Don't Talk About It, Be About It
New York City is so big and so dense that you don’t have to be terribly successful to be terribly successful.
The Cat Poking his Head Out of the Bag
LexThink Legal Blogging Summit. November 2005. Chicago. More soon.
Idea x Execution = Value
Derek Sivers does some “entrepreneurial” math:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
Look at the Other Side of the Coin.
Zane Safrit, rememberingPeter Jennings:
I'm not writing an eulogy. I'm writing because of one thing he said aboutcovering the news. He compared it to looking at a coin. He always wanted to lookat the other side.
This may be the single bestexplanation of true intellectual curiosity I’ve heard.
Unreasonable Requests
I had the pleasure of a long telephone conversation with Lisa Haneberg yesterday. Lisa gave me some great tips I’m sure to implement in my Innovation Coaching Program, but one thing she told me really got my attention. Each week, she resolves to make at least five “unreasonable requests” to people she has no business asking for favors. She reasons that if just one request is granted, she’s gotten a bit of a bonus that week. Doing a quick google search, I realize I’m not the only one impressed by Lisa’s approach.
I’m working on my list of unreasonable requests now. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Announcing LexThink Innovation Coaching
I have spent the last two months working on a project I’m happy to announce here first: LexThink! Innovation Coaching. The formal announcement will come September 1, 2005, but I wanted to share a sneak peak at my business plan with my blog readers.
- Seventeen Clients: I’m absolutely focused on giving my clients the best coaching experience they’ve ever received. Each coaching class will be limited to seventeen clients because that’s the number I can best serve.
- Seventeen Days: My ideal coaching client is a busy professional who is unwilling to make a long-term commitment to a business coach. That’s why I’m limiting the duration of the coaching program to seventeen days. Here’s how it will work:
- For the first three weeks (Monday through Friday), coaching clients will get twice-weekly coaching calls from me, take part in small group discussions, and complete daily creativity and idea-generation exercises as they learn to make innovation a regular part of their business day.
- The last two days (day 16 and 17) will be spent in a LexThink-like collaborative brainstorming retreat where clients and I will get to spend time with one another, build lasting relationships among ourselves, and put our innovative ideas into practice.
- Virtual Assistance: I want to give my clients the gift of time to fully invest in the coaching relationship, so each coaching client will have access to a virtual assistant for the duration of the program, at no extra charge. The clients will be able to offload delegable tasks to their virtual assistants so they can spend more time working on their businesses and not just in them.
- Access to the Experts: Each week, there will be a Saturday School conference call where my coaching clients will have access to a business or productivity superstar for an hour.
- Technology that Works: Each individual coaching telephone call and small-group discussion will be recorded and made available as a podcast for the clients to listen to again. Each coaching client will have their own web-based portal to keep track of their milestones, assignments, upcoming calls, goals, and to-do’s.
- Continuing Collaboration: Every year, I’ll invite all of my coaching clients back for an Idea Retreat where they can meet old friends and make new ones.
- All Inclusive Price: The coaching, conference calls, virtual assistance, and retreat (hotel and food) are all included in the price, which is $3,000. I’m giving a $1,000.00 discount to the first seventeen clients who sign up and agree to be my “Beta Testers.” The first coaching group will start mid-September.
- Satisfaction Guarantee: If you are not completely satisfied with your LexThink Innovation Coaching experience, and feel that you’ve gotten less than a 3 to 1 return on your investment, I’ll gladly refund whatever portion of your fee you feel I haven’t earned.
If you are interested, e-mail me at Matt@LexThink.com.
I can't do that because it is impossible!
I found this great creativity exercise called The Impossibility Question. Check it out.
Tips to Liven Up Boring Meeting Space
These great tips for making boring conference/meeting space more conducive to creative thought come from Eva Niewiadomski, founder of Catalyst Ranch (an absolutely amazing conference space in Chicago where we hosted our first LexThink!): Eva also suggests a few things to place on the tables: Finally, Eva shared a bunch of “icebreakers” to use to start a meeting. My favorite? A backwards spelling bee: Compile a list of reasonably common words with over 8 letters. Place them each separately on a colored index card. Give a pile to each team. Each team goes one at a time and is allotted 3 minutes in which to correctly spell as many words backwards as they can. One team member is in charge of reading off the words and each team member must take their turn. Of course, no pencils or paper are allowed.
