M.001 Welcome to Molekyl
A lab for finally unfinished ideas on strategy, innovation and technology.
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I am not a chemist, but my strong suspicion is that the most exciting moments in chemistry take place in the lab, when researchers see the first traces of new combinations leading to substances with new abilities.
The same holds true for the generation of new knowledge and ideas. At least this is how it is for me. The process of which new connections form, ideas click into place and new insights start to emerge is pure joy. Polishing up the pieces in a final product is work.
I have been wired this way forever, but it's only recently that I have started to reflect on it. And in doing so, three things struck me.
We obsess with “finished”
The first is how obsessed we tend to be with final products and results. We elevate finished knowledge products. Papers, books, frameworks, elaborated ideas.
Simultaneously, the messy process of combination, discovery, and playful experimentation that lead to the final outcome usually remains out of sight, together with all the unfinished ideas that never made it.
The creative process is more often seen as a means to an end. As a necessary step towards one day finishing something complete. Something of real value.
This is a pity, because there is so much inspiration and further ideas to be made from seeing ideas in a more unfinished, raw and dynamic state.
Just consider the “let it be”- album from the Beatles. It's a great album, no doubt. But as creative inspiration, the Peter Jackson documentary about the making of this album is the true masterpiece. Eight hours of mostly unseen, unfiltered footage of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison bouncing half-baked ideas back and forth. Eight hours or struggles, revelations, and unfinished ideas.
Getting a glimpse into the process from which this great album emerged is for me way more inspiring then the final album itself.
But such glimpses are unfortunately more the exception than the rule.
I don't walk the talk
My second realization is that despite being someone who tends to enjoy the process more than the end result, and someone who think it's a pity that the creative process and unfinished ideas of others usually remain hidden from sight, my own behaviour doesn't properly reflect this stance.
Most of what I share with the world are indeed finished products. Polished research papers, well thought through talks and lectures with slick slide design, or carefully studied advice to leaders.
At the same time, I have a drawers full of ideas that didn't make it into any final version. Writings, reflections, and experiments that didn't fit the positioning of the research paper, were too speculative, or were parked because something else came along and caught my attention instead. Ideas that emerged from theory colliding with real-world practice through executive teaching or business practice. Reflections, observations and new takes on business and strategy arising from playing around with technology or arts.
But I mostly keep these unfinished ideas hidden from sight. At the same time as I wish more people would open their drawers and show me their half-baked ideas and creative processes. This doesn't add up.
The value of thinking in the open
My third realization is that when I do open my drawers and let ideas develop in the open, good things tend to happen. This has primarily been through my teaching or public speaking, where I have become increasingly comfortable with testing unfinished ideas on the world and see what happens.
One learned benefit of this is that the public nature of a talk force me to explore and develop ideas to a point where there are some sort of coherence to them. The strategic commitment of not making a complete fool of myself, and not wasting the time of the listeners, naturally force me to push the initial nugget of an idea to the next level.
Another learned benefit is that I get so many new ideas from listening to myself try to talk ideas out in full, and from the immediate reflections from my audience. It's when an idea interacts with the experience and ideas of others that it's sanity is verified and the most promising new directions and refinements tends to occur.
In other words: good things often happens when I do allow ideas to develop more in the open.
Implication?
It is because of all this that I have decided to start this substack. Because I need the implied commitment of thinking out in the open to push my own thinking. Because I should be more open with my own creative process, since I so much enjoy it when others do it. And because I expect to learn more by observing ideas meet the world, than just looking at them in the confined space of my own drawer.
I need a space where I can play around with unfinished ideas, explore how they work in different settings, how they combine, how they react. A space that can serve more as a documentation of my creative process than an archive of polished final results. A space where the act of combining ideas itself becomes visible and potentially valuable.
I intend this substack to be such a space. A space I decided to call Molekyl.
What to expect from Molekyl
Personally, I like the messy, unfiltered process of creativity, found on social media platforms like X. But Molekyl will not be a space where I dump everything and anything on my mind. Instead, i intend for it to be a space where I can use the commitment of a newsletter to develop ideas beyond just their first stage.
To guide the the level of idea maturity of ideas I put on Molekyl, I borrow the concept of “finally unfinished” from the brilliant artist Marcel Duchamp.
Finally unfinished not as an excuse for incomplete thinking, but as recognition that the ideas I will share will still be in a dynamic state. Not finished up in a final product, but in a state with ample room for further interactions with other elements to form yet new combinations. But still finished enough to be understandable for others, and to make possible directions more tangible.
My idea drawers is full of ideas that currently just sit there. Like atoms waiting to form molecules. With Molekyl my ambition is to make more of these ideas come alive.
Who is it for?
Most posts will revolve around strategy, innovation and technology, intended for curious professionals who are open to explore and reflect upon new ideas and perspectives. But I hope the content also interests others with a knack for these topics, whether professionals, students or academics.
It is still to be seen exactly what Molekyl will become, other than some sort of molecular engineering for ideas. I will deliberately explore concepts, combinations, and observations to see what emerges. Some combinations will hopefully be stable enough to form lasting insights, and eventually end up in something finished and valuable. LIke a research paper. Other combinations will be volatile and unstable. But since failed reactions also teach us something about how ideas behave when mixed and freed from their usual containers, I want to have room for both.
The elements I will play with in my writing will come from everywhere: research insights too speculative or immature for academic papers, observations from co-building a company, patterns noticed in executive education, unexpected parallels between strategy and art.
But most importantly, with Molekyl I want unfinished thinking to be a feature, not a bug. Where each post is an invitation to watch thoughts combine and evolve, to see connections form in real time. All while the public nature of a substack means that I need to push my thinking past just first-order observations to a point where ideas are "finally unfinished."
In the end of the day, Molekyl too is a half baked idea, that I now test in the open. So, let's see where this goes.
Welcome.