#so that invalidates everything i wrote but at least solves the problem

[vigilskeep]

viago’s one of my favourite types of guy to write (guy whose internal thought process would work in an organised, listed fashion) but trying to write him aged thirteen was a massive mistake because i kept stopping to think, oh god. imagine having to be viago de riva and also thirteen

[dreamerinsilico]

Thanks to The Good Place s4 having made its way to Netflix, and me having Feelings, I’m going to take a bit to publicly chew on them now. 

TL;DR: same as basically every take I’ve seen, it was a great finale that handled each of the characters in a way that made sense and also I cried through most of the last episode.  But also I have vaguely cranky philosophical ruminations about it that don’t make me appreciate the show any less, but definitely want to yap about it.

(Details under the cut, because spoilers and also this may get long.  Also apparently it’s going to involve some spoilers for The Old Guard.  And maybe a few minor NBC Hannibal references.)

So, first I want to reiterate: the way the show ended, given everything else the show had done, made sense and was emotionally satisfying to me.  I loved it.

In a bigger-picture sense, though... I’d really like to see more media that interfaces with the concept of immortality without concluding that death is the only way to give the human (or humanoid) existence meaning.  Where we end up in the finale of The Good Place makes sense, in that it’s already been established that there’s an afterlife that doesn’t really have any inherent meaning beyond individual souls’ experiences of it and their relationships with one another.  And it’s not hard to imagine that a lot of the small dramas and conflicts that provide variation to even very peaceful lives would be invalidated without any kind of pressure from those material needs.  Given the foundations of the show, Our Heroes’ decision about how to change The Good Place for the better is... the only reasonable conclusion.  

And, you know, I don’t blame the show for not being The piece of media I’m hoping for to just come out and say outright, “you know, actually fuck this whole death thing.  Not a fan.  Don’t need it.  Let’s get rid of it.”  That’s not what this show was ever even remotely trying to be about.  It’s about coping with the reality of the human experience in the 20th/21st century, which includes death.  (Even with my transhumanist leanings, as a bioengineer and also someone who ardently pays attention to other fields, I will not even hint at denying that this is going to be a mandatory part of our reality for quite a while yet.)

The conclusion the show draws that I very much do agree with (regardless of one’s stance on death) is that we require some form of tension to inject meaning.  When I picture myself in the Final Form of the Good Place, I think most of my energy and desire would be focused on (I guess like a combo of Chidi and Tahani) asking questions of people there, and making peace with relationships that had somehow been left hanging.  There’s a finite amount of each of those.  I’d run out eventually.  My scientific passion would have a hard time finding an outlet, because the laws of physics don’t apply and I can’t interface with living people who could still make use of my expertise and stubborn propensity to problem-solve.  I’d like to think my creative leanings would still matter, but I’m not positive to what degree they would in that environment.  (It’s worth a chuckle to me now that when they offhandedly noted that Shakespeare’s thousands of posthumous plays weren’t anywhere near as good as the ones he wrote on Earth, I was initially indignant.  But with further thought it makes sense that the longer one is removed from that tension I referenced previously, the harder it would be to make meaningful art.  Or to even have that art be appreciated by the audience, since, on the audience side, successful art plucks against the tension of the strings the audience itself carries.  And when your audience is restricted to people in paradise who have already at-least-mostly self-actualized....)

Something about the finale that I’m still chewing over how I feel about was the very last scene.  The implication of some form of reincarnation.  (If that wasn’t supposed to be the takeaway from that... well, please tell me, but I *think* I remember some kind of rewards card reference with Eleanor and Michael from an earlier season?)  The incurable romantic part of me appreciates the concept of reincarnation on principle, so that’s one thing.  It’s also entirely in keeping with Chidi’s metaphor about a wave returning to the ocean - that wave is gone; it’ll never be there again, but the stuff of it is still there and ready to take form again.  But the part of me that very much sympathizes with Simone and, while not being a neurologist, is very concerned with Theory of Mind... reincarnation doesn’t do much for that part.  If I die, and my metaphysical essence eventually shows up in a different human who has no connection via memory to their past lives... well, that’s very aesthetically pleasing, I guess, but the point to me is, the information was still lost.  When I died, my subjective experiences, memories, and capacity to act upon the world as Dae the Irascible Multi-Academic was lost, because my reincarnation doesn’t have access to that (much as I did not have access to my previous selves’s experiences).  

Anyway, speaking of incurable romantics, let’s talk about The Old Guard!  When I was previously starting to complain about no media that interacts with immortality as a concept avoiding the canard of “death gives life meaning,” I stopped myself.  Because you know what, The Old Guard didn’t fucking go there, and I’m proud of everyone who worked on it for that.  Booker thinks death is the answer because he has lost hope.  But the person he appeals to, the person he thinks he’s doing a favor, is Andy.  Who has lived millennia more than he has, lost the implied-love-of-her-life, and still has the will to keep going.  Her questioning of that is intrinsic to the storyline, but at NO POINT does she ever indicate she wants to die.  And Nile’s appearance reinvigorates her, even as she knows she now actually has an expiration date.  (And the expiration date is not what invigorates her.  It is Nile and the attendant situation reminding her of why they do what they do.)  I ultimately really like The Old Guard’s take on immortality, because it gives us a spectrum of reactions to it.  Nile, generally freaked-out and not happy about any of this but trying to do best by the people she loves.  Booker, jaded and wanting to end it all.  Andy, pretty jaded but when push comes to shove wants to keep fucking trying, and doesn’t just step back and abdicate responsibility when it’s clear she isn’t going to be around much longer.  Joe and Nicky, not necessarily always happy with their circumstances, but taking strength from their relationships, not just with each other, but with the group as a whole.  (I have a whole essay brewing, which may or may not eventually see the light, about their romantic connection being important but kind of only a part of their overall attitude about the group and how that is intensely important.) 

And because apparently I’m just going to keep tacking on essay-stubs to this one post, when I thought about how to start this, I also thought about how Hannibal Lecter (in NBC Hannibal) says, “The thought that my life could end at any moment frees me to fully appreciate the beauty and art and horror of everything this world has to offer.”  And I’m just kind of marinating in that (hah) for the moment because it represents a hedonism that The Good Place, in aggregate, rejects.  But you can’t really compare those two stances, because of course, Hannibal Lecter is a human, subject to human standards of beauty and horror.  I shouldn’t go off on a big tangent about this here, because the point of NBC Hannibal is emphatically not about immortality or mortality, but I felt it worth mentioning because a) hyperfixation and b) it’s an interesting thread in the wider discussion I’m interested in, that I like placing in context.