Conference Idea Management
This is one of three announcements from me this week. My friend Ed Poll, legal management guru, is promoting a Speaker’s Conference that takes place in Palm Springs, California. Ed and I had lunch the other day and we started brainstorming a bit on ways to improve the attendees’ experience. I suggested adding on a LexThink-like component of brainstorming, idea collection and sharing on to the conference and Ed thought it was a great idea.
So, after much more thinking about what could work (and what wouldn’t), I’m happy to announce that LexThink! will be providing the Conference Idea Management for the National Speakers Association’s event. Here is what we’ll do:
- Provide a means to capture (in a very analog way, probably with markets and various sized Post-it notes) breakthrough ideas and insights from the attendees before, during, and after each speaker’s program.
- Collect and organize those ideas by posting them in the LexThink! Lounge — sort of an “idea gallery” situated in the conference hotel. Attendees can browse the gallery, add new insights, move notes around, and engage in conversations about the cool ideas they see. We’ll make sure the speakers spend some time there too.
- Set out a place to collect and share all of the “dumb questions” and “stupid ideas” people have, but are afraid to state in public (I’m betting the best ideas from the event will be first found on the “stupid” wall).
- Integrate certain brainstorming and creativity exercises into the conference to get people ready to “Think Big Thoughts.”
- Collect real-time feedback on the efficacy of the conference, and things that could be changed.
- Digitize the ideas and share them with the attendees via e-mail/wiki/blog so they can continue to be energized by the creativity of the group.
Ed has been gracious enough to let us test our concept at his group’s event. If it works as I believe it will, we’ll be doing this more regularly. If you have interest, ideas, or suggestions, let me know.
Fix your back office.
In one of those posts from a comment from a post kind of way comes this: Fix the Employee Cafeteria and You’ll Fix the Customer Relationship. Check it out, you’ll see what I mean.
Blogher Brain Dump
I just returned from Blogher and I had a wonderful time. Though one of only a handful of men, I was made to feel welcome, and learned far more than I’d hoped. I made dozens of new friends and connected in person with some old ones. I’ll expand my thoughts more later, but here are a few of my random notes, ideas and to-do’s, in no particular order (I’ll come back and add links later):
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Music videos playing on a big screen before conference started — great idea!
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All name tags had blog address, not hometown or company name.
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The biggest problem with “technology” conferences? Too much technology. At some round tables every attendee had laptops on while they furiously blogged the event. This seriously hampered the opportunity for face-to-face interaction. I’d wager some people sat across from someone they’d love to meet, but never introduced themselves because they were too busy using their computers. If the best part of conferences is personal interaction, why even allow laptops? They are a barrier to communication — it is almost as if everyone was in their own personal cubicle. Do laptops promote the “cubiclization” of conferences? If everyone is going to be blogging the event the whole time they are there, why not just do a “virtual” conference instead. (NOTE: There were plenty of opportunities for talk at Blogher, so this is more of a general impression about use of computers during conferences then a specific criticism of the Blogher.)
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Every table had powerstrips under it!
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Apple laptops were used by at least half of the attendees. Though I went totally analog (Moleskine and pen) and didn’t use my tablet, I don’t think I saw more then two other Tablet PC’s the rest of the event.
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Is blogging a crutch? Is it a valid substitute for face-to-face conversation? I think blogging should be used as an introduction to people you want to meet in person, because no matter how cool someone is on her blog, she is much more interesting in person.
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They took away a men’s restroom and gave it to the women. Touche!
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Some interesting phrases overheard:
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“Tina Turner the microphone,” which means put it closer to your mouth so your voice is amplified.
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Yoga “really zenned her out.”
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“There was a circus going on in his brain.”
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“Xanga drama.”
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Speakers, don’t depend upon wi-fi for showing web pages during presentations. Download the pages and be prepared to show a static screen shot. Sure beats the blank screen. This is the third conference in a row where I’ve seen this happen. This tip needs to be in the speaker guidelines for every conference.
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Adancedtools.blogspot.com has tips and tricks from a great presentation.
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Do men comment on blogs differently than women do? I’d love to see a study that strips (or changes) gender identity from negative blog comments and see if the comment is perceived differently if it came from a woman vs. a man.
