Josh Siegel is a renaissance man. Tinkering with car parts and electronics in his home workshop has kept him busy throughout his life and supplements his creative work as a professor at Michigan State University’s Deep Technology Lab. He calls this tinkering, even if it is done without a clearly stated goal, “building an intellectual library.”
Early in his career, when Josh first ventured out into the business world, he quickly learned that one had to be creative and to be able to trust oneself. And that it is okay to be imperfect, as long as you’re better than you were. He summarized: “We can invent things, we can invent products, we can invent services, we can create new capabilities, we can create new knowledge. But at the end of the day, what we’re really doing is reinventing ourselves.”
Tinker Time! Think about something you're curious about. It could be anything! Do some "tinkering" – explore this topic. This might involve:
- Researching: Reading books, articles, or watching videos.
- Building/Creating: Drawing, writing, building a model, conducting a simple experiment.
- Interviewing: Talking to someone who knows about this topic.
Document your ""tinkering"" in a creative way. This could be a journal, a scrapbook, a short video, a series of drawings, or any other format you choose. The goal is to show your exploration and what you learned, even if you didn't have a specific goal in mind at the start.