Insights on virtual idea generation, creativity, and the ad industry from Will Burns.
A Belgian sommelier walked into a roadside supermarket and bought the cheapest bottle of wine on the shelf: €2.50 (about $2.80). Then he dressed it up — gave it a grand name, “Le Château Colombier,” an elegant label, and an invented back...
Everyone seems worried that AI is about to become conscious. Meanwhile, scientists still can’t agree on what consciousness even is in us . That’s not a small gap. I’ve been chewing on that little paradox for a while. Then I started readi...
How do you make someone care about the technology behind a screen? You could explain what the technology does. Or you could show what it makes possible for the person standing in front of it. That was the creative opportunity with Bright...
The Callaway/Good Good golf-driver ad has drawn deserved outrage. In the ad, a woman reaches toward a man’s new driver. He shoves her to the ground and warns her not to touch it. The point, apparently, was a spoof of the horror movie Obs...
I have been obsessed lately thinking about the implications to our culture that driverless cars have had and, more importantly, will have in the future as adoption increases. It sounds like a small innovation - driverless cars. But it's...
Details: In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Will Burns, founder of IdeaSicle X, a creative strategy firm that builds brand ideas for companies trying to get their soul back after years of chasing ROAS. Will...
For 16 years, consumer prices rose 50%. Our prices didn't move an inch. Here's what happened — and what happens next. Back in 2010, I launched Ideasicle. Gas was $2.79 a gallon. A dozen eggs cost $1.54. A ribeye steak would set you back...
13 studies on what actually makes you more creative — and how to build your day around them. Everyone talks about hacking productivity. Fewer people talk about hacking creativity. But the science is out there — and it's surprisingly prac...
Creativity is the last domain where AI can’t beat humans. It just can’t. AI can remix, predict, and imitate, but it still doesn’t know which “dots” should be connected to form brilliant ideas. That takes judgment, experience, taste, and...
It’s the idea that hit me like a cymbal crash during a Danny Jones podcast this morning. The guest? An historian and amateur archaeologist, Matthew LaCroix—a man without the formal training (or programmed “ought-tos”) of professional arc...
Google defines “vibe coding” as a software development practice that uses AI to generate code from natural language prompts, descriptions, or "vibes" rather than from precise, line-by-line instructions. I don’t think people are truly int...
I was knee-deep in an Ideasicle X project for a major retailer—can't name names—teaming up four of our human Ideasicle Experts to brainstorm social media video concepts. The twist? Approved ideas would get produced entirely by AI. So, we...
