Reflecting on my year in space last year and my theme of ideas for the new year.
For a few years now, inspired by Kath Murdoch, I have been choosing a word to focus on each year. Last year I made a change, where rather than thinking about outcomes, I instead turned to inquiry.
Inspired by a few ref...
I like this idea. My own word for the year is “anthropology”, though I haven’t written it out yet as you have.
I can’t help but thinking you picked a helluva a year to choose “space.”
Given your current word, the first few things that come immediately to mind and which you may appreciate are:
Matthew Ridley’s talk on When Ideas have sex
Richard Dawkins work on the idea of memes in The Selfish Gene (Oxford, 1976). While the whole book is a classic, he’s got a chapter or two specifically on memes where the term was coined.
And finally, I was at a presentation last year that had some fascinating framing around the difference between what we mean when we say idea versus concept.
How long have you been working on your idea? Or looking for that next disruptive investment? Better still, how do you perfect your skill in doing all that? How do you lock-down your idea, your technology, your business or even your approach to investments? Consider this: the key stems from a very practical understanding how the abstract world (where disruptive innovations come from in the first place) actually works. Amazingly, it is something we were never accurately taught. Hard to believe right? But change that…and we change everything. So take a step into both the past and future. Come to a talk that will change the way you understand the world forever – something that will actually make you smarter. How cool would that be?
Winston is the founder of a discipline called Concept Modeling, which is at the root of all other disciplines – but don’t let the word “discipline” scare you. This talk will be very practical and may just be the key to your success going forward. He is the author of an award (Visionary Award) winning new book, Concerning the Nature and Structure of Concept. Reviewers have called his book (thus his work) “brimming with insights,” “intellectually fun,” “a startling fresh perspective on our world.” NY Times has called him “the guru of concept modeling.”
With past and present clients that include Warner Bros., Dreamworks, NBC/U, Interscope, Relativity and many others, Winston works on films, TV Shows, technologies, businesses and management models for executives. How cool is Bug Bunny? Very. With dozens of movies, technologies under his belt, his presentations are unique, insightful, informative, and yes, fun — he even concept modeled baseball. Love that! As Winston always says: “Let’s rock this thing!”
Biography:
As featured in the New York Times, and Deadline.com, Winston is the creator and founder of Concept Modeling, and author of his coming award (Visionary Award) winning book, Concerning The Nature And Structure Of Concept. His concept modeling helps studios and companies perfect films, ideas, technologies, science or businesses. It is considered revolutionary (truly, no cliché) by more and more professionals. The NY Times called Winston the “guru of Concept Modeling.”
Based on a discovery made on Feb. 6, 1989, -- a massive eureka moment as described in his book-- Winston developed a unique practice of deconstructing ideas based on deep insights on how the abstract world actually works or doesn’t – his past and present clients include Warner Bros., Dreamworks, NBC/U, Interscope, Relativity and many others.
His work may just represent a revolutionary advancement that launches you and your successful idea or investment, right here, right now. As Winston is fond of saying: ‘Let’s rock this thing!”
I saw this talk live a few weeks back. There’s something interesting to the general concept of what he’s trying to communicate here, but it doesn’t feel as gelled or as concrete as it could be. He needs to start with some iron clad definitions of “idea” and “concept” and go from there. I looked up his book, which appears to be self-published and incredibly overpriced. I’d pick up a copy if it was reasonably priced, though I suspect that it may not shed much more clarity on his ideas, which are almost a full concept.
The real value of a lot of this is in some of his examples. There are also some interesting thoughts for applying this to linguistics and early languages with smaller vocabularies compared to more developed modern languages with much larger vocabularies.
Notes:
Concept modeling
Ideas are infinite and free. Concepts are not. How can you get to the end of an idea?
Cup conceptually is a container.
Example of pictures of an airplane on the ground versus in the air. The picture of the airplane in the air is better because it contains the concept of what an airplane is.
Negacept is a concept that defines its nature by the negation of another concept.
Example: Superman and krpytonite
Example: brakes on an automobile
Innovation is literally “into” and “new”
The softball is not based on a baseball, but is originally based on a boxing glove.
Concept is not obvious. It is not a structure or bigger idea, it’s not a strategy. Concept is abstract essence. It is nature, structure, activity and philosophy of abstract essence.
An idea is simply a possibility.
Revenge movie versus retaliation movie. Revenge takes time. Don’t take revenge. You can’t relate to movies unless there is a concept, and that is typically hope.
Ideas and concepts are different. In fact, they operate in two separate, radically different worlds that few have been taught to distinguish. One carries the “surface layer” and “whole” of the idea. The other, deeper layer carries essence, the structure of essence. and the activity of essence. Concept Modeling is about the art, science and philosophy that is concept. It is the missing discipline and here is the place to learn about that discovery made on February 6, 1989 by Winston Perez.
Aaron Davis (Read Write Respond)