39) — On the abundance of underused workers, innovation, and our expectations of desirable design
• Random finds (2016, week 38) — On becoming self-organized, the power of constraints, and people who ‘tell it like it is’
• Random finds (2016, week 37) — On making peace with complexity, ethics for AI, and the superiority of print
• Random finds (2016, week 36) — On the hype of Artificial Intelligence, beautiful and happy cities, and flawed ideas
• Random finds (2016, week 35) — On innovation, Big Data and the price of anarchy, and the human touch
• Random finds (2016, week 33 and 34) — On innovation, how to see (and create) the future, and design
• Random finds (2016, week 32) — On sameness in AirSpace, and roofshots
• Random finds (2016, week 31) — On serendipity, why less isn’t always more, and unmet needs (instead of flying cars)
• Random finds (2016, week 30) — On mindsets, moonshots, and Art Thinking
• Random finds (2016, week 29) — On design and creativity, restless minds and good listening, and the importance of slowness
• Random finds (2016, week 28) — On good design, meaningful innovation, and how to make cities work for people
• Random finds (2016, week 27) — On innovation, the power of asking beautiful questions, and solitude
• Random finds (2016, week 26) — On what it takes to innovate, team design, and building lasting tust and cooperation
• Random finds (2016, week 25) — On the secret of taste, debunking business philosophy, and the virtes of the idle mind
• Random finds (2016, week 24) — On quantum leadership, the power of constraints, and happy daydreaming
• Random finds (2016, week 23) — On lean, mean, learning machines, our bias for action, and the shortcomings of artificial intelligence
• Random finds (2016, week 22) — On innovation, life as a video game, and managing without a soul
• Random finds (2016, week 21) — On asking pivotal questions, the predictive power of dreams, and The Brutal World
• Random finds (2016, week 20) — On self-disruption, understanding Swedish design, and the arrogance of Frank Lloyd Wright
• Random finds (2016, week 19) — On wise leadership, why less isn’t always more, and deep work
• Random finds (2016, week 18) — On mind-wandering, deep reading, and why reality is a magnificent illusion
• Random finds (2016, week 17) — On minimal viable behaviors, work as problem-solving, and the Renaissance ‘bottega’
• Random finds (2016, week 16) — On corporate innovation, and raw concrete
• Random finds (2016, week 15) — On ambidexterity, innovation, and straddling different worlds
• Random finds (2016, week 13) — On disruption, interest-driven learning, and formal fluidity
• Random finds (2016, week 12) — On asking more beautiful questions, and wishful innovation thinking
• Random finds (2016, week 11) — On conversational intelligence, collaboration and AI beyond Go
• Random finds (2016, week 10) — On change, innovation and teaching kids philosophy
• Random finds (2016, week 9) — On curiosity and novelty (but not too much)
• Random finds (2016, week 8) — On disruption, leadership and Umberto Eco’s antilibrary
• Random finds (2016, week 7) — On decision-making, certainty and business books
• Random finds (2016, week 6) — On diversity, the future of work and asking questions
• Random finds (2016, week 5) — On polymaths and simplicity

Field Notes on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

These columns were originally posted on Intrapreneurship World between September 19th and December 13th, 2016.

• Issue #01 — On innovation labs
• Issue #02 — On disruption
• Issue #03 — On solving non-existing problems
• Issue #04 — On the need for deeper innovation
• Issue #05 — On design thinking as a panacea
• Issue #06 — On asking beautiful questions
• Issue #07 — On innovation snobbery
• Issue #08 — On small mice, giants and confusion
• Issue #09 — On rebels with a cause
• Issue #10 — On the lack of principles