Scott Berkun's Blog, page 50

How to be a great host (at Ignite)

Seattle Ignite, an evening of fast presentations similiar to Pecha Kucha, runs like clockwork. As the original and longest running Ignite event, the dedicated team of volunteers has done nearly 20 events with thousands of attendees, and many events were simultaneously live-streamed to the world.

One link in the chain is the host. They have to get up on stage and tie all the pieces together for the audience. I had the chance to host Ignite 17 and here’s what I learned from my experience, as well as from watching Brady Forest countless times. It’s what I’d recommend to future hosts.

Before the event

Go watch someone else host. There are many little things the host needs to do that most don’t notice. Go watch your local ignite and pay attention to everything the host does.
Point speakers at good advice for how to prepare.  There are good posts with many tips. Seattle Ignite now even does live coaching with speakers a week before the event. The speakers are the talent – you’re a fool if you don’t do everything you can to help them prepare well and to be comfortable and relaxed when they arrive at the event.
Confirm the speaker order with the Slide Wrangler (the person who will control the slides during the presentations). The slides win any debates – you don’t want a speaker up there when someone elses’s slides are showing. Make sure you know what the slides think the order is (Ideally there is one single mega deck preloaded with the correct order so no switching decks is required).
Know the seating plan. Speakers need to be lined up, in order, near the stage. Make sure whoever controls the layout of the room is reserving enough chairs for all the speakers.

At the event

Get there early and say hi to all the volunteers. This is both polite, but gives you a heads up on any issues. As the host, you will be the person who has to explain, or respond to, anything that goes wrong in front of the crowd. You want to know what’s coming.
Speakers are depending on you. Most of them will be nervous. They need someone to tell them where to be and what to do. That is your job as host. You are not just host for the audience, you are also the host for the performers. Make sure they have what they need. A nice touch is to have a box of bottled water in the speaker waiting area – it’s a common pre-speaking request.
30 minutes before start, assemble all the speakers. Use the PA to ask all speakers to come to the stage. Introduce yourself and have a short meeting that covers: a) the order they’ll be speaking b) where they are supposed to sit c) a walk of the stage they’ll be speaking on d) how awesome they are and how supportive the audience will be (lie if necessary).
Make sure you ask speakers how to pronounce their names. Have a pad of paper listing the speaker order, and when you ask them how to pronounce, write it down. You won’t remember otherwise. Plan to take that paper with you up on stage.
Make sure to give them a tour of the stage. By letting them walk on the stage you calm their nerves. Their bodies get to see what it will actually be like when they speak. if you don’t do this, they have to deal with the sensory surprise of what the lights, audience, etc. feel like. You don’t want to surprise your speakers.
If there are special instructions for where to stand, tell them. If the event is videotaped, wise videographers put a X, or other marker on the stage to let speakers know where to be. Speakers won’t know what it’s for if you don’t tell them.
If there is a confidence monitor for them to use, tell them what it is. It helps speakers if they can see their own slides as they are talking. Most speakers will never have seen a confidence monitor before, so you’ll need to explain that it will indicate the current slide the audience sees, but will be too small to read.



During the Ignite

Have intro slides that explain the format. Many people will never have been to an Ignite before. Have an opening talk (preferably done as an ignite talk) that covers the basics. Here’s the slide deck I used at Seattle Ignite.
Your job is game show host. The host is there to add positive consistency to the event. You don’t need to do much, other than be happy, energetic, and enthusiastic for the speakers.
Make the transitions as smooth as possible. The reason for having speakers sit in order, near the stage, is to accelerate the transitions. Getting speakers on and off stage is dead time. You don’t want dead time. 30 – 45 seconds is enough to get the last speaker off, do a clean intro of the next speaker, and to get them on stage.
Be prepared to introduce people’s names and topics. On your host sheet that you bring on stage, list their name, pronunciation guide, and their topic. You should be able to say something brief and positive about each speaker. Have some variety of intros prepared as they can get repetitive: “I’m so excited”, “This should be a great talk on”, “this might be my favorite”, etc.
Milk the audience for applause. It’s fair for each speaker to get some applause as they take the stage and when they leave. Some audiences are lazy – it’s up to you to remind them.
If there is a break, let people know how long. It’s wise to break the event into two parts, with half the speakers in each part. If you do break, remind people how much time they have, where the restrooms or snacks are, etc. If you break, you should repeat the call for speakers 15 minutes before the 2nd half, to make sure they are all there and seated in the right place.



