Scott Berkun's Blog, page 22

Copyeditor wanted: for The Ghost of My Father (memoir)

My 6th book, The Ghost of My Father, is on the home stretch. With the support of 200+ kickstarter backers, I finished the 4th draft over the weekend and the book is ready to go to the next step: Copyediting.

I’ve worked with copyeditors on all of my books, including Mindfire, the only previous book I’ve self-published, a process I highly recommend.

Copyeditor wanted: 

I’m looking for a sharp copyeditor who practices tough love, extreme sarcasm and enjoys long arguments over wine about the Oxford comma (or arguments about why arguments like this are silly). Previous book copyediting experience required (preferably of a memoir, although a heavy diet of reading memoirs works too).

To apply:

Briefly describe the worst memoir you’ve ever read
Give one reference for a writer you’ve worked with who loves and hates you for the right reasons
Tell me if you’re available and what your rates are
Contact me here with the above

Why the best idea doesn’t always win

This is an excerpt from the bestseller, The Myths of Innovation. You can read a summary of the entire book here.

Why people believe the best wins

Fairy tales and hero stories follow similar patterns: good guys win, bad guys lose, and people who do the right thing get nice prizes. These rules are pleasant, easy to remember, and have been with us as long as we’ve had stories to tell. In some cultures, including America, these stories of “goodness wins” extend to intellectual goodness and the making of good things. Americans hold ingenuity to be one of the best kinds of goodness, spotlighting it and projecting it into our local history: Benjamin Franklin’s political inventiveness; the innovative tactics of Minutemen in the Revolutionary War (which weren’t that innovative); and the industrial genius of Whitney, Fulton, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, and Steve Jobs. By the simplest definition, heroes are the best at what they do. America created Superman, not Second-place-man or Some-times-better-than-average-guy.

Meritocracy—the ideal that the best do or should win—is a deeply held belief among Americans, and in part comprises the American Dream. Combined with the hero model (good guys win), there’s a natural tendency to nudge the telling of history toward stories that fit both ideals and to whitewash, or ignore, those that don’t. Whenever we don’t know the full story of why someone or some- thing won, the default assumptions are:

The victory was deserved: “Edison made the first lightbulb.”
The victory was heroic: “Gutenberg paved the way for the Internet.”

(Edison made the first financially successful bulb, but he took ideas from Joseph Swan and many others. Edison would eventually lose a patent lawsuit to Swan. Gutenberg was a struggling artisan with no aspirations for changing the world. He didn’t pave the way for anything that would happen centuries later, at least not intentionally).

Certainly most of us know that the best doesn’t always win, but we don’t go out of our way to uncover counterexamples either (much like the discussion in the section “Evolution and innovation” from Chapter 2). We accept stories that fit the patterns we know, as they provide happy feelings and encourage hope for how life should be. Victors of the past who won with dubious ethics or for questionable reasons—like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Achilles— are remembered not for their flaws or unpopularity in their own time, but as heroes of achievement. Their victories and benevolent contributions, truths that fit the mythology, are the most popular stories we tell about their lives.And should bad decisions be made, given enough time, the reasons for those judgments often fade, leaving only traditions of respect. Consider that the Liberty Bell, which cracked in half when first struck in 1753 and again decades later—clearly not well made or heroic in any way—is now a worshiped artifact of American history. Or that Alfred Nobel, best known for founding the Nobel Peace Prize, made his fortune by inventing dynamite.

The American pantheon of fictional legends includes MacGyver, James Bond, Wonder Woman, Indiana Jones, John McClane (from the film Die Hard), and Captain Kirk, invincible heroes who defeat evil at overwhelming odds by using good ideas, guile, and a healthy serving of gratuitous violence. They have better ideas, so they win. We’re fond of creative idealism even at extremes, such as in stories like Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, in which Howard Roark, a heroic architect, places his ideas above everything. Despite the complexity of the tale, the protagonist willingly sacrifices for his ideas. The simpler message often taken from this epic novel is that good should win over bad, and if a better idea is ignored, the world is to blame (“the hostility of second-hand souls”). This belief goes further than meritocracy; the world’s sense of what is best is less important than the individual’s.

Applied to business, the myth that goodness wins is best captured in the famous saying, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” It’s sometimes paraphrased as “If you build it, they will come,” the iconic phrase from the baseball film Field of Dreams. Unfortunately, the quote is a misattribution to Ralph Waldo Emerson, a leading 19th-century intellectual. What he actually said was probably, “If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, you will find a broad, hard- beaten road to his house.” I’m not sure when you last sold pigs or grew corn, but Emerson had something other in mind than rallying would-be entrepreneurs to get in the innovation game. The phrase was meant to be poetic, not instructional, and he’d be disappointed at how many people have taken his words literally.

