🌟✨The Nexialist #0250250 weeks of the nexialist | intentionality layer | keep on curating | diy-toolbox | my corner | content-as-practice | mind wide open
welcome to your weekly cyber-shenanigans, the nexialist
these days, i’m in vienna to attend the BOLD experience, joining WKÖ (austria’s economic chamber) and envisioning.io for the launch of the innovation map ‘26-27, which we worked on together. i’m extending the visit for a few days to get to know the city, since it’s my first time. i also decided to do something special for the 250th edition of the nexialist (i still can’t believe i’ve been sending these out for 250 weeks). today, i’m sharing some thoughts and things i learned/am still learning in this endeavour, as a gift to all of you who have been reading, either from tn#1 or if you just subscribed — special thanks to my loving partner, juan, who has been there since the beginning and inspired me to write this post. there is no method to it, just some scattered thoughts that overlap and hopefully give you some brainsparks and inspiration. i didn’t feel comfortable to add imperatives, so i’m just sharing how it was/is for me. so be easy on me as this diverts from my usual content. i hope you enjoy it 🫀✨ 1 year ago » 🍋🟩✨The Nexialist #0198 : seedless fruit: futureless tech | social-emotional learning | notebooklm | parallel play | the banality of online recommendation culture | são paulo | bon voyage | pink pony club 2 years ago » 🐍✨The Nexialist #0146 : getting over rejection | cobra | rivers of life | the most common dreams | triple d*ck | cockamamy | flehming | the role of myth in language 3 years ago » 🔨✨The Nexialist #0094 : RIP Gal Costa | the culture economy, post-individualism & metalabels | trust in tech | wtf is an office job? | permacrisis | i’m not dead yet | flower bike man | stiekem 4 years ago » 📿✨The Nexialist #0044 : María Lionza | Syncretism | Smartphones and Rosaries | Year to Year | Meta: Fantasy of Power | Paradoxical Relationships | Marx ft. Nietzche: How Art Can Save Us | Tempo 📿intentionality layerwhen i started the nexialist, one of the triggers was feeling like a passive content consumer, scrolling an endless avalanche of information. i was feeling, for lack of a better word, dumb: unable to pay attention while reading something longer or even developing longer threads of thoughts without interruption (these things still happen, but much less often). the stream of information i was seeing on my feeds (mostly short video format) was merely going through me. i had had enough of that and with the nexialist, without realizing, i added a layer of intentionality to my content consumption: i was taking some time to reflect and write about it, even if it’s just a simple thought, a feeling, an idea, a brainspark. today i see how this exercise helps things that i learned stay in my mind. it’s the good ol’ note-taking that most of us stop doing after graduating. brainsparks: algorithmic condition (tn#219), mental gym (tn#156), learning pyramic (tn#156), liveware (tn#56), ontological design (tn#3), four c-words (tn#45) 📖keep on curatingi talked about content diet on the second-ever nexialist, and this project makes me clearly see how it affects my content output. when i spend too much time on social media (instagram/twitter especially), the chance of finding something worthy of sharing here is much lower versus when i read my favorite newsletters, go to an exhibition, navigate the substack feed or other more curated feeds that are not so algorithmically or commercially focused. while my content diet is not perfect, i see how curating my feeds makes my content diet more nutritious: subscribing to my favorite newsletters, being part of communities, favoriting creators that make high-quality content, and creating a way of tagging content i want to read later (most platforms offer a way). also, keep reminding to do that irl effort: reading zines/magazines, finding exhibitions/museums/events. pro-tip: i usually start my research in my mailbox, as i subscribe to so many nice newsletters. Brianspark: content diet (tn#2), online culture curators (tn#177), content curation approaches (tn#54), knowledge curatorship (tn#14), curation and synthesis (tn#5), dark forest theory (tn#10), 5 Cs research routine (tn#80) 🧰diy-toolboxalong these 4-5 years, i’ve learned which tools help me so i can focus on what matters. from extracting subtitles from videos (downsub) instead of transcribing it myself, fixing typos/grammar (grammarly), to pinning content directly from my browser, these are things