Thoughts On the Death Star Article

All the attention my Death Star article has received got me thinking. Figured I'd share a few observations:

1) If you want something to go viral, mention Star Wars. I've published 55+ articles and even won an award for one of them. None has ever generated as much buzz & attention as Don't Come To The Dark Side. Now, I wrote this one with the same motivation & method as any other piece. I always hope my articles will be popular and well received, but I don't pick a topic or theme just because I want it to go viral - as if that's within my control. Anyway, I never imagined it'd take off like this.

2) If you every mention Star Wars, do your homework 'cause if you get even a tiny detail wrong, the fanboys will Call. You. Out.

3) Commentators who said the article was "brilliant, hilarious and important" have exquisite taste. Those who said "Ward just doesn't get it" just don't get it.

4) I really wish I'd stuck with my first draft of the metal bikini line ("they look awesome") instead of the blander version I ended up with ("they look cool").

5) Some people think we can't learn real life lessons from fiction. I feel bad for them. Some other people think Star Wars is real. I feel bad for them too.

5.b) Actually, nobody thinks Star Wars is real. But some people take the films seriously enough that other people think they think it's real. It's the "other people" who got it wrong... so I guess I'll feel bad for them too.

6) Nerds are awesome... and they're everywhere.

7) Most commentaries on my article focused on the technology issues in the article. Relatively few cued in on the leadership lessons. But really, the article was about identifying Vader's psychopathic leadership style as much as it was a technical commentary on Death Star Systems Engineering.

8) The article was about Death Stars and droids. People who think it was about aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons or the Joint Strike Fighter are revealing their own opinions of those systems. I'm staying mum on whether any contemporary DoD systems fit the Death Star model. I will acknowledge, however, that the Millennium Falcon is a B-52.

9) Despite #8 above, the article wasn't JUST about Death Stars and droids. It was also about good design approaches and the importance of substance over style when assessing the value of a particular system or technology.

The temptation to write a sequel is strong - and several people have already sent suggestions about what the follow-on article should address. Not sure if I'll do that or not. I actually have two other articles in the pipeline already, and there's a 3-month lag between submitting a piece and seeing it published, so it'll be a little while before anything emerges. But I promise, if I do a sequel, I won't wait 20 years...

Free book!

Since I've got a few new readers on this blog now (hello!), I figured I should mention that I've got a few books you might be interested in. One of 'em is even free.

The free one is called The Simplicity Cycle. It's a design book and I primarily wrote it with engineers in mind. But it's also got more pictures than words, it's a quick read, and I've heard from writers, artists, scientists and business consultants who say it's been useful in their work. And hey, you can't beat the price, right?

The other book that seems to be taking off lately is The Radical Elements of Radical Success. It's a crazy little book that was my attempt to stand the success-lit genre on its head. You can also get it for the Kindle. 

Anyway, happy reading!

Internet Famous

My Death Star article has generated a lot of discussion around the interwebs lately, which is awesomely cool and exciting. It's also pushed some new traffic to my blog, which is also cool and exciting, except for the fact that I sort of haven't been writing here lately. Oops!

Ever since I got word about being deployed, I've been blogging less and doing other stuff more. So it's kind of rotten timing that this article would come out now, when I'm not exactly in a position to continue the discussion the way I'd like to.

Nevertheless, I'm going to try to post stuff here more often. We'll see how that goes. I've got a few posts & topics in mind. Just a matter of finding making the time. Wish me luck!

Brilliant

At a Chick-Fil-A a while back, I came across these little bowls, nestled among the napkins & straws. What a cool idea - free cheerios!

This is one of the most sensitive and insightful things I've ever seen a store do. It costs practically nothing, demonstrates a deep understanding of the customers and shows the type of hospitality that should be the hallmark of any restaurant.

My kids are old enough to eat stuff from the menu, but I can still appreciate the gesture that says "We'd like to make your visit here more pleasant - here's something your little ones will enjoy."

This sort of thing is so easy and so obvious, it makes me wonder why everyone doesn't do it.

Ambiguity

Quick, what does that license plate mean? Is the driver an ornithologist who specializes in birds from the genus Sialia of the thrush family (i.e. a Blue Birder)? Or was I following a medical professional who specializes in liposuction and/or obesity (Blubber Dr)?

Sure, it could be a depressed bird watcher (a blue birder), or maybe they meant "blue" in the sense of risque... kinda hard to tell.

And so today's lesson is: when you're picking a name, a brand identity or a vanity license plate, make sure you pay attention to the ways it can be misread.

No Sale

Check out this photo, which I snapped at the local grocery store using my handy-dandy, oh-so-fuzzy, 1.3 Megapixel camera phone.

In case it's not clear, this is a sign for a "SPECIAL!" sale - regular price is $6.99, now on sale for $6.99. Save 0 cents!

It got me thinking about the mental processes involved in placing this sign. I mean, someone decided to print this tag. Someone (probably a different someone?) put it on the shelf. Presumably the person who put it on the shelf looked at it, to make sure the food item it referred to was indeed on that shelf. And at no point did anyone say "I'm not going to do this because it doesn't make sense."

I bet the person who put up this sign (and a bunch of others) got credit for doing good work after all the signs were up.

If this was just about grocery store signage, it would hardly be worth mentioning. But it's actually a small example of a larger phenomenon. How often do we find ourselves doing stupid things for bad reasons? How often do we not read the signs we post on our metaphorical shelves, or (even worse) read them and put them up anyway.

Want to do something about it? Check out the book Hacking Work for a great tutorial on how to bend & break the stupid rules that try to get you to put up a sign like this.

Shortening The Max

Kickstarter is an online fundraising platform that helps connect small investors with creative types. It's a wonderful way for people to quickly raise small amounts of money to help fund interesting projects... to get a kickstart, if you will.

I mention them because of a recent blog post my friend Kelly sent me. The gist of the post is that Kickstarter has shortened the maximum project length, from 90 days to 60.

Why did they do this? Simple - they found an inverse correlation between project length and project success. In plain English, shorter projects succeeded more often (see graph to left). Longer projects succeeded less often.

In the interest of science, I really appreciated their explanation that longer projects don't necessarily fail because they were longer. Remember, correlation doesn't prove causality. There are no doubt several factors leading to project success, and duration may be one of them. But they were careful to avoid proclaiming they'd discovered a direct cause.

I think the data is pretty interesting, and the correlation is indeed tight. While this doesn't prove a long duration directly reduces the success rate, I think there is wisdom in keeping the schedule short. That's a big part of the FIST approach - good projects have short schedules. Let's take a closer look at the interplay of some of these forces.

Maybe part of the dynamic is that when your schedule is tightly constrained, you're more focused on doing the essentials - the stuff that matters most. Longer timelines increase the temptation to overextend the scope. Longer timelines also expose the project to more changes, which tend to be expensive & complexifying, both factors which tend to go along with reduced success rates.

Bottom line: this is one more data point supporting the idea that short timelines go along with higher success rates. When you're designing your project, whether it's a fundraiser for your new album or a developing a new fighter jet, take a close look at how much time you're planning to spend. My recommendation is to shorten the timeline as much as possible... and then cut it a bit more.