Author: Garrick van Buren

The Return of Doggerland?

For reference: Doggerland @ Wikipedia “this story is of a time beyond the memory of man, before the beginning of history, a time when one might have walked dryshod from France to England.” In 1897 H.G. Wells set his book “A Story of the Stone Age”, Humans, hunter-gathering Neanderthals, lived in Doggerland 10,000BC – 7,500BC. […]

ATTN Entrepreneurs: Customers Won’t Wait

Everyone has a rich and busy life, and each day we all have a lot on our minds, including persistent frustrations. Over time, we either resolve the frustration through some sufficiently satisfactory solutions or we simply accept it as a “that’s just how it is.” Suddenly, a solution is no longer required. Entrepreneurs are racing […]

Making Time

(or On the Founder-Idea Obsession) There have been a handful of times, less than 20 across my entire life, where I’ve been obsessed with an idea. Yes, unhealthily obsessed. So obsessed I have temporarily neglected other obligations including my own health. Obsessed where I steal every possible moment to slip into the obsession. I’ve regularly […]

Are They a Customer?

In my work with entrepreneurs, it’s not unusual to spend a substantial amount of time discussing who the customer for the product in question.  Yes, spending so much time on such a foundational question may seem a bit silly.  It’s only an indication of how limited our day-to-day transaction experience is relative to the richness […]

Media Tetrad: Generative AI

While generative AI (ChatGPT, etc) is red hot right now, and I’ve been rather cool on it. All of my experiments with it have resulted in rather ‘meh’, uninteresting, completely predictable outcomes. Maybe I’m missing something. Which takes me to one of my favorite tools for thinking through effects and consequences comprehensively, McLuhan’s Tetrad. While […]