The phrase has been used as the entrepreneur’s motto, misguiding millions into entertaining the notion that a sufficiently good idea will sell itself. As nice as it would be for good ideas to take responsibility for themselves, perhaps using their goodness ID cards to cut ahead of stupid ideas in the popularity line, it’s not going to happen. Even the (false) proverbial mousetrap, as historian John H. Lienhard notes, has about 400 patents for new designs filed annually in the U.S., and we can be certain that no one is beating down their doors.8 More than 4000 mousetrap patents exist, yet only around 20 ever became profitable products. These days, the best equivalent to the metaphoric mousetrap is “to build a better web site,” proven by the 30,000 software patents and 1 million web sites created annually. Certainly not all of these efforts are motivated by wealth or wishful thinking, but many inventors still hope that the “If you build it, they will come” sentiment is alive and strong.

Lienhard, based on his study of innovations throughout history, challenges that faith:

Rarely if ever are the networks that surround an innovation in its earliest stages given the credit they are due…a better mouse- trap, like anything else, will succeed only when those who envision the idea convince others to join in their new venture—as investors, suppliers, employees, retailers, customers, and even competitors.

The goodness or newness of an idea is only part of the system that determines which ideas win or lose. When we bemoan our favorite restaurant going out of business (“but they make the best cannelloni!”) or why our favorite band can’t sell albums (“they have the best lyrics!”), we’re focusing on the small part of the picture that effects us personally, which is only one factor in the environment determining its fate. These environmental, or secondary, factors have as much influence as the quality of the idea, the talent, or the innovation itself.

The secondary factors of innovation

The history of innovation reveals many ideas that dominate a field yet are derided by insiders. Any hi-tech device today follows the QWERTY keyboard model, a system not designed for efficiency or ergonomics. The Phillips screw is inferior to the lesser-known Robertson screw, a clever gem of industrial design. The M-16, the most widely produced rifle in the world, has serious jamming and ease-of-use problems. Fireplaces, staples in American cabins and homes, are one of the least efficient heating systems known to man. And HTML and JavaScript are far from the best software development languages, yet they’re perhaps the most successful in history. The list goes on, despite the best wishes of all of the smart, goodness-motivated people throughout time. Even today, right now, ideas of all kinds that experts criticize—including those in your own fields of expertise—are gaining adoption.

In Chapter4, the psychology of innovations’ diffusion was explored, listing how individuals make choices that impact innovation adoption. Now, it’s time for a broader analysis of influen tial factors. Looking at history, here are seven factors that play major roles:

Culture. The Japanese invented firearms years before Europeans.But their culture saw the sword as a symbol of their values: craftsmanship, honor, and respect. Despite the advantages of using firearms, the innovation was ignored and seen as a disgraceful way to kill (a sentiment echoed by the Jedi in Star Wars films). The best technology is only one view of innovation—how the innovation fits in a culture’s values is often stronger. For example, imagine a device in the U.S. that gave you telepathy at work but required making lunch out of your neighbor’s dog or being naked in public, two taboos of American culture. Innovations do change societies, but they must first gain acceptance by aligning with existing values.
Dominant design. The QWERTY keyboard came along for the ride with the first typewriter. When Christopher Sholes created this layout, he didn’t imagine millions of people using it—he just needed a design that wouldn’t jam his mechanical keys. But once typewriters succeeded, the first computer designers wanted to ease people’s transitions to their creations, so they copied the typewriter design. Many dominant designs achieve popularity on the back of another innovation. Better designs might follow, but to gain acceptance, they must improve on that dominant idea by a sufficient margin to jus- tify the costs of the switch (e.g., re-learning how to type). The more dominant the design, the more expensive those costs are (e.g., try innovating, or unifying, the shape of electric plugs around the world).
Inheritance and tradition. The U.S. rejection of the metric system is tied to tradition: America already knew the English system, so why learn another? (See “Space, metrics, and Thomas Jefferson,” later in this chapter.) Some people confuse their comfort for a belief with it actually being good; therefore, inherited ideas (including the evils of bigotry, ignorance, and urban legends) are often protected by the very people they hurt in the name of honoring the beliefs of their parents and the past. This is a specific cultural factor.
Politics: who benefits? There’s often little malice in political workings—people are simply acting in self-interest. In any situation, just ask: who benefits if we choose X, and who benefits if we choose Y? You can predict how people in power will respond to any new idea if you first calculate its impact on them. The interests of those in power influenced the adop tion, or rejection, of every innovation in history. Hunger, war, and poverty are tough problems, but it’s in someone’s interest for those problems to continue. Any innovation aimed at solving those problems must consider politics for it to succeed.
Economics. Innovation is expensive: will the costs of chang- ing to the new thing be worth it? Everyone might agree that an innovation is better in the abstract, but the financing required might be impossible or the risks unreasonable. Dominant designs (see above) are expensive to replace. Often there is only time or money for innovating in one area; other innovations are rejected, not on their merits, but on their value to the priorities of the moment.
Goodness is subjective. Get three people in a room and you’ll get five definitions of goodness (see Chapter 10). Fireplaces, mentioned earlier, are popular because of how they look more so than how they function. Consumer differences in values, tastes, and opinions are rarely explored until after an innovation has been proposed, or even built, leaving innovators with creations the public does not want. Smart innovators study their customers, mastering their needs early enough that those factors can be useful. The often-used Beta vs. VHS example fits: a key factor in the success of VHS was tape length (three hours, enough for a feature film, to Beta’s one hour), which was more important to consumers than Beta’s superior video quality.
Short-term vs. long-term thinking. One part of goodness is time: how long does this innovation need to be used for? Many superior ideas are rejected by societies interested in cheaper, shorter-term gains. In the 1930s, major cities in the U.S. had public transportation—trolleys and tram systems modeled on successful designs from Europe. But in the rush of the 1950s, and the thrill of automotive power, those street- cars were removed and replaced with new lanes for cars. Today, many cities regret these changes and approximate trol- leys with new light-rail systems. The goodness of ideas changes depending on how far into the future their impact is considered.

