Are we halfway there?
Letter Zero.3
Dear friend,
Did you see the video that’s going around of the guy on the bench singing Bon Jovi at the park? It reached inside me and shook me up a little bit.
Spontaneous. Unexpected. Inspiring. It’s the kind of thing that gives you hope for human beings. And I can’t exactly put my finger on why. It’s the synchrony within the blizzard that I wrote about in my first email.
Inspiration springs up in unlikely places. Last weekend I attended an ethereum convention. My expectations were low, I just hoped to come away with a better grasp of cryptocurrency. What I got instead was a glimpse into the future. These people will change the world. I wrote about the experience on Medium if you want the full story, but here it is in a nutshell. Take the sense of mission of open source software and infuse it with the unstoppable idealism of programmable currency. Set that energy loose in a building stocked with snacks, free wi-fi, a live DJ, and large bounties for the best creation. That was ETHDenver, and it was incredible to be in the middle of it.
Experiencing inspiration in the wild (unfettered from billable hours, job descriptions, org charts, planning committees, pitch decks) makes me realize how much the typical corporate settings get wrong. We stand in front of dense PowerPoint slides and read them verbatim. We talk about KPIs, ROIs, OKRs, MVPs, and are somehow surprised when they are DOA. Everything is systematized, processed, formatted for repeatability. We scratch our head in retros wondering what’s not working. And then it happens in a downtown warehouse among strangers with nothing in common other than their love for the work and a shared belief that they can make a difference.
Is it possible to bring the energy of a cryptocurrency convention into our offices? Maybe we’re closer than we think, maybe it just takes somebody brave enough to start the chorus.
We've got to hold on to what we've got. It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other and that's a lot. For love, we'll give it a shot. We're halfway there. Take my hand. We'll make it, I swear.
I’ll write again next Sunday. Stay creative.
Your friend,
Adrian
P.S. The Bon Jovi guy made me remember the video of the guy dancing awkwardly alone in the grass at a concert. I won’t spoil it for you in case you haven’t seen it. One of my favorite videos of all time.