Scott Berkun's Blog, page 41

Don’t Go Back to School: Book Review

I wrote recently about whether a college degree is worth the expense, and when I heard about Kio Stark’s new book called Don’t Go Back To School: A Handbook For Learning Anything, I was intrigued.  I asked her for a copy in exchange for consideration for writing a review, and here we are. It’s a good book, I read it quickly, and if you don’t know where to start in seeking your own education start here.

From the title I expected either a manifesto or pragmatic guide to self learning, but that’s not the case. The book centers on interviews with successful individuals who achieved success without following traditional paths. Although I easily read the entire book and recommend it, it’s an oddly shaped reading experience, where the introduction read more to me like a closing summational chapter. Although the book closes with a chapter of tactics and resources, and some interviews provide tips, the book itself is more inspirational than pragmatic.

There are some excellent interviews (Norton, Doctorow, Taylor) but some wander too deeply into personal histories and career specific advice,  away from the book’s ambition (Cory Doctorow‘s interview felt as if it were repurposed as he talks more about writing than anything else). Unlike Founders at Work, where the interviews stand alone, or even What Should I Do With My Life?, where the author weaved the stories together, Don’t Go Back to School sits in the middle in structure. It took until I reached the 4th or 5th interview that I settled in to the frame and tone of the book. I’d almost recommend reading the interviews first, and the introduction and closing references last.

And yet one of my favorite lines in the book comes from Stark’s introduction:

A gracefully executed quit is a beautiful thing, opening up more doors than it closes

She also clarifies common strategies her interviewees shared:

Portfolios to show their past projects and demonstrate competence
They show enthusiasm and chutzpah
They are adept at learning on the job
They are meticulous about doing good work

And Stark takes to task the often sited data about the value of a college degree:

…as a historical trend, people with college or graduate degrees have higher lifetime earnings… the problem is that this statistic is based on long-term data, gathere from a period of mderate loan debt. easy employability and annual increases in the value of a college degree.

Some highlights from the interviews include:

Quinn Norton (Journalist):

To this day, lectures are one of the best ways I can learn things, now on my iPod. To really get it, I listen to the same lecture back to back, twice…

I was a very odd teacher… I hated grading. I remember standing up in front of them and telling them grades don’t matter… One of them raised their hand and asked, “Well then Ms. Norton, what matters?” I told them what you learn matters. The skills that you get are useful. Not the grade you get. They were aghast.

Dorian Taylor (Programmer):

At my present age of 33, I suspect I could get into any institution that would take my money. But I couldn’t tell you why I’d go.

Molly Crabapple (Artist):

If you go to a rich people school, in any major, you will get a network of rich people. If you go to a poor people school, you won’t get a network of anyone. I totally understand why people go to Ivy League schools, so that they’ll meet the future power brokers of the world. I just never had the grades or the money for that, so it wasn’t an option for me. I made my own way. I network with people who are outside my field – journalists, writers, performers – and I look for every opportunity in the entire world where there is a blank wall and I can put my work on it.

Christopher Bathgate (Sculptor):

Getting stuck for me has been one of my best teachers. It has taught me the huge difference between just knowing the answer, and knowing how to find the answer

Pablos Holman (Hacker):

A lot of the people I think of as being most capable and accomplished are those that dropped out of college and learned what they do on the job. Learning that way gives you a sense of responsibility and a sense of ownership of your skills and knowledge in a way that a degree doesn’t. You get a degree and it’s an external authority saying you know what  you’re doing. The degree abstracts responsibility for learning and the knowledge you have.

Zach Booth Simpson (Researcher):

Don’t bother getting an education: just hang with smart people and ask good questions.

The book is excellent for people who want to break free, and need to connect with stories of those who have done it. Most of the interviews are with independent, freelancer, entrepreneurial professionals and their stories will have the most appeal for those dreaming about similar paths (as opposed to those who dream about middle management and want to get there without going to college).

You can get the book here Don’t Go Back to School.

 

How to Build A Billion Dollar Company (A critique)

A recent post called The Surest way to build a billion dollar company by James Slavet tries to look at data from the past to explain a plan for how to be a billion dollar company (And thankfully he never uses the i-word once). If you like his premise it’s a well written article with insights into how companies have achieved this in history:

The first observation in looking at billion-dollar consumer Internet companies is that there aren’t a lot of them. We’re approaching the twenty-year mark of the commercial Internet. Amazon and Yahoo were both founded in 1994. Yet from a recent scan of the public markets, there are currently only twenty-four publicly held U.S. based Internet companies that are worth $1 billion or more. That’s about one company per year for the past twenty years…

A full two-thirds of the 24 publicly traded U.S. Internet companies worth more than $1 billion are digital transaction firms. The billion-dollar club includes a heavy dose of travel, local and real estate businesses. The list includes Priceline, Expedia, TripAdvisor, HomeAway, Groupon, OpenTable, Yelp and Zillow. Other transaction-focused businesses that clear the threshold include Amazon, Ebay, Netflix, Vistaprint, Shutterfly, Ancestry, Bankrate and IAC/Match.com.

But there are fallacies lurking in the premise.

