Why I built an inefficient platform
For our boldest, most original ideas
Welcome to Ethan’s Turtles - I’m Ethan (spoiler) and I write this newsletter to explore the connection between digital design and critical theory.
Thanks so much for reading. If you’d like to explore my research for this article and other stuff I’m reading / working on, I have it all collated on Clusta - my own platform that helps you develop your best ideas.
Check it out, and sign up (for free) if you’d like to try it yourself!
“Efficiency and invention are sort of at odds… real invention, real lateral thinking, that requires wandering.”
- Jeff Bezos
I was surprised to hear Jeff, Mr Efficiency himself, utter these words. It surprised me even more how much time he dedicated to this inventive process in a rare long-form interview. But as I thought on it further, it made more and more sense that the process of invention, creativity, imagination, would be at the forefront of Bezos’ mind
He may be Mr Efficiency, but Amazon today can deliver packages to billions of people within a matter of hours. Any gains that could be made on their freakishly, disturbingly efficient process offer diminishing returns against the promise of the next big breakthrough - the next spark which will tip Amazon, and the world, on its head.
Can you name one piece of software, solution, service, which promises the same gains in the creative realm as we readily see for efficiency and productivity? Name me the Salesforce, the Asana, for the ‘efficiency’ gains made to the development of original, valuable ideas.
Of course, you can’t. I can’t. No one can. The realm of new, original ideas - their discovery and development - exists in a realm outside of efficiency and productivity in the sense that we have come to understand them, as Jeff highlights in his original quote.
Software offers ‘inspiration engines’ - displaying new and somewhat surprising content to someone in the hope the collision with their subconscious will inspire a new idea. McLuhan’s DEW cards, Bowie’s Verbasizer software, and now generative AI all provide methods for this.
There is no revolution to be found in these solutions. You are no better an ideator for using these than you were before. They offer an alternative to going for a walk.
You cannot Google this problem and find a revolutionary solution only the digital world could deliver. You’ll find mind maps and overly complicated systems to organise notes into a deep, dark chasm from which they’ll never return.
No wonder, then, that Jeff spends such time considering new ideas. Any improvement he could make to his ability to have original ideas is open road: free real estate in competitive advantage, value immeasurable.
The world of computers has transformed efficiency. Global operations and logistics have elevated to a level beyond anything conceivable before the digital age. Why can’t the digital space achieve the same for creativity? Why can’t it facilitate anyone in the world to become an expert ideator?
The lack of a solution stems from an obsession with a kind of efficiency that permeates the entire software industry. The idea of building software with any kind of business case that isn’t aiming to maximise efficiency and reduce process wherever possible is inconceivable. The total and overwhelming obsession with AI is testament to this.
Creating a space that allows someone to wander warrants two bold decisions in product design: a focus on interface, and a distinct lack of AI. A platform that lets you go somewhere, but isn’t aiming to speed anything up. There is no sense of progress, of time running out, or a finish line in sight. A place to add to, to re-arrange, to return to, to return to again. A place to wander.
A platform for creativity must also commit to a subjective experience. The world is in search of an objective best practice for organising and exploring information - but when it comes to creativity, it is in the uniqueness and diversity of perspective, of the subjective, that value is found. The best way to resurface the perfect information at the perfect time is to let people return to it themselves, to wander there under their own steam, using their own intuition.
These are the principles with which I’ve built an inefficient platform - Clusta. How could I not? My obsession and my drive to create this lie in a fascination with this truly enormous blindspot in an entire industry. It is as though the world has given up on facilitating creativity, a mystery the computing industry has no business involving itself in.
Computers used to be for scientists and bankers, Macintosh gave computers to artists too. Software today has revolutionised operations. Clusta is software’s revolution for ideation.
Thanks for reading - Check out my collection on Clusta to see my ideas and research - for this article, and beyond…