Ignore Everybody - The World According to Hugh MacLeod

July 1, 2009 – 2:52 am

There is an awful lot of sanctimonious crap that gets handed down with regard to creativity. The “truth” of what matters with regard to creativity (and personal innovation) is much harder to arrive at because, really, self-expression is very different for all of us.  Real wisdom about creativity, the truth so to speak, is hard to come by.  After all this is a world that sells millions of copies of The Secret, which says wishing and believing is all it takes to achieve your dreams. I believe it takes wishing and believing, but it also takes structure, hard work, and good choices to leverage one’s creativity.  Everyone is creative, but not everyone knows how to be creative.

I just finished reading Ignore Everybody, and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, by Hugh MacLeod and I’m struck by, impressed by, his take no prisoners approach. This is a nice, short, to-the-point, practical, and ultimately inspirational book that anyone attempting a creative life should read. To me, about 35 of his 39 have the real ring of truth and the other four were honest attempts.

MacLeod is “famous” for his business card sized cartoons and his gapingvoid.com blog. The cartoons in the text add a humorous spice to an already good book — and they are there for more than entertainment.  They are a testimony to his philosophies and underscore visually his creativity suggestions.  Perhaps my favorite is Number 35, “Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.” As someone who has seen this happen and knows it’s perils, I think it is incredibly good advice.  A person with an enjoyable hobby and a good paying job should consider themselves lucky.  Following your passion is good advice, and, it goes right in the crapper with other good advice when you suddenly realize you can’t make your mortgage payments.

This book was uplifting to me — it enables in only the best sort of way.  Check it out!

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21 Rules of Thumb For Innovation Team Building

June 24, 2009 – 9:53 am

I wrote this list, with the assistance of Kim Greene, for the 2009 CPSI Team Building participants. They had made the request for a bit of “real world” content (imagine!).

1. A strong bold initiative and vision inspires teams. It has the right people wanting to be involved.
2. If you are the organizer/leader know that Who is on the team may have more impact then any other choice you make. As they say in golf, all bets are made on the first tee.
3. If you can’t choose who is on your team, clarity of roles and task fit, are very important choices.
4. When a team member leaves or a new member comes on board, don’t forget you have work to do in reforming the team. Really, it’s a whole new team.
5. Don’t forget the fun element… “if it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right” (JFK). Try to integrate an element of fun in all the team does.
6. Regardless of who is on your team, overt appreciation of strengths and diversity is a good place to start. Starting with positives is always a good idea.
7. Build trust all the time. Make deposits to the “savings account” you have with each team member. You can, and will need to, “withdraw” from that account in difficult times
(thanks Stephen Covey). A key to building trust is rigorous integrity around your word. Do what you say you will do. If you don’t, or have a problem, come clean on it ASAP.
8. Trust is not blind. The more you seek to understand the motives of your team members, the better.
9. All teams go through rough patches. As Dean Kamen says, if you don’t encounter big problems or surprises, you’re not innovating. When it “hits the fan”, be an example in keeping the faith and remaining positive.
10. Vince Lombardi won a lot of championships by focusing on, and repeating endlessly, the most basic plays and fundamentals. Basic fitness and clarity of jobs and roles were the rock he built his teams on. So, when in doubt, return to the basics.
11. Sometimes a person simply shouldn’t be on a team. Be very careful in making this judgment, because sometimes the mavericks are exactly who you need. Still, sometimes people can’t be brought into the fold and focused on the goal at hand. If you are dead sure, cut out the “cancer”. It’s a very tough call, but when you make it you are often thanked for doing it by other team members.
12. Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Celebrate victories, even the small ones, and celebrate learning even in failures or setbacks. Edison was of the philosophy there is no failure; be like Edison.
13. Kick-off’s are important. Do them with energy and style.
14. Communicate unselfishly, share your knowledge, and share honestly in a way that the person can hear.
15. A good team is always an active learning team.
16. Be aware of the balance and flow of polarities that exist for your team. Remember that too much team can be just as bad as not enough. Allow for individual self-expression within the team. Teams are not problems to solve, they are a mass of polarities to manage (see Bruce Johnson’s “Polarity Management”)
17. Your team is a strong as its weakest link. A good team makes efforts to cover, improve, or strengthen its deficiencies. Read “The Goal” by Eli Goldratt to understand more about the “theory of constraints.”
18. Effective teams engage in constructive disagreement around content with a ‘yes and’ not a ‘yes but’ attitude.
19. Listening is key.
20. Know thyself – what you can contribute to the team and what others can contribute that doesn’t come naturally to you.
21. In teams, seek to ‘pull in’ the outliers, the mavericks, those who we tend to exclude. Everyone has something important to offer the team – find it.

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Shut Up and Start a Revolution

June 19, 2009 – 11:07 am

I often get the remark, after a speech or something, that “I can’t innovate at my company because…”  And then you get a lot of different endings to that starter, some printable, some  not.  Mostly folks say they can’t because their organization doesn’t want innovation, or isn’t structured to allow innovation.  I know the feeling, I’ve been in those positions, and, it’s BS.

