What's Your Best Frankenstein Idea?
“Frankensteining” is a term I learned from venture capitalist Doug Clinton.
Frankensteining is when you bring two concepts together that don’t normally go together—whether at the conceptual level, as in art and philosophy, or at the practical level, as in business innovation or policy creation. The more awkward or “cringe” or weird (and therefore more contrarian) the better: A bank that is also a spa. A church that is also a casino. A zoo that is also a gaming parlor. A social media app that is also a group therapy session. A gym that is also an opera house.
I love “Frankensteining” in theology—imagine heaven and hell are the same place (a porter potty) but the “saved” get nose plugs and the damned don’t. Imagine angels troll each other with “burner accounts,” only those accounts are other bodies. Imagine the Messiah is a GoFundMe campaign whose link is expired. Imagine truth is a founder who got a bad term sheet and is now ruled by opinion, which owns most of his equity.
You can also reverse Frankenstein from “high to low” rather than “low to high”—taking spiritual concepts and applying them in the mundane (e.g., imagine business meetings beginning and ending with prayers, or an annual report that took the form of a deathbed confession, or an employee whose official job is to be the Satan, always shooting down the CEO’s best ideas and trying to refute them or sew division in the company).
What ideas—practical or theoretical—would you like to Frankenstein? What do you learn about yourself from the exercise?
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