The surest way is not very sure. It’s very unlikely any company grows this large, even successful ones that are well run. Most new companies fail and even successful ones likely see normal levels of growth year to year.  Even if Slavet’s advice is sound and followed, it doesn’t improve the likelihood much. It’s not as if we’re talking about the surest way to get a job, or the surest way to tie your shoes. Of course even a 1% improvement in odds is worthy if the stakes are high.
History is an unreliable predictor of the future. He accurately points out that most of the billion dollar companies of the last decade are transaction companies, suggesting that’s the domain with the best odds of becoming a billion dollar company. That may have been true in 1996, but it’s possible the abundance of these types of companies makes it a mature playing field, moving the domain of opportunity elsewhere, somewhere harder to predict. The next few billion dollar companies may look little like the last ones.
Most factors are beyond your control.  The reasons why each of the companies mentioned (Google, Yahoo, Amazon) succeeded had much to do with forces those entrepreneurs didn’t control such as: how many competitors were there, how proficient were those competitors, how did their market change, which key people were available to join the company (or not), which technologies they depended on improved, etc. Entrepreneurs by nature discount forces they can’t control which helps them take on big risks, but those pivotal forces are also typically discounted in analysis of the past and the present.
Many billion dollar companies don’t start with the specific goal to be worth a billion dollars. I could use someone to check my history here, but I don’t think any of the companies he mentioned set out with an explicit goal to be a particular size or net value. They were all small companies started by people inexperienced with entrepreneurship  who mostly wanted to create a viable business based on their ideas. They had projections of possible growth which their investors likely demanded, but when exactly were those projections made? Before they began or after they had a fledgling, but functioning service? Of course, given #2 and #3, the fact that they did or didn’t do something may have had little bearing on the outcome they experienced.
Bigger risk ventures have higher payoffs but lower success rates (maybe?). I don’t have data to support this claim, but a hypothesis is the factors you need to put in place to go after a billion dollar business, by design, increase the general risk of the venture. For example, buying a popular sandwich shop has very predictable returns, low risk, but modest growth potential. Starting a new web service in a new market has hard to predict returns, high risk, and high growth potential (if the market lasts). You can chart risk vs. reward for different ideas and look for sweet spots.
Potential for scale is the goal.  A better framework for evaluating Amazon, Google, Expedia and others is they are businesses that had high potential for scale. They could create one product in one place and serve the entire planet, assuming the entire planet was interested. It’s very hard to predict exactly how big a market will grow, but you can build a business with plans for scale, and how to grow scale quickly to match a fast growing market. An interesting analysis of billion dollar companies is which ones simply out-scaled or outpaced their competitors, competitors who may have had other advantages over them.

You can read Slavet’s article here: The Surest Way To Build A Billion-Dollar Internet Company | LinkedIn.

How to Build A Billion Dollar Company

A recent post called The Surest way to build a billion dollar company by James Slavet tries to look at data from the past to explain a plan for how to be a billion dollar company (And thankfully he never uses the i-word once). If you like his premise it’s a well written article with insights into how companies have achieved this in history:

The first observation in looking at billion-dollar consumer Internet companies is that there aren’t a lot of them. We’re approaching the twenty-year mark of the commercial Internet. Amazon and Yahoo were both founded in 1994. Yet from a recent scan of the public markets, there are currently only twenty-four publicly held U.S. based Internet companies that are worth $1 billion or more. That’s about one company per year for the past twenty years…

A full two-thirds of the 24 publicly traded U.S. Internet companies worth more than $1 billion are digital transaction firms. The billion-dollar club includes a heavy dose of travel, local and real estate businesses. The list includes Priceline, Expedia, TripAdvisor, HomeAway, Groupon, OpenTable, Yelp and Zillow. Other transaction-focused businesses that clear the threshold include Amazon, Ebay, Netflix, Vistaprint, Shutterfly, Ancestry, Bankrate and IAC/Match.com.

But there are fallacies lurking in the premise.

The surest way is not very sure. It’s very unlikely any company grows this large, even successful ones that are well run. Most new companies fail and even successful ones likely see normal levels of growth year to year.  Even if Slavet’s advice is sound and followed, it doesn’t improve the likelihood much. It’s not as if we’re talking about the surest way to get a job, or the surest way to tie your shoes. Of course even a 1% improvement in odds is worthy if the stakes are high.
History is an unreliable predictor of the future. He accurately points out that most of the billion dollar companies of the last decade are transaction companies, suggesting that’s the domain with the best odds of becoming a billion dollar company. That may have been true in 1996, but it’s possible the abundance of these types of companies makes it a mature playing field, moving the domain of opportunity elsewhere, somewhere harder to predict. The next few billion dollar companies may look little like the last ones.
Most factors are beyond your control.  The reasons why each of the companies mentioned (Google, Yahoo, Amazon) succeeded had much to do with forces those entrepreneurs didn’t control such as: how many competitors were there, how proficient were those competitors, how did their market change, which key people were available to join the company (or not), which technologies they depended on improved, etc. Entrepreneurs by nature discount forces they can’t control which helps them take on big risks, but those pivotal forces are also typically discounted in analysis of the past and the present.
Many billion dollar companies don’t start with the specific goal to be worth a billion dollars. I could use someone to check my history here, but I don’t think any of the companies he mentioned set out with an explicit goal to be a particular size or net value. They were all small companies started by people inexperienced with entrepreneurship  who mostly wanted to create a viable business based on their ideas. They had projections of possible growth which their investors likely demanded, but when exactly were those projections made? Before they began or after they had a fledgling, but functioning service? Of course, given #2 and #3, the fact that they did or didn’t do something may have had little bearing on the outcome they experienced.
Bigger risk ventures have higher payoffs but lower success rates (maybe?). I don’t have data to support this claim, but a hypothesis is the factors you need to put in place to go after a billion dollar business, by design, increase the general risk of the venture. For example, buying a popular sandwich shop has very predictable returns, low risk, but modest growth potential. Starting a new web service in a new market has hard to predict returns, high risk, and high growth potential (if the market lasts). You can chart risk vs. reward for different ideas and look for sweet spots.
Potential for scale is the goal.  A better framework for evaluating Amazon, Google, Expedia and others is they are businesses that had high potential for scale. They could create one product in one place and serve the entire planet, assuming the entire planet was interested. It’s very hard to predict exactly how big a market will grow, but you can build a business with plans for scale, and how to grow scale quickly to match a fast growing market. An interesting analysis of billion dollar companies is which ones simply out-scaled or outpaced their competitors, competitors who may have had other advantages over them.

