book by Edward de Bono

Summaries by LLM

past (2025-06-15) Non-NotebookLM Collaborative Groups Of Thinkers That Instigated Significant Technological And Political Changes

Claude: "not familiar with it"

o3:

Edward de Bono’s The de Bono Code Book proposes a compressed vocabulary—dozens of three-letter “thinking codes” such as CAF for “consider all factors” or AGO for “assess goals and objectives”—meant to let people signal mental moves as quickly as chess players announce “en prise.” De Bono’s hope was that a shared shorthand would remove the friction of explaining what type of thinking one is about to do, shorten meetings, and make it easier for groups to shift rapidly between exploration, evaluation and decision. Whether that idea influences what Brian Eno later called “scene” or “scenius” growth depends on two things: how strongly a scene already depends on fast, low-ambiguity coordination, and how easily the code can graft itself onto the scene’s existing communication channels.

Scenes that grow explosively—early home-computer hobbyists, hip-hop crews swapping beats, or the first open-source programmers—usually develop a dense in-group jargon of their own. The jargon works because it is half spontaneously evolved and half socially reinforcing: newcomers pick it up by osmosis and use it as a badge of belonging. De Bono’s codes, by contrast, arrive as an imposed grammar. In practice they have seldom taken root outside workshops that deliberately teach them, because participants do not encounter the codes “in the wild,” because most digital platforms already supply lighter-weight signals (emoji, hashtags, chat abbreviations), and because scenes typically prefer playful or ironic terms that grow out of shared history rather than from a textbook.

That said, the underlying mechanism De Bono pointed to—quick tags that declare the intent of a contribution before the contribution itself—does matter to scene expansion. Open-source developers flag commits with prefixes like WIP or RFC; scientists tag pre-prints with subject codes; Discord servers route posts with channel hashtags. All of these serve the cognitive function De Bono described even though none borrow his actual three-letter catalogue. They show that a scene thrives when members can see at a glance whether a message is a proposal, a critique, a resource drop, or a call for help.

So the Code Book in its literal form has not been a direct driver of scene growth. Yet the design principle behind it—explicit meta-labels that lower the cost of collaboration—does show up in every successful creative or technical community. If you are nurturing a new scene and need faster convergence, it is worth introducing lightweight, memorable tags that fit the medium your participants already use, encouraging people to label the thinking move they are making, and then letting the vocabulary evolve organically. Do that and you will be applying the spirit, if not the lexicon, of De Bono’s codes in a way that can genuinely accelerate collective momentum.

Gemini 2.5 Pro

That's a fascinating question that gets to the heart of how communities form and innovate. The short answer is that while the goal of the de Bono Code Book is to accelerate clear thinking, its method would likely hinder the organic growth of a scene.

Let's break it down.

What is the "de Bono Code Book"?

First, let's clarify the tool. Edward de Bono, famous for concepts like "Six Thinking Hats" and "Lateral Thinking," proposed the "Code Book" as a new language for thinking. It uses simple number and letter codes to represent common thinking operations, questions, and concepts. The goal is to strip away the ambiguity, emotion, and argumentativeness of natural language to make collaboration more efficient and objective.

For example, instead of a long, potentially confrontational debate, one person could simply say:

• "Code 2" (What are the positive points?)
• "Code 3" (What are the negative points?)
• "Code 6" (What is the summary of our current position?)

The idea is to create a neutral, shared toolkit that focuses the group's mental energy directly on the substance of an issue.

How Would This Affect "Scene Growth"?

When we talk about a "scene" (like the early punk scene, the home computer scene, or an art movement), its growth depends on two things:

1. Internal Cohesion & Innovation: The ability of members to collaborate, build on each other's ideas, and create a shared identity.
2. External Attraction & Onboarding: The ability of the scene to attract newcomers and make it easy for them to join and contribute.

The de Bono Code would have a powerful, but likely contradictory, effect on these two factors.

The Argument For: How It Could Help

A scene adopting the de Bono Code could experience supercharged internal innovation. The shared vocabulary would act as a cognitive shorthand, allowing members to bypass arguments and get straight to collaborative building. It would provide a "scaffolding for thought," creating a powerful shared mental model that could accelerate the development of new ideas within the core group. This aligns perfectly with the goal of producing better thinking tools.

The Argument Against: Why It Would Stunt Growth

The biggest problem is the barrier to entry. Scenes thrive by being porous, allowing curious outsiders to drift in, learn the ropes, and eventually contribute. An artificial, formal code is a massive hurdle. Newcomers would have to consciously learn a new language before they could even participate in a basic conversation. This would make the scene feel exclusive and intimidating, repelling the very people it needs to grow.

Natural jargon (like in programming, medicine, or music) evolves organically from the work itself. You pick it up by doing the thing. A formal code has to be learned deliberately, which is a much higher cost for a potential new member.

Furthermore, scenes are not just about efficient production; they are about culture. They are held together by humor, stories, shared aesthetics, and emotional connection—all things that de Bono's logical, stripped-down code is designed to minimize. A scene using only this code would likely be sterile and lack the cultural "stickiness" that makes people want to belong.

Conclusion

While the de Bono Code is an excellent concept for a small, dedicated team with a specific mission (like a startup's engineering team or a research group), it would likely be counterproductive for fostering a large, open, an innovative scene.

The friction of learning the artificial code would create too high a barrier to entry, preventing the scene from achieving the critical mass needed for widespread growth and influence. The most successful scenes create a shared language, but they do so organically, as a byproduct of their shared passion and work—not as a prerequisite for entry.