Five Original Must-Read Articles by Mike DeWitt

Liz Strauss at Successful Blog recently challenged me to "select five original must-read articles that I wrote throughout history (so to speak)."

Normally this would be a time-consuming, but pleasurable stroll down memory lane, and I would do it for Liz because she is such a good friend. But it's my lucky day, because I went through a similar exercise only a month ago! So instead of reviewing all my posts, I just need to winnow down that top ten and see if I can't drop in a recent one.

So here is the list of five must-read posts here at Spooky Action. They also define the kinds of content you'll get on this blog.

Spooky Action Predicts: Nick Carr Has Your Number (.8 Probability) The first post; sort of like a debut album, it has the accumulated ideas of several years, and you'll find an awful lot of my philosophy there. Yeah, it took a while to shake the sophomore blues, until I wrote:

When Bad Things Happen to Good Concepts is the embodiment of the Product Irreverence ethos. You'll never see a pencil sharpener the same again. This piece is now part of MBA By Blog!

Categories of Fun and Experience Design I've written a book-length treatise on Experience Design based on the concepts here, and you'll be seeing more of that material coming soon. This one has been linked quite a bit by people who know more than me on the subject!

How to Make Important Decisions This one spent nine months at number one when you Google the title. Alas, I have dipped to number 3 (we're more entertaining)! My take on how the mind works.

What I Learned from an Unscheduled Trip to the Bottom of the Grand Canyon. I've really enjoyed Robert Hruzek's "What I've Learned From..." group writing project. This is one of my favorites, because it tells a story (with incredible pictures) and has a good actual lesson, too.

So there you have it! If you haven't joined in this exercise, give it a try; you'll be glad you did. And thanks Liz for inviting me to play!