Daydream fatigue
Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the future we will all share.
Time to get to work.
A billion choices
Game theory has a lousy name.
When most people think of games, they think of commercial stuff for kids, like Chutes and Ladders or possibly Monopoly.
But a game is simply a system where humans, facing scarcity, make choices. Scarcity leads to choices and to competition.
It turns out that our culture, our commerce and our lives are simply the result of billions of people making billions of choices. Choices that have costs and rewards, and choices that effect other people.
If you want your idea to spread…
If you want your product to sell…
If you want to change a system…
Then beginning by understanding the game theory involved is essential.
Your job is not to “get the word out.” Nor are you likely to be able to get others to know what you know, see what you see and admit that they were wrong.
Instead, the best we can do is create great work that fits into a system where voluntary choices, made by diverse individuals, leads to the change we seek to make.
What’s the game theory of lobbying the city council? The game theory of launching a new jazz record?
It starts by acknowledging that different people have different lenses, different desires, different stories they tell themselves about what they want and how the world works.
The geeks and the nerds and the early adopters have self selected as the people who like to go first. So if you bring them something new, they might choose to be curious.
Then… what do they tell the others? Why would telling other people about your new thing help them win the game they’re playing? What’s in it for them…
And then, those people, the ones that heard about it from the first group, did they take action? How does the change or opportunity or threat you offer interact with the strategy they have about how they will spend their precious time and resources?
And on and on it goes.
Education is free, learning is expensive
That’s a complete reversal of how it used to be.
Colleges used to be measured by how many books they had in the library. Access to courses was restricted. If knowledge was power, controlling access was essential.
They even call it the ‘admissions office.’
Part of the status that comes from higher education is that they controlled who could find the information and who was left behind.
Today, of course, all of the information is there, a click away. Billions of people have a smartphone with access to everything ever recorded and written, but also to a trillion dollar AI system that can offer informed guidance.
So why hesitate? Why do we get stuck or avoid even acknowledging that it’s possible?
Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.
The system has called our bluff. If you want to learn, learn.
But we pay for it with effort.
As hot as possible
At sea level, water boils at 100 degrees C. It doesn’t matter how much more heat you use, steam is what you get.
It turns out that water this hot makes lousy coffee. Tea too.
And an amp turned up to 11 doesn’t sound that good.
Just because we can send more emails, hustle a bit harder or run the machine until it is at capacity doesn’t mean we should.
Use a lot of words
Verbosity is the new brevity.
Google felt like a miracle. We could type just a word or two (“blog“) and it would magically guess what we wanted and take us there.
This shortcut spread from Google to the search built into online shopping as well. How convenient. A few words and done.
AI isn’t like that. In fact, our concision is getting in the way of the insight we’re looking for.
Go to Etsy and search for “white pants” and you’ll get more than 10,000 matches, most of them useless. Instead, type “white pants to wear to a wedding in July in lower michigan for a 30 year old woman” and you’ll get this.
AI systems like Claude and ChatGPT let you attach a PDF or text file to your query. Here’s the useful hack:
Create a document that has pages of background.
Your medical history for example. Include your age and every interaction you’ve had with the medical system, including illnesses and drugs and outcomes. Now, every time you ask a health question, attach the document.
Or, a copy of your resume, work history, letters of recommendation and career goals, all in a PDF. Upload it every time you’re asking for career advice.
It works for business plans, for customer lists and even legal documents. Upload an entire email correspondence, or a fifty page wine list.
AI isn’t impatient, easily bored or distracted.
It’s insatiable.
PS chat GPT knows a shocking amount about you, while Claude starts over every time. Neither promises airtight security, but then again, neither does American Express, Visa or Google…
Hard to predict
The outcome of our work can be easy or difficult to predict.
It’s not hard to determine if a bridge is going to fall down or if code is going to compile. The scientific method and statistics do a great job of helping us foresee some dynamic events.
On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to know in advance if a song is going to be a hit, or if a new project is going to be profitable.
We get to pick which sort of projects we take on.
If you want to do artistic work, you’ll need to give up the certainty that comes with a reliable prediction. Part of the deal.
And when it breaks?
Most of the pitch and the demo is all about how terrific our plans are, and how well our gadget works.
But if we hope for resilience, perhaps it makes sense to show off how gracefully the system breaks.
Because it will break. Because plans won’t work out. Because we’ll be surprised.
And then what happens?
Big scale, big impact
The Beatles changed music. Starbucks changed coffee. Perhaps your project is aiming to reach a large audience.
Consultants call it market share. What percentage of the available market have you reached with your idea? No one hits everyone, but many organizations seek to be a monopoly, or perhaps noticeable in scale.
This flies in the face of embracing the smallest viable market. When we’re seeking scale and market share, we need to think about everyone. We need to aim for the middle, sand off the edges, and become the normal, practical, popular choice.
Along the way, hard-working leaders think, “Hey, if we shoot for 40% market share and end up with just 3%, we’ll still be fine.”
The thing is, you don’t get to 3% of the market by trying for 40% and failing.
You get there by embracing the 1% and doing such a good job that the word spreads.
The smallest viable audience gives you focus, traction and positive direction. The smallest viable audience takes humility, guts and responsibility.
Instead of seeking to fail your way to enough, it makes more sense to commit your way to better.
Perfect
Nothing is perfect…
But everything can get better.
There’s never enough time…
But there’s time enough to make a difference.
Someone will always be opposed to the change we seek to make.
And there’s always someone who wants to help.
Anything can happen…
But something will.
But what do they say at the meeting?
This is the way to understand business-to-business selling.
After you’ve left with the purchase order, what does the buyer tell the boss? What does the boss tell the investors or the press?
This helps decode why giant companies like Google or Facebook buy a company or don’t. It explains why McKinsey can charge 20 times as much for consulting as a former McKinsey consultant can. It explains why TV ads continue to be purchased, and why it’s so difficult for a new entity with a better product to get traction.
“What will I tell my boss?” is the key question.
If you don’t have a good answer, the person you’re calling on will default to, “it’s just like we used to have, but cheaper.”