Believe in Something

Ambient Interfaces

The most powerful ideas often come from seeing old patterns in new contexts. In 1977, Christopher Alexander published "A Pattern Language," a mind-shaping work that documented the recurring patterns that make buildings, towns, and communities feel alive and whole. Alexander's insight wasn't just that these patterns existed, but that they could be documented, shared, and combined to create new spaces that work in harmony with human nature. Today, we're building a different kind of space. The r...

(NET)WORK

There are years where nothing happens, and then there are weekends where everything happens. We just experienced one of those weekends. The guiding thesis of my work is as follows: Work is becoming networked rather than institutional. AI and open technology are giving individuals unprecedented ability to shape markets and behavior. In this environment, the key to impact isn't organizational control but narrative gravity - the ability to articulate beliefs about how the world should work that ...

KILL THE FALSE GODS

Nothing is more human than worship. As religion has fallen to society’s wayside, worship has become no less important. Instead, our attention is split across an endless stream of idols, ideologies, and self-images: our favorite artists, our political views, our goals and identities. Worship is commonly understood as consistent, focused attention and reverence for God. It is human because it requires agency – we are the only beings that have a choice as to where our attention lies and what bel...

October 1, 2024

Native to Our Built Environments

Good morning folks, I mentioned in my previous update that my work throughout most of 2024 has been through Native, a studio that I founded to "shape the ideas that shape us." I've spent my days working with founders on research, messaging, and articulating a narrative that their community can believe in. It's become very clear to me that the work I'm doing with founders is directly aligned with our goal here at Believe in Something, which is why I mentioned that I now view BIS as living unde...