The Star Wars Management Guide
I think over the past many years, I’ve demonstrated a penchant for spurring on and participating in some social experiments. I like to tinker. Often, however, these experiments don’t go very far because of a number of reasons. Sometimes the activity itself is so niche that I can only get a handful of people who might be interested to engage, and it never builds the momentum or the audience to carry an idea forward (my SCORM book idea from earlier this year is a good example).
So, now I’m thinking a bit more broadly and openly. What if a broader community of geeks, engineers, MBAs and the like were to put together a business book based on lessons learned from Star Wars? Call it a management guide — heck, even an instruction manual for socially awkward nerds in a non-nerd workspace.
Context
A few weeks ago, I tweeted the idea and was immediately presented with enough response to outline thirteen possible chapters (all from the original trilogy, I’d add). I’m not the purest I once was, though I would be surprised to mine wisdom out of the prequels. At any rate, here’s a list of the chapters suggested almost entirely from the feedback in the beginning of August:
- Chapter 1: “Stay on Target”
- Chapter 2: “Watch for Enemy Fighters”
- Chapter 3: “There Will Be No Bargain”
- Chapter 4: “I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing”
- Chapter 5: “Do or do not. There is no try.” chapter on increasing productivity?
- Chapter 6: “A Small, One-Man Fighter Should be able to Penetrate the Outer Defenses”
- Chapter 7: “These Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For”
- Chapter 8: “Never Tell Me The Odds”
- Chapter 9: “Search Your Feelings; You Know it To Be True.”
- Chapter 10: “IT’S A TRAP!”
- Chapter 11: “What I told you was true… from a certain point of view.”
- Chapter 12: “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy”
- Chapter 13, “I Know.”
Additions…
- Chapter 14, “This deal is getting worse all the time.”
- Chapter 15, “He’s no good to me dead.”
Plan
If there is some initial interest, I’ll set up a wiki on my gen1.us domain to let a first set of writers in, and then open it up/expand.
Not that I want to force a hand in the communal/creative process, but I’m trying to put enough boundaries to help move ideas forward and eliminate distractions. I’m completely open to doing this in different ways.
Example: if I was writing a chapter myself, I’d expect the structure to look somewhat like this:
- Title of the chapter is the pull quote.
- First section of the chapter describes the scene in which the quote takes place.
- Next section of the chapter relates it to one or more workplace scenarios where the scene in Star Wars is a metaphor (or an anti-model)
- Pepper this with citations from other literature, preferrably non-fiction experts like Covey, Collins, Pink, etc, but not exclusively non-fiction experts. Any relevant genre to enlighten the point you’re trying to make with the quote would be fine. Point being: I don’t want to illustrate lessons from Star Wars with lessons from Star Trek. I’d rather use lessons from Senge than Ferengi (har har).
…but I’m also flexible on this, too.
Goals
I have very few goals I want to get out of this, for me.
- Have fun without working too hard (*critical success factor).
- Build relationships beyond my normal network (*big personal win here).
- Have a site that actually has to go down for maintenance (*still nostalgic for an organic Digg effect).
- Get it done 100% community effort (*I don’t write more than one “chapter” worth of material, if that much)
Next Steps
If you’re in, comment below. If I get more than six comments expressing interest (from six different people), I’ll set up the wiki and we’ll go from there.
Related posts:
Aaron,
Fantastic idea. I have to admit, I found your site looking for SCORM info but was instantly delayed upon seeing this proposed venture. I’d love to help. In fact, I’d like to propose chapter 14 entitled “This deal is getting worse all the time.” (Lando Calrissian to Darth Vader in Cloud City – Episode IV) that discusses the importance of knowing who you’re dealing with.
Anyway, I’d love to help. Fantastic idea!
Cheers,
Josh
Ha! That’s a great chapter idea! Can’t believe that didn’t come up before! Welcome aboard, Josh. Hope this idea takes off
Well, I’m always up for a challenge. And as Walt Disney once said, “Get in. Not choose but get in. Be a part of it and the move up.”
If you think I can add some value, let me know!
Regards,
John
Glad to gave you in, John!
Chapter 12 for me please. What about “he’s no good to me dead” – a chapter about managing people properly
Chapter 12 is yours. You’ve now also identified Chapter 15. This gets bigger. Let’s hope we get enough participation to do it.
