metacool

thoughts on the art & science of bringing cool stuff to life, by Diego Rodriguez

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.

 

16 May 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Innovation principles in practice: 16, 19, 20

Principle 16: Grok the gestalt of teams

Principle 19: Have a point of view

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

05 May 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

metacool Thought of the Day

Eames+staff

"Never delegate understanding."

- Charles Eames

 

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

01 May 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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.

29 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

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.

24 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Email stinks

I’ve lost count of the number of misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and attenuated outcomes I’ve brought into being via the tips of my fingers.  No, I’m not talking about mediocre blog posts, I’m speaking to the thousands of emails I send each year. 

When it comes to the pursuit of creative outcomes, email stinks.  I wrote a few weeks ago about the debilitating effect of sarcasm in a creative workplace.  In that same context, email has its problems, too.  With email, not only is it difficult to discern whether sarcasm is at play, but it’s also hard to confidently parse out things like humor, fear, anger, defensiveness, kindness, curiosity… you get the picture.  And the give and take of a healthy in-person conversation becomes at best a somewhat disjointed verbal volley, at worst a damaging pissing match.

The solution?  Whenever possible, talk.  By phone, Skype, or even in person.  Talk.  Listen.  Talk some more.  Digest. 

It’s so much better to talk in person.  It is truly an imperative for teams and organizations pursuing any kind of creative outcome.  Email simply can’t deliver the critical nuances which help shepherd a process along to greatness.  And as critical as it is to talk directly with people within your own organization, it’s even more critical to do so with folks who sit beyond the confines of your four walls.  While it’s even harder to find ways to talk face-to-face with “outsiders”, you have to try, because you can’t rely on things like a shared culture or mission to provide the mutual trust which bridge the inherent deficits of email conversation.

Of course, for messages which need a scale of delivery, email is still one of the only tools at our disposal, but hopefully that will change soon.  Myself, I receive something over 300 emails a day, and I send something like 50. 

Emailing is a necessary evil, but if you commit to talking more and emailing less, then I will, too.

19 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2)

| |

Happy Birthday to a great innovator!

Bill-Milliken-Tackling-The-1947-Pikes-Peak-Hillclimb-Bugatti

Bill Milliken is celebrating his 101st birthday today!  Happy Birthday, Mr. Milliken!

18 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

Deltawing_snetterton_4_17_12_gal_006
The Delta Wing testing at Snetterton.  Gnarly.  Awesome.  Wicked.

18 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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

 

17 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

RACER 3.0

RACER 3.0 Delta Wing May 2012 cover metacool

In 1992 I received a direct mailing talking about a new magazine called RACER.  The mission of RACER, to provide a window into the world of racing, was tremendously exciting to me.  As a mechanical engineering student who wanted to become an engineer with Penske Racing or McLaren,  it was very difficult to find reputable sources of information about what was going in the world of racing and racecars.  I didn’t own a TV, the internet at that time was about very bare text message boards, and the few European racing magazines were too expensive for me to contemplate subscribing to. I would read as much as I could for free when I had the time to hang out at a local café and bookstand (which was not very often), so as a result I barely knew anything.  Case in point, when I applied for a job at Rahal Racing, tracking down their address in Ohio required an entire afternoon of card catalog searching at Stanford’s Green Library.  I kid you not.  Things have changed in the past 20 years.

I became a charter subscriber.  RACER went on to blow my mind as it expanded my horizons.  To feed my design engineering curiosity, it featured achingly gorgeous monthly photographic profiles of important race cars.  It helped me understand the complex strategies – sporting, business and organizational – which drive successful racing teams.  From a people perspective, RACER gave me insights into the thought and behavioral patterns of legendary design innovators such as Dan Gurney, Adrian Newey, Gordon Murray, and many more. 

Above all, RACER’s crisp editorial point of view helped me crystallize a deep belief in the power of acting over just talking, the value of making decisions, and the stark reality that in order to win a race, you have to first show up and start.  It made a big impact on this impressionable college kid.  For those of you who don’t know much about racing (or perhaps don’t care – which is fine, just keep reading metacool!), being a racer is a lot like being an entrepreneur (and most racers are entrepreneurs): it means making the most of what you’ve got, and putting everything you’ve got into what you’re doing.  It’s about being remarkable.  It’s a world where, in the words of racer Roger Penske, effort does indeed equal results.

RACER celebrated its 20th anniversary this past weekend with a big party (it was a good one, I must say!) at the Long Beach Grand Prix.  And as part of this big milestone, it is being relaunched as RACER 3.0, with a new aesthetic approach and a big new attitude – with a bunch of future innovations in the works.  The extremely gnarly relaunch cover of the May 2012 issue is pictured above, and it features my favorite new race car, the Delta Wing.  Does that look killer, or what?  The theme of the issue is “Game Changers”, and I’m deeply honored to have written its introductory essay.  Thank you, RACER.

If you happen to already subscribe to RACER, I hope you like what I wrote.  If you don't subscribe, please do!  Here's a link to an online version of the article.

For now, let’s all get back to making a dent in the universe!  WFO, people, WFO.  Be a racer!