You can read Slavet’s article here: The Surest Way To Build A Billion-Dollar Internet Company | LinkedIn.

How to get better feedback

Stacey Hanke asked on twitter:

Why when I ask for feedback, it’s never constructive, it’s always vague “good job, nice work,” what does it take to get thorough feedback?

Feedback feels like confrontation to most people and they don’t want to risk starting a fight with you. They’ve learned many people are just fishing for praise when they ask for feedback, so that’s what they provide. They don’t want to hurt your feelings and they want out of a dangerous conversation.

Some people are more honest with feedback than others. Seek them out. And it’s up to you to cultivate trust with someone to get to the point where they feel safe enough to give you honest criticism. Consider the cliche “do I look fat in this bathing suit?” – who answers this with complete honesty? You’ll rarely get great feedback from a stranger, much less someone you know who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.

There are five ways to improve the quality of feedback you get:

Who you ask. What coworker do you have a strong enough relationship with that they’ll take the risk? Seek them out on something small, push them to be honest, and then genuinely reward them. Repeat, and over time you’ll can take on bigger feedback requests. And of course, ask someone with expertise on the subject at hand, not just your friend.
How you ask.  Ask a vague question and you get a vague answer. Instead ask focused questions like “How can I make this better?”, “What did I miss?” or “does this design solve these three objectives?” This gives the other person something to aim for. You, as the feedback asker, have to frame what kind of feedback you desire, simplifying the work for the other person.
When you ask. If you want thoughtful feedback give people the time to do it. Set up a meeting where you forward your work, or questions, ahead of time. This shows you’re serious and that you’re willing to give them the chance to both look at your work and think over their feedback. If you catch a random person in the hallway and shove something in their face, you’re betting feedback for yourself will be more important to them than everything they’d planned to do that day.
Where you ask. We are social creatures and behave differently depending on where we are. You get different feedback in a meeting with 10 people than you would over coffee or a beer after work. Different people have different comfort zones, but generally the more informal the situation the more open people are about their opinions.
How you respond. Everyone thinks they’re great at hearing feedback, but most people handle it poorly. They debate, they argue, and give off body language of offense. If you really want feedback you have to be prepared to shut up and listen. Ask qualifying questions “do you mean X, or Y?” and seek to understand their opinion more precisely, rather than to change their minds. And make sure to thank them sincerely (something that might only be possible after you’ve cooled down).

Also see How To Give And Receive Criticism.

Notes from TedxDePaul 2013

I’ll be updating this post with notes from each speaker at  TedXDePaul 2013, held today at the Museum of Contemporary Art, hosted by Daniel Gurivech. I don’t speak until the second set, but will take notes for as many speakers as I can all day.

Rules: I will revise and update all day long, cleaning up links and sloppy grammar.

Dan said two there are two kinds of people: creators and curators, which was the theme for the day.

Then an unnamed warm up team came out: They were unexpected and excellent. Dan’s opening was short and cold, but they walked through the speaker list making safe jokes, warming up the crowd. An unexpectedly good choice of curation [If you know their names, as they're not on the program, please leave a comment]

Scott Schuman, The Satorialist

He briefly described his work and blog, but walked through a series of photographs mostly by others, but some by him, and what they mean to him. He expressed that photography is a quiet act and its a surprise to go out and talk to large groups like this. He grew up by reading fashion magazines, which he thinks trained his eyes for how to see.

When he moved to Brooklyn from Indiana, he didn’t know anyone. Walking on Atlantic avenue, he saw a postcard of a couple on a boat and it moved him. It had an emotional effect. The first real photographic images he bought. He talked through a series of images and what they meant to him. He likes to think his images start a story. Good photographs don’t tell you everything.

Photographs lose their initial meaning over time. They are taken in one context for one reason, but live on, and take on meanings, often superficial ones, by those who come later who do not know the context.

It was hard to catch the names of all the photographers he mentioned. They included Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Lartigue, Slim Aarons, Edward Weston (whose diary he referenced)  and several others.

“The truth of a photograph is less interesting than the romance… allowing the romance is sometimes the most interesting part [as a photographer]”

He told a story of following a young woman on a bicycle, while on a bicycle, trying to time it right. And he worked hard to find the right angle and exposure, while moving. And later he realized a detail he’d missed: she had a metal right leg. A powerful detail that was entirely circumstance.

He wonders what photograph wil mean with digital photography and tumblrs, and the digital natives who don’t know what photography used to mean as an expensive, physical object, rather than cheap, easy, fast digital photography. Images on the internet are so easy to share that it makes the images themselves mean something else. He thinks it’s fascinating, unlike photographers of the past, that modern photographers can capture in the present, and 5 and 100 years from now, how the meaning of a photo has changed for the people looking at it.