The next time you witness a great idea rejected, or a bad idea accepted, this list will help reveal the true factors at work.

If you liked this you should pick up a copy of the very popular book, The Myths of Innovation.

My Automattic Anniversary

Four years ago, on August 4th 2010, I was hired at Automattic, makers of WordPress.com, as the first leader of Team Social. It was the beginning of a journalistic writing project that would become The Year Without Pants, an Amazon.com best book of 2013.

There were many crazy things about the idea which is why I was so excited to do the project and why I’m proud of it now. I look back fondly on the entire experience, including all of the mistakes I made along the way. I still think often about the 20 months I worked on WordPress.com with my team and those memories stay with me today. If my biggest dream wasn’t to keep writing books, I’d probably still be there.

Thanks to Matt Mullenweg Toni Schneider, Mike Adams, Beau Lebens, Andy Peatling, all the great folks I worked with, and everyone who has supported the book since its release last year.

FAQ About The Year Without Pants - the toughest questions I’ve been asked since the book’s release
Why Culture Always Wins – chapter 4 from the book, on the wonders of organizational culture
Matt Mullenweg’s photos from our first team meeting in Athens, Nov 2010 (photo above by Matt)
List of all major reviews and accolades for the book

Speaking at Seattle’s Robots, Writers & Ciders

Later this month I’ll be speaking at a community arts event at Umqua bank in South Lake Union. You’ll get to sample some great cider from the Seattle Cider Company, learn about robots from DXARTS PhD candidate / artist  Meghan Trainor, and have a Q&A with me about creativity and writing. If you bring a copy of any of my books I’d be happy to sign it for you.

It’s free but you have to RSVP:

When: Thursday August 21st 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Where: Umpqua Bank, 200 Westlake Ave. N

Get your tickets / RSVP here.

How To Pitch Ideas Q&A

Last night I ran a workshop on How To Pitch Ideas, hosted by the wonderful folks (Llewyn Paine, Emilie Thaler and  Cathie Toshach) at the Seattle IXDA chapter. The topics covered were generated by the attendees themselves at the session and I promised I’d write up notes, which you are reading now.

References:

My popular essay: How To Pitch An Idea
Checklist for great presentations
How to get better feedback
Getting Feedback on ideas without frustration (idea critiques explained)
The Confessions of a Public Speaker

The important advice most people don’t want to hear

Pitching ideas is hard. Most of what we think we know about doing it well is inspired by TV shows and movies, where a charismatic, creative person magically convinces rooms full of recalcitrant people to follow their ideas. This rarely happens in real life. Most pitches fail to convince anyone. The reason most pitches fail to convince anyone is the person who is listening to the pitch often already has their own ideas for what they want to do, and even if they don’t, they are listening to dozens of competing pitches for the same resources. By the time you pitch them you’re often already too late. You can do everything right in your pitch and still fail.

It’s a rarely discussed fact in creative circles, but the more powerful you are, the fewer pitches you need to do. Always remember this. If you are the CEO of the organization or the grand emperor of the planet Pitchus in the Andromeda galaxy, people pitch you. They pitch you because you have the power. Any job that demand you pitch all the time reflects the lack of true authority you have over creative decisions. This means persuasion is a central skill in what you do, and the sooner you treat it as a central skill the better (See 5 dangerous ideas).

The best way to persuade people is in informal settings. You often earn this right only by cultivating a reputation for having good ideas, which takes time. And the best people to bother trying to persuade are decision makers (or people one step closer to decision makers than you are). Real influence is having the kind of relationship where you can go talk to powerful people about an idea informally, without the unavoidable theatrics that come in to play in big meetings. In a big meeting people in power can’t speak honestly: they know that 5 or 10 or 20 people are listening, each of whom wants to hear different things. An executive, or client, is far less open to ideas in big meetings than they would be in nearly any other setting (such as a private chat in their office or a conversation over coffee or beer).

The goal then is develop relationships and credibility with the important people in your world so that your formal pitches, in idea review meetings or grand product planning sessions, are not the first time decision makers have been pitched by you. You want big meetings to be closer to formalities, or at least situations where you understand who in the room are already your supporters, and what approach you need to take to try and convince those in the room who are naturally critical or have goals that don’t match yours.