I now say to those folks, Shut Up and Start a Revolution.  I mean an Innovation Revolution.

If you have ideas, express them, and let the chips fall where they may. If people slam your ideas, and they will, shake it off like a wet duck and dive into those waters again.  Keep expressing until people say they are sick of hearing your ideas, then express more.  They’ll give in just to shut you up. Ideas are powerful, have lots of money-making good ones and it will be hard to ignore you.

If it starts a conflict, start a conflict. Conflict avoidance is where are lot of problems fester into real company killers.  If you are a nice person, great, stay that way, and, still don’t avoid a needed conflict, especially if it’s limiting you and your companies potential.

Don’t ask, just do it. It’s funny how boldness, action, and success take the wind out of resistors sails. Start something. If you do it with passion and enthusiasm people will follow you and help you.

Don’t worry about being fired.  Getting fired is often the best possible outcome. If you get fired for innovating, you should be working somewhere else. Most great innovators get fired at some point. Even Steve Jobs got fired — from his own company.

Get educated on how to start a revolution. Read my book on creative problem solving (Jack’s Notebook), read Geoffrey Moore, read Guy Kawasaki, read about Steve Jobs, Dean Kamen, and Woody Norris.

Get inspired.

And quit complaining!  Just shut up and start a revolution. Today.

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A Prince Among Creative Thinkers: George Prince, Developer of Synectics

June 11, 2009 – 7:45 am

The creativity and innovation field is a rather smallish group of people. It feels like a community, I know most of my competitors, and, I wish them all the success in the world.

There are a few folks that have achieved nearly cult status within our community because of their unique achievements.  George Prince was surely one of them.  George was the co-inventor/enhancer of Synectics.  Synectics is one of the few comprehensive models for problem solving used in corporate innovation. Kimberly-Clarke was one of early, successful, users of the method.

If you don’t know it, I highly suggest that you read Prince’s “Synectics-The Practice of Creativity” (or his partners/co-developer’s book, “Synectics,” by William JJ Gordon, which Prince contributed to).  It’s out of print, but you can hunt down a copy.  Whenever I visit the home or office of a fellow innovation practitioner, I invariably see a worn copy of one of those books on the shelf. Synectics essentially uses the power of analogies and metaphors to re-frame problems, which leads to innovative solutions.  It’s a powerful creative thinking methodology, and as I understand, it was developed by using video observation of innovation teams.  Remarkable and visionary work in the 50’s and 60’s, and George Prince was at the heart of it.

Synectics tools can be integrated and/or adapted to work with other problem solving methods, like Osborn-Parnes CPS, which is something I do. I instruct folks on the use of CPS in my business novel, Jack’s Notebook.

SynecticsWorld is the company that continues to offer innovation solutions based on this method today.

I never met George but I have a lot of respect for the work he did. And, beyond all this serious innovation stuff, he clearly had a whimsical mind.  See his doodles — I love these! George passed away earlier this week. God rest his creative soul.

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Uncreative Problem Solving: London Tube Strike

June 10, 2009 – 6:35 am

Briefly noted, a comment on the un-creativity on display related to the London Tube Strike.

How uncreative can you get? I blame both the government AND the union. There was ample time to work this out. To quote Marlon Brando in the Godfather “how did it ever get this far?” Just like in the Mafia, sometimes people want a war. I can only assume that both sides did actually get what they wanted, a strike.  I’m sure both sides would disagree.

Who pays? The British people in hardship and lost opportunity.

In creative problem solving one thing must be in place before you begin: actually wanting to solve the problem. This is not the case here, both sides have something to gain in having the strike happen. I couldn’t say who is more at fault; it’s a complex problem. I do know it won’t get solved until all involved truly want to solve it.

Aren’t times tough enough without disrupting the economy further? In what ways might this have been prevented? Now there’s a question that screams for a public brainstorming session.

This is not merely inconvenience. London’s bid for a World Cup was put in jeopardy — and Scotland Yard tried to prevent 62,000 ticket-holding fans from traveling to tonight’s game (England versus Andorra) at Wembley stadium. The game will happen, but to a meager crowd, and that’s going to look bad for the World Cup bid. And of course millions of normal people’s lives are affected; their jobs, their pay, time spent away from family, and adverse impact on the struggling businesses they work for.

Two factoids related to the un-creativity at hand:

1.) Boris Johnson, hizoner the Mayor of London, has not personally met with RMT (the union, RMT - the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Worker). He’s left the whole thing up to bureaucrats (specifically the London Underground and Transport for London)  – who are not empowered to negotiate pay. Not exactly hands-on management eh? Rumors are flying that Boris himself intervened behind the scenes and reneged on an agreed upon deal at the last minute. Say it ain’t so Boris!

2.) The union put a last minute demand on the table to reinstate to fired workers. One worker had been caught stealing, the other opened the doors on the wrong side of the train. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances in both cases, but on the face of it, it looks unreasonable. RMT boss Bob Crow frames it a lot differently, of course.

