American Standard

Is it possible to measure the value of measuring?

The Time Machine

Fluxite:

Fold a piece of paper in half and place the folded edge against your forehead with the bottom edge in your line of sight.

You are Primate 2.0. Earlier models had sloping foreheads but yours is vertical. The redesign was necessary to make room for the Frontal Lobe, the most powerful tool on the planet. The Frontal Lobe allows its user to time-travel. You can look back on the past and see patterns and you can project those patterns on the future to see what might happen. In order to do this the Frontal Lobe searches for meaning in the patterns of reality. With meaning it can create value; with value it can drive intention; with intention it can act on the world and get the results it is looking for. The Frontal Lobe does this all with imagination. Imagination is our survival tool. Like all tools, the Frontal Lobe requires proper care. I’m hoping to give yours a workout.

Evernote

Storylet:

Analyn sees the Heretic sulking in a corner. She sits beside him and waits.

Heretic: I’m failing…I’m not taking any action on my idea.

Analyn (grabs his iPhone and opens the Evernote app): You’re kidding right? You have 40 notes in Evernote tagged “The Idea”

Heretic: Well I have to do that or I’ll lose my thoughts. But writing a note is not the same thing as taking action.

Analyn: You got a thought out of your head and into a physical form. It may be virtual but it is still real. So are you saying it isn’t enough? What kind of action is enough? I didn’t realize that there was a hierarchy of taking action.

Heretic: OK, so writing a note is an action but does it make a difference?

Analyn: Look, these notes are like money in the bank. Once they are written they are always there for you. Even if you don’t do anything with it for years, it was still worth it. These notes are insurance policies. They protect you from the Detractor. No one else can erase them.

Fluxite:

Open an Evernote account and download the app.

Draw a character that represents your idea, even if it is a stick figure.

Add a snapshot note in Evernote by taking a picture of your drawing.

Go to your computer and write an email to your Evernote account and address it to your character.

Explain to your character that you will never give up.

On the Deck in New London

Between I 95 and the water in eastern Connecticut is an old Whaling town named New London. Go to the post office there and look up into the ceiling of the main room. There is a WPA mural of a whaling ship from the perspective of someone working on the deck. This feeling of being in the scene brings it to life. You can almost smell the salt air and feel the movement of the ship. Including the viewer is a great tool for engaging them. 

Now look around you. Most New Londoners I've known have told me that they had no idea there was a mural there. Going to the post office is something you do on auto-pilot. This is their real life but they are not present in it the way the artist makes you feel that you are present in the drama of the working life of a whaler. The people you see around you are going through the motions.

Find a letter sized envelope and fold it into an arrow. Write the words "Look up!" on it and place it on a flat surface against the wall.

What other ways are there to get people to look beyond the automated patterns of their lives?

Image: Detail of mural by Thomas LaFarger

A Hand Dryer? Really?

Fluxite:

Go to a restroom where they have installed a Dyson Airblade™ and as you are pulling your hands through it, imagine that you were there when the engineer said: “OK, if the goal is to get water off your hands why don’t we have the air pull the water off instead of the heat trying to evaporate it? That is called "Re-framing the Objective" and it is inspiring when you can see it work.

http://www.dysonairblade.com/homepage.asp

There are Dyson Blades installed in the restrooms at the Medical offices at 2335 Black Rock Turnpike Fairfield, CT (Entrance on Brookside Drive)

Image from http:/www.dysonairblade.com

Leverage

All tools are essentially levers, even wheels and inclined planes. They are about extending the reach of humans by shifting effort to where it has the most impact. There is no free ride. What you gain in impact you give up in distance. Technical tools extend the reach of the human mind. What do you give up to gain the impact of technology.

What are you willing to give up to make your idea have impact?

The Ultimate Perfomance artist/Scientist: Bill Nye

http://youtu.be/grWIC9VsFY4

The Detractor's Warning

The Detractor says: What ever you do, do NOT touch this tool. It will rob you of all your excuses.

Waiting for...

Sit in a hotel lobby as if you are waiting for someone. No one will bother you. You can work there on your idea all day. 

So, I have a question: who ARE you waiting for? What kind of person are you expecting to connect with to help you with your idea? You can't work alone forever.

So Inclined

A highway is simply a tool. It is a series of inclined plans designed to leverage the internal combustion engine of your car to avoid having to react to the vagaries of the land. Guardrails are signs of the creation of one of these inclined planes. Go to the top of a guardrail and walk down the hill and turn around so that your eyes are even with the pavement. Your body makes the vertical side of a right triangle from your feet and head to the beginning of the slope. The inclined plane leverages distance to alleviate the effort of driving straight up the hill.

In the middle of your thoughts about geometry and physics have you also thought about the fact that you are not supposed to be there? Highways are the exclusive purview of cars. The highway experience is not supposed to include examining the infrastructure, but here you are. Disconnected once again.

Note: In the diagram above, the bottom leg of the triangle is actually straight. It's reality that is bendable. 

Projected

Fluxite:

What is the largest object you can create with the following parameters:

• Must be transportable by one person
• Must be able to be set up and taken down in 10 minutes
• Must be made of accessible materials
• Must be able to project on it from a laptop and portable projector

Storylet:

The Heretic and Analyn are shown above carrying the folded object, a laptop and a projector. They will set up the object in public places and use it to project images that relate to his ideas.

The Library Mural

This is a proposal that I first submitted for a mural at the Fairfield Woods Library in the teen center downstairs. Go see the final mural...I left a message for you there.

Tool: Publish your own books at Lulu.com

The Words

 This is a Wordle of Chris Brogan's Blog. A Wordle is an analysis of the frequency of words in any given text in a graphic form. Chris has a lot of great things to say about tools but you will notice that his most frequently used words have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with people.

As a heretic you are in need of the key words that describe the domain of your idea. You need it to search for like minded people on Twitter and to tag the content you upload so people can find you. Go to Wordle and put in the url of a blog that you are excited by or copy and paste the text from your most impassioned document. Examine the words you get and see if they speak to your idea. Try this several times.

The Möbius Strip

Fluxite:
Create a Möbius Strip. 
Write on it “Your Opinion” and “My Opinion” separated by a line “|”
Draw arrows from each text outward and away from the other text.
Continue to draw arrows outward until you no longer can.

Tool:

Instructables: Share what you know.

http://www.instructables.com/about/submit.jsp 

The Ramble Arch

There is a stone archway in the Ramble in Central Park. It's a dimensional portal. It can only be activated by people who have the ability to manipulate space and time. If you touch the edge you will see an almost imperceptible glow as if it was a photographic double image. That is because you have this ability. Remember that time when you felt that time was out of joint and you weren't sure if you knew where you were. That was it.


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