It matters who makes the pitch

We judge people heavily based on their reputation. Someone you trust could give the same pitch as someone you didn’t, and you’d respond to “the pitch” differently. Reputation matters. How much latitude and benefit of doubt you will get when you pitch something depends on what you’ve pitched before, what the outcome was and how much respect they generally have for you work. This means a few things. First, you might have an amazing idea that requires a far better reputation than you have (e.g. on your first day at work it’d be a mistake to pitch reorganizing the entire organization). Second, for any given idea there might be someone other than the person who came up with it who is the best person to pitch it. This might mean asking your boss to make the pitch or a coworker. You might need to decide if you care enough about the idea to let someone else make the pitch on its behalf.

Topics, situations and answers

I started the workshop with an option to use my slidedeck, or to build a list of situations from attendees and spend the time discussing them. They chose the later (I pitched them harder on this option, and I won!). Here’s the list we worked from during the workshop, with my notes on the answers.

The decision maker already has an idea. This means you are in a dog and pony show – the pitch meeting is theater. They’ve already had whatever brainstorming discussions they’ve wanted to have with the people they respect. You need to figure out how to get involved earlier in the process so you are pitching at a time when ideas are being considered. If the decision maker has an idea already, whose was it? When did that person talk to the decision maker? How can you time things earlier for the next project or next idea? Of course you can also try to pitch them on why your idea is even better than they one they already have.
What are counter-tactics for meetings where people delay and filibusters new ideas? In any meeting ask the question: who is in charge here? Any meeting that is poorly run, or more precisely, is run in a way where most new ideas are shot down is not an accident. The person in charge is running it that way for a reason (one potential reason is they are incompetent, but for the hopes of a fair pitching landscape the negative effect is similar). Ask yourself: what is the reason? What do they have to gain from having a meeting that’s so hostile, or so incompetent? This situation is similar to the first: it’s likely the frustrating experience of the discussion is really about the fact that someone in power already has a plan. The meeting is just for show to make everyone feel like an honest discussion is happening.
How do I get better at pitching? Pitching is a skill. It’s a kind of performance. The only way to get better at any skill is to practice. When you find a new idea grab a coworker or friend and pitch them on the idea. Don’t pick your warm and fuzzy friends – pick people who are smart and critical. Let them ask you question and pick your idea, and your pitch apart. Then do it again, and again, learning each time. The more important a particular idea/pitch is to you, the more practice you should have with it before you do the pitch to the person in power. Develop relationships with coworkers where you practice pitches on each other – not to stroke your ego but to get thoughtful feedback you need to hear to improve your pitch before you actually do it.
Does who I’m pitching to matter? What good is a great pitch to the wrong person? Or more precisely, how can you know if your pitch is any good if it’s not crafted for the person you want to influence? Understanding who you are pitching might be more important than the pitch itself. If you had a great idea, would you pitch it to Justin Bieber the same way you’d pitch it to the Pope? You should study who is going to be in the room when you give a pitch: what are each of their goals? their preferences? what was the last idea they supported? what was the last idea they rejected? What are their goals for this quarter or year? Who do you know that successfully pitched them and what advice do they have? All of those things give you valuable data about how to tell your story differently, or possibly even to pick a different idea to pitch them on.
Is there a secret system for perfect pitches? There is no secret system for anything. I recommend thinking about 5 / 30 / 300. You should be able to explain your idea in 5 second, 30 second and 300 second versions. Distill it down and down until it’s a single sentence. If you do this well it will be interesting enough that the person you pitch will instinctively ask a question, leading to your 30 second version of the pitch. And if you do that well, they’ll ask for more, and you’ll be ready to give them  the 4 or 5 minute version.
If I get access to the key decision maker, how should I pitch them? Concision is the most important thing. Most creative people who have developed a good idea assume they have to explain the process for how they found the idea in the pitch. This is a big mistake. How you invented something has no impact on whether the thing you invented solves a problem for someone or not. Put your pride aside and focus on what the idea can do and who it can do it for. When you’re famous you can explain how you did it, don’t worry until then.
In my team meetings my ideas get ignored but are proven right later. If this happens often I’d think about who in the room, if I convinced of I was wrongfully ignored, would do anything different in the next meeting to help me. I’d try to document my experience: perhaps by taking meeting notes that just happen to include my suggestion. Then when my ignored suggestion is shown later to have been right, I’d take that documentation and go talk, in private, to the person in the room who could have changed things. I’d tell them the story: “I pitched this idea last month and it was ignored, and look now. what could I do differently next time I have a good idea to get more support for it?” And see what they say. Odds are high they themselves will listen to you differently from now on.
How do you pitch people you don’t know? Pitching is similar to dating. The best advice is to listen first. Ask questions that help you figure out who you are  talking to. What are your goals this year? What frustrations do you have? What problems are you trying to solve? In letting them talk first you give yourself the benefit of matching, in your mind, the ideas you have to the situation they are in.
My ideas always get shot down without a fair debate. Help? Most organizations use phrases called idea killers that unfairly kill ideas. They include “We don’t have time” or “We tried that already” or even “We don’t do that here.” These sound smart but they are substance free. Rheotically they have no substance. You should familiarize yourself with the common idea killers in your world and practice responses that keep the conversation going. Expect to hear them and have a response you’ve already crafted. Healthy creative organizations have leaders who kill idea killers for you.
Can you use emotion to your advantage? We are emotional creatures and pay great attention to how invested people seem to be in whatever they are telling us. Most people hide their emotions around even their own ideas. This is a mistake. All things equal you will be more convincing if you seem passionate and engaged as you talk about your idea. Showing that you’ve done your homework (preferably by your ability to answer questions rather than burying people in details) is another way to convey how committed you are to the idea you’re talking about. Stories have emotional power that data does not – a pitch involving a single well told story of a real person with a real problem can have more impact than thousands of dollars worth of demographic research reports.
How to use data. Data is only useful if it fits the goals of the people you are pitching to. Facts can help tell a story, but only in the fact has two qualities: 1) it hits directly on a situation the people you are pitching care about 2) your idea presents a solution to that problem. Data is a double-edged sword though. You can easily fall into the trap of arguing with someone about whether your data, or their data, is better, an argument that is very hard to win. Ideally data and research were a natural part of your process for how you developed your idea in the first place, in which case it will be natural for you to refer to it as part of your story. Searching for supporting data only to help sell something in a pitch is guaranteed to suffer from confirmation bias - something a wise audience will spot and question, hurting your credibility, so be careful.
How to find the right story to tell? A story has three parts: a character, a narrative and a conclusion. Every person and every culture prefers different characters, narratives and conclusions. There is no single story that connects with everyone. I would study the goals of the organization or project to look for characters and narratives to use. Pitching a hospital? the main character is likely a patient, or a doctor, or a technician. The narrative might be: bills are hard to figure out. The conclusion is perhaps, if we follow the idea I’m proposing we can improve the readability of bills by significantly (or if you want have data to support it, XX%).
How to get people to fight your battles for you. People are most likely to fight your battle for you if they don’t think it’s just your battle. If they see (perhaps because you tell them) that by supporting you they get what they want, it’s natural for them to get involved. Any decent boss naturally shares your interests as they want you to succeed and will help you for that reason alone. Sadly not all bosses are decent, and even the decent ones aren’t necessarily politically savvy. You may need to walk them through why supporting your pitch is in their interest and make specific requests for what you want them to do to (“Can you mention this at the next manager’s meeting?” or “since you like this idea, can you support me when I pitch it to the team?”)

Have other pitch related questions? Leave a comment.

How To Pitch Ideas Q&A (for designers)

Last night I ran a workshop on How To Pitch Ideas, hosted by the wonderful folks (Llewyn Paine, Emilie Thaler and  Cathie Toshach) at the Seattle IXDA chapter. The topics covered were generated by the attendees themselves at the session and I promised I’d write up notes, which you are reading now.

References:

My popular essay: How To Pitch An Idea
Checklist for great presentations
How to get better feedback
Getting Feedback on ideas without frustration (idea critiques explained)
The Confessions of a Public Speaker

The general advice most people don’t want to hear

Pitching ideas is hard. Most of what we think we know about doing it well is inspired by TV shows and movies, where a charismatic, creative person magically convinces rooms full of recalcitrant people to follow their ideas. This rarely happens in real life. Most pitches fail to convince anyone. The reason most pitches fail to convince anyone is the person who is listening to the pitch often already has their own ideas for what they want to do, and even if they don’t, they are listening to dozens of competing pitches for the same resources. By the time you pitch them you’re often already too late. You can do everything right in your pitch and still fail.

It’s a rarely discussed fact in creative circles, but the more powerful you are, the fewer pitches you need to do. Always remember this. If you are the CEO of the organization or the grand emperor of the planet Pitchus in the Andromeda galaxy, people pitch you. They pitch you because you have the power. Any job that demand you pitch all the time reflects the lack of true authority you have over creative decisions. Which means persuasion is a central skill in what you do, and the sooner you treat it as a central skill the better (See 5 dangerous ideas).

The best way to persuade people is in informal settings. You often earn this right only by cultivating a reputation for having good ideas, which takes time. And the best people to bother trying to persuade are decision makers (or people one step closer to decision makers than you are). Real influence is having the kind of relationship where you can go talk to powerful people about an idea informally, without the unavoidable theatrics that come in to play in big meetings. In a big meeting people in power can’t speak honestly: they know that 5 or 10 or 20 people are listening, each of whom wants to hear different things. An executive, or client, is far less open to ideas in big meetings than they would be in nearly any other setting (such as a private chat in their office or a conversation over coffee or beer).

The goal then is develop relationships and credibility with the important people in your world so that your formal pitches, in idea review meetings or grand product planning sessions, are not the first time decision makers have been pitched by you. You want big meetings to be closer to formalities, or at least situations where you understand who in the room are already your supporters, and what approach you need to take to try and convince those in the room who are naturally critical or have goals that don’t match yours.