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We need software to mash up API’s from different services. I want to combine maps with flickr with google with delicious with technorati with ta-da lists with whatever else cool comes out tomorrow — and I want it to be as easy as posting to my blog.
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Women are often described with codewords like “emotional” and “sassy” that never are used to describe men.
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While anger can be used as a tool, sometimes the person who’s angry is a tool.
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When more people use RSS to get their blog content, does that marginalize the importance of blog design and use of comments? Put another way, if more and more readers only see your blog via RSS, but don’t visit individual posts to read the continuing dialog in your comments, will the two-way conversational nature of blogs begin to matter less?
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Myth: If a book has pink on the cover (or stripes or shoes) and is classified as “chicklit” it is not the same quality as a book with an airplane or other weapon on the cover.
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I think I heard this stat: 90% of bloggers are between the ages of 9 and 29. If so, this will have a tremendous impact on how Generation Y judges the quality and credibility of the people and products they will buy. Lawyers, if you think blogging today is important, think about not having a blog when a huge percentage of your potential customers will use it as a measuring stick of your “with-it-ness”. Just as lawyers felt they had to be included in Martindale Hubbel to be credible 10 years ago, they’ll need to have blogs to be credible 10 years from today.
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Another teen stat: 9 out of 10 teens are online, with 50% online every day.
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For teen “identity bloggers” (another great term used to describe bloggers who write about their daily experiences), what impact will living their life online have upon them when they reach adulthood? Is identity blogging like getting a tattoo? Easy to impulsively justify today, but hard to reverse tomorrow?
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Is reading teen identity blogs engaging in Real Time Anthropology? What should parents and teachers do if they know their children or students blog? Is there an obligation (analogous to mandatory reporting of child abuse) to read these blogs and intervene if child/teen blogs about dangerous behavior. Does every teacher need to subscribe to their students’ RSS feed?
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Taking the Real Time Anthropology in a different direction: what are businesses doing to capitalize upon this tremendous insight into the minds of their current and future customers?
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Someone introduced a speaker as someone who “blogs for a non-profit.” I’d argue we all blog for non-profits. ;-)
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Interesting question from another (female) attendee: Does credibility equate with appearance for women more/less than it does for men? I think that blogs can replace that first impression with a virtual one. If you know someone’s blog and read it, you are likely to have already formed a first impression of them. Their appearance matters less when you later see them in person.
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Another great line: She looks like her blog.
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There is a market for RSSperts out there. Heard RSS described as “TiVo for the web.”
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From an unremembered study cited by a panelist: We trust marketing message more if we have control over the method by which that message is delivered.
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I want to be able to add a feed to my aggregator from a link in a post that I’m viewing in my aggregator. For example, if I read a post that links to a great blog, I want to be able to add the new blog to my aggregator without having to visit it –– particularly handy if I’m reading off line.
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In a legal software package, each case needs an RSS feed. Lawyers and clients will then be automatically updated when something happens in their case(s).
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I also want an RSS feed for stale to-do items so they get delivered to me as reminders. Alternatively, I want to be able to “snooze” a feed in my aggregator so it comes back to me in a defined amount of time.
Amazing stuff. I have so much more swimming in my head, but wanted to dump this on you for now. Check back later today for a cool announcement.
Technorati tag: blogher
A few things I wish I'd known sooner.
Via Lifehacker comes a pointer to Tricks of the Trade, a blog containing “Professional secrets from those in the know.” Some of my favorites that are applicable to other professions (well, at least some of them are):
Police Officer: Here's an easy way to know if people are lying: they touch their faces. Even if they know not to, most people when under pressure and telling a lie will tug on their ears or scratch their noses.
Residential Developer: Here are some ways to make even the smallest condo seem spacious. Remove all interior doors -- no one notices, and hallways and rooms immediately feel bigger and more open. Use custom-built furniture scaled down for the space. Glass and lucite tables 'disappear,' and large framed mirrors magnify space. Lastly, print take-away floor plans on huge sheets of quality paper -- even a 450 square-foot studio suite looks exciting and big on an attractive 11x17 sheet.
Professor: If you have to give a poor grade to a student you know is going to object, put a lesser grade beside it on the paper and then scribble it out (but not so much that the student can't make it out). It will make them think that you originally gave them the lesser grade but then raised it after some thought. 99.9% percent of the time this will prevent them harassing you.