After the Ignite


 Thank your speakers. Ignite events often create community and you can help this by emailing your speakers to thank them for participating. Remind them if any videos or slides will be posted online so they can help spread the word. Create a ignite-speakers mailing list, so alumni can stay in touch. This can be helpful in finding future speakers or doing other events.
Have a debrief dinner with the other volunteers. Get together a few days later to review what went well and what could have gone better. Use this info in planning your next ignite.
Come back here and add your own tips. What other tricks do you learn that other hosts should know? Come back here and leave a comment.

  (Photo by Shawn Murphy)

How to be a great host at Ignite

Seattle Ignite, an evening of fast presentations, runs like clockwork. As the original and longest running Ignite event, the dedicated team of volunteers has done nearly 20 events with thousands of attendees, and many events were simultaneously live-streamed to the world.

One link in the chain is the host. They have to get up on stage and tie all the pieces together for the audience. I had the chance to host Ignite 17 and here’s what I learned from my experience as well as from watching Brady Forest countless times. It’s what I’d recommend to future hosts.

Before the event

Go watch someone else host. There are many little things the host needs to do that most don’t notice. Go watch your local ignite and pay attention to everything the host does.
Point speakers at good advice for how to prepare.  There are good posts with many tips. Seattle Ignite now even does live coaching with speakers a week before the event.
Confirm the speaker order with the Slide Wrangler (the person who will control the slides during the presentations). The slides win any debates – you don’t want a speaker up there when someone elses’s slides are showing. Make sure you know what the slides think the order is (Ideally there is one single mega deck preloaded with the correct order so no switching decks is required).
Know the seating plan. Speakers need to be lined up, in order, near the stage. Make sure whoever controls the layout of the room is reserving enough chairs for all the speakers.

At the event

Get there early and say hi to all the volunteers. This is both polite, but gives you a heads up on any issues. As the host, you will be the person who has to explain, or respond to, anything that goes wrong in front of the crowd. You want to know what’s coming.
Speakers are depending on you. Most of them will be nervous. They need someone to tell them where to be and what to do. That is your job as host. You are not just host for the audience, you are also the host for the performers. Make sure they have what they need. A nice touch is to have a box of bottled water in the speaker waiting area – it’s a common pre-speaking request.
30 minutes before start, assemble all the speakers. Use the PA to ask all speakers to come to the stage. Introduce yourself and have a short meeting that covers: a) the order they’ll be speaking b) where they are supposed to sit c) a walk of the stage they’ll be speaking on d) how awesome they are and how supportive the audience will be (lie if necessary).
Make sure you ask speakers how to pronounce their names. Have a pad of paper listing the speaker order, and when you ask them how to pronounce, write it down. You won’t remember otherwise. Plan to take that paper with you up on stage.
Make sure to give them a tour of the stage. By letting them walk on the stage you calm their nerves. Their bodies get to see what it will actually be like when they speak. if you don’t do this, they have to deal with the sensory surprise of what the lights, audience, etc. feel like. You don’t want to surprise your speakers.
If there are special instructions for where to stand, tell them. If the event is videotaped, wise videographers put a X, or other marker on the stage to let speakers know where to be. Speakers won’t know what it’s for if you don’t tell them.
If there is a confidence monitor for them to use, tell them what it is. It helps speakers if they can see their own slides as they are talking. Most speakers will never have seen a confidence monitor before, so you’ll need to explain that it will indicate the current slide the audience sees, but will be too small to read.



