"Don’t divide the world into 'creative' and 'non-creative'. Let people realize they are naturally creative ... When people regain that confidence, magic happens."
- David Kelley
Earlier this year at the TED conference I had the wonderful experience of watching my teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend David Kelley give the talk above. It's about building confidence in one's ability to be creative. It's also about empathy, courage, leadership, and choosing to strive to live the life you want to live.
I hope you enjoy listening to David's thoughts on creative confidence as much as I did.
Innovating upon something already in existence requires change. The road to that change can be faster or slower, but there's always a journey to be had. If you're lucky, it may be an easy path you take, but it's much more likely to be one with lots of obstacles, dips, and dead ends along the way.
When I look back upon the things I've embarked upon to create change in the world, one thing stands out: the journey always took much longer than projected. If that journey was something akin to climbing a big mountain, I spent more time navigating the approach to the base of the mountain than summiting the peak, if you will. I rarely if ever planned for this "flat" part of the trip. The mountain peak is so seductive, so sexy -- it's where you want to end up, so you focus on what it will take to scale the verticals. But as it turns out, it's the long walk to the base of the mountain that's the hardest part. It's about perseverance more than strength.
Innovating something, be it a stand alone product or a massively interconnected system, involves many more days of getting to the peak than it does scaling the peak. This is because there are so many pitfalls along the way -- so it always feels like you're climbing something. Climbing a mountain face or a well, it feels the same: steep, slippery, and difficult. As it turns out, a lot of that climbing happens because you've stumbled into a crevasse or a well, and you have to find your way out before you can get back to your mission of walking to the mountain. It can't be helped; if you're innovating, by definition you're venturing out through the dark unknown, so of course you'll stumble and fall and have to pick yourself up.
While there were lots of hard points, in any difficult project I've done there was also more joy and camaraderie to be had along the way than I ever dared hope for. This is key. Whether it's Orville and Wilbur figuring out how to make man fly, or it's you tweaking the messaging on a web site in the middle of the night, you need the help of friends and colleagues. Not only can they help pull you out of a crevasse, but they can help you see that you weren't yet on the mountain. And that you need to keep walking.
Understanding the difference between a mountain and a well? Priceless.
You can find it here on pp. 34-35. The topic is Game Changers. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it's one of the better things I've written on the subject of innovating. Here's an excerpt:
How to spot one? Beware of self-proclaimed game changers; most are just marketing hype. Real game changers trigger resistance from competitors and rule makers. Or, like Jim Hall's fan car, they violate unspoken taboos...
"The greatest battle is not physical but psychological. The demons telling us to give up wehen we push ourselves to the limit can never be silenced for good. They must always be answered by the quiet, steady dignity that simply refuses to give in... Courage. We all suffer. Keep going."
"There's a huge, gratifying feeling on the rare occasions that any of us come up with an inspiration to do something innovative. The personal rewards, and just the feeling, is enormously good. Part of what gave us the ability to be creative is the old thing - -necessity is the mother of invention -- and the passion and curiosity about why things work. It's about the ability to picture what's going on and discuss things with other people who have thought about it longer than you have, or have a different approach... It's a fun thing to do, for sure. You appreciate other people doing things when you read the history books. If you feel that in some small way you can join this illustrious bunch of people who have done things, it's worth having a go at it."
Say no to sarcasm. Yes, it's okay as a funny aside during a dinner conversation with people you know well. But it doesn't belong anywhere else, and certainly not in a creative workplace. Categorically ban it from any place or space where you're endeavoring to bring something cool and new to life.
Sarcasm brings with it many ills. If I'm listening to your concept for a marketing tagline, and I sarcastically respond "That's great", I've just cut you down in public, which is not helping you get to a better place. And now you no longer trust me as a generative, open-minded person. Worse yet, the next time we work together, you've learned not to take my utterances at face value. So the next time I say "hey, that's so cool!", you're going to waste energy and time processing that statement to figure out my intent, as oppposed to taking it as a microburst of positive energy which helps push you forward.
We're all here to be remarkable. A broad commitment to being remarkable reduces the friction, smooths out the bumps, and amps up the energy we all need to continue bringing cool things to life. Sarcasm is friction. Plain old nasty, energy-robbing, friction.
Innovating is already so hard -- so why add any additional things to get in your way, right? Just say no.
The fellow in the photo above is John Stevens, a self-taught civil engineer who made a huge contribution to the development of the Panama Canal over a hundred years ago. I've been learning about him through the pages of David McCullough's amazing work The Path Between the Seas, which is the story of how the Panama Canal came to be. From political intrigue which brings down governments to financial engineering that would make even a Goldman VP blush to the hard-headed bravery of entrepreneurial engineers like Stevens, this book has it all. It's the ultimate start up fable. It was recommended to me by my friend and colleague Bob Sutton, who is a big fan of the book, too:
This is a great story of how creativity happens at a really big scale. It is messy. Things go wrong. People get hurt. But they also triumph and do astounding things. I also like this book because it is the antidote to those who believe that great innovations all come from start-ups and little companies (although there are some wild examples of entrepreneurship in the story -- especially the French guy who designs Panama's revolution -- including a new flag and declaration of independence as I recall -- from his suite in the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and successfully sells the idea to Teddy Roosevelt ). As my Stanford colleague Jim Adams points out, the Panama Canal, the Pyramids, and putting a man on moon are just a few examples of great human innovations that were led by governments.
For all you interested in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, this is a mandatory read. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a copy -- you won't regret it.
Anyway, back to John Stevens. Anyone tasked with leading teams of creative people on a quest -- where you know what you are going after, but you have no idea how you're going to get there -- needs to study Stevens. A railroad man who trailblazed many a path through the mountains of the American West, Stevens instinctively knew how to get on with things, and how to inspire every one else to do their best. In a very Dave Packard kind of way, the guy knew the value of literally getting in the trenches to so that he could know -- really know -- what was happening out in the world. Where his failed predecessors in the saga of the canal ruled from the dry and safe roost of a remote office, upon his arrival in Panama, Stevens made a huge difference to the morale and direction of the entire enterprise simply by pulling on some big rubber boots and walking up and down the line of excavations, all the while chomping on a cigar. This guy is a role model for all us trying to make a dent in the universe.
McCullough includes some choice quotes from Stevens, many of which come from some books he authored later in life, which I am planning to read after I finish Path Between the Seas. Here are some of my favorites, with some color commentary:
"With great respect to supermen, it has probably been my misfortune, but I have never chanced to meet any of them."
As you might expect from someone with the discipline to put in the amount of study to become a self-taught engineer, Stevens was a believer in the simple value of hard work. I have to believe that if Stevens were to be alive today in order to meet Roger Penske, he would deeply admire Penske's aphorism, "Effort equals results". I also like this quote because it says something about the nature of talent, that it's not just about being born with something, but being willing to develop your talent, to gain the kind of experience that only comes with mileage.
"There are three diseases in Panama. They are yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet; and the greatest of these is cold feet."
