Reverb Consulting

Guy Kawasaki, plain-spoken serial entrepreneur and legendary venture capitalist recently gave one of the keynote addresses at the National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference in Chicago. Drawing from his books The Art of Innovation and its newer iteration Reality Check, Kawasaki outlined 10 things to realize and incorporate into one’s habits, mindsets, and behaviors to be innovative. To fully appreciate Kawasaki and his work, one has to understand the tacit assumption from which he operates (it may be tacit but it is loud and strong: INNOVATE OR DIE!)

Strive to do the following:

1. Make meaning. “The people who wake up in the morning wanting to make meaning usually succeed. The people who want to make money usually fail. Those who perpetuate good things, cause good things, or end bad things – those are the innovators.” Kawasaki illustrates this with the Nike ad aimed at women. The ad sells the idea that when you exercise, you empower yourself. Nike turned two pieces of cotton and rubber (shoes) into efficacy, liberation, and power. Nike is making meaning out of shoes. They are selling self-empowerment, not shoes.
2. Make a mantra. “Most organizations make mission statements and most mission statements suck!” By contrast, a mantra is no more than two or three words.” Kawasaki’s offers examples of mantras he would adopt based on places he frequents. Wendy’s should be “healthy fast food;” Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance;” eBay represents “democratization of commerce;” and Target could be “democratize design.” Kawasaki suggests that a bad mission statement creates a bad company vision.
3. Jump to the next curve. “Don’t be satisfied battling it out on the same curve as all of your competitors.” Kawasaki suggests doing what they can’t do. Macintosh created a whole new curve, not a slightly better DOS computer. The telephone was not a slightly better telegraph, it was a whole new curve. Most organizations define their business on the curve they’re on. If you truly want to be innovative, it’s not about doing things 10 percent better – jump the curve to do something 10 times different and better!
4. Roll the DICEE. All innovations share the following elements.
   Depth: Create great products and services that are revolutionary
   Intelligent: Someone has anticipated what’s necessary
   Complete: Not just the leather and steel and glass of the car – it’s the totality of the experience, it’s the Lexus experience.
   Elegance: The beauty of the industrial design.
   Emotive: Generate strong emotions – people love what you do or hate what you do, but they are certainly not indifferent. The worst case is that people don’t care about what you do.
5. Don’t worry, be crappy (which Kawasaki readily admits is a blatant rip off of the Bobby McFerrin song). If you wait for perfection, you’ll never be ready to act. Act first, improve later. Too many organizations and people have analysis paralysis which costs us time, money, creativity, and market share, all of which lead to a death trap.
6. Polarize people (emotiveness). Many organizations try to be all things to all people, which inevitably produces mediocrity. Don’t try to anger people, but do not hesitate to alienate a group that you can do without.
7. Let 100 flowers blossom (”stolen from Chairman Mao”). For example, Apple’s original goal wasn’t to spark a new desktop publishing industry, but it did encourage many software companies to write programs for the Mac. Apple Computer would have died if the Aldus Corporation hadn’t developed PageMaker for the Mac in 1985 – thus expanding the Mac beyond a simple word processor or spreadsheet tool.
8. Churn, baby, churn (yes, another song rip off – thank you to the Trammps!). To be an innovator, you need to be in denial. Ignore the bozos who keep telling you it cannot be done. Then listen to customers to see how to fix your product. Fix it, ship it, listen. Then, start again: fix it, ship it, listen. It is a never-ending process.
9. Niche thyself. You want high uniqueness and high value. If you’re a great value but not unique, then you always have to compete on price (i.e., Dell Computer). If you’re only unique without value, you’re just a clown – you own a market that doesn’t exist. If your product/service is neither unique nor valuable, quit! You want to produce something that is unique and of great value to the customer, like the Smart car, which can park perpendicular to the curb, among other things. Determine what is unique about youand make sure your uniqueness is of value.
10. Follow the 10-20-30 rule. Create a maximum of 10 slides in a PowerPoint presentation; deliver it in 20 minutes; the optimal size font is 30 points.
11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down. Rich and famous parses to “lucky” not necessarily smart. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at who he gives it to.” So watch for Bozosity. Take a shot of Bozosity to inoculate yourself against it.

So, now you have the list. What to do with it? How to use it? My suggestion is to sit down in a quiet environment. Close the door, or better, go to a new place where you can be free of all distractions and have a serious one-on-one conversation with yourself. Ask: what is keeping me from believing or embracing this suggestion? Where am I on a scale of believing this and how can I influence a stronger understanding of this concept? In other words, take a serious inventory of where you are and what you need to do to move forword. Why? Remember: Innovate or die. That applies to us as organizations and us as individuals in organizations.

March Madness! We wait for it every year at our house. Even though we don’t really pay attention to basketball, until about the first of March, my three children, my husband, and I look forward to picking names out of the hat to see who has what teams and how they will fare, playing through the brackets.

The NCAA Division 1 Men’s Tournament is the best kind of bracketology - 65 select, highly capable teams competing via an exciting process of elimination. Winner takes all.