16 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Innovation principles in practice: 2, 10, 17, 19, 20

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

Principle 10: Baby steps often lead to big leaps

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

Principle 19: Have a point of view

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

13 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Director's Commentary: Jeep Mighty FC

Here's a great look at the Jeep Mighty FC concept car, as told by its designers.  Though this director's commentary doesn't illuminate much of the actual design process which led to the creation of the Might FC, it does a wonderful job of showing us the importance of identifying and holding a strong point of view as you make your way through that process. 

In particular, I like this quote from Mark Allen, the lead designer:

Although we work for a very, very  large corporation, and you'd think there would be board meetings and all this stuff, really it's a few guys just saying, "I want to build this because it's cool."  To have that kind of flexibility in our corporation is great.  I've got great support to do this, and the vehicles come out very, very pure in thought.  They're not watered down through a bunch of meetings and decisions.  There's really never any regrets when we get it done.

Not only is it critical to establish a solid point of view, it is essential to trust the people who hold that vision to do the right thing.  A team of talented designers can create a compelling concept car like the Mighty FC.  An extremelky well-structured and led product development organization like Apple can take the vision of talented designers all the way to market.

I love this design.  I hope they find a way to make it -- it would be such a boon to the Jeep marque.

11 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

09 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and the Porsche 911

Porsche-Type-901-911-with-Ferdinand-Alexander-Porsche-1963-600

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, a designer who shaped many beautiful products, passed away yesterday.  He is pictured above astride one the truly iconic designs of the 20th century, the Porsche 911.  His Porsche, his design.

As an aside, how cool would it be to pose for a photo on a product of your own imagination?  Pretty cool, I think.

To my eyes, the Porsche 911 is an object I never tire of.  Particularly in its early incarnations, there's a very clean and pure design aesthetic at work.  I also love the later 911's, with their shapely hips and bulging flares and scoops and spoilers, but the original design offers something different: formal, modern minimalism very much in keeping with the work of Dieter Rams from the same period, yet still connected to the flowing, ur-Porsche shapes and surfaces penned by the great Erwin Kommenda in the 1930's.  In many ways that link between the streamlining period of car design and the very rational approach of the 1960's drives my abiding love of the 911 aesthetic: it is emotional in the right places, technical in the rest, and the combination just feels the way a sports car should: emotive, efficient, compact, agile.

I often think about cars I would want to have parked in my living room as sculptural objects, and an early 911 is at the fore, along with a Citroen DS, a Fiat 500, or a Saab 92.  They all have their genesis in a certain time period, which probably says more about me than it does about them.  But what I do think we can learn from all of these, and from Ferdinand Porsche and the 911 in particular, is the paramount importance of having a crisp point of view.  Product experiences that are remarkable to use, to behold, to feel, are always the result of talented people who not only know what they're shooting for, but know what good looks like.  If you want to have a thriving business concern, focus on creating great offerings first by hiring the best talent you can find an letting them run.

As an engineer, I can't help but admire the 911 from a dynamic standpoint.  Here is a classic example of an approach which works in practice but not in theory.  Who would have thought that this rear-engined architecture would go on to win everywhere from Le Mans to Daytona to Pikes Peak?  The inherent maneuverability and traction advantages of the 911, when put to good use, provide a textbook case of strategy being the art of making the most of what you have that other's don't.  A 911 is not a normal car, does not drive like one, and therefore can win in ways different from the mainstream.  For a more visceral perspective on that thought, please see my other blog.

Back to the man.  For me, the lesson I take from his story is that we must all strive to design our own lives.  He was lucky enough to be born into a successful family which was also a company.  On the other hand, imagine being born as Ferdinand Porsche, with a genius grandfather who defined many aspects of the automobile, and a successful industrialist father, who created a startup and navigated it to become a world-class brand.  That would be a tough legacy to live up to.  For some, that would be too much weight to carry.  I think for Ferdinand Alexander, the key was that he was honest enough to say that he would be an industrial designer, and not an engineer like his father and grandfather.  By doing so, he was able to express a deep congruence between his own dreams and the path of the firm, which resulted in the 911.  When those two diverged, he expressed the entrepreneurial instincts which I believe all great designers carry, and founded his eponymous design firm, which went on to create many lust-worthy products. 

So at the end of the day, whenever I see a 911, I'll think of the individual behind its shape, whose most worthy design was perhaps the arc of his own life.

 

06 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

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

 

03 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Concept Car at Your Peril

The term "concept car" is used in many industries today to refer to a prototype that's meant to test a marketing concept.  Obviously the origin of the term is in the auto industry.  Under the guidance of design maestro Harley Earl, General Motors refined the art of the concept car in the 1950's, using one-off prototypes to test and showcase styling "trends" or upcoming technical innovations.  A concept car is something for which the user experience has been fully fleshed out, but the supporting technical detailing may or may not be there, and certainly all the layers that make up a whole product -- sales, marketing, support, service -- are nonexistent.  A concept car is usually built as a one-off or in extremely low volumes.  These days if you were to bring a model -- working or not -- of a future personal computer to a tradeshow or demo opportunity, you might refer to it as a "concept car".

