My talk at the most recent brightonSEO

1. How to have less
rubbish ideas
@kelvinnewman

2. This isn’t profound
@kelvinnewman

3. This isn’t new
@kelvinnewman

4. But it might nudge you into
thinking a little different
@kelvinnewman

5. Which could change
your working life
@kelvinnewman

6. Reasonably ambitious;
I know
@kelvinnewman

7. Three stories &
three lessons
@kelvinnewman

8. The Scunthorpe Problem

9. An unlikely hero
Creative Tools @kelvinnewman

10. An Evolving Machine
@kelvinnewman

11. You will have better ideas when
understand your context, have
some reliable methods & when
you create the right environment
@kelvinnewman

12. The Scunthorpe Problem

13. Let’s go back to 1996

14. @kelvinnewman

15. @kelvinnewman

16. David Martyn Hunt @kelvinnewman

17. @kelvinnewman

18. Scunthorpe had a problem

19. In Scunthorpe in 1996 no
customer could sign up for
AOL because of the rude
word hidden in the town’s
name
@kelvinnewman

20. Context is important
@kelvinnewmanJD Hancock

21. @kelvinnewman

22. The Web is
a Network
@kelvinnewman

23. Everything happens in a
context
@kelvinnewman

24. Using Fusion Tables to
Visualise Link
Relations
http://joecrowther.co.uk/visualising-backlinks-using-fusion-tables-gephi-for-better-seo-insight
@kelvinnewman

25. Choose Five Websites

26. Run them through your
favourite link analysis tool*
*ideally one who also sponsors brightonSEO
@kelvinnewman

27. Combine all the outputs into
on CSV
(you might need to add in a column showing which website
the link was to)
@kelvinnewman

28. You end up with a spreadsheet like this
@kelvinnewman

29. Bung in Fusion Tables

30. You’ll get something like this
@kelvinnewman

31. Then add a chart
@kelvinnewman

32. Make it a Network Graph
@kelvinnewman

33. And you get an interactive snapshot of your
context
@kelvinnewman

34. You will have better ideas when
understand your context, have
some reliable methods & when
you create the right environment
@kelvinnewman

35. An unlikely hero
Creative Tools @kelvinnewman

36. A few of my Heroes
@kelvinnewman

39. @kelvinnewman

40. @kelvinnewman

41. Rolling Stone @kelvinnewman

42. Dong Nguyen
Rolling Stone

43. @kelvinnewman

44. + + =
@kelvinnewman

45. “An idea is nothing
more nor less than a
new combination of
old elements.”
James Webb Young

46. The Best SEO Tool Costs Less
than a Fiver
William Warby

47. @kelvinnewman

48. Heuristic Ideation Technique
Stolen from GameStorming
@kelvinnewman

49. 珍道具Chindōgu
@kelvinnewman

51. Based on three things
JD Hancock @kelvinnewman

52. A new idea can be generated
from remixing the
attributes of an existing idea.
@kelvinnewman

53. A new idea is best understood by
describing its two essential attributes.
@kelvinnewman

54. The more different or surprising the
combination of the two attributes,
the more compelling the idea.
@kelvinnewman

55. @kelvinnewman

56. Blog Post
Podcast
Video
Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 3 Persona 4
@kelvinnewman

57. Look Good
Makes Laugh
Makes Angry
@kelvinnewman
Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 4Persona 3

58. Look Good
Makes Laugh
Makes Angry
A Vine A Tweet A Preso An Ebook
@kelvinnewman

59. Frameworks help you narrow the
brief & makes creativity easier
@kelvinnewman

60. I need five link building ideas
for the pitch tomorrow
@kelvinnewman

61. You will have better ideas when
understand your context, have
some reliable methods,& when
you create the right environment
@kelvinnewman

