Innoveering Nebraska

I have another confession.  Sometimes I forget what I’ve tweeted and what I’ve blogged about.  I know it’s silly.  The formats couldn’t be more different.  But really it’s like forgetting whether you told one friend or another about something. 

So I realized today that I tweeted about how much I was enjoying Rework by Signal 37 founders Jason Fried (@jasonfried) and David Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh), but I haven’t mentioned it to you.  First you should know that the book is so good that I kept coming up with little reasons to drive the car somewhere so I could listen to more of the book.  (Tip: the Omaha Public Library’s request list for books on CD is almost always shorter than the waiting list for the actual paper bookversion of the same book.  Plus it’s just fun to be read to again.)

The book really is good.  I highly recommend it to anyone in the midst of starting a business or psyching themselves up to take the plunge.  There’s a lot of practical advice and some great pep talk sections.  Those of us who run into judgemental bored businessmen really appreciate these encouraging pep talks.  

That said, my favorite part of the book was when  the authors discussed the concept of wabi-sabi.  This is a bit like the Otaku I’ve written about before.  However, where otaku is an almost obsession for a topic, wabi-sabi is the paring down of something to its most basic elements.  In other words wabi-sabi is removing everything but the most essential parts of something.   These most basic or essential elements might be flawed – and that’s okay.  All the essential elements, no matter what their state.  The key is authenticity. 

Firstly, what a great concept.  Secondly, how great a word is wabi-sabi?  (Seriously, say it out a few times – maybe slowly, then wisper it, then shout it.  How fun was that?)  Thirdly, how perfect is the arrival of this word for this concept be right now?   Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I’ve been struggling with my big, important Sparks project.  I went too far down the bells and whistle path and can’t find my way to the wabi-sabi. 

But I think having the word wabi-sabi and using this word as a handle for my mind to grasp this nebulous destination of core characteristics and purpose it going to help.  Surely if I collect enough of these helpful bits I’ll finish Sparks.  Maybe?  Hopefully?  Definitely.  WABI-SABI!

{image citation} Purchase these wabi-sabi cups here.

My gym is at a Hilton hotel in downtown Omaha.  It’s near the airport and attached to Omaha’s largest convention center, Qwest.  The hotel also has a Starbucks where I receive a 15% discount thanks to my gym membership.  The combined gym/Starbucks gravitational pull practically guarantees that I’m here everyday. 

I do some of my best thinking, daydreaming and planning while exercising.  There’s just something about concentrating on the physical and wearing myself out that frees my mind from thought traps and thought loops.  Which means that it’s great to wander down to the Starbucks area after my work out to spend a couple of hours caffienating and capturing some of the creativity I just experienced.   

Which leads me to the topic of bored businessmen.  They have a tendency to interrupt me while I’m sitting here intently focused on my typing or scribbling and yummy cold chai and fresh fruit plate combo.  This wouldn’t be such a bother, except that they always seem a bit taken aback and/or freaked out by the idea that I’m self employed.  It’s as though this fact makes me a strange and dangerous character to associate with.  Perhaps they fear catching the dreaded entrepreneurial bug and, once the infection has progressed enough, no longer being able to bear their current lifestyle. 

I suspect that someday I’ll be more comfortable with these interactions.  Or perhaps I’ll become more comfortable with the idea of lying to them.  Maybe I’ll tell them that I’m on a stakeout or planning a bank robbery.   I’ve tried just saying that I’m working and once I said that I was working on a deadline, but it didn’t end the conversation.  I think I need to work on my conscious scowl (I’m told I have a great unconscious scowl). 

Regardless, my point is that these bored businessmen who are wandering the hotel have an impact on my confidence as an entrepreneur.  On a really bad day, their absolute incredulity at my profession makes me doubt my career choice.   

Which leads me to my last point.  If you’re going to start a business, you have to really believe in yourself and your business.  There are lots of bored businessmen-types out there and you can’t avoid them all – no matter how good your scowl.

{image citation} – This is the pool where I do some of my best thinking.

Oh boy am I excited about this!  I’m reading Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (the brothers who wrote Made to Stick).  I’m happily reading along thinking, “I’ve heard most of this before, but they’ve done a great job organizing it and putting a new, interesting spin on it” when suddenly out of nowhere I’m hit with an explanation of why I’ve been struggling with my Sparks project so badly. 

