There was some buzz in the last few weeks about a tweet blunder related to the video game “Duke Nukem Forever.” A PR agency got fired as a result, and as the Ad Age story concludes, it’s a good “reminder to cut off all access to Twitter when inflamed.”
But the much more interesting lesson from Duke Nukem Forever is the Learn to Let Go lesson told by Clive Thompson in Wired over a year ago. It is a gripping and at times painful-to-read story about a hotly anticipated product that was predicted to launch in 1998 yet keeps getting delayed due to perfectionism, too much cash, and other problems. It finally did launch in 2011. If you’ve ever worked on a project that keeps missing deadlines, you’ll likely find some of the parts of this story familiar and hopefully come away more determined to release earlier next time around. Give it a read and let me know what you think.