“So what should we do for April Fools’ Day?”
My graduate school labmates and I discussed our scheme. We had only been together for a semester, but we were idea acrobats: tumbling and catching each other’s thoughts mid-air. Contrary to practiced politeness found in corporate boredrooms, we hurled possibilities like juggling knives. Dangerous and thrilling.
It was early 2010. The iPad had been announced, but not released yet.
We knew our advisor laughed along to our unpredictable humor.
We knew she had done a startup when she was in our shoes.
We knew she could handle a practical joke.
Or so we hoped.
“How about CAD on the iPad?” one of us suggested.
"Or a visual mood-board researcher to see all the competing products,” another said.
“I got it! This iPad is supposedly good at drawing.”
“A sketching app!” we said in unison.
Our group studied on how engineers design and experimented with ways to support creativity.
One of our pillars was the importance of hand sketching in transforming fuzzy thoughts into tangible possibilities. Concepts develop better through simple pen and paper, despite detailed computer-aided design tools later in the workflow.
Unfortunately, many students react to this visualization step with “I can’t draw!”
With the advent of the Apple tablet, we birthed our own idea: an interactive app that would lay down the guidelines for two-point perspective drawing, giving confidence to any budding designer.
The twist? The three of us were pausing grad school to pursue this venture.
What do you think? IDActive will be the premier studio for incubating creative process tools.
We maintained our poker face as our advisor reacted sheepishly to our April 1st pitch.
After the awkward pause, we broke the ice and laughed together.
This fun design sprint authored a convincing story and mocked-up a landing page. Although we didn’t pursue the idea, it strengthened our visionary teamwork. Together, we made ideas we couldn’t do alone.
The active lab of ideas
This wasn’t just a one-off prank.
I suspect our lab advisor hand-picked us for the inspirational, and often mischievous, chemistry.
People who could embrace the chaos and free-flow of originality.
People who would also channel that free-flow into some semblance of academic structure.
During our time together, we informally helped other groups. We reimagined important topics like supporting design students with portfolio creation and blending effective communication lectures.
The buzzword in that day was design thinking. Instead of staring at slide decks, we lived it out: understand, diverge, converge, test and repeat.
We loved spitballing ideas at the whiteboard or wandering through the forest of sticky notes. Each of us was comfortable with quickly scribbling a thought on the nearest crinkled napkin or making a messy flowchart with the squeak of a dry-erase marker.
When we grew tired of sitting at our desks, we walked around our campus. For instance, our 15-minute treks to lunch extended the office chatter, where we laughed out loud about the hilarious scenes from class or bumped into friends for unexpected connections.
We were unlike any other group on our floor. When we interacted with other grad students, they looked at us strangely: can you really have that much fun in academia?
Beyond the screen
Since we were the new kids on the academic block, I secretly wondered if we were doing things right. Three months before our prank, that doubt disappeared when a renowned design researcher1 stopped by our place. I had followed his work since starting grad school and he was in town for a conference.
After pleasantries, he opened with this surprising statement:
Laptops are the death of good work
He explained that successful design teams were willing to untether their ideas from the digital workspace, translating their freshly acquired field notes into physical media. The laptop structured folders and allowed file searching. However, the screensize limited the space for team collaboration.2
After touring our space and operations, he nodded in recognition. We were dancing to the same creative beat: maximizing shared physical surfaces, ideas scattered in different arrangements, and willing to dive into the digital when ready.
For the next 1.5 years, with permission slips in hand, we pioneered our clever, unconventional methods. No funding agency awarded grants for goofing off, but his validation gave us license to lead with our quirky antics. We moved forward with the confidence that the playful atmosphere of our work led to richer insights for our research goals.
Hunches
Looking back, my time in engineering and design research laid the foundation for my classroom positions in recent years. Even though we didn’t make that particular iPad app, we were always wondering how to ease the steps of bringing shepherding ideas into visual reality.
Now, as an educational technologist, my aim is to empower the use of digital and physical tools for our school community. Everyone has the potential to purposefully use the new ones, from virtual/augmented reality to designing for the laser cutter, and to generative AI. However, that power requires a thoughtful and informed approach.
My grad school experience provides a reframe amid concerns from students, parents, and teachers about AI. As we reflect on this issue, I offer another AI that can prepare us: Analog Intuition.
