At a meeting the other day at our lab, one of our invited guests was Professor Hiroshi Ishii from the MIT Media Lab. After experiencing our co-located VR technology, he issued the following challenge: How can we know when our technology has really succeeded?
But Hiroshi went further than that. What he was really seeking was a clear and concise answer.
So he looked at everyone around the table, and challenged us to convey our answer in the form of a haiku. I thought this was a very fair test, and I gave him the following seventeen syllable response:
i foresee a day
when we’ll use our tech within
a meeting like this
A man wanted to write a novel and wanted advice on how to write. His mentor said, “you should start with writing Haiku”. The man asked “because they are shorter?”. “No”, said the master. “because they are harder.”
Yes, they are harder,
And that is their great secret.
Less, you see, is more.