Design fables: Bird in hand principle
Who you are, what you know, who you know.
Did you know that each parrot has a unique name? According to researchers, parrot parents will teach their chicks about their names by whispering into their ears, and within a few weeks, they will remember that unique name for the rest of their lives.
This incredible discovery was the result of years of research and collaboration between biologists and leading AI technologists from the Earth Species Project, including founders Aza Raskin, the inventor of infinite scrolling, and Britt Selvitelle, who was also a founding member of Twitter.
By collecting various sounds from animals, such as elephants, orangutans, dolphins, and parrots, the Earth Species Project trains its algorithm with the datasets of the animals to uncover meaning through translations.
However, non-human translations really took off in 2017 when researchers at Google published “Attention Is All You Need" — the paper that inspired the concept of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. The core insight, according to Raskin, is that they treat everything as a language whose semantic relationships can be transcribed geometrically. Rather than tapping into pre-existing knowledge, relationships between words can be derived from usage. And if there is a large data sample, animal translations do not need any prior understanding but are obtained from a ground-up approach.
BirdAVES is the latest series of self-supervised animal vocalisation encoder (AVES) models. Specifically scaled and trained for bird sounds, it could now be used to further the study of the ecological, behavioural, and conservation implications of birds. In fact, the well-resourced bioacoustic dataset achieved over a 20% performance improvement. And beyond birds, scientists now have the means to decode the language of whales, elephants, and other species that have a level of self-awareness and emotions.
Although non-human translation may sound absurd, teams like Earth Species Project are re-inventing the way we perceive Earth’s biodiversity. In the same vein, many prolific designers and renowned entrepreneurs are in similar positions of postulating a new way to do things. They are the mavericks who push the boundaries to set new trends for the masses but often accidentally stumble into the right conditions to make things happen.
Author and associate professor in entrepreneurship, Saras D. Sarasvathy, made the same observations. Through her interview with 27 founders of companies ranging in size from $200M to $6.5B, Sarasvathy recognised that all of her subjects had effectuation—a mindset of creating opportunities and performing actions based on what’s available now.
The Bird in Hand Principle is one of the 5 principles of effectuation. Originating from an ancient Greek proverb, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” the phrase states that a readily available benefit is more valuable than some possibly larger future benefit. This saying is often used as a common strategy for investment, where some investors prefer to invest in companies that pay them a dividend each month rather than riskier returns.
In Sarasvathy’s case, the bird in hand principle is a reminder of how expert entrepreneurs tap onto their existing means to generate value. There are three categories of means made available to anyone:
1. Who you are — your traits, tastes, and abilities
2. What you know — your education, training, expertise, and experience
3. Who you know — your social and professional networks.
Who you are
With a little reflection, you will be surprised at how your identity and personal values influence your choices in life as well as in your work. Finding your unique traits sets you apart from other producers, but believing in it gives fulfilment. So the more our work aligns with our values, the better we are to achieve value with our given means.
Take Aza Raskin. After his invention of the infinite scroll, Raskin took the blame for creating an addictive wave of mindless surfing by many tech companies. The unintended consequences led Raskin to take a more holistic view of his inventions and how they impact users, including nature. His work now centres on how biologists are deciphering the communications made by animals. Raskin is adamant about closing the imagination gap, and he’s on a mission to reinvent himself and the future.
Ask yourself: What is something worth pursuing because of your personal belief? That’s who you are.
What you know
Taking stock of your exposures, educations, expertise and experience is important to leverage on your available strengths. However, beyond familiarity of tools and skills, intangible skills such as listening, shrewdness and organisation are just as crucial in upholding competency. So is being brutally honest with what you do not know.
It's sad to say the bird in Twitter’s hand has flown away. Since Elon Musk acquisition and rebranding to X, the social media’s daily app users had fallen by 15%, and valuation had dropped by 71%, from 44 to 12.5 billion dollars. No surprises due to the 50% cut in staffing, but when the owner infamously attempts to do UX on his own platform, bystanders will wonder what is left of X’s capabilities. X’s demise is a clear indication of how value erosion is happening due to a lack of the bird of hand principle.
Ask yourself: what competency do I have, such that I am able to harness them as strengths? That’s what you know.
Who you know
As the saying goes, you only need to move six steps out to be connected to everyone in the world. Beyond the close contacts of family, friends, and accidental acquaintances, linking up with people you don’t know directly but through someone else may actually be valuable. That’s because they may offer perspectives and resources you’ve never encountered before.
