Seems silly: write a page that no one will ever read.

But there are two reasons to ignore this page.

First, because it's a bit of a long, geeky and decidedly subjective tour of how we think.

And second, because we hope that we can make it so easy to participate in Noodle & Sprout that you don't need some text book to explain it.

I mean...doesn't it bug you when log in to some analytics dashboard but you feel like you need to go to night school just to understand what you're looking at? What's a tag manager, anyways? What's the difference between a segment and an audience?

We hope no one will read this page because we hope we can make things so easy and so self-explanatory that you don't need to leaf through some appendix to 'get it'.

Which brings us to the first point about how it works:

We do the hard work of finding, understanding, interpreting and presenting data.

Because let's face it: there's too much data.

I can show you a dashboard that aggregates a billion data points, presents it in a nice little widget....and then leaves it to you (and your team of physicists and data scientists) to figure out what to do with it.

There seems to be this idea that data is somehow neutral. That if we boot up enough computers, apply all the right algorithms, gather enough data and generate enough charts that we will somehow....what? Arrive at an objective truth?

We're skeptical. Because we've been there.

Don't get us wrong: all of that data is incredibly useful. It should be used to test hypotheses, to monitor energy use, track whether deliveries are making it on time or to predict how many complaints you can expect in customer service.

But it's really, really hard to align "big data" to the very human decisions we need to make that can make a real difference.

Which brings us to our second point:

Data doesn't need to be "BIG" for it to help change the world

Did you ever have a sudden brainstorm in the shower?

The mind is a wild thing. You read some random article about...penguins or something. And suddenly you have a new idea for a product extension.

We're a fan of those little moments of serendipity. Which is maybe why we try to digest every little nugget on social media, to read every newsletter, to log-in to every Clubhouse chat.

We read and scan and listen because we never know which nugget will lead to that next great idea (or which one will give us a little laugh).

But it's exhausting.

We spend so much time consuming that there's no room left for the sub-conscious to do its work.

And so what we wondered was whether there was a way to 'codify' all of those little bits of inspiration? To try to tease out something deeply useful from that massive stream of data.

And then we went one step further:

If data can be used to create "aha" moments....and if ideas can change the world...then what will happen if we can build community around those "aha's"?

We suspect that those communities could make some amazing things happen.

A Community of Insight

So...this one is maybe a bit of a reach. And we don't know if it will work. But it's the SPROUT in Noodle & Sprout.

Because we want to democratize the data.

We want to make those 'aha' moments accessible and easy to understand. And we want to make the insights available to everyone, not just the big organizations who can afford "big data" (and theoretically the big ideas).

Our hope is that if we can bring enough people together around 'aha' moments (based on sound data and analysis) then we can change the trajectory of...well, of your business, your non-profit, your career...or maybe even bigger things, like how well we treat the planet or how mindfully we relate to each other.

We start with stories

Noodle & Sprout is an act of co-creation. Our partnership with Hume.works (on the one side) and active communities and tribes (on the other) is a jump into the deep end of collaboration.

And we'll start with story: with how stories move through networks, with the values that are embedded in those stories, and with their power as a source of the little 'nuggets' that lead to 'aha' moments.

Hume has inspired us to build on our own decades of work. Our background is in building and using the tools of storytelling. We've created global storytelling networks using the Internet of Things as a backbone, and created virtual productions for tech companies. But now we've been challenged to extend that work into a new domain: the recognition that stories are NETWORKS.

You Made It!

Did you really read this whole thing? Thats awesome...and maybe a little disappointing.

But mostly awesome. :)

We want to talk more about stories as networks, how the rates of change related to story values create new white space...but we already went on for far too long.

Because the best way to understand what we mean is to...not read this page. The best way to understand is to subsribe to our first topic.

We'll send you a few emails. If you don't like them, please unsubscribe. That's fine: it will help make us better and give us an incentive to be more clear or meaningful.

But if you stick around, we hope you'll learn more about "HOW IT WORKS". Which will, in the end, be mostly a product of how YOU work it.

We'll bring the noodles. And you bring the sprouts.

-Doug Thompson
May 5, 2021