Host Curiosity Conversations

CreativityCuriosity
Written By Jeremy Utley

In his delightful memoir, "A Curious Mind," famed Hollywood producer Brian Grazer describes his commitment to what he calls "curiosity conversations," his lifelong pursuit of conversation partners who can shape and challenge his understanding of the world. It's such an important part of his life that he has a full-time employee dedicated to scheduling these conversations.

As I've reflected on the notion of the idea quota as a way to address premature declarations of victory, it has struck me that you've got to feed ideas. If you want to hit an output quota, it's probably wise to have an input quota, too! Grazer's curiosity conversations struck me as one way of accomplishing such a quota. In the book, he talks about how early in his career, he made it a goal to talk to one new person in the industry every single day.

It challenged me to think about having an explicit goal for the inputs I'm seeking.

Click here to subscribe to Paint & Pipette, the weekly digest of these daily posts.

Featured
Stop Fighting AI Glazing
Stop Fighting AI Glazing

Everyone’s panicking about “AI glazing.” But what if it’s a feature, not a bug? The creative industry's most successful practitioners understand something the rest of us are missing.

Train An AI Twin to Practice Difficult Human Conversations
Train An AI Twin to Practice Difficult Human Conversations

I’ve been working on a radical new course at Stanford, which I’m excited to share more details on soon. In the meantime, sharing an early iteration of my thinking on the topic, in the form of my WSJ piece co-authored with the brilliant Kian Gohar.

Hit Reset: The Secret Productivity Hack Four AI Leaders Don't Want Their Teams to Know
Hit Reset: The Secret Productivity Hack Four AI Leaders Don't Want Their Teams to Know

This post marks my 200th edition of Methods of the Masters—and serves as a fitting bridge between my early focus on human creativity and more recent AI work. In an age of infinite AI inputs, our biology demands we cultivate equally intentional human disconnection strategies.

The Simple Power of Joy and Delight
The Simple Power of Joy and Delight

Special guest post by Brendan Boyle, one of Stanford’s most beloved professors, acclaimed toy inventor, and founder of IDEO’s Toy Lab. He’s taught me more about play than anyone other than my own children.

The Ultimate AI Playbook: From Measuring Adoption to Delivering Impact
The Ultimate AI Playbook: From Measuring Adoption to Delivering Impact

In five years, no one will care how many people logged into ChatGPT. They'll care about who used it to transform their work. The organizations that understand the difference between more use and better use are quietly outperforming their competitors-while everyone else celebrates meaningless "adoption" metrics.

Your Team Just Quoted 8 Weeks. What if They're Off by 99%?
Your Team Just Quoted 8 Weeks. What if They're Off by 99%?

I thought I was running a standard innovation workshop with one of my favorite clients. Instead, I came to face to face with my own biases, and accidentally broke an entire organization's understanding of what's possible.

The $200 Creativity Test: If You Can't Generate Value, You're Failing
The $200 Creativity Test: If You Can't Generate Value, You're Failing

My new favorite diagnostic: if you cannot find ways to generate more than $200 of value from frontier AI over the course of an entire month, you're failing a basic creativity test.

This isn't about AI's limitations—it's about yours.

Ask for More (Collaborating With GenAI for New Ideas)
Ask for More (Collaborating With GenAI for New Ideas)

“Think:Act Magazine” was curious about how I incorporate AI into my own creative process as a writer, so they visited my home studio to observe my workflow. What followed was a fascinating exploration of how I use multiple LLMs as collaborative partners rather than just tools. Fun to be featured alongside heroes of innovation like Astro Teller, Amy Edmondson, and the legendary design duo Charles and Ray Eames!

Don’t Opt Out of AI
Don’t Opt Out of AI

A recent study by American Management Association revealed that 58% of professionals feel "behind" in their AI adoption journey. While most folks know me as "the Beyond the Prompt guy," here's what you might not know: I struggle with this stuff too.

It's Not An AI Problem. It's A You Problem.
It's Not An AI Problem. It's A You Problem.

Last week, I proposed a simple but fundamental shift: we need to stop thinking about AI as a technology rollout and start treating it like a new teammate. What I didn't fully explain is that this isn't just a semantic distinction. It produces measurably better results.

Jeremy Utley
Previous

Convene A Junto
Next

The Wisdom of Charles Eames