PRISM

Hey ,

Someone asked me yesterday for the millionth time: "Why physical cards? Why not just an app?"

The short answer is:

You can touch it.

The medium answer is some mix of:

• Attention physics - we need tools designed to focus it and not disperse it
• The Ritual aspect - physical tools create ceremony
• Friction as a feature - slowing down enables deeper thinking
• External vs. internal - cards make things objective rather than personal
• Convenience/security trade-off - neat ≠ good thinking

The long answer is more esoteric. Here's my best articulation:

The Physics of Attention

A physical card demands attention in a way that pixels simply cannot.

It focuses everyone's attention in the room onto a single object for one sole purpose - to ask a good question and traverse the unexplored.

Something shifts when you pull a card and place it on the table. The question becomes external, separate from any one person's ego or agenda and lives inside of the object away from prior association/bias/judgement. It is an independent vessel for seeking knowledge.

There's a moment where normal light hits the card and reveals the full spectrum of what needs to be considered.



The physicality of Human overclocking

Tough thinking requires clarity, and I'm talking about navigating the messy, complicated jungle of human decision-making. The wild lands where there's no right or wrong, no pre-trodden path, no animated talking guide monkey, and no obvious signposts.

Digital tools promise to make this easier, but they make it harder for most human-speed-level problems.

I want to take you back. Close your metaphorical eyes (keep your real ones open to read this).

You are sitting in the exam hall, palms sweaty. Staring at the paper as it sits upside down on your desk, you can almost make out the print on the other side of the paper.

Are the questions the ones you practised?

Will there be any repeats from last year?

Oh man, this one looks thick. That staple has, like, zero legs left on the back.

The bell rings, and the frantic sound of pages flipping as you orient yourself for the next 2 hours.

You nervously finger-flip your pencil as you read the first question way too fast. Flip to the second page. This one may be easier. Nope. Damn. Actually, I have to think. Slow down. One by one. Oh wow, gotta work this one on paper. Draw a diagram. Underline this. Write a quote so I get it right. Carry the one...

OKAY STOP

Hopefully, that transitions you back to a time when you really had to use your brain in full gear and didn't induce too much anxiety. It's been a while for most people.

I wanted to return to that space where your brain has to grab handholds to overclock to achieve clarity of thought.

This is much easier to do with physical limitations, spaces, and tools like pen/paper/cards. It can be done digitally (that's why we have a version for remote use) but....

FRICTION IS A FEATURE

Wrestling with things at the precipice of our grok capacity requires just enough grip on the ledge to pull up. Our brains need those handholds - something tangible to anchor on while we wrestle with the intangible.

Notifications interrupt. Screens divide attention. People multitask. The critical question gets skimmed under pixelation.

The Ritual of Real Things.

Thinking together deserves time and space.

We should embrace more that we are cultured monkeys that thrive with a grounding in ritual, connection and story.

Plonking a big box on the table full of 500 cards, each asking a question that could take a while to answer?

That's not just functional - it's fun. It creates a ceremony around thinking and decision-making and ensures that time and space are set aside for it.

When teams see the physical presence of PRISM, they understand that this is serious work that deserves serious attention.

Plus, there's something satisfying about a beautifully designed physical toolkit. It signals that decision-making matters. And if time is set aside to make decisions, that is the most important thing.

Apps are convenient, but convenience isn't always what hard thinking needs.

The Prism Effect

"The Chamber ought to be made as dark as can be, lest any Foreign Light mingle it self with the Light of the Spectrum... and render it compound" - Isaac Newton, Optiks 1704.

Isaac Newton didn't set out to revolutionise physics. He was just curious, and if he were a DnD character, he had a +10 insight check.

In 1666, trapped in his room during the plague lockdowns, he noticed something odd. When sunlight passed through certain triangular pieces of glass, colours appeared.

Everyone assumed the glass added colour to pure white light, contaminating it with impurities.

But Newton wondered: What if we have this backwards?

He darkened his room, created a single beam of sunlight, and carefully positioned a prism in its path.

The result was stunning. White light didn't break or get contaminated - it revealed its true nature. Seven perfect colours emerged in sequence, each one that had been present but compressed into invisibility.

The prism was simply the right tool to make the hidden visible.

Every complex decision your team faces is Newton's white light. It appears unified, straightforward, and manageable. But hidden within are spectrums of consideration - assumptions, biases, risks, opportunities - all compressed together and invisible to everyday observation.

You need the right instrument. Something that refracts rather than reflects.

A screen reflects your existing thinking back to you. A card refracts it, revealing the hidden elements that were always there.

The core insight I am pandering around is:

Physical objects change the nature of thinking, not just the tools we use to think.

Dr Dan

P.S. I tested digital versions extensively. Teams would skip prompts, rush through exercises, or get distracted by other apps. But place a physical card in front of someone? They can't help but engage with it. Physics wins over pixels when it comes to team dynamics.

If you haven't pre-ordered PRISM yet, consider the $1 sampler.

Dr Dan

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