How to have less rubbish ideas

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This isn’t profound

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This isn’t new

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But it might nudge you into thinking a little different

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Which could change your working life

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Reasonably ambitious; I know

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Three stories & three lessons

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The Scunthorpe Problem

An unlikely hero

Creative Tools @kelvinnewman

An Evolving Machine

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You will have better ideas when understand your context, have some reliable methods & when

you create the right environment

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The Scunthorpe Problem

Let’s go back to 1996

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David Martyn Hunt @kelvinnewman

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Scunthorpe had a problem

In Scunthorpe in 1996 no customer could sign up for AOL because of the rude word hidden in the town’s

name

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Context is important

@kelvinnewmanJD Hancock

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The Web is a Network

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Everything happens in a context

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Using Fusion Tables to Visualise Link

Relations

http://joecrowther.co.uk/visualising-backlinks-using-fusion-tables-gephi-for-better-seo-insight

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Choose Five Websites

Run them through your favourite link analysis tool*

*ideally one who also sponsors brightonSEO

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Combine all the outputs into on CSV

(you might need to add in a column showing which website the link was to)

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You end up with a spreadsheet like this

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Bung in Fusion Tables

You’ll get something like this

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Then add a chart

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Make it a Network Graph

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And you get an interactive snapshot of your context

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You will have better ideas when understand your context, have some reliable methods & when

you create the right environment

@kelvinnewman

An unlikely hero

Creative Tools @kelvinnewman

A few of my Heroes

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Rolling Stone @kelvinnewman

Dong NguyenRolling Stone

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+ + =

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“An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.”

James Webb Young

The Best SEO Tool Costs Less than a Fiver

William Warby

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Heuristic Ideation TechniqueStolen from GameStorming

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珍道具Chindōgu

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Based on three things

JD Hancock @kelvinnewman

A new idea can be generated from remixing the

attributes of an existing idea.

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A new idea is best understood by describing its two essential attributes.

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The more different or surprising the combination of the two attributes,

the more compelling the idea.

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Blog Post

Podcast

Video

Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 3 Persona 4

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Look Good

Makes Laugh

Makes Angry

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Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 4Persona 3

Look Good

Makes Laugh

Makes Angry

A Vine A Tweet A Preso An Ebook

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Frameworks help you narrow the brief & makes creativity easier

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I need five link building ideas for the pitch tomorrow

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You will have better ideas when understand your context, have some reliable methods,& when

you create the right environment

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An Evolving Machine

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Google’s Algo is perfect example of a Complex & Chaotic system

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U N I V E R S I T Y O F S U S S E X , 1 9 9 6D E PA R T M E N T O F I N F O R M AT I C S

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D R . A D R I A N T H O M P S O NEvolutionary & Adaptive Systems Group

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H E A S K E D C O U L D A C I R C U I T “EVOLVE ”

T O S O LV E A P R O B L E M

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S U R V I VA L O F T H E F I T T E S T A P P L I E D T O C I R C U I T S

T H E E X P E R I M E N T

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The first hundred generations were little

better than random guesses

JD Hancock @kelvinnewman

By generation #220 there were some encouraging signs.

Generation #1400 had a fifty percent success rate.

Just after #4000 it worked.

@KELV INNEWMAN

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S O M E T H I N G S T R A N G E H A P P E N E DI T W O R K E D B U T

JD Hancock @kelvinnewman

The circuit solved the problem using thirty-seven logic gates.

Five logic cells were connected in ways which wouldn't allow them to influence how the

circuit worked.

But if you removed them the chip stopped working.

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W H E N M A C H I N E S T E A C H T H E M S E LV E S T H E Y S O LV E

P R O B L E M S I N W AY S W E C A N ’ T R E V E R S E E N G I N E E R

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S O W H AT ’ S T H I S G O T T O D O W I T H S E A R C H ?

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purpose is to monetise machine learning.

He doesn’t know how Google Works

Steve Jurvetson

He can’t know how Google works

storyspinn

A N D H E H A S N ’ T G O T A

B L O O D Y C L U E .

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But I’m an expert;

I’m sposed to know

what I’m talking

about

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Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time

http://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/may/21/everyone-is-totally-just-winging-it

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“I've often thought of my experience of adulthood thus far as one of incrementally discovering that there's no institution, or walk of life, in which everybody isn't just winging it.”

Oliver Burkeman

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How good are you at driving?

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DUNNING KRUEGUER EFFECTa cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to

be much higher than is accurate.

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There’s a corollary to this though

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IMPOSTER SYNDROMEa psychological phenomenon in

which people are unable to internalize their

accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their

competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that

they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have

achieved.

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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are

cocksure and the intelligent are full

of doubt.

Bertrand Russell

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“At any time I still expect that the no talent police will come and arrest me” Mike Myers

MTV.com @kelvinnewman

"[I would] wake up in the

morning before going off to a

shoot, and think, I can’t do this; I’m a fraud,”

Kate Winslet

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“The first problem of any kind of even

limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting

away with something, and that any moment now they will discover

you.”

Neil Gaiman

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The exaggerated esteem in which my

lifework is held makes me very ill at

ease.

I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler

Albert Einstein

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Good ideas are hard to come by

And

You’ll often think your ideas are shit

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know yourself

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Create the right environment

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Doesn’t mean dream pods and ideation flotation tanks

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a different desk

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Voxefx @kelvinnewman

And buy these

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You will have better ideas when understand your context, have some reliable methods & when

you create the right environment

@kelvinnewman

How to have less rubbish ideas

@kelvinnewman