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№ 75 | Eco-ing Seattle, Mapping the Gen-AI Landscape, The Conflict House, Arduino’s Plug and Make Kit, and The WITHIN Leadership Toolkit

Stephen P. Anderson

Stephen P. Anderson

— 3 min read
№ 75 | Eco-ing Seattle, Mapping the Gen-AI Landscape, The Conflict House, Arduino’s Plug and Make Kit, and The WITHIN Leadership Toolkit

Eco-ing Seattle

I’ve been enjoying this series reimagining an 18-block space Northgate, a Seattle neighborhood. Essentially, this a bit of speculative urban planning, based on ecological ideas from Edencity (a different project imagining “an eden-like city” with “economic + ecological abundance”). What struck me is this: It’s one thing to discuss and imagine—in the abstract—how you might do things differently; it feels different to point this imagination at a specific—real—area and then, ‘play around’ with some city design ideas. 🤔 👍

3-D model depicting an aerial view of an 18 block neighborhood, and the surrounding areas.

Mapping the Gen-AI Landscape

I love visual models that help orient us to and make sense of complicated topics. In this case, it’s a triangle diagram, mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience.

A triangle diagram (aka “Ternary plot”) with the three end points: Real-time, Structured generation, and RAG/Large context. With these three points as the dimensions on this triangle diagram, various AI related experiences (e.g. Copilots, NPCs, Character chat, Data extraction, etc.) are then plotted accordingly.

I also love how Matt Web describes how he’s using this map:

So it’s not a tool that gives me answers, it’s not that kind of map.
But it helps me communicate, and it’s a decent lens, and it’s a helpful framework in a workshop context.
Scaffolding for the imagination

“Scaffolding for the imagination.” 😍 I’m going to add that to my catchphrases!

The Conflict House

Ooh… A metaphor to reframe conflict. Think of a house, with three rooms: (1) What Happened (2) Feelings (3) Identity (all the healthy stuff we should explore and assess). You can walk through the front of the house—the place where things are Right or Wrong—or, as author Charles Lambdin describes, you can pretend you’re an investigative reporter.

Once you learn this secret, then you’ll realize that Conflict House has a back door as well… It is labeled “Stay Curious”, and when you enter through the back, everything inside seems…easier.
Illustration that resembles a blueprint for a house. There are three rooms in the center row of this house, each labeled: (1) What Happened (2) Feelings (3) Identity. The bottom row, presumably the front entrance to this house, is labeled Right/Wrong. The top row, the back entrance, is labeled Stay Curious.

Nice! There’s other good stuff in this article, including this nice little flowchart to “strengthen your listening boundary.”

Flowchart to walk you through when and how to respond to a conflict, based on things like importance and outcomes.

Arduino’s Plug and Make Kit

As a long time fan of LittleBits, SnapCircuits, LEGO Mindstorms, and similar toys playthings that make electronics more accessible—I’m all for Arduino’s Plug and Make Kit. Hacking, minus the solder!

A hand adjusting a button or knob on an Arduino plug and make kit, mounted to a white wall on a yellow bread-board-like backing.

And finally, it wouldn’t be a Thinking Things newsletter without mention of at least one card deck… 😉

The WITHIN Leadership Toolkit

A card deck for team building? I’m in! The WITHIN Leadership Toolkit is a collection of… “50 tried and techniques to nurture high-performing teams - ideas and inspiration for strengthening relationships, increasing psychological safety, setting goals, giving feedback and getting to results.”

A photograph of 6 cards, randomly arranged on a desk, sitting next to a stack of cards and the box from which these came. Titles than can be seen on these cards include: Coffee Roulette, Public Displays of Appreciation (PDA), Walkie Talkies, and Manual of Me.

[NOTE: You can download a PDF version here.]

***Random BONUS #1: I'm fascinated by these Cyanometer and Sunset Postcards [see also John V Willshire’s Regenerative Design Field Kit].

A hand holding a postcard up to the sky, which you can see through a round hole in the upper center portion of the card. Around the card, radiating from where the center would be are dozens of shades of blue, allowing you to identify the exact shade of blue in the sky today. There is a second photo, identical, except with a shades of pink/yellow/red for morning or evening skies.

***Random BONUS #2: For reasons I can't explain—even to myself!—I’ve been kind of addicted to this ‘incremental’ game: Evolve.

How it started:

Screenshot from the video game Evolve. There are only a few words/buttons on the page: RNA, Form DNA, Membrane, and a few other similar early stage evolutionary ideas.

How it’s going:

Screenshot from the video game Evolve. Relative to the previous screenshot, there are many, many more links, buttons, menus, and text items. Words reflect that of a modern civilization, and include things like Power, Polymer, Aluminum, ARPA, Research, Power Grid, and so on.

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№ 81 | Scientific Papers as Comic Strips, 52 Things About Cards, Thermodynamics Cards, Collaborative Place Futures Toolkit, and Why The Work is Never Just “The Work”

№ 81 | Scientific Papers as Comic Strips, 52 Things About Cards, Thermodynamics Cards, Collaborative Place Futures Toolkit, and Why The Work is Never Just “The Work”

✉️Look for 2 extra special emails heading your way, later this week! 1/ The promised print-and-play Zombie Leadership cards. 2/ An announcement about our next Creative Challenge… Scientific Papers as Comic Strips Yes! Comics as things to think with. Here’s an interview with Kanaka Rajan, who uses “narrative illustrations

By Stephen P. Anderson