Scott Berkun's Blog, page 69

An open letter to speakers

To follow up on my open letter to Conference Organizers, here's an open letter for speakers.

Dear Speaker:

Most events are boring because most speakers don't prepare. And as much as you know this I suspect you overlook how often audiences are disappointed by you. How would you know? Audiences are unlikely to boo you off the stage, and few people are mean enough to seek you out in the hallway just to tell you how much you sucked. And if people won't confront the awful speakers, they certainly won't bother to chat  up the mediocre ones either.

Good organizers know most speakers don't do a very good job, and they're all too aware of the common mistakes speakers make every year, in spite of their recommendations. Arrogance, ignorance and sheer incompetence are rampant – the feedback loop is broken.  Most speakers have never watched video of themselves speaking and have a distorted sense of how good or bad they are.

But this is good for you: the bar for public speaking is low. With simple forethought and commitment, you can do a much better job than most other speakers regardless of how much "talent" you have.

You are not Bono. It is an honor to be invited to speak somewhere, but you're not a rock-star. There are many other speakers and the organizers have to attend to their needs as well as yours. Even if you are keynoting, it's not your event (unlike a U2 concert). You are an invited guest into their world. Treat the hosts, speakers and other guests with respect. If you have a long list of requests, prioritize them and the make the request early. Some speakers have huge egos, and often it gets in everyone's way, especially the audience's.
Your mistakes on stage are your own fault. You are a performer. Good performers don't blame their tools. If your laptop flakes out, or your movie won't play, you are responsible. If you have special needs, let the organizers know early and ask for a rehearsal. If you can't get one, simplify. If at the rehearsal the tech guy is on drugs, or the organizer seems overwhelmed, simplify. It's your show and you will be judged regardless of where you point fingers. Practice and prepare accordingly. Have a simple 5/10 minute fallback version of your talk you can do even if the there's no electricity.
Drop the bio intro. No one cares. 95% of the time your bio is on the website or in the program. The audience can get it if they want it, right there, on their phone, at any time. History is boring. All the audience needs to know is if you are credible or not, and they'll decide that for themselves after you've made your first point or offered your first bit of advice. 30 seconds is more than enough time to say your name, job title and why you care about the topic. Anything more is a waste of time.
Know your audience. Most speakers forget the slides are for the audience, not for them. The audience is sitting there because they want to learn, get inspired or be entertained. Whatever your topic, find out what the 5 most pressing questions the audience has about it are and answer them. If the audience leaves with 5 solid answers to their 5 biggest questions, they'll be very happy, even if you have zero charisma and didn't crack a single joke. This simple premise often explains the best talks at any event, and few speakers even try to do this. Ask the organizer for job title breakdowns, age ranges, and other demographics. Ask for the full schedule so you know what talks are before and after yours, so you can adjust your material accordingly.


Being nervous is normal and can be managed. Our bodies respond to being in front of crowds. It's ok. But there are things you can to do minimize and compensate for this particular kind of fear. If you practice, get exercise the day before, and arrive early to the room, you'll cut down your fears dramatically.  See Attack of The Butterflies for a run-down on the science and practice of managing speaking fears.
There is nothing inspiring about winging it. If you paid $50 to see a show, would you want to see the actors and musicians winging it? You'd call them unprofessional. It's not only disrespectful, it's obvious to everyone in the room.  Why speak if you're only going to do it half-assed? Say No instead.  All good speakers practice more than you think. Their carefree vibe is the result of hard-work, not the lack of it.
Honor your commitments. The dog did not eat your homework, nor your slide deck. The organizers know all the excuses and they're embarrassed for you that you need to make them up. If you are a professional, treat your deadlines professionally. If you need more time ask for it advance, not a day after the deadline has passed. Don't double book and bail last minute. It's a sure-fire way to never be invited back again.
The organizers have more power than you think – treat them well. Event organizers are often producers of the show – meaning they can make speakers look very good or very bad. Be nice to them. Make it easy for them to help you.  In a pinch, they are the only people who can find the tech guy, fix the lights, or a thousand other little things you won't realize you need until the last minute.
Don't party too hard if you can't handle it. Drink as much as you like. Drink before, after or during your talk. But don't use it as an excuse for why you sucked. If you can't handle a late night before an early morning wake-up, do what your audience would want you to do: go to bed early, do a good job, and then party harder with your new fans after your talk is over. Fly in the day before the event to give yourself insurance for a good night sleep before you perform.
Get there early.  You can learn much from watching the speaker before you. What is the energy like? How filled is the room? More important perhaps, organizers need to see you and know you're ok. They have many things to worry about, why make them worry about you? Get their cell # and send a text when you arrive or if you are running late.  And stay around after your talk. People will want to ask you questions, and often you'll learn insights that will make your talk better next time.
Be smart with your slides.  Make them simpler. Always simpler. Avoid small fonts: no one can read them (in rehearsal, put up your most text heavy slide and walk to the back of the room). Don't have dense slides – no one will understand them anyway. If you insist on dense, complex slides, put them online before your talk so people can choose to follow along. Reading off a screen is much harder than you think.
End early. Practice so you know how long those slides actually take. Plan to leave time so people can get to their next session early, beat traffic or the crowds at the lunch lines. Stick around in the wings so people who want more can get it from you (provided there isn't another speaker right after you. In which case, get the hell out of their way).
Put your contact info up twice: at the beginning an at the end. In large fonts. And leave it up long enough for people to copy it. You want people to contact you. They will tell you about typos, references, stories and books that you will find interesting. It's one of the payoffs for all the work you put in.
Use an end to end checklist.  There are many little things to do, and they're easy to forget. Work from a simple checklist to help you prepare, perform and follow-up after your talk.

