Eugene Kan
Eugene Kan is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of MAEKAN, a digital media experiment that celebrates creative culture. He also co-founded Adam Studios, a creative agency, with his creative and business partner Alex Maeland. Together, they’ve also produced Unexpected Connections, a conference series that brings together inventive people who are thinking across industries and bringing positive change.
If you could recommend 3 books to anyone, what would they be?
The Art of Happiness by the 14th Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
I read this book relatively early into my career. I would say when this book was recommended to me, I wasn't exactly in the happiest place for no reason other than a lack of understanding of how relationships work in our lives. At least that's the reflection I took away from it.
What I mean is that often times, our inability to empathize or understand the reasoning of others leaves us speculating over what we believe are bad intentions. After reading this, I soon realized that a lot of behaviors, when framed differently, reveal some other approaches that might be unseen as they're in your blind spots. The outcome I arrived at, was a bit more peace and understanding of the world around us. Sometimes it might result in me being over lax on certain things, but at least it's a largely balanced perspective.
When I read it, arguably life was simpler before the whole ramp-up of social media. But I think the psychology-shifting insights are still valid today.
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson
Anybody who dabbles in marketing and culture would enjoy this book. It identifies how trends are made/created and the subtle art/science of how timing is so crucial.
There are some fun examples that outline how something became popular and while I lament how everything is about "selling" these days, it does give you perspective on how to make something relevant.
It's kind of a book... “Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity
This post highlights a book called Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. I never read the book but the article speaks about a framework around creativity.
I like to approach the world around us as a series of "sandboxes" we create. These sandboxes are parameters and within those parameters is where we operate, coming up with interesting and compelling outcomes.
So the idea of "jootsing" is a nice way of describing how to set up this framework.
What are you reading now?
“Probably whatever gets served up in a random rabbit hole I stumble into haha.”
Whose reading list are you most curious about?
“I don't often look at recommendations from people per se. I usually get fascinated by topics. I read a lot, I just don't find extended readings of books the most engaging way for me to learn about something. Instead, I really enjoy the intersection of YouTube/Twitter/Reddit/indie publications as the way to provide me 50 different POVs that I then attempt to make sense of.”