During the Ignite

Have intro slides that explain the format. Many people will never have been to an Ignite before. Have an opening talk (preferably done as an ignite talk) that covers the basics. Here’s the slide deck I used at Seattle Ignite.
Your job is game show host. The host is there to add positive consistency to the event. You don’t need to do much, other than be happy, energetic, and enthusiastic for the speakers.
Make the transitions as smooth as possible. The reason for having speakers sit in order, near the stage, is to accelerate the transitions. Getting speakers on and off stage is dead time. You don’t want dead time. 30 – 45 seconds is enough to get the last speaker off, do a nice clear intro of the next speaker, and to get them on stage.
Be prepared to introduce people’s names and topics. On your host sheet that you bring on stage, list their name, pronunciation guide, and their topic. You should be able to say something brief and positive about each speaker. Have some variety of intros prepared as they can get repetitive: “I’m so excited”, “This should be a great talk on”, “this might be my favorite”, etc.
Milk the audience for applause. It’s fair for each speaker to get some applause as they take the stage and when they leave. Some audiences are lazy – it’s up to you to remind them.
If there is a break, let people know how long. It’s wise to break the event into two parts, with half the speakers in each part. If you do break, remind people how much time they have, where the restrooms or snacks are, etc. If you break, you should repeat the call for speakers 15 minutes before the 2nd half, to make sure they are all there and seated in the right place.



After the Ignite


 Thank your speakers. Ignite events often create community and you can help this by emailing your speakers to thank them for participating. Remind them if any videos or slides will be posted online so they can help spread the word. Create a ignite-speakers mailing list, so alumni can stay in touch. This can be helpful in finding future speakers or doing other events.
Have a debrief dinner with the other volunteers. Get together a few days later to review what went well and what could have gone better. Use this info in planning your next ignite.
Come back here and add your own tips. What other tricks do you learn that other hosts should know? Come back here and leave a comment.

  (Photo by Shawn Murphy)

Seven Problems with American Elections

America is one of the greatest countries the world and is often heralded as the best example of democracy (or republic if you want to be a stickler) in the world. Yet there are issues with how voting works in the U.S. worthy of examination. There are better ways to handle some of the details.

Voting is not in the constitution. Of the hundreds of democratic countries in the world, only a handful fail to mention voting rights in their Constitution. Even Iran and Lybia at least promise all citizens voting rights. The U.S.Constitution does not. Voting rights have been touched on in 15th, 19th and 26th amendments (race, gender and age) but many core elements of voting rights are left to the states to decide. States of course deserve their own rights, but national elections are worthy of consideration for national rules.
Our ballots are hard to use. Every state controls it’s own ballots. In the 2000 election the butterfy ballot was so poorly designed that many people voted for the wrong person. Some of our current ballots are not much better. Well written guides exist do exist for designing easy to use ballots, but every state has to choose to follow them (as opposed to Canada, where there is one voting ballot design for national elections).
The Electoral College is unnecessary. Few Americans understand how it works or why it exists. It mostly comes up in close elections where the popular vote won’t decide the winner. The electoral college was created in the 1800s as a compromise between two factions, one wanting the popular vote to decide, and the other wanting Congress to decide. The rules for how electoral representatives are chosen and if they can vote for someone other than who their state’s citizens voted for vary state to state.
It’s hard for some citizens to vote. People who have the busiest lives, including those working multiple jobs, the disabled, and single parents, struggle to make it to voting booths before they close. Many states allow absentee ballots to help citizens participate, but many do not. While we don’t want to make it too easy to do something this important, some efforts should be made to simplify the process (see lines in Florida and Ohio).
Confusing standards for qualifying to vote. As a result of no federal rules for who can vote, each state has their own standard for what ID is acceptable or what qualifies. For example some states allow convicted criminals to participate, others do not.
Presidential debates are privately organized. Question: Who decides who gets to participate in presidential debates and what the format is? The public? The Senate? U.S. Citizens? The answer is none of these. It’s a group of unelected officials, chosen largely by the Republican and Democratic parties called the the Commission on Presidential Debates. The debates themselves are sponsored by corporations (though what this sponsorship means is unclear). The debates are the only public discorse between candidates and should be protected from partisan and other influences.
It’s impossible for most citizens to run for office. Obama and Romney spent $933 million and $841 million respectively in their 2012 campaigns. While never an option for most citizens, the costs of running for office, including senate races, have increased, narrowing the demographics for who can participate. The test of who runs and wins increasingly has more to do with their bank account rather than their merits as a political leader.

