See it on Amazon I recently heard Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, gushing on Joshua Jay, a magician and all-around magic nerd. Jay just came out with a new book on magic, titled How Magicians Think where he answers 52 questions that magicians are frequently asked. I hadn’t planned on ma...
Note: This post is part of my “Museums Project“, a collection of 200+ high-concept ideas for museums. Not to be confused with the museums of Gaudi. What's In The Museum The name says it all: we find really gaudy sh*t and put it in the museum. I acknowledge that “gaudy” is a subjective judgment, but...
Two Friends, Two Films Imagine you went to a premiere of a friend’s new art film. The lights go down, the title sequence runs, and then the movie begins. On the screen you see a big white circle on a black background. It doesn’t move or grow. It just sits there. Thirty minutes later it’s still sitti...
Overview Some observations: Not enough people get outdoors to exercise, despite the health benefits and that most people enjoy the outdoors.The national and state parks are crowded and often booked up for months.Texas has a whole lot of land that isn’t terribly useful or scenic but is often very ine...
The Third Place The phrase “The Third Place” was coined in 1999 by Ray Oldenburg, an urban sociologist. I can’t explain it better than wikipedia, so I’ll just quote it. Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace—where people may ac...
This post is part of a four-part set that details just one possible (and evolving) method to develop a useful mission statement. See part one here, part two here, and part three here. Reminder: Why Do We Need A Mission Statement? There's no rule on what a mission statement needs to look like, but I...
This post is part of a four-part set that details just one possible (and evolving) method to develop a useful mission statement. See part one here and part two here. An Example of a Mission Discovery Conversation: The SARF My friend Wendy has a project called the Stuffed Animal Rescue Foundation. Sh...
This post is part of a four-part set that details just one possible (and evolving) method to develop a useful mission statement. Read part one here. The Graph Technique In the last post, you came up with lists of potential words. Now we're going to take the tools, purpose, and beneficiary lists and...
This post is part of a four-part set that details just one possible (and evolving) method to develop a useful mission statement. My recommended mission statement discovery process First, it's very important that you determine if you willing to work in the intersection of this diagram. Mission statem...
The full title to this book is Fun, Taste, & Games: An Aesthetics of the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful. This Book and The Eureka Room I've split my thoughts on this book into two posts. One for the book itself and this one, examining particular passages and ideas which spoke directly...