Our Favorite Big Ideas
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You know *that* friend, right? The one straight out of a “Seinfeld” episode who knows the great place to get takeout or the savvy shortcut, but won’t let you in on the secret. Well, rest assured, because we are not that person. We will happily show you down the aisles of our marketplace of ideas and unveil with fanfare our favorite places to go for big ideas and mind-blowing concepts.
The Derek Thompson of it all.
Whether it’s in his brilliant articles for The Atlantic on his new podcast “Plain English,” Thompson doesn’t spend a lot of time wading in shallow waters. He possesses the ability to capture the complexity of our moment and present an entirely new theory of the case. One of his most popular articles from 2019 still feels true AF and even spawned the concept of “workism.” He makes no bones about leaning left, but he never fails to walk all the way around any topic.
Deep in the heart of Texas.
In a former life, Stephanie used to attend SXSW live and in person before passing the honor off to younger colleagues. A victim of its own success, the crowds make seeing all you would like to see near impossible. It is back IRL this year, but we prefer to attend online. Not sure you’re into it? Sometimes the value is simply in seeing the themes the conference will be covering to get your big-idea machine moving.
Non-Lanier thinking.
Since he wrote a book all about deleting your social media accounts, you’ll have to visit Jaron Lanier’s website to find out what he’s up to. An “American computer scientist, visual artist, computer philosophy writer, technologist, futurist, and composer of contemporary classical music,” he’s also known as a founder of virtual reality. Lanier is the rare commentator who has the credentials to be inside Silicon Valley and the specialized knowledge to criticize it. Case in point: this recent discussion of whether the Internet was a horrible mistake. Also Verse-approved fun fact: he once worked at Atari.
Aspen or bust.
The Aspen Institute has a storied history of being the place for big ideas—they quite literally have a yearly gathering known as The Ideas Festival. For years, the organization was helmed by Walter Isaacson, the author of several books including the definitive biography of Steve Jobs and his latest tome, mentioned in our 15-minute teaser this week. But you need not be in attendance at any of their conferences to sample some of the better thinking on offer—we’ve been enjoying receiving their Five Best Ideas of the Day newsletter (which, paradoxically, comes out weekly).
Back to the future.
Watch a session with futurist Amy Webb and you will truly have your mind. Blown. Around this time of year, we wait for Amy’s mic drop of a Tech Trends Report (scroll down to see the countdown clock). It’s a MONSTER report, but we love it for its clarity and easy presentation. They set out the bigger themes in a sort of executive summary and then funnel into the smaller trends. For each trend, you can see how long they have been tracking it, how near or far it is from being a thing and what companies and/or universities are leading the charge. You can even look up your industry area and spy those trends most relevant to your business.
