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Passion project pageight is shaping up to be a lot bigger than I expected.
It’s really no surprise. In a completely new network of business collaborators, outside the corporate world, I have been introducing myself differently the last 6 months.
“I make everything bigger.”
At a moment when my original plan was to do-this-thing-by-the-end-of-this-quarter, I choose an alternative result and make an executive decision today. I am the boss, afterall.
I opt to slow down, stay here a little longer. I choose a pace that is more aligned with the sustainable lifestyle I so desire – one where the long road is at its highest value. I take a stroll through my memories and recall a story that makes me think, even bigger.
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In this mindset, I often find myself at Big Blue.
This time, in a windowless conference room in Paramus, NJ. In the late 2010s, I had the honor to lead a team of brilliant consultants – world-class kinda ones – you know the type.
Alongside a client of the German automotive kind – you know the one, we were imagining how to use IBM Watson as a growth engine in marketing channels. The project was also a foundational market experiment to inform a D2C strategy. We were a small team, playing big. We were switched on and moving at a faster speed than most. We were going first, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Back in New Jersey, we were focused on a scalpel-sharp mission: an impeccably designed market-loved prototype, one that actually works. Simple enough, but imagine the context. The stakes were high and the investments commensurate. The pressure was on.
I could almost always sense when the team felt off: going too far or too deep, spinning too long or nerding-out too hard. It was my role to guide everyone back on.
I often called on this book as a tool. I was studying leadership and eventually carrying it everywhere with me. In a world of corporate constraints that oftentimes made no sense to me, I used it to remind myself of why I was here, in the first place. And to build culture.
Connecting our work to its purpose through the voice of heritage in Watson, Jr’s words became a team ritual known as “Quotes from the Dead Watson”. Until now, these were the best days of my career.
It’s really no surprise I am called to pull Watson from my humble bibliothèque today. To remind myself of my own beliefs. And to ride the cycle, not the quarter.
For now, I choose to keep working on the ideas that are part of building pageight.
Follow along on the Gram, at @pageightco.
Say something, go ahead!