Cornerstone Thinking

I've had, in the past few years, had several respectable, and respected, people share their ideas with me.  And thinking on how to articulate this next line I just realized that quite often those ideas, regardless of how the ideas are framed when shared, are in need of a personality that will help anchor the idea to "what" will get that idea from, what I like to say is, "TO-BE" to "AS-IS".  I like to think that, as those that share their ideas with me are seeking out that "what" and its source, they feel that they may see a glimpse of something in me that reflects what they think they need. Further to that point, I am, but shouldn't be, amazed at how folks, including myself at times, are capable of being so convinced of, or possibly better stated as being thoroughly embedded within, the vision of an idea, that they consider the idea to already be real and in an "AS-IS" tangible status.  To counteract this detrimental leap from reality -- in those potential cases I remind myself that -- we must exercise our ability to objectively push our idea through a gating process that reveals the truth and route to viability.

We've all done it; seen it; wore-out the t-shirt; a great idea leads to momentum, which if not removed from the idea machine and into the reality funnel aimed at the creation machine; the idea becomes bloated, convoluted with tangents, and takes years of effort before it either dies under piles of wasted money, or we/they realize that the idea must actually go through the correct gating process.  In other words, trying to move from vision to creation without proper anchoring to reality, leaves the same result every single time; drawn out failure (whether outright our simply due to marginalized success, failure nonetheless).

In the past couple decades, I've been involved with many successful and failed ideas, from many different positions on the totem pole.  I've learned a great deal in every one of those failures and reinforced those lessons in every success.  It all culminates in to a single concept; what I'm terming Cornerstone Thinking in this chapter.

The concept, as many purport proportionally in many other frameworks, is to have a standardized tunnel/container/box, which ideas enter into and are maintained within, during the reality and creation gating processes.  The sole purpose, of this controlled environment, is protecting the mindset around the processing of the idea into something tangible.  The reason this controlled environment is required is due to the common confusion that the necessary near-chaotic environment of idea generation may in any way permeate, support, or provide value to the creation process.  This confusion has been further demonstrated by the common reality experienced by iterative development efforts; the unwitting, or disillusioned, participants fail to realize how much more structured and controlled that environment must be to result in a successful outcome, at a rate comparable to traditional waterfall development.

This chapter will layout the framework for anchoring an idea into a protective environment, which will allow that idea to properly maintain its position of "cornerstone" in the building out of the necessary constants and variables required to carry the idea through to fruition.  The terms "reality" and "creation" gating processes are abstracted, and necessarily meant only to be demonstrable of the evolutionary process in phasing an idea through a validation phase into a best-prepared realization phase.

Looking for Evidence

The threat and weakness to the seeking out of evidence is that quite often, when found, evidence is susceptible to bias and/or lack of understanding of how that knowledge is influenced, or influences, the bigger picture. Evidence must be evident, both from upstream, downstream, and horizontal perspectives.

Wisdom demonstrates that evidence is knowledge, which leads to understanding, which is unbiased and context-specific first.  This fact is invariably realized within all intelligence gathering, origination, and organization.

So instead of becoming lost in the biased speculation of "Looking for Evidence" and believing that knowledge is understanding, you must work within a framework for the origination and organization of humble knowledge.  Just like when building a puzzle, find the picture first, not just hints of speculation.  When the picture doesn't exist, realize that every piece of knowledge is speculation until the understanding of the picture can be realized.

What does humility have to do with it?  Genius is understanding that you cannot know everything; and wisdom is experience of threshold(s) needed to achieve valid perspective from what you do know.  (Rings as: fools speak early but say less, the wise speak less and say more).

Intelligence Design: The Language of Success

Over the years of technology analysis, design, and development efforts that I've been apart of, I've noticed a common thread: "I think, therefore I can".  Sounds strange and simple, or just strangely simple, depending on your bent.  But we can all relate, which I'll hopefully demonstrate here along with my solution that doesn't even require a scalpel. We have all heard, or said, one time or another, in our heads, or out-loud, verbatim or likewise, why isn't commonsense more common.  What is scary, a realization that I believe that I've come to, is that there is a direct inverse scale of the critical-nature of the need for commonsense against the presense of commonsense.  In other words, if I smitty'ed that accurately, the more critical a situation for the need of commonsense, the less likely commonsense is to be prevalent amongst the actors, within that scenario's anticipated critical source, of that same said commonsense.

That translates into a thought-entertained that possibly commonsense does poorly under pressure, no?  Maybe.  But what do I notice is that commonsense is, at least, assumed to a greater extent, of those put under pressure, in such situations.

I've found that the analyzing and recognizing of my own SWOT to decision-making, -baking, and -taking has allowed me to effectively run my "all of the above" through a mental-mapping-process that reveals my best-chance for a positive evaluation of "what makes sense".  That is what makes me capable of very complex thought-maps of projects, visions, opinions, and/or concepts from various perspectives against one-to-many linear points of variance.

So, the fact that I say this process exists is fun.  But over the years, I've been working in many situations where, what I have assumed was, logic did not prevail.  In retrospective analysis, against the full gamut of blame, I learned, long ago, that the explanation of an idea is actually more important than the value of the idea, whenever the communication of the idea is required for the breath-of-life to be granted to the idea.  Thus, since the stakeholders, influencers, and/or support-structures of that breath-of life are both numerous and of varied perspectives in each situation, as all can imagine, the explanation of an idea is not a singular faceted proposition.  One, for to be successful in all the various iterations and variations and incantations of participants' perceptions, must develop a structured mental capacity for the origination, organization, and presentation of complex ideas.

In my head, that structure seems to have existed prior to my understanding of its need, as well as my comprehension of its depths.  It has taken many trees and I/O to have my brain and my understanding arrive at the same place, at the same time.  Synonymous to the value of breath existing way before the understanding of its need or its power to change the world in a word.

However, just like the power of the word, the need and power of intelligence design must be matured greatly, and against many perspectives, prior to wielding.  Moreover, possibly most importantly, the cornerstone of its value is humility; the language of success has dialects and evolutions, and we can never "know it all", we can only simply know there is always more to know than our own "all".

I am not only here to just succeed, I am here to be success.  What follows in this section is the synopsis of my upcoming book: Intelligence Design: The Language of Success.