Category: creativity
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Look to the liminal
Barely plausible niche ideas. The outskirts and underpasses of a megalopolis. Burgeoning self awareness. The cultural fringe. Technologies that appear to be nothing more than toys. The fractal outline of a fern frond. Marginal returns. Emotions that are just barely ineffable. Border towns. The moment just before you lean in for a first kiss. Coastal…
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The creative process is a mirror that reflects our evolving selves
Song Exploder deconstructs every element of individual songs to the most granular level of detail. Chef’s Table takes viewers into the kitchen to observe world renowned chefs at work. A cottage industry serves tourists who visit the abandoned Tunisian movie sets where George Lucas filmed the Tatooine scenes of the first Star Wars movie in 1976. Bearing witness…
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Creativity is a form of leadership
I went on the Lisa Valentine Clark Show to talk about how creativity is a form of leadership: https://www.byuradio.org/episode/e14993aa-e367-41d4-b44e-bb5151e906bf Complement with how isolation can hinder creativity, three tips for writers, and why most successful people have no idea what made them successful. Get new posts delivered straight to your inbox: This blog exists thanks to…
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Most successful people have no idea what made them successful
We all want to do work that makes an impact. We want the teacher to give us an A. We want our book to be a #1 New York Times bestseller. We want our company to IPO. We want our nonprofit to save lives. We want our efforts to matter. So, naturally, we look for shortcuts.…
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New Books in Science Fiction podcast interview
I went on the New Books in Science Fiction podcast to talk about how tech influences geopolitics and the future extrapolated in my new novel, Borderless: https://newbooksnetwork.com/eliot-peper-borderless-47north/ Complement with TechCrunch on the themes explored in Bandwidth, this interview with the Chicago Review of Books on how feeds shape reality, and this Techdirt podcast on how to imagine plausible futures.…
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Robert Jackson Bennett uses magic to make sense of how technology shapes our lives
In my latest column for Techdirt, I talk to Robert Jackson Bennett about the political consequences of technology, the power of imagination, and his critically-acclaimed new novel, Foundryside: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181106/17231941000/robert-jackson-bennett-uses-magic-to-make-sense-how-technology-shapes-our-lives.shtml Robert and I were on a panel together last month at New York Comic Con and I featured Foundryside in this edition of my reading recommendations newsletter. Complement with…
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Technology, Politics Collide in Eliot Peper’s ‘Borderless’
The East Bay Express ran a lovely feature on my new novel, calling it “a sharply rendered, wildly entertaining thriller speaking to the dangerous realities of our present: climate change, the changing shape of power, the very American values that defined Peper’s grandparents’ post-war lives—themes that are now fraught within our real world as it becomes increasingly…
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Machine Learning President, or how to role-play the 2020 election
Earlier this year, I co-designed a political simulation game with Randy Lubin, Berit Anderson, Brett Horvath, and Mike Masnick that went viral when The New Yorker reported that the right-wing billionaire Mercer family had somehow gotten their hands on the rules. As a result, Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”, and…
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To get perspective, cultivate connection
In my latest column for Harvard Business Review, I explore how isolation can blind us to the bigger picture and what a Renaissance master can teach us about the psychological perils of leadership: https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-seclusion-is-the-enemy-of-creativity Complement with storytelling for startups, do what matters, and why business leaders need to read more science fiction. Get new posts…
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BANDWIDTH
After two years in the works, my new novel Bandwidth is now available. Bandwidth is a science fiction thriller featuring hackers and spies grappling over the geopolitics of climate change, with a group of techno-utopian activists hijacking the global feed to manipulate world leaders. Fast-paced, lush, and philosophical, it will suck you in and stick…