Hi from Dave

It’s been a while, how about an update?

Hi there! It’s been awhile. Six months, give or take. Hope you are well and doing good things.

I’m caught up on my work, so I thought I’d spend a little time this Sunday catching you up on things. If you have a moment, I’d appreciate hearing from you, too.

Book done, what a relief!

Since we last spoke I wrapped up my work on the second edition of Gamestorming, Gamestorming, 2.0. Not the most creative title, but the first edition sold very well, and my publisher and co-author have high hopes that the second edition will perform as well as its predecessor. We’ll see.

My favorite review so far comes from Thomas Wilson, who wrote:

This isn’t just a second edition, it’s a serious upgrade for anyone who facilitates, designs, or leads change in organizations or public sector.

Read his full review on LinkedIn .

I’m proud of the book. It was a big chunk of work and I’m relieved to have it in the rear-view mirror.

Fun projects.

Being done with the book freed up my creative energy for the two projects I’ve been most excited about recently, visual frameworks and the School of the Possible.

My old friend Russ Unger invited me to give a talk about visual frameworks. He hasn’t posted it online yet but the live stream from his event is still up on YouTube. My talk starts at 3:48.

As you probably know, I like to work and make my mistakes in public, it helps me learn faster. After about three years of tinkering, I finally feel that the School of the Possible is finding its groove.

I’ve been really enjoying building creative community and designing a space where everyone feels that they belong and can do their best creative work. We have settled on a format that feels right: six-week project sprints focused on moving one creative project to the next step, whatever that is. We map out our projects on a big online whiteboard and support each other over the six-week period.

Each sprint ends with an Open House where people share their work and we collectively celebrate our creative progress.

You can check out the recordings from our last Open House here.

Our next cohort kicks off on Wednesday, October 29th! Here’s the link to sign up if you want to join us.

Thinking about AI.

All the fuss about AI has really piqued my interest and attention. It’s got me asking a lot of questions, like “what is language?” and “what is intelligence?” That’s led to a lot of reading. A couple of recent favorites are A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins and What is Intelligence by Blaise Agüera y Arcas.

Connecting with friends and community.

The highlight of my week these days is the Friday Campfire call, a weekly Zoom call that I host to connect with creative friends and colleagues. Here’s a group photo from a recent call. Do you recognize anyone you know?

Michelle and I have been enjoying our new home in Portland and Michelle especially has been active in building community in our neighborhood, which we’ve dubbed Stadiumhood. Last night we accepted a community award from our local newspaper, the Northwest Examiner.

One thing I’m learning is that shared problems have an upside: they bring neighbors and neighborhoods together.

Website!

One more project I just thought to mention: After many years of trying, I finally convinced another Dave Gray to sell me davegray.com. My life is so different these days, now that I sold XPLANE, that I thought I would start the new site from scratch. So it’s still under construction, but have a look and let me know what you think.

How about you? What’s filling your tank these days?

I’d love to hear from you. You can reply directly to this email, or even better, consider joining me on Zoom one of these Fridays.

Be well, and have a great week!