Boating Lesson! — Quotidian — 454

(Transcript of video originally posted on 09 Mar 2023)

What is Design? Steve Jobs has made an interesting observation, a famous quote, about What Design Actually Is. It is not how it looks, it is not how it feels, it is how it works. iPod.. 2001.. An amazing music-playing device. But, in 2006, something sturdier, something larger in memory capacity, something with supposedly better software, from a larger company, popular in many other domains, Microsoft, they launched a product called Zune. Why didn’t it become famous? Why didn’t you hear about the Zune as often as you heard about the iPod? There is an answer to this question.. Let us see..!

Namaste! Four Fifty Four is about lessons from a speed boat. If you are wondering what a speed boat can after all teach us, well, I’m in the same boat. I don’t know, but let’s get started on the ride!

Firstly, I want to clarify what is the reason why the iPod was much more famous and popular than the Zune. I read an article recently, and they have described the reason. Very simple, very plain.. It seems the iPod started appearing in the hands of some early adopters. The moment they saw such a device, and realised that it has been released by Apple, that they are able to listen to high quality music, … some people started buying it, but you know what happened? The most important thing that happened was others saw this shiny device on these people’s hands and wanted to borrow it for a few moments just to have a look around, and they were able to intuitively, immediately, naturally understand how to use it without any guidance or help. That single magical thing. That is the reason why the iPod was so famous, because the moment he returned the borrowed iPod, he made a beeline to the store, to buy one for himself. Because it just worked! The Zune.. There were some early adopters and Microsoft fans who bought it. I remember one myself and I’m hoping he’s watching it, but.. he brought it to office one day and shoved it into my hand. “Check this out. See how beautiful. See what an amazing new ‘Metro’ user experience design. Place it in your ear, and you will be taken directly to heaven!”. he said. And, that is how the experience was too! But.. those intuitive.. immediate.. glowing of that bulb. I get it.. I don’t need to ask “Hey, how to go back in this”.. That matter? That passerby understanding how it works.. That didn’t happen and hence, there were fewer people who went to the shop to buy one more and hence it wasn’t as famous. Design is how it works, specifically how some very important, very few, but very important features, how they work.

Some of you may have watched this advertisement. “Sir, may I present you the super luxury yacht.. The Nefertiti. Apart from all the luxuries, it has six luxury suites, three kitchens, a mini golf course, a 3D theater, two ballrooms, and to top it all, it has a top speed of 25 knots . Kitna deti hai??!!” So in Hindi, the question asked here is, “All that is okay, thank you, but… How many kilometers to the gallon or how many kilometers per liter?” This man is practical minded. It is an ad for a Maruti Suzuki car.. “All that is okay, but please come to the matter. The most important matter. Kitna Deti Hai!”

I don’t know this man. Probably you may not too, but this man and his friend there, they were credited on the internet for the birth of a very beautiful, very important phrase. A question.. “All that is okay, thank you, but .. does it float? What does it mean? “Well, you are telling me about a lot of things, okay, thanks, but this has to float. That is the most important reason for its existence. Does it float? Even though it sounds like a joke…

This wasn’t a joke. More than 1000.. 1200 people died when the Titanic sank. The Titanic must have had 64 life boats, but it made that maiden voyage with just 20 boats. When you look up the documentation, refer to history, and look up the logs, two reasons were quoted as to why there were only 20 boats. The deck would look too cluttered with all those boats in the boat — was cited as one reason.. And, the other reason, if all these boats were placed around the edge, the periphery of the Titanic, but if that is done like that, the first class passengers looking through portholes from their cabins under deck won’t have an uninterrupted, unobstructed view. The edges of boats will be visible. It will look ungainly. So, let us jettison some lifeboats.. But.. does it float? All that is okay, but does it float?! Very important question. Went unanswered, nay.. even worse.. went unasked, and that led to this, this debacle of the century.

A book by this name.. Will it make the boat go faster? An Olympian, An Olympian gold medalist, Britisher.. A rowboat featuring eight rowers. A speed boat. A row boat. World Champions at the Sydney Olympics. But, before that grand moment at the Sydney Olympics.. in ‘98, they get thrashed. They come eighth in a group of eight. And, then it happens. They all get together, they band together and they decide we need to make a mark and we are going to train.. How did they train? And, were there lessons that were even applicable in today’s corporate world..? That is what the book talks about. The title of the book, the most important lesson in the book is “Will It Make The Boat Go Faster”. Ben Hunt Davis is the author and the winner.. And, you see him kissing the Gold Medal here. If you attend his program, at one crucial moment, he hands that gold medal over and says, “Pass it around in the audience. This is what I fought for. Feel it? This is what success feels like. Get a sense of it”. What sort of question is this? Will it make the boat go faster? Well, he says, “All through the training, we had only one question burned into our minds. We kept repeatedly asking that question.. Again and again. If ever we got stuck in a dilemma, we asked that question to ourselves and the answer presented itself, the dilemma ran away. Example?

