Massimo Curatella

Category: Posts

Merging and Revising my Favorite Problems into a Draft
I am applying my structured writing method, and I like it. I started from version 2, I developed a couple of problems per article, I merged the six drafts into a 1’500-words essay. It must not be just an exercise for the sake of it. I want it to become my mission’s foundation.
This blog could be the idea development log where I write about how I worked on it and publish the progressive drafts.
In my notes, I would put, instead, the most current version.
This relieves pressure on finalizing and publishing articles as deep as this one. It creates quite a redundancy, though, but I have to live with it for now.
I don’t know if I will also be able to do the revision, but I am happy I could follow a structured process to write about a complicated topic like this one.
This is the perfect material to work on my Personal Knowledge Management System: a central prompt, many connected concepts, connections between them, multiple revisions, and refinements. A great start.
So, for the time being, I would declare myself satisfied with a hard-earned draft of:
My 12 Favorite Problems Version 3
17 May 2021
Art and Problem Solving (My 12 Favorite Problems)
These are the No. 11 and 12 of My 12 Favorite Problems. Draft status, I am building them in public by iterating on an outline and then developing each concept. With those last two I have now the foundations to develop a refined iteration of the group.
Art
If design solves problems, art creates them. Nurturing curiosity and finding means to express ourselves are satisfied by artistic endeavors. We look for beauty and novelty, mystery and entertainment. Art also has a beneficial aspect, as meditation, regeneration, communication, and socialization.
How can we make art a part of everybody’s life?
What’s the intersection between science, art, and play?
How is technology influencing art, and vice versa?
Are games art?
How can we enjoy the beauty of drawing and painting?
How music affects our lives?
How can writing transform us?
Connections:
Design, personal development, technology, communication
Problem-Solving
How to solve problems?
How to solve all of my favorite problems?
How to create an approach to life, taking into account a systems approach?
How can I face the challenge of solving all of my favorite problems?
What are those tools, approaches, techniques enabling a holistic approach to problem-solving?
My favorite problems should cover and intersect with my interests, and they should function as magnets, attractors, poles, towards which/with which I should filter information flows.
Connections:
Critical thinking, systems thinking, design thinking, problem-solving
16 May 2021
Technology and Creativity (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Technology for Life
How to augment life?
How to raise collective intelligence?
How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
How to live multiple lives?
Connections:
Technology, design, collective intelligence, sustainability, systemic design.
How to be creative
How to be more creative?
How to facilitate everybody’s creativity?
Connections:
Creativity, Design thinking, learning.
The remaining problems to develop
1. Art
  1. Make art a part of everybody’s life
  2. Creative Coding
  3. Generative Art
  4. Games, Game Art and Game Design
  5. Drawing and Painting
  6. Music
  7. Writing
2. How to solve problems?
  1. How to solve all of my favorite problems?
  2. How to create an approach to life taking into account a systems approach?
15 May 2021
Ecosystem Health and Design (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Ecosystem Health
There is no planet B. At least not until we start to colonize other planets. We must contribute to the ecosystem’s health by building a more sustainable society.
If we make the World better, we make the lives of all living beings better. Each of us can have a role in making the world better by constantly giving small positive contributions while minimizing the unintended negative consequences.
A sustainable society increases the chance to imagine and create better futures for all by leaving a positive, durable, and compounding legacy to future generations.
The problem of improving the Ecosystem’s health is common to everybody. If we aim to positively impact people and the planet, we need to gather our strengths together for the common goal of making the world better for all.
How can we do that? What’s my role in that?
Connections:
critical thinking, collective intelligence, sustainability, systems thinking, systemic design, education, development, networked thinking, collaboration, cooperation, inclusion, justice, UN SDGs.
Design
Solving problems, designing solutions, and building them, are at the foundation of our society in every field.
The design approach should be one of the skills and competencies every human being should acquire. What is the minimum viable knowledge needed to be an effective and an efficient, and sustainable designer?
Design as a mindset, a craft, and an approach belongs to science and engineering, education and fine arts, philosophy, and any other human endeavor.
Business, entrepreneurship, and leadership became so complex that they need design to be executed effectively and efficiently.
How to be a good designer?
1. How to understand, communicate, and manage complexity?
2. How to minimize unintended consequences?
3. How can we imagine alternative worlds? Better futures?
4. How to create networks of networks of changemakers creating a positive impact on people and the planet?
5. How can we leave a legacy that will make us remembered positively?
Connections:
Design thinking, critical thinking, systems thinking, systematic design, sustainability, education, training, mentoring, coaching, professional development, business design, interaction design, User Experience Design, Service Design.