Anyway if you’ve bothered to read all of this, thank you profusely.  I have a lot of feelings about The Good Place which mostly boil down to “I loved it,” but I can’t help but poke at the whole death thing.  That’s kind of a sore spot for me in media.

[anlheu]

Breaking the Taboo

It's been quite a while since I wrote something and posted good stuff on Instagram. For months, I've been knee-deep with my MA, finishing my TESOL and other online courses, doing some volunteer work, teaching my students, and working extremely hard to fight my depression.

Yes... you read it right. I'm battling depression that's why I can't post something positive. How can I spread positivity when even I couldn't feel it? False positivity is just not my thing.

It started about 6 or 7 months into the pandemic last year... I've been in and out of a dark place. From a different perspective given the current circumstance that we all find ourselves in, I could be considered as one of the lucky ones because for one thing I'm physically healthy among other things to be grateful for. Yet despite that, I find myself experiencing anxiety, sleepless nights, and demotivation. There are times when even getting up from the bed feels exhausting.

Being inside of your head is the hardest and scariest place to be when you are depressed. It feels like there's this part of you that's in a deep pit wanting to climb out but can't or don't know how. The emotions are just too chaotic and overwhelming. There were moments when I couldn't do anything productive for a week or so, and I would feel guilty and hate myself for that causing another bout of anxiety. Honestly, it's exhausting that you just want it to be over as soon as possible.

Every night I pray that when I open my eyes the next day, the fog would be lifted or at least I could get through another day no matter how hard it is. Every day, I wake up and do my best to fight the demon inside me. I do all sorts of stuff that I know could make me feel better somehow just to get by. At the back of my mind, I've been thinking that there are people suffering more than me, but they continue to live. It also occurred to me that I shouldn't invalidate my feelings... that it's normal to feel this way.

So about three months ago, I decided to conduct research on mental health as my course project. I've been thinking that since my mental health is threatened, I might as well learn more about it and raise awareness to help normalize conversations and break the stigma and discrimination regarding mental health.

I'm still in the process of climbing out of this pit by telling myself that I can't solve the world's problem, but I can somehow help if I redirect my energy in doing something good for me and those around me, to not react to every single thing that's out of my control, and to be open and honest about what I'm going through because I cannot advocate for something unless I share it, thus I'm putting this out here.

I think that admitting that you are depressed is one step to helping yourself get out of the dark place. People with depression aren't looking for pity...knowing that there's someone you can talk to without fear of judgment when everything feels overwhelming is good enough. This is based on my personal experience, I would still advice those who are experiencing severe depression to consult with experts.  

There are a lot of people fighting their silent battles. Maybe you know some or maybe you don't. But if ever that you have family or friends who seem to be withdrawing or disconnecting from the world, try to reach out and ask how they are. If they don't respond to you in what is considered an "acceptable" amount of time, let them because they may need the time to process their feelings and thoughts or to "re-energize." Just remind them that you are gonna be there whenever they are ready. Better yet simply make it a habit to reach out to friends and family every now and then because we may see them smiling and laughing, however, we are unaware of how they truly feel.

Depression is dangerous because you can't see it; it's a "virus" that cannot be cured by vaccine and may lead to irreversible consequence.

To help normalize conversations on mental health, break the stigma and discrimination, and genuinely help people suffering from various mental illness, you can...

EDUCATE YOURSELF. BE KIND. BE SENSITIVE. HAVE AN OPEN MIND. ADVOCATE TO ADDRESS AND TREAT NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES.

Depression does not equate to insanity.

[lunamanar]

1011

So. Hey. 

Some thoughts I’m having right now. 

I’m staring at the list of people who follow me. I’m thinking, “I know so few of you.” I’m thinking about research that says we can only really “know” and keep track of something around 120 people before we literally start to forget our friends. 

It kind of hurts. I’m thinking about feeling invisible, disposable, and how often I’ve warred against exactly those feelings. I remember a lot of destructive things I did because I didn’t know what would actually work. I turned away, I stopped talking. I thought, ‘if they’re going to forget me, there’s no point in staying.’ I wondered what it was I was doing so wrong, how unimpressive I must be, to put so much into something I love and then show it to the world only to hear nothing for an answer. I remember pushing through and trying again. I remember, over time, gaining a small audience, and thinking, maybe, if I just kept working, maybe something I did would actually matter enough to move people to discussion, to be talked about when I wasn’t there anymore. I wanted to do something worth remembering. I wanted to think, if I left, I’d be missed. 

Seems like such a strange thing to want. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to hear that I was known. Or more specifically, that my creations were meaningful to a large group of people, or to one person with a broader reach than I could ever have. I wanted to be recommended, for what I wrote to be cherished and persistent. I wanted that feeling, so I could validate my own attachment to that work, to help me overcome the sharp doubt that anything coming out of my mouth or typed from my hands into a text field held value. 

I was struggling with two beasts in my mind tearing pieces of “I’m brilliant!” and “No one cares!” from the bloody mess of my self-image. 

I was catching breaths every time a review notification showed up in my e-mail, punching my desk every time it was a one-line message on par with “nice story” or “you made a typo.” Someone would link me to an author whose writings regularly got upwards of 60 comments, many of which were paragraphs long, and I’d spend the rest of the night playing video games or writing angrily, trying to figure out why I kept coming back. I was this tiny voice trying to get through a cacophony of other tiny voices and a few people with megaphones. 

I didn’t need to be the greatest. I just wanted to be audible, and visible. I wanted to be associated with this thing we were all circling, and more generally, I wanted to be associated with the ideas I put forward, whether or not they had anything to do with the subject of a given fandom. 

I remember wondering what “popular” people did with their “numbers.” I saw a lot of them organizing events, running contests, doing panels at conventions. 

I was on one of those, a couple of times at Otakon. It wasn’t because I was well-known; compared to the other panelists, I was nothing. I was there because my friend happened to be running the panel and asked if I wanted the empty seat left behind by a panelist who had called out sick. I said yes. 

It was weird. I had a really good time. I had a good stage presence and I was pretty quick, funny and I engaged the crowd along with the other authors. I felt, for the first time, hey--maybe I’m not just a loser who can’t write worth a damn. 

Then it was over, and I watched as people lined up to get things signed by the other authors, and no one came to me at all. You may be brilliant--and no one cares. 

Well...except one person. I remember him as “Green Notebook Guy” because he apologized for not having anything for me to sign except the notebook he’d brought with him. I signed it blindly, and listened to him thank me. He’d come to the panel just to hear me talk. He liked the things I’d put up on FFN and that had gotten onto RPGamer (this was 2001, I think) and was very eager to read more. If he told me his name, I don’t remember. I was too busy trying to restart my heart, to process the fact that anyone came up to me at all. 