You might ask what kind of other bracketology is there? Bracketology is actually a synonym for reductionist thinking, and it was featured in a 2007 book, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. I thought this was an exciting concept and went to the bookstore intending to buy this book. Upon looking at it, even thought it was well done and fun, I did not purchase the book because narrowing anything down to a single best, only one winner is antithetical to what I believe in and how my mind works.

Reductionist thinking is logical, scientific reasoning. It is binary, built on either/or, better or worse. It is the process of winnowing. Too often we consider reductionism as the only true logic and the only sound way to make decisions.

Reductionism lacks imagination and intuition. Reductionism does not make room for ambiguity and paradox, both of which are more apt and reliable in explaining and understanding complexity. Therefore, reductionism, as I see it, provides not only a false sense of security, power, and progress, it develops a false picture of a situation because it over-simplifies.

I favor a more radiant, imaginative thinking process that embraces both/and, sometimes, in this case, and for right now as descriptors. Radiant thinking seeks to make connections and associations, to spread out ideas and assumptions in order to expose gaps and create space for invention and innovation between structures.

When does bracketology work? Only after a long season of practice and play, as each team that makes the tournament knows. Their season record and conference play earns them a Bracket invitation. In working with ideas and concepts, use bracketology only after a long season of play and practice in expanding and experimenting. Don’t narrow or rush the important imaginative work of problem-seeing and solution creation.

Jackie Huba of The Church of the Customer blog posts an interesting question regarding the economic value of word of mouth referrals from existing customers. She asks, “Do you know the referral value of your best customers? That is, do you know how much revenue is generated from customers who refer you, and how much revenue is lost from those who recommend against you?” Huba offers research Satmetrix has conducted in the wireless communication industry. It is great to be able to get specific.

Here, however, is my specific enough answer to her question:

Your best customers’ referral value is priceless! Learn to harnass it!

Paying attention and managing your word of mouth is worth a lot to your business, regardless of what sort of business you are in. Knowing your influencers, evangelists, and promoters is vital to spreading good will and making the case of your value-added. These people are in effect your volunteer sales force. They can promote and validate from the user’s perspective. In addition, they can create positive conversations to diffuse or neutralize any negative word of mouth that is swirling.

Once you know who your influential customers are, engage them, educate them, include them, marshall them, appreciate them, validate them, reward them, support them, etc. etc. etc. - get the picture? If you have to ask why, start at the top and read this post again.

Denizen Hotels will become a cultural epicentre at each of its destinations, cultivating community within its walls. Eclectic, social and humbly authentic, each property within the brand will be smart in design, cultural in character and sensitive in service delivery. Developed as an international intersection of business and pleasure, Denizen Hotels will redefine how guests stay and play. With innovative check-in technologies and in-room comfort controlled at the touch of a button, Denizen Hotels destinations will harness the best and brightest design and technology to provide a seamless guest experience for the modern traveler.

The above description is from an email I received from Hilton Hotels announcing their newest brand, Denizen. A denizen is an inhabitant, or someone who has been granted residence in a foreign country, or, more casually, someone who frequents a place, like a bar would have its local denizens.

What struck me in reading this hotel description was how schools should strive to accomplish the same end goals in their environments. Below is my re-write for a school. I am naming my school Right On! because that is what a school should feel like to the kids and parents that experience it.

Right On! School will become a cultural epicentre in each of its classrooms at every grade level, cultivating community within its walls and outdoor learning spaces. Eclectic, social, and humbly authentic, Right On! School will be smart in design of its learning practices and learning spaces, cultural in its learning focus, and sensitive in its service delivery to both students and parents. Developed as an international intersection of work and play, Right On! School will redefine how students learn, play, and build relationships that span the globe. Right On! School will define how parents and teachers learn, support, and guide children. With innovative technologies and in-room physical and emotional comfort controlled as determined by the needs of each individual learner, Right On School classrooms will harness the best and brightest design and technology to provide a relevant preparatory experience for the modern learner and his or her parents.

In the top right corner, the circled exclamation point, would be their logo because, even though children have to be in a contained place that we call school, it should and can and is most effective when it is exciting!

via nytimes.com

Charter Schools could find themselves in greater numbers and offering more value because of the values they can offer and can teach and live out. Great to see!

Posted via web from jamiereverb’s posterous

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

via nytimes.com

If we were to have a universal, high quality, enriched experience for every child to develop learning readiness and effective social skills, just think of the potential and capacity we are developing for all of our schools, all of our communities, and all of our futures. Just imagine!

Posted via web from jamiereverb’s posterous

via nytimes.com

So, what won’t we Yelp given a little more time and more saturated mobile tools? We as consumers yelp about our experiences all the time, but our current megaphone extends to our play lot, our email list, our coffee group. Add high speed global connectivity, no filters except your personal idea of civility, and unarticulated criteria and you have a management nightmare for any business trying to deliver a high quality experience, service, or product. Tomorrow’s question, that will be here in just a few minutes is how can we develop some positive Yelp? Or, just pretend Yelp doesn’t exist, and that will develop its own category of Yelp.

Posted via web from jamiereverb’s posterous

via commercialappeal.com

Be ware of drunk flying birds! I see them everywhere near where we live downtown!

Posted via web from jamiereverb’s posterous

via nytimes.com

Is this the first domino? How fast will they fall? Why couldn’t they see it coming?

Posted via web from jamiereverb’s posterous