How to Learn a Magic Trick
Gif of a magician pulling a pen through a dollar bill and leaving the dollar intact.
We all know that a foundation of any magic show is misdirection. That doesn't have to mean that the audience is being fooled or conned or taken advantage of in some way. One of the most powerful pieces of "misdirection" that is used in Derek Delgaudio's performance in In & Of Itself is to tell the audience a story, to get us involved, to make us emotionally connected to Delgaudio and to each other. At the same time, Delgaudio can use his hands seemingly independent of the rest of his body - his face and eyes are up looking at the audience, while his hands and fingers work a deck of cards like they are a part of his own body.
How do Delgaudio or any other magician get so good at their craft? We know in our minds and our hearts that it isn't because they have tapped into a mystical world where the laws of physics don't apply. To put on an amazing magic show, magicians become knowledgeable and skilled in many fields - psychology, storytelling, relationship building, staging & lighting, math, card counting, body language, timing, and more. And of course, they practice. Practice, practice, practice, and then practice more. The good folks from the Zapier blog wrote an entertaining article recently about the practice part. In "To get the most out of automation, try using it less", the author speaks directly to the fact that automation might feel mystical, but it isn't. Instead, it is an extension of what we all would have done slowly and repetitively if we had to do it on our own.
We sometimes use the words "automation" and "magic" synonymously when we are talking about technology and how it can help support and accelerate the pace of mission-driven work. That is all fine and fun - magic is fun! We want technology to be fun as well. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the magician/technologist on your team has a special key to a mystical and otherwordly power that they use on their computers. These tricks are open to everyone to do, and the more data & technology become integrated as part of our work and our lives, the more responsibility we all have to use it well in order to support our missions and the people we serve.
So, how do you learn how to do a technology magic trick?
You can get really really good at doing the same process over and over again, but that will only get you about 10% of the way there. The real magic exists in the knowledge of how and (most importantly) why we have the process the way it is in the first place - the connection between the work and the mission. You can do the same steps a million times and you can teach a computer to do them for you, but if we can’t tell the story of why these processes are making an impact, then the magic has been sucked out of the room, the misdirection won’t work at all, and the audience will end up very disappointed with the results. We see "experts" using their data & tech quickly and fluidly and think, "wow - they make it work like magic!" But the magic isn’t in the data & tech - it is in the people and relationships and impact that the data & tech are meant to support.
Remember - magic is all about relationships, stories, and human connection. The same is true for data & technology.
Here is a simple framework for learning how to do “magic” with technology:
The first step to learning a technology magic trick is being able to imagine the outcome you want for yourself and for your work - write that down.
The second step is bringing that picture to life - draw it out (seriously, get some crayons and markers and DRAW it).
The third step is breaking it down into smaller pieces - make a list of all that goes into your vision for your data & tech. Make everything you wrote down and drew on paper into a bulleted list.
The last step is translating your first three steps for the computer to be a part of the work - you may have the time, skills, and knowledge to do this on your own…or you might need to ask for some help from your fellow magicians.
The first 3 steps can be done without a computer at all. You don’t have to have any technology skills or experience to learn and act on them. All you need is what we all audiences have to make magic come to life - a big imagination, an openness to what might seem impossible, a suspension of disbelief (or putting to the side the biases we may come in with about how data & tech work), and an investment in the journey. For mission-driven organizations, that investment is financial (you gotta buy a ticket to the show), but more importantly it is in the time, energy, and professional development of the people in the work.