George Aye, Greater Good Studio, Greater Good Studio

Transportation is the interaction of people’s choice and government. Includng tensions. The CTA has anxiety and a history of animosity between transportation users and employers  ”we’d have a great service if [it] weren’t for all those people”.

The CTA’s main focus is to provide logistical expertise. The CTA is similar to FedEx – except these packages are people. But as a designer, Aye was interested in the experience of being inside those packages.

After 11 months leadership changed at CTA, support for a designer (or for Aye) diminished, and he was fired. Now he’s a professor and wants to use what he learned to teach designers are everyone from the challenges he encountered. He created GGS to answer the question how can we help? And they realized what they needed was a ‘new model for public engagement.’  A new way for people to access the information and services CTA(?) already have.

Initially he resisted crowd sourcing, but realized there was a role for all kinds of research, including the messy, unfiltered elements of involving many people. He used his frameworks from being a teacher to consider the entire problem different: the city is a classroom. Which led to a new term: public design team. “Everyone of you in this room has a slightly different perspective on transit” and the spirt was to be open about finding ways to incorporate many of those views into the process.

Which led to…. a mobile app. To help people navigate the city. They launched a public kick starter campaign, which was terrifying. They set a goal of $125k, but only got $23k. Which was devastating.”After crying myself to sleep… he realized they were free from all of the expectations.. it didn’t matter if they screwed up again since they’d failed so largely before”

“Succcess hides learning” he realized. And what he’d learned was the project was much to complicated. They needed to simplify.

They developed three principles:

Give the team a role and give it a name. They came up with the title “Urban Agent” and people loved it. Volunteers could refer to themselves as “Agent #23″.
Ask questions that respect your team. There are no stupid questions but there are some that are deeply flawed. Assignments should be clear and real “observe your commute and look for transit tools – what could they do differently?”.  Because we asked in a particular way we prevented people from whining.  There were 300+ submissions.
Give the team tools so they can respond with solutions. “How can non designers help with design?” He believed the only prerequisite was to have motivation and an idea. 600 ideas were submitted, which were narrowed down to 70 app features. Then they went to wireframes. [but he didn't explain what the final app is and how it did - if anyone has linkage leave a comment]

Marcy Capron, CEO of Polymathic

I had to prepare for my own talk and sadly didn’t take notes for Capron’s talk.

Elaine Chernov, Founder of Quite Strong

Elaine is an art director, involved with a group of female creatives called Quite Strong.

She opened by talking about advertising, and showed a short film by Gene Kilborn [killing us softly] about gender bias in ads:

Ads sell more than produts – values, perceptions, morals
“I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford” – no one looks like they actually look

She studied women’s studies in school– and felt about marketing and advertising  and thought “what a bunch of assholes…advertisers ruining everything”. Apparently Beer ads are known as being the most evil. But there is still room for good work: Budweiser did an add with the bottle cap as a crown. Compelling, simple and without any cultural issues.

She decided  ”I am going to change this industry from the inside”. On photo shoot she managed to hire a size 14 model, something unheard of – but they resized her in post production. She alsWorked on beer ads for Coors (Ice cube).

Created Lustlist – a curated list of female talent they admire. Artists, directors, etc. to highlight their work and a place for advice for female creatives. In the beginning all they had was each other for confidence, but soon we were asked to speak at events. At the first of 2o speakers, 2.5 were women. Design conferences are better. But she noticed men speak differently and more egotistically, but that in some ways she admired that style: “hey what’s up, here’s my work, it’s cool, I get paid a lot of money for it… {mic drop}”. Inspiring to walk

6 out of 20 of top 20 are women on top ted talks. Most persuasive 19/20 all men except one, where the woman spoke about women representing women in media. It’s called TEDx non TINAx or TabithaX.

With some colleagues she created the Moxie conference, with the tagline “Make that cheddar (money). Look good doing it.”

She was honest in saying “What merit did we have to throw a conference? We had no merit. But we wanted to practice what we preach” It was a success, and 40% of attendees were male, which they were proud of Their agenda wasn’t too big to include everyone.

Question to ask when making work:

Is this coming from a conscious place
statement bigger than myself
You have the power to vote with your $$, vote with interests, likes & shares

“it’s either you [in the TED audience] or the people posting youtube comments, and they’re not stopping any time soon”

David Kadavy, Author of Design for Hackers

Coming soon

Dan McComas, Redditgifts.com

Created a site that failed – he used reddit and learned inside jokes. Ran one of the first kickstarter campaigns – Jetblue travel challenge. Fly for 30 days, 15 cities. Two people did it. Led to idea for something related to reddit – gifting to strangers.

First rule for people who signup: Don’t be a dick. The first version of redditgifts did very little. The first secret santa, where you could gifts to strangers was in 2009 - 4380 participants in 52 countries. It was awesome for him, but super scary for many reasons.

Was awesome but super scary.

Needed to build:

you sign up
 likes / dislikes
matching process – pull names out of a hat
you friendly stalk the person you have
you tell us what you got and how much you spent
if you get a gift – you post pictures
Reminders// etc.

Beyond the tech challenge, wondered if people would abuse it and send garbage? it was scary and Exciting. The First gift: a copy of half life 2. Next gift: Package required surgery – they packed a set of gifts, based on research of that stranger, and stuffed them in a stuffed shark. “We put your present in the shark you are going to have to do surgery to get your gifts out”. The person who received it brought it full circle: and took photos as if it were real surgery. Other gifrst includes $1500 in cash. Hand paintings. Amazing – got fame.