While I don’t have specific proposals for solving these problems, and do recognize attempting to solve them might create more problems, you have to notice the problems before you can do anything about them.

What other problems do you see? What solutions do you have? Leave a comment.

How to make a good book from a blog

RR from the Reluctant Runner blog read my post on how to turn a blog into a book and asked:

Over the past two years I have written a light-hearted fitness blog specific to running. I am going to start turning it into a book. I am beginning the process of going back through my posts and searching in a “Table of Contents” type of manner, seeing what would fit…what won’t. My question is: How do you do to fill holes? I assume a book can’t just be post after post…but rather expand upon these posts as ideas and write and fill in around them?

Writing a book is one thing, writing a good book is something else. There’s no easy answer to your question as it’s very subjective.

It turns out you can just have the book be post after post. There are no laws against it. The Diary of Anne Frank, is effectively just post and after post and it’s one of the most popular books in the world. Montaigne, the dude who invented the essay, wrote  a book on intentionally unrelated topics, yet he’s quite popular.Then again, many books from blogs are heavily criticized for having the exact same format as Frank or Montaigne. The difference then is:

The quality of the writing in the posts
The order you put them in
How interested a reader is in subject you’ve written about

The best advice then is to go look at other books made from blogs and see how they deal with the problem. Some examples:

You Are Not So Smart (blog)
Stuff White People Like
Waiter Rant (blog)
There’s a list of more here

Another wise approach is to make a draft version of your book and ask friends or readers of your blog to read the draft. Ask specifically for feedback on discontinuity between sections, and suggestions for other topics they expected to see to help close the gaps.

When you find a gap, you have four choices:

Add a new post/chapter to fill the gap
Change the order of posts in the book
Remove a post from the book
Rewrite one or more of the posts to better fit together

Good books apply these four choices better than the bad ones. But with books there are no rules to follow. You as the author have to decide for yourself what you want your book to be. Good luck.

How much vacation would you take if you could?

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a poll asking “If you had unlimited vacation, how much would you take? The results are shown below.

It’s a question of interest, since my next book is about WordPress.com where employees enjoy an open vacation policy.

Surprisingly almost half the respondents (46.4%) said 4-6 weeks. 17% said more than six weeks.

 

Read my related post exploring the question: Should Americans get more vacation?

Bob Ross, Picasso and Creativity

Growing up in NYC in the 1970s, with a mere 4 TV stations, any show in regular rotation on PBS was seen by millions. One show on PBS was called The Joy of Painting, staring Bob Ross, who was born 70 years ago today (and died in 1995 at 53).

I had no interest in painting or the arts, yet I’d seen his show many times. There was something about his goofy looks and quiet voice that made him easy to make fun of as a kid, and we did. But watching him now there was always an intensity about him. As silly as he seemed to me then, beneath the soft exterior he was deeply serious about the power of painting. He believed what he was doing had meaning and could be learned by others.

I see him now as an unexpected inspiration (Rick Steves is another one). Ross was the first person I’d ever seen paint. Few working artists let cameras watch them over their shoulder as they work. And although Ross’s work was often rote and predictable, he was open about his methods.  He believed in what he did enough to share what he knew and to teach as many people as he could. I don’t know many people who do or have done that.

