At the book launch party  for Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds last month, Much fun took place.

(Photos by Shawn Murphy)

I set up a big wall upstairs in the back where people could write topics they wanted me to see me write about.

Wow.

It took up three huge sheets of paper, and some folks drew pictures, diagrams and other creative ways to express their suggestions.

Here’s the list. Some silly, some serious, some both:

• The history of the London Underground
• The history of the Velvet Underground
• The history of Velvet Curtains
• How to beat the house in Vegas
• Does philanthropy work for today’s generation?
• Does philosophy work for today’s generation?
• How to write a book about public speaking
• How to speak publicly about writing a book
• How to freelance as a subject matter expert
• What is the most important topic today? Why?
• Why does Steven Gerraud matter so much?
• What does fear hinder within us?
• How do you not keep up with Jones’ and not care?
• How to keep focus in a world that does not stop
• How to best disseminate and grow a disruptive business idea in an organization averse to change?
• How to avoid cynicism in a system determined to create and maintain it
• Write about me! I’m fascinating (But you’re not that bright – you didn’t say who you were).
• Why bacon is the only thing a man (or woman) really needs to survive. (Why bacon goes so well with everything)
• The nature of friendship in the era of Facebook
• Romance in the middle ages
• Extend “Complexifiers vs. Simplifiers”  – does this map to englebart/Kay or Jobs/Gates? @strayideas
• Resourceful or smart?
• Should we privilege content creators as a potent segment and work to prefer their favor vs. consumers of content & passive commenters? – Andy
• How to fix the floating plastic garbage in the pacific
• Technology as a way to reduce consumerism?
• Balance of intuition vs. data/tangible in our human experience and how that translates to business/culture.
• Non-profits.
• Should we focus on removing waste or adding new net value? – Andy
• How the future depends on our rejection of four ideas: competition, scarcity, individualism, and the endless pursuit of more.
• The randomness and influence of the general media
• I want to read the novel. Finish it!
• Crowd-sourced, real-time digital social media in the streaming cloud!! OMGR0X0RZ!!!
• Ten years from now, why will authors need publishes? What’s their value add?
• Life after Facebook, Google+, Twitter, 4square.
• Writing about writing a book about writing a book.
• How to create and share with audio in ways similar to the way people share through photos and writing today.
• How to win at everything
• How to make a living traveling in other countries (South America)
• Learn about a write about a random subject each of a month
• Why the world NEEDS EUGENICS!
• How to recover after a terminal failure.
• A day in the life of MS – before and or after .com
• What should we do about the media in this country. Where should we look for reliable insight into public topics. Who should we trust. *Is it more important to fix the media or our political system?*
• I’m originally from L.A. and have experienced the Seattle freeze. What’s up with that?!?
• Courage
• As everything gets more digital, will our children miss that we left behind fewer keepsakes?
• Monkeys!
• Monkeycats
• What does Occupy Wall street look like 100 years from now. Is it a new sub-culture / political party? Something else?