that help me here and in my work process. some of these took me many editions to find a flow and realize how much they help me. (i save a lot of them here for reference). other tools/activities i like to do, even if they consume my time, but they have a goal. for instance: i love extracting the gifs from each video, as it allows me to look closer at a video i enjoyed. i do not use LLMs to help me write, but to find terms i might not have learned or forgot. the brainsparks list after each item mentioned barely get any clicks, but in my brain it helps me place the idea on a sort of a mental map. Brainsparks: second brain (tn#132), planning toolbox (tn#21), business needs new frameworks (tn#68), aperture for transformative foresight (tn#143) 🪑my cornerthe nexialist stemmed from wanting a place to share cultural insights, my own little corner where i could help develop my craft, sharpen my point of view and practice critical thinking. my starting goal for this project was not to grow an audience (and clearly it still isn’t). this place ended up doubling as a display of the kind of work that i do and that i want to do. of course, publishing to an audience and having a set publishing day does help to keep myself accountable. today, i see it as a very vivid business card: it reminds people in my network about me every week, and it has gotten me exciting projects and invitations for great gigs and events. brainsparks: digital garden (tn#227), stop listening to the customer (tn#195), rebranding trends research (tn#193), trends are bullsh*t. long live the trends (tn#190), namecore (tn#71), hoardiculture (tn#191) 💪🏼content-as-practiceeugene used this term and it’s very accurate. i feel like having something to write/publish every week shapes my perspective, forces me to look at things through a learning lens, relating new information to something else I already know. it’s an ongoing research process that shapes my reality, and the way i work (and it keeps changing). there have been so many times i started writing with an opinion/goal and it changed by the time i finished the edition. i’m also more at peace with the idea that I don’t need to have an opinion about everything (no one does). i feel that words are so much closer to me, improving my vocabulary and helping me express ideas and feelings. this could only happen because i sit down once a week and challenge myself to write, no matter how much i want it or not (trust me, some days i don’t feel like it). Brainsparks: reworking, referencing, releasing (tn#125), releasing > posting (tn#210) 🧠mind wide openthere are topics i clearly gravitate towards, and others not so much. there are full universes out there which i don’t even know exist (yet). writing weekly allows me to both deepen my knowledge/references in what i’m interested in, but also discover new topics of interest and concepts, which keeps me excited to learn more. it’s a great way to stay curious. i guarantee you that the topics i was interested on tn#1 have changed a lot, along with my sensibility for nuance. and this also informs my way of working. i learned years ago with inesplorato that the magic is in the realm of “what you don’t know that you don’t know” about. Brainsparks: knowledge curatorship (tn#14), randomizing your research (tn#72) see you next week, nexialists 🫀✨❓Wait, what is a Nexialist?🔎If you want to see what I’ve already posted, visit the archive and use the search engine. Even I do that a lot.💌I want to know what you think/who you are! Your feedback is highly appreciated; you can e-mail me or fill in this short survey. Thank you! 🙏🏻🔌Let’s Collab?I truly believe innovation comes from bringing improbable areas together, and that’s why I called this project The Nexialist. Some sectors are known to be self-referencing and hermetic. Sometimes, teams are on autopilot mode, focused on the daily grind, which hinders innovation. As a Nexialist, I like to burst these bubbles, bringing references from different areas, and maintaining teams inspired and connected to the Zeitgeist. I offer inspiration sessions called Brainsparks, creative desk research (Zeitgeist Boost), Plug’n’Play deals for workshops and sprints, and other bespoke formats. If you want to know more about this, send me an e-mail with your challenge(s) and we can figure something out together. Check out my website and some work I’ve done below: You're currently a free subscriber to The Nexialist. 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🌟✨The Nexialist #0250
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