Be Dumb (in a Smart Way)!

By Jeffrey Ginsberg, Emmy-Winning Producer, Writer, Creative Director, Entrepreneur & Idea Mixologist

I’d like to introduce you to an entrepreneur you may not have heard of and who may not consider himself an entrepreneur.

He is not one of the usual Silicon Valley suspects, but rather an 89-year-old polymath who has worked exclusively for himself throughout his entire career doing only what’s piqued the insatiable curiosity that still drives his desire not only to understand many things but to make them understandable to everybody.

Wurman was at the forefront of realizing that helping others understand all the info coming our way could be a business. He knew that it wasn’t about the data but rather making sense of it that mattered.

We were and still are too often left with what Wurman calls “Information Anxiety”, which he describes as “the black hole between data and knowledge” and “the widening gap between what we understand and what we think we should understand”.

When he started, few understood the need to understand and how it would grow in importance.?

Today, explaining, sense-making, and understanding are a thriving business which is one of the reasons this article focuses on Wurman. This field still presents opportunities.

Wurman is an entrepreneur who excels at explaining. You can be, too. You’ve seen many learning aids, book summaries, quick-study guides, and Cliff Notes.

There are all kinds of courses and videos available to teach almost anything. But few excel at providing the clarity that Wurman’s works do. Wurman’s books and videos can help you better understand what it takes to help people understand.

The only way to communicate is to understand what it is like not to understand. It is at that moment that you can make something understandable.

TED Talks

Richard Saul Wurman is the creator of TED Talks, which suit his curiosity by offering short, playful, and unscripted presentations on a wide array of topics connected to Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED).

He sold the Talks in 2000 for $14 million. Not a bad return considering there is little to TED Talks besides a format and a logo (which Wurman designed). All the content is created by the ever-changing panel of highly curated speakers appearing at venues around the globe. The sale didn’t even include a podium since they don’t use one.

ACCESS Guides

Consistent with Mr. Wurman's desire to understand and explain are the ACCESS Guides, a series of books he created that are largely forgotten but shouldn’t be.

Back in 1980, he published the first of a series of travel guides unlike any other and still better than most, even though they’re now out of print and outdated. His guides intelligently blended color-coded text, images, maps, floor plans, etchings, and infographics to enlighten and clarify.?

You can view many of these books for free online at https://archive.org/search?query=richard+saul+wurman.

If you’ve seen any of the current DK “How (something) Works” books, you’ve seen the simplified version of what Wurman started with his ACCESS Guides. The DK books are fine. I own some. They will teach you stuff with their “simple” drawings and pastel palettes.

But Wurman did something more sophisticated and he did it in a pre-computer era. Wurman stresses that he seeks to clarify, not simplify.

Simplifying leaves out details. Clarifying helps you understand and engage with them.

Again, the ACCESS Guides became a business. His guides covered many of the world’s great cities and also spanned non-geographic topics such as healthcare, dogs, and baseball.

Intellectual Impresario

The first time I ever heard of Richard Saul Wurman, decades ago, he was described as an architect, information architect (a term he coined), and impresario, a word I had heard before but never about someone doing what he was doing.

I thought impresarios were showmen like Ziegfeld, P.T. Barnum, and Billy Rose, who created entertainment involving dancers, singers, and elephants. But Wurman’s “show” put big thinkers, artists, inventors, and business leaders under a spotlight and let them share bold ideas.?

While Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus went out of business, TED and TEDx Talks have spread across the globe.

Though I miss knowing there’s a grand old circus out there, it’s comforting to know I can find a "show" that spotlights intelligence, curiosity, and clarity. And even more impressive that it's become a thriving business.

After all these years of buying his books, watching TED Talks, and wishing I could afford to go to one of the early, very exclusive live events in Monterey, California, I never heard Wurman speak until this week. He is exactly as I expected him to be—an intellectual impresario–smart, engaging, witty, and insightful.

If you have a moment, look up some of his videos on YouTube as you consider your entrepreneurial future, possibly in the understanding business. Start with this one: https://youtu.be/UOHtVgQCWL0?si=SwhtK5dE5AUICS0L

Why It's Smart to Be Dumb

Now, you may be curious about what drives Wurman’s need to learn and share understanding.?He's made it his life's work and even wrote a book entitled Understanding Understanding.

It was inspired by his architecture school mentor, Louis Kahn, the renowned architect, who spoke about the concept of "being dumb" not as a negative trait, but as a valuable approach to understanding and creativity.

Kahn emphasized the importance of approaching architecture and design with openness and curiosity, embodying a mindset similar to the Zen philosophy of "beginner's mind."

While not identical, this perspective shares some parallels with Elon Musk's advocacy for first-principles thinking—an approach that involves deconstructing complex problems into their fundamental truths and building solutions from the ground up.

If you allow yourself to “be dumb” and apply first-principles thinking, what do you know that you could share with others in a way that might become a business for you? In this era of rapid change, how could you help others adapt by understanding the skills and knowledge you have?

Remember, businesses solve problems in exchange for money. A lack of understanding is a problem. People will pay to learn.

What can you teach them and how can you do it with Richard Saul Wurman clarity?