The remaining problems to develop
1. How to augment life
  1. How to raise the collective intelligence
  2. How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
  3. How to live multiple lives
2. How to be more creative
  1. Teach everybody to be creative
  2. Make art a part of everybody’s life
14 May 2021
Thinking and Communication (My 12 Favorite Problems)
How to be a good thinker
Thinking is an essential quality of being a human. The brain, somebody said (who?), is the most complex object in the Universe. We are alive and conscious, we live and survive perils, we love and nurture (Hello, Anne! 😎 other living beings, we learn, observe, understand and know, we imagine, design, build and share, and many more things, thanks to the fact that we think.
You might say not everybody thinks, that’s true, and that’s my favorite problem: how do we increase the quality of our thinking? How do we improve our decision-making capability?
Connections:
Observation, imagination, fantasy, creativity, understanding, learning, education, teaching, leadership, decision making, critical thinking, systems thinking, design thinking, communication, collective intelligence.
How to be a good communicator
We evolved as human beings by finding the best food sources and avoiding the deadliest predators. How? By developing our communication system. In the era of networks of networks of information pervading us, communication is a key skill to thrive and prosper as a species.
How do we become effective and efficient communicators? What’s the role of design and thinking in communication? What’s the impact of good and bad communication? What’s the role of storytelling?
Connections:
imagination, fantasy, creativity, understanding, learning, education, teaching, leadership, decision making, critical thinking, systems thinking, design thinking, thinking, collective intelligence, sustainability
The remaining problems to develop
1. Justice, equality, equanimity
  1. What’s the right word?
  2. How to create a just society
2. Make the world better
  1. How to build a sustainable society
  2. How to make a living while making the world a better place.
  3. How to leave a positive, durable, compounding legacy
  4. How to put new things in the world to make it better rather than worse
  5. How to minimize unintended consequences
  6. How to create better futures
  7. How to improve the ecosystem’s health
3. How to be a good designer
  1. How to understand, communicate, and manage complexity
  2. How to minimize unintended consequences
  3. Imagining alternative worlds
  4. How to create networks of networks of changemakers creating a positive impact on people and the planet
  5. How can I leave a legacy that will make me remembered in a positive way
  6. How to imagine better futures
  7. Another favorite problem is the one of solving problems and designing solutions, and building the designed solution. So I think that the design approach should be one of the skills and competencies every human being should acquire. What is the minimum viable knowledge needed to be an effective and an efficient, and sustainable designer? That’s a beautiful question. That could go on the same level of being a scientist or being an engineer, but also being an artist. All of those aspects are needed in our life. As well as being a manager or being a leader of being a communicator. All of those skills are at the intersection of being a good citizen of the world.
4. How to augment life
  1. How to raise the collective intelligence
  2. How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
  3. How to live multiple lives
5. How to minimize the suffering of all living beings
  1. How to relieve suffering
6. How to be more creative
  1. Teach everybody to be creative
  2. Make art a part of everybody’s life
13 May 2021
Learning and Health (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Learning, Teaching, Education, Knowledge, and Culture
Learning how to learn is important because if we are not effective and efficient in learning, We waste our time. We would not have good knowledge to make better decisions. How can I learn effectively and efficiently? What do I need in the different moments of my life to make the best decisions?
On the other side of learning, there is teaching. If education is something that somebody else does to you, learning is what happens in your mind, about the knowledge that you build, to do the things you want to do. They need to meet, To have the best learning, we should learn how to learn, but we can also get help from the best teachers. What’s the best way to teach? When and how do we need to teach? What are the best tools and techniques to teach in the best and most effective way?
How to transfer knowledge between generations? Books, movies, stories, art, architecture, laws. Culture is how we make learning tangible. How is it possible that every human being has to start from scratch each time?. What can we do to optimize the synthesis of knowledge, its storage, and transfer to newborn humans?
Knowledge and culture. What is the Minimum Viable understanding that every human being should have to be a good citizen of the world? What is that set of disciplines, fields, notions that everybody should know?
What do we need to know to live a good life, be sustainable, healthy, make good habits, be of service to the community, minimize suffering, and contribute to the evolution and progress of technology, culture, and science?
They are related. We need all of them to be interdependent. So, a question that I have at the intersection of many, if not all of those problems, is: how can I build the right set of habits to contribute to the solution of all of those problems at the same time?
What about growing, nurturing, and educating children? A Child is a human being that changes quickly in a short time. How can we optimize the education and the inspiration of their minds in the different levels of growth and evolution in their path to becoming adults? How can we impact and inspire children profoundly before becoming fully developed citizens of the world and evolving them into changemakers?
Health and Habit making
Why is it so difficult for us to stay healthy? Why is it so easy to build bad habits to get unfit and prone to diseases? It is still a matter of culture, education, and learning, and also practices. So how do we install healthy habits?