It turns out humans can only make so many decisions before we experience fatigue.  It’s why a day of shopping can be so tiring (and I was so hopeful all these years that I was worn out because I’d actually walked much farther than I’d realized).  Despite my disappointment over the lack of calorie burning involved with shopping – which was a substantial disappointment – I’m thrilled to understand why figuring out all the many details of a project is overwhelmingly exhausting. 

To take a step back, the Heaths explain that there are two driving forces in our minds.  Imagine a rider on an elephant.  The rider is the rational part of our mind that contemplates data and reaches rational conclusions.  The elephant is the emotional part of our mind that responds to situations in response to the feelings triggered.  Most of the time the rider can tell the elephant where to go, but when the rider is tired or the elephant is having a particularly strong reaction, the elephant goes where it wants – despite all the rider’s efforts. 

Both the rider and the elephant have positive and negative traits.  The elephant provides the extra energy needed to move a great distance – far greater than the rider could travel alone.  Think about how much easier it is to work on something when you’re all fired up and really believe in the worth of what you’re doing.  That’s an emotional response that’s carrying you forward.  Go elephant!  The rider can direct the elephant in a more efficient manner than the elephant would have found on its own, but the rider can also get stuck in indecision by overanalyzing the possible routes.   My rider has definitely been stuck. 

But wait, there’s more!  Understanding why you’re stuck and exhausted and generally miserable is great, but the Heaths take it a step further.  They explain a means for  enabling the rider to direct for a longer period of time without decision overload.   They not only identify the problem, but point out a solution.   You establish simple – very simple – guidelines.   This is best illustrated by an example from the book which I’ve paraphrased  and quoted below.  

In 1995 when Brazil privatized its railroad into seven branches and auctioned them, the railroad was in a terrible state of disrepair.  50% of the bridges needed repair and 20% were on the verge of collapsing.   The section that became America Latina Logistica (ALL) didn’t have much capital, but ended up doing extremely well in the long run because its managers established four rules for employees at all levels to follow in making decisions:

Rule 1: Money would be invested only in projects that would allow ALL to earn more revenue in the short term.

Rule 2: The best solution to any problem was the one that would cost the least money up front – even if it ended up costing more in the long term, and even it if was a lower-quality solution.

Rule 3: Options that would fix a problem quickly were preferred to slower options that would provide superior long-term fixes. 

Rule 4: Reusing or recycling existing materials was better than acquiring new materials. 

So I’ve given it some thought and came up with the following rules for Sparks:

Rule 1:  If the three goals of the program can be achieved without a particular feature, that feature isn’t necessary and won’t be included in v1.0.  It can however be dumped into a file containing all these extra feature ideas in a loosely organized manner which I will look at after v1.0 launches.

Rule 2:  Follow the MacNiel/Lehrer standard of assuming audiences/customers are “as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.”

Rule 3:  Limit the volume of language.  More words can be added later if users need additional explanations.     

Wish me luck, I’m going to resume my wrestle with gomockingbird while following my new rules.  Hopefully I’ll have more stamina.  (For the record I really do like gomockingbird – but in the way I like the retainer that’s nearly closed the little gap between two of my teeth.)

On  side note, I never would have stumbled across this ever-so-useful revelation if I hadn’t given myself permission to take a break to rest and redirect my mind.  Work a little, rest and repeat.  It works.  And sometimes it works really, really  well.

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Recently I indulged myself and watched a two hour Biography special on the original Star Wars trilogy.   What struck me most wasn’t the personal tragedy  or creativity.  Instead I was left with a tremendous awe of how many people surrounded George Lucas and made the Star Wars success possible.   Rest assured, I’m not saying that Lucas isn’t a genius (although I don’t know what to think about this baby Jedi  thing).  However I am saying that Lucas is only one man and had to have a great team supporting him to accomplish what he did. 

Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about for some time.  How do you know when you’ve found the right people to bring an idea to fruition?  For me, I’ve decided to rely on three factors:

1) my gut – because if my gut’s uncomfortable, I’m absolutely miserable.  Plus I have a theory that our guts might be God nudging us along.

2) their past work – what have they gotten done in the past and how much of it did they do themselves?

3) their reputation – what do people I already trust say about the potential collaborator?

In summary, I think the idea that one person can do it all is a myth.   The world is just too complex and too detailed a place for one person to know, much less do, it all.   Think about it, even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. 