Last week Jeep released a concept car called the Mighty FC Concept.  As you can see, it's very gnarly:

Jeep Mighty FC Concept front quarter
Jeep Mighty FC Concept rear quarter

If you're the kind of person who dreams of parking a VW DOKA TriStar Syncro in your garage, as I write this you're probably creating an online petition to convince the powers that be at Jeep to put the Mighty FC into production.  For everyone else, please allow me to explain why this particular Jeep concept car has created a ton of buzz out among the forward-control cognoscenti, to wit:

  • Historical Reference: the Mighty FC pays homage to the original Forward-Control Jeep, which was actually put into production in the 1950's.  That particular design was done by the famous American designers Brooks Stevens.  So the Mighty FC plays to nostalgia, but also is an "in" statement for a certain crowd.
  • Functional Elegance: I haven't explained forward-control yet: it's when you take a truck chassis where the driver and steering wheel sit behind the front wheels, and via some mechanical contortions, you arrange the new seating position to be above or beyond the front wheels.  The iconic VW Bus is a forward-control job, too.  Functionally speaking, forward control is an elegant packaging solution because it moves human cargo to the periphery of the vehicle, opening up the rest for other stuff you'd want to haul around.  However, the functional deficit is that said human cargo now becomes the first on the scene of the accident, if you get my drift.  Given modern engineering techniques, materials, air bags, and structural know-how, I have to believe that the Mighty FC could be made relatively crash-worthy.  
  • Pure Macho Gnarlyness: while the Mighty FC is by Jeep after Jeep, I'd argue that its proportions and stance are actually those of the formidable Land Rover Forward Control.  The British surely know how to make a handsome military vehicle. Unlike the Land Rover FC, the original Jeep forward-control had the surface detailing and proportions of a plant-eater: gentle, bucolic, easy going.  Its trans-Atlantic second cousin, however, is big and bold and looks much mightier.  And that's what the marketplace wants: to look tough and mighty.  That green paint, those crazy portal axles, them big knobby tires, the two spot lights nestled up around that winch, those orange tow hooks, that bottle opener behind the driver's door handle -- this thing just looks killer.  It's like, visceral, man.

So Jeep is going to build it, right?  Who knows.  Actually, probably not.  I doubt that the business case for the Mighty FC would work out, and it's not clear there's actually a market for an off-road capable pickup -- it would likely appeal to that small segment of the auto-buying public which fancies vehicles such as the Citroen Mehari, BMW M Coupe, and Cadillac CTS-V wagon... eccentric cars, all, but memorable ones, too.  To market it would be really great for Jeep's brand.

And therein lies my beef with concept cars in general.  If you have a great idea, and if you believe in it, should you concept car it?  I'd say no.  If you aren't sure about it, there are other ways to gain confidence in its validity beyond showing your concept in public.  And, if its such a great idea, why show all of your competitors what you're working on?  Why tell them that you've had a great insight?  And why alert the marketplace to an upcoming innovation? A couple of decades ago, Apple used to show lots of "concept cars" of future computing devices, and to what end?  Very few of them shipped, and those that did were either met with disappointment -- because the reality couldn't compete with the concept -- or they drove down sales of existing product, which is not the best way to get the most out of your brand. 

But perhaps the biggest reason not to show concept cars you don't ever intend to produce is that you disappoint your biggest fans, those net promoters who would do anything for, and tell anyone anything positive about, your brand.  These are the folks who write blog posts like "I Am So Excited About The Jeep Mighty FC Concept I Think I Might Die", or who spend hours photoshopping your PR photos to show the rest of us what a four-door or full-van version might look like, or who write headlines in national newspapers asking "Has jeep created the most interesting concept of 2012?".  Do you really want to excite these folks, only to disappoint them over the longer term?  My gut says no.  Product brands aren't like perennially losing baseball teams whose fans have no alternative to their hometown monopolistic losers.  Instead, it's pretty easy to switch when you stop meeting my expectations.  Better to surprise and delight me with a real product I never anticipated, than to tease me with vaporware that we both know you'll never ship.

The whole point of having a strong point of view is to ship something remarkable.  And the reason we're here is to ship.  If you do have that strong point of view, believe in it first, and commit yourself to shipping.  Then -- and only then -- show off your concept car.

 

 

01 April 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2)

| |

Innovation principles in practice: 4, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17

This excellent interview with Professor William Sahlman covers many great points about innovating.  Please watch, listen, and enjoy.

  • Principle 4: Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong.
  • Principle 8: Most new ideas aren't
  • Principle 13: Do everything right, and you'll probably still fail
  • Principle 14: Failure sucks, but instructs
  • Principle 15: There's no way to correct nothing
  • Principle 17: It's not the years, it's the mileage

28 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Being remarkable, with Sam Zygmuntowicz

The decision to be remarkable is not one to be taken lightly.  It means you can't settle for anything less, and that's a big promise to make to yourself and others.

But man -- what a payoff.

27 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

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.

26 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (3)

| |

Innovation principles in practice: 2, 6, 8, 19

Pianist Jeremy Denk visited NPR's studios to play and reflect upon Bach's Goldberg Variations.  You can listen to the interview here -- it's fascinating.  Here's an excerpt:

One of the most beautiful thing about the Goldbergs is that Bach uses it as a canvas in which to draw this seemingly infinite world of possibility.  He grabs from everybody; he basically does a mashup. He does things in the style of the French overture, in the style of different dances; he does lamenting — from the smallest to the largest, from the happiest to the saddest.