If you enjoyed this, you'll like An Open Letter to Conference Organizers.

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Everything is a Remix

There's a great series of short films on Creativity, called Everything is a Remix, by Kirby Ferguson. It explores the nature of ideas and creativity, and they're fun, provocative and brilliant made. 5 or 6 minutes long each.

The most recent episode takes on themes similar to The Myths of Innovation (my book is referenced), and if you enjoyed the book you'll love this episode. Check it out.

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Quote of the week

"Whenever I start working on a song, I immediately try to forget everything, to empty my hands and head of anything that may be hanging over from another song or album. I try to approach it like, 'This is the first time I've ever played guitar. What am I going to do?"

- The Edge, U2

This is basically the idea of Shoshin, or beginners mind.

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5 Dangerous Ideas for Designers

I spoke yesterday at Design Management Institute's Make it Happen event. I was given the last slot of the day, which is always tricky. Everyone's tired and ready for beer.

I threw in a wrinkle the awesome organizers let me try: I built my talk during the day, based on the best and most dangerous ideas I heard other speakers and attendees say.

Stunt talks are gambles. This one went well, as the audience was great and followed me to some uncomfortable, albeit entertaining, places. Thanks to all for playing along, and those who gave me ideas and notes.

Here's a brief summary and a link to the slides (PDF).

1. Everyone is a Designer

I making a living writing books. But I know many people in this world write more words in email than I'll ever publish. Are they not writers? Of course they are. Most are not as good at it as a pro is, but some are probably better.  Designers need to have the same attitude – all people design something, or at least believe they do – and we should be open to good ideas regardless of their source.

I quoted Victor Papanek, one of the great design leaders of the 20th century:

All men are designers. All that we do, almost all the time, is design, for design is basic to all human activity. ..

Any attempt to separate design, to make it a thing-by-itself, works counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life. Design is composing an epic poem, executing a mural, painting a masterpiece, writing a concerto.

But design is also cleaning and reorganizing a desk drawer, pulling an impacted tooth, baking an apple pie, choosing sides for a backlot baseball game, and educating a child.

Victor Papernak, Design for the Real World

All designers should think of themselves as Ambassadors of good ideas, recognizing that good ideas can come from anywhere, from people with and without design training, and we should be welcoming to them. Think of the word ambassador: how often is this how people would describe you when you're the only designer in the room?

2. You have no power

It's ok not to have power, provided you don't act like you have it. What decisions, as a designer, are truly yours? There is probably a small set of decisions you can make without implicit approval of someone else. And if you want more of your ideas to make it out the door, you either need more power, or to get better at borrowing the power of others to get things done.

One lame way to try and obtain power is jargon. It's an attempt to change the playing field of language, which only people with less power tend to do. I'm convinced the people who use the most jargon have the least confidence in their ideas.

At a minimum, if jargon is a necessary evil to survive at the companies we work for, can't we speak plainly and directly when we're talking to other designers?