[He showed many great photos of gifts and the responses from the recipients. I'll try to dig some up later online if I can]

 

They wondered Was it just Christmas? They tried another day. Named: Arbitrary day.

2010 – signups quadrupled. Crazy portraits (found their picture and painted them a portrait).  2011 – Jimmy Fallon.  $1million to strangers

Someone sent a case of live crabs to eat and the reciever posted as a joke “I got crabs from an internet stranger.”

They did another version for U.S. troops and another that worked one-way (not reciprocated).

2012 – even bigger – $2 million, 127 countries

WHY? Is it working? Why does it grow? He saw a recent TED talk about using money for happiness, it can help but you have to spend it on strangers. That’s basically what redditgift is to him, this idea improved and amplified by the web.

Jon Satrom, Glich Artist, jonsatrom.com

“I’ve got 99 problems but a glitch ain’t one”.  Weird meme: people biting their computers.

Glitches break us out of the context of consumer. What’s wrong? Is my tv? my web connection? We pay attention and the illusion is broken. Systems are unstable and messy if you pay attention, just like we are.

Glitch safari: looking for glitches in different mediums and places.

Referring to updating software: “My art sometimes breaks when things get fixed.

His work is often called Brikolage, working with curating found objects. He looks at something like Word, the Microsoft application, is a collection of sounds, scripts, icons and code, and to him all of this is fair game. [And showed video of one of his works based on Word].

The Language of new media: modularity is one of the modes of new media.

When stuff stops working the way I want [due to upgrades and such], it forces me to make new work.

Satromizer - iPhone app for glitching (It’s funware, not exactly a real app).

Glitches are more than a stunt: but a philosophy of creation and awareness. Glitches offer us a chance to see things we depend on and forget about differently. He invites us to take a moment when we encounter them and consider what it means.

Betsy Hoover, Online organizing directory for Obama Campaign

She asked the audience to think about a social problem that requires a community to solve.

She studied at Xavier and was interested in community building. Went door to door in Cincinnati to ask about what they liked and disliked about their neighborhood. She heard 6 people tell her they wanted a speed bump, to protect their children. They were surprised many people had the same issue. She brought it through the right government channels, and made it happen. And this inspired her to do even more.

She worked on the campaign, and after they won South Carolina Primary the campaign was broader, and she was interested in using online tools. Rather than go door to doo she found MYBO which was pivotal in the campaign.

She continued doing online community and found the switch from offline to on was very similar  She never imagined the internet would be central to her work, but it’s not surprising now. These were people who cared and the task was to help them relate to each other: organizing.

Discovered subject lines with the most casual subjects did best. They were treating the recipients as people  (She joked “Sorry for all the emails (not really) but thanks for all the action”).

In 5 weeks someone who joined rose form being an unknown local volunteer rose to play a key role in the Ohio campaign. [I think her point was the online tool created local engagement that would have been unlikely without it].

Always have to meet people where they are. Not on obama.com, but on reddit. Many people don’t self select to join a community. But Reddit was a risky place to be (as a president). 30k people registered in one day, their highest spike in the campaign until near the end.

Modern Americans are hard to reach by phone. They move, they don’t answer cell calls to numbers they don’t know. But 85% of unreachable people can be reached online, through facebook, through their friends. Friends as messengers is the most powerful way.

If you are an organizer, you are not the best representative to get the people you don’t have already. Your friends or subordinates might be, but you definitely are not.

The internet is not a holy grail: it’s just a tool. Use it to build relationships.

Doug Zell, Intelligentsiacoffee.com

[He arrived late and apologized for being dressed casually: he was in a bike race. He was slated for 5:30 and luckily didn't need to go on until 6:00, which he joked about a bit. He carried all this well and got laughs but it was disrespectful on principle]

His company started as a small coffee roaster, now has coffee bars across the U.S. and 1000 wholesaler accounts, and buy from 20 counties, paying above fair trade values.

What’s required to build a great brand?

Conviction: you do what you say you’re going to do. Patagonia is a great example. That’s how you make brands that last.
Unimpeachable quality: if you build brand well it will last forever. Four Seasons started as a motor inn in Toronto. When it moved into London it had to change to compete. They decided on unimpeachable quality as their goal. Every detail smacks of quality (Also mention Krug champagne).
People see through lack of authenticity  There are many inventa-companies (“we thought of this while out on a hike”). Levi’s embodies this. Gold rush history, 200 [it's more like 130] years later the jeans have the same quality. Dockers however have lost their way. In coffee they see many other brands jump in and them jump out. They don’t commit completely, or aim to deceive customers about what they are.
Innovation and evolution.  JCrew launched as preppie brand when he was in college, but now have reinvented themselves. Went from preppie and sleepy to leading edge. The tiring part is, just when you’re getting sick of your brand, the public is just starting to get it, they’re chasing you and are behind you. You need to be patient, but always working on what’s next. There are brands that just fell asleep for 3 or 4 years [and don't survive].
Integrity.  It took 18 years to have the success he has now, and deflects praise he gets from others (“Google started after we did”). If you are going to build a great company and brand you have to have the utmost integrity. It’s easy to do things that are cheap and low quality but it won’t last.
Be deliberate. Where do you want the brand to go? Even successful companies lose their confidence and way. Apple is a good example for their patience and dedication to quality.

He talked about how bike races don’t need to talk or make excuses. Great brands also stand on their own, with little artifice [which didn't jive with him being cavalier about being late].

