leading the rebellion: turning visionary ideas into reality

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLEADING THE REBELLION

by Stephen P. Anderson

How do Visionary Ideas become a reality?

(especially in the context of a large organization)

IDEA

IDEA REALITY

IDEA REALITY??

What are the obstacles?

How do you move past those

obstacles?

Budget

IDEA REALITY??

What are the obstacles?

How do you move past those

obstacles?Resources

CustomerNeeds

Attn toDetail

Suppliers / Partners

ROI, P&L$$$

QualityControl

Deadlines

TeamBuilding

F.U.D.

Promotion

Budget

IDEA REALITY??

What are the obstacles?

How do you move past those

obstacles?Resources

CustomerNeeds

Attn toDetail

Suppliers / Partners

ROI, P&L$$$

QualityControl

Deadlines

TeamBuilding

Process

Politics Procedure

PositionTechnology

Legal Issues

Precedence

Power

“... in all too many companies,

the entrepreneurial spark is

more likely to be doused by a

flood of corporate orthodoxy

than fanned by resources and

the support of senior executives.”

WE CARE.

People

Customer experiencesCreating value

BEING competitiveOUR WORK

OUR Work environment

BEING productivemaking things better

the business

WE CARE.

People

Customer experiencesCreating value

BEING competitiveOUR WORK

OUR Work environment

BEING productivemaking things better

the business

WE CARE.

WE CARE.+

ORTHODOXY=

WE CARE.+

ORTHODOXY=

!!#?@!!

“Revolutionaries are subversive,

but their goal is not subversion.”

Leading a Rebellion.

Leading a Rebellion.

Overcoming organizational inertia

Managing toward a vision

The secrets of innovation, and how to apply

them to your work

Building a creative team

Bringing emotional resonance to the

experiences you deliver

Embedding design practices throughout

your company

Leading a Rebellion.

Leading a Rebellion.

Leading a Rebellion.

Thirty five years ago in a city not too far away....

prior to 1973

“an epic space fantasy...”

free

prize! !

What 2 movies did George Lucas

make before Star Wars?

X

original short won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival

full feature film well received by critics

When Warner Brothers executives saw the finished product, they demanded Coppola return the $300,000 the studio had advanced for THX 1138 and other projects...

failure at the box office

Coppola challenged Lucas: ‘I bet you can’t do just a silly comedy’

“Gra!ti would be cheap, it was quick, and I thought it was really commercial” - George Lucas

!!

3rd highest grossing film for that year

Nominated for five Academy Awards

Won a Golden Globe

70’sTHE

70’sTHE I N H O L L Y W O O D :

Sci-Fi films were a money pit

Special effects houses were being shut down

After Graffiti became a big hit, they couldn’t refuse it...

They couldn’t not do it. Just in terms of politics and the political intrigue of Hollywood. That’s what it came down to in the end.

“George Lucas

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUM

Lesson I:

GAIN CREDIBILITY WITH A ‘COMMERCIAL’ PROJECT

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson II:

FIND A PATRON

‘Patron’ could be...

an outside investor

an outside advisor

someone high up in the organization

SOMEONE...

from the business worldproviding financial support or business counsel

WHO

is influentialcan defend your efforts against criticism

trusts and supports youwon’t interfere with the project

Alan Ladd, Jr invested in me. He did not invest in the movie. And it paid off.

George Lucas

“

“We had a meeting, and George said well I’ve been thinking about this thing called Star Wars...

The technology part of the whole thing was completely over my head. But, I just believed in him, his genius.

Alan Ladd, Jr., VP of Creative Affairs at Fox in 1975

Video clips from ‘Empire of Dre

ams’

(focusing on Alan Ladd Jr.’s rol

e as a ‘patron’)

1973-1975

writing the story...

free

prize! !

Name a specific film by Akira

Kurosawa that heavily influenced

the plot of Star Wars...

“Originally, the film was a good concept in search of a story. And then I thought of Hidden Fortress, which I’d seen again in 1972 or ’73, and so the first plots were very much like it.

George Lucas

Mythic Patterns?

