Why MyZenith?

The Problem

This project came out of my frustration of sorts to derive meaningful value from what I have read and thought I learnt. There was a personal need to get better at retaining what I read and at identifying themes and topics I have read across various books and articles.

An example I like to use is that of the interesting connection between leadership, solitude and creativity and how solitude is different from loneliness.

William Deresiewicz explains in The American Schoolar why you need moments of solitude to find yourself, which in turn is needed to be a good leader. It touches on the notion that solitude is not necessarily for introspection alone. I came across this about an year ago. About a few months ago, I came across an article in Inc.com that rounded up various work that digs into the need for solitude in order to be creative. Bob Iger's 10 principles for great leadership as laid out in his book "The Ride of a Lifetime" (that I just started reading) touches on related themes of "Focus" and "Thoughtfulness" and how he wakes up at 4:15 am before the rest of the world is up and about in order to get the time to think. Not to mention, Thoreau's Walden captures the difference between solitude and loneliness.

I kept realising that, unless I was doing focused research on a topic (in this case, solitude), such temporarily displaced reading, while resulted in finding these nuggets of information and insights, did not make it easy to "bring it together" at a later stage.

A more common problem I have felt is the inability to find that quote or that snippet of text or even that impressive eloquent passage in a book or article that I read a few weeks/months/years ago. The proverbial needle in a haystack problem exasperated by the fact that the 'hay' is now spread across Pocket, Kindle, iBook, Evernote, Bear and other corners of the digital and physical world.



The Solution

Imagine a place where you can

  • Collect all the nuggets of information you have come across - highlights and notes from your books read on Kindle, iBook and even physical books.
  • Expand that collection to highlights from long-form articles that you have read on, say, Pocket.
  • Instantly search and retrieve all these painstakingly curated data for anything you fancy
  • Get the platform to intelligently analyse the collected data to discern patterns, themes, sentiments etc.
  • Go beyond your own sphere (and echo chamber) and interact and colloborate with communities
  • Showcase and improve your personal brand, making your knowdlege work for you!

I see MyZenith platform as being much more, a way for you to use the technological advances in various fields to help be a better version of you, your Zenith! MyZenith, as it is starting out now, is just the beginning.