Yesterday, I was part of a demo given by Tam Tam on the Microsoft Portal Event 2004 in the Netherlands. George Parker, an illusionist, was the quizmaster in this game of reality versus creating vitual worlds when implementing Sharepoint.
Changing 5 EURO bills into 10, and 10 into 20 was the basic idea of getting better products all the time. The need for better software in an organisation is never forfilled. People always want more and better products to increase productivity and efficiency, but basically, according to George Parker, we are just reinventing the wheel, making ourself believe the new product is a major improvement in our organisation.
The Sculpture Maker
This philosophy was illustrated by him with the story of a poor sculpture maker. Everyday this poor man was climbing a mountain to collect new pieces of rock to make sculptures every day. Years after years he was getting more tired of doing the same things over and over again every day.
Then at one day, a magical person came to him and told him that he could wish whatever he wanted to become. The tired man had seen the rich people in town and thought that he would be better of when he was also rich. The next day the poor man was rich and could do whatever he wanted to do. For a short while he was excited and happy, but then he met the king and noticed that the king had power and could give orders to people.
The next day, our sculpture maker was king of the people in his land. He could tell people everyting he liked them to do and was happy and excited for a while. But then he mentioned that the sun was destroying crops and make people hungry and exhausted. Maybe he was better of when he was the sun.
As you probably expected, the man had become the sun. Now he could shine on people's heads, let people live and people starve. He was happy and excited for a while...
...until the a cloud was moving beneath him and blocked to sunrays reach the ground. Next day, the man was the cloud and now he could block the sun and let it rain. Now he had more power and could do the things he liked to do. Until he reached a mountain that blocked his way. He couldn't move any further and the man was annoyed about it. And yes, the man wanted to become the mountain so he could block the clouds.
Now he was the mountain and was a big object that could block the cloud and he was happy and excited. But then one day, a poor man was climbing the mountain. He was a sculpture maker and was getting pieces of rock from the mountain to create sculptures. Ofcourse, the rock didn't like that and he would like to be a sculpture maker so he could use the mountain to create beautiful sculptures.
The man is now a sculpture maker again and he was happy. He did the same as at the beginning, but now he knew what he could do and was better then being a rock, cloud, sun, king or a rich man.. only with the tools he has as a sculture maker.
Nice story, but what about Sharepoint?
This story tells us, not to stay where we are and use the same products of course, but to invent things. Try to become better all the time, just to get to know that what you have today is the key to success for organisations, and to use the tools that we have today to improve.
A nice story illustrated by George, especially when a person from the public asked him what he could do with a 50 Euro bill. No problem for him, of course just like the story, the bill was transformed not into 100 Euro's but just a blank piece of paper, which what a 50 Euro bill basically is.