Last month I read a great book about mental models, and one of the chapters was dedicated to finding "secrets" in one's industry. What they meant by "secret" was an idea that no one (or very few people) have thought of, let alone acted on. It then spoke of the now well-known Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970s & 1980s in Silicon Valley, whose trailblazing members include Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and video game cartridge inventor Jerry Lawson, among others.
These computer hobbyists would meet up on a regular basis to exchange ideas and even trade parts. As you can imagine, discussions in the Homebrew Computer Club surely yielded some fantastic sharing of ideas, advice, successes, failures, funny stories and some good old fashion venting about the tech world of those days! Those casual meet-ups contributed to its members' growth and fueled their innovation. Their newsletters initiated some of the most important technological ideas of the time, such as the personal computer!
I loved the concept and looked for a similar 'club' to join so I could get together with like-minded peers and exchange ideas in the same way. Unfortunately, I found virtually no groups that were active... and the very few that were active were just trying to sell ME math lessons! And so, I'm taking it upon myself to start a forum on my website, in order to encourage said like-minded peers to get together (albeit in an online setting, for now) to talk about whatever we'd like to, and hopefully feed off of each other's energies & experiences and essentially help each other grow.
I truly hope many of you sign up. Can't wait to hear from you all!
-Khaled Saadi