Engineering Movie Night

Originally published on Medium

Problem solving has always been a passion for me, so me ending up an engineer was really no surprise to anyone. I’ve been working in some form of engineering role for the best part of a quarter of a century, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

That said, as much as I love doing what I do, there are certainly times when I could use a pick me up, a burst of inspiration or simply some feel good vibes and from numerous discussions with friends and colleagues, I’m far from the only one. So what’s a nice way to get such a boost, and how can you get the most out of it? Cue Engineering Movie Night...

Movies are a great way to get inspiration. We all enjoy a good story that is well told and with modern technology it’s getting even easier to draw us in. One thing that’s better than watching a good movie is watching it with people who are into the same things as us. Then you start to see something really special as not only does your group experience the movie together, but they then share and discuss the movie afterwards, reinforcing and leveraging the experience many times over.

Now it may sound like I’m over selling the idea a little but you’ve seen this if you’ve ever been outside a cinema when the latest Marvel movie has just come out. The excitement of the people queuing to get in, is nothing compared to the excitement of the people coming out. You can hear them discussing plot points, reliving key scenes, sharing the laughs and the sorrows. Still don’t believe me? Okay, stand outside a cinema after a new Stars Wars movie and see how many people come out pretending they have light sabers…

Although the movie itself is important (after all, people have to want to watch it), the people you watch it with is often more so, because a lot of your movie experience will come from your interactions after the movie, not just during the time you spend watching it. We’re social creates at heart, and shared experience is a part of what binds a group together.

Great, so we’re going to watch the movie as a group, so that’s the movie night bit covered, but where does the engineering come into this? Well the movie night is for anyone who’s interested, but the movie itself needs to in some way shape or form have engineering as a central theme. It must also be inspiring and make people think (and give them something to talk about afterwards).

For the first Engineering Movie Night I chose the film Apollo 13 (which I wrote about here) as for me it has to be one of the most inspiring engineering movies out there. What more could you ask for than a group of engineers working together to come up with solutions to save the lives of the astronauts whilst up against limited time, power and resources? It really captures for me what you can look forward to when you have a group of engineers where everyone is in the zone and focused on the mission.

Engineering Movie Night also has the happy benefit of working well at scale and across distributed teams. With tools to sync Netflix or other streaming services, everyone can stream the movie at the same time regardless of where they are physically. Not only does it scale in terms of viewing, but you get exponential growth in the benefits of discussion afterwards as you’ve now massively increased the number of people who are excited, inspired and want to talk about it.

So that’s the combo. A pick me up for each of us as individuals, multiplied many times through the act of discussing and sharing as a group or team. It may be a simple and low cost group activity, but you might be surprised at just how well it brings team together.