I love that line. I'd wager that more organizations die of cold feet than from the burns that come with trying and failing. For anyone who has ever engaged with getting an organization to change, it's cold feet that you're fighting.
"You won't get fired if you do something, you will if you don't do anything. Do something if it is wrong, for you can correct that, but there is no way to correct nothing."
In fact, I like his formulation a lot more than mine: there is no way to correct nothing, so do something.
My colleague Paul Bennett produces one of my favorite collections of thinking, a blog he calls The Curiosity Chronicles. Over the past few weeks here at metacool I've been riffing on a bunch of ideas and thoughts rattling around my head and heart on the subject of leading, being a leader, and leadership (of which three the first is by far the most important...). To that end, Paul's latest post Curious About... Role Models really got my attention. Here's an excerpt:
To me, both of these examples share something in common. They are of women, leading in that unique way that women leaders excel: by sharing emotional stories and personally connecting in the first case, and by doing rather than endlessly debating in the second. It brought to mind British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous line: “If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”
And here's another:
Being inspired by others is one of the most important aspects of leadership in my opinion, and having role models is a way to have something to constantly strive for. And work towards. It keeps us grounded and reminds us that we are all human. Whether it’s your mother, a young women who moved you with the story of her journey from village to boardroom or a mother who just happens to be digging a vegetable plot for her children to inspire the rest of the nation to eat better in the most important garden in the world, nothing helps us retain a sense of self better than realizing that there are other people out there in the world that we can learn from.
How might we all learn to be ever curious, like Paul? As he says, you could do worse than to follow your role models, or to go find some if you if they're not there yet for you. For instance, for me, when I need a reminder to feel the confidence to express myself first and analyze things later, I watch and read about Shinya Kimura. I'm hoping to visit his shop in the next few months. Finding inspiration in others is a surprisingly effective way to let yourself inspire others.
"Coming up with ideas is interesting and indefinable, isn't it? The brain is a funny thing. An idea often emerges in the shower, or during a walk. Your brain has been ticking away and the idea just bubbles up. Occasionally you feel, 'God, I've gone dry.' It's like writers' block. Shortly before the launch of a new car, when I've used all my existing ideas, I think, 'Now what?' But running the car produces new ideas as you understand what you've created."
My friend and colleague Bob Sutton wrote an interesting post last week on the topics of good bosses, FUBAR, and SNAFU. Having personally contributed to a few SNAFU situations (honestly, how could you not if you've ever shipped anything real?), and living a large part of my life these days helping others work through situations mired in the muck of FUBAR, I really appreciated his post. It's one that anyone engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life should read. Here's an excerpt:
But it is impossible to be a leader without facing stretches where you and your followers are overwhelmed with the complexity and uncertainty of it all. When this happens, to maintain everyone’s spirits keep them moving forward, and to sustain collective stamina, sometimes it is best to embrace the mess--at least for a while.
This challenge reminded me of two of the most famous and fun World War II expressions:
One CEO I know... uses the distinction between the two to help decide whether a "mess" requires intervention, or it is best to leave people alone for awhile to let them work through it.
He asks his team, or the group muddling through mess: "Is it a snafu or fubar situation? " He finds this to be a useful diagnostic question because, if it is just usual normal level confusion, error, and angst that is endemic to uncertain and creative work, then it is best to leave people alone and let hem muddle forward. But if it is fubar, so fucked-up that real incompetence is doing real damage, the group is completely frozen by fear, good people are leaving or suffering deeply, customers are fleeing, or enduring damage is being done to a company or brand -- then it is time to intervene.
I love this distinction between SNAFU and FUBAR, and as a leader of, and contributor to, teams engaging in the creation of new things, I find it really useful, on several levels.
First, if I tried to deal with every FUBAR and SNAFU situation on my radar, I would go completely batty. As Bob also writes, indifference can be as important as passion, and knowing what not to engage in helps save your passion for the things that really matter to you and the people you work with. Focusing on FUBARs seems like a great way to spend your time as a manager.
Second, what I judge as SNAFU may not be SNAFU to those really close to the matter, such as the core design team working on a project. When exposed to the chaos that is a design effort in the middle of things, it is hard as an outsider to feel as much confidence about where things are going as the folks who are working on it each day. In those situations, you have to go more by their body language than by the content, as the tendency at these points as an outsider is to see a lot of SNAFU, perhaps because it is. But experience says that the SNAFU feeling may actually be part and parcel of the design process; if you're not feeling it you may not be pushing enough. And calling SNAFU on a team may actually have an effect opposite to what you desire, as imposing your opinion on folks who have the experience and wherewithal to work out their own problems is as sure a ways as any to sap morale, destroy confidence, and extinguish the spark of intrinsic motivation. As Bob says, better to let people work through their own problems, so long as you have confidence that the time, resources, and talent are there to make it happen.
FUBAR, on the other hand, demands action. These situations cause damage to brands, organizations, careers, and sometimes even people. It's a sign of good leadership when they are identified honestly, and dealt with effectively, even if it means long, difficult road to reach a solution
So, in a long-winded way, I agree with Bob. But, I do think there's more to this story. There's another World War II acronym called SUSFU, and it is some ways the most pernicous of this trio of f-bomb acronyms. Here's what it stands for:
Of all the "FU" family of acronyms, SUSFU is the one that really gets my goat. SUSFU is the groundhog day version of FUBAR, in that it invovles something that's a mess, but which somehow has been left unresolved so long as to become routine, even invisible. At one point a SUSFU was a FUBAR, but maybe it didn't get fixed, and then people got scared to deal with it, and then they chose to live with it rather than try to challenge it. This can happen in one's personal life, in a long-lived team, certainly in an organization of any size, and especially in society. Think of big wrongs which existed in our own culture for many years -- such as limited voting rights -- and in each case you'll see as SUSFU loitering around the premises. Global warming is a SUSFU. The lack of vocational training and apprenticeships in this country for the mechanically-minded is a SUSFU. That lackluster loss leader in your product lineup is also a SUSFU.
FUBAR's are usually self-evident and feel like a crisis to most observers, so taking the responsibility to express the leadership to resolve them, while challenging and hard, is a relatively straightforward decision. A SUSFU, on the other hand, is likely to be flying under the radar to the part where it's become part of everyday life, so remedying it will demand the vision, sense of humor, and fortitude of Brad Pitt's character in Moneyball. SUSFU's are resilient SOB's, rising zombie-like to thwart all your best efforts to move forward. The upside is that the payoff for righting a SUSFU can be enormous. To be sure, slaying a SUSFU may be a quixotic endeavor, but in my opinion we need more people to take up the cause of moving past them.
Here's my challenge to you: in the next year, could you identify one SUSFU in your life and then try to make it better? Imagine the the collective impact of thousands of us unf**king all those SUSFU's. Pretty f**king awesome, no? Go for it. JFDI.
... you can't be the leader you want and ought to be. Or more than a million.
Here's my personal short list:
I'm not powerful enough
I'm not wise enough
I'm not rich enough
I'm not patient enough
I'm not smart enough
I'm not artistic enough
I'm not stubborn enough
For me, and I'd wager for you, this is all bunk. We're not born ready, and if we can be honest with ourselves, we'll likely never achieve a state of true mastery of anything. But life is about getting on with things, because life, after all, is finite. A lot of rewards go to those willing to embrace mediocrity and get on with life. But fear has a way of getting in the way. By acknowledging the fear we feel, and not ignoring it, but choosing to act because of it, we give ourselves -- and those around us -- a gift of inestimable value.
Because, for me, when I'm telling myself all of those "I'm not..." phrases from the list above, that's when I know I'm really on to something. The fear I feel is a signal that what I'm contemplating not doing is really worth doing. And to not take the risk of action is to shirk the responsibility of acting when I'm able to act, of delaying or nulifying the value of the gifts I can bring to world. We owe it to ourselves -- and to each other -- to go for it, to try to help someone, to make something, to move things forward whenever we can.
"It is the joy, passion, and beauty that we infuse into life that is the glory of the human species. I think leaders can contribute to that joy— and to its extinguishment. I think administrative memoranda should be constructed as works of poetry, that organization charts should be exquisite pieces of sculpture, that relations between a boss and subordinate should have the qualities of a Balanchine ballet, that work should include immersion into a glorious fiction."
This is from 2003. You may have seen it before. I only saw it recently, as I'm not a regular basketball fan. I have to admit that each time I watch it, I tear up.
The situation was this: 13-year-old Natalie Gilbert had been chosen to sing the US national anthem before the start of a game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Portland Trail Blazers. The setting was an arena seating almost 20,000 fans. All of us who've ever stepped out the door of our home -- which I assume is everyone reading this post right now -- has screwed up at one point in life, probably in a very public way. Can you imagine what it would feel like to be 13 years old and flubbing your lines in front of a crowd of strangers the size of a small town? Thank goodness for the proactive kindness of Mo Cheeks, the coach of the Trail Blazers at the time.
My question is this: of all the adults on the floor of the arena, why was he the only one to act? And why did he act so immediately? Why did he take such a risk to his own reputation -- how could he not be embarassed to sing on national television given that his vocal skills are not, ahem, professional-grade?
My definition of leadership is simple: it's the act of making something happen which otherwise would not have happened. Mine is an action-oriented definition: if you act and make a difference, you are leading. Hopefully that difference is a positive one. If you know the right thing to do, or the right framework to use, you are part of the way there, but you are not leading (yet). You must act. It's the only to make a difference.
A key implication from the example of Mo Cheeks is that acting as a leader demands that we embrace our own mediocrity. "Am I willing to risk my personal reputation and status for the good of others?" becomes a fundamental question any potential leader must answer. We must balance the inferior nature of our solution and abilities against what the state of the world would be if we did not act. Case in point, just imagine if Cheeks had taken 45 seconds to pull up the exact text of the national anthem on a smartphone so that his leadership intervention could be perfect. Sure, he would have looked better, but in the meantime, things could have turned very ugly for Natalie Gilbert. Instead, Mo Cheeks turned the energy of the entire arena around. The sound of the entire arena getting behind Natalie and Mo is really inspiring. Thank goodness that Cheeks was able to overlook his lack of singing ability, for it allowed him to demonstrate his formidable acumen as a leader.
This talk by Bryan Stevenson was my favorite of TED 2012. It is an elegant call for action which expertly appeals to our senses of logic, ethics, and emotion. You may or may not agree with all of Stevenson's arguments, but I would encourage you to listen to this talk all the way through, as I think it works on many levels. As I tweeted on my way out of the TED auditorium just after this talk had finished, "Bryan Stevenson blew my mind, engaged my heart, and inspired my soul."
And, for those of us interested in making a dent in the universe, his speech is a mandatory lesson in the art of communication. To be able to speak this convincingly, this naturally, this logically, without benefit of notes or slides or videos, is master class in public speaking. Wow.
Bryan Stevenson is an innovator. He looks at our status quo and says "we can do better than this". Innovating is hard. Most of the time it's easy -- and even fun -- to start something, but it's hard to finish. But in the case of the things that Stevenson pursues, I would argue that it's hard to even start, let alone finish. As he says in the speech, changing fundamental aspects of the way our world works will make you tired, tired, tired. But he is an exemplary study in what it means to be brave, brave, brave.
Whatever you're doing, wherever you may be, keep your eyes on the prize, and hold on. Be courageous.
"Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.
...when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.
...Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself."
I love this video by Ice Cube. It got me thinking about my approach to principles 6 and 8.
Ice Cube is a remarkable person. When I learn in this video that he studied architectural drafting, his compositional approach to the structure of his music makes total sense. And you can feel the authenticity of his knowledge of the architecture and built environment of LA. Every great innovator I know makes for a great dinner partner, in the sense that they invariable have a wide array of life interests, for which many they are a bonafide expert. Being interested in many areas, knowing a lot about a few but being willing and curious to learn about the rest, is the stuff that great innovators are made of. Given all of this, I need to expand Principle 6, Live life at the intersection, to embrace the idea of being able to pull from, and make connections across, many buckets.
He ends the video by talking about Ray and Charles Eames engaging in mashup activity before mashups were cool. There's a saying that if you're not stealing (from your predecessors), you're not designing, and that's been the thrust of Principle 8 for me: you should proceed with the humility to believe that someone, somewhere, created something you can learn from. But I like the idea of sampling more. Just as Ice Cube and other musicians sample each other's work to create new, perhaps we should substitute the notion of "sampling" for "stealing". Take a sample of something already in the world, learn from it, extract the essence of it, and mash it up with your current threads to get to something wonderful, remarkable, and new.
I really like these thoughts from Scott Cook, Intuit's founder.
His expression "the boss is no longer the Caesar" gives me some new ways to think about Innovation Principle 12, Instead of Managing, Start Cultivating.
A few of my colleagues at IDEO spent the summer collaborating with Rock Lobster to build our vision of what the utility bike of the future should be. This was done as part of the Oregon Manifest. What they created, in my humble opinion, is simply magical... and it goes by the name of Faraday:
Don't you just want to jump on it and ride away?
It's an electric bike. There's a motor mounted in the front hub, super high-tech batteries are mounted inside the top tubes, and it's all controlled via a small throttle control. How does it feel to ride? Beautiful. We engineered proprietary firmware and software which seamlessly integrates the push from the motor with the push you're getting from your feet.
If you're interested in voting for the best in show, you can do so here (and I wouldn't mind if you voted for Faraday!).
Here's what the judges had to say:
There is something profoundly elegant about this bike. I experienced it as a flawless design execution. While the idea of a front rack is not novel, the modular plug-in platform is brilliant. The prototyping and thought that went into deciding upon a frame geometry that would work well with front cargo appears to be accurate from my own experience. Having spent a bit of time working on improvements to existing electric assist integrations, I have great respect for the innovations and design execution for this facet to the bike. I have no doubt that the work that went into the design and fabrication of the electric side alone was easily equal to the rest of the bike. -- Ross Evans
Contrasting with the other entries, the Faraday is a bicycle with two wheels, and it may be the better for it. It is an attractive machine that strikes a good balance between striking looks and understated aesthetics. Off all three entrants, this one probably is the most useful to most riders, as it’s easy to ride, easy to park, and easy to store at home. -- Jan Heine
This bike struck a chord with me almost immediately, my first thoughts were that this is a very well thought out bike and it is definitely my favorite of the three. Visually I love the traditional lines and the striking integrated racking system actually added to the appeal. Again we have the right type of drivetrain and braking systems, and the very smart addition of electric assist! What got me most though is what’s missing… a big, ugly, heavy battery that seems to be on every other electric assisted bike I’ve seen. Other savvy well thought out features continued to impress upon closer inspection. I really felt the data collection sensors to help determine just how much help you get from the motor was a very cool touch. -- Jeff Menown
My top pick of the three—and not just because it’s the sexiest and most conceptually successful. For me, the most important criteria are that the bike be practical, versatile, elegant, thoughtful, well-engineered, and, most important, a dynamic, real-world performance vehicle. And the Faraday is all of these things, despite its being one of those newfangled e-bikes, which run counter to my Puritanical belief that a bicycle’s engine is by definition its human. Otherwise, it’s a motorcycle, right? Well, dammit, this isn’t a motorcycle. It’s a brilliant update of the French porteur with a little lightning up its butt, and I love it. And a long-distance high five to those Californians for the clever name and great logo. -- Jeremy Spencer
As I write this, I have to admit that my eyes are welling up a bit with tears, so proud am I of the amazing IDEO and Rock Lobster folks who cranked on this project. What you see here is the result of many late nights and long weekends; since I live near our office, over the past few months I popped by most weekends and looked in the window of our shop and they were always there. I have a bunch of innovation principles listed along the right side of this blog. But words are wind, and it just so damn affirming and inspiring to see people really live them and go beyond them.
This morning, emboldened by this insightful blog post written by my friend and colleague Paul Bennett, I slipped on a pair of Crocs and headed to work.
Now, my workplace is not a place where people generally sport Crocs. It's also a place where nobody really cares about what you wear (anything goes), but where they also really care about what you wear (everything matters). There's a tension there, and it makes life interesting. So, upon strolling in the door, here's what my own two feet encountered:
The photo above doesn't do them justice, but next to my injection-molded plastic foam thingies stand a proud pair of gorgeous, yellow suede bespoke wingtips, crafted with love by a British shoemaker who was undoubtedly trained a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away by the wizened creature who invented cobblery in the first place. In other words, it would be hard to put two products from the same category side by side and yet have such a gulf of experience, materials, approach, and point of view separating them. As Paul notes, my Crocs are the footwear equivalent of the Volkswagen Beetle (the "New" one, methinks). In constrast, if those yellow shoes were a car, they'd be an Aston Martin DB5.
But as designed objects, they're both completely valid. One is bespoke. The other, just like the original Beetle, is happy just to "be". However, neither is better than the other; they are both high-integrity, authentic objects, not pretending or trying to be anything other than what they are. They each mean something. Both work because their designers and makers knew what was important.
Yet another example of the power of a strong point of view and why it is such an imperative to have one before you start designing anything. Points of view drive meaning.
Earlier this evening I came across an intriguing interview with racer, metal sculptor, designer, and archmaster of doing Shinya Kimura. Here's an excerpt, with Kimura's thoughts italicized:
What were your early influences?
The shapes and designs of Italian sports car like Lamborghini Miura and bugs.
Have you ever had another job?
No
What are your favourite and least favourite parts of a bike build?
I love to see the hazy idea of mine actually becomes materialized, that is the most favourite part of a bike build. Least favourite part is...polishing!
What are his hopes for himself and Chabott?
Keep creating whatever I like.
What are his regrets?
No regrets at all!!
Will he always be a bike builder or is there something else on the horizon?
I don't categorize myself as a bike builder but I will keep building bikes and creating whatever I have in my mind as long as I live.
This morning I attended a demonstration of a cool new service, and got to meet one of the women behind its creation. It turns out that this new business was launched as part of a Stanford d.school class last Spring, for which I was a judge. But I didn't know about this service until today. Why? Well, in part because at the big demo fair they held as part of this class, where each of the student teams demoed their ideas, I spent too much of my allocated judging time talking with one team, who were unfortunate in that they had a team member who couldn't get out of what I would call "heavy sales" mode. By that I mean, no matter what questions I asked about things like point of view, first-hand experience of the world, prototyping -- all the stuff you care about when engaging in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life -- he kept on patronizing me with the party line, the premeditated marketing messages they had whipped up beforehand. In other words, he was laying some heavy bullshit on me. Bummer.
And you know what? Bullshit is bullshit. Bullshitters don't ship, and they can't attract intrinsically motivated people to be on their teams in any sustainable, long-term way. Why? Because we all want to be around people with that gleam in their eyes which says "this is going to happen". Life is too short to waste your time working with people who are motivated by extrinsic factors, such as money, status, or grades. It's the intrinsically motivated folks who sweat the small stuff, grok the big picture, and -- dare I say it -- think different.
When I look at the interview transcript above, I see someone who would be hacking on bikes even if there was no money in it. Kimura's voice is that of a person who has pledged their life toward a specific passion. A person who comes up with solutions in his dreams. Who takes their inner desires seriously enough to try and make them reality, rather than repressing them in the name of what the outside world wants them to be. When I interview folks to be part of the team at my employer IDEO, I'm always looking for the sparks of passion which are the mark of someone powered from within. They are easy to see when they're there, and they are equally easy to smell when they is fake. In my experience, having that intrinsic motivation makes all the difference in the end result. Not only is it impossible to fake, but if you try to fake it, you will always sound like a bullshitter, which completely torpedoes the basis of everything you're trying to claim in the first place.
This is all a roundabout way of saying that intrinsic motivation is, in my opinion, a killer input. Meaning that it is one of several key factors which define a space within which talented people can collaborate with other similarly aligned people to make magic happen. I've said previously that trust is a killer app, but it's not an application, it's an input, just like intrinsic motivation. The output is wonderfulness.
And there are more; this is a subject worthy of more study.
What happens when you try to combine a gamelan with a celeste? It's never been done before, so who knows?
As Björgvin Tómasson can tell you, what you get is a "gameleste". This combination makes it a hybrid, something new under the sun. It was built to be a part of Björk's intriguing Biophilia project, which looks to be a pretty stunning effort -- I certainly want to make it to one of her concerts!
I find this video very affirming. Here's what it says to me: when trying to bring something new to life, you will be faced with many challenges. Friends will question your vision, lawyers will come up with a million reasons why you shouldn't do what you want to do, and money people will demand the right to dig up your precious little seed of an idea each day to ensure that it's growing (they have to be sure to get their full money's worth, you know).
In response, just start. Plunge in. Create. Excessive talking and planning is a sign that you are stuck in an emotional-intellectual mire of your own making. That mire gets its power from our fear of the unknown. In order to break its grip, you need to start - anywhere. It's hard to break out of, for sure. But we can all do it. How did Björgvin Tómasson manage to figure out what a gameleste would be like when it did not exist? By starting, by making it. And now we all also know what a gameleste is all about, for the person who acts not only brings a new thing to life, but brings all of us along, too.
“You know the old adage that the customer’s always right? Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. And that is why you must seize the control of the circumstance and dominate every last detail: to guarantee that they’re going to have a far better time than they ever would have had if they tried to control it themselves.”
I've spoken here many times about the power of experiential learning. For many activities, learning by doing is an extremely sticky way to become adept at a new skill. The difference between reading about surfing, watching a video about surfing, and actually taking a class where you get up on the board (and get really wet, too!) is profound. The former two provide you with lots of information about surfing, while the latter earns you true know-how about how to carve your wave through the water. Deep know how is the killer app for folks who want to make an impact in the ring, as opposed to being spectators or pundits watching from outside.
But, what about computer simulations? While they cannot model all aspects of an activity which takes place in the physical world, computers provide us with the opportunity for deep experiential learning, albeit with less fine-grained resolution than one would encounter in real life. However, as they are not in fact real life, simulations can liberate us from the fear one encounters when immersed in difficult real life situations, such as being the leader of a group of people for the first time, or engaging in a dangerous physical activity. Computer simulations can also provide us with access to learning scenarios which otherwise would be out of our reach due to limitations of time, physics, and money.
Joi Ito has spoken extensively about the power of the game World of Warcraft as a training environment for people interested in developing the skills needed to lead diverse groups of people in conditions of great uncertainty. John Seely Brown has also written some persuasive essays on this subject, and here is an excerpt from one of them:
When role-playing gamers team up to undertake a quest, they often need to attempt particularly difficult challenges repeatedly until they find a blend of skills, talents, and actions that allows them to succeed. This process brings about a profound shift in how they perceive and react to the world around them. They become more flexible in their thinking and more sensitive to social cues. The fact that they don't think of gameplay as training is crucial. Once the experience is explicitly educational, it becomes about developing compartmentalized skills and loses its power to permeate the player's behavior patterns and worldview.
In this way, the process of becoming an effective World of Warcraft guild master amounts to a total-immersion course in leadership. A guild is a collection of players who come together to share knowledge, resources, and manpower. To run a large one, a guild master must be adept at many skills: attracting, evaluating, and recruiting new members; creating apprenticeship programs; orchestrating group strategy; and adjudicating disputes. Guilds routinely splinter over petty squabbles and other basic failures of management; the master must resolve them without losing valuable members, who can easily quit and join a rival guild. Never mind the virtual surroundings; these conditions provide real-world training a manager can apply directly in the workplace.
I wholeheartedly agree with Ito and Brown, and am of the opinion that many aspiring real-world project leaders would do well to log some hours learning to lead multi-player quests and raids in Warcraft. Polyphony's Gran Turismo is another great computer simulation from a sticky learning perspective, as it allows one to get a sense of what it feels like to drive a variety of cars fast -- very fast -- around a multitude of road courses. For a few hundred bucks, it allows almost anyone to gain elements of experience which heretofore were only available to person blessed with thousands and thousands of dollars in discretionary income -- as well as the willingness to get really hurt if things were to go all pear-shaped.
Enter Lucas Ordoñez, Spanish MBA student and Gran Turiso aficionado. A few years ago, Ordoñez entered the GT Academy competition organized by Polyphone and Sony, which allowed him to pit his virtual driving skills against 25,000 other competitors, each one seeking to win a full scholarship for further real-world training in racing cars, culminating in the acquisition of a license granting entry into the world of professional racing. Ordoñez had gained experience racing go karts as a kid, but picked up his auto racing miles via Gran Turismo. For those of you who aren't familiar with Gran Turismo, here's a quick video of him "racing" around a famous track you'd find in Germany:
Long story short, Ordoñez beat the odds and topped the Academy, beating out 24,499 other aspiring Sennas. Here's a video showing what happened when he entered his first "real" race:
Pretty cool, eh?
But wait, it gets better: after more experiencing more racing success, Ordoñez was offered a ride in the vaunted 24 Hours of Le Mans race -- a truly spectacular opportunity for any racer, let alone one that's been doing it for less than three years. And guess what, he did really well. Not only did he and his team finish the entire 24 hours, an incredible achievement on its own, they took second place in class, earning the right to stand on the champion's podum. Really, really amazing, especially considering that Ordoñez brought much less "experience" to the team than any of the other traditionally-trained racers he competed against. This video gives a wonderful sense of the magnitude of this achievement:
My point here isn't to claim that video games change everything. They don't. Far from it. But I do think that we can all stand to learn more about the world we live in by selectively choosing to spend more time with the high-quality games that really do put us in new learning situations. Curiousity can be stoked and satisfied in myriad ways, so can't we all agree to move beyond the snobbery of the book and the university lecture and the formal training class to see the latent potential embedded in our silicon machines and the software that makes them sing? This is the message of the ballad of Lucas Ordoñez... I can't wait to see where life next takes him.
You may not like cars, or you may like them as much as I do, but I think we can all agree that the storytelling behind this Audi piece called Eliminating Luck is truly masterful.
I admire the way they've taken a complex subject, a subject associated with myriad statistics and difficult to relate to numbers (how fast does 300 km/hr feel, anyhow?), and turned it into something lyrical and quite beautiful. Effective storytelling is indeed an effective countermeasure when it comes to deconstructing complex situations and communicating their essence in an elegant way.
About 18 years ago I dropped out of graduate school at Stanford and took a job as an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard Company. Actually, "dropped out" is a bit too strong of a phrase; it was late June, I had just just won my Stanford undergraduate degrees a few weeks before, I was about to start my summer internship at NASA, it was hot out, and my new dorm room (Rains housing, for those of you in the know) was even hotter, and I was already sick of hearing cars downshifting for the stop sign just outside of my window. Classes for my masters program in mechanical engineering wouldn't start for a few more months, but the prospect of yet another math class didn't feel like a Big Idea to me. I forget the the exact chain of events, but I believe I first called Ford to ask (beg) for the job I had turned down a few months earlier, and then coincidentally someone from Hewlett-Packard called me to see if I would be interested in a position with them up in Vancouver, Washington, having passed their grueling phone interview screen a few months earlier.
So.
I flew up to Portland, Oregon to interview with Hewlett-Packard, partly because I was desperate to get out of my room at Stanford and partly because I had never been to a CART race, and there was one happening the coming weekend, which was June 27 (what -- you think I've changed? This one-track mind has taken years to develop). The job interviews went well, and the race was pretty cool (the good folks at Hewlett-Packard allowed me to keep the rental car for the weekend), if I must say so:
The visit went well, I took the job, and in doing so became a very proud member of the Hewlett-Packard family, starting as a R&D Engineer working on ink-jet printing systems. I enjoyed what in retrospect was an amazing two years, though I probably didn't fully appreciate everything at the time because I was relatively impatient from a career standpoint. All things being equal, over my two years there, I was able to do foundational R&D work on what became HP's "off-axis" ink system (which you can stilll find in any large-format printer today), got to help take a new printer up the manufacturing ramp, was allowed to redesign a bunch of parts for another new printer, and was also asked to do some cool user research in the field, including one home visit in Wisconsin where I ended up helping some kids with their homework.
The best thing about working at Hewlett-Packard was its culture, which was very "adult" in the sense that it was built on a sense of deep trust and respect between individuals and groups within the company. One day I was using spray-mount glue in my cubicle (bad idea) and my manager stopped by, poked his head in, and said something to the effect of "You can pretty much do anything you want here unless you're endangering yourself or others, and right now you're endangering yourself or others," and then he walked away. Lesson learned. Working at Hewlett-Packard meant that I had the good fortune of working for some truly spectacular managers and mentors, such as Eric Ahlvin, Alan Shibata, David Gast, and Rick Berriman. Looking back on my time there, I realize now the degree to which I imprinted on these people and on Hewett-Packard's culture. In my approach to work and working with people, I think I've tried hard to live up to the examples they set for me, as well as the ethos that informed the culture of Hewlett-Packard.
The best summary of the culture I experienced at Hewlett-Packard is summed up in the 11 Simple Rules drawn up by David Packard himself. These are:
1. Think first of the other fellow. This is THE foundation — the first requisite — for getting along with others. And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must make. Gaining this, the rest will be "a breeze."
2. Build up the other person's sense of importance. When we make the other person seem less important, we frustrate one of his deepest urges. Allow him to feel equality or superiority, and we can easily get along with him.
3. Respect the other man's personality rights. Respect as something sacred the other fellow's right to be different from you. No two personalities are ever molded by precisely the same forces.
4. Give sincere appreciation. If we think someone has done a thing well, we should never hesitate to let him know it. WARNING: This does not mean promiscuous use of obvious flattery. Flattery with most intelligent people gets exactly the reaction it deserves — contempt for the egotistical "phony" who stoops to it.
5. Eliminate the negative. Criticism seldom does what its user intends, for it invariably causes resentment. The tiniest bit of disapproval can sometimes cause a resentment which will rankle — to your disadvantage — for years.
6. Avoid openly trying to reform people. Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him to embrace a higher working goal — a standard, an ideal — and he will do his own "making over" far more effectively than you can do it for him.
7. Try to understand the other person. How would you react to similar circumstances? When you begin to see the "whys" of him you can't help but get along better with him.
8. Check first impressions. We are especially prone to dislike some people on first sight because of some vague resemblance (of which we are usually unaware) to someone else whom we have had reason to dislike. Follow Abraham Lincoln's famous self-instruction: "I do not like that man; therefore I shall get to know him better."
9. Take care with the little details. Watch your smile, your tone of voice, how you use your eyes, the way you greet people, the use of nicknames and remembering faces, names and dates. Little things add polish to your skill in dealing with people. Constantly, deliberately think of them until they become a natural part of your personality.
10. Develop genuine interest in people. You cannot successfully apply the foregoing suggestions unless you have a sincere desire to like, respect and be helpful to others. Conversely, you cannot build genuine interest in people until you have experienced the pleasure of working with them in an atmosphere characterized by mutual liking and respect.
11. Keep it up. That's all — just keep it up!
Wow. These 11 principles are simultaneously super inspirational and super humbling. Truth be told, on my bad days I fail to live up to all of these. But I try, and I keep trying to improve myself vis a vis this list, and I think that was the magic of Hewlett-Packard's culture, which allowed you -- even encouraged you -- to improve yourself just as you were always trying to improve the stuff sitting on your test bench. And it encouraged you to help the folks around you, too. What I find interesting about Packard's points is that, starting with No.1, they're all focused on the people around you, not on your inner dialog or whatever. If you're seeking to establish and maintain a collaborative, innovative culture, you could do a lot worse than to follow these 11 points.
I wrote this post this evening because earlier today I learned that David Kelley modeled much of IDEO's culture on that of Hewlett-Packard. I left Hewlett-Packard to join IDEO, and in many ways I regard IDEO as a logical extension of Packard's cultural vision. Trust and respect for your fellow colleagues are indeed the pillars of cultures which routinely create high-impact innovations.
Many thanks to my friend Bob Sutton for telling me about David Packard's Simple Rules.
My original working title for Innovation Principle 20 was "Don't settle". This principle was inspired by one of my colleagues at IDEO, who has showed me again and again the value created by not giving up on an idea until the quality of its expression matches the magnitude of its potential.
I evolved the messaging of Principle 20 to "Be remarkable" because I wanted it to feel more aspirational and open-ended, but it some ways I always go back to the phrasing "don't settle" in my head. To be honest, I've been struggling with the wording on this one. Is it about being remarkable? Or is about sticking to your guns, never letting anything go? While I'm a firm believer in embracing mediocrity in order to get the ball rolling, I'm also a stickler for doing amazing stuff. Are these two at all compatible?
When I read this article about chef Daniel Boulud a couple of years ago, I filed it away under the heading "don't settle". I just took another look at it, and noted this passage:
But during Round 8 of recipe tests, on Tuesday, he refuses to grade on the curve. He stoically appraises entrees and appetizers in what feels like a marathon episode of “Top Chef” — except that this judge has helped conceive the dishes and never seems very pleased by the results.
The lamb ribs confit with roasted lamb leg and spring beans? “Maybe a little more herbs in it,” he suggests. The Maryland lump crab cake with a curry sauce and pickled radish? “More crab, less garnish.” The passion fruit crepe with mango slices? “We’re still not there.”
We sit across from Mr. Boulud, shamelessly pillaging the leftovers and thinking: huh? Each dish seems head-spinningly yummy, but Mr. Boulud summons enthusiasm only when he tries a sausage called the Vermonter, and he cracks a smile only after a forkful of beer-battered haddock beignets.
“I think it’s good,” he says, like a man enjoying a guilty pleasure.
This excerpt hints at the relationship between "don't settle" and "be remarkable". When it comes to the lamb and the crab cake and the fruit crepe, he's saying "keep working on it -- not remarkable enough yet". Not settling. But when he tastes something over the bar, such as the beer-battered fish beignets, he celebrates the outcome. I think that's the key: if you don't have the honesty to recognize something remarkable when it happens, people around you will think nothing will ever make you happy, and from that point forward you'll always be operating in a climate of fear. And a working climate infused with fear never ever never ever takes us to a happy place:
This principle is about a stepwise journey toward a remarkable endpoint. It is fueled by trust, a trust that none of us will settle for anything less than being remarkable. But it also requires a shared trust that it is okay to deliver an interim step that is less than perfect. In other words, we need to be okay with each of us failing as individuals if we're ever going to reach somewhere remarkable together. I can't imagine that perfect fish-flavored beignets could ever happen right on the first shot, you know?
Stanford's alumni magazine, titled -- you guessed it! -- Stanford Magazine, ran a great story on the d.school a few weeks ago. The article speaks with my teacher/mentor/colleague/friend/hero David Kelley and others about not only the d.school, but on living your life well, and on the notion of achieving creative confidence (here's a secret: those last two items are deeply related).
It's definitely worth your time to read through the article. I really liked this quote from Stanford President John Hennessy:
Creativity represents an important characteristic that we would seek to inculcate in our students, and obviously one that's harder to put a firm framework around. It's unlike teaching some analytical method. Will a bridge stay up? Well, we know what to teach. You teach physics, you teach some mathematics and you can do the analysis.
It's much harder to teach creativity. [It involves] multiple routes, multiple approaches and, obviously, it's virtually impossible to test whether or not you've succeeded. The measure of success is likely to come long after, not unlike many of the other things we try to teach: To prepare students to be educated citizens, to prepare them for dealing with people from diverse and different walks of life. Those are things that play out over a long time, whether or not we've done a good job.
During my time as an undergraduate at Stanford, I was very fortunate to be able to pursue two degrees, obtaining both a bachelor of science in engineering and a bachelor of arts in a multidisciplinary program called Values, Technology, Science and Society [VTSS] (it is now called STS and is one of the biggest programs on campus, though when I was there it was quite small). I spent a lot of time in the library. Though VTSS sounds like something very technical in nature, it was actually an incredibly rich humanities experience, with a focus on topics which, if you've spent any time around this blog, you know that I love. For example, my honors thesis was on the origins and development of the Ferrari aesthetic, looking at how meaning was created in Maranello via the mechanisms of storytelling, racing, and panel beating. My VTSS teachers were an incredible group of people, really inspirational, and they helped me build up my creative confidence in myriad ways. VTSS also gave me a way to take all of the product design classes with David Kelley which I otherwise would not have been able to do had I just pursued my engineering degree alone.
I bring all of this up because I do feel that Professor Kelley helped, in Hennessy's words, to prepare me to be an educated citizen, to prepare me for dealing with people from diverse and different walk of life. If the d.school had been around while I was there, I wouldn't have had to get the two degrees (though I would have anyway, as I'm always "doing both"). For me, as someone who was part of the founding team at the d.school, and who remains extremely passionate and optimistic about its mission and potential in the world -- it is an experiment still in its very early days -- it's very gratifying to see that mission be couched in these terms. Ultimately, we are not teaching folks to be designers, we are helping them realize their potential as citizens and as happy, productive human beings. Awesome.
I'll leave you with this recent d.school video which has students telling it all in their own words:
As you know, for the past year or so I've been playing around with the notion that an essential -- even critical -- element in any successful creative endeavor is the existence of a crisp point of view to guide decision making along the way. A point of view is statement of what something must be, and in that declaration lies an exhaustive list of everything which it cannot be. A point of view allows for consistent choices to be made, which lead to coherent, strong end results. When something is criticized for feeling like it was created by a committee, it's not so much the committee per se which is at fault, so much as the absence of any unifying principle to guide the actions of individuals in the name of creating a sum total which is truly remarkable. In terms of outcomes, having a strong point of view is the difference between the music of an ensemble led by Charlie Hunter and the stuff you'd hear in an elevator. There's nothing wrong with group creativity, but it needs to have a point of reference for goodness navigation.
Which brings me back to the Coppola interview. While I've never made a motion picture, I always watch the credits, and I'm always amazed at how even a film with a modest production budget can employ so many people. How can they all know what to do? What good looks like? How to make the myriad brilliant decisions that lead to something being truly remarkable? Here's what Coppola says, and it's totally about point of view:
When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.
The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.
I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.
One word. I love the idea of boiling the point of view down to one word. An exhaustive written treatment of the point of view would be read by few, internalized by even fewer. But a single word? Think of the last US presidential election, and you can see the power of a single word to communicate an entire political platform: Hope. And because creative endeavors ever love constraints, the specificity of a single word will engender mountains more creativity than a list of ten or a hundred or a thousand. Transparent plastic rain coats don't just happen, you know.
"I suddenly understood with great clarity that nothing in life—except death itself—was ever going to kill me. No meeting could ever go that badly. No client would ever be that angry. No business error would ever bring me as close to the brink as I had already been."
- David E. Davis, Jr., on the liberating effects of the automobile accident which almost claimed his life
David E. Davis passed away today.
I began reading his writing in December 1979, and it's not hyperbole to say that his influence changed my life for the better. An amazing writer and raconteur, his magazines informed and inflamed my passion for automobiles, and provided me with a view into a fascinating world of colorful personalities, fantastic road trips, and his own singular point of view on what made for a quality life. Everything I learned from his writing and editorial direction has informed my professional work. As a consummate storyteller, he was truly a great American treasure.
I began corresponding with him via email a few years ago. We exchanged views on a variety of topics, including the marketing of Suburbans as Cadillacs and the proper shade of metallic blue required to bring out the personality of a Ferrari 550 Maranello. We tried to meet up at a running of the California Mille, but our schedules didn't overlap in the way we hoped, something I truly regret. I left a copy of his book Thus Spake David E. with a mutual friend, and David wrote me a wonderful, humorous inscription with an offer of dinner sometime. Though I took the time to thank him for his influence on me via email, I dearly wish I could have had that dinner and looked him in the eyes and told him so. In life you've got to seize the day and make the most of things, and I didn't in this case, with regret.
The quote above is from a graduation speech he gave a few years ago. Whenever I feel like life is kicking me in the teeth, I think about his points above. The ability to pick oneself up from adversity, in the end, may be as important -- or more important -- as the instinct to go forth boldly in the first place. For me, the lesson of David E. Davis is to live your life out loud, to keep on engaging with new adventures no matter what life hands you in return, and to do it all with as much vigor and chutzpah as you can muster.
What if all of the big intitatives -- both public and private -- put into place over the past decade to computerize learning were trumped by a smart, funny, personable guy who, acting largely alone and on a shoestring budget, used a human-centered approach to creating a simple, cost-effective way to reach thousands and thousands of students over the web? And what if it all happened simply because he started teaching kids?
Well, here you go: Salman Khan did all of that, and more. He is a wonderful example of the primacy of doing.
Let's look at some of the innovations brought to market by the Khan Academy. Among others:
free access over the internet
self-paced learning
lecture attendance at home, homework at school
the psychological and emotional safety created by learning in private
helping students achieve true mastery, as opposed to minimum tolerable levels of understanding
liberating "slow" students from the tyrranny of being put on the low achievement track
a more human classroom experience
What do all of these have in common? Well, aside from being truly amazing outcomes for students, teachers, and parents, none of them were captured in a business plan slide deck, nor were they necessarily premediated goals for his venture. In other words, Salman didn't start out with the goal to flip the learning paradigm. He worked his way up to that point by doing something he loved. To push that point even further, Sallman wasn't looking to start a venture at all, just to tutor his cousins more effectively. He designed for them, saw the value he created, and then went from there.
