--- title: A Blog About Innovation Management, Data, and Creativity from Exaptive | Dave King description: Dave is Founder and CEO of Exaptive. He is an engineer and software architect, whose enthusiasms lie in using data and code to solve problems, communicate ideas, and facilitate innovation, whatever the subject matter. He has been involved in high-tech entrepreneurship since starting at MIT in 1993 and has designed and developed award-winning enterprise software for leveraging data. Dave speaks internationally about data science, data-driven software, modular design, and how they facilitate aha moments. He is also a published author and photographer. --- [![exaptive logo](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/Marketing%20Repo/logos/site-logo.svg)](https://www.exaptive.com/) - [Exaptation](https://www.exaptive.com/exaptations) - Products - [Exaptive Studio](https://www.exaptive.com/exaptive-studio) - [Exaptive Cognitive City](https://www.exaptive.com/cognitive-city) - Use Cases - [Innovation Management](https://www.exaptive.com/innovation-management) - [Portfolio Management](https://www.exaptive.com/portfolio-management) - [Community Coordination](https://www.exaptive.com/community-coordinator) - [Free Trial](https://www.exaptive.com/trial) - [Log In](https://my.cognitive.city) # Blog ![Dave King](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/Blog/DaveKingByBryanJones_150sq.jpg) ## Dave King Dave is Founder and CEO of Exaptive. He is an engineer and software architect, whose enthusiasms lie in using data and code to solve problems, communicate ideas, and facilitate innovation, whatever the subject matter. He has been involved in high-tech entrepreneurship since starting at MIT in 1993 and has designed and developed award-winning enterprise software for leveraging data. Dave speaks internationally about data science, data-driven software, modular design, and how they facilitate aha moments. He is also a published author and photographer. Find me on: ### Recent Posts [![A graph representation of a mental model: Tools support Work, Work requires Thinking, Tools augment Thinking, and Thinking inspires more Thinking.](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/mental-model-1200-627-1.png)](https://exaptive.com/blog/your-mental-model-is-a-graph) ## [How to create a data model that can keep up with your evolving mental model.](https://exaptive.com/blog/your-mental-model-is-a-graph) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Apr 6, 2022 11:24:52 AM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) My new year's resolution was to do more blogging and in January I wrote a blog about [12 things related to data, people, projects, and innovation that I believe we need to approach differently.](https://exaptive.com/blog/12-new-perspectives-for-2022) The very first item in my 12 item list included the statement: "We need to shift away from thinking of our data as individual tables and towards realizing its one big network. We need to mine it not by building lists but by making maps." In this blog I'd like to delve more deeply into what I meant by that and invite you to try the first step of building your own map. If you decide to [enter the "mental model challenge"](https://exaptive.com/mental-model-challenge) you can win some cool Exaptive swag and tickets to the ISPIM innovation conference in Copenhagen in June that you can join either physically or virtually! Even if you don't win, I think you'll find the exercise illuminating, so I hope you'll try it. [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/your-mental-model-is-a-graph) [![A giraffe is entering a portal but an elephant is coming out. An image about new perspective.](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/twitter-elephant-giraffe-portal.jpg)](https://exaptive.com/blog/12-new-perspectives-for-2022) ## [This year try out a new perspective on data, people, projects, and innovation.](https://exaptive.com/blog/12-new-perspectives-for-2022) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Jan 12, 2022 1:57:20 PM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) It's January of a new year! It's the time for new year's resolutions and fresh resolve to achieve those goals that remained elusive at the end of last year. Achieving a challenging objective often requires taking a new perspective. Since my new year's resolution is to blog more, I wanted to start out the year with a blog about 12 key areas where we've seen first-hand, working with organizations around the globe, the impact that taking a new perspective can have. A well-known saying, probably misattributed to Einstein, says that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." If there's an objective you had trouble achieving last year, maybe this year you need to come at it from a new perspective. [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/12-new-perspectives-for-2022) [![](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/red.jpg)](https://exaptive.com/blog/how-software-can-augment-human-collaboration-0) ## [How Software Can Leverage Collective Intelligence and Facilitate Innovation](https://exaptive.com/blog/how-software-can-augment-human-collaboration-0) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Jun 14, 2021 11:29:20 AM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Innovation requires collaboration, but due to the current state of our filter