 

 

The best definition of Innovation

For years I’ve studied the use of the use and abuse of the word innovation. Mostly it’s used as jargon, without any meaningful intent at all. I’ve complained about this for years, which naturally leads to people asking me to stop whining and offer a definition.

I generally recommend people don’t use the word. It’s mostly meaningless. At best it’s something people should say about you, not something you say about yourself. Its best to dedicate yourself to solving problems since that’s what most people who earn the title innovator were trying to do.

But if you must use it, here is the best definition:

Innovation is significant positive change

This is a high bar, and it should be.

What does significant mean? I’d start with the invention of the light bulb, constitutional governments, wireless radio and maybe web browsers. Perhaps you could say significant is a 30% or more improvement in something, like the speed of an engine or the power of a battery. If you know the history of your profession you know the big positive changes people made over the last 50 years, giving you perspective on the scale of brilliance you need to have to be worthy of that word.

But if you use word lightly, or frequently, you show hubris in the present and ignorance of the past.

Sayings like “we innovate every day”, “chief innovator” or “innovation pipeline” are inflations. They’re popular, but misguided. Calling a thing an innovation doesn’t make it so. It’s just a word and words are free to be abused.

The best thing to ask anyone who uses the word innovation is: what do you mean when you say that?

Most of the time people have no idea what they mean. And once they admit this, that’s when you offer the definition above.

Why I sit in the back row at conferences

Clay Herbert recently posted on the The Best Conference Hack, which is simply sitting in the front.

As a frequent speaker I like Clay’s advice. For speakers the empty front row is mysterious and frustrating. Speakers make a huge commitment, yet audiences who have little at stake show their lack of faith by staying back. Unlike a rock concert, somehow the 5th row is more desirable than the 1st.

I think better advice than Clay’s is to participate and speak about something. Many conferences offer Ignite or lightning talks, allowing many attendees to share their voice. This is by far the best conference hack: participate. It puts you in the middle of things. Volunteering has similar benefits without the stress.

But the surprise is, when I’m an attendee I don’t listen to all the speakers.

Sometimes I barely go in the session rooms.

Everyone has different learning preferences, and I know mine: I find it hard to listen to lectures, but I’m a tremendous reader. Unless the speaker is very good, which is rare, I’m better off reading their book or their blog which I can do at my own pace. As I wrote about in Confessions of a Public Speaker, lectures were never a good way to learn skills. They’re passive, non-interactive and rarely performed by people good at lecturing. I know it’s ironic that I have a low tolerance for lectures as I make a living giving them.

Conferences are a compromise: you get access to popular experts, but it’s broadcast access. This is a good deal if it’s your only option or your learning style matches what you get at the conference. But for me it’s conversations, which are two way, that I learn the most from. Conferences use speakers as MacGuffins, drawing attendees to come, but often the “side stuff” has the highest payoff.

Typically at events I do the following:

For talks I’m excited about, I’ll sit in the front as Clay suggests. But this is rare. It’s not a judgement of them, it’s a judgement of how I learn.
Frequently I sit in a back aisle, especially at a multitrack event. I’ll take aisle near the front if I can. In 7 minutes I can tell if the speaker has prepared well enough to warrant me staying. If I’m not convinced, I’ll move to another session – this is hard to do if you’re in front (unless you’re fortunate to have the aisle and brave enough to leave it).
Often I’ll listen for 5 or 10 minutes to evaluate their credibility: then I’ll buy their book, or subscribe to their blog, and move on. Or stay if I think I’m getting something special I can’t get any other way.
I regularly wander the halls and talk to others who are bored by lectures. They’re like me: better at doing than sitting and listening. I’ve learned great lessons from the conversations during sessions. The halls are not packed during sessions and it’s easier in some ways to start conversations.
If I commit to blogging the event, my attention improves. At Failcon 2012 I reported on the talks and I found this helped me focus. But it changes how you listen: it’s a shallower experience in some ways as you’re rushing to get things down.  And to do it properly required far less interacting with other attendees. LukeW is the master of this: see his notes from 200+ talks.

But this is merely what I do. Unless your learning preferences match mine, don’t do these things.

If you don’t know how you learn best, experiment. Go to different kinds of events that offer different experiences. Better events invest in different kinds of learning, with things in the hall for people like me, and well prepared speakers worthy of all the attention the front row can give them.

The 177 truths of innovation

In making the mega list of 177 innovation myths, I hoped the hours it took to research would pay off in others building on it. Designer Stefan Klocek was first by inverting all the myths as an experiment, creating a list of 177 innovation truths.

Of course semantic inversions don’t always work, but some are interesting especially when compared together:

Innovators had unhappy lives
Innovators need others to succeed
You don’t need to stay positive
You can’t remember everything
Companies of any size and any age innovate
Many great ideas are needed
It’s better to take risks
Innovation is a full time activity
You don’t need more new ideas
Innovation is the whole company
You don’t need to let loose
Innovation isn’t radical departure
Mistakes are cheap

See the entire list here.

The Great Gatsby: Book Review

I’ve read the Great Gatsby more than a dozen times. It’s one of those reference books for me, in that I find I can come back to it again and again are learn something new each time.

Recently I saw a preview for the upcoming film version of The Great Gatsby (directed by Baz Luhrmann who did  Moulin Rouge!). Baz’s style fits his name, and is grand, dramatic, over the top and nearly absurd, but also beautiful, shocking and intense. The preview made the movie seem brutal for a book I’d thought of as lyrical, more smoldering than explosive. The preview made me wonder how much I’d forgotten about the book, since it had been years since last I’d read it, so I picked it up and read it in two sittings.

