What is Mind Mapping? (and How to Get Started Immediately)
A mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps structuring information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas. Just as in every great idea, its power lies in its simplicity. In a mind map, as opposed to traditional note taking or a linear text, information is structured in a way that resembles much more closely how your brain actually works. Since it is an activity that is both analytical and artistic, it engages your brain in a much, much richer way, helping in all its cognitive functions. And, best of all, it is fun!
In The Quest For New Ideas, Can The Internet Replace Random Real-Life Discovery?
What does Renaissance art have in common with a pencil? If you believe in knowledge through serendipitous discovery, then quite a lot. This week I was looking for a book on Renaissance art in the library. While walking through the stacks, Henry Petroski’s The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, a book about the origins of the pencil, caught my eye. This was just the book to help with another project I am working on, one associated with business-related technology artifacts.
How to Become an Expert: A Roadmap
Wouldn’t you like to be an expert? To intuitively know the right answers? Enter the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, which shines a light on how we develop and master skills, helping us understand how we progress from novice to expert, including all the steps in between. Experts are Not Just Supercharged Novices There’s much more to mastering a skill than just acquiring more knowledge.
120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power
Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.Embrace ambiguity.
How To Find Startup Ideas – Wesley Tansey
I recently have met a number of people who expressed how badly they wanted to do a startup but said they lacked any good ideas. I know that startup ideas are worthless, especially since I have lived through the dozens of iterations involved, first with EffectCheck and now with Curvio. Nevertheless, you need to start somewhere and that means you need an idea that sufficiently captivates you. Now, I could simply give these people a list of startup ideas, but for an idea to really stick in your mind enough that you’ll want to start a company around it, you need to come up with it yourself. I’ve come up with a brief collection of strategies that you can use to generate new ideas for startups:
Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)
Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. This quote does illustrate an important point: before jumping right into solving a problem, we should step back and invest time and effort to improve our understanding of it. Here are 10 strategies you can use to see problems from many different perspectives and master what is the most important step in problem solving: clearly defining the problem in the first place! The Problem Is To Know What the Problem Is The definition of the problem will be the focal point of all your problem-solving efforts.
The Art of Influence
Secrets to complaining effectively, motivating loved ones, and getting what you want without being a jerk. Illustrations by Lou Brooks Babies and psychopaths have one thing in common: They're excellent at getting what they want. Many of us could learn a thing or two from these creatures, tantrums and dirty tactics notwithstanding. That's not to say that, like these ingrates, we should feel entitled to everything we want.
Steal Like an Artist: Austin Kleon on Combinatorial Creativity
by Maria Popova The genealogy of ideas, why everything is a remix, or what T.S. Eliot can teach us about creativity. UPDATE: Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist synthesizes his ideas on creativity and is absolutely fantastic. Austin Kleon is positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet. His Newspaper Blackout project is essentially a postmodern florilegium, using a black Sharpie to make art and poetry by redacting newspaper articles.
