You hear it a lot these days–I don’t have enough ideas, so I need to use AI. I remember feeling the same way in the summer of 2010 as I struggled to get API Evangelist off the ground. I would sit in front of the Google Notebook (RIP) and nothing would flow. Empty. Nada. Zip. Zilch. After a few months of doing more research, reading other people’s writing, and then attending more conferences and meetups the ideas began to flow-—my notebook (Evernote) was getting filled up with rich ideas that I would translate into interesting blog posts. Even with this success, I would still find myself short on good ideas most days.
Even with my blog and news curation system in place, an active feedback loop with other people, and a decent flow of blog posts coming out weekly—-I would still quite regularly hit the doldrums where I didn’t have enough ideas. I had a notebook (Apple Notes) full of words written and other people’s articles bookmarked and able to be searched, but nothing. No words would flow. Nothing seemed interesting. Then Audrey pointed out to me that I wasn’t reading enough. What???? I read all day everyday online! You are a crazy woman! No, dumbass, you aren’t reading enough books, and specifically books written by people who do not look like you and come from the same background. Hmmmm, OK–I got to work reading and filling my head with other people’s voices.
In 2025 I have no shortage of ideas. I also have no shortage of inspiration. I still run at a slight shortage of smart things to say, but I am working on that. I would say that I still run at a significant shortage of creative and interesting things to say, but I am working on that. It seems insane to think that I would need to use artificial intelligence for ideation. I have a huge amount of slightly and totally unpolished ideas in my notebook (Apple Notes). I add many, many more each day as I do my research and profile the world of APIs. I add many, many more each day as I immersed myself in non-fiction books, and most recently fictional stories by women. AI is not a wellspring of ideas—-that already exists around you in the form of books, libraries, and your community. There are ideas just waiting for me down on the street, or in the subway, and even while sitting at my computer staring out the window.
Having, producing, evolving, and connecting good ideas together takes work. It takes practice. It takes momentum. It takes reading books. No, not just online. Books have a different frame rate, and fiction and nonfiction each have variations of this. Sure, read blogs, but they aren’t the same as losing yourself in a book. Sure, read that book on exactly the topic that interests you by that person who looks just like you, but it won’t be the same as reading a book that is way out of your comfort zone by someone who looks nothing like you. There is a reason you are saddling up to the AI terminal looking for ideas—it is because there aren’t enough nutrients in your world. I don’t say this to point the finger at you, I am saying it based upon my own experience. I am pointing the finger at me, and if it seems relevant to you-—maybe it is. I am super thankful and privileged to say that I have no shortage of interesting ideas to keep me busy, I just have to keep doing the work to raise the bar on the type of stories I tell, images I take, manipulate, and publish alongside the tales I spin.
