Paint + Pipette

A blog on the art & science of creative action.

Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

Ideaflow

When the pandemic hit, Perry and I started exploring work on a book. After months of fits and starts, we settled on a topic and put it in front of a few publishers. We were humbled by the response. During the holidays, we were offered a deal by Penguin Random House's business imprint, Portfolio. We are pretty excited about it. Should be out next fall, 2022…

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Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

Reviewing Old Notes

"A link between a problem and a solution depends heavily on the simultaneity of their 'arrivals.'” - Jim March in his classic HBR Interview, "Ideas as Art" Unless you're often pondering the challenge of putting new things into the world, this obscure quote might be a bit of a head scratcher. 'Simultaneity of arrivals'?? I know…

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Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

Reduce Perceived Commitment

Pithy text message at the end of a grueling workout: "Experiment: I'm opening a Clubhouse room about our class at Stanford to see if anybody wants to talk about it. Hop on for a few?" And with that paltry provisioning, a co-instructor got me to jump into a new app, talking to a "room" full of strangers, right after I'd finished a workout and was still covered with sweat, with absolutely zero notice - something I would never have agreed to in advance…

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Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome

My friend Mar Hershenson and I have been speaking with some amazing female founders lately. In a recent conversation, Mar asked a spectacular question that led to a profound insight: "I hear from a lot of female founders that they struggle with imposter syndrome. How have you interacted with feeling like you don't belong, like you're out of place?"

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Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

The Quest Mentality

Jim March is a legendary organizational theorist* who posited that organizations create value (or "new knowledge") in one of two ways: either by exploring new possibilities or exploiting old certainties (ie executing known opportunities with known resources). His research dealt with how to balance the tradeoffs inherent in larger organizations seeking to do a bit of both, as they generally compete for the same pool of scarce resources…

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Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley Creativity, Fallacies, Innovation, Inspiration Jeremy Utley

Eliminate Barriers to Communication

"We had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure," says Pixar's Ed Catmull, in his fantastic memoir, Creativity, Inc. He's describing the source of the tension that threatened to drive a wedge into the heart of the organization after the spectacular last-minute rescue of Toy Story 2. Efforts to protect folks' attention resulted in stultifying red tape that impeded the free flow of ideas and communication, the beating heart of the creative team…

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