Mythic Patterns?

orphaned sonlife of drudgery and exile

Mythic Patterns?

orphaned sonlife of drudgery and exile called to adventure by a herald

Mythic Patterns?

orphaned sonlife of drudgery and exile called to adventure by a heraldencounters a protective figurewho supplies the amulets and advice

Mythic Patterns?

orphaned sonlife of drudgery and exile called to adventure by a heraldencounters a protective figurewho supplies the amulets and advice enters the adult world

Different eras. Different heroes. Same mythic qualities.

Last year's action movie is last year's action movie. Most of them are forgotten. Something mythical like Star Wars endures...

The stories speak to something inside us that wants to know how our world lives, that wants to make order of it and find some meaning.”

Shanti Fader, editor of Parabola magazine, a publication of the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition.

“

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson III:

TAP INTO UNIVERSAL PATTERNS

What universal patterns can we tap into?

What universal patterns can we tap into?

To create a better story, Lucas looked to anthropology.

What universal patterns can we tap into?

To create a better story, Lucas looked to anthropology.

To create a better product, We can look to ____________.

To become a better designer, become a better student of human interactions...

Focus less on the end design, and more on the effects and results of the design.

Tap into universal human patterns.

1974

pitching the story...

“It wasn’t until George acted it out or told you what a Wookie was, and what it was going to look like, that it started to make sense. Because it was really a universe that nobody could understand from the scripts.

Willard Huyck (c. 1975)

“I think they were done as a substitute for arm waving and verbal descriptions, and to start budget talks.

Ralph McQuarrie

Lesson IV:

MAKE THE INVISIBLE, VISIBLE

Prototypes get people excited. And they clarify.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quadmod/523335664/

The tools traditionally used to communicate strategy— spreadsheets and powerpoint decks— are woefully inadequate for the task...”

-Tim Brown, IDEO

“

...because it’s pictorial, Design describes the world in a way that is not open to many interpretations.

Designers, by making a film, scenario, or prototype, can help people emotionally experience the thing that the strategy seeks to describe.”

-Tim Brown, IDEO

“

1975-1977

Is this possible?

“Don’t worry about how we’re going to do it, we just want to see an impression of what these scenes are going to look like on the screen...

George Lucas, speaking to Ralph McQuarrie about concept paintings for Star Wars

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUM

Lesson V:

LET THE VISION DRIVE THE TECHNOLOGY

Three letters: ILM

“We took the concept of motion control... and we made it production savvy, by tying it into a computer, which at that point was custom built microprocessors. There were no PCs... We built them from scratch.

John Dykstra

Focus on people and interactions. Not interfaces.

Design first. Build later.

“How do people think? Technology should map to that.

—Rashmi Sinha

Data

Logic

User Interface

How applications are traditionally designed:

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

Data

Logic

User Interface

How applications are traditionally designed:

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

User Interface

Magic!

How customers view an application

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

Data

Logic

User Interface

How modern applications are designed:

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

Data

Logic

User Interface

How modern applications are designed:

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

1976-1977

Perseverance.

Lesson VI:

BE PASSIONATE, BE PREPARED TO GO AT IT ALONE, AND EXPECT

THINGS TO GO WRONG

Few people believed in the script

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

ILM ran behind schedule

“...they [ILM] had pretty much spent half their budget and only produced 4 shots, none of which I would accept.

George Lucas

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

ILM ran behind schedule

Many technical problems with robots

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

ILM ran behind schedule

Many technical problems with robots

Lucas had to go to the hospital at one point

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

ILM ran behind schedule

Many technical problems with robots

Lucas had to go to the hospital at one point

Film came close to being shelved

Video clips from ‘Empire of Dre

ams’

(showing the pressure George Lucas wa

s under)

“It is amazing what you can do when you have a vision, when you have an ambition, and when you can bend other people’s will to your desire. And the thing that kept it focused towards the ambitions was George’s vision and his passion for the ideas.

Harisson Ford

Stephen P. Andersonwww.poetpainter.com

Thanks!

www.slideshare.net/stephenpa

SOURCES: