Agalia Tan

When you design something, a useful definition of success is precisely that— the form fits the context —as Christopher Alexander argued in Notes on a Synthesis of Form (1964). This is true of relationships, and essays, and careers: you want to find something that fits .

• A glove is well-designed if it fits the hand nicely.


• A relationship is healthy if

... See more

we believe in each other’s collective smallness

What we can try to do—and what only human curation, so far, can make possible—is to find creative ways out of our house of mirrors. “Leave the door open on your way out” is one of our commandments, and it is an invitation to bring parallel worlds and universes, antagonists and dissidents, renegades and rebels into our beautiful bubble, and to... See more

Not everything I’ve produced is so obviously wrong—a lot of it is wrong in subtler ways. Even writing I produced a year ago, I’m really not sure about. The rate of learning in my life is high, and there are axioms I took for granted quite recently which I now feel shifting. Looking back on writing I did about my abundant happiness, I can see that... See more

Many hours are spent debating the following:

Positioning, Company vision, Company mission statement, Core belief, Brand truth, Brand archetype, Brand map, Brand strategy, Tone of voice, Manifesto to demonstrate the tone of voice, Brand attributes, User personas, Key insights....

Even when agreement is reached on any of the above, the problem with... See more