There are countless people I’ve met and talked to over the years that espouse this philosophy as the cure-all answer to entrepreneurship. I posit the “Field of Dreams” has destroyed more value in the last 20-years than any other single influence. How many times have you seen $500k condos being built in cities where the median income is $50k and the typical new house costs less than $250k? Or schools build huge new additions before acquiring resources and faculty to populate them (and forget about strategies for new students)? How about companies building new stores in fields 10-miles from the nearest resident population? And, the countless .COM companies that never acquired the user-base necessary to support themselves.

For instance, in Omaha a major development effort has been put into the Midtown Crossings area. Retail stores, restaurants, apartments, condos, etc. have been built with the assumption that people will populate them. There isn’t anything noteworthy geographically (other than being somewhat central and easy access to major arteries). Nothing interesting for the artistic community. Close to a couple colleges, but there are dozens of more affordable and equally nice apartments as close or closer. Millions of dollars have been poured into this project, but turnout (as I understand) has been less than anticipated. Why? Well, for one thing the prices are absurdly high. The cost of living and median income in Omaha is comparable to most of the Midwest. Yet, the condo prices are 3-4x higher than other housing per foot. For another, simply building something will not create demand for itself!

Building “it”

Building something is typically important for a business. Whether building a physical product, collection of services, menu of items, list of tracks, or intellectual property clearly a construction phase is necessary. However, before industry goes off and creates stuff (supply) the people behind the business should identify a good market (demand). The creation of supply without identifying demand is not only foolhardy; it’s bloody naïve.

For “them”

Which brings me to my second point, “they” will never come. They, also referred to as them, users, consumers, communities and social networks, are vague concepts of the business people’s hopes and dreams. Without clear definition, the company will fail, and “they” will solve their needs with other products elsewhere.

I recently listened to an excellent lecture at Oxford by Pegram Harrison, in which he made a similar comment about “Field of Dreams.” The damage of this movie can be seen in many places. Companies failing to grok social networking en masse, government projects grossly out of proportion with needs, high-flying IPO failures, and catastrophic corporate mergers are all indicative of the mislead mentality that one only needs to “build it for them to come.”

In short, “Field of Dreams” ruined a generation. Next I’ll analyze the philosophies of Ayn Rand and John Maynard Keynes that led to “Field of Dreams” and so much more.

Once upon a time (I was about 11 or 12 at the time), I was invited to a mentorship program. We were supposed to pick a profession. The organization then found a mentor in that profession to offer advice on what the profession is really about, how to go about getting into it, etc. The organizers didn’t really know what to say when I told them I wanted to be a magician. They suggested that wasn’t a profession. Well, I had to ask what profession people like Teller, David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy (it was the early ”90s at the time) and Harry Blackstone used when filling out their taxes.

Now, it just so happens I grew up in Fort Wayne, IN… which happens to be the home of Dick Stoner. For those of you not familiar with the niche world of magic, Dick Stoner is a fairly well known name. He did a bunch of corporate retreats and such, but also developed small chain of the best magic stores in the Midwest (the flagship store is in downtown Fort Wayne).

Eventually, the organizers contacted Dick and asked if he’d be interested in mentoring a student (me). At first he was hesitant (after all, most 12-year-olds probably make pretty bad apprentices). But after hearing he didn’t have a profession, he decided to mentor me (partly out of spite I suspect). This is when I started to learn everything needed in business.

First, let’s cover the basics of what magic teaches. Penn does an excellent job of defining and, with the help of Teller, demonstrating the seven basic principles of magic. On a side note, Teller has one of the coolest houses ever built.

