The document discusses lessons learned from cavemen and how they created and developed ideas. It mentions failures but an eventual achievement after thinking with hands and getting immediate feedback. It contrasts modern creation with how cavemen created in the past within their cavern environment before the party ended.
1 A couple of weeks ago, my cousin came over to Berlin and we thought... let‘s have a guy‘s night out! Let‘s go to the museum of natural history, where we met this guy and wondered about the evolution of mankind. Physically, our ancestors and us are basically the same, but
2 something changed over the last millennia. For instance, the products we used to have in the past could be intuitively understood because, well, they were simple, right? Well that‘s what I assumed. How hard could it be to create a stone knife?
3 Child‘s play, right? I‘m a curious guy, I got two pieces of stone, started banging them together... nothing happened. All right, I hit stronger... and stronger... until it started looking like I was performing on stage...
4 ...on a rock concert. But still I failed... for the first time. I assumed that I needed the right materials and the technique to proceed, so I cheated. Went to google, found some instructions and bought the right stones, which are flint and obsidian by the way.
5 And... Turns out, if you hit two stones together, they dont know which one of them is supposed to break. So, after I pulled a sharp fragment of flint out of my leg, I continued failing over and over again even WITH the right instructions.
6 but then this primordial activity started triggering something and suddenly, out of nowhere, I GOT it. My lessons from a caveman. You ready for this?
7 I never completely got this phrase until I had this very recent cavemen experience. I heard this from David Kelley from IDEO who got it from Perry Kleban (ceo, timbuk2). I think its important to build something or try something,
8 then reflect upon it and talk about it, NOT the reverse. I think we need to let our hands do the thinking and the talking.
9 Sure, if you dont plan enough, you will cut yourself like i did. But if you plan too much, you will end up buying your stone knife on ebay. I think its really important to experiment and become active.
10 Most of us generally avoid that. Organizations absolutely hate experimenting with their processes, culture and structure. Its scary enough to mess around with new products or services. Its just scary to fail.
11 Thats why we build models, make simulations and plan and talk before we do anything. That's why we have project planning, gannt Charts, waterfall Models, and lots of productivity tools. All to minimize risk and prevent failure, right?
12 But can you imagine this back then? Bunch of cavemen sitting in a cave, having a meeting about the hunt. One of them goes, gronk you paint protocoll on cavern wall. No, Dont wipe that away. We have enough space and no one will see that. YOU
13 are right now sitting in a cave, watching my images on a cavern wall. But when we visualize what we have in mind, when we make our ideas tangible, only then do they become reality.
14 Prototyping is a way to that - visualize ideas without putting ourselves at risk. Feedback to ideas was more immediate back then, but no one wants to go back to that and try ideas in the real world, right?
15 I have been using various prototyping methods on projects during the last 7 years, but like most people only saw it as a way to develop a product incrementally. Yet, increasingly, we at ingosu use prototyping as a way to think about something.
16. For instance, we built prototypes because we wanted to create low-cost alternatives to whiteboards. But doing the research, trying out different materials and building got us thinking about the spatial arrangement of information. We werent simply looking at reusable cavern walls anymore.
17. We were thinking of how results are formed in our process and how layers of information actually can be conveyed as layers on the wall. And that resulted in us actually doing on the walls. Caveman Style!
18. So while we were working on a product, we ended up thinking about a process. Prototyping to me is now a way to think with my hands and get new ideas, not just a way to get feedback. It also gives me a sense of achievement that just planning or talking about stuff wont.
19. Of course, its still important to reflect and then tell others about it. But we really need to stress the doing bit, or as the king said: “a little less conversation, a little more action please” Even cavemen knew that. This is what I am stressing nowaday because I really want to get from this to
20. to that – I mean who doesn’t want a lightsaber? And if YOU want to give it a try with the stones or want to hear more insights from a caveman, just talk to me on the break.Thank you all and enjoy the show.