Explaining the world one sketch at a time

Simplifying complex ideas through fun and insightful sketches. Explore topics from science, creativity, psychology, and more explained in pictures.

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Learn something new in a sketch each Sunday

Recent sketches

Starting a company

Starting a company isn't easy. Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, says: "Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling the plane on the way down." But just because it's hard doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I remember receiving some advice that you shouldn't wait around for the right time to have children as you'll never find it. I suspect starting a company is similar. It reminds me of this lovely quote I have taken to heart from Hugh Laurie: "It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any." As far as I could tell, unconsciously or separately, Reid's version relates to Ray Bradbury's earlier advice of jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down. This quote, modified to a lovely two-page spread, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures.…Starting a company isn't easy. Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, says: "Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling the plane on the way down." But just because it's hard doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I remember receiving some advice that you shouldn't wait around for the right time to have children as you'll never find it. I suspect starting a company is similar. It reminds me of this lovely quote I have taken to heart from Hugh Laurie: "It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any." As far as I could tell, unconsciously or separately, Reid's version relates to Ray Bradbury's earlier advice of jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down. This quote, modified to a lovely two-page spread, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures.

27 Dec 2020

Days of the week

The Norse Gods are still among us in the names of the days of the week. Tuesday — from Old English Tiw, for Tyr the Norse god of combat Wednesday — from Old English Woden, for Odin the one-eyed king of the gods Thursday — for Thor, the quick to fight god of ordinary people with his magical hammer Mjollnir Friday — for Frigg, wife of Odin and goddess of marriage and motherhood While Saturday, Sunday and Monday follow the celestial bodies Saturn, the sun, and the moon. As a wonderful introduction to the Norse myths and gods you could do much worse than the entertaining and beautifully produced Illustrated Norse Myths I was commanded to read by our 9-year old. Illustrations based off of those by the excellent Matteo Pincelli.…The Norse Gods are still among us in the names of the days of the week. Tuesday — from Old English Tiw, for Tyr the Norse god of combat Wednesday — from Old English Woden, for Odin the one-eyed king of the gods Thursday — for Thor, the quick to fight god of ordinary people with his magical hammer Mjollnir Friday — for Frigg, wife of Odin and goddess of marriage and motherhood While Saturday, Sunday and Monday follow the celestial bodies Saturn, the sun, and the moon. As a wonderful introduction to the Norse myths and gods you could do much worse than the entertaining and beautifully produced Illustrated Norse Myths I was commanded to read by our 9-year old. Illustrations based off of those by the excellent Matteo Pincelli.

20 Dec 2020

2 people interpreting an idea of using bubbles, one in black and white only seeing the bad, and one seeing the spectrum including the good in the idea

The spectrum policy

One of my favourite books is a rather dog-eared 1970 edition of The Practice of Creativity by George Prince. The book gives wonderful examples and tools for having successful creative discussions in meetings. So much, George lays out, hinges on genuine listening to understand others points of view, and creating a space which protects the egos of people in the meeting, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety. One really simple tool and reframe he offers is the spectrum policy. The spectrum policy acknowledges that few ideas will come out fully-formed and solve a problem perfectly in one go. Often our first reaction on hearing something is to evaluate it. When we hear an idea we can't help but see the negative aspects of an idea — the things that obviously won't work — and because of these negative aspects we may dismiss the whole idea. The idea is good, or it is bad. As well as the group losing out on what may have been the genesis of a solution, the originator can often feel snubbed and retire from full participation in the rest of the meeting. With the spectrum policy we recognise that, "because you are never dealing with fools", all ideas put forward, even if we see obvious flaws, will have some good points as well as the bad. Before pointing out the flaws we make a point of finding the good in an idea and acknowledging it. This keeps elements of the idea available to build on for others and the egos of all participants intact and fully engaged in solving the problem.…One of my favourite books is a rather dog-eared 1970 edition of The Practice of Creativity by George Prince. The book gives wonderful examples and tools for having successful creative discussions in meetings. So much, George lays out, hinges on genuine listening to understand others points of view, and creating a space which protects the egos of people in the meeting, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety. One really simple tool and reframe he offers is the spectrum policy. The spectrum policy acknowledges that few ideas will come out fully-formed and solve a problem perfectly in one go. Often our first reaction on hearing something is to evaluate it. When we hear an idea we can't help but see the negative aspects of an idea — the things that obviously won't work — and because of these negative aspects we may dismiss the whole idea. The idea is good, or it is bad. As well as the group losing out on what may have been the genesis of a solution, the originator can often feel snubbed and retire from full participation in the rest of the meeting. With the spectrum policy we recognise that, "because you are never dealing with fools", all ideas put forward, even if we see obvious flaws, will have some good points as well as the bad. Before pointing out the flaws we make a point of finding the good in an idea and acknowledging it. This keeps elements of the idea available to build on for others and the egos of all participants intact and fully engaged in solving the problem.