Seven Principles of Magic

1. Palm: To hold an object in an apparently empty hand
2. Ditch: To secretly dispose of an unneeded object
3. Steal: To secretly obtain a needed object (the opposite of ditch)
4. Load: To secretly move the object to where it”s needed
5. Simulation: To give the impression that something that hasn’t happened has
6. Misdirection: To lead attention away from a secret move
7. Switch: To secretly exchange one object for another

I would like to append one more vital ingredient that magic requires, but isn’t magic specific – style. Anybody that has had a chance to see Penn & Teller should recognize their distinct and spectacular presentation style. In fact, every great magician I’ve ever seen or read about has a distinct style of presentation from Houdini and Blackstone to Teller and Blaine (I don’t particularly care for Blaine, but he has found a degree of commercial success). Stoner helped me understand the importance of presentation more than anything else. Even the simplest slight of hand can be impressive with the right presentation.

I’m not suggesting that one should be deceptive. In fact, I’d argue magic is anything but deceptive. The entire audience knows that it is an illusion. The audience is attempting to out think the illusion. The performer, on the other hand, is explicitly telling the audience “this isn’t real,” before convincing the audience that it looks real. It’s a bit like the movie The Usual Suspects, which starts by showing you what happened and then spends 90 minutes convincing you that you didn’t see the first few minutes. These principles simply help you (the entrepreneur or intrapreneur) present your case in the best possible light.

Now I present my modified principles in light of their benefits to business and entrepreneurism.

