Thirteen versions of the same thing

Neat piece on a photography blog called Canonblogger a few days back titled 'Can You Shoot Thirteen Views?' which challenged readers, I'm assuming them all to be fairly serious photography enthusiasts, to pick an object or scene, anything really, and shoot thirteen different photos of the object, adjusting and changing lighting, exposure, etc. to create a collection of similar but slightly different images of said object.Source - Canonblogger

The point of the exercise? That the simple process of creating 13 versions of the original image, or new takes on the existing idea for the image, is likely to produce something much more interesting and valuable than what existed at the starting point.

From the Canonblogger piece:

Go get your camera and pick some random object in your room, office, or wherever you happen to be. Now what?

Take 13 pictures of that object. Make each one different! Change the angle, change the light, change the object itself. It doesn't matter what you do, just do 13 different things. I can guarantee you that at least one of those photos will be something new, unique and even compelling.

Kind of a neat and really simple exercise, particularly given the near-zero cost of digital imaging today, (each additional picture on the camera's memory card costs essentially nothing), and considering the amazingly accessible and powerful tools and apps like Instagram that are available to photographers of all skill levels.  Creating 5 or 10 or even 20 'versions' of an image has never been more possible and approachable.

Why bother? Well as the post suggests, the more images one takes of an object, the numbers do increase the likelihood of creating something new and compelling, that much seems obvious. But for me, there also might be a lesson about our perceived capability to experiment, speculate, and explore in other areas beyond simple digital photography.

Most everything we do, projects, processes, even technology development, seems to start from a fixed place - a given set of assumptions, circumstances, work that has gone on before we get our hands on whatever mess opportunity we are inheriting. That starting point, maybe 'Image 1' in the 13 images example above, often determines a large part of the eventual outcome of the endeavor, sort of the old 'Where you end up depends on where you start' gimmick.

If you buy-in to that theory, or at least suspect it might have some truth to it, then taking perhaps just a bit of extra time at the start, to challenge assumptions, to examine more closely the status quo, to really honestly assess whether constraints are real or just imagined might prove valuable and open up a wider range of possibilities, and eventual outcomes as well.

The 'Take 13 images' example reminds us, even simple things like objects often can tell much different stories when viewed just a little bit differently. If that is true for static objects, it is no doubt true for the more complex ideas and relationships and technologies that you might be working today with as well.

Have a Great Weekend!

It doesn't matter how unique your idea is, it matters if it can be copied

Quick one for a summer Friday and then we can all get back to the beach or backyard or ball game.

If you have been in New York City's Times Square in the last decade or so, you've probably seen a crowd gather around this guy ---->

Known as 'The Naked Cowboy', (real name Robert Burck), the Cowboy strolls the square, singing, posing for pictures, and otherwise working the crowd for donations in what has to be called a clever and certainly unusual way to make a living.

I've seen the Cowboy many times over the years, and while for me, and this is not a knock on the Cowboy really, the novelty has kind of worn off and I think the entire gimmick is silly, he still seems to be getting it done with the crowds of tourists and out of town business folks that make up most of the people in Times Square on any given day.

You'd think that his angle, parading around Times Square in a pair of speedos and boots, playing guitar and singing songs, and doing it for over 10 years, would have pretty much locked up the market for this sort of thing for the Cowboy, and probably allowed him to feel some security and perhaps even a little bit of complacency, secure in the fact that his act was/is so out there that no one else would be able or interested to get in the game. Heck, after a while I bet he stopped learning new songs or jokes for the crowd, because like any good monopolist, why keep innovating when you've locked up the market?

Well, according to the UPI, the Cowboy might not have the range all too himself any more, enter the 'Naked Indian'. See right---->

Same schtick, same angle, different guy, (slightly) different costume, now battling the Cowboy for the hearts, minds, and wallets of the tourists, (as well as potentially battling the Cowboy in court).

From the UPI story:

The Cowboy, Robert Burck, who has been playing guitar and singing in his underwear and cowboy hat in Times Square for years, now has a rival in the Indian, Adam Davis, the New York Daily News reported Saturday.

Burck, who said there are no ill feelings between him and Davis, has nonetheless threatened to sue Davis if he refuses to join Burck’s company, Naked Cowboy Enterprises, a franchise that features Naked Cowgirls and other entertainers.

“I’ve been here ... 365 days, every day for 13 years and change,” Burck said. “He’s only been here 16 days and missed two already.”

Davis, who dons underwear and a headdress, said there is room in the busy tourist area for more gimmicks.

Hard to say how the dueling naked entertainers will get this resolved, but the whole sordid, (and sad), story reminds us all that no matter how unique or unusual your idea or angle is, chances are if it works it's going to be copied. It might take a while for the 'second to market' folks to get there, but if you're only advantage over them is yelling 'I was here first', well for most customers that argument won't mean much or ensure you can hold on to your market.

If there is someone out there willing to copy the Naked Cowboy, there definitely is someone out there willing to steal your gimmick as well.

Better learn some new songs this weekend.

Looking for Innovation in Recruiting Technology

Tomorrow and Friday I will be attending the Recruiting Innovation Summit, an ERE Media event, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. I will also have the great pleasure and honor to serve as one of the members of the judging panel for the event's startup competition, where six companies, selected from almost 50 initial submissions, will vie for a $10K grand prize, and get the chance to demonstrate their innovative solutions to a gathering of industry experts and leaders.

Innovation in any market often comes from the startup space, where experimentation is encouraged, barriers to change are less, and ideas often have more of a chance to find their way to the market. Having a chance to demonsrate their solutions, and to network and engage with so many industry experts in one setting makes for what should be a really fantastic experience. 

In addition to the startup compentition, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will have presentations led by lumiaries like Steve Cadigan from LinkedIn, Lars Schmidt from NPR, Mike Junge from Google, and more.