I see a strong philosophical link here to Tom Waits and Ice Cube.  So much of the creatvity that fuels innovation is about connecting the dots between disparate sources of inspiration.  It's about sampling from here, from there, and synthesizing those pieces to create a new, innovative whole.  When you really examine them, many breakthroughs in the worlds of products, services, economics, and politics look a lot like what is happening with musical innovation, where it's about assorted bits and pieces being combined to create something which feels totally new at the time but which with time and perspective can be traced back to its component sources. 

 

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

Principle 6: Live life at the intersection

Principle 8: Most new ideas aren't

Principle 19: Have a point of view

22 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Learning from the Panama Canal: John Stevens, innovator

1905_stevens

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.

21 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

Role Model: The Curiosity Chronicles

Tumblr_m15exoEQBF1qi5ncj

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.

19 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

The Audi R18 e-tron quattro

6a00d8341c4fbe53ef0168e83bc14e970c-800wi

17 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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

16 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Innovating the Delta Wing Way

13nissandeltawinglaun

The Delta Wing.  It looks like a rocket, but it's a car.  It also represents a fundamental, albeit still potential, paradigm shift in our conception of what a racing car can be.  I love the way it looks, and am even more excited about what it represents.

For students of the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, the key question isn't "will it win?", but "how did it come to be?".  Hopefully someday someone will write a book on the story of the Delta Wing.  For now there's Wikipedia and this good Popular Mechanics article for those of you interested in the backstory on this amazing car.

Because I don't know enough yet about the how on this one, let's focus on the what.  If the Delta Wing were a movie and you were the director, here are the characters you'd ask central casting to deliver to your set to weave a compelling tale of daring innovation:


The Ace Technologist: Ben Bowlby is the technical mastermind behind the Delta Wing and the leader of a spectacularly talented and experienced design team.  I admire the elegance of his design vision, and the way in which he went back to first principles in order to reach for a new outcome.  The Delta Wing effectively performs as well as cars having double the horsepower.  That kind of elegant efficiency is what we need in the world today.  Efficiency is sexy, a notion that some wayward manufacturers would do well to rediscover.

The Visionary Entrepreneurs: two business-savvy racers were instrumental in making the Delta Wing happen.  Chip Ganassi provided financial backing for the first prototype of the Delta Wing, which was not accepted by the racing series it was designed for (see The Enlightened Incubator entry below).  Duncan Dayton then took the ball and ran with it, recasting the Delta Wing as a Le Mans competitor, and practising some magic to build a coalition capable of developing, building, testing, and ultimately running a competitive new racecar design -- quite a task.  Dayton epitomizes the truest sense of entrepreneurship: making things happen by making the smartest use of the resources you have at hand.  Dr. Don Panoz, an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, and Scott Atherton also played pivotal roles in the genesis of the Delta Wing.  And last but not least, kudos to Nissan for having the guts to engage with this endeavor as a motor supplier and sponsor.  Their commitment to innovating makes me want that GT-R even more.

A Team of Artists Who Ship: The Delta Wing is built by the heroes at All American Racers (AAR).  AAR is hallowed ground in the racing world, as place where heroes like  Dan Gurney and Phil Remington still walk the halls.  Over its long history, AAR has proven to be one of the most innovative institutions based on US soil.  I don't know about you, but the idea that the master maker Phil Remington had a hand in the creation of the Delta Wing, well, it sends shivers down my spine. 

The Enlightened Incubator: you can't run a race car without a sanctioning body to hold the race.  At the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans race, there are 55 positions available for race cars to compete.  Early on in the Delta Wing venture, Duncan Dayton and company secured the 56th place on the grid from the sanctioning body for Le Mans, the Automobile Clube de l'Quest.  While the Delta Wing won't be contesting the Le Mans race for points, it will be an integral part of the racing field, and will live out of the "56th garage" at the Le Mans circuit.  This idea of the 56th garage being available represents highly enlightened thinking when it comes to the art and science of innovation.  I've written before here on the vital importance of designating a place for the people in your organization to fail.  And while I hope the Delta Wing has a successful race at Le Mans, no matter what happens they will have learned a substantial amount, and the cause of innovation will be served.  Next year's car will be that much better due to the enlightened incubation of Garage 56.

Professionals to Get the Job Done: at the track, the Delta Wing will be run by the storied Highcroft Racing team.  Though most of the focus in racing is on the driver, it is actually one of the ultimate team sports, especially in the kind of endurance racing the Delta Wing is designed for.  Ideas are one thing, executing against them is quite another.  It takes a village. 

A Brave Protagonist: and then there's the human in the hot seat, Marino Franchitti.  Race drivers are only as good as their last race -- it's an incredibly competitive sport, and there's a line of drivers out the door waiting to take over your spot.  That's why I admire Marino Franchitti's willingness to take on the reputational and career risk of driving not just a new car, but a new paradigm.  Unfortunately, the world of racing does not operate by the rule of Silicon Valley, and failures are not celebrated as points of learning.  On the other hand, someone had to pilot the Wright Flyer, and now Orville's name is one for the ages.  Hats off to Marino, and here's to him showing us how fast this thing can really go, WFO.  He has guts.