3. The generalists are in charge

Whoever you report to has a more general role than yours. You work for a generalist. If you want more power, you need to either: a) take on a more general, or cross-discipline, role or b) get better at influencing people with more power than you.  Any designer can go get an MBA, or learn to take on general management tasks, if they are so inspired, as the skills aren't that hard to acquire (And consider how many VPs there are who have none of those skills anyway).  But few designers do it, as they don't want the annoyances, and the stress, that comes with power. But if we mostly just complain about those in power, who's fault is it really that we're unhappy? We have to either lead or follow. If we don't want to lead, we get what we deserve.

We have to admit there is no alternative – if you want more power, and to be fully in charge of design, you will need to be in charge of other things too.

4. You are in Sales

Creatives look down on salespeople. We like to think what we do is more noble. But we forget we sell all the time. Every pitch and prototype is a kind of sales tool for your ideas. And sales is a failure prone activity. Talk to any screenwriter or actor about how many pitches and auditions they have to do to get a single gig. No one is immune. If you are a designer, you are a salesperson. You should aspire to be an ambassador of good ideas, which includes knowing how persuade others to see their value. To get more of your ideas out the door demands getting better at sales more than any other single skill. And building the thicker skin necessary to push your ideas through.

5. Creativity is Risk

The bigger and better the idea, the harder it will be for people to follow. If you are a creative, taking risks comes with the territory. But when something stupid is being proposed in a meeting, who raises their hand?Who has the courage to speak up? How often do you put your reputation behind an idea? Or are willing not to take credit for something, if it helps the idea survive? What big pitch have you made recently? If you're not taking risks, and everything you do is reasonable and sensible, how creative do you really think you are? What dangerous idea should you get people in your world to not just discuss, but do something about?

Five Dangerous Ideas – Slides are here (PDF).

What are your dangerous ideas for designers? Leave me a comment.

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Why you should donate blood

Few people think about blood until they're at the hospital in an emergency, and learn the only thing that can save their child, husband, or themselves, from death, is a transfusion of blood.  But where does the blood come from? It's shocking, I know, but blood comes from PEOPLE. People like you and me.

I joke, but given my sorted history, I've been the recipient of many blood transfusions. I know first hand without the donations from many good people I will never meet, I wouldn't be here.

Recently a reader of mine had a tragedy – their son, Jonathan Kwiatkowski, was murdered. And because of how he was killed, he was not granted his wish of donating his organs so that others can live.

On July 8th, which would have been his 22nd birthday, they are planning a special blood drive event in memory of their son. You can join their Facebook page here and at least drop a note wishing them well in what they're doing.

The event is centered in Racine, WI, but they are encouraging people to donate blood at any Red Cross Donation Center throughout the US.  Visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-733 2767 to find a location near you.  When you donate, please mention that you are donating in support of the Jonathan Kwiatkowski Blood Drive and mention the Sponsor Code 4643.

FAQ on donating blood:

Step by step walkthrough of what the experience is like, from the Red Cross
Every three seconds, someone needs a blood transfusion.
One pint of blood from one donor can save up to three lives.
It's free.
You get free  juice, donuts and cookies. Yum.
20 percent of blood recipients are children.
Giving blood is 100 percent safe. It is not possible to get AIDS or any disease by donating blood to the American Red Cross. A new sterile needle is used for each donor and discarded afterwards.
About 60 percent of the population are eligible to donate blood, yet less than 4 percent do.
At least 500 pints of blood must be collected daily to meet the needs of most hospitals.
The U.S. imports more than 20 percent of our blood supply.
It takes 10 minutes to donate blood (30-60 minutes for the entire experience).
The average adult body has 10-12 pints of blood. Doctors say that healthy adults may give regularly because the body quickly replaces the blood you donate.
(Sources: give2life, Bloodcenters)

Please visit and like the Join the Jonathan K. Facebook page.

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Arrogance vs. Confidence: what's the difference?

A long running debate in my own mind is the difference between arrogance and confidence. Here are two definitions:

An arrogant person only feels smart if someone else feels stupid. Their sense of themselves depends on thinking less of someone else. They insist on correcting other people's grammar or showing them their flaws, as it's the only way they can feel an approximation of confidence. Arrogance is about intent: its when ability (or perceived ability) is used to look down on others.