Embracing the primacy of doing, getting started, saying "what the hell, why don't I try this!" is a way to open yourself up to powerful forces of serendipity, luck, and good fortune. In technical terms, doing gives you access to a real option, which is defined as:
the right — but not the obligation — to undertake some business decision; typically the option to make, abandon, expand, or contract a capital investment.
Think about it: if you could create the right to give yourself an expanded range of opportunities in the future, wouldn't you give that gift to yourself? Of course you would. So what Salman teaches us is that we need to act -- we have to act -- because inside of that action is a gift of a better future, both for ourselves and for others. Accessing the gift requires some courage, so tell yourself you can do it, and help your friends and family to embrace their own potential to get out there and make it happen. For me, that's the ultimate lesson of the Khan Academy.
I returned this morning from the TED conference in Long Beach. This year I found it exceptionally inspiring. And also draining: the content on stage, the people you meet, the people you don't meet,the locale, all of the activites -- it's a jam-packed five days that leaves you feeling simultaneously energized yet also a bit like a spent tube of toothpaste. Wow.
I logged on this evening to write a summary of the week, but in the course of seeing what my friends wrote about their experience there, I came across John's amazing story of his experience in Long Beach, and decided that all I'm going to do is quote him here. What he wrote is just beautiful, and it captures the essence of what happens there:
... Every time I go, there are at least a couple of experiences that I have that change the way that I look at the world, the way that I want to be when I go home. TED makes you want to be better, smarter, more present, more thoughtful, more impactful, more human. To be a better citizen and a better professional and a better dad and a better husband and a better friend. That type of inspiration doesn’t happen all that much, and it’s worth the price of admission every time.
And that’s why June Cohen and Tom Rielly, on the TED team are two of my true heroes. They both have chosen to spend their lives working on building up TED outside of just the week of the conference every year. Tom has built the TED Fellows program, which started out pretty damn great and at this point is starting to move into basically ass-kicking-terrifyingly-awesome territory. And June, who put TED Talks online for everyone to see, including subtitling into 80+ languages.
That, my friends, is how you change the world.
That’s how you take this beautiful, wonderful experience for a few people in California each year and turn it into something that anyone — anyone! — can use to make themselves, their community, their world better themselves.
Well said, John. I can't wait to post some of my favorite speaker videos. I had tears streaming down my face in just about every session of the conference.
TED is something different from what it was half a decade ago. If you can ever go in person to one of their events, or to a TEDx event, I heartily recommend you do so, but I do agree with John that the essence of the TED brand experience is by no means limited to those who hear it in person. If you can take the time to watch and absorb the videos which appeal to you -- and many of those which won't at first glance -- you can have the same kind of transformational experience. Perhaps even better.
It is so important to have a strong point of view. Let me repeat: it is so important to have a strong point of view. It needn't be as extreme as the one voiced in this ad, but you've got to stand for something.
If you don't have a point of view, you won't know what you don't stand for, and so you'll be tempted to try and do everything, because "no" won't be in your vocabulary. Trying to appeal to everyone by playing in the mushy middle not only will make you less appealing over the long haul (because being boring is not attractive), it also makes it very difficult to get started (because the enormity of the task makes everything too daunting to tackle), and makes it really tough to ship (because you have to do so much in order to meet the needs of so many people).
Having a point of view is incredibly liberating. It takes more energy and more time to get to an honest understanding of what you believe in, what you need to do, and what you won't do, but it is well and truly worth it.
Do you remember Wonder Woman's Invisible Jetplane? If you don't, you can read about it over here, and it looked something like this (because it's invisble, there aren't that many images of it floating around):
It strikes me that her Invisible Jetplane is a good metaphor for a well-equipped journey through the world of the possible. As you embrace the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, you're going to have moments where you are going to have to stare into nothingness. Literally, there will be nothing there, and as a generative creator of future options, it is up to you to create something. If you're floating out above an abyss, it's good to be packing something to help ensure that you can get through the tough spots.
People who make it through the rough parts of a creative journey have an Invisble Jetplane of their own making, and it's called creative confidence. It's a set of tools you build for yourself, a personally tailored version of whatever design process you subscribe to, a way of working which you know will deliver results. It's certainly not about bravado or pumping yourself up. Not at all. Rather, it's about have the confidence to stop when the going is good, to celebrate when things break, to be able to listen and learn and test over and over in order to create a strong point of view about how things should be going forward -- at least for now. And, as with Wonder Woman's jet, creative confidence is invisible, but it'll get you places, and people around you will notice what it can do, too. You can't see it, but you certainly can feel it when someone has it.
So where do you go to get your jetplane? If it were as easy as getting a degree or reading a book, everyone could do it. You certainly can't buy it, and it is not about credentials. The good news -- at least for those of us who can't help but apply ourselves toward bringing cool stuff to life -- is that it builds in strength with practice. As my friend Jon Winsor says, you have to ride a thousand waves before you truly get what it means to surf. It's the same for creative confidence, too: it's about practice and cycles. To grok it, do it. It's about getting miles under your belt.
While it is important to keep in mind that most new ideas aren't likely to be new, sometimes something really is new. And thank goodness. Life would be a dull, grey affair if we couldn't bring truly new things into the world. Today marks the birth of just this sort of thing: according to metacool's research and development partner Telstar Logistics, today marks the 100th anniversary of naval aviation:
Naval aviation was invented one hundred years ago today, on January 18, 1911, when a 24 year-old barnstormer pilot named Eugene B. Ely completed the world's first successful landing on a ship. It happened in San Francisco Bay, aboard the crusier USS Pennsylvania, which had a temporary, 133-foot wooden landing strip built above her afterdeck and gun turret as part of the experiment.
I love the context of this historical event, for several reasons. First, it happened in San Francisco. It's cool to think that remarkable mashups were happening out here back when "web" meant something that came out of a spider. Second, that this innovation really is a mashup: it slams together several new technologies -- an airplane and a modern warship -- in a way which produced a genuine first. Perhaps the very nature of mashups makes them more likely to disprove the rule of nothing being new under the sun? Take two common things, put them together, and that interaction may be genuinely new and a great source of value creation. Finally, innovation doesn't just happen. Close your eyes and imagine the human drama of this day one hundred years ago, and the importance of measured risk taking becomes readily apparent.
Hats off to Eugen B. Ely, who had guts to get out and do it.
"Above all, think of life as a prototype. We can conduct experiments, make discoveries, and change our perspectives. We can look for opportunities to turn processes into projects that have tangible outcomes. We can learn how to take joy in the things we create whether they take the form of a fleeting experience or an heirloom that will last for generations. We can learn that reward comes in creation and re-creation, not just in the consumption of the world around us. Active participation in the process of creation is our right and our privilege. We can learn to measure the sucess of our ideas not by our bank accounts but by their impact in the world."