bubbles, collaboration is stuck in a rut. Data science utilizing knowledge graphs and team and portfolio optimization software can help us climb out. It can increase the scale, the intentionality, and the nuance of how we collaborate. With the right [data and algorithms](https://exaptive.com/blog/use-data-technology-and-intention-to-optimize-team-building), we can use software to optimize our teams and facilitate innovation. [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/how-software-can-augment-human-collaboration-0) [![](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/cowboy-1.jpg)](https://exaptive.com/blog/the-myth-of-the-lone-genius-0) ## [Cowboys and Inventors: The Myth of the Lone Genius](https://exaptive.com/blog/the-myth-of-the-lone-genius-0) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on May 25, 2021 3:12:49 PM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) I recently moved from Boston to Oklahoma City. My wife got offered a tenure-track position at the [University of Oklahoma](http://www.ou.edu/), which was too good an opportunity for her career for us to pass up. Prior to the move, I had done a lot of traveling in the US, but almost exclusively on the coasts, so I didn't know what living in the southern Midwest would bring, and I was a bit trepidatious. It has turned out to be a fantastic move. There is a thriving high-tech startup culture here. I've been able to hire some great talent out of the University, and we're now planning to build up a big Exaptive home office here. Even more important, I was delighted to find a state that was extremely focused on fostering creativity and innovation. In fact, the [World Creativity Forum](http://stateofcreativity.com/) is being hosted here this week, and I was asked to give a talk about innovation. As I thought about what I wanted to say, I found myself thinking about . . . cowboys. [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/the-myth-of-the-lone-genius-0) [![](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/night.jpg)](https://exaptive.com/blog/shedding-light-on-the-black-box-of-collaboration) ## [Shedding Light on the "Black Box” of Collaboration](https://exaptive.com/blog/shedding-light-on-the-black-box-of-collaboration) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Mar 27, 2019 2:05:28 AM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) In Stanley Kubrick’s famous film based on Arthur C. Clark’s book, *2001: A Space Odyssey*, a mysterious black monolith appears on Earth millions of years before modern humans. It’s the classic “black box.” We don’t know who made it, what’s in it, or how it works, but it’s miraculous and powerful and somehow results in jumpstarting the entire evolution of humankind. [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/shedding-light-on-the-black-box-of-collaboration) [![](https://exaptive.com/hubfs/hack-2.jpg)](https://exaptive.com/blog/marathons-vs-sprints-building-for-the-future) ## [Marathons vs. Sprints: Building for the Future](https://exaptive.com/blog/marathons-vs-sprints-building-for-the-future) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Dec 19, 2018 3:50:43 PM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Have you ever read the book [Travels with Charley](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5306.Travels_with_Charley) by John Steinbeck? The first part of the book is John Steinbeck talking about his lifelong affliction with wanderlust. I spent a few years living out of a VW camper van, indulging my own wanderlust affliction, so the book quickly claimed a special place in my heart. Steinbeck is such a skilled writer, and he describes the feeling - [Read More »](https://exaptive.com/blog/marathons-vs-sprints-building-for-the-future) [![An Exaptive metaphor for where new ideas come from: Jesse Kris' data visualization of the History of Music Sampling](https://exaptive.com/hs-fs/hub/346372/file-2513459341.png)](https://exaptive.com/blog/weworkontechnologythenitworksonus) ## [We work on Technology. Then it works on us.](https://exaptive.com/blog/weworkontechnologythenitworksonus) Posted by [Dave King](https://exaptive.com/blog/author/dave-king) on Feb 19, 2015 3:18:00 PM - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) I think I was 10 years old when my dad brought home our first microwave oven. It was an imposing black box that weighed a ton and had scary warning labels that mentioned radiation. The only time I had ever heard mention of radiation before was in regard to the atom bomb. We felt like we were supposed to run for cover whenever we turned it on, but, like everyone else I knew who had one, we did just the opposite. We huddled around it. We brought our noses right up to the translucent window, and watched, mesmerized in wonder, as the food inside got zapped by mysterious, limitless, invisible energy. When the timer beeped, and the door opened to reveal a steaming bowl of soup that had been cold only a minute ago, it seemed like a miracle. I remember those early days with the microwave vividly – experimenting with eggs, and chocolate syrup, and the off-limits gold-rimmed fine china that would send off an awe-inspiring barrage of orange sparks after just 15 seconds. Just 15 seconds! 15! I think that was the most important thing of all about the microwave oven – not what it did to my food, but what it did to my sense of time. 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