Category: personal touch

Good Enough

Hello, artist. You creator, you. Don’t consider yourself an artist? Well, are you making something? Then yep, that means you’re an artist! (Congratulations.) You are translating this THING in your head, this idea, into something you can see/hear/taste/smell/feel, and then you’re most likely getting others to see/hear/taste/smell/feel it, too: Creating and Connecting.

Don’t mind me. I don’t mean to interrupt. I just want to see/hear/taste/smell/feel this thing you’re up to. Wait, you WANT to show me? Awesome! Gee, thanks! So, to share this with me, you’ll have to stop creating. Not forever, I know, and you might not even be DONE, but in the continuum of its creation process, you are showing me one state.

This is a challenge to artists of all types: Is this thing done enough for me to share?

If we had infinite time, money, focus, and other resources, we’d want to make it perfect. PERFECT. So with that ideal in our heads, we keep going. We keep refining. We keep tweaking. We keep… going. We keep… not stopping so that we can ship. And this is bad. Hey, don’t look at me that way. Listen to Voltaire:

Dans ses écrits, un sàge Italien
Dit que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

Essentially (from an Italian, yet in French): perfect is the enemy of the good.

Let me ask you a simple question. Do you know the future? Don’t lie, now. No? I didn’t think so. That’s OK, neither do I, and that’s the point. How do you know if this plan you have for this thing you’re making will really matter or create real value? How do you know if this thing in your head is really the best form for it to take?

People stink at planning. (What percentage of projects that you’ve been a part of have ended on time and on budget without continually updating the plan along the way to better match reality?) Scrum recognizes this poignantly human weakness and embraces it by espousing that we ship and ship often; at the end of each sprint, we have a potentially ‘shippable’ product.

At the end of each sprint, you have created a version you can share. For my earlier ScrumOfOne stories, they were ones I would share with… me: personal utility, whether it was more frequent use or a deeper use.

I started ScrumOfOne (talk about incrementally evolving THIS idea…) when I first moved into my current place. The floors were a mess, the bathroom sink was disgustingly clogged, and everything I owned was suddenly piled into my kitchen. Now what. You prioritize. The kitchen sink became a safe zone – I would shave there for a while, overlooking Mass. Ave. The toilet became lickably sterilized – my butt is high maintenance. The shower was scrubbed, but not gleaming white – baby, but solid steps for survival before living with some luxuries. The fridge doesn’t have to be wiped before populated with sustenance.

What type of artist was I then? I was desperate. I was crafting a livable space – for me – which was good enough (great for a time). And now, she and I are crafting this space for us – which is great (awesome going on awesomer).

First strive for Good Enough. Get to Great later.

You might find Good Enough IS Great, but that’s a Taoist revelation for another time…

Hide And Seek

Ever play ‘Hide and Seek’? At work? Try it some time – it’s what the cool (and productive) kids are doing.

The idea of a Sprint, a block of time to do stuff, is simple. And there’s magic in the web of it.

It is magic in that it protects a constant while still embracing change. Before a sprint, you set up what you will do for that duration – this list is called a Sprint Backlog. Once you enter the sprint, this magic box of time (I do two weeks), your Sprint Backlog is shielded from the weather. It might be calm and sunny, where you’re not really pressured to deviate from the plan. Other days, you might be in the middle of a crazy sand storm & hail front, where you’ve got what feel like forces of nature vying for your attention. Regardless, unless it is something catastrophic, Scrum espouses that you stick with implementing the Backlog for that Sprint; changes in priority and direction are handled in the Product Backlog (the larger list of things to do), which is then addressed in between Sprints. This allows you to get stuff done and not be affected by emergent distractions, usually changes in direction. Simple, yes no?

This is a strategic modus operandi. Let’s adapt this thinking to the realm of the tactical.

In the corporate environment (ah, cube land), you’ve got meetings, folks walking by and chatting, and guys flying stunt maneuvers with their (awesome, yet annoying) toy helicopters. These are distractions. Sometimes, they’re welcomed. Other times, when you’re in the zone or earnestly trying to get stuff done, they suck, and the DJ Tiesto-grade headphones that you bought for yourself as a Christmas present blasting progressive house don’t drown out the high-pitched whirring of spinning blades. Let’s apply some of the magic from Sprints and lessen the suckage:

Play Hide and Seek – block out time, space, and attention.