One Sexy Beast: from an aesthetic standpoint, I think the Delta Wing rocks.  It looks wicked - why be beautiful when you could be interesting?  Of course, I've been accused of having a rather unmainstream view of car aesthetics (here, here, and here, for example), but I call 'em like I see 'em.  This thing grabs your attention, and keeps it.  I believe a whole generation of 8-year-old kids are going to fall in love with automobiles because of the Delta Wing.  And here's a suggestion to the fine folks at Polyphony and Nissan: create a digital version of the Delta Wing and let the rest of us drive it virutally in Gran Turismo 5.  It'll do wonders for the Nissan brand, and it will create a pull effect on the conservative world of racing: we really want to see you professionals race the cars we love driving online. 

To sum it up, if you're going to shift a paradigm, you could do worse than to try and do it with a really sexy beast like this one, but you'd better have the entire innovation ecosystem in place, too.  Enjoy the photos and videos below.

15nissandeltawinglaun

07nissandeltawinglaun

04nissandeltawinglaun

15 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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.

 

 

14 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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.

13 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Cockroach legs and the future of education

I'm really passionate about education, particularly when it comes to helping people learn how to become makers and creators.  That's why I'm currently spending a fair bit of my time outside of IDEO teaching and advising at the Stanford d.school, Harvard Business School (as an Entrepreneur in Residence), and at the MIT Media Lab. 

It's a cliche, but when you hang around smart, motivated makers, you learn as much as you teach.  It's particularly gratifying to help someone discover that they're indeed passionate about the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, and then to help them figure out how to build an existence around doing it.  In the process, I believe, they become better entrepreneurs, builders, creators -- people who get stuff done and help build a better society for all of us.  I just wish this stuff could happen earlier in people's lives, that more kids and young adults had access not just to the training they need, but to a world view where they hear "You can do it!" much more often than "No you can't." or "Who do you think you are?".

I was blessed to grow up in a household where this stuff was in the air.  I took it for granted that people built stuff and that engineering, creativity, art, and the sciences were things worth investing your life in.  After last year's TED I singled out Salman Khan's talk on education as one that knocked my hat in the creek.  At this year's TED I saw a live demonstration which made me think about the awesome creative experiences I had as a kid which set me up to do the things I enjoy doing today.  As it so happens, there's a brilliant video of that same demo I participated in at TED, and you can see it right here -- it's the first release done as part of TED's new education initiative called TED-Ed:

Is that cool, or what? From thinking of the brain as a lump of fat, to seeing cockroaches chilling out, to cleverly utilizing the cockroach leg to literally see how a neuron fires, it's science made tangible. And I'd wager it's a lot stickier than anything you saw in high school.

Here's the TED-Ed manifesto:

TED-Ed's mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. We do this by pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos. A new site, which will launch in early April 2012, will feature these new TED-Ed Originals as well as some powerful new learning tools.

It's going to be really cool!  Hopefully this initiative will help lots of kids (and maybe some adults, too!) see how they might learn to creatively express themselves across many realms of human knowledge.  Excellent!

12 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

Bugatti-100P-Airplane
Bugatti-100P

The Bugatti 100P. 

Designed from 1937-1940 by Ettore Bugatti and Louis de Monge.

 

via Silodrome

09 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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

08 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Prototyping is the process

MVC-049X

If you google "design thinking process", you'll be presented with a series of diagrams or lists or steps which, in a linear fashion, purport to represent the way a good designer works.  They'll often look something like this:

  1. Understand
  2. Observe
  3. Ideate
  4. Prototype
  5. Test
  6. ... and cycle back to Step 1

We're all familiar with cooking manuals, and this one feels not unlike a good recipe for chocolate chip cookies... first this, then that, and then do this.  Easy, safe, predictable, comfortable. 

Except, that's not the way designing really happens.  There is no six-step process to design nirvana.  It doesn't exist.  Over the years I've tolerated and communicated this linear portrayal of the design process because it's an easy way to explain the gist of things to folks not familiar with the art and science of bringing new stuff to life.  The secret is that, when you're designing, it feels like all of these at once.  So I used to draw this linear process up on a wall, and then wave my hands in the air and say something like "But really, it's a big furball... when you're really doing it, you're bouncing all over the place and the steps don't matter." 

I think we can do better than that.  And now I know how.

A wise colleague recently corrected me on all of this.  "Prototyping isn't a step in the process," he said.  "It is the process." 

Exactly.  Designers are always prototyping, whether it's moving things around in their imagination, building a reverse income statement in Excel, or hacking something out of wood using a sidewalk as sandpaper.  The notion that a designer waits until it's "prototyping time" to start messing around with stuff is just wrong.  Prototyping starts when the design process begins, and it never stops.  We build to understand.  We observe for generative insight but we also observe to gather data regarding the hack we just whipped up ten minutes ago.  We ideate with our gut and our hands as much as with our brains.

We prototype all the time.  We must prototype all the time.  Prototyping is the process.

07 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (5)

| |

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. 

06 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2)

| |

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.

05 March 2012 | Permalink | Comments (3)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

CES_Fuji_XPro1_TC09_A

The Fujifilm X-Pro1

25 January 2012 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

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

 

12 January 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

What's a sleestak?

Where do great songs come from?  A great question, to which I must ask: what's a sleestak?

Every once in a while, I become obsessive about a special tune.  Case in point, I've probably listened to Tower of Power's Knock Yourself Out several thousand times.  When I encounter a piece I like, I need to listen to it over and over and over to unlock its secrets.  It drives my wife nuts.