So, fault aside, while Boris and the union fiddle, London burns — because of un-creative problem solving.

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Grasshopper: Inspiring Entrepreneurs, Creating E-People

June 8, 2009 – 9:23 am

When did Entrepreneur become a bad word?

We should all be bending over backwards to help Entrepreneurs in these troubled times.  Watch this video! and get a fresh perspective on what it means to be an Entrepreneur.

Send the video link  to every young person you can think of — today!  Let’s kick-start a new generation of  courageous, job making, world changing, “E people.”

There’s no better time then now to fulfill a dream and start a business.

The amazing video was written & produced by Sonja Jacob, designed by Ben White, and the compelling music is the work of Carly Commando (of NBA playoff theme fame).  I love the straight forward inspirational simplicity of the copy and the elegance of the graphic design. This is a great video piece. The idea for the video, and the movement to create more entrepreneurs, comes from a company called Grasshopper, more on them later in this post, and Kudos for their vision.

Living mostly in the UK now, I’m struck by how often I hear negative talk about E-People.  Specifically, the assumption, with some folks, is that entrepreneurs are these greedy Gordon Gecko types. Now, granted, greed is a reality, but it irks me because it’s my belief that the average business-starting entrepreneur is motivated primarily by passion for an idea. It’s about love, not money. Money is just how you keep score; a result, but not the goal. As Steve Jobs once said, “the journey is the reward.” When money alone becomes the goal you get what happened recently — a crash based on products with no real value.

Creativity and innovation happen when the spirit meets the intellect to solve a problem. Where is greed in that equation? When you solve problems for people you get their business, and that’s real value (not derivatives!)

In these challenging times, why not inspire people to start a business?  Let’s reinvent the economy one new business at a time, starting by sending this video link ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0 ). Grasshopper sponsored the video to start a grass roots entrepreneurial movement. I’m on board! It’s already starting to snowball, apparently somebody voluntarily did a Portuguese sub-titled version of the video already!

Grasshopper is a six year old business started by two college mates at Babson College. They provide inexpensive virtual phones systems and other communication services to small businesses.  Their business is all about enabling small business, so, this video is an outgrowth of that positive business vibe. And for those keeping score they’re over 20 million in annual revenues.

Grasshopper is starting something to counter the prevailing negative notions of entrepreneurship. The video is their contribution to an effort to push the reset button and put young people on the course of following their passion, starting a business, and changing the world.

It beats the hell out of complaining about how bad things are.

I talked to David Hauser, CTO and co-founder of Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail) and was impressed that he not only walks the talk of Entrepreneurship himself, he’s helping others walk. Empowerment is both his business and his passion — and it shows. David’s (and Grasshopper’s) success is done by by building 2 to 4 innovative communications products a year.  These products rise, bubble up, from a spirit of generosity,  abundance, and courage. And I’m sure they are technical wizards, but that’s the easy part. I can only assume his co-founder Siamak Taghaddos (CEO) shares these values.  Siamak, an Iranian immigrant to the USA, is a living example of the good things that happen when a person works hard and Starts Something.

Grasshopper is interesting. What do you think of a company that has its own Nintendo Wii room, and a basketball hoop (for “3 on 3″) in the parking lot?  I think they have a sense of fun in how they work. This is in the Boston area, not California. Nice to see that joie de vivre on the east coast.

Grasshopper is a new name for the company. To announce their new identity they sent chocolate covered grasshoppers to the 5,000 most influential people in America (I shoulda been on that list!). That’s creative marketing. Grasshopper is a company to watch as I see them, like Apple, as a Holistically Innovative company.  They are clearly innovative in the way they do (and “be”) business.

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Britain’s Got Talent — Old Idea, New Innovation

May 30, 2009 – 2:51 pm

The final show for Britain’s Got Talent was this evening — the voting has just started. While watching, it occurred to me that there is nothing new at all about the concept of the show.  There have been talent shows since time immemorial. Why is this talent show so compelling?  Why has it captured the attention of this entire island nation?

The short answer is they’ve done it better. This is not earth-shattering innovation.  This is good old fashioned, do it better innovation.

Innovation does not always mean something completely new and different. Sometimes a “better” implementation of an old idea can make all the difference between a yawn and something that is inspiring. Disruptive innovation is marvelous, and, incremental innovation is also a huge opportunity.  But you can’t go half way. Better, significantly better, can be quite difficult to do — how did BGT do it? They created distinctive differences from other talent shows.

BGT creates several points of difference.  First there is scope. The program takes in the entire UK, so they “own” the nation.  Secondly, the program has supreme glitz — the absolutely first class production values accentuate the acts in a special way.  Next, they create a deep emotional connection.  Susan Boyle alone covers this base!  Every act pulls at the heart strings; you want to believe, and you tune in to see your favorite.  Finally, branding.  Piers Morgan, Simon Cowell, and Amanda Holden have anchored the show’s brand with high class, consistent, and authentic showmanship. Their professionalism gives the competition credibility.

So, when looking to innovate, asking yourself this question: In what ways can we do what we do at a new level of excellence?

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