Today as someone who writes about creativity I spend time studying how creatives do their work – until now I didn’t realize I’d seen countless examples of it as a child, thanks to Bob Ross, well before I’d even started looking.

One of his most popular sayings was ‘Beat the devil’ and here you can see him gleefully, and with just a hint of joyful madness, prep to do some work:

Later on I’d discover and be inspired by Picasso’s film, The Mystery of Picasso, where he lets the camera watch him work. Few artists have ever done anything like this:

Which would help inspire me to capture time-lapsed video of myself writing an essay:

 

Quote of the day

This quote appears in chapter 2 of The Myths of Innovation:

“It used to be said that the facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context… a fact is like a sack – it won’t stand up until you put something in it.”

—E.H. Carr (From the excellent What is History?)

 

Should you always trust your gut?

Among the most annoying platitudes is “Always trust your gut”. This is mostly bad advice and I will explain why.

Our instincts (‘guts’) can say contradictory things. Biologically there is little difference between fear and excitement. We often feel fear just before we do something we deeply desire, such as getting married, or interviewing for a job we really want. We can also feel great attraction to things that are bad for us (e.g. heroin cheesburgers). There is often no singular ‘instinct’ but a multitude of feelings that must be actively sorted out.
We don’t know ourselves that well. Why do you like your favorite food but not the same ones your friends do? Why are you attracted to certain people but not others? Why do you make the same mistakes again and again? Most people are not aware of their instincts, or even why they make most of the decisions they do. You can’t trust your instincts if you don’t know what your instincts are trying to tell you. Some people know themselves better than others and have better reasons for trusting their instincts.
Instincts are situation dependent. We all have better instincts for some things than others. You might have fantastic instincts for catching baseballs or juggling knives, but horrible instincts for picking friends. We all have better and worse instincts for different types of situations.
Some of our instincts are better trained than others. If you are a trained artist your eye has been coached through hours of practice to see things most people do not. Your instincts for composition, form, balance and style may be finely tuned, better than many of your other instincts. To trust your well trained instincts is one thing, to trust your untrained ones is another. The advice ‘trust your gut’ assumes all of your instincts are well trained, when the opposite is true.
Good judgement comes from mistakes which comes from bad judgement. To develop your instincts requires practice, which means making mistakes so you can learn from them. You need to experiment with trusting your judgement, but also not trusting your judgement, to get the experience needed for good judgement to grow. You need metainstincts – instincts about how to interpret your own instincts.
Data trumps memory. We have poor retroactive memories. When we pick X, and we’re wrong, we’ll say “Damn! I knew I should have picked Y”. Really? Are you sure? If you didn’t write it down and capture your thinking before you made the decision, you are going to be biased in how you think about your thinking afterwards. For tough decisions we often change our minds many times, which makes retroactive doubt useless. Sure, at some point you were leaning towards Y, but that doesn’t teach you anything since tough decisions require exploring multiple options. Simply because the outcome wasn’t what you wanted doesn’t mean you made ‘a mistake’.
You can succeed for the wrong reasons, and fail for the right ones. You can be correct in trusting your gut, but due to forces out of your control, still fail. It’s also possible to ignore your gut, and have everything work out great. A single trial is a shallow basis for evaluating anything. We have big egos and assume the outcomes for important things are entirely on our shoulders but that’s rarely true. Even worse, success hides more data than failure does. There are many very successful people who have no idea why they were successful, but don’t know that either and possibly never will.

Sometimes you should trust your instincts, but even when you do, that trust should be earned, and trusted differently based on your experience with the situation you are in.

What do your instincts say about this post? Leave a comment.

(This post inspired by a conversation with Paolo Malabuyo)

Notes from Failcon 2012 – part 2

You can find Part 1 of my notes from Failcon 2012. Here’s part 2:

#5. Braden Kowitz, Google Ventures, Pianos, Battleships, and Sneakers: Stories about Design and Failure.

