leading the rebellion: turning visionary ideas into reality
DESCRIPTION
(My presentation from Adaptive Path MX) You’ve got an idea. Maybe it’s a better process that’s a bit unorthodox. Or maybe it’s a new product idea you need to push through your organization. The question is: How does that idea become reality? Between procedure, politics, and other pushbacks, implementing visionary ideas — however promising — requires a lot more than a good prototype or story. To understand how unorthodox ideas can make it through an organization, we’ll look outside the design industry to filmmaking. Specifically, we’ll look at what it took to make the one of the most influential — and disruptive — films of all time: the original Star Wars movie. If we look behind the scenes, what did it take to get George Lucas’s space fantasy from script to screen? From assembling the right team to navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping into powerful universal patterns, speaker Stephen P. Anderson will share six lessons that we as UX Managers — and leaders — can all learn from Lucas’ adventure.TRANSCRIPT
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: