Tag: strategy

Contrast = interesting to humans

I once asked my dad why he liked The Rolling Stones so much. His answer was that they understood the need for highs and lows in a song.

It is hardwired deep in your nervous system. The senses that we humans have developed over millennia of evolution – touch, smell, sight, hearing – are made up of nerve cells linking to our brain. These nerve cells respond better to a sudden change than they do to repeated stimuli.

What does this mean? It depends on the situation.

For Mick Jagger and the boys it means that their songs have light and shade. Quiet verses and soaring choruses. Jagger will whisper and then he will growl and roar.

For emergency response vehicles it means the loud sirens are designed to be varied, sharp and with many different patterns so as to be noticed over the noise of everyday traffic. This contrast works better than one continuous noise which is easily filtered out by the human ear.

For creative people, I think it means that if a piece of art is not getting the desired response, then one of the first things to assess is the use of contrast – light and shade, highs and lows.

Contrast = interesting to humans.

Play Games

Playing games is important to me. In my life, Games come up all over the place.

If I find something difficult then it helps me to think of it as a game. This approach makes things less stressful and lowers my anxiety. Elon Musk says we might all just be living in a simulation. Sometimes it helps to think of life in that way. A few examples of play as it manifests in my life:

  • Playing with the kids at whatever game they have going
  • Treating menial parenting tasks as a game
  • Comedy and conversation with friends
  • Computer games
  • Sport and exercise including data on health
  • Social media accounts
  • Music – listening and playing music is a beautiful game
  • Work
  • Podcasts
  • Blogging 😉
  • More and more I see life as one big bunch of games to play.
  • Some people are not good at playing. Doodling, Riffing, Games, Jokes, Humor are seen as a waste of time. I can’t understand this approach to life.
  • Happy Wednesday, chimps.

    • Match

    Are you more of a corporate manager, or a children’s show presenter?

    Do you have the time to enter an ultramarathon or are you better off focusing on the problems in front of you?

    Will a holiday away actually be relaxing for you? Or should you rather sleep in at home?

    Will you benefit from buying that new iPhone, or should you put the money into a savings account?

    I think all of the options above are valid. They just need to match up with the rest of your life to avoid angst.

    Focus snuck up on me

    Today was a good day in a good week. But I’m only realizing now after supper. Strikes me that it often goes that way.

    When you are busy, focused and enjoying yourself, almost by definition you stop noticing time pass and stop analyzing what you are doing.

    Only looking back now am I surprised at a good patch.

    Here’s hoping for more blind, ignorant, closed off, unthinking good patches 😉

    Recovery of strategic position

    Some options for how to approach a situation that is not working out as you planned:

    A scorched-earth policy brutally removes resources from the game – starving the competition (and any bystanders) as you flee the battle ground.

    Offensive moves take the conflict to the ‘enemy’. The aim here is to destroy the enemy’s resources to make them easier targets for domination.

    A third option is to not compete for resources at all – instead put in the groundwork to build a network that encourages flexibility and stability during volatile times.

    All three are valid, but you can only do one at a time.

    Web strategy

    Unfortunately, we don’t have one by default.

    Whether we are publishing, socialising, photographing, working – our default setting seems to be to just use a device as it is given to us, and without discrimination to pay attention to any and all notifications that show up on the screen.

    The thing is, just like any tool, the internet can be used in the wrong way and achieve unwanted outcomes. Wasted time, wasted money, misinformation to name a few.

    We all have exposure to the internet, whether we like it or not. Therefore forming a strategy to turn it to your advantage is worth it. This goes for the individual, the family and the corporation.

    Worth noting also that on the internet privacy is dead, so “default public” is the best stance on anything web-based.