Other post ideas
Use "Jerry’s Brain" as the ultimate low-stakes icebreaker. By showing the messy, 28-year-old web of your own thoughts, you "lower the floor." You aren't the expert with the answers; you're the fellow explorer with a really big flashlight.
International! Multinational!
1. The "Script" vs. the "Shift"
Most corporate events are The Script. Everyone knows what’s going to be said, the slides are vetted, and the "Q&A" is a polite formality.
- The Pitch: "We are in a world where the script changes every morning. Stump Jerry’s Brain isn't a presentation; it's a 'live-fire exercise' in navigating a shift. It trains your team to think when there is no slide deck to save them."
Working without a deck :)
2. Intellectual "Safety" vs. Intellectual "Sovereignty"
People are conditioned to wait for the "right" answer (Safety). You are trying to get them to generate their own connections (Sovereignty).
- The Pitch: "We’ve spent decades training people to be efficient processors of other people's ideas. I help them reclaim their own sensemaking. It’s the difference between a team that waits for instructions and a team that spots opportunities before you do."
3. "The Map is Not the Territory"
This is a classic line that resonates with strategists.
- The Pitch: "Most consultants sell you a map of how the world used to be. I bring the 'Territory' (my 30-year digital Brain) and we explore it together in real-time. It’s about building the muscle of contextual intelligence—the ability to see how a change in AI affects our culture, our trust, and our bottom line, all at once."
How does it feel to think of SJB not as a "talk" you’re selling, but as a capacity you’re demonstrating?
Capturing the "Humboldtian" Moments
When you go to edit those recordings, look for these three specific "character arcs" to show potential clients:
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The "Pivot": A moment where a guest asks a question from one domain (e.g., "supply chains") and you navigate through the Brain to connect it to something unexpected (e.g., "caste systems" or "societal trust"). This demonstrates Contextual Intelligence.
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The "Exhale": That specific moment where a participant stops being "Prussian" (waiting for the right answer) and has a genuine "Humboldtian" epiphany. It usually looks like a long pause followed by, "I never thought of it that way..."
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The "Dashboard": A screen-capture of you navigating the "Brain" in real-time. This turns your 28-year project from a "personal quirk" into a Strategic Asset—a proprietary database of human wisdom that they can tap into.
I like to think of myself as a sensemaker with a decent sense of history and an optimistic view of the future.
Refining the "Sensemaker" Pitch
To make this hit home for your pilot invites and posts, you might lean into the contrast between Information and Insight:
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The Prussian Problem: Information is now a commodity. Being "the expert with all the facts" is a race to the bottom against LLMs.
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The Humboldtian/Sensemaker Solution: Insight is the ability to see the relationships between those facts. That is what "Jerry's Brain" actually is—it's not a database; it's a Relationship Engine.
The "Optimistic" Edge
Optimism is actually a strategic advantage in a high-complexity environment. Most "sensemaking" today (think doom-scrolling or geopolitical analysis) is grounded in fear. By anchoring your work in Design from Trust, you’re offering an alternative to the "control-and-surveillance" future.
You aren't just telling them what's coming; you're showing them that they have the sovereignty to build something better.
A Tactical Suggestion for the Snippets
When you edit those pilot clips, keep an eye out for what I call the "Jerry-Moment":
It’s the split second where you stop looking at the nodes in the Brain and start looking at the person asking the question.
That’s where the "Optimistic Sensemaker" shines. It’s when you show them that the complexity isn't a threat to be managed, but a landscape to be explored.
As you send out that flurry of emails, remember that you aren't asking for a "gig"—you're offering a curated liberation from the Prussian loop.
SJB Substack Post Sequence
A phased content plan for promoting Stump Jerry's Brains while laying groundwork for the bigger mission threads (Big Fungus, Embiggenment, Cyborg, Tools for Thinking). Posts are sequenced so that trust and credibility are built before any direct commercial pitch. The commercial taint risk is managed by sequence: never pitching without having first demonstrated.
Tags used below:
[SJB]— primarily books sessions[Mission]— bigger ideas, civilizational agenda[Both]— does double duty[Needs footage]— hold until pilot session recorded
Agenda: Three Parallel Tracks
- Outreach — prospecting emails with LinkedIn post link
- Content — this post sequence
- Pilot sessions — recruit friendly crowd, record, get footage (linchpin for posts 4 and 6)
Phase 1 — Origin & Credibility (before the pitch)
Post 1 — They All Leaned Forward [Both]
The story: The Quantified Self conference. You had attended two days, taken notes in the Brain, and the organizer gave you 20 minutes at the end to share. The moment you put the Brain on the big screen, the entire audience leaned forward. And it dawned on you — mid-session, not before — that the Brain itself was a form of quantified self. Nobody planned it. The insight emerged from the collision of your Brain, their conference, and a live audience.
