Useful Takes
Ideas captured in a distinctly useful and often playful form
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Featured: Art & Media Takes
Featured: Society & Science Takes
These takes are not meant to be hot, controversial, or definitive.
They are just meant to be a bit different and useful for curious and thoughtful people.
Click volume titles to read | Each volume includes five or more extended takes.
Takes on art, movies, media, brands, creativity, criticism, and more, including:
Art is exaggeration and not literal
Nike ads are easy to make
The audience is the problem
Takes on learning, education, academia, skills, and more, including:
You actually can teach that!
Creating a good class is like writing a prestige TV show
Lack of fundamentals makes all the new and advanced stuff harder
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Takes on society, science, persuasion, business, politics, and more, including:
The public keeps discovering what academics have always known
Anti-science people aren’t really anti-science
Confirmation bias is a process​
Takes on art, movies, media, brands, creativity, criticism, and more, including:
Artistic intent is almost impossible to know
Brands don’t want you to like all they do
Breaking the 5th Wall is art’s future
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Takes on society, science, persuasion, business, politics, and more, including:
People are challenged in too many ways at once
Students receive mixed messages every day
Learners need time to be wrong
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Takes on society, science, persuasion, business, politics, and more, including:
People don't just deny facts; they take complete flights from facts
Peers prevent progress
Lies are team signals
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How to make a useful take: be a professor, not a pundit.
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Don't try to be cool, smart, or controversial, or try to prove a point, or grandstand, or repeat what people already know.
Do respect your audience, treat them as smart, and then concisely offer something original or phrased in a helpful new way.