Here's my latest obsession, a tune called Cloisonné:

Readers of metacool will know that I deeply admire They Might Be Giants.  Not only is their cover of Tubthumping the official anthem of all of us trying to make a dent in the universe, but over and over they create some amazing pieces of music which are highly creative, playful, and original.  Art.  They are also a case study in group creativity, having produced a stream of consistent innovation over a period of 30 years.  How many individuals -- let alone groups or organization or companies -- can lay claim to a track record like that?

Back to Cloisonné.  In the following passage, John Flansburgh talks about the creative process that lead to tales of second-story sleestaks breathing on his dice:

The story behind the song Cloisonne is pretty discombobulated. In an experimental period of putting Join Us together we created a series of electronic beats entirely without song ideas behind them. The idea was to make the tiniest drum machine-based beats that were still exciting. I probably spent twelve hours just editing and tweaking these sounds with no particular song in mind. The lyric is kind of from a Rat Pack point of view--like the guy singing is really into his own swagger, but he's also kind of out of date and out of it. The idea of not knowing what a sleestak is does come from my real life--I am actually exactly a year too old to have watched that show. Having to have Land of the Lost explained to you is slightly undignified, but thus is the fate of those who get old.

This version of the song is essentially our live band arrangement of the song. John L. is playing a bass clarinet, and we took Stan Harrison's inspired, highly chromatic sax intro and outro and mangled it in our fashion. Our apologies to Stan!

Personally, I like the Stan Harrison version on the album more than this one, but that's because the saxophone arrangement reminds me of The Borneo Horns, whose leader is arguably the greatest saxophonist in the world, Lenny Pickett, who played that incredibly gnarly solo on Knock Yourself Out, and who collaborated with Stan Harrison to create the Borneo Horns.  And yes, I've listed to my precious Boreno Horns CD thousands of times...  but enough of this beeswax, let's get back to our conversation about innovation and creativity.

Perhaps the astounding fecundity of imagination presented to us by They Might Be Giants can be attributed to several of my innovation principles.  To wit:

  • Principle 2, Hear and see with the mind of a child: clearly They Might Be Giants are able to think differently about the kinds of things which other adults take for granted in day to day life.  Othewise, how do you go from Quonset huts to law enforcement to sleestaks?  Free association, creative association, and wordplay are all common behaviors in kids, but they get squeezed out of us as we jump through the hoops of scoring 90% on spelling tests, hitting 740 on the GMAT, and getting through that interview with the company we always wanted to work for.  You can see see and hear the way you did as a kid, but it takes practice.  Clearly the guys at TMBG are still in practice.
  • Principle 11, Everyone needs time to innovate: I love the story Flansburgh tells above, because Cloisonné happened even though they weren't even trying to write a song.  They were screwing around with electronic beats for the sake of screwing around with electronic beats.  This is intrinsic motivation at its best, and it's the kind of time that's rarely accounted for in mainstream business.  Forget 10% time or 20% time or that funky offsite, how much time do people have for seemingly unproductive, totally unaccountable time to simply play with stuff?  Messing around is a surprisingly effective way to get to unique and novel outcome.
  • Principle 19, Have a point of view:  Yes, they have one.  It's about telling interesting stories in unusual ways, and never telling the same one twice.  They aren't working from script vetted by 100 layers of focus group-approved marketing criteria.  This is them, and they are this stuff.

By the way, the generation of this blog post required nine spins of Cloisonné and another ten of Tubthumping.

What's a sleestak?  Yeah, I had to ask, too.

05 January 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Innovation principles by Markkula

Applemarketingphilosophy

The genesis of these thoughts on marketing from Mike Markkula are detailed on page 78 of Walter Isaacson's intriguing biography of Steve Jobs.  In their clarity, simplicity, and actionability, they are stunning.  As a marketer, I take three lessons from them.

First, they are about people.  Markets are made up of individuals.  When striving to bring something new and cool to life, we're much better off imagining the life of a single customer than we are trying to disaggregate and disambiguate mountains of anonymized market data.  A holistic understanding of the customer experience you wish to enable is a great way to start creating mind-blowing products.  As a way of being, empathy is to product developers what The Force is to Jedi Knights.

Second, they are focused on the market.  Surely great marketing is always about the market?  Not always, and not so often: in my experience, many marketers worry more about communicating with each other internally than they do with real people in the marketplace.  They spend more time reading reports created by others than they do learning from the market directly.  They don't use products created by competitors, nor do they try to experience their channels in the way that an end user would.  They may or may not love their product segment -- I mean, can you imagine Steve Jobs hawking anything other than stuff he believed in? Significantly, none of Markkula's dictums explicitly mention the internal functions or structure of the enterprise.  Granted, it could be argued that "Focus" is about both the internal choices an organization makes about what not to do, as well as on all the market-facing features, line extensions, and complementary offerings it chooses not to invest in.

Third, they focus on the big picture and on the smallest details.  Yes, you need to understand where the market is going and how culture, politics, and macro economic trends may influence your future state in three to five years.  But you also must appreciate the nuances of texture, smell, form, sound, proportions, and color.  The realm of the visceral is always there, our minds and hearts want things to feel good and true.  Everything matters, and marketers (or designers, or businesspeople, or engineers -- it's all the same to me) ignore this truth at their peril.

 

Back on planet metacool, I believe the following innovation principles are at work in Markkula's document:

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

Principle 3: Always ask: "How do we want people to feel after they experience this?"

Principle 9: Killing good ideas is a good idea

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

24 December 2011 | Permalink | Comments (3)

| |

metacool Thought of the Day

Simoncelli 2011

"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

22 December 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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.

 

08 December 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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

 

06 December 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Innovation principles in practice: 14, 15, 20

Principle 14: Failure sucks, but instructs

Principle 15: Celebrate errors of commission

Principle 20: Be remarkable

 

05 December 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

RIP, Sergio Scaglietti

Ferrari250gto

The great entrepreneur, marker, artist, and businessman Sergio Scaglietti passed away on Sunday.

Via his intuition-driven design process, Scaglietti created some of the most visual stunning cars of all time, such as the Ferrari 250 GTO pictured above.  In the humble opinion of this writer, he also brought to life the most gorgeous and lust-worthy designs ever marketed by Ferrari, which is really saying something.  His creations took a Modenese vernacular sculptural aesthetic and made it the international standard for all things red, loud, curvy, and fast.

21 November 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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.

16 November 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Your head is a melting pot

My eighth principle for innovators is titled "Most new ideas aren't".  To be honest, I've never been crazy about that title, because it focuses more on your ideas and less on what you're going to go with them.  So what if you ideas aren't new?  It simple doesn't do a good job of highlighting the major thrust of principle eight, which is to actively learn from the work of others.  As I wrote in the original description, it's all about learning from others (which now more than ever is a completely free activity):

Accepting that someone else already had your idea is liberating, because it frees you up to learn.  It moves the focus from what's going on in your head to what's going on in the world.  Much of innovating is actually about stealing ideas from one context, connecting them to other ideas, and putting them to work in another.  Where can you find analogous experiments or successes or failures that can inform your own work? Remember, before Facebook there was Friendster.  And before the iPhone came the Newton.  You can choose to live ignorance of what came before or what is happening in other parts of the world, or you can dive in and embrace all their hard-won lessons as your own.

Speaking of embracing someone else's hard-won lessons as your own, my friend and colleague Ryan Jacoby just pointed me to this fascinating interview with Tom Waits.  Touching on many aspects of his career and creative process, it's fun ramble of a talk.  To the point of this little essay of mine, Mr. Waits makes the following point about his own creativity:

Your head is a melting pot. You tell all the things you're listening to to get down and start melting. Trying to be original is kind of a futile thing.

I love this.  Instead of making a bummer statement about new ideas not being new, it encourages you to embrace the creative wildness brewing back there in yer head.  Crank up the heat.  Use a pressure cooker.  The more ideas you can access and learn from and combine -- either via your individual memory banks or those of Google or your social networks -- the better. 

"Your head is a melting pot." How does that work as a new title for Principle Eight? If you have any other ideas or suggestions, please leave a comment below.

Eight, by the way, rhymes with Waits.

 

30 October 2011 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

metacool Thought of the Day

Perry

"Don't get ready, get started"

- Perry Klebahn

10 October 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness

Apple_II_Plus

06 October 2011 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

More Oregon Manifest: go IDEO!

Screen shot 2011-10-06 at 9.22

A quick update: the IDEO x Rock Lobster team won the Creative Collaboration Bike award from the Oregon Manifest.

Go Faraday!

06 October 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0)

| |

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:

  OM_IDEO_RockLobsterCycles-e1317012904406

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!

29 September 2011 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

Neal Stephenson on stepping away

If you're like me (because I hope I'm a little dorky like my colleague Joe Brown), you're making your way through Neal Stephenson's new book Reamde. I'm loving it. Along with Kevin Kelly's stunning What Technology Wants, I think Reamde is one of a handful of must-read books from 2011. In fact, based on the fifth of the novel I've digested so far, I think they're essentially the same book, albeit entered from different points on the fiction to non-fiction spectrum. Buy 'em both, read 'em both, compare and contrast.

Anyway, a few nights ago I stumbled upon this brief interview with Neal Stephenson while snooping for some additional information about Reamde:

[For some reason this, video has been pulled from YouTube in the last day or so.  To summarize, it's an interview with Neal Stephenson, and in it he says that he works for an hour or so each morning, and creates approximately a page of really good prose, and then he goes off and does something else for the day.  When he was younger and less experienced as a writer, he used to crank and crank, resulting in lots of subpart work which he then had to expend a lot of energy to dig out from under.  I'm leaving this blank video here as a reminder to reinsert it whenever the powers that pulled it decide to repost it.  It's a great interview.  Bummer.]

Sound familiar?  Stephenson's views on productivity and quality are evocative of those of Roald Dahl, whose thoughts I explored at the start of the year.  When it comes to works requiring intense concentration -- many of which seem to deal with the creation of works of language -- I am noticing that many of the best practitioners of the art not only know when to stop, but know when not to work.  This goes for everyone from songwriters to poets to novelists to practitioners of agile software development.  They stop while the going is good, and they refuse to work when they know their quality will be subpar.  Of course, this also means that they've achieved a state of self-awareness where they know that the quality of their content will drop after a certain amount of effort is expended.