He was the only one. I think about him a lot. Green Notebook Guy might not even remember me now, but he was someone who, for years, I used to invalidate “no one cares.” He cared enough to meekly come up to my seat on the stage and ask for a momento from me, like what I was doing meant something. 

Well, I thought, maybe I’m not recognized by the “popular” people, but hell, Green Notebook Guy cares. And if he’s still paying attention, if even one other Notebook Person is reading, then what I’m doing matters. 

There were other events in my life that encouraged me to throw off No One Cares, but that one stands out. Just...this one acknowledgement from one person who I never saw again. Sometimes I think the fact it was a stranger is part of what made it so powerful. 

There are a lot of accounts following mine. More than I could ever befriend. A lot of them are abandoned, I’m sure several are here for the reblogs and artwork I signalboot, and some of them are probably bots. But even accounting for those, there are a lot of actual people--strangers--who have more than a passing interest in what I have to say and the idea always floors me. It’s so unusual, so not how most of my life has been, it’s difficult for me to parse as being something real. 

But I have numbers to back up the facts. So I try to remind myself, from time to time. Read through every name, from people who followed hours ago all the way back to my first follow (a friend who no longer uses tumblr). I try to wrap my head around it, and appreciate it. I try not to take it for granted. 

I don’t know how I come off to those followers, reader, or even the friends I’ve made...if I’m pegged as “popular,” or just another FFVIII fan. I don’t know how well-known I am. But I am known, and that’s enough. I have what I wanted, years ago. 

And then, there are days I still feel invisible. I forget, somehow, how to participate. Those days, it’s easy to forget the numbers. I think of other people with bigger numbers and imagine how quickly I could be erased if just one of them decided they didn’t like me. It paralyzes me, some nights, nights like tonight, the idea of all these people who watch me, just shrugging me off. I imagine how that might happen. I’m terrified of going stale. I’m afraid my ramblings come off as tired, annoying, or conceited. More than anything, I’m scared of making other people feel like I felt when I was in my early 20s...lost in the noise. 

In 2015 (I think?) I did a thing where I called out pretty much every follower and told them what they did for me, or at least acknowledged their presence if I had no idea who they were or why they were here. I remember how many people were just happy they were noticed. I remember how, at the same time, I was happy to have brightened their day, and how sad I was to remember the sort of headspace where being noticed at all by someone I respected or even a stranger was something I’d pined after. 

I did something similar with the Things I Try to Remember When I’m Nervous About Writing post, and received a similar response. I keep myself up at night trying to think of ways to combat this phenomenon. I made an FFVIII Discord, and that’s been wonderful. We rebooted @timblr-maniacs, and that’s been great, too. I’ve seen a lot of people who I’ve never seen before start speaking up and sharing, making connections and being seen. If I can imagine I had any hand in that, it makes me feel really good. Like I did something good. 

Everyone has a story to tell, something to say. Even if you aren’t a writer, or an artist, even if you’re just someone who reblogs everything, you need social capital as badly as the next person. I think the days I’m the most lonely and frightened are the days I feel I’m not paying it forward, where I worry there’s no good way of doing so.

I guess...I’m not sure what the point of this post is. I’m trying to solve a problem in my head that might not really be solvable; the problem that, as you make connections with people and develop an audience, a rift inevitably begins to form between you and that audience. Your experience, as someone who is more visible, differs from the experience of those who are not. And you can’t befriend every single person, it’s physically, neurologically impossible. 

But...if you are reading this, and you’re someone who feels unseen, who has no “Green Notebook Guy,” who thinks I wouldn’t care about you because we’ve never talked and I seem out of reach, or you feel like there are other people you want to communicate with who are out of reach, too popular, etc...I guess, tell me about it. Send an ask, or a message, leave a comment, anything. Tell me what you’d like to see from such out-of-reach people, what would encourage you, what you want to know or hear to feel like you aren’t lost in the noise, to keep yourself going. Because it is worth pressing on, but fuck knows I’ve been there, wondering why. 

I’m asking both because I’m curious, because I want to know where my own blind spots are, and because I’m thinking about Green Notebook Guy, selfishly, wondering where he is. I feel ineffectual, and I’m coping by trying to do something that matters. I’m not even sure what. 

[cogentranting]

Possible Additions to the Legends Team:

(It has been stated that someone who has previously been introduced into the Arrowverse will be joining the Legends in the back half of the season. Anyone who is currently a series regular on another show I considered invalid (e.g. Wild Dog, Elongated Man, Guardian). I don’t know Supergirl well enough to put any of it’s characters on this list, and I think it’s pretty unlikely anyway. Vaguely in order from least likely to most likely)

Hawkman or Hawkgirl- Technically possible. However, it doesn’t really fit within the idea of a revolving cast and I don’t think either character is popular enough to justify bringing them back after such a long absence (Kendra might be more popular than I realize, Carter certainly isn’t)

Katana- Tatsu would be further up this list except that I’m pretty sure DC has put her off-limits in the same way that Deadshot and Deathstroke are. Katana’s been teased before on the show (early season 2) and is a character I really love who (at least partly because of DC’s restrictions) didn’t get to keep coming back and showing off her mad skills. Would be an interesting personality to add to the mix because, unlike all the others, she was married, had a kid, a stable life. Could fill some of the hole left by Stein, in that sense. She doesn’t have powers though, and the show might be looking for that after losing a powerhouse like Firestorm.

Ronnie Raymond- upside: we know Ronnie, he’s a well-liked character. However, the reason Ronnie was killed in the first place is because Robbie Amell didn’t want to be a regular on Legends. So it’s unlikely that it’s changed. He doesn’t have any sort of superpower or fighting ability- in theory he could retake the Firestorm mantle with a new partner but that might move from ‘filling the opening on the team” to a full ‘replacing Jax and Stein” vibe. Hoewever, he is the only character on this list who could easily replace Jax as ship engineer. 

Vixen (Mari)- She fits in with the story, the actress is available. She’s a known character. Her dynamic with Amaya and Kuasa would be interesting. But, she has the exact same power as Amaya, which is boring. The timeline complications of having both grandmother and granddaughter on the ship wearing the same totem are a little wonky, even for Legends. Adding her shifts the balance a little far into being a show about Vixen... with some other people too.

Huntress-  She hasn’t made an appearance in four years, so it seems unlikely that she’d suddenly pop back up so drastically. How would this happen, who’s gonna recruit her? There’s an existing rivalry with Sara, that could be fun. Her skill set isn’t that interesting at this point unless you wrote in some upgrades, which is possible. But then again the actress isn’t very good so do we really want her back full time

Artemis- Evelyn could get resolution and redemption without taking up space on Arrow (which seems to not have room for her). On the other hand, she wouldn’t be around any of the people she betrayed so her redemption would lose a lot of depth. I’m also not 100% sure she’s alive. Doesn’t quite fill the superpower powerhouse hole left by Firestorm. Does fill the role of “the young one” which Jax somewhat occupied. 