Topics, situations and answers

The decision maker already has an idea. This means you are in a dog and pony show – the pitch meeting is theater. They’ve already had whatever brainstorming discussions they’ve wanted to have with the people they respect. You need to figure out how to get involved earlier in the process so you are pitching at a time when ideas are being considered. If the decision maker has an idea already, whose was it? When did that person talk to the decision maker? How can you time things earlier for the next project or next idea? Of course you can also try to pitch them on why your idea is even better than they one they already have.
What are Counter-tactics for meetings where people delay and filibusters new ideas? In any meeting ask the question: who is in charge here? Any meeting that is poorly run, or more precisely, is run in a way where most new ideas are shot down is not an accident. The person in charge is running it that way for a reason (one potential reason is they are incompetent, but for the hopes of a fair pitching landscape the negative effect is similar). Ask yourself: what is the reason? What do they have to gain from having a meeting that’s so hostile, or so incompetent? This situation is similar to the first: it’s likely the frustrating experience of the discussion is really about the fact that someone in power already has a plan. The meeting is just for show to make everyone feel like an honest discussion is happening.
How do I get better at pitching? Pitching is a skill. It’s a kind of performance. The only way to get better at any skill is to practice. When you find a new idea grab a coworker or friend and pitch them on the idea. Don’t pick your warm and fuzzy friends – pick people who are smart and critical. Let them ask you question and pick your idea, and your pitch apart. Then do it again, and again, learning each time. The more important a particular idea/pitch is to you, the more practice you should have with it before you do the pitch to the person in power. Develop relationships with coworkers where you practice pitches on each other – not to stroke your ego but to get thoughtful feedback you need to hear to improve your pitch before you actually do it.
Does who I’m pitching to matter? What good is a great pitch to the wrong person? Or more precisely, how can you know if your pitch is any good if it’s not crafted for the person you want to influence? Understanding who you are pitching might be more important than the pitch itself. If you had a great idea, would you pitch it to Justin Bieber the same way you’d pitch it to the Pope? You should study who is going to be in the room when you give a pitch: what are each of their goals? their preferences? what was the last idea they supported? what was the last idea they rejected? What are their goals for this quarter or year? Who do you know that successfully pitched them and what advice do they have? All of those things give you valuable data about how to tell your story differently, or possibly even to pick a different idea to pitch them on.
Is there a secret system for perfect pitches? There is no secret system for anything. I recommend thinking about 5 / 30 / 300. You should be able to explain your idea in 5 second, 30 second and 300 second versions. Distill it down and down until it’s a single sentence. If you do this well it will be interesting enough that the person you pitch will instinctively ask a question, leading to your 30 second version of the pitch. And if you do that well, they’ll ask for more, and you’ll be ready to give them  the 4 or 5 minute version.
If I get access to the key decision maker, how should I pitch them? Concision is the most important thing. Most creative people who have developed a good idea assume they have to explain the process for how they found the idea in the pitch. This is a big mistake. How you invented something has no impact on whether the thing you invented solves a problem for someone or not. Put your pride aside and focus on what the idea can do and who it can do it for. When you’re famous you can explain how you did it, don’t worry until then.
In my team meetings my ideas get ignored but are proven right later. If this happens often I’d think about who in the room, if I convinced of this, would do anything different in the next meeting for my next idea. I’d try to document the that this happened: perhaps by  taking meeting notes that just happen to include my suggestion. Then when it happens again, I’d take that documentation and go talk, in private, to the person in the room who could have changed things (or worst case, I’d do it on email). I’d tell them the story: I pitched that idea last month and it was ignored – what could I do differently next time I have a good idea to get more support for it? And see what they say. Odds are high they themselves will listen to you differently from now on.
How do you pitch people you don’t know? Pitching is similar to dating. The best advice is to listen first. Ask questions that help you figure out who you are  talking to. What are your goals this year? What frustrations do you have? What problems are you trying to solve? In letting them talk first you give yourself the benefit of matching, in your mind, the ideas you have to the situation they are in.
My ideas always get shot down without a fair debate. Help? Most organizations use phrases called idea killers that unfairly kill ideas. They include “We don’t have time” or “We tried that already” or even “We don’t do that here.” These sound smart but they are substance free. Rheotically they have no substance. You should familiarize yourself with the common idea killers in your world and practice responses that keep the conversation going. Expect to hear them and don’t let them alone end the conversation.
Can you use emotion to your advantage? We are emotional creatures and pay great attention to how invested people seem to be in whatever they are telling us. Most people hide their emotions around even their own ideas. This is a mistake. All things equal you will be more convincing if you seem passionate and engaged as you talk about your idea. Showing that you’ve done your homework (preferably by your ability to answer questions rather than burying people in details) is another way to convey how committed you are to the idea you’re talking about. Stories have emotional power that data does not – a pitch involving a single well told story of a real person with a real problem can have more impact than thousands of dollars worth of demographic research reports.
How to use data. Data is only useful if it fits the goals of the people you are pitching to. Facts can help tell a story, but only in the fact has two qualities: 1) it hits directly on a situation the people you are pitching care about 2) your idea presents a solution to that problem. Data is a double-edged sword though. You can easily fall into the trap of arguing with someone about whether your data, or their data, is better, an argument that is very hard to win. Ideally data and research were a natural part of your process for how you developed your idea in the first place, in which case it will be natural for you to refer to it as part of your story. Searching for supporting data only to help sell something in a pitch is guaranteed to suffer from confirmation bias - something a wise audience will spot and question, hurting your credibility, so be careful.
How to find the right story to tell? A story has three parts: a character, a narrative and a conclusion. Every person and every culture prefers different characters, narratives and conclusions. There is no single story that connects with everyone. I would study the goals of the organization or project to look for characters and narratives to use. Pitching a hospital? the main character is likely a patient, or a doctor, or a technician. The narrative might be: bills are hard to figure out. The conclusion is perhaps, if we follow the idea I’m proposing we can improve the readability of bills by significantly (or if you want have data to support it, XX%).
How to get people to fight your battles for you. People are most likely to fight your battle for you if they don’t think it’s just your battle. If they see (perhaps because you tell them) that by supporting you they get what they want, it’s natural for them to get involved. Any decent boss naturally shares your interests as they want you to succeed and will help you for that reason alone. Sadly not all bosses are decent, and even the decent ones aren’t necessarily politically savvy. You may need to walk them through why supporting your pitch is in their interest and make specific requests for what you want them to do to (“Can you mention this at the next manager’s meeting?” or “since you like this idea, can you support me when I pitch it to the team?”)