When it comes to the matter of reaching a state of personal creative confidence, amassing enough experience so that you can do more in less time, gaining the wisdom to recognize when you're not functioning at your best, and coupling those two with the confidence to call it quits until the next time you meet your canvas feels like a holy grail of sorts. This brings several questions to mind for me, some personal, some not so:

  1. How do you find the hour?  Whether commiting to an exercise regimen or a writing routine, making the time and commiting to it feel like a huge hurdle.  At a personal level, could I ever find an hour each morning to write?  I too believe that writing done in the cool light of the morning is writing done well, unlike the ill-considered words I spew now after a long day at work.  If I could find this hour of writing, it would mean I could finally crank out that book you've been bugging me to do about my principles of innovation.  On the other hand, it would mean going to bed earlier each night (I need my sleep), and that would imply less reading and the inspiration which comes with it. How do you find the hour?
  2. If you stop early, how do you amass the hours you need to become truly proficient at something?  Can you get to a point of practicing your craft for an hour a day if you haven't first spent many days overworking yourself for 10 or more hours at a clip?  I practiced for many years as an engineer, and the practice of engineering was long and hard.  School was long and hard; I also obtained a humanities degree alongside my engineering diploma, and I can honestly say that each of my weekly problem sets for each of my engineering classes was equivalent in difficult and total time commitment to any of the end of term papers I wrote for my humanities seminars.  I'm not poo-pooing humanities work, I'm just saying that for me the study of engineering was long and difficult.  And then, once you are a young engineer learning your trade, the hours don't seem to drop.  Once, when I was still a neophyte praticing engineer, I complaining out loud about the fact that our head engineer -- who had at least 20 years of experience on me -- always left the office at 5pm, while I never got out of there before 9pm, chained to my CAD machine as I was.  A more experienced colleague of mine within earshot immediately remarked to me that maybe this other guy could leave the office because he knew how to do his job, and I didn't.  He was right.  I didn't really know how to do my job yet.  I see young designers grapple with this all of the time.  These days, having spent almost 20 years engaging in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life I think I can leave at 6pm and feel pretty good about having put in a good day's work.  I suppose there's something in here about Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule, but at least for me, 10,000 hours doesn't feel like its enough if you're always looking to learn and improve...  I'm not quite ready to leave at 5pm on a consistent basis.  Not experienced enough yet, I suppose.
  3. Where does the variety come from?  Stephenson is very clear about his need to seek out a variety of experiences outside the walls of his writing studio.  It's the un-pause which refreshes.  Many of the most creative people I know -- from engineers to graphic designers to professors to venture capitalists -- make it a point to end their days and weeks with with a sizable block of hours they can't account for.  This could come from grabbing coffee with a friend, playing a round of ultimate frisbee, or going for a long joyride in your friend's GT3 in the hills above Silicon Valley (who, me?).  Stefan Sagmeister closes his office -- totally shuts it down -- to give himself a year of "retirement" in which he goes and works on different stuff in order to refertilize the mainstream work awaiting him upon his return. Random encounters with interesting streams of life coming at you not only lead to the serendipity of which innovations are made, but they rest an rejuevenate in a way that the grindstone just can't.  Where does all of this variety come from?  As with finding the hour to write, it feels like it's a different form of discipline you need to impose upon yourself.

This is a long post because I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.  I'm just writing to think.  I'd love to hear what you think.  Thanks!

 

27 September 2011 | Permalink | Comments (1)

| |

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:

Metacool crocs + wingtips

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.

 

20 September 2011 | Permalink | Comments (2)

| |

« Previous | Next »

Categories

  • designing
  • innovating
  • leading
  • marketing
  • meta metacool

search


About

Subscribe to this blog's feed

    follow me on Twitter

    Favorite Posts

    • A million reasons why...
    • Mo Cheeks and a fundamental question of leadership
    • Innovation Lessons from Garage Majal
    • From Obama to Pink to Oprah
    • Shinya Kimura and the primacy of doing
    • A tribute to friends and friendship
    • Strategy that makes your hands bleed
    • Quality in a switch
    • Travis Pastrana and the future of the world economy

    on the nightstand

    • : The Great Bridge

      The Great Bridge

    • : Porsche - Origin of the Species

      Porsche - Origin of the Species

    Principles for Innovating

    • 1: Experience the world instead of talking about experiencing the world
    • 2: See and hear with the mind of a child
    • 3: Always ask: "How do we want people to feel after they experience this?"
    • 4: Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong.
    • 5: Anything can be prototyped. You can prototype with anything.
    • 6: Live life at the intersection
    • 7: Develop a taste for the many flavors of innovation
    • 8: Most new ideas aren't
    • 9: Killing good ideas is a good idea
    • 10: Baby steps often lead to big leaps
    • 11: Everyone needs time to innovate
    • 12: Instead of managing, try cultivating
    • 13: Do everything right, and you'll still fail
    • 14: Failure sucks, but instructs
    • 15: Celebrate errors of commission. Stamp out errors of omission.
    • 16: Grok the gestalt of teams
    • 17. It's not the years, it's the mileage
    • 18: Learn to orbit the hairball
    • 19: Have a point of view
    • 20: Be remarkable

    CC

    • Creative Commons License