Strands of Genius: Interestingness, System is Rigged, What is a Question

Plus: Springboards.ai webinar tmrw!

and

Apr 01, 2025

:: THE UPDATE ::

OH HAI. It’s April Fool’s Day! So here’s a funny story for you: I joke that Faris was the original Ask Jeeves. For one of his earliest roles in advertising, he was a media planner at OMD. But he was also 'the geek' - the guy who knew about the internet, how to construct search queries, how to get past paywalls, how to get access to academic articles. And so they set up an email, AskFaris@OMD.co.uk where people would send Faris questions, and he would, well, use the internet to answer the questions.

So it makes sense that when MediaCat asked Faris if he would want to do a podcast where listeners could ask him any question… he jumped at the opportunity!

If you’d like to participate, you just need to email your question to askfaris@mediacat.uk and, if it’s selected, the team over there will get back to you with the next steps. While it’s for advertising/media/marketing professionals…as they say, “You can even try your luck with a question that has nothing to do with media or marketing, if you like — Yakob seems like a pretty game chap.”

He won’t just ask AI for the answer, he says…

:: A HOT TAKE ON DECLUTTERING TO DELIVER ::

Spring is in the air—a season of renewal, clarity, and growth. Just as we clean out closets (and scrub the corners we’ve been ignoring, and throw out the plants on the deck that have been dead since winter)... it’s the perfect time to think about de-cluttering in our work as well. In the endless pursuit of doing more—more platforms, more content, more campaigns—we can often lose sight of what’s essential. Complexity creeps in, muddying our messages and overwhelming our audiences (and, um, us too…)

But simplification isn’t about doing less for the sake of less—it’s the whole less is more thing. Or so we hear. We're usually more of the more is more people. Super kawaii and all that. We may be the people that go for allllll the toppings for the poke bowl, but when it comes to communications and campaigns we fight for clarity. It’s about focusing on what really resonates, cutting through the noise, and amplifying what matters most. Plus, when we simplify, we create space for creativity to thrive. Beautiful constraints, and all that :)

This April, we're leaning into this month's theme: the power of simplification in more ways than one. We're taking stock of any unnecessary complexity in our work, clearing out the clutter, and making room for focus. Because sometimes, the most impactful thing we can do is strip things back, allowing clarity to shine through and creativity to flourish.

What’s one thing in your work life right now that feels overly complicated? How could simplifying it help?

:: THE LINKS ::

LET’S MAKE THIS MORE INTERESTING

Faris was delighted to be interviewed by Adam Morgan for his podcast about Interestingness. [I especially enjoyed this one writes his totally unbiased wife ;)]
‘Attention is part of the substance of our existence. We are what we eat: what we spend time with changes or maintains us’. Faris Yakob believes that attention is not merely the first step in engagement with something, but a fundamental shaper of who we are. And so, with everyone competing for our attention all the time, what we choose to see as more interesting effectively then comes on to define us.” [LinkedIn | ACAST | Apple | Spotify]

WHY MOST AMERICANS BELIEVE THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED

“In our 25 years studying mindsets, the system-is-rigged mindset is among the strongest and most pervasive we’ve seen in American culture. Americans are drawing on this mindset to make sense of almost every aspect of society—from the economy, to the political system, to how people are treated based on their gender or race. This can lead to productive critiques of power and increased demand for changes that create a fairer society. But it can also prompt xenophobic and racist scapegoating, or lead to fatalism—the conclusion that the problem is just too big to solve.”
(Frameworks) [Full Report HERE].
This is also happening in Australia: “Australians have lost hope in the fair go” [Guardian]

WHAT IS A QUESTION

Many of you know that I’m a big fan of questions, whereas Faris is a big fan of answers (ha!) I’ve even got a long list of questions in my iPhone that I keep adding to, whenever I’m asked a good question. So perhaps unsurprisingly, I loved stumbling upon a piece by philosopher Lani Watson asking “What is a Question?”
She argues that very little attention has been paid to “the nature, role or value of questions throughout much of philosophical history.” Because the modern day investigations into ‘what are questions’ have been logical, or with an emphasis on the linguistically analysis of questions, they are defined by the terms of their answers. But Watson thinks there’s more to it, and that questions have value themselves — and that they don’t have to be interrogative.
She defines a question as an information seeking act. I especially love this piece because she doesn’t just ask what questions are, but what questions are for! And, she doesn’t use a single question mark in her entire article. Watson says, “We use questions for many different reasons: to find things out, to communicate, to show that we care, to express ourselves, to expose others, to debate, to inspire, to engage in small talk, sometimes just to be heard.
Questions help us to achieve all these ends, and many others besides. In this sense, a question is like a tool that can be used for multiple purposes.” (Philosophers Mag) (Oh and - You, too, can weigh in on what is a question with Lani Watson’s research project at Oxford.)

:: REMINDER - TODAY! GENIUS STEALS + SPRINGBOARDS.AI WEBINAR ::

If you were paying attention to the earlier edition, you’ll recognize Springboards.ai as the product of Pip & Amy, a husband and wife strategist duo. They’re awesome. And they’ve built something to help us with inspiration (not answers! humans required!) when it comes to the work we strategists do.

For those of you curious about what Springboards is about, join us on TODAY, April 1st (and no, this is not an April Fools prank!) at 4:30p ET. We’re going to talk to Pip about how AI can be a tool for inspiration, and share a little more about the platform itself.

In an era of sameness, AI isn't the enemy, boring outputs are so we need to figure out how to put the limits of exploration. This will be an insightful conversation about how we can all work to keep creative humans in the equation in the age of AI.

Please note, you will need to register in advance for this webinar! And yes, you’re welcome to invite friends!

This week, we’re writing to you from Chattanooga, TN. We’re especially thankful for:

our new bird feeder, neighbors, E&E’s baby boy, finger sandwiches, garden tea parties, all of the green that’s popping up, tulips, and warmer temperatures.

If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. You can hit reply to this email if you’ve got anything to say, and we’ll endeavor to get back to you promptly!

rockON,
faris & rosie | your friends over at geniussteals.co
(still want more? @faris is still “tweeting” while @rosieyakob prefers instagram stories)

Know someone who could use some inspiration in their inbox? Forward this email to them! We appreciate you spreading the word.

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius