Building products and being a parent are both tough jobs that require immense amounts of influencing skill. Each week I share what I learn to help leaders at work and at home go from unsure to unstoppable through influence.
What I’ve been learning
Making something feel real has a number of benefits, both for the process of making and for the end product. Stagecraft is a new technology that’s changing the way films are made. Instead of a green screen where actors have to imagine what it will look like, they can actually see the scene live as they shoot. Check out this clip to see just how cool it is:
This is part of the tech Lucasfilm is using to shoot the wildly successful show The Mandalorian.
The tech has a wide range of benefits. For starters, it can draw better performances from the actors, who don’t have to imagine the environment they are in, as they do when filming in front of green-screen. They can instantly be transported to any location, real or made-up, and feel as though they are there.
More and more fields are welcoming tech that makes it easier than ever to feel as though you are there at a fraction of the cost.
See the No Code movement, prototyping tools from google slides to InVision, real advances in remote software like zoom/slack, and 3D printing as examples of the array of tools that weren’t available a decade ago.
Prototyping is powerful. The age of making is really just beginning.
It’s a great time to be a maker. It’s a great time to be in the workforce. It’s a great time to be a parent.
What I published
“Ask yourself: What if you’re wrong?” via @johncutlefish
Great question to ask for any team, especially product teams. In a world of uncertainty, we need to validate more than ever before.
The best teams are wrong fairly often. But they build resilient systems of work.
Repeat after me. An MVP is not a complete, small version of your product. It is an experiment. It’s purpose is to seek validation.
Once you know that, you can accelerate your learning by 10x or more. That’s how you build products.
On point @allenholub.
Allen Holub @allenholub
If there is marketing planned around an MVP, then it’s not an MVP. An MVP is an experiment. It’s not version 1.0. You won’t know if it’s viable until you release it, so planning marketing activities around it is a huge waste of time and effort.
What have you been learning about lately?
Ryan
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