An "Excellent" Sign

As I was driving to our family's weekly Sunday dinner, I passed a sign on the side of the road. The kind of sign with the changeable letters that always has a clever message on it. We drove by too fast for me to get a picture, but on it was the message:

Excellence - Doing something common in an uncommon way

At first, I looked at it and thought, "All right, inspiring". But then after thinking about it - I'm not sure I agree with it. Do you think they put the "Excellent" message up in an uncommon way just to prove their point? I don't think standing on milk crates stacked on a hammock while placing the letters on the sign with a pair of tweezers would have any bearing on the effectiveness of the message. In fact, the most common way of putting the message on the sign is probably the best.

I liked wikipedia's definition of "Excellence" the best, so I'll use it.

Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. It is superiority, or the state of being good to a high degree. Excellence is considered to be a value by many organizations, in particular by schools and other institutions of education, and a goal to be pursued.

So, "Excellence" is the state of being superior. It doesn't say anything about the way in which this superiority is achieved. This is where I have a problem with the first message. I think you can be excellent, do excellent work, and have an excellent product in a common(usual) way.

Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to do something in an uncommon way - that's how we get better. To solve a complex problem sometimes takes some creativity and doing something that no one else has done before - it's called innovation. What I am saying is that that this does not equal excellence. I believe that you can have excellence without innovation (since I already used that word), but it's a lot harder to achieve innovation without excellence - that's the challenge.

Although it's usually involved, Sunday dinner was excellent, done the same old way as always.

Computer Hero

Now with wireless controller!

I'm pretty sure most of you have played Guitar Hero at some point.  If not, I'll try to describe it the best I can.  Basically, you hold a plastic guitar which has five differently colored buttons on the fret board where the strings would normally be, a plastic lever where you would normally strum the guitar, and a whammy bar.  While you're holding the guitar colored circles come toward you on the screen like a multi-colored version of the beginning of Star Wars, only faster.  The object is to press the colored buttons in the correct order and hit the lever as if you were actually playing guitar.  It's a lot of fun.

On the way home, I was excited to get home and play, but I was thinking that this game is a pretty good analogy for a lot of things going on in my life and career.

It's all I can do to keep up with everything that's coming at me.  It takes the coordination of all of my abilities sometimes: mentally, physically, financially, and otherwise.  As soon as I finish one set, it's on to the next one where there are more notes coming faster - and as soon as I finish that gig,  someone wants a "software battle."  If all goes right, my band and I will hit enough notes in a row and leverage our "star power" just when the timing is right.

We just finished a pretty major sub-project, and it strikes me that good software teams are a "band".  Everyone has a part and even a bad stage hand can keep you from becoming a star.  Which is why the title is a bit of a misnomer.  There can't be any heros in this business - there's too much to do.  How are you going to be the front man, the lead guitarist, the bass player, and the drummer all at once?  Find your part, practice it, and play it well.

We all know it isn't about being a hero anyway.  In the end, all we really want is acceptance and respect from our peers.