Nyssa- Not very likely because A. I think her actress has her own show and is unavailable B. her skillset is probably too similar to Sara’s and C. It would likely instantly launch her and Sara into a committed long-term relationship which I don’t think is something Legends wants to do with Sara at this juncture. Conversely, they did just reference the relationship between Sara and Nyssa and seem to be showing that Sara missed it which could be interpreted as plans to revisit it (or it could be interpreted in terms of it’s parallel to the Alex/Maggie relationship-- a positive relationship which is nonetheless definitively over). But also Nyssa’s awesome and I’m always down for more Nyssa. Though I’d prefer to keep her on Arrow, cuz I think she fits better there. 

Dr. Light- I don’t remember where we left Dr. Light. I think she’s on Earth 2? And she was only in one episode of Flash so it’s pretty unlikely. But hey it’d be fun. 

Star Girl (or Other JSA team member)- Of these Star Girl has the most development and is thus most likely, but also none of them were particularly remarkable, and it would probably end up a retread of Amaya’s season 2 plot. 

Arsenal- The timing probably doesn’t work out with when he’s returning to Arrow this season. And I think that if Roy were to return to the Arrowverse full time, it would be to Arrow, where all his connections are (technically both Ray and Sara know him but... yeah...) But story-wise, it’s easier to get Roy onto a time ship than it is to unfake his death, and I’ll take anything that gets me more Roy. (Speedy is also a vague possibility. Legends has a shorter season which might work for Willa Holland. But also seems pretty unlikely that they’d separate the Queen siblings like that)

Jesse Quick - She seems to be pretty thoroughly written out of the shows by this point and when she was around mostly had her story revolve around Wells and Wally, neither of whom are present. I also think she’s a full-time superhero on another world, so she has her hands full. But, fills the super power void, and is not being used on another show, and was well-liked by fans from what I can tell. 

Gypsy- Another potential super power big gun to  pull in, but potentially too big. Breachers are really powerful, particularly one as skilled and experienced as Cynthia. I also don’t think Flash wants to give her up. And she has a job on another Earth, so it’d be somewhat hard to justify her giving that up to wander time on Earth 1. 

Pied Piper- He’s around. He’s redeemed. He’s significantly more agreeable than he was initially but would probably ruffle feathers enough to be interesting. He’s fairly different from the existing characters but also could take over some of the science related tasks left by Stein, or possibly take over as Engineer of the WaveRider. 

Golden Glider- As Leonard Snart makes his final exit, Lisa Snart could step in to take his place. She could potentially have a really interesting dynamic with Mick. She could be the schemer in a way that both Leonard and Sara used to be. She’s young, unpredictable and the CW has been trying to get her actress on a successful show for several years now and has been failing, meaning the actress is (to my knowledge) currently available.  

Constantine- He’s definitely going to make an appearance. They’ve said he’s only back for 2 or 3 episodes but that could be old information or a straight lie. He’s a character fans have consistently asked for more of, who is currently unattached to anything else. He doesn’t have strong connections anywhere in the Arrowverse so he would lose anything in transition. He’s significantly different from anyone currently on the show. He would fit with the magicky overarching vibe this season. He would be the third member of the team with magic, but his magic is a pretty different style from that of either Vixen or Zari. 

Ragman- Rory was a great addition to Arrow last season but sadly his superhero side wasn’t a good fit for the show because it was too weird. “Too weird” is what Legends does best. Ragman is powerful enough to make up for no longer having Firestorm (but likely easier on the effects budget). He’s got magic to fit with the season but it’s weird specific magic so it doesn’t overlap too much. One of Rory’s most fun aspects on Arrow was watching him be bewildered by everything and boy oh boy dial that up to 12 on Legends. At the same time, Rory doesn’t have a personality like anyone else on Legends- quiet, spiritual, artistic- meaning he’d contrast really really nicely. He doesn’t have anything/anyone keeping him from drifting through time because all his friends and family were killed-- speaking of which, it would give Rory the chance to avenge his family by taking on Darhk. It would add the complication of having two characters that go by Rory, but also that could be so much fun if you just lean into the fact that the two most different characters have the same name. If it were up to me, Rory is the character I would pick to add to Legends. 

Kid Flash- The Flash doesn’t know what to do with Wally. They’ve said as much. Flash doesn’t really have anything to do with him but also doesn’t want to kill him or anything like that, so they’ve basically just put him on a bus. Moving him to another show would solve the Flash’s problem while still giving fans all the Wally they want. Wally’s story line has also been set up as ‘looking for his place’ which is very much a Legends vibe. Wally had a cars interest early on which could be translated into making him the Waverider Engineer (at least, with Legends/Flash’s understanding of science) which in theory is needed. He’s different from existing characters while still having connections. He’s powerful enough to fill the Firestorm hole. However, Flash may not want to give him up entirely. And bringing him onto Legends may just transfer the Flash’s Wally problems to Legends: Wally is series-lead-powerful. Wally, as a gifted speedster, should be able to handle most problems on his own (he’s at least as capable as a late season 1 Barry- which is why Flash wrote him out). Meaning that including him in fight scenes often leaves other characters (especially ones like Mick) with nothing to do, or just means that problems can be resolved too quickly. 

Anyone I missed? Any viable Supergirl options that I should know about? Thoughts? Predictions? Hopes? Dreams? 

[thereluctantguardian]

Yikes, I thought this was going to be a civil discussion between two opposing lines of thought, but your last post seemed laced with sarcasm and the general air of talking down to me. Maybe that's not how you intended it to be and you have a blunt nature or thats exactly how you wanted it to sound. I'm not saying you had to agree with me or what I wrote, but I thought I would at least get the same respectful disagreement.

I'm honestly confused on how you say 90% of what I said was conjecture as I used examples of what the characters said and how they reacted during these situations. I hardly call that bending over backward to force a narrative.

The one part I did use conjecture I even pointed out that it was conjecture. Otherwise I am using what was said and shown on Raw. So I am using facts and what is shown on weekly tv. I am not assuming that Seth and Roman called Dean because that was not shown on Raw or mentioned by Seth and Roman. I am not assuming Seth and Roman talked things out with Dean backstage because it was not shown on Raw. I did not use conjecture to push a narrative that Dean was jealous of not having a title because there has been no proof of that other than the "gaslighting" by the Dogs of War. I hardly call that being fantasical.