A confident person feels competent from the inside out. They use their talents to genuinely try and be of use, or to succeed at the task at hand. They might seek external validation, but they don't depend on it to define their sense of their ability or nature.

In some cases an arrogant person may have more skill than a confident person, but the confident person will tend to wield whatever abilities they have with more calm control than an arrogant person can.

What do you think?

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Why Great Ideas Fail

I ran a session at FOO camp '11 on Why Great Ideas Fail. It was a chaotic session, but my goal of leaving with a list of reasons was a success, and here it is.

The crowd was tech and start-up heavy, so the list is shifted towards those pursuits. But this could be the start of a book project that more broadly explores the history of great ideas. Starting with fleshing out these categories better, and then finding good stories that illustrate ideas that failed for these reasons, as well as ideas that successfully overcame these challenges.

Meta-comment: Fascinating how many of these are opposite pairs of each other (e.g. gave up too soon, stayed with same idea for too long).

Follow up: If you were there, or not, and want to be updated if this project gets off the ground, leave a comment.

Why Great Ideas Fail:

Killed idea too soon
Stayed with idea for too long
Death (of person with the idea)
Not knowing target audience
Not Willing to experiment to find audience
Unwilling to change direction
Willful ignorance of economics
Overcoming organizational inertia
Not understanding the ecosystem the idea lives in
Inability to learn from microfailure
Fighting the last war
Giving up
Chindogu – solution causes more problems than it solves.
Randomness
Blamed marketing
Failed to pitch or communicate well
Not taking the idea far enough
Underestimating cultural limits
Underestimating dependencies
Balancing how world is vs. how world can be
Balancing Wants vs needs

Thanks to Val Aurora, I also got a list from attendees of personal reasons great ideas failed. Wide range of levels of specificity, but still interesting,

Specific failures people listed as their own:

Forcing something on people they don't want
Not controlling distribution (e.g. Tivo vs. Comcast DVR)
Not doing post-mortems
Built an Airbnb before Airbnb, but didn't see it through
Not eating our own dogfood
Building something 'powerful' but too complicate for the average user
Voice version of twitter circa 2005
Force change earlier. It won't happen on its own.
Launching a product before it's ready – unreliable performance
Not killing a project/startup faster (i.e. spinning wheels for an extra year instead of getting it out the door)
Trusting before researching
Not trusting my gut
Not considering political capital within a large organization
Trusting my gut too much
Juggling between being your greatest supporter and your greatest critic

Thanks to @jessykate for the photo of the whiteboard, from which these notes were transcribed.

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What I learned at FOO Camp '11

I was invited back to O'Reilly's FOO (Friends Of O'Reilly) camp, an unconference weekend event held at O'Reilly Media's HQ in Sebatapol, CA. It's a privilege to go and every year I've written what I've learned to share some of the goodness, and force myself to review my Moleskine and digest.

If you're new to FOO: ~250 people are invited to camp on the lawn at O'Reilly Media HQ and spend a long weekend together. Most people camp in tents, a few stay in offices or hotels. Big schedule boards go up Friday, with room for 10 or 12 sessions to happen concurrently- anyone can organize one on anything. No restrictions. It's that simple. It works amazingly well because of the openness of the event (see below) and the quality of folks who are invited to go. The weekend is endless series of entertainments, provocations, challenges and wonderments.

The range of sessions is entirely self generated and that's part of the fun. There is a strong tech bias, but many of the folks here have non-profit or cultural ambitions, and that's reflected in the sessions they choose to put on. And since the board has a huge number of slots, people come up with ideas for sessions late in the day, often as a result of a conversation that took place in a previous session.

I have a little ritual I do at the event: I get there early, go the picnic table and bring a few cases of beer. As people walk by, soon one or two ask for one, which I provide, and we chat. Soon others see this and come over, and join. And boom – by the time the event starts, there's a nice crowd of happy people chatting with a positive vibe. It's these sorts of little contributions that people are drawn to offer at FOO and often they're unannounced. Thanks to Jeff Potter, Laurel Ruma and Brian Sawyer another O'Reilly friend whose name (but not face) I've totally forgotten, helped carry the beer and kick it off. (Mary Treseler, you were missed, my friend. And yes, I did have some lesbian beer).

Here's what I wrote in my little Moleskine this year:

The Productive Geek: The irony of a session like this is the people there are amazingly productive, but feel unproductive, leading to the suggestion the problem is not technological but psychological (e.g. we need therapy, not technology). I heard a few people mention  time off as a boon to productivity (first day back after a 3 day email/information fast is very productive). I suggested  productivity is measured in quantity, rather than quality and that's a large part of the problem.
The Secret forces of cities: Not sure this was the actual session title, as I dropped in late, but it was applied urban planning and an exploration of the many layers of ideas, mostly hidden, that define why a city block or a public park end up being designed the way they are.  Favorite quote: "City as an invention is a force multiplier" . I ruffled feathers by claiming urban planning is more of a navigation of bureaucratic problem than a design problem, which few seemed to like. From what I've read, there is a huge gap from urban planning as theory (which is what most of the popular books are about), and urban planning in the real world . This begs for a session on "Design thinking vs. Bureaucracy" or something, which I didn't think about until right now.
It was a mellower FOO. I chatted with some other folks who had been invited before, and we agreed things were more chill and laid back than past years, which was actually quite nice. Part of it was the move of the Make team upstairs – further away from the core hallway. Fewer folks built things or brought zany equipment (although there was the flaming keyboard, pictured at right. Which was awesome. And the Bloody Mary Foobar. Also awesome). I didn't see, nor participate in, as many zany late night shenanigans as in the past.


Why Great Ideas Fail: I ran a session with this title and had a lively chat with ~20 people on different reasons, cases, stories and regrets about life experiences working with ideas. I will post notes from this eventually. Val Aurora kindly passed around a list for people to write down their own pet theories, which was cool (sadly, I don't have everyone's name. If you were there, drop me a ping). Memorable quote: "To be a great idea, it has to have a risk of failure".


The Simple life FTW. I had a nice chat with Craig Mod about writing, living and the  power of living simply. Somehow I assume most of the tech crowd has an ethos towards complexity (whether they acknowledge it or not) and it was refreshing to talk to someone who actively defended his time by simplifying other choices in his life. And like me, he has one foot in technology and the other in writing (Check out this beautiful book of his). We both missed the FOO session on sabbaticals, which I suspect we'd have resonated with.
Design of Religion: I didn't stay long here, but did catch this gem: "If you stop mutation, you increase longevity, but reduce evolution".
Innovation through Accessibility. Had a long chat with the awesome  Wendy Chisolm about Universal design, and the idea that sometimes thinking about better design for special cases often creates opportunities for breakthroughs in general cases.
The Future of Email. I totally missed this one, and I'm looking for a writeup. I find it endlessly entertaining that despite all the things we've adopted, email still dominates the working life of most of us, and it's often the bane of our existence.
Chats by the fire. It never fails that despite all the great stuff all day, I have the best time sitting by the fire late at night. It's interesting to note how little technology is used by people throughout the weekend – very few sessions have slides or demos. Few people blog or tweet. It's mostly tools centuries old that get used (if you shoehorn whiteboards as being version 2 of blackboards, this is quite true). Somehow the ancient bonds of sitting in a circle by a fire always wins for me. Especially if I get something potent to drink in my hand.

Randomly Interesting Quotes I heard

"You are a really bad person, and I approve"
"Fail harder" / "You are useless to me until you fail 3 times" (as told by Renny Gleason)
"I could patent that, but then I'd have to kill myself"
"To be a great idea, it has to have a risk of failure"
"What is in your soul? And why?"
"Trash into treasure'  - Wendy Chisolm

Coolest startup discovered

http://vittana.org/ – Microloans to college students

Craziest working idea heard

Bitcoin

Random Polls I conducted

A) "What percent of people are assholes? B) What percent of people are awesome? (Was curious if these numbers tended to match for people. They never did).

