metacool

metacool Thought of the Day

“You know, when you are in your 20s, you always believe that the race, that the championship is the only thing that matters.  But then 20 years later, you say ‘Ooohhh, I remember when I was there with my mechanics, with my engineer, talking about the car, going out for a pizza...

So you realize what really (matters) was the effort that you put in daily in order to build something special. Because when the championship arrives, you cannot expect to meet happiness that day, otherwise you don’t get there. It’s the process.

You cannot talk about dedication, sacrifice or stuff like that.  You just do what you have to do because you love to do it.”

- Alex Zanardi

Ron Finley. Guerrilla gardener. Leader

This elegant talk by artist and designer Ron Finley was by far the highlight of my experience at TED last week.  I find it inspiring on so many levels -- here are a few:

I am inspired by the way Ron Finley went back to first principles to find a solution to the challenges he witnessed in his neighborhood, South Central.  In his hometown, the obesity rate is ten times that of more affluent areas located only miles away.  Goods and services are popping up to deal with the problems brought on by obesity, but they only really deal with the symptoms, and not the root cause.  As Finley says in this talk, "Food is the problem and the solution".  Yes, indeed.  Having now listened to this talk three times, I can't help but admire the way he looked deeply at the challenge, and with a designer's mind started to build solutions to enable people to change fundamental aspects of their behaviors which lead to illness and further poverty.  Dreaming of and planting a Food Forest is nothing if not an act of inspiration.

I am inspired by the design of his talk itself.  These days it's relatively easy to mimic the "standard" format of a TED talk: lots of compelling images and words projected up behind the speaker, all there to push the narrative forward.  But nailing a talk the way Finley does here is actually very difficult.  Notice the way his photos and screen texts correspond exactly to whatever he's trying to communicate at that moment.  He avoids the use of inauthentic stock imagery, and the few words projected up on the screen correspond to only those select ideas he wants to have stick with you: PLANT SOME SHIT!

I am inspired by the way he is helping his neighbors to design their own lives.  Especially the children.  He talks about the importance of manufacturing your own reality, versus robotically accepting the path designed for you by others.  As I listened to Finley speak in Long Beach, my mind immediately connected to this amazing statement written by my colleague Tim Brown a few years ago.  Beyond immediate impact of helping people marooned in a food desert eat in ways that are building healthier bodies and minds, Finley is enabling those people to create intent in their lives, and act upon it.  The act of designing and bringing something wonderful to life, be it a garden, a house, or one's own self, is nothing but the continuous expression of mindful intent.

Above all, I am inspired by Ron Finley himself and his passion for action.  As I've written before, my definition of leadership is very simple: it's the act of making something happen which otherwise would not have happened.  In my book, Ron Finley's guerrilla, renegade, let's-not-just-talk-let's-do-something-now approach to gardening is the triple distilled essence of leadership, and that's pretty damn inspiring.

More thoughts on designing from Chris Bangle

A few days ago I came across this wonderful interview of Chris Bangle done by Hugo Becker in June 2012.  I did a lot of research prepping for my Revs Program event with Chris, but I unfortunately never saw this one -- I would have done a much better job had I been able to read it.  It's really good.

Here's a wonderful passage where Chris talks about his current approach to designing things, and the thinking here has a direct connection to his amazing "the fox is pretty because the fox has a pretty tail" thoughts expressed at Stanford:

The other thing I have am trying to do –– and this I would ask your readers to consider –– is to look at the world of design-creativity as an endless stream with many contributors instead of a one-time phenomenon coming from the pen of some famous-star-designer. The problem with “the star designer” is that everybody else who is in the execution process either does their job 100% right or 100% wrong ––like a machine.

I’m trying to empower the people in my projects; to help them understand they are all active participants in a seamless creative change process. To make everyone be engaged and to somehow actually experience a contributive participation…instead of me the designer saying: “Okay, here’s the design, I’ve drawn it, now you take it and if you screw it up God help you”.

I think this is a really powerful set of ideas.  It's vitally important that people engaged in the process of designing stuff make some decisions about whether they want to empower or dis-empower the people around them as they make their way through that process. 