On the gaslighting note, please know that I made a post regarding Dean's change in attitude and how Seth and Roman didnt notice the difference way before the whole Dogs of War thing, so this was noticed by people before these last few weeks.

I think you might have misunderstood my original reply. I mentioned that problem was with Dean and his perceptions of his brothers action or lack thereof. Never once did I say that Seth and Roman owe Dean an apology, only that some of their actions were not helping. I did not say they were to bare the cross for everything wrong with dean, and I feel like you might be projecting other people comments onto my post.

As for your examples of Roman and Seth could be resentful for being helped when they didnt ask for it. I completely agree. If Roman as resentful because the other two came out to help against Braun, I would understand because it did make Roman look like he couldnt do it on his own. But I could also see that the other two were just trying to help out, even though Roman never asked for it. I can see both arguements much like I can understand Dean's fustration with Roman and Seth interfering, but also see that they were just trying to help. Neither side is really wrong.

In fact, my whole post was actually agreeing with you that these guys need to talk this stuff out, I just didnt necessary agree with everything you said. I'm a little taken aback though with your vehemence about Dean getting his shit together or get out. Yes, Dean is a grown man who is responsible for his own feelings (which I did say was root issue), but for you to say that you would not believe that Roman and Seth wouldn't call to check on Dean to implying its not their problem to help Dean through his issues seems like a huge disconnect.

For all they have said (on Raw) that they are family and brothers, to not want to help Dean seems out of character for them. I dont see how that is conjecture or constructing a fantasical narrative. That seems like a fact. The Shield has always declared themselves brothers, family, and families talk things out and help each other.

I guess what did not come across clearly in my original reply is that I have empathy for all invovled. I can understand Dean's actions, but also see that Roman and Seth had the best intentions. I can see both sides of coin, and I find it sad that these guys could potentially solve their issues if they would just talk to each other.

I can see this is a hot point of contention for you, and if I in anyway made it seem like your opinions and thoughts were stupid, wrong, or invalid, I sincerely apologize. I simply was hoping for a civil, respectful debate.

This is going to piss some Shield fans off, but oh well

I adore Dean. He’s been my favorite member of the Shield since their début in 2012. And when I say I adore Dean, I don’t mean Jon Moxley. I’m not pining for a character that Jonathan Good has outgrown and nostalgists hope will reappear.

I adore Dean. I love his fighting style, past and present. I love his mic work. His character development. His odd, stick out like a sore thumb, and revel in every minute of it charm.

So with that said, I state this without a doubt, Dean needs to get his ass in gear and stop taking out his problems on Roman and Seth. You want to leave the team, leave it, but otherwise, talk this sh*t out and get it together.

I see a lot of folks acting like Seth and Roman have actually done something to earn Dean’s anger, and some of you are seriously grasping at straws to try to make it seem like Seth and Roman are insensitive assholes who’ve done something to hurt Dean, intentionally or unintentionally. And I’m here to say that’s absolute bullsh*t.

Y'all didn’t think for 2 seconds that Dean was unhappy until Drew and Dolph ran that gaslighting campaign. And now y'all taking everything that Ro and Seth say and do as a justification for Dean’s behavior. And that’s pretty f*cked up.

Seth doesn’t deserve this. Dean has worn a shirt that either says “lunatic” or implies that he’s unstable for 3 years now. He was mad that Roman and Seth came out to help him when he was getting beat down by Strowman, but Dean keeps running out to help them when they’re being cheated or are in dire straits. So he’s allowed to help them, but they’re not allowed to return the favor?! Then, you complain that all you are is the guy who’s saving everyone’s ass?!

Dude, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t get pissy with people for having your back, but then act like a f*cking martyr every time you choose to run out and help them. If you don’t want people’s help, fine. But if they want yours and you’re willing to give it, how have you been wronged?

He’s not making any sense and it’s really starting to frustrate me. But even more so, I’m annoyed with all the people who are acting like Dean is 100% in the right here, and Seth and Roman are wrong. Some of y'all are really bending over backwards to make it seem like Ro and Seth have wronged Dean somehow, and that’s making you come across a little unhinged as well.

[antagonist-chan]

Warning (this warning was written AFTER I wrote the following): This is a REEEEAAAAALLY long vent post. I’m not actually all that angry, just a little annoyed (especially since this has been a fairly consistent annoyance for, like, two years, so I’m pretty used to it now), BUT I just took my meds like an hour ago, and my meds make me really wordy and overshare-y for the first few hours. I have a tendency to write really long essays on whatever crosses my mind. It made English class really easy when I took it because that class was pretty much half essays...

Gooooddddddddd I hate my phone.

I can get it to connect to my bluetooth headphones fairly easily, but once it’s connected, I have to wait for it to decide, on its own terms, when to switch to actually USING the headphones instead of the speakers. Like, it says the headphones are connected, and it’ll respond to the headphones’ commands, but it won’t SEND anything to the headphones because fuck me I guess.

I have no idea what makes the phone decide to switch. Sometimes, changing the app helps! Other times, it does jack. Sometimes, it works immediately! Sometimes, it takes ten minutes. Sometimes, this is only a problem once a month! Sometimes, I can barely ever get it to connect.

And I can’t use wired headphones, because in the summer of 2017, something happened with the headphone jack and it ended up killing a pair of previously perfectly good headphones, so now, I don’t trust the headphone jack not to kill any headphones I plug in.

Of course, there are several other things I hate my phone for, this is just the one that’s annoying me at this very moment.

Thank god I’m one of those stubborn people who still prefers to use desktop for most things. I like having a keyboard and mouse and a ton of computing power. Because if I was a normal person who preferred to use their phone for almost everything, I’d be even more frustrated. I use my phone for a LOT, but my life ultimately revolves around my laptop.

And my laptop frustrates me a lot, too, but it’s easier to deal with because A) I’ve been using desktop computers my whole life while I didn’t get my first smartphone until 2015, B) it’s easier to solve problems with computers because there are so many peripherals you can add (touchpad acting up? Use a mouse!), C) I’m just more comfortable with the keyboard and mouse setup anyways so I’m more willing to go and fix fixable problems, and D) you actually have root access with a computer which you typically DON’T with a phone (and if you DO have root access on your phone, you’ve almost certainly invalidated your warranty because you had to break your contract and hack it).

(just a note- of the three smartphones I’ve owned, this one (a Moto G4) has been my least favorite (and, since my Dad’s is another Moto model, I know that some of these problems are exclusive to this model, while others are problems across the whole line), while my favorite is my previous phone (an LG G3)- I actually hated it when I first got it because it was so wildly different from my first (an LG Optimus), but once I got used to it I fell in love with it... as opposed to this Moto that I tolerated at first and then grew to absolutely despise; unfortunately, since each smartphone I get has lasted longer than the previous one, I’ve had this one so much longer (I only had the LG Optimus for a few months because we got it in a weird way and my parents decided to give up on that whole thing; and I only had my beloved LG G3 for a little under a year because I accidentally killed it by taking it for a jog in a heavy storm; and I’ve had this phone for over two years now...))