Meta – Observations

Some people like to hear themselves talk. I found myself thinking about this in several sessions, and wondered if anyone else in the room had the same thought i did. I fantasized about tapping them on the shoulder and whispering, "Yes. You are very smart. Possibly the smartest person in the room. Now, can you please stop being so annoying?" It's the downside of unconferences, in that some people will insist on dominating the floor, despite being in a room filled with 20 or 30 people, some of who are just as smart and notable on the subject as they are. Facilitation is still a lost art (I've written about facilitating unconference sessions). I myself had a hard time at times in my session on Great ideas. Maybe there needs to be a session or an article on "How to impress people (at FOO)" which explains that trying hard to impress people often has the opposite effect.
Split opinions on the round the room opening exercise:  A tradition at FOO is after Tim O'Reilly and Sara Winge give opening comments, a microphone is passed around to everyone in the big tent and they get to say their name and three words. Some people love it, some hate it. It takes about 60 minutes to do the rounds with 250/300 people. As I've been to FOO several times, I tend to wander off and talk to other people who have wandered off (forming our own affinity group). Those that love it like the serendipity, and like matching names to faces (and the board in the main hall with pictures of every attendee, and their interests, affords this too). Overall, the event is packed with great people, and serendipity is, by definition, everywhere, so I'd easily trade 1 or 2 good 1-on-1 conversations, over doing a group exercise. It seemed women like the exercise more than men do, but that's entirely anecdotal data.
The elimination of pretense always wins. I say this every year, but putting people in tents, and having no keynotes or plenaries, flattens the vibe in a great way.  Everyone  has something interesting to offer and because it's so flat and friendly it's up to you listen and be curious, rather than being a network jerk, looking for angles in every conversation. It's amazing how after often at FOO, after talking to someone for 10 minutes, I realize "Oh my god, this is THAT guy". Very humbling and empowering in many ways to spend a weekend in an environment like this.

If you liked this writeup, I've written summaries for past years as well.

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Q&A from Innovation webcast

As promised, here are answers to all of the questions from Yesterday's Webcast on Innovation.

Free chapters for The Myths of Innovation are here, or go crazy and just buy the book, 70+ amazon reviewers can't be wrong.

A recorded version of the entire webcast can be found here (ASX)

Q: You talk in the book about innovation not happening in a vacuum. What is your take on user centered design and involving users in the innovation process?

If you made a friend a meal, wouldn't you ask them what food they like? What allergies they have? That's a (simple) kind of user centered design. No maker of things can do well if they don't study the people they are making things for.  The trap is not to involve them too much. Most users will only have feedback on what already exists, and if you only follow ideas that comes from users, you're unlikely to break new ground.

Q: When a new idea looks strange, how do you tell a great one from stupid? Try them all and see what works, or select one and push it as far as you can?

You can't tell just by looking. You have to put ideas into action. Make a prototype. See what happens when the idea meets the world. Sometimes keeping a strange idea around and poking at it now and then is simply good exercise. It keeps your creative muscles working, so when a weird idea that has the potential to be great comes along, you'll be patient and persistent enough to discover its potential.

Q: What was the full name opf the razor principle?

Occam's Razor. You can read all about it.

Q: What do you think are the best examples of the maverick principle: that there is a group-think conducive to incremental innovation but not significant positive change, but that outsiders, free of such group-think, are the more likely source of outstanding innovation?

I think incremental innovation is one of those terms that should go away. Just call it work, progress, improvement. The phrase "incremental innovation" is about as silly as "gradual explosion" or "partial death". Either something is big or its small. If you're not sure, call it small. Be humble, as being humble lowers the odds your ego will get in your way.

Democracy is not a system designed for change. Individuals will always be the drivers of change in the sense that if they are working alone, they have fewer people to convince of their ideas. If they need 10 people in a room to agree to follow an idea, progress is very hard. This explains why so many big ideas are developed by entrepreneurs.  They are taking on the burdens of risk in exchange for more autonomy.

Q: Seems to us as a small group of clean energy inventors, that when the nature of our innovations inspires (or even dictates) a business model innovation as well, it gets far more difficult to push the process and recruit support.  Any thoughts?    Really looking forward to your book, although we've already created something we're trying to commercialize as a non-profit.

Support is always hard. Chapter 4 of the book is all about the many horror stories of lack of support that happened before the "overnight successes" of many famous ideas. One of my favorites is the story of Chester Carlson, who, after enduring many hardships and much isolation, would go on to invent the copy machine.

Business model innovations are macro: they take time for people to understand, and people will need more faith to follow. All I can say is, be glad your ideas don't require political system innovations, or metaphysical innovations, as those are even harder to get support for.

Q: What are some of the best online tools you've found to help people collaborate and give them a platform for experimentation?

