I was part of a family NFL Yahoo Fantasy League. I finished last, but that’s another story. This story is about perspective. As part of the payment package, we got access to a web application that tracked the players, the fantasy teams, and also showed the status of the “real” games in nearly real time for 17 weeks. What I got out of this experience (you have time to think when your team loses 13 games in a row) is that most of us have moved from caring about our teams to caring about our players. I don’t care if the Giants win, but if Eli Manning completes a pass, that’s points for me. So on one hand, you can think about moving to be more and more detailed in your thinking. It’s just one snap at a time, it’s just one kick, just one block. But on the other hand, you can imagine looking at all this from the commissioner’s point of view. (The NFL, not the Yahoo League. That latter commissioner was my nephew Trevor, by the way.) So, the Commish is watching and maybe his perspective is “do all the teams kick off on schedule?” or “If every kickoff goes into the end zone all year long, do we change the rules again?” My point is that his perspective is way different than Joe and Jill Fan. I bet he knows the total ratings of all games combined. He also knows how much revenue the NFL gets from Yahoo. (more than a little) He views mostly the macro stuff I bet.
So, it is a brand new year, and it makes me want to be fluid in my perspectives this year. Sometimes, it will be incredibly detailed… such as, “they sent the email, they asked for service, I wonder if anyone answered the email?” And other times, it won’t be about the play or the player or the daily budget numbers. Instead it will be “is the staff getting more skilled over time? Are we better aligned this year than last year? What are we going to do about it?”
The trick is to be able to know that the devil is in the details, and not to be distracted by the details. I want to take a good look at how ITS is doing, but also have a perspective on how Maricopa is doing, and what we can do to help. Here’s to 2007 and fresh beginnings.