Starship Enterprise

Fifty years after the original series was cancelled, STAR TREK continues to supply deeply embedded, powerful, cultural, practical and philosophical memes, and continuing, interesting and relevant dramatic content (if the reader didn’t know, there is a new, refreshing and quite challenging STAR TREK series, Discovery. I watched several episodes on a long plane trip – it is well worth a try).

Amazingly, there are many obvious parallels between STAR TREK and high tech companies. Clearly, high tech is leading the (productive) future of humanity, at least for the present, and the analogies are right to the point. Let’s take a quick look:

Captain (later Admiral) Kirk – sometimes impulsive, often inspiring, always charming, winning leadership. He can take huge risks when he has to, and somehow always seems to come out on top, and credibly so.

Engineer Scott – Boss of the technical, master of the warp drive engines, phasers and photon torpedoes, provides the Captain with the physical power to attain his goals, warning beacon when the Captain takes risks to the physical limit (“She’s gonna blow, Captain!”).

Mr. (later Captain, then Ambassador) Spock – The Voice of Objectivity, Science and Reason. Mr. Spock tells the Captain what reality means and somehow persuades him to accept it. In essence, Mr. Spock’s job is to keep the Captain from impulsively wrecking the Enterprise in his enthusiasm for winning.

Lieutenant (later Commander) Uhura – Communications master. Knows many languages, mediates the interaction of the Enterprise with the larger Universe. Utterly vital to successful operations.

Dr. McCoy – The conscience of the Enterprise. Role as Chief Medical Officer less important, more of a formality. McCoy keeps everyone else honest, sometimes despite himself. Desperately needed to humanize the Enterprise.

And the big point: All of these souls (and more) are needed to run a real enterprise. None of them can be neglected without consequences, and they naturally balance each other. Here, we use them as paradigms to identify and comment on people-centered business functions.

Now, we have a cast of characters. In future posts, Kirk, Scott, Spock, Uhura and McCoy will all play an important role. It is time to give them work to do.

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