Yes, hello, everything!

Building blocks of innovation

 

For the past few weeks, our home has been a construction site again.

This time, we have been building various things of Lego. My role has mainly been a block digger for the three-year-old chief architect.

The amount of imagination and diversity in his grand plans never seizes to amaze me. The product can be of any size, shape and colour – and be combined with pieces of any size, shape and colour.

The roadmaps are flexible too: When something does not fit in the plan or the supply chain is unable to deliver a block in time, he just builds something different, in no time. And the customer always seems to be happy. Talk about agile development!

In a world of weekly reports, long-term CRM templates, mile-long product specifications and product backlogs, this is a merry factory. 

The only thing that makes me a little sad is that I can’t help wondering what makes little boys that build this:

 

 

drive this when they grow up:

  

 

Anyway, the design award of the week goes to Lego for providing the building blocks for dreams.

Apparently, some people keep the spirit when they grow up and keep building their dream Lego installations. Not having the time or the space is surely just an excuse...

While being a professional Lego builder might not be a viable vocation for everybody, I believe we all would benefit of a dose of similar attitude in our work. You know what the standard answer from my son is when I ask why he decided to build what he is building?

– Why not?

Ordinary and happy

 

 

I have been reading quite a lot of books lately. What strikes me is that in most them people are unhappy. Things go wrong, then turn to worse, before – sometimes – there is shimmer of hope in the end. 

I find it depressing. Why can’t a nice, easy life make a good story? I understand the dynamic powers of sunshine after rain and love after grief, but that is mostly not what life is about. Life is mostly ordinary. With some highs and lows of course, but mainly average. And most people are quite happy with that.

The same applies to businesses. Yes, there are a few examples where people believe in their dreams, have it hard for awhile and then become billionaires, but most business struggle, manage and grow modestly at best. Most people are happy with that too.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think most people aim for anything more. Doing OK most of time and running a local business that doesn’t fail is just fine.

Quite many are happy to be ordinary. Ordinary, but happy. Ordinary and happy. I think it is a great target.

Yet, when you look at what people post in social media, you see exquisite dinners, beautiful scenery, exotic drinks, incredible success stories and massive investment rounds. Not reporting the normal has become the norm. 

We need more stories about boring people that are doing well. About small things that made someone feel good in the middle of the grey and the bleak, success stories about people in small offices content with managing the daily routines without suffering heavily in the process. Stories about happy ordinary people.

Forget Rags to riches. I hereby declare Ordinary and happy the new cool ideal. One does not have to be terminally ill to appreciate the simple things in life.

 

Blogger's block

 

 

It has been a while since the last time I published something on this blog. In fact, it’s been almost three months, so it is hard to call it just a summer break anymore (which in deed it was in July and August). 

I have been thinking about it, though, and meaning to post something for a couple of weeks now, but somehow never really got round to it. Clearly, I have no obligation to write so it should be OK to leave it until it feels fun again, but I started wondering why I have ended up postponing this.

Is it just that going back to weekly routines after the holidays is always difficult and the first weeks often less productive?

Or could it be that I have now, after 46 blog entries (it doesn’t sound that many, but it has taken me seven months to write them), reached a crisis moment? You know, something similar to the seven-year itch in relationships and the culture shock one gets after a couple of months in a foreign country? Or the moment in a new start-up when you realise after all the excitement that it is actually hard work, even slightly boring at times.

Is there a block that every blog artist reaches after 46 entries?

For the blogger, this is the time to wonder what the point of the blog is. Contemplate a moment what makes one write when only a few good friends and relatives read the pieces, what drives the work when the early enthusiasm is gone. What do you get? Is it worth it?

Would I be better off not writing? I guess not. Having the blog has been fun and it clarifies my thinking. The blog keeps me alert and observing my surroundings as I try to find things to note down. It also serves as a nice material archive for business presentations. So I definitely want to go on. 

What do you do then, when it is tough to find the motivation to write the next entry, when the local people around you all act strange and don’t seem to understand it, when a new job in that great start-up feels dull for the first time?

You just keep going. Left, right, left, right, one more, one more, and now together, keep on trying, keep on trying...

There you go. 47.