The remaining problems to develop
1. How to be a good thinker
  1. how to be a good thinker
    observation
    recognizing patterns
    cross-discipline / non-disciplinary
    how to think about the future
  2. how to make the best decisions
2. Communication
  1. how to communicate in the best way
  2. Storytelling
    how to tell great stories
    how to create great stories
3. Justice, equality, equanimity
  1. What’s the right word?
  2. How to create a just society
4. Make the world better
  1. How to build a sustainable society
  2. How to make a living while making the world a better place.
  3. How to leave a positive, durable, compounding legacy
  4. How to put new things in the world to make it better rather than worse
  5. How to minimize unintended consequences
  6. How to create better futures
  7. How to improve the ecosystem’s health
5. How to be a good designer
  1. How to understand, communicate, and manage complexity
  2. How to minimize unintended consequences
  3. Imagining alternative worlds
  4. How to create networks of networks of changemakers creating a positive impact on people and the planet
  5. How can I leave a legacy that will make me remembered in a positive way
  6. How to imagine better futures
Another favorite problem is the one of solving problems and designing solutions and building the designed solution. So I think that the design approach should be one of the skills and the competence and every human being should acquire. What is the minimum viable knowledge needed to be an effective and an efficient and sustainable designer? That’s a beautiful question. That could go on the same level of being a scientist or being an engineer, but also being an artist. All of those aspects are needed in our life. As well as being a manager or being a leader of being a communicator. of the those skills are at the intersection of being a good citizen of the world.
1. How to augment life
  1. How to raise the collective intelligence
  2. How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
  3. How to live multiple lives
2. How to minimize the suffering of all living beings
  1. How to relieve suffering
3. How to be more creative
  1. Teach everybody to be creative
  2. Make art a part of everybody’s life
12 May 2021
Identity and Relationships (My 12 Favorite Problems)
This is hard, painful and I feel really uninspired.
I’ve learned my lesson, when I am in this mood I need to lower my ambitions.
So, I’ve taken the first two problems, I wrote one sentence to develop each, and I’ve attached the initial questions.
I am taking it nice, easy, and slow. I know I won’t be finished in a week.
That is fine.
My Identity
When I had to change job I’ve asked myself a lot about my identity. What started as an inquiry into my professional world went over the boundaries and reached my personal sphere. I am writing every day to learn more about myself. I want to keep on writing not only to discover more about myself but also to leverage the many articles I wrote so far.
A temporary list of questions about my identity:
1. how to be a good person.
2. How to live a good life.
3. How to find purpose and meaning.
4. How to make the best use of my time.
5. What is happiness? How to understand it and live with and without it.
6. How to develop an interconnected system of habits to grow as a healthy, wealthy, and systemic human being, conscious citizens of the world, human beings, members of humankind.
7. Develop self-awareness, self-expression.
8. How to stay healthy.
9. How to make my life meaningful, worthwhile.
Relationships
I cannot live alone. My life has a sense because of the people around me. What shall I know better about my relationships? How can I live better with them? For them? I would like to dedicate more focused reflection to relationships.
An initial set of questions about relationships:
1. How to have good relationships.
2. How to take care of my family.
  1. how to be a good partner.
  2. how to be a good father.
  3. how to be a good son.
  4. how to be a good relative.
3. how to be a good friend.
4. how to be a good citizen of the World.
5. How to spend more quality time with quality people.
The remaining problems to develop
1. How to be a good thinker
  1. how to be a good thinker
    observation
    recognizing patterns
    cross-discipline / non-disciplinary
    how to think about the future
  2. how to make the best decisions
  3. Learning
    how to be a good learner
2. Communication
  1. how to communicate in the best way
  2. Storytelling
    how to tell great stories
    how to create great stories
3. Justice, equality, equanimity
  1. What’s the right word?
  2. How to create a just society
4. Make the world better
  1. How to build a sustainable society
  2. How to make a living while making the world a better place.
  3. How to leave a positive, durable, compounding legacy
  4. How to put new things in the world to make it better rather than worse
  5. How to minimize unintended consequences
  6. How to create better futures
  7. How to improve the ecosystem’s health
5. Education
  1. How to educate sons.
  2. How to educate children.
  3. How to educate human beings.
  4. How to educate human beings for the best
  5. How to learn
    How to know more about what is unknown
  6. How to be a good facilitator, coach, trainer, educator
6. How to be a good designer
  1. How to understand, communicate, and manage complexity
  2. How to minimize unintended consequences
  3. Imagining alternative worlds
  4. How to create networks of networks of changemakers creating a positive impact on people and the planet
  5. How can I leave a legacy that will make me remembered in a positive way
7. How to imagine better futures
8. How to augment life
  1. How to raise the collective intelligence
  2. How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
  3. How to live multiple lives
9. How to minimize the suffering of all living beings
  1. How to relieve suffering
10. How to be more creative
  1. Teach everybody to be creative
  2. Make art a part of everybody’s life
11 May 2021
My 12 Favorite Problems, Version 2
I am iterating on the 12 Favorite Problems Technique. I am merging a first iteration and two drafts coming from my notes.
