Intuition, Ingenuity, Small Data
“We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.” — John Culkin, McLuhan media scholar
The noisier the world becomes with notifications, emails, spreadsheets, link bait, things you should (and shouldn’t) be watching, reading, eating, drinking, and just generally doing… the more I find myself reaching for things that allow me to be focused, go deep, and get lasting results.
Here are the three tools I am using to navigate 2015 to do just that:
Intuition
I will be quiet longer and more consistently so my intuition can speak. I will not silence it in the pursuit of any sort of perceived gain.
In my personal life, I’ve quieted my intuition more than I should when it has come to relationships and some of the company I’ve kept over the years. It’s a tool — friend really — that I am going to keep around so I don’t find myself so far down a path that later turns out to be wrong for me… and is emotionally / financially costly to fix.
And in my professional life, I want to rely less on digital tools and data sets and instead embrace speaking on the phone, asking for clarification in the moment, and taking smart notes. I believe this also will mean looking at situations, people, and problems with empathy and — as mathematician Alan Turing noted in 1938 — “making spontaneous judgements which are not the result of conscious trains of reasoning.”
Ingenuity
I will focus on equipping myself with the knowledge, skills, and methods needed to impact our ‘future is here / future is lagging’ world.
It feels like a lot of my industry has caught up. There’s no more white-knuckled executives questioning the validity of digital. The technology-first specialty shops are facing competition from in-house teams and full service shops offering “that stuff too.”
“A [wo]man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.” — Alan Turing
So, it’s time to fire up the ingenium and give myself the mental space and quality time to pull off some next-level sh!t with my team. This means saying ‘no’ much more and continuing to respect my hard-won, discipline-powered regimens of physical strength and professional excellence.
Small Data
I will collect smaller bits of data when I need to have more texture and context about something. I will delete / toss / shred stuff I don’t need.
This will take the shape of talking to research subjects ‘in the wild’ and at the same time, not being afraid to explore more deeply an insight that pops out of a bigger data set (e.g., web analytics, financial reports).
It will also require me to brush-up on my ethnographic and data analysis skills through reading, on-the-job-learning, and pairing up with experienced colleagues.
And while I’ve mostly been vigorously note-capturing at work, I will do my best to continue my since-age-7 quest to physically write down the bits of data that matter to me and that I want to measure, track, and impact (e.g., workouts, happiness, healing).
Best thing you can do to see how far you’ve come and what you’ve learned along the way? JOURNAL…
lesliebradshaw’s photo on Instagram
Hot dogs or legs? That’s me journaling in December 2013 on the beach; I was also re-reading my entries from the previous 12 months (November 2012 — November 2013). Wow. What a transformative and hard few years. I’ve finished another journal in 2014 and when I find the strength to revisit it, I will.
Author’s note:
Originally posted on Medium: My 2015 Tools: Intuition, Ingenuity, and Small Data
