9 Windows

Practise thinking in space and time. An alternative to Powers of 10 that encourages you to look at a situation in space and time. Helpful for getting a new perspective. The easiest way I know is to literally draw the boxes. Start with what you’re dealing with in the centre then start filling the rest out. Another tool from the TRIZ toolkit.

Published 20 Jan 2014

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Schadenfreude

How to grow your own fresh air

Johari window illustration: a 2 x 2 matrix of what's known to others plotted again what's known to oneself yields four possible scenarios.

Johari window — a window of feedback and sharing

Dark patterns

Normalisation of deviance: A person looks dubiously on at a building site which seems to be ignoring all the safety signs.
(Normalization of deviance)

The Normalisation of Deviance

Parallax

Ah, that satisfying, superior, at once gleeful and slightly sinful feeling when the aggressive driver that blazed past you a few miles back is pulled over by the police at the next exit. That feeling is schadenfreude (a nifty German word made up of “schaden” for damage, harm or hurt and “freude” for joy) to describe the act of taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes. I hadn’t thought much of it before reading some excerpts from Tiffany Watt Smith’s book Schadenfreude. She makes a compelling case for the benefits of examining the moments when we feel superior at another’s expense as a small window into ourselves. A little twinge of joy when a colleague doesn’t get a promotion might reveal your jealousy of their situation or a deep-down resentment of unfairness. If the person who pushed in front of you in line drops their ice cream right after buying it, your secret twinge of joy might be a sense of justice and equity for obeying the rules when they didn’t. Schadenfreude can be a little boost to your own self-esteem or a valuable window into your own weaknesses. For a mini-intro, try Tiffany Watt Smith’s TED Ideas article: Do you secretly feel good when others stumble? 5 ways to make peace with this very human emotion. I revised this sketch for the book Big Ideas Little Pictures.…Ah, that satisfying, superior, at once gleeful and slightly sinful feeling when the aggressive driver that blazed past you a few miles back is pulled over by the police at the next exit. That feeling is schadenfreude (a nifty German word made up of “schaden” for damage, harm or hurt and “freude” for joy) to describe the act of taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes. I hadn’t thought much of it before reading some excerpts from Tiffany Watt Smith’s book Schadenfreude. She makes a compelling case for the benefits of examining the moments when we feel superior at another’s expense as a small window into ourselves. A little twinge of joy when a colleague doesn’t get a promotion might reveal your jealousy of their situation or a deep-down resentment of unfairness. If the person who pushed in front of you in line drops their ice cream right after buying it, your secret twinge of joy might be a sense of justice and equity for obeying the rules when they didn’t. Schadenfreude can be a little boost to your own self-esteem or a valuable window into your own weaknesses. For a mini-intro, try Tiffany Watt Smith’s TED Ideas article: Do you secretly feel good when others stumble? 5 ways to make peace with this very human emotion. I revised this sketch for the book Big Ideas Little Pictures.

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