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I have a terrible confession to make.  I’ve been spinning my wheels for almost two weeks on a project.  And not just any project.  It’s the biggest, riskiest, most public and most expensive project  I’ve ever attempted.  Which may explain why I’ve been trapped in my loop of indecision – or rather flip flopping between decisions. 

I’m not completely out of the woods yet, but I had a breakthrough today.  I went back to using  gomockingbird to sort out my project.  Gomockingbird is a free on-line tool for laying out the mechanics, language and page layouts for a website or web application.  Those in the technical know call these wireframes.  I’ve also heard them referred to as fishbones, but not by professionals. 

The lovely thing about gomockingbird is that you can save your wireframe and even share it with your collaborators.  The unpleasant thing about gomockingbird is that novices such as myself might find it difficult to learn to properly navigate.   Which is why I initially gave up on it.  This is also why I had to take many breaks throughout the day to avoid swearing too vehemently as I forced myself to figure it out today.  (I actually scared the dog so badly at one point that she hid under the bed.)  Gomockingbird, if you’re reading this I would love a brief tutorial like evernote provides.  Also, what’s so wrong with Explorer?  Why only Safari, Firefox or Chrome? 

To make sure I keep making progress, I’ve set an artificial deadline for myself to be done.  We’ll see if it helps.  Part of the reason I’m struggling is that I went too far down one path without proper feedback.  Once I got feedback, I realized I had to simplify.  It’s far easier to add than to subtract.  It’s hard to find the essence of something once you’ve added layers of fluff – or muck.  Maybe mucky fluff.  Say that quickly several times (sorry Mom).  So with the aid of gomockingbird, I’m starting from scratch, envisioning what I need and then grabbing it from the old content if I can.

Wish me luck.  It’s been a dreadful mental struggle and I’m ready for it to be over. 

By the way, I owe a great big thanks to @5t3ph of thinkdobecreate for recommending gomockingbird.    Check out her blog or her book if you are the least bit interested in webdesign.

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Yesterday my Twitter feed kicked up the news that @Pro_Photog (aka Matt Sherman of Three Pillars Media) released a new recruitment video for Crete Carrier.  Check it out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBgPFqYrzzY  It’s an impressive video.  The graphics are amazing and the copy is clear, concise and persuasive. 

Crete Carrier is a Nebraska company and a leader in its field.  According to its website, “Founded in 1966, Crete Carrier Corporation, along with operating division Shaffer Trucking and wholly-owned subsidiary Hunt Transportation, Inc., ranks as one of the largest privately owned trucking companies in the country, offering a full range of transportation services to our customers.” 

Crete Carrier could have hired anyone in the country to create the marketing video and it opted for a small, creative, reliable business in Lincoln Nebraska.  Wise choice Crete Carrier!   

On a side note, I thought long and hard before publishing this post.  My mom was so taken with the Wall Street Journal piece on truck drivers having more time to quilt and the recruitment video is so well done, that I feared it might push her into a career change.  Then I realized that might be just what she needs.

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One of the things I love about Nebraska, but rarely think about, is the fact that there are four distinct seasons each year.  Oh I find something to grumble about in each season (it’s too muddy, too hot, everything is dying, and it’s sometimes tricky to drive on the ice and snow), but I still value the shifts between seasons. 

I’ve given it some thought and decided that there are two major reasons I value experiencing different seasons.  First, the changes create a sense of urgency.  This isn’t the sudden “my life is quickly slipping away” sense that birthdays and anniversaries can generate.  Instead it’s a gentle, consistent reminder that time is passing.  Ubiquitous is probably the best word for this reminder.  Always there, but rarely intrusive and yet still impossible not to notice.  Everything points to these seasonal changes: my wardrobe, the food I eat, the thermostat, the driving conditions.   All these things gently remind me of the time of year and the passage of time. 

The second reason I love having four seasons is the unique activities associated with each.  I first relish these new activities and then long for the activities associated with the next.  For example, although I celebrate new sprout in May, by August I am sick of weeding and eating zuchini and ready to switch gears, make some zuchini free chili and watch football.  I’m not fickle, I just need variety. 

So what do you enjoy doing each season?  Did you go to see the crane migration this season?  Did you know that people travel to Nebraska from all over the world to see it?  The Department of Game and Parks website says “Witnessing the gathering of half a million cranes under a blazon Nebraska sunset stirs our senses and sparks  our imagination like few experiences can.”  Check out Nebraska’s tourism website for more seasonal activities. 

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