Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Fire and Motion

For one of my book clubs we are reading Joel On Software and we just passed an interesting chapter that gave me cause to do a little reflection (Although all chapters have done that this book and his blog rocks…if you are a coder or work with coders you should check this one out.)


The chapter was on fire and motion a strategy that all military conflict revolves around. When confronted with an enemy you are to fire your weapon at them as you move towards them. By doing this you force your enemy to take cover (and not shoot at you) as you gain ground and move in for more accurate shots. If you are not firing at them they are firing at you gaining on you for a better shot. He addressed this as what Microsoft does with each releases forcing people to upgrade…Microsoft even though this software is only marginally better is firing at the competition so they cant focus on developing there own systems they are covering and making sure that they are in sync with Microsoft.

I loved this concept because it is such a good illustration of taking control of your life. Are you in the trenches pinned down by life’s fire? Or are you firing and moving towards your target?

I realized I have been pinned down lately…and it is time to start firing and moving!!

There is also something to be said about teamwork in here….Will you cover me?

Basically use teamwork so that multiple people can advance on a target.


Will someone cover me? I am going in!!


Pick that fucking thing up and lets do this!

5 comments:

Rocketstar said...

I'm struggling to come up with a "life" example of this...

theresa said...

You know I've got your back :)

Anonymous said...

I second Rockstar. I think that your observation can be applied to a work environment, perhaps. That's it as far as I can see. How am I going to use this mentality for my daily, life challenges? Is it possible to have multiple people advance on the target of cleaning my apartment? ;)

Brianinmpls said...

Thanks T :)

Ok real world examples..or at least these are the things that I was thinking about when I wrote this.

If you are living pay check to pay check...bills are firing at you..you need to fire back save, invest, earn..etc

The world of technology is advancing if you are not learning you are not growing you are not firing back

Too much time on routine chores you are not priortizing the importaant things and doing what you want you are not in control you are not firing....

Does that make sense or am I still off here too?

Rocketstar said...

I think I get what you are saying.