This training, they are asking us to do it in this river… waking up at this unearthly hour in the morning.. Should I be sleeping now or should I train in this river? “Hey, wait, will it make the boat go faster?”.. “Of course, yes.” “Then it’s okay. I’ll wake up early in the morning. I’ll come for the training.

Snake bite. Seems that is what this drink is called. They go to Thailand for training, and some waiter accosts them with this unique drink. Snake bite. “You have never tasted anything like this before.” says he. They pause and they ask that question, “Will it make the boat go faster?” “Of course not.” “Don’t touch it then”.

A new trainer has come and he wants to measure the volume of vital capacity that oxygen containing ability while you are exercising. It’s a bit of a pain. “Who is this new guy who has come? Why should I trust him?” But wait, “Will it make the boat go faster?” “Yes.” “Let’s do it!”

Three eggs or four for breakfast? Will I take four eggs and make the boat go faster or will I put on weight? Look at that very simple question that cuts away the complexity and presents the answer to you in an empty plate. “Here, take it”.

In the world of software engineering, they even call it Test Driven Development. If you want to build a complex piece of software, .. well, no problem.. Just don’t start coding immediately. Take a very very simple boilerplate piece of code. Minimal code.. It won’t work. But, write it. Try it out. It will spit out an error, surely.. yes? Now, fix that bug. Now fix the next one. Keep doing that, until you get the expected output. Test Driven Development. I remember seeing a cartoon too, about it. “I am trying to understand TDD.” “That’s easy. First you make a test that fails. Then, you do the least amount of work possible to make it pass.”

And, the first person asks again.. “So, if I’m going to build a bridge..?” And the wise guy comes back with, “Step one would be drive your car over a cliff. Here, take the keys!” For, that is the first test! A gap between two cliffs. You need to go from here to there.. And, while building it.. while beginning to build it, .. You need to test before building, yes? So, drive your car off the cliff first! Jokes apart, test-driven development is a methodology where you minimize the amount of untested out-in-the-blue work that you do.. you ask yourself a very simple question again and again. “Does it float?” “Will it make the boat go faster?”

We have encountered this book earlier.. Ken Kocienda.. Creative Selection.. He is the kingpin who brought the autocorrect on the Apple smartphones! Not just that.. He had another huge contribution to iOS, the mobile platform from Apple, and that contribution was building safari for the mobile.. Safari is the browser application. Safari, before it was built for the mobile, it was first built for the computer. And, when that was happening, the world already had Internet Explorer. All over the world, there was this Windows operating system and Windows came pre-installed with Internet Explorer. Why would anybody want another browser.. was the thought process at that time. At that time, Steve Jobs encouraged his employees with, “We have an Operating System. We don’t have a browser. We need to get a browser and it needs to work blazingly fast.” That was the question they internalised. They devised something called the PLT. The page load test. Remember TDD? Test-driven development? They created the test. It’ll only evaluate one quality.. Speed of loading..

Look at their first test result here. www.yahoo.com is the target. And, It just loads a black rectangle. Just load the damn thing, check for the time. Can we do it faster than other browsers? That was the challenge. The aim was not to load www.yahoo.com. The aim was to make it faster to load a black rectangle. Then get whatever is in yahoo.com.., no need to render it. Just get it and check the loading time.. And then render it. Don’t bother about organization.. And then that is how they tested it and eventually when Safari was ready, not only was it an amazing browser, it was the fastest browser of its time. Maniacal Focus on one single question. Every time they reached a particular point and it looked so good, but it failed the plt, it was slower than or not faster enough than the other browsers..?? They failed it. No need. They will sacrifice the beauty. Speed is of the essence. Single-minded focus. Does it float? Will it make the boat go faster?

This guy has quite a similar story. Vince Lombardi is his name. The greatest coach of all time, they say, in American Football. He has written an autobiographical book called “The science and art of football”. Before he became a coach for a specific team, that team had suffered 10 straight knockouts from the league. 10 straight knockouts. The 11th time they lift the champions cup. Back to basics is what they claim he said. “We will focus on one thing” he said.. Ring a bell, folks?

He said, “We will chase perfection. Of course we won’t reach it, of course we won’t be able to touch it, but along the way we will reach excellence”, he is supposed to have said. Chase perfection. Everything that you do.. One thing.. Focus on that alone. Master it. Chase perfection, achieve excellence. That was his strategy.

As a closing thought, I wanted to share this viral video.. Watch it first.. Somewhere in Erode.. at a Wedding Hall.. “Next Level Marriage Meals”!! I wondered instead of doing all that, what if they had invited a gifted chef! They may have experimented with a multi-cultural, multi-cusine menu.. They could have donated this money for some charity..! How does it add value? We could ask all those old questions again. Does it float? Will it make the boat go faster? How does it help make a meal memorable? In fact, if I look at that golden peacock standing overbearingly beside me.., I’ll be psyched out.

I wouldn’t want to eat. I am reminded of that movie called UP. This is what comes to mind. That little scout-boy munching chocolate, and when he is not looking, this happens. I’d be wondering if this bird is going to peck at my food or perhaps even peck on my head. Anyway, thank you. Hope you make your boat go faster. We will meet soon! Thank you.