{"id":1236,"date":"2011-01-17T16:48:43","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T16:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anirama.com\/testblog\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2018-02-02T10:45:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T18:45:32","slug":"vision-and-bhags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anirama.com\/newdesign\/2011\/01\/17\/cmu-etc\/vision-and-bhags\/","title":{"rendered":"Vision and BHAGs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wide<\/p>\n

In the class I\u2019m teaching at CMU on entrepreneurship we talked about setting a long term vision for your company. I used Jim Collin\u2019s<\/a> research as a framework for the discussion, in particular setting a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and having a vivid description of what life will be like when that goal is met (See Building Your Company\u2019s Vision<\/a>). Among other qualities a good BHAG should be inspiring and take 10 to 30 years to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Of course this got me thinking about PDI\u2019s<\/a> vision of making fully animated feature films. We set that as a specific goal somewhere around 1984, a good decade before it was possible. It served as an invaluable beacon for all the decisions we would subsequently make \u2013 doing character animation, continuing to produce our own short films, expanding into film effects work, and on and on. It also kept us from veering off track with opportunities to sell our software or do work for non-entertainment clients. It was a big, hairy, audacious goal even without an acronym for it.<\/p>\n

The problem with a BHAG is once you\u2019ve done it, then what? And that in fact is one of the reasons I ended up leaving PDI\/DreamWorks.<\/p>\n

For my class I tried to find inspiring example BHAGs from animation and effects companies. That effort fell flat. Even from DreamWorks and Pixar. They all basically said \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep doing what we\u2019re doing,\u201d but with much more flowery language.<\/p>\n

So I set out to determine what the BHAG is that I would set if I was running an animation company today, and it came really fast. Simply put: \u201cIntegrate our characters into people\u2019s lives.\u201d Granted, it\u2019s a bit more obscure than \u201cMake fully animated feature films,\u201d so let me paint the \u2018vivid description\u2019: Ten or twenty years from now mobile devices as we know them will be non-existent. Instead you\u2019ll be connected via some sort of head\u2019s up augmented reality display. Maybe it\u2019s a pair of glasses with little monitors in them<\/a>, or maybe they are using a laser to paint on the back of your retina<\/a>, or perhaps we\u2019ll all have jacks on the backs of our skulls \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter to me, I\u2019m just sure it\u2019s going to happen. That display and adjoining audio input will be projecting information all over our environment. But you don\u2019t want a Terminator-style view of streams of data in front of you, you don\u2019t want web pages popping up or maps overlaid or floating arrows and words. You just want a companion to deal with all that for you. When you need driving directions you want to follow him down the street. Lost in the mall? He\u2019ll take you where you need to go for what you want, and negotiate the best deal for you ahead of time. Reservations? Tickets? Check out payments? Just have your concierge buddy take care of it. This goes on and on with new ways to interface with your social network, read a book, watch a movie, experience music, create art\u2026<\/p>\n

What would this company do today to work towards that BHAG? Here\u2019s a few things I\u2019d start with:<\/p>\n