[theconservativebrief]

For a while now, the most succinct takedown of the smug self-satisfaction of South Park at its worst has been a screencap of a Reddit comment.

Its central paragraph reads:

It’s a show that teaches its audience to become lazy and self-satisfied, that praises them for being uncritically accepting of their own biases, and that provides them with an endless buffet of thought-terminating cliches suitable for shutting down all manner of challenges to their comfort zones.

The comment itself is hard to find an exact date for — the earliest reference to it that I can find is from 2015 — but its general tenor speaks to a shifting understanding of South Park: What was once a fun, snarky takedown of America’s worst tendencies now reads to many as a TV series that taught an entire generation of kids that it’s stupid to care about anything, let alone engage with it politically.

And nothing underlines the comment’s sentiment better than its mention of “ManBearPig,” the subject of a 2006 South Park episode of the same name, from the show’s 10th season, in the very first line.

Released in the buildup to the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore-featuring documentary on the devastating potential of climate change to remake the face of the planet, “ManBearPig” is a very 2006 take on the topic, with Gore enlisting the kids of South Park to hunt through some caves in search of the clearly made-up beast. Instead of capturing ManBearPig, Gore only makes things worse, and the episode subtly presents the argument that Gore is a hypocrite about climate change because he doesn’t live in a yurt or something.

Now, 12 years after “ManBearPig,” South Park has abruptly revisited the subject, in something of a surprising reversal. In the show’s latest episode, “Time to Get Cereal” (which aired November 7) ManBearPig is real, ManBearPig is angry, and everybody’s a little sad they made so much fun of Al Gore. It’s just the latest half-apology made by the show in an era when its “caring is for losers” ethos feels emptier and emptier.

Our friend. Our hero. Our ManBearPig. Comedy Central

The single most pointed segment in “Time to Get Cereal” involves a blowhard dude eating at a Red Lobster with his wife and kid. The wife is insistent that ManBearPig is a big problem, that it’s going to keep ravaging the countryside if something isn’t done. The husband says, first, that it’s made-up, and, well, if it is real, then what can we possibly do about it now? How can we know the Chinese will help us solve the problem, huh?

And all the while, ManBearPig — who’s smashed through a window into the restaurant — devours other diners, until he finally devours the husband as well. Notably, this sequence of footage is also the sequence that replays over the episode’s closing credits — which creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to reserve for moments of the episode they find particularly funny or pointed or both.

This is as close to an outright acknowledgment of ManBearPig as a stand-in for climate change as the episode gets. As such, it’s easy to interpret the scene as a mild repudiation of the 2006 episode. The arguments the husband makes before he gets eaten are the sorts of arguments a South Park hero might have made 12 years ago. They boil down to, “Why should I be forced to care? I don’t know that other people will.” But in the face of something that will cause massive death and devastation, those arguments pale just a bit.

This slight soberness also extends to how the episode treats Gore, whom South Park still sees as a figure to mock, but for a very different reason. In “Time to Get Cereal,” he’s become insufferable, because he was right about the threat of ManBearPig, when nobody else would listen. So before he’ll help the kids send ManBearPig back to hell — for that is where the beast issues from — he forces them to admit he was right and apologize. (It should be noted that Parker’s spin on Gore is one of his funnier impressions.)

But the joke here isn’t on Gore’s smugness, or his wrongness, or anything like that. It’s a joke about what happens when you finally convince people you were right all along, even if it takes more than a decade. Gore is still petulant and sniveling, but by the episode’s logic, he has a right to be — and that’s the main difference between “Time to Get Cereal” and “ManBearPig.”

Now, South Park is always gonna South Park. For one thing, “Time to Get Cereal” openly ends on a cliffhanger. It teases the upcoming November 14 episode “Nobody Got Cereal?” by putting the show’s main characters in jail with ManBearPig on the loose, so it’s possible the show will reverse at least some of what happened in “Time to Get Cereal.”

For another, most of the episodes in this young 22nd season (which began at the end of September) have been excuses for the kids to go on weird journeys. There might be political plots sprinkled in alongside those journeys, but the point is that the kids are having adventures, not that they’re learning important lessons about America along the way.

And that’s all in keeping with what the show has been doing since the election of Donald Trump. South Park wrote off Trump as a ridiculous buffoon when he was running for president, portraying him not via Trump himself, but via South Park teacher Mr. Garrison, who became Trump-esque. It’s as if the series isn’t sure how to live in a world that governs itself by South Park logic.

Yet that’s the larger conundrum South Park finds itself in. For a TV show driven by the same rationale as an internet troll — that provoking a reaction from those who care about literally anything is funnier than anything else on the face of the planet — it’s also become a show that increasingly seems uneasy about living in a world where the trolls have their way.

The kids went trick-or-treating this year too. Comedy Central

The animated sitcom can, theoretically, run forever. The only thing stopping it from doing so is the fact that it might eventually become unprofitable, because ratings will inevitably slip considerably. But considering that The Simpsons debuted (as a sitcom) in December 1989 and will turn 30 in a little over a year, it obviously takes quite a lot for a hit animated sitcom to become unprofitable.

A show like The Simpsons or South Park (which debuted in 1997) or Family Guy (1999) is really only limited by how long everybody involved wants to keep making it. That’s especially true for South Park, which is much more driven by the whims of Parker and Stone than their long-running animated peers. But it’s not as though the two couldn’t hand off the show to a new creative team if they ever wanted to. (Note: This will never happen.)

Regardless, the thing about animated TV shows is that they don’t really change, while the world around them does. If you’re familiar with The Simpsons’ beginnings, to watch an episode of the show in 2018 is to be instantly amused by how it was once the most subversive show on television. And though South Park maintains some degree of its bad-boy cred, a recent campaign for the show hinged on how babies born when it debuted are now old enough to be in college.

And all these shows are enmeshed in modes of storytelling that seemed entertaining when they premiered but now feel a little out of date. The Simpsons made a splash by pulling apart the tropes and ideas that TV had been built on for decades, taking a sledgehammer to the structure of the family sitcom. Now it’s just another institution.

Family Guy leaned into the sorts of ironically racist and sexist humor that was popular in the late ’90s, part of a wave of entertainment that lampooned what its creators perhaps saw as liberal overreach. Now it feels ever more like the “ironically” never modified “racist and sexist” as sharply as the show might have liked.

