As a one-time summer employee of Jim Collins (as a member of the vaunted “chimp” research team, although really just a small cut above gopher-chimp status) and a sometime aficionado of his works, the single concept he’s come up with that I most find myself pondering is the Flywheel.

A literal flywheel is a very heavy wheel which, because of its weight, is resistant to changes in its rate of rotation. This means that it’s extremely hard to get a flywheel spinning, requiring a lot of energy. But it also means that once you do have it moving, it will keep moving with very little additional effort. At that point, it stores a tremendous amount of energy.

The Flywheel is the central concept of the book Good to Great. It links the early stages, which can be summed up as figuring out which flywheel to push and getting the right people around to push it, with the late stages, where your company becomes awesome (okay, great).

It is rare to find such an apt physical symbol for abstract processes, and the wisdom of the Flywheel is simple. If you want to get anything done, then: (1) You need to keep pushing in the same direction for a long time and (2) When you first start to push, it’s not going to feel like you’re making progress; it will be impossible in these early stages even to imagine the incredible power the Flywheel will have once you really get it going, or how long it can keep gaining more and still more momentum even once it’s already at a good clip.

In some sense these points seem blindingly obvious, a truism; especially point (1). But keeping in mind point (2) and reflecting on the image of the Flywheel can be more valuable than you might think when attempting to change something for the better.

A corollary of the fact that you need to steadfastly push in the same direction (or perhaps more accurately, on the same wheel) is that you’d better identify the right flywheel to begin with. Not just any group of people, operating according to any culture and ethic, will be able to identify the right wheel, or have the resolve to keep pushing it: hence the earlier chapters of Good to Great.

The Flywheel concept applies to any attempt at significant change, notably personal behavior modification. Lately I’ve been seeing flywheels everywhere, and trying to keep the Flywheel in mind as a caution and an inspiration.

I’ll end this post by pointing out again the dualistic nature of the Flywheel: the downside is that you have to push hard and long before seeing results, and you must remain consistent even as your faith that you ever will see them is tested. The bright side is that, if you stick it out, the results you see, and the progress you can continue to make, will be beyond imagination. And that duality might remind those familiar with Collins’ work of another concept that’s worth reflecting upon.

So I made it into Austin at about 9:30 yesterday morning, sans bag (which showed up later). After getting a Curra’s fix and catching up with Jeff and Alexis, I checked in at an Obama campaign office in East Austin.

I received a clipboard; a printed-out map of a neighborhood; a list of about 75 addresses and the name, age, and gender of people living there; and assorted Obama campaign literature, chiefly fliers to hang on doorknobs. I was given minimal training and sent out to walk the neighborhood, knocking on doors.

I’m not sure what information went into building the lists, other than voter rolls. It did seem that people I talked to who were on the list were more likely to be supporting Obama than other people who came to the door, so some effort to identify likely supporters probably went into it.

Upon making contact, the idea is to determine whether the individual supports Obama, then encourage them to vote in the primary and the caucus, and make sure they have the information to do so. Talking to people about which candidate they support was not as uncomfortable as I’d thought it might be, and Obama supporters are much more interested in continuing the conversation than non-supporters, which is exactly what you want from a get-out-the-vote perspective. I would note down information for each person about whether I was able to contact them, who they’re supporting, etc.

So, not exactly rocket science, but I do think they’ve struck a good balance between having enough organization to maintain good information, and not wasting any time before sending volunteers out into the field. I did have several conversations with people who support Obama and seemed interested in caucusing but didn’t really know what the deal was. Explaining that to as many people as possible is very important.

I didn’t have the energy at the end of the day to hang around with the other campaign folks, but it seems like a good group of people (and a diverse mix by age/race/gender). I caught up on sleep a bit at the expense of a late start today, but now I’m headed back out there.

Go Obama!

Well, I got about what I expected from US Airways, with a delayed flight and a missed connection in Vegas.  Fortunately, I was able to re-book on American Airlines flights to Austin via Dallas that should get me to Austin by 9:00 am.  Sleep was never in the cards tonight anyway, and I’ll still have time not only to make my noon orientation, but to hit Curra’s with Jeff beforehand.   Here’s hoping my luggage shows up.

Ah, Las Vegas.  A city built on hot sand, broken dreams, and $5 lobster. Apparently gambling is big here:

And yes, Kenny Rogers is a whore:

I’m waiting in SFO for my flight to board. I found a really good Anchor Steam and a decent barbecue chicken pizza for dinner, and found out that my flight is delayed by 20 minutes. I have a fairly tight connection in Las Vegas and hope it works out.

What I have tomorrow is an orientation meeting at noon, to take place at the address texted me by a volunteer coordinator last night. I’m excited to see Austin again, excited to work on the campaign, but more than anything nervous and eager for Barack Obama to lock up the nomination.

Earlier today, the Clinton campaign released this ad which, while not really over the top, can fairly be considered an appeal to fear. By the end of the day, the Obama campaign had already responded with this. No doubt about it: Obama is running a tight ship.

I’m hoping to photo-blog from the campaign trail. Here’s a test…

That’s Grosvenor Arch, located near Kodachrome Basin State Park in southern Utah.  I took this photo in September 2007 on a trip with my parents.  I used my iPhone, having left my camera in the car.

I’m headed out this weekend to get out the vote for Obama in Texas.

This has finally galvanized me, after many months, to whip my blog at least partially into shape–I fixed the brokenness that turned out to be caused by WordPress’ outdated notion of its own URL, and installed a better theme. (All with Jason on vacation and beyond the reach of my pestering.) Of course I have grand visions for how the site should look that it has yet to live up to, but that can come later. ink08 is nothing if not, well, ink08.

I’m excited to get out and work for Obama. Although I worked on school board campaigns when I was younger, and flirted with support of Edwards in 2004 before his primary bid was cut short, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve worked towards a political goal.

And this is a goal I think will be reached: Obama will win Texas, and become the nominee.

…anyone out there whose name is Lolita.  It must be very hard for such people to get their email through spam filters.

Well, I have to say the WordPress install process was easy enough that I feel not even the slightest bit l33t for having gotten it running. The world-readable file with database password concerns me slightly, but what the hey. Database password security seems surprisingly lax to me on the whole, with passwords invariably winding up hardcoded into files all over the place. I wonder what the Right Way to deal with DB passwords is.

Stay tuned as I try to get away from the horrifyingly-I-don’t-give-a-fuck default WordPress theme to something sleek and sexy, during which process my stellar engineer’s design sensibilities will be sorely tested.