Code-Name: Ginger

August 29, 2003

A great book about the process of conceiving of, designing, and manufacturing the (in?)famous Segway scooter Human Transporter.

Notes

4 Charles Gibson's response-what it did-similar to The Simpsons: "What does it do?""Whatever it does, it's doing it right now"
18 Dean turns assumptions upside down; says J.P. Morgan's reasoning for building the railroad was because there was nothing there, in order to change that. Similar upside-down to Culture of Fear.
35 Cool freedom-of-management strategy; don't tell employees what to do or you'll only get what you can think of.
36 Another problem with open-source: no one to tell you it's "done"; to "kill the puppies". You're working for free anyway, so who can tell you to stop?
60 Scheduling exploration; "Frog Day"; like 3Ms "15% of time on nonessential projects"; also the cross-pollination builds empathy as workers understand each others' projects.
61 Business at DEKA founded on "mutations"; like biological evolution--but this is not what societies are built on, only where changes come from (like Mule in Foundation series.
98 3 tenets of innovation: the entrepreneur's need to stay independent of investors; his need to do right by his people; the need to devote himself to innovation and business without the distractions of a wife and children.
99 Love vs. Innovation: love entails loss of power and control, things that an innovator needs to have.
117 Why you give freebies to "alpha pups"--they will use them in very visible ways, like going to the mayor if stopped by a policeman.
125 Don't just rearrange a floor plan randomly (like St. Luke's ad agency in Weird Ideas); arrange it deviously, to start fights!
126 Self-perpetuating pessimism; makes you work slower, so you have more reason to be pessimistic
137 The naming of Ginger cost $70K
138 The sound of a mechanical device must be considered and "tuned"; it is part of the experience of using the product
152 The Internet dictating naming decisions
158 Demanding love over legality in rules; makes for happy employees; never denying sick pay, despite possible abuse of the system.

Definitions
19 Frog-kissing: making mistakes as a matter of course while exploring new ideas; like Weird Ideas That Work; design iteration. p.60 "On Frog Day you couldn't work on anything you knew."
34 Sailboat fuel: air; specifically unnecessary air in a product.
36 Drowning puppies: killing off some of the beloved fringe projects.
162 South-pointing chariot: an invention soon outmoded by a simpler, better idea; from the highly-complicated mechanical south-pointing chariot that preceeded the simple magnetic compass.

Quotes
19 "History is a great teacher, but progress depends on disproving history"-Kamen
20 "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them."-Walden
34 "Real artists ship"-Steve Jobs
35 "Fail fast to succeed sooner"-David Kelley
35 "If I gave you objectives, you might reach them, and that would be terrible, because it might keep you from doing something really great."
61 "Invention is a process of creation, but development is a process of destruction, of narrowing down and compromising."-Doug Field
98 "If I had kids and did it right, I couldn't have DEKA and Teletrol and Enstrom. "-Kamen
114 "Why celebrate people whose chief talent was dribbling a little ball or looking attractive in two dimensions?"
142 "I remarked how fragile the machine seemed, if one pin could shut it down. 'If a pin couldn't shut it down,' said Doug, 'why would we need that pin?'"

Related Entries

1. Weird Ideas That Work - Nov 24, 2003
2. How Doing Interaction Design Helped My Product Design (Draft) - Jun 05, 2004

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