Block out time: Go into MS Outlook. Got a couple of hours that you would like uninterrupted? Create a meeting with one mandatory attendant – you! (awww…) Now when others are setting up a meeting that includes you, they’ll look at other available times, or think they’re super-important and double-book you while apologizing. (booo…)

Block out space: Go to a conference room. Hide. Wouldn’t it be cool if they made grown-up versions of Study Hall? It’s a sacred place where work gets done. Phones and pagers are silenced.

Block out attention: Turn off instant messaging. Turn off email. Do you really need to know the second you get an email via a pop-up in the lower-right corner of your screen?

Got any similar tactical tools you’d like to share?

Story

I went to a really long party. (How long was it?) It was 8 blocks long! (That makes no sense!) They closed down Newbury Street!! (BUT THAT’S DISRUPTIVE!!!) IT WAS AWESOME!!! (GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, AND stop shouting – it’s your own blog.)

Last Thursday was Fashion’s Night Out. Newbury Street was closed down to make way for fancy cars parked outside of fancy clothing stores with fancy people prancing around wearing fancy clothes and looking all fancy. And really really important. And cool.

Random red carpet and bands on every block aside, it was fitting to strut into a pop-up store. I’m still not entirely sure what one of those is either, but I walked into one. There was an outfit that made tailored suits, a gal who made bow ties, and then there were the guys in the back.

Hey, wanna hear our story?

That worked. I was intrigued – somebody had a story to tell me (What’s special about that?) – it was their own story. These entrepreneurs were showing off their side business: colored collar stays. (How the heck do you see colored collar stays?) You see colored collar stays through holes in shirt collars. (Don’t say they were selling shirts with – ) And yes, they were selling shirts with cut-outs in the collars.

They were excited. They had samples – hand-painted prototypes. They had the sacred holey shirts. They had business cards. They had a website from which you could order this new-fangled thang they introduced into the world. They had smiles. They had pride.

I quietly listened to them play ‘show & tell’. You would, too. They were in the zone. They were sharing a story that was their very own. They wanted to leave their mark on the world. They wanted to leave their legacy. It started with a story.

What’s your story going to be?

Life Is Like A Burrito

You go to a party. You chat up the peeps. You talk small-talk: the weather, them Yankees, the Ebola virus. You are offered a shot. You take it: yarrghthhpffft. You then ask what was in it: cheap stuff. You are asked what you do for a living. You take note of the crowd. You make a decision.

You lie.

Face it. Saying you’re a biomedical engineer results in one of two things. With the right crowd, you’ll get into a discussion about biomechanics, tissue engineering, fascinating research, genetics, medical devices that measure your heart rate and how much oxygen you have in your blood and go ‘beep’, the latest biomedical thing you read online that’s hot, weird, funky, and/or cool. With the left crowd, you get a face of feigned, short-term interest, “Oh, cool…”

So, you lie.

You say your major was biomedical engineering and that you went to grad school for more pain – I mean – biomedical engineering. Now you work for Taco Bell. Taco Bell MSG. The Taco Bell Motivational Speaking Group. You take note of the crowd. You take note of the faces of incredulousness, raining confusion upon you, sprinkled with intrigue. You compare this to faces of feigned, short-term interest: this is better.

You explain to them that not too many people know about this group, besides the tight circle of motivational speakers, and that’s how you like it. You step them through what you are first taught, affectionately called the Central Little Dogma. You deliver this while channeling your inner Antonio Banderas. You step them through Antonio Banderas: rrroll yourrr ‘R’rrrs, rrremove all yourrr dipthongs, have all yourrr vowehls vehrrry clee-ehrrr, ahnd weespehrrr VEHRRRY LAH-OODLY. AH YEHSS.

You lay it on them thick, you charming devil, you.

Life is like a burrito. Life is like a burrito where you have full control of what you put inside your burrito. You can put in the tastiest components, the most delicious ingredients. Or, you can put in shit. It is up to you. You have full control of what you put inside your burrito. Now, it is not only important what you put inside your burrito, how much and the quality, but it is also important who you share your burrito with. For just as you may be having some burrito of that special somebody, you must think about the burrito you yourself will be sharing.

You stop here. You take note of the crowd. You take note of the giggles: this is good, this is better than faces of feigned, short-term interest. You are into it. You are in the zone. You can go on. You can go on because this lie is just so damn fascinating and saturated with silliness: perfect for parties, perfect for… life.

You will undoubtedly have somebody believe you, you charming devil, you.

You will undoubtedly start to believe yourself.