Keith Ray wrote about Scott Berkun’s essays . I am particularly drawn to why smart people defend bad ideas . It describes some common ways of bad idea defenses, and some countermeasures. And it’s fun to read.

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with having bad ideas. I know I’ve had plenty. If you try to have only good ideas, you’ll be blocked. Generating many good and bad ideas, and deferring determination of their goodness or badness is key to
techniques like brainstorming, working in iterations and pair programming.

I believe the key is in defending bad ideas. I know I’ve done that too… Once you find out, through ruminating or feedback from the real world that an idea might be bad, you need to reconsider, or generate new ones. At least you have to be open to the possibility that an idea might be bad.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of other people defending bad ideas. I guess it’s a bit more obvious if you receive the “defense”. Actually the “defending” often feels more like an attack in disguise. It often goes through manipulation. Scott describes several manipulations, some of which I’ve encountered often. I may have used them as well, but I’m not really aware of that – manipulation works best if the one who manipulates isn’t aware of it…

If you’re not convinced about reading it yet, let me offer this quote:

[..] Worse, if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent’s friends) they’ve probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. Smart people often fall into the trap of preferring to be right even if it’s based in delusion, or results in them, or their loved ones, becoming miserable.

So, the next time you’re attacked by someone defending a bad idea, have pity on them. It probably hurts them much more than it hurts you.

The next time you feel miserable defending an idea, think again… It may be a real bad idea to defend this one…

While reading getting things done I came across this quote, which aptly summarizes the workshop experience:

It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling, than to feel yourself into a better way of action. - O.H. Mowrer

So these, I think, are the three big lessons open source and blogging have to teach business: (1) that people work harder on stuff they like, (2) that the standard office environment is very unproductive, and (3) that bottom-up often works better than top-down.

Ever since reading The Timeless Way of Building, I've been looking at many office environments with bewilderment. Usually, they're not the right place to be creative. Even with all the values and practices of agile software development that can make it more prredictable, It takes time to play and reflect to arrive at truly simple solutions. If I want to solve something, or ever write,

I'm usually better off going into the garden for a bit. How many offices do you know that have gardens?

At the end of the piece Paul Graham goes into startup culture (as most startups start out of home). When people ask me what it is like to run your own company, like I do, I usually say (with a smile) 'don't try this at home, kids'. But, as Paul Graham writes:

And as the example of open source and blogging suggests, you'll enjoy it more, even if you fail. You'll be working on your own thing, instead of going to some office and doing what you're told. There may be more pain in your own company, but it won't hurt as much.

I had some pain, it does hurt, but not as much. I 've met people who paid far more 'learning money' than I did (so far). If something goes wrong, I've got only myself to blame, I can learn, and try again. Recently I find, that I am finding more and more the work I excel at and enjoy. As Lynne says: 'live the life you imagine'.

I believe that the growing popularity of blogging, open source, wikipedia, Dilbert, agile (software development) and starting your own company is no coincidence. People are looking for better ways to live and work, and many are no longer waiting, like children, for their employer to make this happen.

Do I believe it is possible to achieve this inside companies as well? Yes, if you manage to change slowly, work with proven results, and keep playing the 'professional' games necessary to keep you in step with the rest of the company. Many agile teams enjoy more fun and productivity, and other ways of working and more respectful interactions are spreading. For most of us, it's probably easier to try other ways on our own, or within the confines of a team (but watch out for being too succesful ;-).

Some businesses can change from the inside, many business can change only if there is sufficient outside (e.g. market) pressure. Many more change into non-existance, because they are outcompeted. It's no coincidence.

If you don't want a swinging song to stay in your head all day, I recommend you do not download Chinese Fairytale ;-). Sweet pop music with a groove, a la Saint Etienne. Enjoy.

With me in this case. The world is also interesting, with many things going on on the energy front at the moment.

I just arrived home from the pair programming party in Mechelen. I worked with Pascal van Cauwenberghe on our new project 'hourensou' (Japanese for spinach, and for a practice from the Toyota way). We're building hourensou to help us level out the load for the various events we organize.

The amount of 'stuff' we have to do is getting to the level that some pragmatic automation will save us time. We've got about six people signed up to help already, as this will also be a fun exercise in making a ruby on rails application.

We also talked a bit about blogging. Pascal suggested making small deadlines for yourself and finishing 'whatever' within that deadline. So that is what I did, I made up most of this blog entry (and some more) while I drove back.

Agile Alliance election results

I was eligible as member for the agile alliance board, and I didn't get elected. A friend asked me about the election results today, apparently they haven't been made public or sent to the members yet.

Looking at the list of board members on the agile alliance website it hasn't been updated for at least a year, so I'll break the news then, this is what Rachel Davies mailed me:

The people who were elected this year are: Mike Cohn, Rachel Davies, Jutta Eckstein, Ron Jeffries, Ole Jepson, Brian Marick, Angela Martin, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock.

I congratulate the new board, and wish them a lot of fun in a year where the alliance continuously delivers value.

So, watsgeburt with me? I've been giving three training courses in a month. Two runs of eXperience Agile here in Eindhoven, and training plus coaching on Pair Programming in Karlsruhe. That has been a lot of fun and learning, some of which I hope to feed back to this blog or the systems thinking wiki.

It was also quite exhausting, maybe that's why I had a mild flu last week. This week, I was taking it fast and slow at the same time. I'm focusing on getting things done, first attacking stuff that annoys me or stressing me out. The strange thing I find, is that while I was working on 'stuff' (which I normally postpone, because It's not stuff for nothing - I hate it), I was getting lots of inspiration. As well as a lot of stuff and things done, I was hyper active this week.

What am I up to next? I'm scheduled to give some more courses in September, meanwhile making some time for vacation (It seems I'm going sailing again :-) ), do a bit of coaching here and there (I'll be in Karlsruhe august 4 and 5, so if you'd like to grab a beer, feel free to contact me). I'm also working on developing and/or marketing a few new courses on agile software development and interpersonal communication.

I'm not likely to be bored. Ever. I'll be off now, the garden and my lunch are calling me. In the meantime, I recommend a listen to watsgeburt.

I see it more as being very playful with language. I couldn't care less for most Nederhop (Dutch Rap), but this one I find hilarious - the lyrics seem to be a good deal gibberish, and the beats are excellent. The word watsgeburt itself is a neologism (or gibberish, depending on your point of view ;-), and since according to my regular search engine, it hasn't spread to English yet, let's see what happens ;-).

Watsgeburt means 'what has happened', and it's pronounced in a funny quasi American accent. There's an attempt attempt at watsgeburts etymology over at the vpro website. The origin seems unclear, most likely it originates from another .