Right now I am on a sci-fi kick. I’ll lace an entrepreneur spin in onto this post, but really the stories are just fun.
Here are the titles I have enjoyed and are worth sharing.
Enders Game movie (iTunes)
Harrison Ford (2013) Finds teams of children can command and be better space pilots than adults. Two lessons (not spoilers) worth taking below.
“Enemy gates are down”
The movie (and book) does a lot of disorientation, establishing there is no up or nor down in zero gravity, the hero orients the team with ‘let’s all call the enemy gate down’. This practicing of stating orientation starts in the practices they have. In business it’s sometimes so distracting it can be disorienting. So you can speak intelligently, slow down and agree on some goals and terminology .
Practice
During the long trip out of our solar system, the team of kids we follow practice and drill, over and over, more than the other teams. Building trust and empowering his team by splitting them up and letting people take turns leading halves of the team against each other in competition and eventually together as allied troops in later command evaluations (where as other teams still had one leader). Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you can’t get it wrong. Put in extra time with your team until you can trust them to lead on their own.
I also loved the audiobook sequel…
Enders Shadow
You will follow a parallel timeline (not a sequel or prequel but an equal(?)… of instead of an advanced placement kid, a street kid put into the same command school. I like this story almost better. Having multiple voice actors this with this audiobook makes the listening experience even more fun. If you look at the preface on this, you’ll see the Orson Scott Card wrote Enders Game in 1985, before desktop computers really took off, decades of NASA/Sci FI movies, actual science, and before the author had any kids. This came more tha decade later. I think the dynamic between kids is better here. Beyond teamwork and patience, there is a good chess-like logic to the strategy and risk analysis that’s fun listening to, a naration that movies just can’t pull off.
The Martian
If you like problem solving or science, math, and that sort of thing don’t get this audiobook unless you want to kiss your week goodbye. Right now (I am in-fact going through it a second time). Warning, I literally lost sleep over this thing rushing though it on the first ‘read’ when I should have been in bed. Basically this guy left on Mars to die, and has to ‘Macqyver’ his way though what options he has to survive. figuring out how to do that each day with duct tape, whit and sarcasm. (Watch out playing this in the car if you have kids, there is cussing). Yeah this is pretty much Sarcastic Macqyver on Mars.
Here is a sample from day 36 when our hero finally gets a break, I feel like this sometimes. I think it’s a better sample then the one on Audible.
Update: iTunes reviews report some issues, and Audible has now up a better, much longer, sample for this book.
Edge of tomorrow
Well it’s like the sci-fi/summer-blockbuster version of Groundhog’s Day (which is an awesome movie in my book) meets saving private ryan. First of all thank you for making an alien that isn’t a humanoid. Second of all yay exo suits! Lots of footage with exo suites. Need I say more? I don’t care if they would or wouldn’t work with todays guns, think about it, it’s the future.
Fun fact, even though it was received well critically, the movie did very poorly at the box office. To help make up for that they drastically rebranded. Changed the title and art on the home release to include live die repeat, dial down the mech suit on the cover, in though they are in the whole movie, and Time Warner turned a profit. I like the older poster. Anyhow for everyone: Fail better each time. Try new stuff. Make improvements. YouTube trailer
NASA and Mars
I have to thank The Martian. When I read NASA has manned trips to Mars planned and a new space ship, and testing the next day, I shouted “YES” out loud out of joy. If you are thinking the part of this project where people actually go there is so far off, because it is, the audio will help hold you over. It will probably help you get into following the missions too. When I listened to it, I thought Andy Weir must use some insanely-detailed fact checkers or have an inside man at NASA. Now, I think he just does research, lots of research. So here is this business angle.
Instead of modeling an athlete, which I think is ok, we should also put on mental lab coats on from time to time and think like a scientist with a mission at hand, our business. Measure and test that business, measure that marketing. Failure isn’t loosing, it’s just data points to help you. After all you can reset and try again tomorrow.
Get on our mailing list here, and get a ‘Fail Better’ vector poster file (PDF automatically emailed to you).
Write a comment: