Star Trek Books: 3 Books, 9 Takeaways for Business Leaders
All science fiction shows reflect their time more than they do the future they purport they depict. Star Trek has been a symbol of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, well, you get it. All the way to the 2020s. So far. Three Star Trek books from Insight Editions/WeldonOwen offer deep insights into the processes and practices that made Star Trek. But read carefully—they offer lessons for today’s leaders who seek improved performance, a vision of quality, and new paths toward innovation.
Unlike Star Trek, which often dealt with imagined future threats like rogue computers, aggressive non-human species, and nearly omnipotent beings, these books deal with the practical, day-to-day making of a television show. But because they are about Star Trek, they all three weave a thread of inclusivity and hope that formed the core of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
From threads to tabletops, from chairs to chemise, from animation to artifacts, these books explore the detail and care given to the show, its actors, and its audience, so that the medium truly did become the message.
Star Trek Books from Insight Editions/WeldonOwen
Medium is the message
Marshall McLuhan’s theory of media looked at both content and the medium through which it is transmitted as being a pair of influential pathways for information exchange. If the original Star Trek engaged audiences not just through the medium of television but through the medium of color television, enlightened with its vibrant technicolor pallets, then Star Trek the Animated Series proved a new tactic for communicating the inclusive message that sat at the foundation of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
Marshall McLuhan’s theory of media looked at both content and the medium through which it is transmitted as being a pair of influential pathways for information exchange. If the original Star Trek engaged audiences not just through the medium of television but through the medium of color television, enlightened with its vibrant technicolor pallets, then Star Trek the Animated Series proved a new tactic for communicating the inclusive message that sat at the foundation of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
Star Trek: The Official Guide to Star Trek the Animated Series offers insightful analysis of this quirky 1970s Saturday morning cartoon that, despite its air time, was not entirely intended for children. Some of the more progressive thinking about the future, however, may still live in those who encountered this show during its brief original run.
With so many channels available, leaders need to hone-in first on a meaningful message and then work diligently not to allow that message to be caught in the whirlwind of possible ways it could be communicated, often sacrificing substance for flash, likes, or comments, or other metrics that may not reflect the respect the message deserves. The medium can dilute the message.
Sometimes, however, the medium will offer feedback that the message does not resonate with the audience to which an organization targets it. Good leaders will then encourage reflection and, perhaps, course correction. They may also believe they are too early or using the wrong medium but will stick to their story even if it means cancelation and rebirth as something new, but with its heart still intact.
Design matters
In Star Trek: Designing for the Final Frontier, authors Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire demonstrate how the hopeful, forward-looking design of the 1950s and early 1960s found their home in Star Trek. Rather than drawing inspiration from mid-century architecture, art and furniture, many of the actual artifacts of those decades found their home on the set of Star Trek, in a way fulfilling their design goals.
For leaders, however, the book demonstrates how design matters, from having a vision of what a thing should be in its totality to choosing partners that reflect the same sensibilities. Modern organizations can apply these lessons to product design, which often feels fractured and disjointed when viewed as a total customer experience, and to outsourcing, where handoffs of the customer experience often feel like what they aim at is cost savings rather than capabilities and improvements.
For the episode “The Cloud Minders,” for instance, the book (on page 72) details how designer Matt Jefferies developed concept art for a city in the clouds that didn’t stop at the exterior of the city like a matt painting would, but he went into the city to show how the external concept would influence fixtures and furniture.
With modern tools, from collaboration to data visualization, AI and social media, leaders can tap into every aspect of a customer experience and, more importantly, take ownership and accountability for it. Too often, primary customer interface points, like customer service, get shuffled off and downgraded as an operational expense rather than invested in as an important aspect of a brand. Design thinking isn’t just for products, box openings, or retail locations, but for the entirety of the customer experience. This book can help leaders remember how important design is, even with budget constraints and rapid go-to-market pressures.
Imbue everything with quality
Both Star Trek Costumes and Designing for the Final Frontier address the attention to detail that went into Star Trek. Costumes speak to the detail of choosing fabrics that are beautiful, wearable (for the most part), and easy to manipulate on a television schedule. As noted above, Designing for the Final Frontier puts the value of design upfront, but not just design—quality design driven by a brand vision.
Leaders can learn that even with budget constraints, quality still matters. As the studio cut the original Star Trek budget, the show strived to continue to deliver the experience of the first two years. While production quality remained within reach because of the lessons learned over the first two years, the attentiveness from the studio deteriorated, the focus on script quality waned. The brand suffered because quality was no longer an emphasis.
Roddenberry fought and then demurred when he could not maintain the quality he expected. At the detail level, however, beyond the scripts, the set decorators, costume designers and other craftspersons continued to deliver. Leaders need to recognize the potential lumpiness of quality. Maintaining quality across a brand requires a focus on all aspects of production.
Sure, when looked upon in detail, much of the bridge of the USS Enterprise was plywood and bundles of wires connected to lights and mechanical switches. The displays mostly sat static. But there was a sense of wholeness in the camera—the quality of all the wire and plastic, plywood and vinyl, were all aimed, literally, at the camera—the camera was the customer. What it recorded told the story, not the shabby infrastructure hidden by the high-gloss red paint of sliding doors operated by union stage workers.
The quality was focused on the customer—and through that initial customer, through the channel that touched millions of souls. While people still enjoy and fondly remember the original Lost in Space, it was not a show that claimed a deeper purpose.
Star Trek was a show with a higher calling, and that deeper purpose imbued it with a need for quality throughout the crafts work, the costumes, the models, the makeup, the acting, the writing, and the directing. What arrived configured by the electrons that traveled through a vacuum was a delivery of Star Trek to its ultimate audience.
Many readers may have had the opportunity to see the touring Star Trek exhibit that included most of the original series’ “bridge.” That the bridge survives, battered and bent, rebuilt in some ways, but still recognizable, pays homage to the designers that made something lasting, even if that wasn’t their intent—quality found its way because the shared vision demanded it.
Creativity requires consideration
There were few moments in the long history of Star Trek when an idea was adopted at first glance. The original and now iconic starship Enterprise did not begin its journey in the form we know it today. Several drawings and models were placed in the bin of history before Roddenberry approved the original series ship.
But even then, it evolved through the three seasons of the original show and returned as a refit ship in the first movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and more recently, in Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
The initial idea, as good as it is, can always be better—but some of the “better ideas” may prove not so good after further consideration. Creation occassionally requires destruction, or evolution, to recombination. Creation, even for those who do not ascribe to a religion, proves a constant revelation, and it only happens when one is engaged with it.
Innovation can come from repurposing
Most of Designing the Final Frontier shares the found objects that populate the original Star Trek23rdcentury—from the central captain’s chair inspired by Madison Furniture Industries modular sets to Stelton salt and pepper shakers, reportedly borrowed from the studio commissary serving as medical instruments for Doctor McCoy.
As we seek to understand generative AI, we must understand it not as a tool of creativity from first principles but as a tool for repurposing. Like the set designers of Star Trek who borrowed from mid-century room dividers, the TRW building’s futuristic architecture, and all manner of bottles and lighting fixtures, generative AI repurposes its vast mined knowledge base of human written and visual communication to generate a suggested answer to a prompt.
“What would a Saurian Brandy bottle look like?” was once a prompt aimed at a set designer. The answer was a Dickel sour mash whiskey decanter.
As we seek to understand generative AI, we must understand it not as a tool of creativity from first principles but as a tool for repurposing. Like the set designers of Star Trek who borrowed from mid-century room dividers, the TRW building’s futuristic architecture, and all manner of bottles and lighting fixtures, generative AI repurposes its vast mined knowledge base of human written and visual communication to generate a suggested answer to a prompt.
“What would a Saurian Brandy bottle look like?” was once a prompt aimed at a set designer. The answer was a Dickel sour mash whiskey decanter.
Persevere
Although Roddenberry ultimately handed over the original Star Trek mostly to others in its final season, he persevered with his vision. The show never stopped reflecting Roddenberry’s passion—he wrote books, recorded albums, and planned for a second coming.
And here we are, in 2023, still talking about a 1960s television show, not because of its place in history, but because we just watched an episode of Lower Decks on Paramount+, one of the several shows currently in production.
Star Trek: The Animated Series reflects that perseverance. As does Star Trek: The Next Generation. And Deep Space Nine. And Voyager. And Enterprise. Invention and reinvention to ensure that the message remains findable—and contemporary.
Too many stodgy brands believe their own marketing, that what was good at inception remains good today, often because of the brand itself—not the value or the quality of the good or service.
Leaders can learn that they need to remain nimble and to listen to the moment, and when the moment has passed, figure out the next one that will take the vision along, even if it means walking away from the past—and when the past becomes popular again, bring it back with a twist. Old vision and values close as they will infuse any new incarnation with brand identity more than attempts to replicate them.
People forgive poor execution when the intention is good
As much as there was a vision, a sense of the need for quality, a drive to persevere, Star Trek, across all of its incarnations, was not without its foibles and errors.
The proverb, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” suggests that wrongdoing often emanates from good intentions. Star Trek often misfired on its good intentions, creating episodes that were creepily wrong, scientifically impossible (even more so than usual), and just plain bad—but because of the context of quality, of exploring big ideas, the audience forgave those mistakes—and because of the quantity of quality material, skipping over a few episodes, or looking the other way on costume or makeup choices, is okay.
Poor execution should always lead to the question, “What did we learn?”
Star Trek not only reflects perseverance but also ambition. Innovation, as many leaders know, requires an ambition to move beyond what is known and accepted. True breakthroughs require breaking some things in the process. Learn the lessons, take what you are given and persevere.
Take what you are given
The journey to achievement may be long. These books chronicle the storied history of Star Trek without being history books. They reflect different aspects of the show, costumes, design, animation, and the realities of how those tools contribute to a story.
Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series reminds readers that when an adult evening series wasn’t available to Gene Roddenberry, a Saturday morning show would have to suffice.
And in some ways, he reinvented children’s television in the same way he reinvented adult science fiction on television. He took what he was given and powered it with the same passion and vision that nurtured the original series. In doing so, they created a more cerebral cartoon that wasn’t just for children, presaging the likes of The Simpsons, Family Guy and Futurama.
I have watched leaders back away from opportunity because it wasn’t the opportunity they wanted. In some cases, those leaders failed their organizations, and those organizations suffered. In Star Trek, as in American football, to take what one is given is the given. William Shatner, contrary to advice from most productivity authors, tells his audiences to “Never say no” because many of his “yes” opportunities directly resulted in further opportunities. So much is missed in saying “no.”
Star Trek: The Animated Series kept Star Trek alive. I would certainly not be writing about a book on that topic had it not been for the series, but it can be argued without that series as a bridge to the future, we might not be talking about Star Trek now at all.
Have fun
Working on a television show can be grueling. Just read some of the commentary associated with the 2023 Hollywood strikes or almost any book about a film or television show’s production. But under the stress of work, a show like Star Trek designs in fun to the concept—if not for the crew in the moment, then for the audience. The foundation of Star Trek was adventure. But it had a higher purpose. Fun was often the path that connected people with purpose.
Insights editions provided the books for review. Images courtesy of Insight Editions. Used by permission.
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