Bellboy: When you let guests into their rooms, ask to use their phone, pretend to dial the front desk, and say, "I'm in room 204 with Mr. and Mrs. X, and I just want to make sure that the problems we've had with the loud guests in room 304 have been resolved. Because otherwise I'm going to move these people to 233. They checked out today? Excellent, thank you." Hang up, smile modestly, and get ready for a large tip.
Adult Music Teacher: Life is too short to spend with uninterested students who rarely practice and never make progress. To "fire" these students, just say, "I know you're very busy and don't have much time for practicing right now. Tell you what: why don't you call me when you feel prepared and we'll schedule a lesson." Nine times out of ten you'll never hear from them again.
Painter: Before resealing a can of paint, blow one deep breath into the can and close it quickly. You'll fill it with carbon dioxide, which will keep the paint from oxidizing prevent it from developing the "skin" that paint gets when it sits a while.
Googlevangelism and the Power of Creating the First "Wow!"
Is Microsoft’s new Virtual Earth better than Google Maps? Does it matter? If you’ve used both, think about the first time you used each. I’ll wager your first reaction to Google’s service was an unrestrained “Wow!” If, like me, you tried Virtual Earth this week, I’ll bet your reaction was much more restrained. Not exactly a “been there, done that” reaction, but the “wow” was missing. At least mine was.
In the past 24 hours, I’ve done three map searches. Used Google Maps each time. As I write this, I’m not sure why I didn’t think about Virtual Earth. I think it has something to do with the “Wow” I first got from Google that I didn’t get from Microsoft. That synaptic connection between “wow” and “maps” forged in my brain means MS won’t get much of my mapping business — at least not until Microsoft can trump Google’s “wow” with their own. And Google is so good at what they do, I’d be surprised if anyone can make an order of magnitude improvement in online mapping again.
So what’s left? Microsoft and Google will continue to make incremental improvements in their mapping services. Each incremental improvement will benefit the users of each service, but won’t draw anyone but the most fickle users from one service to the other. If you use Google Maps today, you will probably be using it six months from now. Same goes for Virtual Earth.
So what’s the lesson? Be first with your “wow.” Even if you know someone else is capable of building a better “wow,” if you get there first you’ve won the most significant battle.
Lawyers, if you fear adopting value billing because you think your competitors in town will just copy your business model while undercutting you on price, don’t fear. Be the first. Be different. Deliver your “Wow” first. Even if the other lawyers in town start doing what you are doing (even doing it better), they won’t be remembered as the first. You created the first “wow,” and will continue to profit from it.
… at least until someone blows you out of the water with an order of magnitude improvement. Just ask Mapquest.
Don't be a Binary Thinker
From Management By Baseball:
Binary thinking is where the decisionmaker views things as having two opposite possibilities, and no others. Nuance tends to be winnowed out for the binary thinker. What channel shall I distribute through...direct or indirect? Is Jacques Chirac good or evil? Should I plant soybeans or sorghum? Should I expand our markets or look for a buyer? Shall I consumer 950 calories a day or not bother to diet at all?
Binary thinkers are mentally and usually physically uncomfortable in the grey areas (and almost all the best possible decisions are grey areas).
As lawyers, we often think we are masters of the “grey areas,” but I don’t think we are. We spend much of our time advising our clients to stay out of those grey areas and are often afraid to inhabit them ourselves.
Here’s a quick exercise: Take a three pieces of paper, and label one each BLACK, WHITE, and GREY. Take a problem you are facing and write it on the top of each page. On the WHITE page, write all of the “safe” solutions to your problem. On the BLACK page, write all of the dangerous solutions — the ones that would never work and that you’d be absolutely crazy (or criminal) to try. Finally, on the GREY page write some solutions that fall somewhere in between. Try to get at least 7 solutions on each page. Once you are done, spend a bit of time (and if it’s a client problem, go ahead and bill them for it) concentrating on the grey area. You will likely find your best solution there.