62. An Evolving Machine
@kelvinnewman

63. Google’s Algo is perfect example
of a Complex & Chaotic system
@kelvinnewman

64. @kelvinnewman

65. @kelvinnewman

66. U N I V E R S I T Y O F S U S S E X , 1 9 9 6
D E PA RT M E N T O F I N F O R M AT I C S
@kelvinnewman

67. D R . A D R I A N T H O M P S O N
Evolutionary & Adaptive Systems Group
@kelvinnewman

68. H E A S K E D
C O U L D A C I R C U I T “ E V O LV E ”
T O S O LV E A P R O B L E M
@kelvinnewman

69. S U R V I VA L O F T H E F I T T E S T A P P L I E D T O
C I R C U I T S
T H E E X P E R I M E N T
@kelvinnewman

70. The first hundred
generations were little
better than random guesses
JD Hancock
@kelvinnewman

71. By generation #220 there were some
encouraging signs.
Generation #1400 had a fifty percent success
rate.
Just after #4000 it worked.
@ K E LV I N N E W M
@kelvinnewman

72. S O M E T H I N G S T R A N G E H A P P E N E D
I T W O R K E D B U T
JD Hancock @kelvinnewman

73. The circuit solved the problem using thirty-
seven logic gates.
Five logic cells were connected in ways which
wouldn't allow them to influence how the
circuit worked.
But if you removed them the chip stopped
working.
@kelvinnewman

74. W H E N M A C H I N E S T E A C H
T H E M S E LV E S T H E Y S O LV E
P R O B L E M S I N WAY S W E C A N ’ T
R E V E R S E E N G I N E E R
@kelvinnewman

75. S O W H AT ’ S T H I S G O T
TO D O W I T H S E A R C H ?
@kelvinnewman

76. purpose is to monetise machine
learning.

77. He doesn’t know how Google Works
Steve Jurvetson

78. He can’t know how Google works
storyspinn

79. A N D H E
H A S N ’ T G O T A
B L O O D Y
C L U E .
@kelvinnewman

80. But I’m an expert;
I’m sposed to know
what I’m talking
about
@kelvinnewman

81. Everyone is totally just winging
it, all the time
http://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/may/21/everyone-is-
totally-just-winging-it
@kelvinnewman

82. “I've often thought of
my experience of
adulthood thus far as
one of incrementally
discovering that
there's no institution,
or walk of life, in
which everybody isn't
just winging it.”
Oliver Burkeman
@kelvinnewman

83. How good are you at driving?
@kelvinnewman

84. DUNNING KRUEGUER EFFECT
a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer
from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to
be much higher than is accurate.
@kelvinnewman

85. There’s a corollary to this though
@kelvinnewman

86. IMPOSTER SYNDROME
a psychological phenomenon in
which people are unable to
internalize their
accomplishments. Despite
external evidence of their
competence, those with the
syndrome remain convinced that
they are frauds and do not
deserve the success they have
achieved.
@kelvinnewman

87. The trouble with
the world is that
the stupid are
cocksure and the
intelligent are full
of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
@kelvinnewman

88. “At any time I still expect that the no talent
police will come and arrest me” Mike Myers
MTV.com @kelvinnewman

89. "[I would] wake
up in the
morning before
going off to a
shoot, and think,
I can’t do this;
I’m a fraud,”
Kate Winslet
@kelvinnewman

90. “The first problem of
any kind of even
limited success is the
unshakable conviction
that you are getting
away with something,
and that any moment
now they will discover
you.”
Neil Gaiman
@kelvinnewman

91. The exaggerated
esteem in which my
lifework is held
makes me very ill at
ease.
I feel compelled to
think of myself as an
involuntary swindler
Albert Einstein
@kelvinnewman

92. Good ideas are hard to come by
And
You’ll often think your ideas are
shit
@kelvinnewman

93. know yourself
@kelvinnewman

94. Create the right environment
@kelvinnewman

95. Doesn’t mean dream pods and
ideation flotation tanks
@kelvinnewman

96. a different desk
@kelvinnewman

97. Voxefx @kelvinnewman

98. And buy these
@kelvinnewman

99. You will have better ideas when
understand your context, have
some reliable methods & when
you create the right environment
@kelvinnewman

100. How to have less
rubbish ideas
@kelvinnewman