Brian Allain

When Thinking Becomes Optional

From “How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Chapter” by Mark Schaefer When we let AI think for us, our capacity to think for ourselves atrophies.  In Being Human in 2035, global experts predicted that our capacity for deep, critical thought will decline as AI becomes embedded in daily life. Russell […]

When Thinking Becomes Optional Read More »

Changing Minds

From “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney Steve would tell me later that they had learned over many conversations that reasons, justifications, and explanations for maintaining one’s existing opinion can be endless, spawning like heads of a hydra. If you cut away one, two more would appear

Changing Minds Read More »

The Energetic Quest

From “Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds” by Mark W. Schaefer Maybe you’re thinking these random moments are pure luck, a mystical force beyond your control – unless you’re a Jedi master. But there are specific actions you can take to sway serendipitous fate in your

The Energetic Quest Read More »

Look everything up!

From “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” by Steven Johnson If the commonplace book tradition tells us that the best way to nurture hunches is to write everything down, the serendipity engine of the Web suggests a parallel directive: look everything up. [Postscript from Brian: Steve’s book was written before the

Look everything up! Read More »

Preaching the Gospel

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner Switching on the lectern light and clearing his throat, the preacher speaks both the word of tragedy and the word of comedy because they are both of them of the truth and because Jesus speaks them both, blessed be he. The preacher

Preaching the Gospel Read More »