Any Golfers Out There?

I've been doing the sporting good product thing for a little over a decade now (a couple years in the bike biz, and the rest where I currently am in the golf biz), and I still get pumped when the team I am on launches a new product:

http://www.taylormadegolf.com/campaigns/burnerbloodline/content/microsite/

When new product ships, it's a crazy mix of nerves and pride for the team - it's an amazing process to be involved in - to watch an idea go from thin air, to a 2-d sketch, to a 3-d model to several iterations of prototypes... There are a lot of folks involved along the way, and that is pretty cool.

I don't think I step away from the process enough to really appreciate what goes on, sometimes. A golf club seems so simple, but the projects rarely are! Those challenges along the way, with the pressure of being a bit under the gun, are where it's at for me.

Back to work, though - we gotta come up with the next product that will make the Tour Burner obsolete in 18 months! ;-)

Process

There's a school of thought that suggests that if one focuses effort on the "process", the results will come. I've heard this, or lines of thought like this, for quite awhile - I read/listen to (I subscribe to audible.com, which I totally love as it allows me to "read" books while commuting to/from work...) lots of different books that have peripherally addressed this topic, so I'm not sure where I picked it up in the past.

However, recently, I read a couple books that really drove this "focus process development" point home once again. The first book that I hammered through in a couple days is "the four hour work week" - I didn't take everything to heart in that book, but there is some good stuff in there. In one of the sections of that 4 hour work week book, the author refers readers to some other business books - I latched onto "the e-myth" - and read that one. There's a great section in there that talks about process development being the goal of running a successfull business. I think there are many different applications of the "process development" concept - be it work, life, relationships whatever...

The combination of these two books, along with some other things clunkin' around in the ol' melon have given me some more things to think about in my typical non-linear, conceptual based caveman brain.

Simply put, I'm an achievement oriented kind of person, who thinks that the goal is pretty much "learning" - life experience is the best kind of learning IMHO. I've got to tinker, refine, learn along the way. The journey from "novice" to "expert" in any of my pursuits is a fun one full of great satisfaction for me...

What the heck does this philosophical crap have to do with bikes? Well, a few years back, I started learning about testing cyclists in wind tunnels - I focused on process development from day one and the results have been coming ever since then - not just for myself and my learning, but for those that I've met along the way as well - it really is just a big long journey where most folks benefit from the experience.

Results? Two out of the top five on GC at the tour de france this year have spent time with BTR and lswt.com tweaking things. Now, today in the Vuelta - Samu just won the final TT and grabbed a spot on the final GC podium. More pics/discussion of the results of that Euskaltel tunnel test here.

I'm super proud of Samu, and the guys at Orbea who also seem to value the concept of focusing on the details of process development - and then reaping the rewards of that approach!