Have other pitch related questions? Leave a comment.

Vote On The Cover Design: Final Round

More than 350 of you voted for the previous round of cover designs. Thanks for your feedback dearest readers. A few weeks have passed since then and I’m back today with what are likely the final cover concepts: only two to choose from. How exciting!

Important: If you missed the kickstarter campaign, you can join this list to be first to be notified when the book is on sale, and receive early giveaways, free book excerpts and more.

The book itself is rolling along – still at work on draft #3 and it’s progressing nicely. Plan is for the book to be out this fall.

Regarding these designs: they’re not final, but we’re close. I’m still working on what the tagline will be (“The story of a father and son” isn’t quite right), or even if there will be a tagline at all.

Design A: Bench

Design B: Chains

Take Our Poll

Snowpiercer: Movie Review

I’m a fan of creative dystopia and when I saw the graphic novel Snowpiercer at Elliot Bay Books I immediately picked it up. The premise is ridiculous, but metaphoric: all the survivors of the human race are stuck on a train together, a train that must keep moving for everyone to survive. Go ridiculous metaphors! What is a good graphic novel without them?

Unfortunately the book isn’t very good. It’s underwritten in most ways and never takes full advantage of the interesting premise. The movie however is much better. I’d recommend it generally for science fiction fans.

The film centers on the struggle between the lowest class of people, those stuck in the back cars called the tail. They live in poverty, have barely anything to eat and struggle to survive. A revolution is brewing and they’re planning a desperate attempt to work their way forward and, if lucky, take control.

I recommend the film for two reasons. The primary metaphor of confined class struggle is explored in different ways. When resources are scarce, or you are at war, what is the best way to govern? It’s no surprise those at the front of the train, who live in luxury, force the belief that where you are born on the train is where you must stay. The second reason I recommend the film is because of its many thoughtful flourishes rarely seen in American action films. Although the film is violent, there are moments when things slow down to capture a snowflake floating by, or the curious handling of a large fish by soldiers just before an awful fight is about to begin. There is a patience and craft at work here that’s hard to ignore. The performances are good, there are surprises and some fantastic sets that take on the challenge of how 1000 people could survive on a train for 20 years.

The film was nearly buried in the U.S. as the Weinstein company demanded changes director Bong Joon-Hoo refused to make. It’s only now after the film has had success in Europe and Asia that it’s finally getting wider release here.

Of course it is still a sci-fi film and there are some cliches and absurdities you must either suspend disbelief for or willfully enjoy.

Snowpiercer Review

I’m a fan of creative dystopia and when I saw the graphic novel Snowpiercer at Elliot Bay Books I immediately picked it up. The premise is ridiculous, but metaphoric: all the survivors of the human race are stuck on a train together, a train that must keep moving for everyone to survive. Go ridiculous metaphors! What is a good graphic novel without them?

Unfortunately the book isn’t very good. It’s underwritten in most ways and never takes full advantage of the interesting premise. The movie however is much better. I’d recommend it generally for science fiction fans.

The film centers on the struggle between the lowest class of people, those stuck in the back cars called the tail. They live in poverty, have barely anything to eat and struggle to survive. A revolution is brewing and they’re planning a desperate attempt to work their way forward and, if lucky, take control of an important take control.

I recommend the film for two reasons. The primary metaphor of confined class struggle is explored in different ways. When resources are scarce, or you are at war, what is the best way to govern? It’s no surprise those at the front of the train, who live in luxury, force the belief that where you are born on the train is where you must stay. The second reason I recommend the film is because of its many thoughtful flourishes rarely seen in American action films. Although the film is violent, there are moments when things slow down to capture a snowflake floating by, or the curious handling of a large fish by soldiers just before an awful fight is about to begin. There is a patience and craft at work here that’s hard to ignore. The performances are good, there are surprises and some fantastic sets that take on the challenge of how 1000 people could survive on a train for 20 years.