Oh crap, I wasn’t expecting that. In the words of Aaron Silvers, “I never joined a club that would have me as a member.” Or something like that.
I guess I should stake out a chapter then … I’m kind of partial to Chapter 5, but I was seeing it as something other than productivity. Let’s chat.
Chapter 6 sounds interesting if you were already planning to take Chapter 5.
Regards,
John
I’ve staked out no particular chapter for myself. I feel like I can write on any of them, but to be honest, I can also not carve out a chapter and help flesh out other’s work as a contributor. I’m happy, honestly, just to help organize and facilitate a community-run project. You call Chapter 5 or 6 or both — this doesn’t have to be territorial, but I think the right idea is to write on something you like first… get it done and then see what else that might inspire.
BTW – Does George have to sign off on this or something?? Or has the Star Wars empire gone Creative Commons?
I’m going to assume that as long as this is a community-organized project, this isn’t a big deal. We’re not posting videos. We’re not “publishing” in a traditional sense. If this gets big enough where it becomes an issue… well, we’ll creative commons everything and deal with that most enviable problem of being so big that Lucasfilm is interested in what we’re doing.
I’ll go ahead and claim Chapter 15 in addition to my original Chapter 12.
Dude, you know I’m in. I’m still in for the SCORM book, too.
I’m in for Chapter 7, “These aren’t the droids your looking for: Jedi mind tricks to get your plan through the bureaucracy”.
Of course, Aaron, I’ll be leaning heavily on your expertise in this matter, as I am only an apprentice at this stage.
We’re all padawans, Brian. This week? We’re all padawans. It ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy.
Oh, I totally wanted Ch 7, then saw Brian called it
But I actually think Chapter 4 is more “me”…you gotta have faith! I’m in–keep me posted!
Koreen, Ch. 7 can be all yours. I was just throwing an idea out there. Collaboration works!
Collaboration is key. You know it’s a wiki. Everyone can write, and if we do this well several people will contribute to each section, let alone adding sections we’re not even thinking about.
Very cool idea! Interesting enough that even non-biz types will enjoy the read just because of the theme.
Chapter 9 immediatelely reminds me of Myers-Briggs!
I’m not much of a writer, but I’ll give it a whirl.
@LearnNuggets
@delanotho
Wait! Perhaps Chapter 11. Ya’know, “Do as I say not as I do” and the galactic battle between good and evil when it comes to communication in the workplace.
Kevin, the beauty is that you can help write both.
“My what an incredible smell you’ve discovered.”
Seems like it has possibilities for a chapter about rising to overcome an escape route gone bad that then gets worse. There is something wonderful about a promising option becoming catastrophic and then terrrifying until you break down and rely on help from outside to succeed.
Tom, you ALWAYS find something awesome I’ve completely missed!
So, I’ve been thinking about this and I’m still down with Chapter 14 “This deal is getting worse all the time.”, but I’ve jotted down a list of my favorite quotes (and in the process exposed my true nerdness to my wife who still doesn’t quite understand why this is a cool idea) and considering this is a book about business lessons, I’ve got a good one that every developer learns at some point under the title “Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.” Any objections to tackling 2 chapters?
You can take on as much as you’d like, Josh. How do you feel about piloting the wiki?
Sure, I’ll take a stab at it. Do you want me to set it up and host it? I’d be happy to do that. We can have a discussion about what you had in mind if you’d like.
I set one up, already. I want to get some piloting in to make sure that the system is usable/easy/workable, etc. before opening it up. I’ll set you up and email login info.
I was wondering if a wordpress set-up might be more conducive to getting people writing, maybe using the P2 theme: http://p2theme.com/
Not sure if that’s going to work, Aaron. I think the great think about a Wiki is that everyone can see the entire chapter/page, outline, etc in one place, and everyone (who has rights) can edit it in place, seeing format, structure, etc.
P2 just allows a long string of posts. It might be good to have one in place for tracking conversations about the book, but I think we can accomplish that with Twitter and a hashtag.
And just to throw this out there, you could just use txt files with secure page access.
That’s a good point. I suppose we could just make it an ftp share with web access to see stuff. I wanted to do it with a wiki, but I guess I’m concerned that all the overhead to using this wiki system at http://writing.gen1.us/ or even MediaWiki which I’ve tried in the past — it’s just not enabling for people to just write. And I want to make crafting this fun and interesting.
You and John are both pulling for the wiki. Perhaps we need a kickoff event…