Thinking for keeps v1

Last month, Mark Pollard hosted Heather LeFevre on his Sweathead podcast and she said something that’s reverberated in my brain since.

“In the same way when you read a book and something resonates with you and you’re like ‘I want to write that down’ or ‘I want to underline that’. That’s the lens of you.”

I’ve been annotating books, bookmarking links, highlighting favorite passages and jotting notes on post-its for decades and I never thought of of them amounting to anything more than a passing moment of satiated interest. Hearing Heather speak to the idea of the ‘lens of you’ was a total aha! moment for me that made all those errant notes add up to something.

The time spent social distancing for the last month has resulted in significantly more consumption — of books, articles, Tweets, podcasts, junk mail, social media any media (anything to keep me from watching a mid-day press briefing). So I’ve decided to spend some the dregs of my mental capacity creating a living anthology of the things that inform my lens.

Equal parts intellectual stimulation, pseudo psychology, blind optimism and garbage humor —keeping the particular highlights to myself for now, but sharing these sources in case there’s something in here that you feel is worth earmarking for keeps.

1. Data Visualizations that Work, Harvard Business Review — We’re confronted with models and data sets constantly, which has the unfortunate side effect of making everyone think that they know how to understand and interpret data. I know enough to know that I am not an expert, but this is a good primer if you have an appreciation for artfully communicating data.
2. What Soft Skills Should We Be Better Prepared For In Advertising? The Overthinker’s podcast. It’s a perfect articulation of the behaviors and attitudes that help you be the kind of person that’s invited to help solve problems.
3. A Call to Arms for Creative Agencies in AdAge — A good reminder that we work in a field that at its best, is designed to help nurture ideas and grow businesses. It’s worth revisiting as we enter the hypothetical midpoint in our isolation.
4. Brené Brown’s interview of Glennon Doyle — A radically enjoyable read about deprogramming your brain and embracing your wild and true self. Apropos for feeling caged in my apartment.
5. Punk History — an Instagram feed that matches fine art and salty sentiments. The clever kind of Internet humor I wish I’d thought of.

It’s my goal to throw together a weekly list of the things that have fueled my thinking. So, stay tuned and please share whatever you’ve been reading, watching or listening to that rang true to you.