Of course it is still a sci-fi film and there are some cliches and absurdities you must either suspend disbelief for or willfully enjoy.

How To Get Out Of A Bad Habit

I regularly take the the top voted question from readers and answer them in a post. With 62 votes, today’s winner was:

How Do you Get Out of A Bad Habit

There is plenty of advice today about habits and how to change them. I’m no expert, and you can find plenty of well regarded books on the subject. While the topic hasn’t reached mainstream knowledge yet, I hope it does. Our habits define who we are more than our dreams do. All schooling is attempt to change students habits, but all of should learn at a young age how habits work and how we can change them. The fancy word to know is metacognition, which means thinking about how you think. This is a key element in changing habits and many other things about yourself, as thinking about how you make decisions is exactly what you need to change your own habits.

A better question is: how to get into a good habit. Framed this way you have positive psychology on your side, increasing your odds. A goal like “I want to lose 50 pounds!” is far too vague and negative, compared to “I want to eat a healthy salad for lunch 5 days a week.” That second goal is specific, positive and thoughtful, and easier to achieve. Start by defining the goal in something you can do on a daily basis and that is positive.

We like dramatic goals since it’s easier to get initially excited by them, but they are far too abstract. Because of their grandiosity we feel worse when we’re not making progress, not better. It’s easer to quit a goal that feels impossible than one that’s merely about a small decision we have to make today.

1. Get your own data

If you have a bad habit you probably don’t realize how often you do it. Start by simply accounting for your habits. Exactly how many Oreos do you eat per hour? How many times per day do you check Facebook? Have a place, on a whiteboard or on your phone, where you mark down every time you do the thing you’re trying to do less, or more, of. You don’t have to change your habits yet: that comes later. But for now build in awareness of exactly what your current habits are.

You might be surprised by the patterns you find. And the simple act of recording it might motivate you to do it less. Maybe there’s a habit you don’t even realize you have that sets off the habit you want to change. Perhaps it’s the time of day when you have the most stress that the habit is most pronounced? Or when you’re with certain people? This is data about you that no book or expert can provide: you need self-awareness if you want to change yourself.

And by writing down every time you do something you’re teaching yourself an important skill: how to form a new habit. Without even changing the old habit, you’ve put a new, healthier pattern in place. Give yourself credit for how many days in a row you document what you’re doing. Writing things down every day is an easy habit to learn: we all had it in elementary school. There are plenty of mobile phone apps that help with this.

2. Find A Partner

We are social creatures and many bad habits involve other people to share them with. Find a friend who has something they want to change, and partner with them. Websites like stickk and 43 things make setting and sharing goals with friends into a game. This uses the forces of peer pressure to push you in a direction you want. Many of our most common bad habits are done socially (drinking, smoking, overeating), but so are many of the habits we want (exercising, volunteering, connecting). Think through who in your life most contributes to your bad and good habits and shift how you spend your time accordingly, or even invite friends that you share bad habits with to join you or your goal for a better habit.

Simply being around people who are engaged in habits you want to adopt will change your perception of the habit and of yourself. Many of our deepest habits are learned from the most intimate relationships we’ve had: our families. You will feel differently about the daily walk around the block you are proud of if the people you like spending time with take a daily 2 mile hike. You’ll naturally want to participate, and it will be a nudge towards a habit you want that will feel good, not bad.

3. Pick smart rewards, not just old ones

Many people use bad habits as rewards: an extra cupcake, a third beer, or a four hour TV binge. Think about things you enjoy that are entirely positive, where the reward doesn’t work against the very goal that earned the reward in the first place. Experiences, like going to the movies or a play, make for great rewards since they’re about an experience you don’t often have but probably enjoy and can look forward to. The concept of a cheat day makes sense in it sets up a controlled escape valve for natural desires to experience old habits, .

4. Choose alternative behaviors

After you’ve made recording data a habit, you have to find alternatives. The joke of course is, like the Lloyd Bridges character from the movie Airplane!, it never seems like a good day to make a change. When under pressure we compulsively want comfort and that means our old habits.The mistake Bridge’s character made though wasn’t about the day he chose. It was about what his lack of forethought for feeling pressure to return to the old habit. He had no alternative, had no partner, and wasn’t recording data about what he was doing.

This is where the practice from #1 and #2 above come into play. If you have a partner, odds are they’re not experiencing a craving for old habits at the same time that you are. If you reach out to them they can help talk you through the feelings you’re having and sort them out without using the old behavior. If you’ve been tracking your habits, looking at the last few days or weeks of data will remind you how much you’ve achieved so far, and inspire you to stick with it another day. You’ll be reminded it’s not just about the moment you’re in – it’s about the long term, and it’s the long term view that made you want to try changing your habit in the first place.