Why it works: The surprise happened to you, not just them. That's the secret sauce in action, witnessed live. Earns credibility without pitching anything. Seeds the idea that live navigation produces unexpected insight.
Queue placement: New — add near top of queue.
Image suggestion: A wide conference screen glowing in a darkened room, silhouettes of audience members leaning toward it.
Mission thread: Extended Mind Thesis — the Brain as external cognition, demonstrated publicly.
Post 2 — I'm a Fox with a Very Unusual Den [Both]
The thesis: A self-portrait as a polymath, framed through the Berlin/Epstein/Tetlock lineage. You're not just broadly shallow — you're a fox with 28 years of deep curation as your depth. That's the "polymath" profile researchers at 3M found to be the most creative: broad across many domains, with genuine depth in at least one. Your irreplaceability isn't just your opinions — it's the specific story of how you built your knowledge practice over 28 years (the "Human Provenance" frame).
The canon to reference:
- Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953) — fox knows many things; hedgehog knows one big thing
- Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment (2005) / Superforecasting (2015) — foxes outperform specialists at complex forecasting; experts got worse with credentials
- David Epstein, Range (2019) — kind vs. wicked domains; the case for sampling widely; the polymath profile
- Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise (2012) — FiveThirtyEight adopted the fox as its logo
- Andy Clark & David Chalmers, "The Extended Mind" (1998) — your Brain isn't a tool; it's part of your cognitive system
Queue placement: New — add after Post 1. Connects to "I've Been a Cyborg for 27+ Years" in the Cyborg series.
Image suggestion: A fox sitting in an enormous, sprawling library — bookshelves in every direction, the fox at the center looking alert and curious.
Mission thread: Brain Legacy / JerrysBrainBot — why the Brain matters beyond Jerry.
Post 3 — A Guide to Using Jerry's Brain [Both]
Already in queue. Pull forward — it gives curious readers a way to explore the Brain before committing to a session, making the SJB pitch more concrete. "Here's the thing you'd be throwing questions at."
Queue placement: Exists — promote to near top, after Posts 1 and 2.
Image suggestion: A screen recording or screenshot of a live Brain navigation moment — the most visually distinctive artifact you have.
Mission thread: Brain Legacy / JerrysBrainBot on-ramp.
Phase 2 — The Secret Sauce (what actually happens)
Post 4 — The Frame You Can't See From Inside [SJB]
The insight: You're not delivering expertise about their domain. You're bringing perpendicular vision — 28 years of cross-domain curation to see the invisible frame around their project. Innovation teams and creative groups with a mission get the most from SJB precisely because they already know they have blind spots and are looking for someone safe enough to trust with that vulnerability.
Stories to tell here: Any session where you named something the room couldn't see. Ask yourself: when have I pointed out a force or framing that reoriented a project? Those stories are this post.
Queue placement: New — can run without pilot footage.
Image suggestion: A picture frame sitting in an open field — the frame itself is visible, but the landscape beyond extends in all directions outside it.
Mission thread: Standalone SJB — pure booking fuel. Speaks directly to the innovation team buyer.
Post 5 — Pattern Finding Across Domains [Both]
The aha-in-the-graph story: Navigating from Brian Arthur's Increasing Returns to Virtuous Circles to Vicious Cycles, and realizing that what's a Virtuous Circle for one market player (say, Microsoft Office as companies standardized on it) is a Vicious Cycle for their competitors — who mostly vanished. The structure of the Brain revealed something neither node contained alone.
Why it's special: The insight happened in solitude, not in a session. It shows the Brain working as an extended mind, not a performance tool. Pure Extended Mind Thesis made visceral. Also a natural on-ramp to Big Fungus — imagine if more people's graphs could do this for each other.
Other pattern-finding stories to consider adding here: [Jerry to fill in from memory]
Queue placement: New — can run any time, no footage needed. Probably the strongest double-duty post in the sequence.
Image suggestion: Two spirals mirroring each other — one ascending in warm tones (amber, coral), one descending in cool tones (blue, teal). No labels needed.
Mission thread: Extended Mind Thesis → Big Fungus. The best bridge post in the whole sequence.
Post 6 — Stumping Me Makes the Brain Better [SJB] [Needs footage]
The story: Your geeky friend replied to your first SJB prospecting email with an offer to join the pilot and a Stumper: Palantir Bootcamps. You had Palantir, you had bootcamps, but not theirs. You added it on the spot. Reframes "getting stumped" from defeat to collaboration — the Brain improves in real time, in conversation.
