UberNoggin

Ever get a big idea that feels like it’s just on the tip of your brain tongue? You know that there is something important cooking in the ol’ noggin but you can’t quite get to what it is. Welcome to my world. Geesh! For about a month I’ve had some huge idea about where we’re going as a technological society, as a networked public, as rhetorically digital people but I can’t quite spell it out. When this happens I go to the bookstore and peruse for inspiration. Sometimes it’s finding one book that I can agree with and use as a springboard. Sometimes I find something I so vehemently disagree with that I begin to find a way to form my ideas as a response. Lately, my forays into the coffee-scented worlds of Barnes & Noble have resulted in strange combinations of books that seem to address the ideas I’m trying to yank out of my brain. This week’s reading combination is truly weird.

If you haven’t read anything by Seth Godin, well you should! His writing style is dense and to the point and he’s one smart dude. Even if you’re not interested in marketing I think there’s something here for you. I’m a strong believer in self-marketing and branding and his ideas can just as easily be applied to you as they can be applied to the next big thing on the web or a new brand of dishwashing detergent.

John Gribbin has a gift for making the really complicated stuff of physics something that the rest of us can understand. There’s something important about being able to see the big picture of how things work (or might work, or work in another parallel dimension) that helps me get perspective on ideas. I’d also suggest Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything for a good mind trip around the way things happen in this crazy world we live in.

Yeah, I know. The hype around the singularity is about as dramatic as a guy on the street telling you “The End is Nigh! Repent!” but I think there’s more to it than that. There’s something important about an understanding of how technology is changing who we are as humans and where we’re going as a species. I know I think differently than I did 15 years ago when I wasn’t so digital. I can’t even imagine the changes my kids are going to see in their lifetime. It gets me thinking.

So, this is what I’m reading this week. Tune in to see if anything big comes from the total brain jello that I’ll be by the end of the week when all of this is finished cooking.

What are you reading? What have you read lately that surprised you? That wasn’t on your typical reading list?

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