Stuff That Matters

The RPL thought for the day comes from the always brilliant Hugh MacLeod. I couldn't agree with him more.

The idea of doing stuff that matters is something I've been thinking about for a long time. In fact, that's what my first book (The Radical Elements of Radical Success) was all about.

See, it's so easy to get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent. To get distracted by artificial emergencies and to waste time on activities that nobody thought of yesterday and nobody will remember tomorrow. There are plenty of things that can be safely left undone, with little to no impact on anything at all.

Someone recently asked how I find the time to write books and magazine articles, on top of my day job, etc. Part of the answer is that writing is recreational for me. It's something I really enjoy doing (and yes, recreational activities matter!). But another part of the answer is that  writing is important to me. It's how I process my experiences. It helps me understand the world around me and has led to all sorts of new relationships with readers around the world. Writing is something that matters, so I make the time to do it.

How about you? Are you doing stuff that matters?

Change The World

It's amazing to me that some people don't want to change the world, at least in some small way. I'm a rather content guy, but I have a hard time fathoming how a person could look at the world around them and be satisfied with the status quo.

And yet, Hugh MacLeod's commentary is right - not everyone wants to make a big difference. I know some people have a hard enough time just surviving, let alone changing the world. I understand that. What I don't understand is the comfortable & competent people who don't make an effort to improve things.

For those of you who want to change the world, the opportunities are endless. The trick is figuring out how to do it.

Lately I've been told, emphatically and with great conviction, that change only happens when it's led by Top Leaders. As in, people who sit at the peak of the org chart, people with corner offices and multiple stars on their shoulders... or better yet, people who tell people with stars on their shoulders what to do. Those are the only people who can institute big, meaningful change.

Other times I've been told the only real change is grassroots driven, that it's all about Power From The People. You need to harness the power of the masses in order to bring about real change.

I'm not sure either opinion is quite correct. Instead, I think Hugh is right - the key to making change is to want to make change. I'm not sure it matters how much formal authority a person has. Ghandi and Jesus seemed to do just fine. Martin Luther King wasn't exactly a Formal Authority Figure either.

Bottom line: I'm not convinced you and I need to become CEO's or Generals or High Ranking Public Officials if we're going to change the world. I'm not even sure we need to get those people on board with our ideas... for that matter, I'm not sure how much their support really helps. I think the key to changing the world is to want to do it... and as Hugh explained, not everybody does.

Free Books! (and Cheap Ones Too!)

Wanted to invite all the new RPL readers to download their very own free copy of The Simplicity Cycle over at the Rogue Press site. It's a quick read and takes a practical look at ways to deal with complexity in your designs. It applies to everything from building a PPT deck to an organization to a technical architecture. I hope you find it interesting & useful... and you can't beat the price.

If you're so inclined, you can also pick up inexpensive eBook versions of several of my books, either from the Rogue Press site or Amazon's Kindle store. If you want to read before you buy, the Rogue Press site lets you "preview" the entire text of each book.

And for old school readers like me, there's a dead tree version of each one.

Happy reading!

Changing The World

This is a brilliant, beautiful TED talk about how to change the world... by giving a good great presentation.

I learned a lot here. I bet you will too (and thanks to Dan Taylor for the link!).


Nancy Duarte's talk at TEDx East from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

Awesome Packaging

As a father of two daughters, I have had frequent opportunities to spend countless quiet hours straining mightily to open the @#$!@!% packages that encase various dolls and small plastic toys. I'd almost come to the conclusion that the Package Engineering profession is wholly populated with misanthropic sadists who are paid by the hour... and when I say hour I mean the amount of time it takes to open the packaging they design.

However, today's post is not a rant about bad design. Quite the opposite. I am writing to report some good news of great joy. After years of suffering through unending inconveniences and unnecessarily difficulties associated with removing Object A from Package B, I am happy to report the discovery of an example of packaging design so simple, so thoughtful and so right that I almost wept.

The picture below, taken as always by my my handy-dandy, oh-so-out-of-focus little camera phone, shows this magnificent piece of customer-loving art:

In case it's difficult to tell, let me explain. This is a photo of a car charger for a cell phone. It is still in the package... except for the part that isn't. On the right side of the picture, you can see that the business end of the charger is actually sticking out of the package. When it's on display, that particular bit is snapped into a snug little concavity... but this thoughtful design allows potential customers to tug the cord free and actually plug it into their phone to make sure it fits, before actually buying it, bringing it home and opening it!

On the side of the package you can see the obligatory list of all the phone models this charger supports. But if you have your phone with you in the store (and you probably do, right?) you don't have to actually look at the list. You can just plug it in. If it fits, you've found the right charger. Buy it! If not, then keep looking.

This is a great example of literally thinking outside the box. I'm sincerely impressed that someone was able to challenge the unstated assumption that a product has to be inside the package... and in doing so, made life much easier for the consumer.

Now if only they'd do the same thing for Barbie...

Development Principles

OK, I've been poking at the still-sidelined F-22 a bit lately. Let's step back a bit and look at some of the principles involved.

For starters, I very much believe in planning ahead.  I think it's a good idea to start cooking dinner before you get hungry. It's a good idea to save up some money before your car breaks down. And yes, we need to build weapon systems before the conflict arises. As my SOCOM friends often point out, "Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur."

I also believe the future is going to be surprising. We don't know what demands will arise, what seemingly eternal threats will go away and what new ones will emerge. We can't anticipate Black Swans. The only thing we can do is maximize our flexibility and our ability to respond to the unexpected. Read Taleb's book for more on that.

I'm also quite convinced we cannot build an effective fighter jet in 20 years, but we can do it in 3-5 years (the same holds true for all sorts of other technology genres). If we spend 20 years building something, we're going to end up with something that's technologically obsolete, operationally irrelevant or both. The  basic principle here is it's important to minimize the time between stating the need and addressing the need. Our 1980's era predictions about the 21st century didn't quite pan out. And our current predictions about what we'll need 10 years from now aren't going to be correct either. There are many reasons I don't think we'll have an air war with China... and one of the reasons is that people keep predicting it as a likely future.

I think we need to take a closer look at the stuff Chuck Spinney wrote, about how less expensive systems tend to outperform more expensive systems, and simpler systems tend to out perform complex systems. I believe thrift and speed are not merely fiscal or political values. They are desirable technical attributes for a system. You want to build a really fantastic capability? Do it quickly & inexpensively (and keep it simple). And please keep in mind that the cost, delay and complexity associated with systems like the Raptor are not inevitable. We could rapidly deliver inexpensive air superiority jets if we wanted to, but only if we try. Speed, thrift and simplicity were never objectives on the Raptor.

So let me be really clear: if we want to ensure air superiority (or any other technical advantage), spending billions and decades is the wrong way to go about it.

Finally, I believe our development efforts should be guided by a prioritized set of requirements (as our Agile development friends do). Deliver the most important capabilities first. Deal with less important capabilities later. So, for example, if you're in the middle of two or three wars where air superiority jets aren't relevant, maybe bump that particular capability to a lower position on the stack.

I'm just sayin'...

FIST on FB

Just another reminder / invitation to become a FIST fan on Facebook & link up with other people who are pursuing the Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny approach to system development & acquisitions.