Quotation: Restate the problem

"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."

- Bertrand Russell

Having a thorough understanding of the problem, and knowing what problem it is you're trying to solve, are key elements to any project's success.

Nietzsche on curiosity

"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Marketing thoughts: Quoth the mavens

"The mass market has split into ever-multiplying, ever-changing sets of micromarkets that demand a continually expanding range of options." --Alvin Toffler

"The product is our most important marketing tool." --Phil Knight, Nike

"I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination." --David Ogilvy

"Almost no one goes home eagerly anticipating junk mail in their mailbox. Almost no one read People magazine for the ads. Almost no one looks forward to a three-minute commercial interruption on must see TV. Advertising is not why we pay attention. Yet marketers must make us pay attention for the ads to work. If they don't interrupt our train of thought by planting some sort of seed in our conscious or subconscious, the ads fail. Wasted money. If an ad falls in the forest and no one notices, there is no ad." -- Seth Godin

Creativity

"Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people."   - Leo Burnett

"Always look for a second right answer."   - Chic Thompson

"And you know
I'm so wired-up
Don't need no coffee in my cup
Let it all hang out
Let it all hang out"
- Van Morrison

We all fall down

"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."

        - Jim Horning

Friday fun: If he could see us now...

"You see, the wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

   - Albert Einstein

We can only imagine how he would have described the Internet.

Seussian perspective

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities."

- Dr. Seuss

Friday fun: Both are true

A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.
- Confucius

"Planning is sometimes just a form of procrastination."
- Jesse James Garrett

And he never even saw Wikipedia...

"I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow." - Woodrow Wilson