The Uncertainty Mindset 2019-2020

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surprise and delight

Vaughn Tan3rd January 2021 at 4:01pm

When something is superb, but in ways you didn't expect it to be. Delight-surprise is what makes products great—it requires open-endedness, and thus for the maker to relinquish control and accept uncertainty. As I put it in #7: A living order: the maker must be willing to "exchange the probability of failure for the possibility of greatness (most people pursue certain mediocrity to avoid potential failure)."

Risk mindset almost never produces surprise and delight, but the uncertainty mindset can.

See also: affordances, agathonicity, business models, emotion, innovation, negative capability, quality, the work of uncertainty, value.