A lot of smart people will tell you that the way to accomplish a daunting task you have set your mind on, be it writing a book, finishing a redesign of your website, running a marathon or changing some aspect of your life, is to keep your eyes on the goal and take it one step at the time.
Humans are driven by emotions, and the feeling that nothing is being accomplished is one of the nastiest moral-breakers of all. Especially if you look ahead at something that requires months or years of effort. The trick of getting around this is to split the humongous task we have before us into smaller tasks and take it one step at the time.
This is nothing new, all project management tecniques work with some sort of a milestone system, very smart people like Tom Peters make a great case about how milestones can be used.
However, the best example I have ever seen of how milestones can be a life-saver, literally, is the movie Touching the Void, as Imdb puts it “The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985″. Besides the amazing story and will of the two look at the movie from the point of view of milestones. One of them measured his milestones in meters, as he inched down from the mountain.
Same happens in a marathon, you set your mind to get to the next bend, one more kilometer, a few more steps. If you think that you still have 30km to go, you have the real chance of your moral letting you down. In the same time, you need to know why you are running one more kilometer, and that is to be closer to the finish.
For me the story in Touching the Void is the best, real-life example of milestones used to get an unthinkably difficult task finished.
What’s it about? The authors Craig Stull, Phil Myers, David Meerman Scott talk about how to make products that are succesful. Or ‘resonate’, as they call it. I can’t help but find similarities with Seth’sPurple Cow book, or Free Prize Inside book.
Is it any good? Yes, it makes you think, it tells things that you probably already heard or read in other places but it does it in an entertaining way and it’s always good to hear interesting ideas from a different point of view. The three authors seem to know what they are talking about.
What are the main takeaways?
1. Your opinion, although interesting, is not important. This is a phrase you will hear a lot in the book and it’s something you need to understand, no matter what you do. If you don’t have valid data to support your claims, you are just stating an opinion, no matter what you are talking about: the background of your new website, the packaging, the color. Same idea, from a different point of view I’ve read in a web-design book (can’t recall the name). The guy was saying that changing endlessly the color from green to red to blue to whatever is just a matter of opinion and taste, the whole package counts, not your opinion, so you should stop thinking about the color and start thinking about the whole thing. Simple and powerful. Try it, it works!
2. Your slogans and missions statements should show your distinct competencies, the things you do that solve a users problem. The already famous iPod tag line ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ is a perfect example. Don’t make missions statements that talk about what you want to do, talk about what your customers need to solve.
3. When you build a product don’t talk to your existing customers who will just want a better / more colorful / bigger mouse trap, talk to your potential customers to figure out what they’re problems are (getting rid of rodents) and how to do it. Incremental changes don’t make resonators / purple cows / remarkable products (depending on the author).
Overall? Read it, it’s worth your time. Read also Seth’s books, they are very good, if not better, in some ways. These kind of books make you think and that’s an excellent reason to pick them up.