He gave an excellent talk, with many real examples of failures he’s had in design. Best talk I’ve seen so far today.

He told a story from early at Google where he spent 3 months trying to make a perfect design, not showing his sketches to anyone. He finally showed it, and it was so overdesigned no one could figure it out. Waiting to unveil design is a mistake – it’s not art, it’s something that’s supposed to do something.
Reading books has limited value at skills. He learned tech skills by reading books, and gaining confidence, but this doesn’t work for skill development. You have to practice piano, not read books about it.
Design is learning through doing. Many young designers believe they are their work, and if their design fails, they fail.
Best suggestion is to dive into project and find a ‘piano’ tutor. Someone who knows more about design than they do and show them the way.
Google chat: they had a design for chat they’d developed, but in the first user test it completely failed. They tried again, failed again. The Designers often feel horrible at this point – in fact Braden is on a current project where this is happening.
Design is subtle – no one could have predicted which final design would work.
Why is there so much failure? He compares design to the game of Battleship. You are forced to continually guess at what a good design is, and people are moving targets. Example: the pull-down metaphor on iPhones. Apple didn’t invent it, but in just a few years people’s expectations have changed. People are a moving target.
Design then is really about dealing with failure.
One day sprint: Schedule user study for end of the day, forced to test something fast. Was working so fast he was afraid it would fail.
“Even if you are good at design, even at something specific like button placement, you can be wrong many times.”
When you run away from failure as a designer, you get less and less feedback. Instead you should lean in to failure, because it makes the intervals of ignorance smaller.
Have a running buddy – someone who helps set you pace for feedback, and helps get you out there in the real world.


#6.  Mike Arsenault, Grasshopper, How Not to manage your product

Finally a solid case study structured talk about one specific startup, with specifics on key decisions, results and lessons. Bravo. Honest, smart and real. Well done. A model for future failcon talks.


Linear fallacy – most stories about sucess tell a linear story about how they became so successful. He showed a graph of his product trajectory, which was chaotic and far from a ‘hockey-stick’ [hockey sticks are incredibly abnormal and rare despite how much they are talked about]
Service was to help entrepreneurs find  other entrepreneurs.  Referral rates – earned $100k of referral revenue based on a referral form.
‘How can we productized this?’ That was the goal for the spin off product: Spreadables.
Explainer video explained the purpose and vision.
Staffed team of 12 experienced people, 40k customers from original business, and $100k of income… which was all done smartly. WE STILL FAILED.
They launched in summer 2010 and shut down in spring 2011.
They benchmarked: customer lifeitme value, cost per acquisition, avg revenue per user, Churn. And more.
Why did it fail?



Churn was 3X (Not enough matching between customers they got, and the ones they wanted).
CPA was 3x higher than Grasshopper.
Organic search was very low (compared to Grasshopper). This meant customer acquisition
Customers needed high touch

Lessons

Wasted beta list. Let it sit dormant and cold. Should have kept it ‘warm’ so it was active and ready to be useful when launched.
Team was too big (Mythical Man Month). Bigger team made more politics and lower velocity. Big team encouraged wrong behavior (build more!) instead of (build the right thing!). He would have kept team smaller.
Didn’t charge for 6 months. This was a product for businesses, not consumers and who would pay would have been a useful forcing function, and better data on responses to change (If you do something dumb with a free service, they stay anyway).
When people are paying you, their feedback is more pointed and engaged.
Product > Marketing. We focused on marketing too much too early.
“If you are doing more than writing code and talking to users, you are probably wasting your time”

My slides from Failcon 2012

Later today I’m presenting a talk at Failcon 2012 on The history of failing to learn from failure. You can grab the slides here.  There’s a livestream here (in theory) and I speak at 12:00 PST.

Summary: We stink at learning from history, our own or from other’s.

Fallacy: single point of failure
Complex truth loses to Simple Lies
Our own egos get in our way
We fight the last war

Also see: Why designers fail and What to do when things go wrong