Intuition from our vast life experiences that are hard to encode in a large language model.
Intuition grounded in everyday sensory details.
Shared intuition among a group. A vibe. A spirit.
My two friends and I are scattered across three timezones and workplaces, 13 years later. We’ve stayed true to our graduate school mission: empowering students to be more creative in engineering and design.
If you teleported us right now to an empty, dull meeting room, we would instantly electrify it with our dynamic improv show.
Although we can’t reunite under the same employment umbrella, I can dust off these insights and use them in my current role.
Analog space
In my classroom, students instinctively retreat to a web browser first when faced with a project. Yes, researching existing solution is a part of the process, but I want to foster their Analog Intuitions first. These moments play out regularly in our project spaces:
“Can’t we just have ChatGPT design everything?” he said as he hunched over his laptop. His group’s project was to identify an organizational need in our art studio’s space.
“AI is good at many things, but your ability to notice things and create insights is the important spark. With a good foundation, the AI enhances your solid starting point. You took all those notes from our site visit,” I responded. “Let’s do some quick scribbles before we design on the screen.”
“But I can’t draw,” he muttered, twirling his pen over the blank page.
“I know how you feel. I used to fear this too. Think Pictionary.” I sketched some imperfect shapes, linked them with wobbly lines, and labeled the key features. “All you need is for the other person to recognize what you’re drawing. If they aren’t sure, they can ask.”
Slowly, his group sharpened their project’s focus. He practiced the sketching exercises and everyone else followed along.
On the next day, we were going to return to the art studio to test physical prototypes. United by their shared blueprint, the group needed to build something that could be tested on-site.
“I appreciate how precise you are with the measurements of that sketch,” I shared, “but we just need to make it with the approximate size and shape.”
“I thought we need accuracy for what we are making?” this other student asked.
I replied, “You’re right. The design software and laser cutter will handle that. We need good-enough: to see how it fits in the space. And to see how the art supplies fit in your prototype.”
The concept clicked and her posture went from frustration to found-happiness. Then, she orchestrated her group like a construction conductor: cutting cardboard, making folds, and gluing the necessary dabs to hold it together.
Fast forward to the final presentation, and their group showed the most confidence because of how they embraced the techniques. Sure, they navigated through foggy moments, but they experienced how the hands-on aspect of the process informed the digital details. With the time spent outside of the screen and interacting with the end user, they had a firm grasp on their project decisions. When they did end up using the AI, they knew how it could help them harmonize their final elements.
I hope that in future projects, even if it’s not designing with the laser cutter, they can come up with ways to wonder: what’s an easy way to test an idea? How could they change things up? And embracing “yes and” during the early stages to explore as much as possible.
Nurturing our spaces
This isn’t a referendum on laptops.
They’re just tools, like pens, pencils, and large rolls of butcher paper. Yes, there is magic inside your latest chatbot or auto-complete coding buddy.
But when we interlock the unique gears of our communal, human experiences, we generate a magnificent motion that no technology can predict. The outcome can be a well-executed class project. Or light-hearted antics. Either way, we have the chance to meaningfully create.
As AI tools multiply and screens dominate our days, it can feel like we are lost in an endless digital desert. Content proliferates easily. Authentic craft feels scarce. In this arid landscape, we use our Analog Intuitions to create Analog Oases: shared spaces to work together, quenching our need to authentically create.
These oases are more than physical spaces - they represent a mindset that emerges whenever two or more creatives gather. Whether assembling around a whiteboard, sketching inspiration on a napkin, or walking the extra mile with colleagues, these analog moments provide the fertile soil for our ideas to grow. They are embodied experiences that no algorithm can replicate, essential for nurturing what makes us human.
So put down your device.
Close your laptop.
Grab a paper, pen, and pal.
Make your own analog oasis. The digital desert is vast and overwhelming, but together we can cultivate the spaces where creativity is abundant.
Thanks to editors for recent drafts: , , , , ,
And even more Write of Passage folks inside the community
Thanks to my former lab: Spoelstra/Riley, Lebron, Bosh
Work for home, stuff that got cut. Use your favorite LLM to learn about
John Vervaeke: 4Es of cognitive science, 4Ps of knowing
Temple Grandin and visual thinking
Barbara Tversky and spatial thinking
The late Patrick Winston