But no series has been as affected by the passage of time as South Park. On one hand, the series has been able to pivot more successfully than others, thanks to Parker and Stone’s continued involvement in every aspect of its production. On the other, it has never quite shed its status as TV’s most libertarian show, built atop the ethos that you shouldn’t bother caring about what other people do, unless they try to make you do something for the greater good, in which case, you should make fun of them.

In the 2010s, South Park has occasionally grappled with this element of its legacy. A whole season wondered if maybe people advocating for political correctness aren’t entirely wrong (just mostly wrong). And in a series of episodes that aired before and after the 2016 election, the show ended up turning Hillary Clinton into a more sympathetic figure than it typically let national politicians be. (It seemingly only did so because she lost, but there was something almost tender about the way the show portrayed her after the election, a marked contrast from her prior appearances.)

And yet South Park is still trapped, to some degree, by having launched in 1997, amid a booming American economy, where the issues that got Americans most worked up too often amounted to trivial bullshit. Even if you disagreed with South Park’s central “caring is stupid” ethos, it was a lot easier to let the show have its fun back then, without worrying about its cultural impact.

Now even Parker and Stone seem to wonder sometimes what South Park’s legacy might turn out to be. And what’s weirdly intriguing about episodes like “Time to Get Cereal” is the chance to watch the two of them look at who they were, who they are, and who they might become. They might still want to mock Al Gore, but in 2018, they know that doing so shouldn’t invalidate everything he says.

Original Source -> 12 years after mocking Al Gore’s fight against climate change, South Park reconsiders

via The Conservative Brief

[csemntwinl3x0a1]

Why you need customer development

Why you need customer development

We should invest at least as much time in understanding our customers as we do in optimizing our product development process.

It is humbling to see how bad experts are at estimating the value of features (us included). Despite our best efforts and pruning of ideas, most fail to show value when evaluated in controlled experiments.

The literature is filled with reports that success rates of ideas in the software industry are below 50%. Our experience at Microsoft is no different: only about a third of ideas improve the metrics they were designed to improve.

—Ronny Kohavi, Partner Architect at Microsoft

Nature hath given man one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

—Epictetus

Customers are what make a product successful.

Without customers willing to buy, it doesn’t matter how good or innovative or beautiful or reasonably priced a product is: it will fail.

It makes no sense, then, that we spend most of our time and effort optimizing our product development process. What about customer development? Shouldn’t we invest at least as much time in understanding our customers, their needs and pain points, and how to deliver solutions to them?

Customer development is an approach for doing just that.

It’s a way to reduce your business risks by challenging your assumptions about who your customers are, what they need, and why and how they buy.

By applying the scientific method to learning about your customers, you can help confirm that you’re on track to a business model that works and a product that people want to buy.

Sounds great in theory, right?

But theory is useless if you can’t put it into practice. That’s why I’ve written this book—because I’ve worked with, mentored, and spoken to hundreds of companies who love the lean ideas and principles but struggle to make them work.

The First Challenge Is Inside the Building

Customer development is a big change for most organizations.

To many people, customer development sounds like saying, “Hey! You know that expertise that we’ve amassed over decades of experience, dozens of products, and millions of customers? Let’s shelve it and start from scratch.”

Of course that’s not what we’re saying. But as a pragmatist, I recognize that it’s difficult to correct a mistaken first impression. If your team doesn’t understand what customer development is and how it enhances (rather than replaces) your competencies, it’ll be far more difficult to get started.

Customer development is admittedly the new kid on the block. Everyone knows about the role of product development, marketing, customer support, and even user research in an organization. But customer development? You’re likely to encounter some skepticism.

Unless your team has been exposed to lean startup conferences or Steve Blank’s work, you may find yourself having to sell customer development to your organization before you can really get started.

This chapter takes a step back, explaining what customer development is (and isn’t), why you need it, and who can do it. It also offers responses to some common objections.

What Is Customer Development?

So let’s back up a minute and talk about definitions. What is customer development? What does it replace? What does it not replace?

The term customer development is meant to parallel product development. While everyone has a product development methodology, almost no one has a customer development methodology. And the truth is, if you don’t learn what customers really want, you’re at a very high risk of building something that no one wants to buy.

Customer development is a hypothesis-driven approach to understanding:1

Who your customers are

What problems and needs they have

How they are currently behaving

Which solutions customers will give you money for (even if the product is not built or completed yet)

How to provide solutions in a way that works with how your customers decide, procure, buy, and use

You probably have ideas or intuitions about all of these. Let’s identify what those really are: guesses. Let’s make it sound a bit better and call them hypotheses. Those hypotheses may be around forming a new company, building a new product, or even adding new features or capabilities to an existing product.

Everything you do in customer development is centered around testing hypotheses.

What Is Lean Customer Development?

You may have heard of customer development. So what’s the difference between “customer development” and “lean customer development”?

I call my approach to customer development “lean customer development.” I’m using “lean” as a synonym for pragmatic, approachable, and fast.

Lean customer development takes the heart of Steve Blank’s ideas and renders them into a simple process that works for both startups and established companies. It’s what I write about on my blog, speak about at tech events, and teach when I mentor companies.

Lean customer development can be done by anyone who speaks with customers or prospects. It works whether you’re a startup founder with no product and no customers, or at an established company with numerous products and customers. Now that I’ve explained my perspective on lean customer development, from here on out, I’m going to talk simply about customer development.

In my experience across multiple companies and in mentoring startups, every hour spent on customer development has saved 5, 10, or even more hours of writing, coding, and design (Figure 1-1). That doesn’t even include the harder-to-measure costs such as opportunity cost, snowballing code complexity, and eroding team morale from working hard on features that no one ends up using.

Figure 1-1. Talking to customers saves time and money

Customer development starts with a shift in mind-set. Instead of assuming that your ideas and intuitions are correct and embarking on product development, you will be actively trying to poke holes in your ideas, to prove yourself wrong, and to invalidate your hypotheses.

Every hypothesis you invalidate through conversations with prospective customers prevents you from wasting time building a product no one will buy.

Lean customer development is done in five steps:

Forming a hypothesis

Finding potential customers to talk to

Asking the right questions

Making sense of the answers

Figuring out what to build to keep learning

If your hypothesis is wrong or even partially wrong, you want to find out fast. If you can’t find customers, you modify your hypothesis. If customers contradict your assumptions, you modify your hypothesis. Those course corrections will lead to validating an idea that you know customers want and are willing to pay for.

What Customer Development Is Not

There are as many misunderstandings about what customer development isn’t as about what it is. Let’s clear those decks right now.

Customer Development Is Not Just for Startups

When The Lean Startup was published in 2009, many companies were slow to embrace the ideas it introduced. “We’re not a startup,” they replied.

