kenjisan

What I love, what I hate

I love that first moment in an airport, just before a trip is about to begin. The PA system echoes overhead something urgent in an inevitably soothing voice: "Last call for LA... last call." Small motored vehicles beep as they pass. Everyone is about to begin an adventure, or is returning home from one. Anticipation and release.

I hate the actual travel part. The turbulance on take off, landing, and everything in between. Babies crying, ears popping, I want to sleep but can't settle my head. Everything is swollen and the movie is never great, even when it's a great movie. We're told to appreciate the journey (I guess metaphorically speaking), but sometimes the journey is too much. Plane trips are like this for me.

And finally, I love the touch down. Deboarding. Stepping out into either an unfamiliar airport, or one I call home. Either way, it's refreshing. The adventure is just beginning, or just ending. And I'm part of that intangible feeling I first had stepping in here at the beginning.

"How was Vegas?"

Would "It realigned my world" be an appropriate answer?

So these two guys are at a meeting, trying to sell "innovation" to a bunch of business men. It's early in December and the first snow has fallen the night before. It's just below 32 degrees outside as the business men step from their taxis and are ushered into the board room that happens to overlook a courtyard blanketed serenely in white.

The men, the hockers of innovation, aren't quite sure how to proceed until just before the meeting has started. "I have an idea," one of them says. "Bear with me, I have an idea..." So this man gathers the business men around the window and says, "Gentlemen, I want you to look out there and tell me what you see, and how it makes you feel."

Somewhat confused, the upstanding men of corporate America look out and say, "I see snow," or "It makes me feel peaceful." The man continues to prompt, digging deeper. "I'm beginning to think of the holidays, of Christmas, of what I'm going to give to others, of my holiday bonus and how I'm going to give it to various charities because I'm in a generous mood." And so on, and so forth.

"Now, what if it was one degree warmer? How would you feel if you woke up and it was one degree warmer?" the man asks. The snow will have turned to slush, gross, cold and wet. The drive from their hotels, their houses, to this meeting would have been arduous. So cold it hurt their noses. The slush would be dirty and miserable. "I would have been in a bad mood. I would have been thinking about how I'm not looking forward to the holidays, to that annoying uncle, to giving presents to my ungrateful nieces and nephews, to how my holiday bonus was not enough and that I didn't want to share. To how I was cold and didn't want to go out, to this meeting." And so on, and so forth.

"But gentlemen," the man reminded, "it's one degree." One degree... Amazing how much things can change is we look at it even a tiny bit differently. The world doesn't need 180s to realign.

I wish I could take credit for that story, but all credit goes to Andy Stefanovich, from Play, who's "In Charge of What's Next." He was the first of a string of fantastic speakers at the How Design Conference. So how was Vegas? All I can hope is that maybe, just maybe, I've come to see things just a tiny bit differently.