The Berkun Blog
Management, design, and the making of good things.
New essay: How to be a free thinker
January 26th, 2009
Are you free? I know I’m not. That’s why I write essays about being free, to freely show how un-free I am. Does this not make any sense? That’s ok. All is explained in the essay.
More on learning from mistakes
August 25th, 2008
Some recent e-mail about my essay on how to learn from mistakes. Brian wrote:
I enjoyed reading your article “#44 - How to learn from your mistakes”. One other category of mistake I would add to your list, really a continuation of the “Stupid” mistake, would be “Habitual”, or “Automatic”, whichever phrasing you like better. This is the case where you repeatedly make the same mistake(s) out of habit, it’s automatic. Take the person who wakes up every Saturday around 2pm and says “Gee, I wish I didn’t drink so much, why do I always do that?!”.
These are mistakes that we regret and always ask “Why do I keep on making the same mistake over and over again?”. From my personal study, I feel at the moment that the answer lies in making a new habit of pausing before we make a decision, and imagining the possible outcomes of the action and making a CONSCIOUS (rather than automatic) decision this time.
Absolutely - In fact Leo Buscaglia, in one of his books (I think it’s Living, Loving and Learning) talked about how being healthy depends on making more of our behavior choices. To grow as a person, in his estimation, hinges on seeing more and more of our own behavior, and even emotions, as choices and taking responsibility for them, instead of blaming others, or perhaps, the entire universe.
I’m at least at the point that when I wake up at 2pm on Saturday, I know full well why I made the choice :)
New essay: how to innovate right now
March 17th, 2008
One question I hear often is “what can I do right now?”. Well, it turns out there are lots of things to do if you want to become an innovator, and in many cases it’s not very hard.
Check it out:
Essay #58 - How to innovate right now.
(Note: This essay was commissioned by the U.S. State department).
New essay: how to be a genius
December 10th, 2007
Genius is one of those tricky words that gets used often, without anyone knowing quite what it means. Well, I’m taking the word, and advice on how to be a genius, head on in this fun and entirely wild run through genius history.
New essay: Creative thinking hacks
August 7th, 2007
Here’s a short, fun, hack-centric essay on creative thinking. It’s loosely based on the course I taught recently at the University of Washington.
Site slow - essay on bullshit hit digg top 10
August 2nd, 2007
In case you haven’t noticed, my essay how to detect bullshit hit the top 10 on digg today, and the site is struggling to keep up.
The fine folks at duggmirror have a mirrored copy available.
Attention and Sex: 5 minute video
June 6th, 2007
At the last Seattle Ignite event, I did this talk, based on this essay, about the changing nature of human attention and how great creators have controlled their attention spans. Check it out.
Ignite seattle uses the following talk format: you get 5 minutes, but most have 20 slides and each slide can only be on screen for 15 seconds. I hacked the format, as you’ll see in an interesting way.
You can find other videos from Seattle ignite here.
Essay #55 - How to stay motivated
May 23rd, 2007
Anyone who does anything year after year has the same challenge: keeping up intensity when the energy, and novelty, fades. This essay is my primary list for staying in the game.
I will write you an essay - for free!
March 19th, 2007
Confession: I am in serious essay debt and I need your help to get out.
The story: I made a commitment when I quit MSFT in 2003 to publish an essay a month on the website. That’s 12 a year. Here are my stats:
So I owe the universe or myself (whomever cares more), 9 essays. That’s right. Not to mention the 3 so far this year that haven’t materialized yet.
I have plenty of ideas, but I’m bored with my ideas. I want yours. That way I’m guaranteed at least one person other than myself will give a shit when I post the thing.
So here’s your chance: If you could rent my brain to write something, what would the title of the essay be? What topic do you think I’m chicken to write about? What mean scary question do you want me to answer?
Lets get it on!
Why smart people defend bad ideas: the mailbag
December 5th, 2006
To my delight, every now and then the fine folks at slashdot or lifehacker mention an essay of mine, and waves of people swing by, read something, and send feedback mail through the contact form.
I respond to as much of the interesting and thoughtful as I can - but it’s the internet, and some of it’s creepy, incomprehensible or just plain bizarre. I don’t fully know how to respond to many of these little notes I receive.
So for fun, here’s some highlights from the mailbag for the popular essay Why smart people defend bad ideas:
“You sir, are clearly a case of bad person defending a bad idea. You should practice what you preach before preaching to the choir.”
“THIS IS AMAZING. So MANY CLEVEr Things. SO NOW CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH MY PARENTS?”
“I liked the essay but smart people are just better, right? So why shouldn’t they just defend whatever they think is best?”
“…loved this. Really loved it. Made me want to get a shotgun and shoot all the asshats.”
“Hey. If you’re so smart why don’t you know that spark plugs can’t cause fires? eh? Tell me that tough guy. You suck rat ass. I want the 5 minutes it took to read your turd back.”
“I printed this in big font and slid it under the doors of the executive floor. But it had no effect. What do I do now you think? Bigger fonts?”
“Perhaps you can help with this. I’m dating two girls at the same time, and keep thinking I want one, but then the other… well I don’t know how to LOGICALLY choose. Write an essay on this! yes!”
“How much can I pay you to stand in my boss’s office with a megaphone and read this essay every time he opens his mouth?”
Essay: Writing hacks (hacks on writing), Part 1
August 29th, 2006
The series of O’Reilly hacks books is tons of fun. Despite how you don’t want to hear about hacks for certain things (Brain surgery, Nuclear weapons, etc.) the idea of sharing the high leverage little tricks is awesome.
So here’s Part 1 of what will be a series on writing hacks: this first one is about getting started.
Essay: How to detect bullshit
August 14th, 2006
We all like to think we’re good at spotting BS, but how is it done? and why do people make stuff up to begin with? I take a shot in 2000 words.
Essay: How to detect bullshit
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