Although Eric Ries uses the word “startup” in the title of his book and Steve Blank wrote specifically about customer development as it pertains to startups, startups are not the only companies that benefit from customer development. Startups certainly have a higher degree of uncertainty than mature companies; they are still searching for a business model, a distribution strategy, a customer base.

But larger, more mature companies also can’t assume that their models will remain static. Markets and technology change. In addition, larger companies often find it difficult to shift attention and resources away from profitable lines of business in order to explore new markets and areas of innovation—leaving them ripe for disruption. (Kodak, which I write about in not available, enjoyed over 100 years of success before missing the boat on digital imaging and declaring bankruptcy in 2012.)

Customer development, with its focus on small-batch learning and validation, can promote internal innovation. Intuit, for example, has launched multiple products using customer development—including SnapTax and Fasal. General Electric is using lean principles. So is Toyota, the New York Department of Education, and the White House’s Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

Much of the content in this book is applicable for readers from early-stage startups, massive established companies, and anything in between. When a section is more useful for one audience than the other, I have called that out.

Customer Development Is Not Product Development

Product development answers the question “When (and what) can they buy?”

Customer development answers the question “Will they buy it?”

Product development is the process of building a new product or service and (one hopes) bringing it to market. Start with a concept, define the requirements, build the requirements, test the near-finished product, refine it, and launch it.

How you develop a product varies tremendously based on the methodology your organization follows (e.g., Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, etc.). What all product development methodologies have in common is the desired outcome: a completed product for customers to buy.

But what if the product you build is not a product that customers will buy? Is “product” the biggest risk your team faces? What about market risk? As Marc Andressen said, “Market matters most. And neither a stellar team nor a fantastic product will redeem a bad market.”2

With customer development, you are building your customer base while you’re building a product or service that solves their specific problems. Customer development doesn’t replace product development; it’s a second process that you do in parallel with product development.

If you’ve done customer development alongside product development, you don’t need to wait until your product is launched to know whether customers will buy. You’ll know, because you will already have beta customers, evangelists, and paying customers.

Customer development and product development are two independent activities, and both are necessary to maximize your company’s chances for success.

Customer Development Does Not Replace Product Management

Some folks object, “Well, what’s left for product managers to do?”

Customer development does not replace product vision. Talking to your customers does not mean asking them what they want and writing it all down. Product management requires a disciplined approach to gathering information from a variety of sources, deciding which pieces to act upon, and figuring out how to prioritize them.

Customer development simply adds two components: a commitment to stating and challenging your hypotheses and a commitment to learning deeply about your customers’ problems and needs.

Customer development does not provide all the answers. Although it can replace many of your assumptions with actual information, it still requires a disciplined product manager to decide which pieces of information to act upon, how to prioritize them, and how to take what you’ve learned and turn it into a feature, product, or company.

Customer Development Is Not User Research

Your company may be conducting user research already. That doesn’t mean you’re practicing customer development.

Customer development does borrow from many of the techniques that have served user researchers well for decades. But the context, the practitioners, and the timing are very different.

User researchers often describe their work as “advocating for the user.” It is, unfortunately, still viewed in many companies as optional, something you should do because it delights customers.

Customer development is “advocating for the business.” It’s not something that you should do because it makes customers happy. It’s something you must do to build a sustainable business where people open their wallets and pay for your product or service.

Most new products (and companies) fail. The odds are against you. Around 75% of venture-backed startups fail.3 Anywhere from 40% to 90% of new products fail to gain significant market adoption.4

But surely, we think, we will be the exception. We like to think of building products as an art—something guided by our creativity, intuition, and intellect. We all know that there are good product managers (and designers and engineers and strategists) and mediocre ones. Maybe that’s what makes the difference between a failed product and a success?

Unfortunately not.

Universally, we’re just not very good at building products and companies solely based on creativity, intuition, and intellect. It’s not just a startup problem, either: in 1937, the companies that made up the S&P 500 had an average life expectancy of 75 years; recently that number has dropped to just 15 years.5

On a smaller scale, we’re not as good as we think we are, either. Most of our ideas don’t increase value for customers or companies—Microsoft estimates that only around one-third of their ideas improve the metrics they are intended to improve. Amazon tests every feature and fewer than 50% work; Yammer’s numbers are roughly the same. Netflix and Intuit don’t claim any higher proportion of successes.6

The truth is that it doesn’t matter how much companies research, how well they plan, how much money they spend, or how smart their employees are: the odds that they’ll avoid big mistakes are worse than a flip of a coin.

Not Just Software

I may be citing a lot of software companies, but the benefits of risk reduction and course correction are even greater for other businesses. Lines of code are far cheaper and faster to change than manufacturing setups, supplier contracts, and compliance approvals.

There’s limited opportunity to regain trust in a service that disappointed your customer, and no opportunity to alter a physical product once it’s in a customer’s hands.

For the makers of KRAVE jerky, it was critical to understand how customers defined a premium snack food (no nitrates, no artificial ingredients) before committing to a recipe and starting mass production.

For Romotive, a company that makes smartphone robots for learning, it was critical to understand the environments that their robots would be moving in. “The robot has to have good mobility and traction on carpets, hardware floors, or over grates. Also, kids drop things! A lot of what we’ve learned about how these robots will live has influenced our hardware decisions,” says marketer Charles Liu.

How Do We Improve Our Odds?

In part, we improve our odds by embracing the idea that building products is a systematic, repeatable process. There are tools that you can use, regardless of your company’s size, maturity, or industry, to help increase your chances of success. Customer development is one of those tools.

By practicing customer development as a parallel process in conjunction with product development, you can greatly maximize your learning and reduce your risks.

If you’ve read The Lean Startup, you’ll recognize the diagram on the left side of Figure 1-2 as the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. It’s meant to describe how your organization should be continuously learning and adapting based on the new information you get from measuring results and learning from customers. The diagram on the right side, the Think-Make-Check loop, is a variation coined by LUXr CEO Janice Fraser.

Figure 1-2. The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop Ries described in The Lean Startup (left) and the Think-Make-Check cycle that Janice Fraser describes in her thinking on lean UX (right)

What’s the difference? Just the starting point. You don’t need to start with the Build phase—in fact, doing so is often an expensive way to experiment.

Customer development is an important part of the Think phase. It allows you to explore and iterate during the cheapest phase of development—before any code is written or mockups are created. Customer development gives you the necessary information to build the best possible first guess, which you will then validate.

I’ve talked about learning more and reducing risk—those are valuable gains, but they don’t feel very tangible. What else will you gain from practicing customer development?

You’ll get a richer picture of your customer and your competition (not just companies and products but established habits and routines)

You’ll uncover new opportunities for..

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