Process
I’m refining my approach, and I start to like it:
1. Start with a draft.
2. Refine, and iterate continuously. (iterative thinking)
3. Develop your view of each problem.
4. Find connections.
5. Organize problems hierarchically and by priority and scope.
6. Revise periodically.
My 12 Favorite Problems
This is version 2 of my 12 favorite problems:
1. how to be a good person
  1. How to live a good life. (purpose/meaning)
  2. How to make the best use of my time
  3. What is happiness? How to understand it and live with and without it.
  4. How to develop an interconnected system of habits to grow as a healthy, wealthy, and systemic human being, conscious citizens of the world, human being, member of humankind
  5. Develop self-awareness, self-expression
  6. How to stay healthy
  7. How to make my life meaningful, worthwhile
2. How to have good relationships
  1. How to take care of my family
    how to be a good partner
    how to be a good father
    how to be a good son
    how to be a good relative
  2. how to be a good friend
  3. how to be a good citizen of the World
  4. How to spend more quality time with quality people
3. How to be a good thinker
  1. how to be a good thinker
    observation
    recognizing patterns
    cross-discipline / non-disciplinary
    how to think about the future
  2. how to make the best decisions
  3. Learning
    how to be a good learner
4. Communication
  1. how to communicate in the best way
  2. Storytelling
    how to tell great stories
    how to create great stories
5. Justice, equality, equanimity
  1. What’s the right word?
  2. How to create a just society
6. Make the world better
  1. How to build a sustainable society
  2. How to make a living while making the world a better place.
  3. How to leave a positive, durable, compounding legacy
  4. How to put new things in the world to make it better rather than worse
  5. How to minimize unintended consequences
  6. How to create better futures
  7. How to improve the ecosystem’s health
7. Education
  1. How to educate sons.
  2. How to educate children.
  3. How to educate human beings.
  4. How to educate human beings for the best
  5. How to learn
    How to know more about what is unknown
  6. How to be a good facilitator, coach, trainer, educator
8. How to be a good designer
  1. How to understand, communicate, and manage complexity
  2. How to minimize unintended consequences
  3. Imagining alternative worlds
  4. How to create networks of networks of changemakers creating a positive impact on people and the planet
  5. How can I leave a legacy that will make me remembered in a positive way
9. How to imagine better futures
10. How to augment life
  1. How to raise the collective intelligence
  2. How to extend life, perception, augment intelligence, individual and collective.
  3. How to live multiple lives
11. How to minimize the suffering of all living beings
  1. How to relieve suffering
12. How to be more creative
  1. Teach everybody to be creative
  2. Make art a part of everybody’s life
Update: 12 Developed drafts
Identity and Relationships (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Learning and Health (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Thinking and Communication (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Ecosystem Health and Design (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Technology and Creativity (My 12 Favorite Problems)
Art and Problem Solving (My 12 Favorite Problems)
I am never getting enough of it.
10 May 2021
Structured Long-form writing by Integrating Multiple Perspectives
I’ve been failing in the past when I needed to write a long article dealing with complex topics containing many details. I made another try by splitting the writing task into question-driven prompts. Then I assembled all pieces into a final draft.
I followed this creative process:
1. Explore the topic/problem from multiple perspectives. Write an outline using the following questions:
  1. What is the problem? What is the solution?
  2. Why is the problem interesting and meaningful?
  3. Who is affected by the problem? Who has already solved it?
  4. When does the problem occur?
  5. Where does the problem manifest?
  6. How does the problem happen?
  7. How much is it affecting your life?
2. Develop each perspective in a dedicated article.
3. Integrate each component into the original outline.
  1. reread components
  2. integrate into the global article
    extract
    copy and paste
    concatenate
4. Revise the final draft
5. Share the final composition.
This process is promising and I will use it again, I have now to execute steps 4 and 5 as an iteration on the initial draft.
All roads lead to you.
8 May 2021
Thinking of quitting. It’s only a thought though.
I am aiming at publishing 365 blog posts in a year, one per day. I have a good pace. I’ve reached 174 with this one, and I am almost halfways. I am risking making it a vanity goal to write just for the sake of it, only to say that I did it. While deliberate practice as this contributes to my writing skills, I am procrastinating the creation of longer and deeper pieces.
How would I feel if I stopped now? I am terrified I could never write again. In the end, I have not written daily for decades. How would it be like to write weekly? That’s how I started in 2019.
It’s a stupid idea. I won’t stop. Instead, I will plan a whole week of articles, and I will schedule writing time early in the morning instead of late at night.
7 May 2021