Collect the dots, then connect the dots.

To truly innovate, you must be exposed to a breath of experiences (collecting the dots) before combining these experiences into something new (connecting the dots). Innovation, in my view, is simply the re-appropriation of old ideas in a new way that is unique to new systems, technologies, people, etc.

I stumbled upon this idea while surfing the web in 2008. During that year, Steve Jobs gave his commencement speech at Stanford where he claimed that, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Daniel Kahneman states this principle in a different way, WYSIATI: what you see is all there is. Our mind constructs biased evidence based on what we have at beck and call (i.e. the past) because we naturally gravitate towards what is easy for us rather than what is hard for us.

If this is the case and both these thinkers are right, then the best way to set yourself up for the future (and the best way to enable yourself to make good decisions in the future) is to “collect” these experiences today.

Be curious, follow these curiosities, and collect the dots. Then connect the dots.

- MB

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