The other day, my friend Andy invited me aboard a 1920s era schooner out of Gloucester, Massachusetts called The Adventure. (At the risk of sounding like Tenacious D…) THIS picture isn’t The Adventure, but I snapped it on the deck of The Adventure, and it’s a schooner and so, uh, close enough.
Gloucester is an active fishing community. If you’ve ever heard of the Gorton’s Fisherman, that factory is right there on the harbor. There are working fishing and lobstering boats in and out of the harbor all day. A lot of modern fishing is split into two camps: “the way it’s always been done” and “science and more science and efficiency.”
In the way old days, The Adventure would sail out with 12 fishing dories aboard, which would hold two men each, and they’d bob around on the water for the better part of 20 hours. They’d row back to the schooner to offload the fish they’d pulled in, but then back to it. Sure, they’d get a brief break, but it was 20 hours of work, most of it with that other fisherman and the waves and the smells and all that.
It looks romantic, and old boats are gorgeous, but the work wasn’t romantic and to them, all these things we love to look at were tools. Just tools.
Tools Are Meant to Improve Our Work
These days, The Adventure exists to take groups of people out for their various events. You bring aboard a bunch of food and booze and you talk about whatever important things you do for work when you’re not on board a 100 year old sailing schooner. The ship is a tool to facilitate events and also teach a bit of history at the same time.
In that way, it’s still a tool, The Adventure. But beyond the historians, it’s not like someone would willingly set out to turn this back into a fishing boat. It’s just not efficient for that task any longer. And it would be utterly impossible to convince people to take 20 hour shifts at sea for the low pay they’d earn for the work.
It’s Dangerous to Affix Your Fortunes to the Tools
The Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory, also known as the Paint Factory, was a historic site in Gloucester, Massachusetts, built in 1874. It was established to produce copper-based paint to prevent barnacle growth on ships' hulls, a significant innovation in the maritime industry. (The factory was established in 1874 according to Wikipedia but that’s an 1863 painted on the side, so I dunno.) It’s a highly painted and photographed building that lends a magical air of nostalgia and place-making to a very active fishing harbor.
This paint was high tech ages ago. Copper keeps barnacles off. There was actual value to that. And oddly from my cursory research, painting hulls with copper was somehow better than what they were trying before. But as you might imagine, there’s not a huge “painting boats with copper” business booming today.
The tools aren’t the thing. The thing is what the tools do: in my example, barnacle abatement.
This is a Modern Story
When we see old things, we think old thoughts. But today, I heard several people talking about a specific tool and how they were masters of that tool. It will NOT be long before that tool will shake free from the people who are crafting themselves as its current master. This is a warning to them.
Align to the outcome, not the tool. You can SAY THE TOOL NAME if you’d like as a way for people to realize you’re in that space, but just don’t put the weight on the tool.
Don’t be an AI expert. Be someone who uses AI to improve workflows. That kind of thing. That’s my advice. No sailboats required.
(The rest is for our members. So, I’ll say bye to some of you here.)
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