Eight Principles of Entrepreneurism

1. Palm: Don’t overload people with too much information. If you’re speaking to a layperson or group, don’t use jargon or get into technical details. If you”re working with engineers, don’t bother reviewing marketing details. You might need to have a grasp on all of the moving parts, but people actually moving the parts usually don’t need that much detail. Make sure everybody understands the big picture (what you”re building) and how their part fits. Then, focus on their particular piece. That’s what is important to them after all. Engineers don’t care about market surveys and marketers don’t know the first thing about IC architecture. Now, I believe in transparency as well. So, if an engineer specifically asks about the marketing plans, I’m more than happy to spend two hours explaining the marketing plan and how it relates to engineering. However, it’s rare people want too much detail outside of their specialty, because it takes lots of time and generally isn’t too valuable (beyond simple academic curiosity). Learn when to palm information that isn’t pertinent.
2. Ditch: Know when an idea or component no longer has potential positive benefit to the firm or society. It’s important to constantly remind yourself that each milestone represents a go / no-go decision point. All of the thought and energy previously expended become sunk costs (to be fair, you might be able to recover some value on a similar or related project, but I generally find it’s better to assume nothing can be salvaged when making the decision). Learn when to ditch a failed course of action.
3. Steal: Steal has some pretty negative connotations in business. Rather, consider this more of a legitimate acquisition. Always keep your eyes on the evolution of the markets. Attempt to understand what is going on and how it interrelates. Use this knowledge to place yourself in the room discussing the next big idea in your area. This is hardly an easy task, but if you genuinely contribute value to the conversation, all you need to do is know where an when to show up. Ultimately, learn to identify worthy ideas.
4. Load: Once you”re in the room discussing the next big idea, be sure to load it with lots of smart people with different opinions. A wise man once suggested that we “always strive to be the dumbest person in the room.” Lincoln went on to create a “team of rivals” that succeeded where most would have failed. This will lead to more robust ideas and improved likelihood of success. Given the degree of risk and uncertainty inherent in entrepreneurism (and I’m referring to Schumpeter’s high entrepreneur for the economists reading), anything that can improve the chance of success is hugely beneficial. Learn to load your teams with smart rivals.
5. Simulation: Don”t be afraid to use props when they make sense. People generally have trouble accurately imagining something that doesn’t exist yet. It’s almost impossible for an untrained eye to understand what a house will be like when looking at blueprints; what using an application will be like looking at wireframes or screenshots; what a device will feel like looking at a CAD rendering. Building mockups, proofs of concept and prototypes helps those untrained eyes grok the endgame. Engineers might understand widget blueprints, but the investors that support building widgets and marketers  selling widgets probably won’t. This is one way to alleviate the problems with transferring tacit or mostly tacit knowledge. These tactics also help find problems with an idea before investing substantial resources. Learn to simulate key experiences for stakeholders.
6. Misdirection: I’m a bit hesitant to leave this on the list, but it is important. First, allow me to again emphasize that I am not suggesting you deceive anybody. That being said, sometimes it helps to apply responsible blinders to keep people focussed. One of my former professors, Mel Fugate, once said, “a manager’s primary purpose is to take all of the blame and give all of the credit.” To accomplish this task, a good manager misdirects his/her managers. A good manager convinces everybody outside of their direct reports that the mistakes made were entirely the manager’s fault. Successes, on the other hand, are attributed to a great team. Although subtle, this encourages subordinates to go above and beyond if necessary while superiors recognize an accountable and well respected manager. Learn to strategically misdirect superiors to support subordinates.
7. Switch: Even before I started studying magic, I spent quite a bit of time reading about space and its exploration. Now, believe it or not, this was before the Internet as we know it existed, so I wrote snail-mail letters to every NASA facility asking for more information, pictures etc. There are several boxes worth still sitting in a closet at my parent’s house, I’m certain. Now, whether you’re doing a magic show or sending a probe to Titan (a Saturn moon that might be able to support microbial life), it’s pretty important to have a Plan B… and C and D and E. There should always be a way, even if only loosely considered, to switch a risk into a solution. I learned ways to overcome hecklers, people trying to ruin tricks, obnoxious audience members, etc. At one point, I had several hundred jokes memorized to help turn those problems into opportunities in the middle of the show (which is just part of my style). A few years ago I got into my car and drove till I found a job… of course, I had several solid phone interviews already under my belt. About 1200 miles and 36 hours later I had two job offers in hand and willing to bid up my compensation. I wish I could simply say I’m that good, but I’m not. I had Plan Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo. Luckily Alpha worked out that time, but I had friends with couches and additional interviews lined up in a half-dozen cities around the country. Learn to think on your feet and switch out potential risks for potential solutions quickly.
8. Style: Everybody should have a presentation style. A loose code that defines your approach to managing problems. I tend to be laid back and casual. I prefer to use humor to deflate a situation and logic to solve the problem (think geeky humor followed by Spock-like problem-solving). I also enjoy a good debate, so if you have a question or idea, be prepared for a lengthy set of questions and suggestions. I present that by wearing red Chuck Taylor’s (favorite footwear of the tenth Doctor, David Tennant), jeans and a simple dress shirt (probably worn a few more times than recommended). That”s my style. It has evolved over the years, but there are common themes for at least the last 10-15 years. And, much to my dismay, most people around town recognize that style… although they probably don’t know why I wear red shoes. This helps a) people remember who I am and b) help my reputation precede me. I’ve been introduced to people who recognize my shoes and then associate some previous conversation or person to me before we even begin to talk. Now, assuming you have a good reputation to spread around, that helps meetings go more smoothly and more quickly. Furthermore, people quickly get a good idea of how I operate. If they’re comfortable with my style, it’s much easier to do business with me. It doesn’t matter if we met in the boardroom or the bar, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I am. This, of course, also helps me be more memorable when presenting an idea or discussing a potential deal. Learn to develop, espouse and consistently apply your style.

Despite several degrees in business and a few years of experience, my most valuable lessons in business and entrepreneurism hearken back to magic. I use these principles every day and encourage both superiors and subordinates to consider the valuable lessons magic offers. By the way, your card is the Three of Clubs.

Perhaps not as clever following René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, yet still valid (I would have said that back in 1928, except I wasn’t invited to the French exhibition and webpages weren’t in common use yet… and my parents hadn’t been born).  Consider René’s point for a moment.  The image of a pipe cannot be smoked; therefore, it is not a pipe.  Surrealism has always fascinated me as a topic of philosophical discussion (which, I confess, might have been encouraged by my favorite college pastime – screwing with inebriated philosophy majors).  Regardless, the topic seems to have some weight in the world of user experience design (UXD).  But first, allow me to expand on my initial observation.