As a sketch of a story there is nothing amazing about The Great Gatsby. It’s a writer’s book in a way, since it’s so simple and in many way obvious, yet works so wonderfully well, making it irresistible to try and take it apart. It’s a deceptive little book. It’s constructed as a series of slow burning time bombs that make you simultaneously want them to both go off to relieve the pressure, but not go off, so you can enjoy the way things are slowly unraveling for as long as possible.

What makes the book sing is the first person narration, and how easy Fitzgerald makes it seem to wind brilliant internal thoughts and commentary between plotting, dialog and observation. He jumps though time and perspective but always makes you, as the reader, feel well cared for by the soft cushion of his narrative powers. But there are some moments that don’t age as well: moments of anti-semitsm and racism, which, on afterthought, were probably appropriate for 1920s America. Some of the manners of speech feel staged, but not having been born until 50 years after it was written it’s hard to argue whether he got it right or wrong. But none of those complaints stand in the way of what has always been a deeply worthwhile, and easy read.

Some choice non-spoiler quotes from the book:

Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men.

Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face, discussing in impassioned voices…

He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished.

The 177 Myths of Innovation: Mega summary

The term Myths of Innovation has become popular on the web, but few of these articles link to each other, which is sad. Much like the abuse of the term innovation itself, the meaning stretches further all the time.

And somehow in all this innovation abuse we’ve forgotten inventions like web searches, links and footnotes to credit what others have done.

As a response I’ve compiled a chronological list of articles using the term. I’d like to make a definitive list of Innovation Myths and I’m happy to update this if you find more to add.  Surprisingly these lists are all broadly written – none are comprised of specific invention stories that are fabrications.

I came up with the term independently in April of 2002 for a lecture at Microsoft that eventually became the book. I hadn’t heard the term before but it’s entirely likely someone else had used it for an article, paper or post somewhere. The earliest use I found online in creating this post is Veitch, below.

The Complete list of Innovation Myths

1/31/2001 Innovation Myths, Open Future, John Veitch

Innovators had happy lives
Innovators can succeed alone
You must stay positive
You can remember everything

6/30/2002, Innovation Survey, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Frank Milton (pub date unverified)

Only small/new companies innovate
One great idea is all we need
It’s better to play safe
Innovation is a part-time activity

9/24/2004, The Seven Myths of Innovation, Financial Times, Sawhney/Wolcott

You need more new ideas
Innovation is a department
Let people loose
Innovation is a radical departure
Mistakes are costly
Avoid the detours
Innovation is about creating new things

12/1/2004, 6 Myths of Creativity, Fast Company, Bill Breen

Creativity comes from creative types
Money is a motivator
Time pressure fuels creativity
Fear forces breakthroughs
Competition beats collaboration
Streamline organization is a creative organization

12/2005, Innovation myths, Innovate on Purpose, Jeffrey Phillips

You can’t manage innovation
People won’t use processes
There’s no defined process
Too much management stifles creativity

2/2006, Excerpt From Innovation Handbook: A Roadmap to Disruptive Growth, Clayton Christensen/Scott Anthony

Innovation is all about technology
More resources equal more innovation
Only a big bang counts as a success
Innovation is random and unpredictable
You can’t teach people to be more innovative

2/3/2006, Top Ten Innovation Myths, Geoffrey Moore

We don’t innovate here no more
Product cycles are getting shorter
We need a chief innovation officer
We need to be more like Google
R&D investment indicates innovation commitment
Great innovators are usually egotistical mavericks
Innovation is inherently disruptive
It is good to innovate
Innovation is hard
When innovation dies, it’s because antibodies kill it

6/13/2006, The Myths About Innovation, The Straits Times, Atul Mathur

Innovation is for other industries
Innovation is inventing new product
Innovation is R&D
Innovation is for giants
Innovation is optional

6/06/2006,  Five Innovation Myths,  McKinney / Jim McNerney

It’s the solitary genius who is responsible
It’s all about technology
If it isn’t ‘new to the world’ it’s not innovation
Innovation can’t be managed
Creativity and discipline are mortal enemies

5/2007, The Myths of Innovation (the book) - revised 2010, O’Reilly Media, Scott Berkun

The myth of epiphany
We understand the history of innovation
There is a method
People love new ideas
The lone inventor
Good ideas are hard to find
Your boss knows more than you
The best idea wins
Problems are less interesting than solutions
Innovation is always good
A detailed free summary of the book is here
A  list of ranked references from the book

12/10/2008, Myths of Innovation, Industry Week, Jill Jusko

Innovation applies to technology and products
Innovation is a long term project
Innovation happens by chance

7/16/08, Seven Myths of Innovation, CyberJournalist

Always keep your eye on the ball
Failure is not an option
Everyone loves an innovator
Innovators are problem solvers
Knowledge is Power
Innovation can be predicted
First place always wins

4/09, Four Dangerous Myths, American Management Association, Paddy Miller, Spring 2009

Creativity should be fun
All ideas are good
Innovation is Entrepreneurship
The Creative Imperative

6/29/09,  Six Myths of Innovation, CIO Insight,  Samuel Greengard

Technology drives innovation
If you pursue innovation, it will come
Innovation results from an outside-in perspective
Bad things will happen if you open up your business processes
Vendors understand your business and IT better than you do
A tight budget stifles innovation.

