The Walsh Way
“Many people erroneously think they have only one chance to succeed, and if they miss that chance, they are doomed to failure. In fact, most people have several opportunities to succeed.”
- Bill Walsh, winning coach of the San Francisco 49ers’ first Superbowl
From a recent ESPN feature, an insightful look at probably the most influential coach in football history (that’s futbol americano). More than a football mind, one could argue that Walsh was to coaching and management what Dieter Rams is to design and minimalism.
Bill Walsh found success by knowing how to build and run a successful organization (but at a cost), creating a ripple effect well past football.
As president, GM and coach, Walsh would devise game plans, negotiate with agents, interview secretaries for jobs, instruct marketers, everything. As his offense became the offense around the NFL, opponents marveled at and then copied the so-called 49ers Way. But it was really the Walsh Way, a system flowing from one man’s ingenuity and insecurity. By the late ’80s, as Walsh’s definition of success became so narrow as to be unattainable, the Walsh Way started to cripple the coach. He would sit dazed in his hot tub even after wins, despondent that he had miscalculated a play or two. “I was a tortured person,” Walsh later told biographer Harris. “I felt the failure so personally …
What haunted Walsh went deeper than pink slips and long nights. It was his drive to be great at something he couldn’t control. His colleagues recall him as the most intelligent coach they’d ever seen, which Walsh not so discreetly agreed with.
He may have been perfectionism to its exhaustive core; truly someone that never thought something was simply ‘good enough.’
You are getting better or you are getting worse. You never stay the same. - @49ers twitter.com/allisterc/stat…
— Allister Capati (@allisterc) August 21, 2012
A trailer for the new book, Instant: The Story of Polaroid.
Show people something they had no idea they wanted but was irresistible.
Edwin Land, Polaroid co-founder and inventor predicted the smartphone back in 1970.
I don’t know what’s more impressive, his ability to make the hard look simple in driving a product to market or his salesmanship once that product was off the ground.
An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.
- Edwin Land, Polaroid co-founder, inventor
A quick look at the different elements behind making a game and how indie game developers put it all together.
Really dig this new Nike Flight commercial. I want that training cycle from the future.