The Treachery of Images - 1928-1929

How do you define a webpage?  Is it the rendered output of the browser?  The content contained on the page?  The underlying code such as HTML, CSS, javascript, Flash and such?  The underlying ones and zeros representing ASCII and various compressed media files that store and transfer that code?  Is it the local copy stored temporarily for the browser?  The copy on my server (and if so, which one)?

As you can see, the whole concept of what we call a “webpage” gets pretty convoluted when you try to nail it down.  We all (or at least I hope all of you) understand implicitly what a webpage is.  But the definition seems to be a bit elusive.  Now, I’m pretty confident several of those proposed definitions could suffice, but none of them would really be complete.  That’s why, no matter how you define it, I can refute your definition and say “this is not a webpage.”

What’s the point of all this babbling about semantics?  How does it relate to something real (as opposed to surreal)?  I’m getting to that.  Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to suggest I over think things occasionally, so bear with me.

The activity of thinking this through forces you (or at least me) to think of things from a mindset that I wouldn’t normally consider.  As a practitioner of UXD, I consider a website the culmination of technologies and content delivered to your browser when a super special URI is accessed.  As an entrepreneur, a website is little more than one delivery vehicle for a potentially valuable solution to some problem a given group of people have.  As a businessman, a website is a potential asset created and maintained by the firm to increase revenue, decrease costs or maintain existing clients (assuming new clients will increase revenue).

Here’s the problem – These are all valid, yet juxtaposed, concepts.  Each of those definitions are valid for a website, but reconciling them is nearly impossible.  This is what UX designers deal with on a regular basis (perhaps it’s just me, but I’ll assume that at least some designers are like me).  The act of design is frequently an attempt to reconcile inherently incongruous juxtapositions (i.e., surreal).

Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end.

Frequently, to design a good experience, the designer must put himself or herself into a mental position that hasn’t been (or can’t ever be) directly experienced.  For instance, when I was working on Plum Keeper, I had to consider the experience from the primary user group’s perspective, which is pretty typical.  Unfortunately for me, the primary user group are mothers of small children with moderate computer skills. Being a single male (yes women of the Interweb I’m a single geek, how original) with no children (last I checked), the whole young mother thing is a bit unlikely to ever happen and certainly hasn’t occurred yet.  Furthermore, I’m hardly a computer guru, but I’ve been around the block a few times (I started on a C64 and have been online since the early 90s… good ol’ BBS’s).  I know plenty of mothers who I interviewed for the project, but as much as I sympathize with their situations I can never truly empathize.  This is where understanding (or at least pretending to understand) surrealism can help in reality.  The same skills used to digest those incongruous juxtapositions of surrealism will help feel out alternative design possibilities (e.g., me mothering a couple young kids).  I think the design Kyrie Robinson (who has the unfair advantage of being a mother of young children) and I came up with will work out pretty well, but only time will tell.

It reminds me of electrical engineering.  For those of you that haven’t studied the topic, it can get a bit confused.  Imaginary numbers supposedly simplify the algebra (if you insist on calling that mess simplified), but they have to cancel out in the end (seeing as we live in the non-imaginary world).  Now, when dealing with trivial cases, this seems obvious and is pretty easy to do.  My class was a bit different.  Hard doesn’t begin to explain it, but I’ll tell the story of my migraines and C+ worthy 17% another day.

So here’s the grand wisdom (or at least a good idea) that I’ve garnered from surrealism, which I use in product design:  Good design sometimes requires us to look past temporarily incongruous juxtapositions, so long as they cancel out in the end.  Although I might not be able to empathize with a mother of young children, I can attempt to sympathize.  In doing so (if I do my job well), I create an experience that will effectively solve a problem for those mothers.  The imaginary number of my design efforts (me as a mother) cancels out (real mothers like it too).