Why it matters: Best argument for doing the pilot sessions. Makes the format feel alive rather than canned. Also the best illustration of why SJB is not a keynote — it's genuinely generative.
Queue placement: New — hold until after first pilot, then publish with footage.
Image suggestion: A hand adding an oddly shaped puzzle piece to a near-complete puzzle — the piece fits, but it opens up new edges rather than closing the puzzle off.
Mission thread: Big Fungus seed — knowledge commons that improves through encounter. The Brain grows because someone brought something you hadn't considered.
Post 7 — Choose Your Own Adventure, On Substantive Topics [SJB] [Needs footage]
The insight: Keynotes are broadcast, one-way, downloaded from speaker to audience. You've always tried to give audiences more agency — even jazz hands in keynotes (signal: I agree, funnier and more useful than applause) is a tiny hack against the one-way format. SJB is the logical conclusion: what happens when you remove the presentation entirely. Choose your own adventure on substantive topics. Genuine pivots. The goofy unexpected connection nobody planned — the one they remember afterward, because it actually fit.
Quote to build around: "Choose your own adventure — on substantive topics." (This line also belongs on the SJB website.)
Queue placement: New — hold until pilot footage. Pair with a clip.
Image suggestion: A warm, inviting branching path in a forest — multiple directions, all appealing, none foreboding.
Mission thread: Connects to "PowerPoints Should Be Playlists" already in queue.
Phase 3 — Bigger Mission (SJB earns the right to say this)
Post 8 — On Sensemaking [Both]
Already in queue. By this point, readers have seen what live sensemaking looks like in practice (Posts 1, 5, 6, 7). Now you can go deeper on what sensemaking even is, why it's rare, and why it matters. SJB has earned the credibility to make this feel grounded rather than abstract.
Queue placement: Exists — leave in place, but let Phases 1–2 precede it.
Image suggestion: A tangled ball of thread with one strand being gently pulled clear.
Mission thread: Direct Embiggenment → Next Stacks on-ramp.
Post 9 — What If Your Thinking Tools Could Find Each Other? [Mission]
The Big Fungus post — but arriving naturally after SJB has demonstrated what one person's external brain can do live. Now ask: what if people using Roam, Obsidian, TheBrain, Tinderbox encountered each other's maps and left the shared territory better? The mycelium metaphor. Maturana's biology of love as the underlying ethic. This is the civilizational post — but it only lands because the reader has already seen the Brain in action across eight prior posts.
Queue placement: Connects to "Joy and Jerry Discuss The Big Fungus" and "Fabulous Fungal Metaphors" already in queue.
Image suggestion: Mycelium network under a forest floor — threads connecting between root systems, glowing faintly at the nodes where they meet.
Mission thread: Big Fungus / Brain Legacy / Embiggenment — the full through-line, surfaced at last.
Notes on Sequencing
- Posts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 can begin immediately — no pilot footage needed.
- Posts 6 and 7 are held until the pilot session is recorded. This is another reason the pilot is urgent.
- Post 5 (pattern finding / Increasing Returns) is the jewel of the sequence — it can run any time, needs nothing, and does more mission work than any other post while feeling entirely personal.
- The perpendicular vision cluster (Posts 2 and 4) can generate a third post — "I'm a fox with a very unusual den" is the positioning post, "The frame you can't see from inside" is the buyer-facing post, and a third on pattern-finding stories (Post 5) completes the triptych. Together they establish the intellectual case for why SJB isn't just a format but a genuinely rare capability.
Key Canon for the Perpendicular Vision Thread
| Work | Author | Year | Core idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Hedgehog and the Fox | Isaiah Berlin | 1953 | Fox knows many things; hedgehog knows one big thing |
| Expert Political Judgment | Philip Tetlock | 2005 | Foxes outperform specialists at forecasting; experts worsen with credentials |
| The Signal and the Noise | Nate Silver | 2012 | Be more foxy; FiveThirtyEight adopted the fox as logo |
| Superforecasting | Philip Tetlock | 2015 | Non-expert foxes consistently outperform credentialed hedgehogs |
| Range | David Epstein | 2019 | Kind vs. wicked domains; polymath profile most creative |
| "The Extended Mind" | Clark & Chalmers | 1998 | External tools are part of the cognitive system, not separate from it |
| Where Good Ideas Come From | Steven Johnson | 2010 | The "adjacent possible" — ideas at intersections are most generative |
| The Medici Effect | Frans Johansson | 2004 | Innovation happens at the intersection of disciplines |
Draft created: April 2026. Developed in conversation with Claude (Anthropic).