I'll probably sound like a jerk for this one, but if a person can't collaborate on the web today, I don't think lack of tools are the problem.  The web, and software in general provide one of the cheapest formats ever in history for developing ideas and sharing them with others. For a few hundred dollars you can build a website, sell a product, and on the day you launch it will be available to anyone on the entire planet. Edison, Newton, Tesla would all have given their right arm for a platform of experimentation as powerful as what you have right in front of you.

Q: Suggestion on how to become at convincing people your idea rocks?  books, how to practice?

Start with my essay, How to pitch an idea.

Q: do you have resourcse that allow development beign able to persuade people

That's not a question, so in response, this will not be an answer.

Q: please show the simple plan slide again, the four points of the simple plan

Sure. The slide said, to increase goodness (when teams are not creative):

–Make the team smaller
–Give it more authority
–Increase trust and cover fire
–Choose adventurous people

Q: People make a distinction between innovation and invention. Can you share your thoughts on this?

Definitions are funny. You can find many different ones for any word, and people who argue for hours about this sort of thing are falling into the talk is cheap trap. You do not need to have a name for something in order to do it.

But in this case I've heard a useful distinction. Invention is the item itself. If I invent a better web browser, but only show it to my dog Max, it stays an invention. But if I make it into a product, and it gets adopted, and changes the world in some way, it's an innovation. This definition of innovation is based on the effect, and the word invention is limited to the thing that (possibly) creates the effect.

Q: Love the inspiration around Innovation but need advice on how to navigate the red tape/resistance  by Corporate America encountered when trying to present innovative ideas.

The book is largely designed for you, so start there. In short: pick your company, your role and your manager. Some industries are more focused on change than others (say, software companies vs. your local bank). Then, consider your job. A janitor at a bank is not being hired for creativity, so his grand ideas won't be welcome. But if gets a job as a product designer, or a lead developer on a website, people's expectations for his creative contributions will be larger. Lastly, some bosses are much better than others at creative environments for creative people to thrive. Seek them out. They're hard to find, but they're there. A great manager in a mediocre company might be a happier and more productive place, than working for a mediocre manager in a great company.

Q: It seems like it's often the case that the person/company who generates a truly new idea/technique/process/design is not ultimately the same person/company that benefits finacially or gets the recognition. Why is this the case? Has access to internet technology changed this?

In race car driving, the car in 2nd place can draft behind the lead car, using the lead car as a shield against the wind. Same is true in the business world. Whoever is first has the burden of proving a new idea. Once it's proven to some degree, whoever comes second has, in a sense, less work to do. The barriers of entry are lower. Also, entrepreneurs have less resources than Fortune 500 companies. A late comer can out market and advertise whoever was first.

Q: Is the book on listening CD?

I don't know what a listening CD is (aren't all CDs for listening? I mean is there a chewing CD somewhere? A toasting CD?). A recording of the webcast is online here (ASX).

Q: How do you best pursuade people who are antagonistic towards something new?

Understand their goals, and think about how your idea helps do what they're trying to do. Also read How to pitch an idea.

Q: How can we find worthwhile problems to solve in the first place?

How about poverty, crime, war. Those are all worthwhile. In your industry or company, simply find smart people who are complaining and start there.

Q: Fantastic presentation!!

Thanks! Not a question, but in this case I don't mind! Hopefully soon I'll stop using exclamation points!

Q: Every once in while you hear people talk about planning innovation. What do you say to them?

I say hooey. They are planning product development or how they're going to develop ideas, but unless they are going to bet their salary that the result will be a great idea that changes the world, I'd suggest they use less inflated language.

That's it. If you were there and have more questions, leave a comment. Otherwise, free chapters for The Myths of Innovation are here, or go crazy and just buy the book, 70+ amazon reviewers can't be wrong.

 

Related posts:First interview about Myths of Innovation
What innovation means: a short report
The myth of big orgs and innovation
All ideas are made of other ideas
Questioning "VPs of innovation"

Should I Keep "Readers Choice"?

For awhile now I've done readers choice posts – and I used the now defunct slinkset.com as a way to let you guys suggest topics and vote on them.

I've enjoyed it (did you?) and want to continue – but I need a new way to run it.

I imagine there is a) another service I can use for the list & voting b) A WordPress plugin –  but I've looked and haven't found good candidates – suggestions?

 

 

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