Would love to hear what you think.

 

image: Chris Bangle Associates

Sugata Mitra: experience the world

Last week I was fortunate to participate in the TED conference in Long Beach.  I learned a ton and it sparked a lot of new thoughts for me, which I will be writing about here on the pages of metacool for the next few weeks. 

One of my favorite moments was this talk by education innovator Dr. Sugata Mitra.  It's his acceptance speech for this year's TED Prize.  From the standpoint of technique, I admire it for his masterful interweaving of humor, information, and narrative; for those interested in the art of public speaking, it's a master class. 

Of course, he didn't win the prize for being able to give a good speech, he won it for what he's accomplished and for his vision going forward, and I'll allow you to learn about those via his own words here:

Here's a particularly thought-provoking section of Mitra's talk:

Well, I bumped into this whole thing completely by accident. I used to teach people how to write computer programs in New Delhi, 14 years ago. And right next to where I used to work, there was a slum. And I used to think, how on Earth are those kids ever going to learn to write computer programs? Or should they not? At the same time, we also had lots of parents, rich people, who had computers, and who used to tell me, "You know, my son, I think he's gifted, because he does wonderful things with computers. And my daughter -- oh, surely she is extra-intelligent." And so on.

So I suddenly figured that, how come all the rich people are having these extraordinarily gifted children? What did the poor do wrong? I made a hole in the boundary wall of the slum next to my office, and stuck a computer inside it just to see what would happen if I gave a computer to children who never would have one, didn't know any English, didn't know what the Internet was.

The children came running in. It was three feet off the ground, and they said, "What is this?"

And I said, "Yeah, it's... I don't know."

They said, "Why have you put it there?"

I said, "Just like that."

And they said, "Can we touch it?"

I said, "If you wish to."

And I went away.

About eight hours later, we found them browsing and teaching each other how to browse. So I said, "Well that's impossible, because -- How is it possible? They don't know anything."

Of course, those kids knew "something" because they were willing to mess around with a computer and fail until they knew how to make it work.  Kids are ever open and curious.  They learned by doing.

What's striking about Dr. Mitra's life journey and his ensuring discoveries is that he's so deeply rooted in experiencing the world instead of talking about experiencing the world.  He is an expert on education, but is no mere theorizer.  He is a doer.  He had a hunch, and acted upon it by putting a computer in a hole in the wall.  He learned something from that experiment, and kept on trying new stuff.  Never just theorizing, always learning by doing.

Chris Bangle and the tail of the fox

If my time at IDEO has taught me anything, it's that a creative environment need not be toxic, caustic, or unnecessarily stressful.  In fact, the reality is quite the opposite: if you want people to do great work together, just treat them like competent, intelligent, well-intentioned human beings, and then diligently cultivate the elements of dignity, joy, and achievement which generate a satisfying inner worklife.  People who are feeling beautiful on the inside do beautiful things out in the world.

My fear for all those people reading Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is that they assume that being an asshole and exociating people within an inch of their life is the key to achieving greatness as a leader of creative endeavors.  To be sure, there's nothing wrong with being demanding and maintaining the highest standards, but when one considers the totality of what one is trying to create in the world, and not just that thing you're working so hard to ship, there's so much more to reckon with:  What's the culture you're creating?  How will people relate to their families when they go home in the evening?  Will people regret any of the things they had to do to meet the standards you established as being non-negotiable?  Ultimately, what's the price to be paid for being inhumane along the way?  Does the end ever justify the means?

This past November I very fortunate to spend time with Chris Bangle during his visit to Stanford.  I deeply admire the work Chris led at BMW and FIAT; I'm fortunate to drive one of his cars and I spend a lot of spare cycles oggling other ones I see on the street.  They're gorgeous, passionate sculptures, and you can't help but feel the strong point of view driving their designs.

He gave a helluva great talk about designing for difference, which you can see in the video below.  We talked through myriad topics in our Q&A session after this presentation, but related to the themes I mention above, I'd like to point you to the response Chris gave to my final question, "Speaking about design, where do you want to go?".  Chris stood up and said something very profound, starting with an Italian saying he's heard from the farmers in his village:

The fox is pretty because the fox has a pretty tail.

