My notes from the 2012 O+A Sessions

Here are my notes on Tim Ogilvie’s presentation entitled, “How to Build a Machine for Time Travel,” which was about dreaming big, seeing the future in your mind, and taking people there with you.

Debates are not a geat forum discussing the future – the assumption to truth ratio is too high.

Time travel is a better way to think about the future – imagine it, explore it, live it, all in your mind.

How to build a time machine:

1. Frame a problem – No one will care what you do if they don’t experience the pain.
2. Put constraints in place – How will you know if what you’re doing doesn’t work.
3. Veto the veto – To know that your project isn’t going to be vetoed by a team member is very important to engineers and funders.
4. Empathize – Go out and work with people. Connect with users as humans and figure out what problems they have that need solving.
5. Visualize – User feedback will tell you what works best, and conversely, what doesn’t work at all.
6. Co-create – In 2D first. Keep it fast and cheap.
7. Don’t separate the stories from the data – Both go hand in hand. No matter how good your stories or your data is, you need both.
8. Evaluate – Let others outside your team validate that your idea and proof its worth it.
9. Iterate – Keep it low fidelity You can continue to evolve your idea without putting your heart and soul into one version. People will give you more honest feedback, and failures are much cheaper.

After you build a time machine, ask yourself, “Where/when do you want to go?”

During planning and pitching stages, simple drawings and illustrations are superior to Powerpoints and PDF presentations.

Dream big (step 1 was frame) with HUGE goals, but constrain those goals into achievable steps.

DON’T DEBATE. EXPERIMENT.