Projecting

In the world of rock climbing, we use the word “projecting” to communicate that we are working on a route that we can’t yet climb, but hope to by working out all the moves and gaining the strength and confidence to one day climb the route clean (without falling or resting), and in one push.

Back in 2011, my co-founder/long-time business partner and I started working together and ultimately formed our design consultancy, Stoked, in 2012. As we were taking the steps that most entrepreneurs make when starting a company, we, of course, had to come up with a name. We liked the word “Stoked” because it accurately portrayed the emotional outcome we were aiming for with our work. Then Anna (my partner) had the idea of adding a “.d” to the end to pay homage to our beginnings at the d.school at Stanford where we met and have been working for the past 10+ years. So we named ourselves “Stoke.d.  Then later dropped the “.d” because it confused the hell out of everyone.

After choosing our name, we then had to search for a domain name we liked. stoked.com was unavailable but whatever registrar we were using at the time offered up other suggestions, and one of those suggestions was stokedproject.com. We instantly fell in love in with this URL because it hinted at a sense of impermanence that felt creative and dynamic to us.  It signaled to us that we wouldn’t turn out like all those other consultancies that glommed on to their clients for several years because, at that time, we felt that would be a sign of failure. Back then, we thought our job was to teach organizations how to use design thinking so they could get to innovation quickly and consistently. We guessed (as well as new entrepreneurs can guess) that a sure sign of success would be short, one-off engagements where we shared what we knew, leaving organizations with everything they needed to innovate!

We were way off. Not wrong necessarily, but short-sighted in the ways that newbs can be short-sighted.

But this original notion we had around using the word “project” still feels important to me. Since I left Stoked at the end of 2020, I’ve engaged in several projects like learning how to write fiction, taking courses on mindfulness and creativity, volunteering my time, and ultimately starting a coaching business for high performers. 

I love that the climbing community verbed this noun: project. It has become my preferred philosophical approach to most things in my life.

I don’t want to go into the same office for 10 years and do the same thing over and over in slightly different variations. I prefer short-term engagements where I’m introduced to new problems or areas I know little about. I’d rather write the book, record the record, make the movie, work on a collection, then move on. Go learn something new, something additive, something fresh. This isn’t an argument against mastery. On the contrary, it’s an argument to apply the skill or field I want to develop mastery in and apply it in many areas, across many domains.

I’m a learner and a builder, not an operator. It took me several start-ups and a long time to learn this, but I know it now and am very comfortable with it. I embrace it.

And so here I am, sitting on a flight and wondering if there is some clever name I can come up with for this new project. My hope is that I find something that conveys the inherent impermanence of this work. A name that constrains me from getting too precious. It’s a project, and this project may last 5 or 10, or 20 years and it will evolve and grow to better serve those who have a need. I also hope this project has a natural conclusion so that when its time comes, there is space and time, and energy for the next thing. The next project.