13 Dec 2020

The paradox of choice

There's an all you can eat buffet with all the flavours of the world, you can have whatever you want. This is going to be amazing! You love lasagna, but look at those fajitas. You go for the fajitas, but then your friend arrives with sushi which looks even better. Why didn't you get that?? You always screw up... Barry Schwartz studied how more choice not only doesn't always help us choose better, but can also make us feel worse about what we got even if it was great. Reduced satisfaction arises from: The escalation of expectations The opportunity cost of what we could have had and what was good about other options Regret and anticipated regret of the choice we made Self-blame when we think we are responsible for not doing as well as we could have For an entertaining and educational 20 mins watch Barry Schwartz' TED talk on the paradox of choice.…There's an all you can eat buffet with all the flavours of the world, you can have whatever you want. This is going to be amazing! You love lasagna, but look at those fajitas. You go for the fajitas, but then your friend arrives with sushi which looks even better. Why didn't you get that?? You always screw up... Barry Schwartz studied how more choice not only doesn't always help us choose better, but can also make us feel worse about what we got even if it was great. Reduced satisfaction arises from: The escalation of expectations The opportunity cost of what we could have had and what was good about other options Regret and anticipated regret of the choice we made Self-blame when we think we are responsible for not doing as well as we could have For an entertaining and educational 20 mins watch Barry Schwartz' TED talk on the paradox of choice.

6 Dec 2020

Forcing function

A forcing function is an external stimulus that makes you get to where you want to be. One of the simplest and most effective behaviours that you can try to help you level up is to keep creating forcing functions for yourself. Signing up for an event so that you are forced to get yourself in shape, offering to give a talk so that you learn your material, inviting people to a dinner party so you get your house in order, paying for a personal trainer to make you turn up every week — all useful forcing functions to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Forcing functions play, very effectively, on our fear of letting ourselves down to make ourselves do what we want us to do. Another useful sense of forcing function is a way to help people make fewer mistakes, like putting your passport on the door handle so you can't forget it before your flight.…A forcing function is an external stimulus that makes you get to where you want to be. One of the simplest and most effective behaviours that you can try to help you level up is to keep creating forcing functions for yourself. Signing up for an event so that you are forced to get yourself in shape, offering to give a talk so that you learn your material, inviting people to a dinner party so you get your house in order, paying for a personal trainer to make you turn up every week — all useful forcing functions to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Forcing functions play, very effectively, on our fear of letting ourselves down to make ourselves do what we want us to do. Another useful sense of forcing function is a way to help people make fewer mistakes, like putting your passport on the door handle so you can't forget it before your flight.

29 Nov 2020

A fisherman illustrates the parable of the fishing net by concluding a minimum size of fish because they never see any smaller in their nets — you get what you measure

You get what you measure

Sir Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, told a short story involving a scientist studying fish by pulling them up with nets. After checking all the fish hauled up, the scientist concludes that there is a minimum size of fish in the sea. But the fish seen were determined by the size of the holes in the net, the smaller ones having slipped through, unmeasurable. The instrument you use affects what you see. Or as Richard Hamming puts it: "You get what you measure." This analogy provides a nice concrete example of a phenomena that affects us routinely in more subtle ways. What and how we choose to measure affects the conclusions we draw. So, a website may easily measure sales and bounce rate for its pages, while things like trust, authority or satisfaction, which may be more significant longer-term metrics, go unmeasured. Richard Hamming points out: "There is always a tendency to grab the hard, firm measurement, though it may be quite irrelevant as compared to the soft one which in the long run may be much more relevant to your goals. Accuracy of measurement tends to get confused with relevance of measurement, much more than most people believe. That a measurement is accurate, reproducible, and easy to make does not mean it should be done, instead a much poorer one which is more closely related to your goals may be much more preferable. For example, in school it is easy to measure training and hard to measure education, and hence you tend to see on final exams an emphasis on the training part and a great neglect of the education part." Also see: Goodhart's Law What gets measured gets better (an earlier take on this) Campbell's Law Understanding reliability and validity Quote from Chapter 29, You get what you measure, of Richard Hamming's, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn. If you happen to be in the business of doing research or science Richard Hamming's Bell Lab's talk, You and Your Research (pdf), is an excellent read.…Sir Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, told a short story involving a scientist studying fish by pulling them up with nets. After checking all the fish hauled up, the scientist concludes that there is a minimum size of fish in the sea. But the fish seen were determined by the size of the holes in the net, the smaller ones having slipped through, unmeasurable. The instrument you use affects what you see. Or as Richard Hamming puts it: "You get what you measure." This analogy provides a nice concrete example of a phenomena that affects us routinely in more subtle ways. What and how we choose to measure affects the conclusions we draw. So, a website may easily measure sales and bounce rate for its pages, while things like trust, authority or satisfaction, which may be more significant longer-term metrics, go unmeasured. Richard Hamming points out: "There is always a tendency to grab the hard, firm measurement, though it may be quite irrelevant as compared to the soft one which in the long run may be much more relevant to your goals. Accuracy of measurement tends to get confused with relevance of measurement, much more than most people believe. That a measurement is accurate, reproducible, and easy to make does not mean it should be done, instead a much poorer one which is more closely related to your goals may be much more preferable. For example, in school it is easy to measure training and hard to measure education, and hence you tend to see on final exams an emphasis on the training part and a great neglect of the education part." Also see: Goodhart's Law What gets measured gets better (an earlier take on this) Campbell's Law Understanding reliability and validity Quote from Chapter 29, You get what you measure, of Richard Hamming's, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn. If you happen to be in the business of doing research or science Richard Hamming's Bell Lab's talk, You and Your Research (pdf), is an excellent read.

22 Nov 2020

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