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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
№ 80 | Magical Gatherings, Dixit + A Canvas!, OuiSi Cards, The Hidden Curves of the Gartner Hype Cycle, Threshold Spotting, and Case Studies… with a Twist?!

№ 80 | Magical Gatherings, Dixit + A Canvas!, OuiSi Cards, The Hidden Curves of the Gartner Hype Cycle, Threshold Spotting, and Case Studies… with a Twist?!

Designing for Magical Gatherings So, interesting sidenote: I was in a webinar earlier this week where I was asked to reflect on especially memorable or meaningful gatherings I’ve been a part of. The common themes for me were things like adventure, discovery, challenge, fantasy, immersion, and so on. On

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 77 | Branching Scenarios and eLearning, Surviving Design Projects, Ursula K. Le Guin on Growth, Quests (Not Goals), I’m Voting Postcards, and Levels of Automation

№ 77 | Branching Scenarios and eLearning, Surviving Design Projects, Ursula K. Le Guin on Growth, Quests (Not Goals), I’m Voting Postcards, and Levels of Automation

Branching Scenarios and eLearning In 2020, I did a deep dive into how narrative games could be used for learning purposes, which left me with a deep appreciation for (and small collection of) CYOA books, gamebooks, interactive fiction, solo RPGs, and similar experiences with branching paths. Anyway, this post on

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 76 | Olympic Dataviz, A Strategy Based on The Periodic Table, Dimensionality & Agency, A Shared Commons,  The Happiness Workout Deck, and a Sneak Peek at the Zombie Leadership Cards

№ 76 | Olympic Dataviz, A Strategy Based on The Periodic Table, Dimensionality & Agency, A Shared Commons, The Happiness Workout Deck, and a Sneak Peek at the Zombie Leadership Cards

Two amazing data visualizations from the Olympics I love stumbling across novel, or at least uncommon, ways to represent information. These visualizations from dataviz designer Krisztina Szűcs are 🧑‍🍳🤌💋: First, a multi-tiered cake chart representing the Women's Pole Vault Finals: 0:00 /0:39 1× Then, this fencing (🤺) visualization:

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

№ 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

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 72 | GenAI Card Deck, “Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers,” How Mechanical Watches Work, Zombie Leadership, Creative Futuring for Organizations, and The Path to Newton

№ 72 | GenAI Card Deck, “Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers,” How Mechanical Watches Work, Zombie Leadership, Creative Futuring for Organizations, and The Path to Newton

GenAI Card Deck If you must bring Generative AI into your work, here’s a card game that’ll quickly get everyone up to speed on core concepts while exploring what Gen AI can do. While this is fundamentally a structured brainstorming tool, with cards for kind of input, output,

By Stephen P. Anderson
№ 71 | Queueing Strategies, “Thought-Terminating Clichés,” Exquisite Conversation Cards, Inspired Check-Ins Card Deck, A Framework for Hybrid Organizations, and Priya Parker on Room Density

Finds

№ 71 | Queueing Strategies, “Thought-Terminating Clichés,” Exquisite Conversation Cards, Inspired Check-Ins Card Deck, A Framework for Hybrid Organizations, and Priya Parker on Room Density

Queueing strategies Thanks to this interactive study of queueing strategies from Sam Rose, I now understand the programming concept of queueing. The post uses a series of highly interactive visuals and micro-challenges that demystify why HTTP requests sometimes fail—and different queuing strategies to help prevent these failures. This is

By Stephen P. Anderson