You can hear all of our exchange starting at around the one hour two minute mark.  Please listen to all of his statement from that point on -- it's an elegant riposte to the idea that one must be brutal to create things which are beautiful:

 

We create things which are beautiful by making the process of creation beautiful for everyone involved.  The fox is pretty because the fox has a pretty tail.

Girl Scout Cookies and learning to live an entrepreneurial life

Today is National Girl Scout Cookie Day.  I used to not know much about the Girl Scouts, but my wife recently started a troop, and this has given me the opportunity to learn a bunch about this remarkable organization.  In particular, I've become really interested in the role of the fabled Girl Scout Cookie in the flow of the Girl Scouts organization, whose misson is to build "...girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place."

From a purely financial point of view, sales of cookies help fund troop activities.  A percentage of sales go back to each troop, so the more boxes are sold, the more money a group of girls has to engage in activities in pursuit of the Girl Scout mission.  Selling cookies is a fundraising activity.

Of course, it's about much more than money.  There's a lot of potential learning to be had.  The Huff Post recently published an awesome essay written by Girl Scout Olivia Ottenfeld on that point, and here's an excerpt:

...the Girl Scout Cookie Program is not really about the cookies, but about all of the life skills girls learn as part of the program. Many people don't really understand that. That's why we're launching National Girl Scout Cookie Day on February 8...

...There are so many positive values I'm learning from selling cookies. There is no limit to what a girl can do: undertaking a service project to help make a difference in her community, exploring new challenges by kayaking in a nearby lake, or broadening her horizons by traveling to another state, or even another country. When I hit the business world after college, I will fear nothing.

So, people of the universe engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, I have a simple ask of you.  And I'm not asking you to buy cookies (only do that if you really want to eat them).  Instead, I'd like to ask you to pause and engage in mindful conversation with the next Girl Scout who approaches you to buy cookies.  When you're asked to purchase cookies over the next few weeks, consider treating that query as a valuable learning opportunity for those cookie sellers. 

Whether or not you buy cookies, you can choose to have a quality interaction with that girl by asking her about the project and what she's hoping to get out of it.  For younger girls, ask how many she's hoping to sell, what her troop hopes to do with the money, etc... for an older girl, ask her about her marketing plan, how sales are going relative to that plan, how things compare to previous years, how is the Fiscal Cliff impacting cookie sales this year, if at all, up to and including what she's dreaming of for her future.  By doing so, you'll help her learn some of the key lessions (including how to deal with rejection) articulated so well above by Olivia Ottenfeld. 

Here's a great video which builds on these ideas:

Opportunities to frame one's character and worldview as that of a creator, builder, and entrepreneur need not happen solely in a classroom, not can they.  They happen just as well on a playing field, at the keyboard of a piano, or out selling cookies to benefit your fellow scouts.  Please consider being part of that learning journey, and positively influencing a girl's life forever.

I'll take a few boxes of Tagalongs, please!

metacool Thought of the Day

Innovating means shipping and executing

As a non-trivial coda to my series of posts on the Nissan DeltaWing and the process of innovating, here's a brief account of how the DeltaWing team fared over the weekend.

When we last checked in on this intrepid crew, they had just finished an epic all-night push to repair their mangled car.  They then took their place on the starting grid at the 1000 miles of the Petit Le Mans, and had a flawless race, finishing an incredible fifth place (as the head of Nissan remarked, likely the most celebrated fifth place in the history of racing).  The drivers drove with speedy care and finess, the work of the engineers endured through the long hours, and the mechanics and support team all did their part along the way.  Though racing always centers on the drivers, it's a team sport of team sports, and when it comes to actually running the race - executing the vision, in other words - the team cook and physical trainer are as important as the head engineer and lead mechanic. 

Here's a nice recap of the team's race experience:

Innovating isn't just about killer ideas or designs.  To say that you've truly innovated, you first need to ship something, which means embodying your ideas in a form which can influence the lives of others.  And then you to achieve impact at scale, which requires meticulous execution of the total business system surrounding your innovation.  Innovation is nothing without experiencing the crucible of having to ship, and the discipline of executing at a level commensurate with the potential you envisioned in the first place.

They payoff to doing what other people said say you cannot do?  Just listen to Ben Bowlby's voice in the video clip above, and then remember his joyous expression.  Priceless.

 

 

A new verb for innovators: deltawing

As a boy growing up in Boulder, I attended a wonderful school named Burke Elementary.  An amazing place, staffed with passionate, dedicated teachers, and named for a great American, Admiral Arleigh Burke.  Admiral Burke used to visit our school once a year, and he made a big impression on me.  Why?  Because he was kind and attentive to us kids, but also because his nickname was "31-knot Burke".  That caught my attention!  Here's where Burke's moniker came from, per Wikipedia:

He usually pushed his destroyers to just under boiler-bursting speed, but while en route to a rendezvous prior to the Battle of Cape St. George a boiler casualty to USS Spence (a jammed boiler tube brush used for cleaning) limited his squadron to 31 knots, rather than the 34+ they were otherwise capable of. Thereafter, his nickname was "31-knot Burke," originally a taunt, later a popular symbol of his hard-charging nature.

That idea of charging ahead, going that extra distance in order to make things happen, really struck a chord with me.  You can call it "hurdling", as my colleague Tom Kelly does in The Ten Faces of Innovation, or you might call it being entrepreneurial -- doing the most with whatever resources you have at hand -- or you can say it's about having true grit: to me these all describe the same worldview, one where effort does indeed equal results, where you can make your own luck, where putting forth that extra bit of energy is what elevates the winners.  For folks engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, it's an essential attitude and skillset to carry in your quiver.

Back to the Nissan DeltaWing, which will go down as my big point of obsession and inspiration for the year 2012.  Here's what happened to the DeltaWing on Wednesday while practicing for this weekend's 1000 mile endurance race:

In case you're wondering, getting clobbered with a 7G hit by an errant green Porsche 911 (not a good example of how to drive a 911, by the way) officially qualifies as an unexpected speedbump in the best-laid plans.  Fortunately only the car was hurt.  But, the car was a wreck, and qualifying was only a day away.  What do you do?  The DeltaWing crew decided to 31-knot it with a truly epic repair session.  They worked through the entire night and the next day brought forth a rejuvenated DeltaWing car:

Wow.

In the spirit of Arleigh Burke, I hereby propose the addition of a new verb to the English language: deltawing.

Deltawing.  As in, "Things went totally wrong, but we pulled the team together and decided to deltawing it". Or, "I didn't think I had anything left, but I deltawinged, and that saw me through."  To deltawing means to stick with your goals and beliefs even in the face of great adversity and calamity.  It's a verb which all innovators need to know how to put into action. 

If you're trying to be innovative, you will fail.  You will fail many times.  How will you respond?  Your only choice has got to be to deltawing.

 

Learning from Professor Poubelle

Here's a charming video created a few years ago by my friends Bill Moggridge and Bernie Roth.  It tells the story of Professor Doug Wilde.  Here's the movie caption from YouTube:

Doug Wilde is an Emeritus Stanford Professor who suffers from a diabetic condition, but instead of resorting to insulin injections, he keeps his blood sugar balanced by bicycling up a steep mountain road. When this became a regular habit, he soon found himself picking up the trash by the side of the road as he went along, so he has become the single handed Adopter of Highway 84, earning a reputation with the locals for his sterling work.

I just learned of its existence today.  And I simply love it. 

While I was an undergraduate engineering student I took a class on machine design.  The final project was a team-based thing, and Professor Wilde placed us into teams based on data he collected about us using his principles of "Teamology", which is described as "An original transformation generates a numerical version of C. G. Jung's personality theory as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The cognitive mode scores obtained are used to form teams with desirable high scores for as many modes as possible. The scores also guide organization of the resulting teams."  It must have worked, because I got the highest grade of my undergraduate career in that class!  I'd like to think it was because of my hard work, but I think it was becaues of Professor Wilde's insights.  I was on a great team that made me a better engineer than I could have been on my own.

If you hang around the Stanford campus at all, you'll see Doug Wilde getting around on his bike, just as he did when I was a student there.  What an interesting human being.  I really dig this video because he not only has a strong point of view, but he puts it into action in a remarkable way.  Doing is the resolution of knowing, and see the nice places it all takes him. 

Thank you, Professor Poubelle!

 

Bill Moggridge, 1943-2012

Bill Moggridge

Alex Zanardi: Olympic gold medalist, hero

At the height of his powers as a race car driver, Alex Zanardi used to put on breathtaking displays of sheer genius and artistry, such as this notable victory:

He would then celebrate the sweetness of victory with a healthy serving of doughnuts, to wit:

So if you're Alex Zanardi and you win a gold medal at the London Paralympics, what do you do to celebrate now that everyone and his brother does doughnuts these days?

Why, that's easy: you raise your latest racing machine over your head and pump the sky with utter joy!

I wrote about this inspirational man called Alex Zanardi and what he means to me just the other week.  Well, today he won a gold medal at the London Paralympics.  An incredible feat for any 45 year old in an endurance event, let alone someone who has been through what's he's been though.  I honestly can't say that I admire him more today than ever, because he's my hero, plain and simple.  I'm just happy to see that good guys do win, and that hard work, perseverance, and tenacity do in fact pay off.

And I'm not the only one -- here's what Mario Andretti had to say today on Twitter:

"Alex Zanardi Olympic Gold & I can't stop laughing, crying, cheering.

Purely extraordinary what he's capable of. I love you man!"

Yeah, me too.

metacool Thought of the Day

“I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.”

- Neil Armstrong

Bob Sutton: creating infectious action

During the formative years of the Stanford d.school, I taught a class with Bob Sutton and some other colleagues called Creating Infectious Action.  The class revolved around a basic question: could ideas be designed to spread?

The answer, delivered by successive student design teams working to spread ideas as diverse as downloading Firefox to creating a pedestrian-only zone in Palo Alto, was an unqualified yes.  Yes, you can design ideas to spread, so long as you pay attention to something roughly approxmating these three key principles:

1. create something remarkable - an idea, product, or service
2. weave sticky stories around the offering
3. identify communities receptive to points 1 & 2, then light some small fires, and then spend time pouring gas on those fires

This week, Bob has created some hugely infectious action around the pathetic treatment by United Airlines of the daughter of our mutual friend and colleague Perry Klebahn.  You can read about it here.

I just did a Google News search on the topic, and over 160 news items have been written about this sad episode.  All of this from a blog post.  And there's more to come, for sure.

United's woeful performance is remarkable in a negative way that hits principle one above: a girl, stranded by an airline, kept from getting in touch with her parents, meanwhile surrounded by supposedly responsible adults who can only take action when they go off duty from their job at United.  And Bob has written some very sticky stories around this, all backed up by the authority which comes from an extremely well-regarded, tenured Stanford professor.  And to the third principle above, it's easy to dismiss this as some thing which just happens naturally on the web, but Bob has put a lot of hard work over the years into building an online audience for his blog.  It's an audience highly engaged with the hard issues of organizations and culture, primed and ready to spread an idea like this -- which reflects the very worst aspects of bureaucratic, disconnected, corporate cultures.

As a formerly loyal United customer who now goes out of my way to fly on JetBlue and Virgin America, I really hope that this sad story is a tipping point for United's management and culture, and gets converted into concrete, positive action.  It's rippling across the web, and it's going to be around for a long time, because it's designed to be infectious.

 

metacool Thought of the Day

“For every negative, there’s a positive.  It’s in everything.  How you deal with life, outlook, how much energy you put into achieving something.  That’s why I detest entitlement.  Anything that’s worthwhile is going to call for some sacrifice.  Nothing worthwhile will come to you without a price.  People think in sports, you have different rules.  You really don’t.  It’s whatever motivates you.”

- Mario Andretti

Embracing Risk in the Pursuit of Victory

Earlier this week I moderated a discussion with Stefan Bradl and Lucio Cecchinello titled Embracing Risk in the Pursuit of Victory.  Bradl and Lucio were appearing as part of the Open Garage series hosted by Reilly Brennan, Executive Director of the innovative Revs Program at Stanford.  Bradl is a rookie phenomenon in the MotoGP motorcycle racing series.  Cecchinello, also a successful motorcycle racing champion, is an entrepreneur who is CEO of LCR Honda MotoGP, the racing team that enters a motorcycle for Bradl in MotoGP.

Live discussions are always an exercise in improvisation and serendipity.  As a moderator, you can frame up a discussion, but you've got to go where the ideas take you, and weave a narrative from there.  Panel discussions are jazz where as a moderator your job is to lay out the chord changes and roll with whatever comes along.  Most "sage on stage" presentations are something more akin to a piano recital, less sponteaneous but beautiful in a linear way.

The point of view I brought to the discussion was that -- for racers and innovators both -- risk is not something to be avoided at all costs, but is instead a source of great opportunity.  Whether you're probing the limit of adhesion on a MotoGP bike through the corkscrew at Laguna Seca, or figuring out how to design a technology to a place where it is both delightful and business viable, you're pushing for something remarkable.  You can't be remarkable without taking a risk, whether that risk is financial, technological, emotional, or personal (or all of the above).  Healthy opportunity, in many ways, is proportional to smart risk-taking.

I had a great time speaking with Stefan and Lucio.  My impression was that the audience enjoyed the discussion with the racers on stage.  You can see an unedited video of the evening here:

I'd like express my deep thanks to Reilly for asking me to moderate this discussion, which was a big honor for me. And many thanks to all the team at LCR, who are an extremely friendly, fun, good-hearted bunch of hard-core racers.

Tenacity

This year I've written at length about the Delta Wing project.  Last month the team reached their goal of racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mons, and did very well.  The car performed as advertised and was putting in competitive lap times until it was forced off the road due to a racing incident.

At Le Mans, a driver is allowed to try and fix a broken car, but is not permitted to receive direct outside aid.  So the driver is the only person allowed to touch the car in the process of fixing it, but can be coached by other people from the team.  The tools used to fix the car have to be carried in the car, and no outside spare parts can be used.  If you're able to drive your disabled car back to the garage, the entire team can then go to work on it.  Because of these rules, and due to the extreme time duration of the race, there's an imperative for drivers to do whatever they can to nurse a car back to health.

At the time the Delta Wing was shunted off the rack, it was being driven by Satoshi Mototyama.  The video above is an edited account of the 90 minutes Motoyama spent trying to get the broken Delta Wing in good enough condition to limp back to the garage.  Through much of the video, he's being coached by his team of engineers and mechanics standing on the other side of a chain-link fence.  Bear in mind that while he's doing this, it's hot and humid outside, he's wearing several layers of fireproof underwear below a nomex firesuit, and extremely loud race cars are constantly zooming by.  And, he's wearing his racing helmet; it's remarkable how much vision a race helmet blocks out.  When I last wore mine in an unfamiliar car, it kept me from being able to see my own seat belt harness, which made it hard to get out when I wanted to!

As you can see from the video, it didn't work.  Even after 90 minutes of trying just about everything, nothing worked.  And yet, I find Motoyama's efforts deeply inspiring.  He tried like hell.  He put everything into trying to win.  As a person who believes in the power of putting in as much as you can when the chips are down, I find his courage and tenacitiy utterly inspiring.

While I'm sad that the grand Delta Wing Le Mans adventure ended this way, his conduct made it a noble ending.  Tenacity really matters, and in another place, it could have worked out for Motoyama.  Possessing the grit to see things out, that's a true gift, and it's one you want to see in everyone trying to bring something remarkable to life.

metacool Thought of the Day

Brought to you be the people at Highcroft Racing

Innovating is Tough: Hats off to the DeltaWing team

I had a deep emotional response while watching this video about the DeltaWing project.

If you've ever struggled to bring something new and innovative to life, you know what everyone in this video is going through. What they've accomplished is immensely impressive.

Toward the end of the video, Dr. Don Panoz is wearing a shirt with the following aphorism emblazoned on its back:

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Amen, Dr. Panoz.  Amen.  I think myself very lucky to be part of the team at IDEO, and there are very few teams or organizations I would consider signing up to belong to, but the DeltaWing project is certainly one of them.  I once again tip my hat to Ben Bowlby and everyone there who has worked so hard to make a clever vision into a stunning reality.

Innovating is tough.  Talking about it is easy.  Doing it to the hilt and creating a true gamechanger is beyond hard.  Respect.

Innovation Principles at work: 2, 6, 9, 15, 19, 20

Principle 2: See and hear with the mind of a child

Principle 6: Live life at the intersection

Principle 9: Killing good ideas is a good idea

Principle 15: Celebrate errors of commission. Stamp out errors of omission.

Principle 19: Have a point of view.

Principle 20: Be remarkable.

David Kelley on Creative Confidence

"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.

 

Climbing Mountains and Wells

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.

Big Bang Theory

The essay I wrote for RACER magazine is now available online.

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...

I hope you like it!  Thanks.

metacool Thought of the Day

"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."

- Grame Fife

 

metacool Thought of the Day

"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."

- Dan Gurney

 

Just Say No to Sarcasm

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.

Learning from the Panama Canal: John Stevens, innovator

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.

Here's a great one on the primacy of doing:

"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.  

Finally, I'll leave you with Steven's wonderful expression of what I call Innovation Principle 15: celebrate sins of commision, stamp out sins of omission:

"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.

Role Model: The Curiosity Chronicles

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.

metacool Thought of the Day

"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."

- Adrian Newey

Don't ignore a SUSFU

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:

SNAFU -- situation normal, all f**ked-up

FUBAR -- f**ked-up beyond all recognition

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:

SUSFU: situation unchanged, still f**ked up

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.

 

 

A million reasons why...

... 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.

metacool Thought of the Day

"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."

- James March

 

 

from A Conversation With James G. March on Learning About Leadership, by Joel Podolny

Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2011, Vol. 10, No. 3, 502–506. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2011.0003

Mo Cheeks and a fundamental question of leadership

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. 

Be Courageous: Bryan Stevenson

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.

metacool Thought of the Day

"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."

- David Brooks

 

metacool Thought of the Day

"Between the unknowns of birth and death it is our love and courage, the banishment of fear, that decides if we really lived."

- Steve Matchett

Innovation principles in practice: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 17, 19

Principle 1: Experience the world instead of talking about experiencing the world

Principle 2: See and hear with the mind of a child

Principle 5: Anything can be prototyped.  You can prototype with anything

Principle 6: Live life at the intersection

Principle 8: Most new ideas aren't

Principle 17: It's not the years, it's the mileage

Principle 19: Have a point of view

 

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.

 

Innovation principles in practice: 1, 6, 19, 20

Principle 1: Experience the world instead of talking about experiencing the world

Principle 6: Live at the intersection

Principle 19: Have a point of view

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

Innovation principles in practice: 14, 15, 20

Principle 14: Failure sucks, but instructs

Principle 15: Celebrate errors of commission

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

metacool Thought of the Day

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.

metacool Thought of the Day

"Don't get ready, get started"

- Perry Klebahn

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

IDEO x Rock Lobster Oregon Manifest Faraday: a French porteur with a little lightning up its butt

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.

Awesome work, guys.  Go Faraday!

From bespoke to just plain "be": the validity of a strong point of view

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.

 

metacool Thought of the Day

"Quixote reminds us

That if we trust only when

Trust is warranted, love only

When love is returned, learn

Only when learning is valuable,

We abandon an essential feature of our humanness."

- James G. March

 

Intrinsic motivation, a killer input

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.

 

 

photo credit: Chabott Engineering

What remarkable feels like

The anthem for everyone trying to make a dent in the universe

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba

Björgvin Tómasson's Gameleste

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.

metacool Thought of the Day

“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.”

- Charlie Trotter