Stanford, Rodin and the Magic bench

Ok, warning, I am well rested and therefore completely full of shit today. Read no further.

One day in 1998, my boss Elizabeth, walked into my cubicle and demanded my much-delayed product requirements document for the first Cisco IP Phone.  I had been procrastinating delivering it as I was cramming my head with as much telephony market data as I could scrounge, as I was a data guy, not a voice guy.  Well, the day had finally arrived, and she demanded the PRD forthwith else I would get a drumming from her.

I knew that I would not be able to accomplish this task while in the office with all the interruptions, so I fled to my small dark bachelor pad in Palo Alto, and ultimately decided to don my backpack and set off for a lighter, roomier setting.  I eventually found my way to the Rodin sculpture garden at Stanford University, a short distance from my condo.  The oxygen and ozone of the campus, the beauty of the sculpture, and the Mozart on my headphones magically interacted with each other, which allowed me to write fifty pages of the PRD before the sun went down that evening. 

In the subsequent decade with Cisco, I would ultimately find my way back to that same bench at Stanford when I needed to summon the creative muses.  Of the tens of products I have 'authored' directly at Cisco, the vast majority of them can trace their paternity to that bench ten feed from the Catyadid.

This week and weekend I've had ample opportunity to find my way back to the magic bench, and it has not lost any of the psychological anchoring even though I've added two chapters to my life since last I encamped there.  I wonder how much of it is psychological, and how much is environmental.  Like all things in this life, it's most likely not an absolute one or the other, but a bit of both.

Comments

[Ant-Knee]

It is strange to say out loud but, I miss the gates of hell. Great place to make a plan, set a goal, choose direction.

[Karen Herzog]

Next time you visit Stanford, you might meander to the other side of campus to The New Guinea Sculpture Garden. . Constructed during the summer of 1994, the primitive art is masterful. One of my favorites at the site is the Papua New Guinean interpretation of Rodin's "The Thinker." Perhaps a new creative muse will emerge providing a mystical anchor for future chapters in your life.

[Prokofy Neva]

I know what you mean.

What is a product requirements document, why would it be 50 pages, and what is the genesis of procrastinating over it, i.e. is it like writer's block? or what are the dynamics?

[Christian]

Karen, thanks for the recco!

Prok, a PRD is the document that kicks off a product development effort at Cisco. It is typically a combination of market size assessments (Total Addressable Market, etc.) and projections as well as direct customer feedback as far as the needs/problems that need fixin. We then find a technology solution to said problems. It may be a 5 page document or 100 page document depending on the complexity of the product/problem space.

As far as procrastination, it was more of the type of not being comfortable at the time with the telephony market, and fear of skewing the PRD too far onto the data side of the field (and making an unusable phone). Luckily, I eventually met two telephony gurus who were able to hold my hand through the later PRD process.