Moving from why to what.

• After you face reality, it still takes a tremendous amount of work and courage to move from understanding why something needs to change to knowing what you can do about it.
• There are many directions to choose from. People often get in their own way by becoming overwhelmed with choices, choosing not to choose instead.
• Change takes time. Start by choosing a direction to go toward. If you take one step in that direction each day, you'll get to the finish line in due time.

We work at different levels.

• When we reference a place, it exists within other places.
• When we reference things, they exist within other things and places too.
• Digital things live within other things and places, including physical and analog places.
• We make places and we make things.

What are you making?

• Nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything connects to a larger whole.

• Whenever you're making something, figure out which levels you're working at:

• a specific thing.

  

These levels deeply affect one another.

• Being able to zoom in and out as you work is the key to seeing how these levels affect one another.
• When you're deep in the details, it's easy to forget your broad effect. When you're working overhead, it's easy to forget how your decisions affect things down on the ground.
• Making changes at one level without considering the affects they have on other levels can lead to friction and dissatisfaction between our users, our stakeholders, and us.
• One tiny change can spark a thousand disruptions. One tiny decision leads to another, and another.

We make places.

• You can turn a space into a place by arranging it so people know what to do there. This act is called placemaking.