2/22/2010, Five Damaging Myths about Innovation, Biznik, Jeanne Yocum

An innovation can be purchased
All we need are some good new ideas
I’ll recognize breakthroughs when I see them
We just implemented a great idea, we can rest
(There was no 5th myth)

12/16/10, The 5 Myths of Innovation, Sloan Review MIT (Julian Birkinshaw, Cyril Bouquet and J.-L. Barsoux)

Eureka Moment
Build it and They Will Come
Open Innovation is the Future
Pay Is Paramount
Bottom Up Innovation is Best

7/20/2010, 4 Myths that get in the way of Innovation, CBS, Margaret Heffernan

Innovation involves Quantum Leaps
Only Geeks May Apply
Innovation Requires off-sites with Geniuses
Innovators are a Special Breed

9/14/2010, Beware of these Ten Myths about Innovation Business Insider, Martin Zwilling

Innovation is all about ideas
A great leader never fails at innovation
Effective Innovation leaders fight the system
Everyone can be an innovator
Real innovation happens bottoms-up
Innovation can be embedded inside an organization
Initiating Innovation requires wholesale change
Innovation can only happen in skunk works
Innovation is unmanageable chaos
Only startups can innovate

3/2011, The 7 Common Myths of Innovation, CEO Refresher, George Chen Ian Pallister

Innovation can’t be taught
Breakthrough innovation occurs through stroke of genius
Innovation is solely the job of R&D
Innovation is risky
Innovation is about commercializing cutting edge technologies
Innovation is expensive
Innovation is disruptive and dilutes focus

4/8/2011, Dispelling the Myths about Innovation, Formico, Peter Boggis

Creativity and Innovation are the same thing
Innovation is only relevant for consumer companies
“Innovation just happens”
Business value if innovation is difficult to measure
Innovation requires deep pockets, risk-embracing and bleeding edge technology

10/2011, The Innovation Myths, Harvard Business, Scott Anthony

Innovation is random
Only geniuses can innovate
You’re either an innovator or not
Innovation happens in the R&D lab
We will win with technology
Innovation is about improved performace
Customer will be a critical source
Game changing innovation is done by entrepreneurs
We win by targeting big markets
Innovation requires big bets

10/28/2011, Myths and realities about Innovation, CNBC, Benjamin Hallen

Innovation comes from isolated geniuses
Innovation is about a eureka moment
Great innovations will be easily recognized

5/12/2011, 10 Myths of Innovation, Jon Gatrell

Innovation is all about ideas
The great leader never fails
Leaders are only fighting the system
Everyone can be an innovator
Innovation happens organically
Can be inside an establish organization
Requires wholesale organizational change
Innovation can only happen in Skunk Works
Innovation is unmanageable chaos
Only start-ups can innovate

8/4/2011, Bust Your Innovation Myths, Art Markman

We glorify eureka moments
We assume legendary stories are true
Myths are slanted towards great people and decisive events

9/8/2011, Debunking the Myths of Innovation, Jim Stikeleather, Dell

You can’t ask customers what they need
Faster, better, cheaper
Bringing disruptive innovations is never easy

10/24/2011, Innovation is About Execution, Despite the Myths, Forbes, Martin Zwilling

Innovation is all about ideas
A great leader never fails
Effective innovation leaders are subversives
Everyone can be an innovator
Real innovation is bottom up
Innovation can be embedded in an organization
Innovation requires wholesale change
Innovation happens in skunk works
Innovation is unmanageable chaos
Only startups can innovate

11/3/2011, Three Myths about Innovation, Jim Stikeleather

Successful innovation requires disruptive revolution
You have to be creative (egotistical) to be innovative
Innovation is expensive

12/19/2011, Relentless Innovation – Debunking the Myths, U. of Texas, Jeffrey Phillips

 Some industries seem more innovative than others
Fast following innovators can suceed
(Mentions The book The Myths of Innovation)

2/24/2011, 5 Myths of Innovation, Haydn Shaugnessy, Forbes

It’s all about creativity
Innovation is about motivation
Innovation is about the user
Innovation is about products and services
Innovation is good

1/4/2012, The Myths of Innovation, James Gardner, Computer Weekly

If you invest in something new you have better chances of windfall returns

2/7/2012, Debunking 4 myths of innovation, FastCoDesign, Jeffrey Phillips

Individual innovative leadership accounts for success
Level of industry competition dictates the amount of innovation
It’s possible to copy market leaders while retaining  competitive advantage

2/12/2012, Five Myths of Innovation, Gartner.com

This list is behind a $495 paywall :(

2/20/2013,  7 Myths of Innovation, Fast Bridge

It is what we do behind closed doors
Innovation just happens
We need to reward innovation
It is about working harder
Real innovation is about adjacent possible
You need the best people
It’s about selecting the best ideas

4/2/2013 (From the future!), 5 Innovation Myths Busted, Flanders, Vladimir Blagojevic

Innovation = creativity + ideas
Innovation = something new
Innovation = great products
Validating innovation = fundraise
Technical Innovations = scalable and automated

How this list was compiled

I used a series of Google, Yahoo and Bing searches, focusing on different date ranges and permutations on “Myths of Innovation”.  Search engines are better in some ways than when I wrote the book, as more data is now available on the web. I prioritized articles, posts or presentations that used the words Myth and Innovation somewhere in the title, including some that used the terms Myths and Creativity.

Many posts I found are cross-references of the same links, with interviews with authors of books/posts about myths they’d written about elsewhere and I only listed each list once. If you find other items I should add, please leave a comment.