Additionally, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will stream live over the next two days, you can sign up to be notified when the stream commences where to watch from here.

It should be a fantastic event and I hope to see and meet up with anyone in attendance, and if you can't make it out to Mountain View then be sure to check out the live stream, it will definitely be worth your time.

Great Thoughts Time

You've likely heard or read about Google's famous of '20% time', their practice that allows and even encourages Google engineers to spend as much as 20% of their working hours pursuing projects of their own creation and choice. Google's history and some part of their culture is shaped by this unusual convention, most organizations would be hard pressed to define roles and manage teams and project commitments if a large part of their workforce was simply 'given' one day a week to do as they pleased.The Hamming Distance

Certainly Google has benefited from this practice as much if not more than the individual engineers. Many successful projects, (Gmail being the most well known), are said to have gotten their start as '20% time' projects. But despite how well known Google's program is, the clear successes it has helped to produce, and the seemingly obvious talent attraction and retention benefits that such freedom, (and trust), must accrue to Google; this program has not seen widespread adoption outside Google. 

So while the actual practice of formal '20% time' is more or less a Google-specific program, the idea of taking some time to step back from the day-to-day grind and think about new projects or tricky problems that may or may not be related to current initiatives is not at all unique. But the problem for most of us that have to try and find available time or seek opportunity for similar consistent stretches of exploration is that well, we just never find the time. Or we only find the time when we should be doing something else. Like actually having a life outside of work, taking a vacation, or participating in family or community activities.

I was thinking about this over the weekend when I came across the transcript of a talk titled 'You and Your Research' given by the late mathematician Dr. Richard Hamming on March 7, 1986 to an audience at the legendary Bell Laboratories facility in New Jersey. The hour or so long talk covered a fairly wide range of topics and bits of advice from the then 71 year-old Hamming, but none more interesting than his description of his personal version of '20% time', something he called 'Great Thoughts Time.'  What is 'Great Thoughts Time?' From the written transcript of Hamming's talk:

If you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important problems, and you should have an idea. Along those lines at some urging from John Tukey and others, I finally adopted what I called 'Great Thoughts Time.' When I went to lunch Friday noon, I would only discuss great thoughts after that. By great thoughts I mean ones like: `What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?', `How will computers change science?''

Very cool. Hamming invented his own version of '20% Time' sometime in the 1950s, except it was really just '10% Time', (from 'Friday noon' onward), and rather than an open and free-flowing kind of exercise, he concentrated his thinking on what he called 'Great Thoughts', those critical and truly important ideas that if he focused on them, he could do great work. If you read the entire transcript of Hamming's talk you get the sense of the competitiveness inherent amongst these super intelligent scientists at Bell Labs.

Hamming clearly believed that having the smarts alone would not guarantee a scientist, or anyone for that matter a shot at real greatness. To do great work you had to work on only the truly important problems. And to identify what those truly important problems were, you had to set aside a block in your schedule for 'Great Thoughts Time'.

What do you think? Do you set aside time to think about the biggest issues facing you, your profession, or your organization today?

Why not?

Relative Creativity

Take a look at the promotional posted for the 2009 movie 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' :

I didn't see it eitherNot a bad looking promotional effort most would say - edgy, creative kind of typeface, clever use of the actual goat in the series of profile images, stars of the film staring out wisfully into the middle distance.

Some big time names in the form of George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey also help the piece achieve a little bit more wow factor.

I am pretty sure the movie was not what you'd call a smash hit, or even a 'hit', (the IMDB page for the movie indicates about a $32M gross on an estimated $25M budget). But surely any disappointment in the eventual box office receipts for the movie would not be attributed to the poster that you see on the left, after all, while perhaps not being incredibly artistic and memorable, it certainly is a solid, 'B' kind of effort.

But take another look at the 'Men Who Stare at Goats' poster, this time in a larger context of very similar looking pieces, (courtesy of the Daily Inspiration site):

Look closely at the 'collage' image on the right - the 'Goats' poster is in there, (second row, third from the left). Keep looking

Weird how alike so many movie posters seem to be in terms of design, layout, color schemes, etc. If you take a longer look at the Daily Inspiration piece you'll see more examples of how similar movie genres, (Action, Romance, etc.), have consistently spawned similar looking promotional posters.

What might be interpreted as interesting, attractive, and well-executed when approached individually, (like the 'Goats' poster), takes on a slightly different tone and feeling when viewed through this lens. When thrown together dozens of other pieces informed with the same mindset and sensibility, the 'Goats' poster simply vanishes into the sea of sameness, (and safety, I suppose).

The point to all this? Not much of one admittedly, I saw the Daily Inspiration piece and it simply seemed interesting to me. I guess if there MUST be a point, (I think the Blogging for Dummies Book I read five years ago mentioned something about each post having some kind of point), it's that understanding context, and the ability of your audiences to compare the work we produce, the systems we design, and the strategies we devise and deploy with what else is being created, designed, and deployed is an important, and sometimes overlooked component of our success.  

It can be really easy to spring something out to our internal customers with the mindset that they are a kind of captive audience, without the ability to make free choices from competing alternatives. Kind of like a movie-goer whose multiplex has the same film running on all 12 screens. And for many workplace systems or policies that is indeed true. Employees can't choose their own HRIS if they don't like the one the company has deployed, and they can't create and elect their own medical or dental plan coverage if yours are not to their liking. 

But what they can do, and what has become increasingly easier in the age of social networking and open communication is have a much, much better understanding of competing alternatives and what is possible outside of your own organization. It has never been easier to compare almost everything about one organization's operations with others that are potential competitor's for a good employee's services. 

The 'Goats' poster is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. It just looks like every other one you've ever seen. Whether or not that is good enough is really the question.