Category: Creativity

3. SHELF it · Creativity · Skills · Technology

BR 202: How to Design Cool Stuff by John McWade

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Comments: This is a beautifully designed book – as it should be. :) It has lots of interesting examples that demonstrate what is good design and what is bad design. I took away a fair number of tips – but I did miss principles.

Top 3 Learnings:
1. Colors such as yellow, orange and red are warm colors while colors such as blue and purple are cool colors. Cool colors point to professional settings.

2. Breaking images into multiple pieces can be very powerful. Scale: magnifying small pieces can greatly improve perception of importance. Similarly, Cropping images is a powerful tool. A small part of the image can tell a much more powerful story than the rest of the image.

3. Add a photo to the graph. If sales of strawberries, put a strawberry photo behind

Book notes here.

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BR 173: The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett

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user experience, UI, UX

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Comments: This is a user experience book that attempts to structure how you build tools (in this case, websites) that result in a good user experience.

Top Learning: Book notes here (it is the sort of book I might come back to when I’m designing a website)

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BR 170: How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

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How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams,

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Comments: I debated about whether this should be a priority 1 or priority 2 book. I went with priority 1 because I think this book mixes personal experience with provocative ideas and a solid collection of “good life” principles that I’ve found true. I also love (and try living by) Scott’s experimentation based approach to life.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Goals are for losers. Focus on building systems that will last. E.g. instead of trying to lose 10 pounds in 6 months, focus on building a system of exercising 3 times every week.

2. Collect skills like a crazy person. Every skill you collect doubles your chances of success. Greatness is often a collection of mediocre skills.

3. Experiment away your way to a great life. Failure is an important part of experimentation

Book notes here

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BR 168: Mastery by Robert Greene

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Comments: A Robert Greene masterclass. Lovely mix of biographical stories wrapped within a compelling framework. A lot of the stuff isn’t new. But, the combination is potent.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Mastery is a culmination of years of intense deep work. There is no easy way.

2. Apprenticeship is both awesome and dangerous. On the one hand, your learning curve speeds up with great mentors. However, very few mentors turn out to be large minded enough to “let go” – it is the typical bad parent problem all over again

3. Developing emotional intelligence is a useful tool to make sure your mastery gets the credit it deserves. This section spoke to me. I assumed I had high EI but had learnt from a relationship that that wasn’t the case. This chapter taught me one simple but critical lesson – stop listening to what people say. Instead, listen to what they do.

Book notes here

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BR 161: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

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Comments and Learning:
1. This is a very important book – designers all over have probably read this book. I think of it as a must read if you are interested in anything to do with design. I read this as I was thinking of product design.

2. If a user keeps making an error when using your product, the problem is with your product.

3. Learnings here

3. SHELF it · Bio/Autobiographies · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Creativity · Entrepreneurship · Technology

BR 151: Things a Little Bird Told Me by Biz Stone

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Comments: This book is another one of those really good books I’d recommend to anyone interested in technology. This is Biz Stone’s story and thus, in large part, his narration of important parts of the Twitter story.

It feels sincere and heartfelt and, that is, from what I’ve heard, what Biz Stone is all about.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Opportunity is manufactured. As Biz Stone did not train in the traditional sports, he was well behind sporting level in his high school. As he really wanted to play sports, he started a high school lacrosse team. Since everyone who signed up was a beginner, he was on a level playing field and  had a great time.

2. Constraints are great. When Steven Spielberg was shooting jaws, he wanted to create a realistic model of a shark so they could film it attacking people for all the scary scenes. However, this was going to be very expensive and beyond their budget. Faced with this constraint, Spielberg had a new low budget idea – shoot it from the point of view of the shark under water.  And guess what? Way scarier!

Twitter did well with constraints as well, of course. :)

3. Pick opportunities based on what inspires you. Biz Stone lives this idea. He left university because he got an inspiring opportunity to apprentice in a creative agency. He then left Google even though he had millions of dollars worth of stock options to vest because he wanted to continue working with his former boss and friend, Evan Williams. It’s a great story and it obviously works out for him. But, the thing to note is his incessant positivity and his habit of zeroing on the things that really matter.

Book notes here.

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BR 140: Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson

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Comments: This is a really fast paced, fun book with many simple but actionable insights on how to live a happier life. Improv acting sounds very fun and Patricia Ryan Madson distils 12 principles for us to follow and incorporate into our lives.

I enjoyed the book and interviewed Patricia too – she was everything I’d imagined her to be after reading her book.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Life is no different from an improv act. You can make all the plans you want.. but you just have to learn to improvise to be happy.

2. Patricia cautions us against over preparation. Often, we overdo the amount of preparation and forget to be human and fallible.

3. Notice your gifts. Every day, we use and consume things that have been made with a lot of effort by others. It is only when we learn to notice these gifts and become more aware of our blessings do we get better at improv and thus, life.

Book notes here

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BR 139: The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Zander

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Comments: The reason this book is in the top rung is not because it unearths some revolutionary or novel concept. It is because it advocates a way of thinking that has the power to revolutionize our life. Stephen Covey brought to light our ability to respond to situations (instead of just reacting to them) in his chapter “Be Proactive” but Ben and Roz take it to the next level by imploring us to make finding “possibility” a habit.

Top 3 learnings:

1. Remember rule no.6. Don’t take yourself so damn seriously. I need this on a plaque. :)

2. Seeing possibility is a way of life. It’s the learning approach to life – possibility has this magical ring to it. And rightly so.. viewing everything we do from the lens of possibility may be hard work but adds so much in terms of happiness, creativity, fun, and joy.

3. When you make a mistake, say “HOW fascinating.” Again, this isn’t just a cosmetic change. It involves a fundamental change in the way we view mistakes. Hard to do.. but I’m hopeful I will be able to implement it.

Book notes here

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BR 136: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

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Comments: SO inspiring.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. The “resistance” is the most toxic force on the planet. It’s an internal force of nature that thwarts us every time we try to move from a lower to higher place – when we want to start a new venture, work on a piece of art, or embark on an education of any kind. We move forward when we learn how to fight our resistance.
2. Art is the most noble thing we can set out to do. An artist believes the best lies ahead and constantly works on imagining and creating this future and thus taking the human race forward. This is opposite to the fundamentalist who tries to destroy to take us back to the basics as it is his belief that the best existed in the past.
3. Being an artist is all about behaving like a pro. That involves showing up every day, working on your art relentlessly, listening to feedback, ignoring critics, not taking failure personally, and exhibiting humility and patience.
It’s very hard to just talk about 3 things that I learnt from this book. It is so inspirational.. and Steven Pressfield is such an accomplished writer that attempting to say it in anything but his own words doesn’t do it justice.

Book notes

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BR 102: A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink

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Comments: A compelling read. I am a fan of Dan Pink’s work and this one didn’t disappoint.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. Dan Pink’s thesis is simple – we moved from the era of physical labor to the era of the left brain where logical abilities were paramout. Now, we’re moving to the era of the right brain where abilities like creativity will take centre stage.

2. Here’s a learning on the importance of the ability to tell stories from the book.

3. Creativity is like a muscle. The more we engage it, the more we will develop it.

A compelling book with a clear thesis. I’ve read it 6 years late. But still worth reading!