When designing a new product or program, it's pretty clear that a successful organization will invite:
The lawyer, so you don't break any laws.
The CFO, so that you'll understand how much this thing will cost and how well it will pay off.
The CTO/Tech folks, so you'll spec something that can actually be built and will work.
And probably designers, marketers and lobbyists–all the people you need to bring the thing into the world.
But where's the person in charge of magic?
In our quest to get it done, to survive the project, to avoid blame, to figure out a solution, it's magic that gets thrown under the bus every time.
Who is obsessed with creating delight, with building in remarkability, with pushing the envelope (every envelope–money, tech, policy) to get to the point where you've created something that people will be proud of, that will change things for the better, that will make a dent in the universe?
It won't happen on its own. It never does.
January 21, 2014
Google killed the old-fashioned cookbook.
Why bother searching through a thick, dull cookbook of recipes when all you have to do is type in two or three ingredients and the word 'recipe' online? The index, the now infinite magical index of the web, helps us find whatever we want, better and faster.
On the other hand, a generous, modern cookbook doesn't ask, "what do you want to cook?" Instead, it says, "how about this?" A menu, not an index.
Years ago, I was at a power breakfast in New York, a fancy restaurant jammed with masters of the universe and those that hoped to have a few minutes with one of them. The waiter came over and said, "what do you want?" There was no menu. Just tell him and they'll make it.
Looking around, I realized that just about everyone was eating one of three popular items. With an index but no menu, the room resorted to safe and easy.
And this is the challenge every organization faces in the uber-indexed world we live in. It's not enough to sit with a prospect and ask him what he wants. Once we know what we want, search finds it for us. No, we have to offer a menu, we have to curate choices, we have to dream for people who don't have the guts or time to dream for themselves.
This is frightening, because when you offer a menu, often people will get hung up on their status quo and just say "no." You can't get rejected when all you offer is an index, but getting your menu rejected is one of the symptoms that you're doing the hard work of making an impact.
January 20, 2014
It seems arrogant to say, "perhaps this isn't for you."
When the critic pans your work, or the prospect hears your offer but doesn't buy, the artist responds, "that's okay, it's not for you." She doesn't wheedle or flip-flop or go into high pressure mode. She treats different people differently, understands that she is working to delight the weird, not please the masses, and walks away.
Isn't that arrogant?
No. It's arrogant to assume that you've made something so extraordinary that everyone everywhere should embrace it. Our best work can't possibly appeal to the average masses, only our average work can.
Finding the humility to happily walk away from those that don't get it unlocks our ability to do great work.
January 19, 2014
We're far more aware of our problems than our opportunities. Our problems nag at us, annoy us and paralyze us.
Every organization wrestles with its problems, and is eager to solve them.
When you generously invite people to bring you their problems, they might just do that.
Solving problems—actually solving them, not just claiming you do—solving perceived, urgent problems, is a surefire way to get the world to beat a path to your door. [HT to Adrian for the photo.]
January 18, 2014
This is how companies die, how brands wither and, more cheefully in the other direction, how careers are made.
Gradually, because every day opportunities are missed, little bits of value are lost, customers become unentranced. We don't notice so much, because hey, there's a profit. Profit covers many sins. Of course, one day, once the foundation is rotted and the support is gone, so is the profit. Suddenly, apparently quite suddenly, it all falls apart.
It didn't happen suddenly, you just noticed it suddenly.
The flipside works the same way. Trust is earned, value is delivered, concepts are learned. Day by day we improve and build an asset, but none of it seems to be paying off. Until one day, quite suddenly, we become the ten-year overnight success.
This is the way it works, but we too often make the mistake of focusing on the 'suddenly' part. The media writes about suddenly, we notice suddenly, we talk about suddenly.
That doesn't mean that gradually isn't important. In fact, it's the only part you can actually do something about.
[HT to Hemingway (and, as I just saw, my friend Steve) for the riff.]
January 17, 2014
Simple concept with big implications: In small groups, money corrupts.
In environments that are built on personal interaction and trust among intimates, transactions based on money don't increase efficacy, they degrade it.
At the other end of the scale, in transactions between strangers, cash scales. Cash enables us to interact with people we don't know and probably won't see again.
But if you want to build the intimate circle that lives on favors and gift exchange, don't bring cash. Bring generosity and vulnerability.
January 16, 2014
Our society tolerates gross unfairness every day. It tolerates misogyny, racism and the callous indifference to those born without privilege.
But we manage to find endless umbrage for petty slights and small-time favoritism.
When a teacher gives one student a far better grade than he deserves, and does it without shame, we're outraged. When the flight attendant hands that last chicken meal to our seatmate, wow, that's a slight worth seething over for hours.
When Bull Connor directed fire hoses and attack dogs on innocent kinds in Birmingham, it conflated the two, the collision of the large and the small. Viewers didn't witness the centuries of implicit and explicit racism, they saw a small, vivid act, moving in its obvious unfairness. It was the small act that focused our attention on the larger injustice.
I think that most of us are programmed to process the little stories, the emotional ones, things that touch people we can connect to. When it requires charts and graphs and multi-year studies, it's too easy to ignore.
We don't change markets, or populations, we change people. One person at a time, at a human level. And often, that change comes from small acts that move us, not from grand pronouncements.
Happy birthday, Martin.
January 15, 2014
Here's the thinking that leads just about every all-you-can-eat buffet to trend to mediocrity:
"Oh, don't worry about how fresh the mashed potatoes are, after all, they're free."
Indeed, as far as the kitchen is concerned, each individual item on the buffet is 'free' in the sense that the customer didn't spend anything extra to get that item.
The problem is obvious, of course. Once you start thinking that way, then every single item on the buffet gets pretty lousy, and the next thing you know, the customers you seek don't come.
So, the hotel that says, "With this sort of volume… we do tend to encounter a slower pace with our free wireless internet," has completely misunderstood how to think about the free internet they offer. It's not free. In fact, it might be the one and only reason someone picked your $400 hotel room over that hotel down the street. Sure the hot water and the towels and the quiet room are all free in the sense that they're included in the price, but no, they're not free in the mind of the purchaser.
Successful organizations often beat the competition by turning the buffet problem upside down. "Let's make these the best mashed potatoes in town–who knows, next time, that guy out front will bring his friends."
The mashed potatoes aren't free, the mashed potatoes, the wifi and everything else you do are an opportunity. The cheapest and most effective marketing you'll do all year.
They've beefed up their servers, so if you had trouble signing up last week, today might be worth a try.
The details are right here.
The course is archived, so you can take it at your convenience. I'll be participating in the online Q&A for the students that take it during the first week it's available. Hope to see you there.
January 14, 2014
If that's your mantra, you're working to solve the wrong problem.
If your startup, your non-profit or your event is suffering because of a lack of awareness, the solution isn't to figure out some way to get more hype, more publicity or more traffic. Those are funnel solutions, designed to fix an ailing process by dumping more attention at the top, hoping more conversion comes out the bottom.
The challenge with this approach is that it doesn't scale. Soon, you'll have no luck at all getting more attention, even with ever more stunts or funding.
No, the solution lies in re-organizing your systems, in re-creating your product or service so that it becomes worth talking about. When you do that, your customers do the work of getting you more noticed. When you produce something remarkable, more use leads to more conversation which leads to more use.
No, it won't be a perfect virus, starting with ten people and infecting the world. But yes, you can dramatically impact the 'more awareness' problem by investing heavily in a funnel that doesn't leak, in a story that's worth spreading.
