№ 18 | The Agile Game, Personal Narratives, Self-Image, How the Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions, and Two New Tools for Thought

№ 18 | The Agile Game, Personal Narratives, Self-Image, How the Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions, and Two New Tools for Thought

The Agile Fluency® Game

The Agile Fluency Game is a euro-style game that “authentically simulates 2.5 years (10 seasons) on a software development team” with the idea that “experiments in the game lead to new insights about your real-world options.” Sign me up!

Against personal narratives

“Let’s ditch the dangerous idea that life is a story.” Wait, wha…?! 🤪 “I am not a story” doesn't hold back at all, going after some long held beliefs many of us (myself included) hold dear, namely the entire notion of personal narratives! I love to have my thinking challenged, but I'm struggling with this one. The closest I can come to connecting with this proposal is that our stories are to too rich, dynamic, and complex to identify or discuss… Therefore, less important? Even at this, I'd draw an image of layers of earth, and show that the deeper you dig—into motivations, values, perspectives, and so—the more constancy you're likely to find… (which fits with the author's final paragraphs?). This also reminds me of stuff I wrote about in Figure It Out, where after spending 3 chapters unpacking how /“associations among concepts is thinking,” I balance things out with a chapter on first principles thinking, and attempts to circumvent our brains pattern matching tendencies.

On self-image

In contrast with the essay above, here's a rich post all about… 🥁 Self-Image! The thinking and connections in this post are so clear, it makes me wonder if this couldn't be turned into a 'self-image' game, where we could experience the positive and negative effects of a changing self-image… 🤔

How the Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions

“How the Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions.” This was actually something I wondered about while writing the parts of Figure It Out dealing with the brain and perceptions.

Two more tools for thought

I love the simplicity of these two new (?) tools for thoughts and capturing content: Napkin and Brainec. I'm busy testing Tana at the moment, but I'll add these to the queue!

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№ 112 | Teaching One Pagers, Sliderule Simulator, Board Game Icons, “Making, Hacking and Jamming”, FLARE, Relooted, Choosing a UX Research Method, and Deep Musings on our Human Relationship with AI

№ 112 | Teaching One Pagers, Sliderule Simulator, Board Game Icons, “Making, Hacking and Jamming”, FLARE, Relooted, Choosing a UX Research Method, and Deep Musings on our Human Relationship with AI

Welcome to another edition of the Thinking Things newsletter, your regular dose of playful things to think with, and think about. 🫵A couple of things: 1/ ♥️ ♠️ ♦️ ♣️ I’m exploring a special edition of thinking things focused on… 🥁 playing cards. Specifically, any activity that uses a standard deck of playing cards

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 111 | Art in Board Games, Don't be a Pug in a Bag , Building a Thinking Infrastructure, the Augmentation Canvas, Women’s Clothing Sizes, “Hat, Haircut, or Tattoo”, Phantom Obligations, and Joy Cards (Volume 2)

№ 111 | Art in Board Games, Don't be a Pug in a Bag , Building a Thinking Infrastructure, the Augmentation Canvas, Women’s Clothing Sizes, “Hat, Haircut, or Tattoo”, Phantom Obligations, and Joy Cards (Volume 2)

Welcome to another edition of the Thinking Things newsletter, your regular roundup of ‘playful things to think with’ and think about. Art in Board Games I’m very interested in the information design of board games. This is not that. What begins as commentary on updated art for the game

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 110 | ‘Havens, Hubs & Hangouts’, “Infrastructure for Thinking”, Fractal Gridding + the Hadara Method (for Goal Setting), Bootstrapping Computing,  Catalyst Game, Four Corners Reflection, A Visual Archive of the Jan 6 Capitol Attack, and the Size of Life

№ 110 | ‘Havens, Hubs & Hangouts’, “Infrastructure for Thinking”, Fractal Gridding + the Hadara Method (for Goal Setting), Bootstrapping Computing, Catalyst Game, Four Corners Reflection, A Visual Archive of the Jan 6 Capitol Attack, and the Size of Life

Did you miss me? 🤪 Stephen P. Anderson here, back again with your regular roundup of ‘playful things to think with… and think about’ (wow, that came out sounding like a cheesy DJ announcer!) One of the great things about taking time off between issues is the bounty of amazing finds

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 109 | Algodeck, Alternatives to Arrows, Comic Lettering, Equations Explained Colorfully, Chemistry Advent Calendar, A Framework for Making Decisions, TikTok’s System Map, Learner Engagement Checklist, and Closing Prompts

№ 109 | Algodeck, Alternatives to Arrows, Comic Lettering, Equations Explained Colorfully, Chemistry Advent Calendar, A Framework for Making Decisions, TikTok’s System Map, Learner Engagement Checklist, and Closing Prompts

Let’s close out the year with an XL-sized roundup of ‘playful things to think with’ and think about. 🗓️NOTE: This will be the last newsletter until next year. I normally publish Thinking Things every two weeks. But, I do like to take a bit of time off during the

By Stephen P. Anderson