Start-up founders tend to form ventures by bringing in others outside of their own network. Such is the situation between the initial cofounders, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. As designers, they may have the vision and design skillsets to execute on ideas but lack the technical prowess to fully realise the current Airbnb offering. That was why getting their third co-founder, Nathan Blecharczyk, to become their first chief technology officer was necessary to build the company’s original website on Ruby on Rails. The same partnership model could also be seen when entrepreneurs Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciarra met architecture student Evan Sharp. Through Sharp’s sensitivity to design a visual grid pattern, it has led the trio to form Pinterest.
Ask yourself: Who do I have as my current connections, and who do my connections know? That’s who you know.
The same partnership model could also be seen when entrepreneurs Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciarra met architecture student Evan Sharp. Through Sharp’s sensitivity to design a visual grid pattern, it has led the trio to form Pinterest. (image source: readwrite.com)
The Bird in Hand Principle combines an individual’s personal calling with their capabilities and existing connections to allow immediate action to take place. However, it is often mistaken that the bird in one’s hand is a small sparrow.
In fact, according to some sources, the origins of the expression are associated with falconry used for hunting. UNESCO, on the other hand, recognised the practice as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, with a focus on camaraderie and sharing rather than subsistence. The birds in many hands with common interests become a powerful yet tangible force.
Strong design teams are not functional silos of lone design geniuses. Regardless of how a design is organised, whether as a centralised centre of excellence or as a decentralised chapter, having a critical mass of bird-in-hand designers propels further actions across organisations. They have the ability to influence their unique perspectives to create future Pinterest grids or self-supervised encoders. More importantly, they do so with a highly collaborative yet realistic goal in mind. Wasn’t there another saying, “Birds of the same feather flock together?”
In an interview, Pinterest’s Chief Design Officer Evan Sharp made an unusual comment when an interviewer tried to credit him for designing the grid that has now become an Internet standard.
This was the transcript that followed:
Interviewer: You say “we” a lot, but you’re really the guiding force behind the decision to make it a grid, right?
Evan Sharp: Yeah, I don’t know what that means. Just to be really honest with you, I did design it, I coded the grid back in the day, but I have a really hard time separating any design from the idea of the product and the data that powers the product.
We, as the next set of design innovators and entrepreneurs, are on the hunt to discover our next falcons.
References
Earth Species Project. (2024, June 5). Earth Species Project on LinkedIn: 🌟 Introducing BirdAVES: Our Latest Bird Sound Foundation Model 🌟 We are…. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/earthspecies_introducing-birdaves-our-latest-bird-activity-7204118978783232002-2DjD/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Effectuation.org. (n.d.). The Five Principles of Effectuation. Effectuation.Org. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://effectuation.org/the-five-principles-of-effectuation#BirdinHandSummary
Financial Times. (2024, January 18). How AI is decoding the animal kingdom. Financial Times; Financial Times. https://ig.ft.com/ai-animals/?segmentid=45a55daa-06c5-0aba-131a-a1eb758674ae
Gabbatt, A. (2024, January 2). Value of X has fallen 71% since purchase by Musk and name change from Twitter | Elon Musk | The Guardian. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/02/x-twitter-stock-falls-elon-musk
Knowles, T. (2019, April 26). I’m so sorry, says inventor of endless online scrolling. The Times & The Sunday Times: Breaking News & Today’s Latest Headlines; The Times. https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/technology/article/i-m-so-sorry-says-inventor-of-endless-online-scrolling-9lrv59mdk
Orsini, L. (2014, February 25). Pinterest Cofounder Evan Sharp: How The Visual Web Helps You See The Future — ReadWrite. ReadWrite. https://readwrite.com/evan-sharp-pinterest-cofounder-builders/#awesm=~owU5KWhLdZYvA4
ReThinking with Adam Grant. (2024, May 14). Aza Raskin on why technology — and democracy– are in an imagination crisis. TED. https://www.ted.com/podcasts/rethinking-with-adam-grant/aza-raskin-on-why-technology-and-democracy-are-in-an-imagination-crisis-transcript
Sarasvathy, S. (n.d.). What is Effectuation? Effectuation 101. Home Page for Effectuation. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://effectuation.org/effectuation-101
UNESCO . (n.d.). Falconry, a living human heritage | Silk Roads Programme. UNESCO : Building Peace through Education, Science and Culture, Communication and Information. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/silk-road-themes/intangible-cultural-heritage/falconry-living-human-heritage
Zender, N. (n.d.). Bird-in-Hand: Create Opportunities Through Your Means. Noah Zender. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://www.noahzender.com/article/bird-in-hand
