All the best questions out there don’t come with one, simple, black-and-white answer. 

So, a la Andrea Wierzewsky, let’s get comfortable with asking good, uncomfortable questions.

BRAIN/Storm Activity:

  1. BRAIN: what is in your brain that you consider an area of mastery or interest? Is it a hobby? Is it a talent (sport, art…)? Is it something you wrote about in our hive document? List at least three areas/topics that fascinate you and about which you have a good deal of knowledge (don’t be humble).
  2. STORM: Spend 15 minutes in front of you computer and search the heck out of this topic. Only: don’t go to all the sites you usually go to. Ask questions of the search engine like “[My Topic] controversy” or go to Wikipedia and look up your topic and find lots of names and things associated with it that you didn’t expect and look those up. Find at least one good problem or question or area about which you did not know before you started.
  3. White all this down in a post on OpenLab. Come to a question that you truly don’t know the answer to — a destination about which you are truly Curious. Don’t worry about sounding dumb. Remember:(If your research doesn’t change YOU, then you probably haven’t done it right.)
  4. DUE DATE: Sunday, April 10 — no exceptions.