Do a Life Dinner
Brad Feld shares his tips for improving work/life balance. The one tip I’m putting into practice right away:
Life Dinner: We have a standing date on the first day of every month that we call life dinner. Occasionally we’ll invite friends; often we have dinner alone. We have a ritual where we give each other a gift ranging in value from nominal / silly (a fart machine) to expensive / romantic (jewelry). We spend the evening talking about the previous month and about the month to come, grounding ourselves in our current reality.
This would be a good practice for a small business as well. Have a “Business Dinner” each month for the folks in the office and their spouses. Invite a few key clients too. Spend the dinner talking about the past, the future, and ways to make your business better.
Buy more advice.
I don’t often link to Seth Godin. Oh, I’m like the rest of the blogosphere and think he’s brilliant and all, but I figure that if you read my blog, you are probably also reading his. However, something he said in a post today struck me, and I wanted to throw it in a post to make sure I could find it again. It’s this:
I think most organizations don't buy nearly enough advice. They go 97% of the way, do 97% of the work, make all the investments... but then they get too tired and too stuck to actually do the high leverage stuff that works. So yes, buy advice. Buy a lot of it. But most important, understand why the advice is good advice, really understand the dynamic behind it--then you won't have any trouble selling the idea, because it's not the advice giver that matters... it's the advice.
Your next ten hires.
Tom Peters summarizes a new book by Tom Kelley of IDEO, titled the Ten Faces of Innovation. In the book (not yet available), Kelley identifies ten people every organization needs to build an innovative workplace. How many of these folks does your organization have?
The Anthropologist. Master of human behavior ... "gets" the user.
The Experimenter. Mr/Ms Fast Prototype.
The Cross-pollinator. Explores odd connections.
The Hurdler. Master remover of B.S. roadblocks.
The Collaborator. Brings intriguing combinations of people together.
The Director. Brings out the creative best from an odd mix of talents.
The Experience Architect. Turns "products" into "performances."
The Set Designer. Creates fabulous office environments that foster constant innovation.
The Caregiver. Anticipates customer needs like a magician.
The Storyteller. Creates narratives that capture the spirit of the group and its products/services/experiences.
Does this mean solos can’t be innovative? Or do we need to add six or seven “hats” to the ones we already wear?
Before you go to your next conference, take this advice.
Here are some great trade show tips from Gaspedal. I really liked these three:
6> Speakers: How to turn the audience into customers: If you don't have a handout, you've wasted your time. You spent all this time and money to speak, then you give people no way to buy from you. Always print a 1-page flyer, staple it to a printout of your slides, and put it on every single chair before you start. It's a guaranteed way to get new business.
9> Travel light: Leave the briefcase behind. Take no paper from vendors. Just bring a nice suit and business cards. You're here to meet people and have conversations. You don't need any stuff. Spare your back, lighten your load. You'll be in a better mood and you'll be more effective.
15> Skip the Sessions, Work the Halls: If you're looking for customers then never go to a presentation. You can't network in a dark room during a speech.
Don't forget the barbed wire.
In what may be my only Martha Stewart related post this year, I had to share this snippet from Worthwhile (quoting a Vanity Fair piece on the Maven of Style):
Martha Stewart's business precepts, as she tells Vanity Fair's Matt Tyrnauer, are: 1) People Matter. 2) Invest to get perfection. 3) You have to take risks.
And what does foresee as the future of stylish living? (Hint: It's exactly the opposite of the ornate tract-mansions featured in most magazines and being built everywhere I look.)
Instead, Martha has been studying Shaker design: "I want to have a new kind of house, a smart house," she tells Vanity Fair. "No paints on the exterior, stamped-concrete floors, really simple and planned to reduce the maintenance. This is going to be the future."
And a stainless-steel lavatory and toilet in the corner too? Sounds like she’s describing the place she just left, not the one she’s going to build. Is this the new prison chic? (Also, did she just use the word “invest” to describe one of her business precepts?)
Evaluate your Distractions
Jason Womack shares an interesting productivity idea he received from a client, the Distraction Evaluation:
That's the process I use to eliminate anything in my field of vision that bothers me in any way and interferes with my ability to proceed with what needs to get done. It could be something as simple as a picture I am tired of looking at, or it could be processing the Inbox earlier in the day than I might otherwise. Whatever interferes with my mind's eye of where I see I need to be, if that makes sense, gets dealt with during "Distraction evacuation.
I’ve already set aside time to do mine this evening.