Super Bowl Show Down

We're going to be conducting an experiment at tompeters.com on Super Bowl Sunday. We've asked our Cool Friends Sally Hogshead and Steve Yastrow to wage a back and forth discussion about the Super Bowl advertisements. It seems that Sally and Steve have different ideas about the relative merits of companies spending $3 million per thirty-second ad. Steve thinks it's a total waste of money; Sally thinks not. But their comments on the ads will take place at Twitter.com. Sally's Twitter address is twitter.com/sallyhogshead and Steve's is twitter.com/steveyastrow. While it may be difficult to follow their replies to each other at Twitter itself, since all the other discussions (and there will be plenty) will be showing up as well. So to make their 'debate' more clear we'll be pulling their 'tweets' off Twitter and posting them as an ongoing blog post at tompeters.com. We'll be starting somewhere around 6 p.m. Eastern U.S. time tomorrow, Sunday, February 1. Hope you can drop by.

What Are You Reading?

Recently on tpwireservice.com, I saw the article about how self-published books are on the rise. In further reading the article, I was intrigued by this comment, "A recently released study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that while more people are reading literary fiction, fewer of them are reading books." So, I am quite curious to find out what our bloggers are reading these days. Share with us your favorite books that you have recently read. Are you reading more literary fiction these days? In print or otherwise? What is capturing your attention in the world of books?

How to Fire Right

Fortune Small Business recently interviewed Tom about layoffs, the current economic crisis, and the German Mittlestand. You can find the article here and the accompanying video here.

Tom Peters' Superstar/Top41 Entrepreneurs

I was asked by a magazine to come up with a list of the five entrepreneurs I most admired. Consistent with my whatever, I offered a list of 41, though I did single out my top 13 (**) and my Top 1 (*****). You'll find the list below. (And a PDF version as well.) I was determined to steer away from the obvious with a couple of exceptions—and also emphasized social entrepreneurs and a couple of entrepreneurs (classification justified, I believe) within firms. All yours ...

Susan Frampton, President, Planetree Alliance, Derby CT, top "patient-centric" hospital care model, broadly diffused

Larry Janesky, Basement Systems Inc., author of very popular Dry Basement Science, transformer of moldy basements, this "ordinary" business a huge winner

Jim Penman, Jim's Group, with HQ in Australia, nearly 3,000 franchisees doing "routine" stuff that busy clients don't get around to doing, like dog-walking and driveway paving; also author of What Will They Franchise Next?

Dennis Littky, founder Big Picture, project-based learning model for secondary schools, widespread diffusion courtesy Gates foundation

*****Wendy Kopp, founder, Teach For America, potent beyond measure in insanely tough environment (My #1)

**Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank, Nobel Peace Prize winner, father of micro-lending, started in Bangladesh

**Women recipients (94%) of Grameen micro-loans, incredible payback record

John Bogle, sane & successful funds manager, founder Vanguard Funds, author of Enough

**Steve Jobs, himself, no ID needed!

**Lorenzo Zambrano, CEMEX, Mexico, world's #3 cement maker, low-price, high volume housing developer for the poor

David Kelley, IDEO, top product design company, innovation consultancy, founder of Stanford "D-school" (Design School)

Don Berwick, creator of campaign-organization to save hundreds of thousands of lives by focus on patient safety in hospitals

Bob Stone, reinventing government (Bob called "Mr. Rego") for VP Al Gore, big-scale under-the-radar change in resistant environment

Robin Chase and Antje Danielson, founded Zipcar

**Horst Brandstatter, Brandstatter Enterprises (including Playmobil); exemplar of Germany's Mittelstand (Germany #1 world exporter, driven almost entirely by Mittelstand companies)

Oprah, entrepreneur, billionaire, social change agent

**Carly Fiorina, dramatically changed/wrestled to ground a very strong culture at HP; Welch (GE) and Gerstner (IBM) did good work, but did not do culture change, resurrected old cultures that had frayed

John Doerr, VC extraordinaire; no $$$, no high-growth start-ups

**Taddy Blecher, CIDA, university, founder, South Africa, services tens of thousands of kids from the townships

Almost all of Bo Burlingham's Small Giants (e.g., New Hope Contracting, Righteous Babe Records, and LFS Touring)

Billy Ford, serious about green for years and years at Ford, internal entrepreneur, lonely voice

**Michelle Rhee, superintendent, D.C. schools, young, taking on powerful teacher's union, succeeding

Rick Warren, love him or hate him, Saddleback monster church, bestselling book ever

Bono, putting aid to Africa on the map

**Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler & visionary, Dubai; amazing act of human imagination

Narayana Murthy, founder, Infosys, #1 exemplar of Indian IS prowess

**David Petraeus, changed U.S. Army doctrine, internal entrepreneur

Lee Kuan Yew, senior minister and former prime minister, Singapore, created little giant of a Sovereign State

Ronald Reagan, champion-enabler of the entrepreneurs in a "big company" environment

Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen Fund, fund social entrepreneur efforts for projects-programs serving those with <$4/day in income

Bill Drayton, Ashoka, supports the development (selection, training) of entrepreneurs worldwide

Sultan Bahabri, HITS telecom plus, Kuwait, ignites widespread efforts to support the less well off

Zhang Xin, SOHO China, unusual large-scale property developer, very design driven, female with hyper-humble roots in a male's game

Arianna Huffington, Web social change agent

Helen Greiner, iRobot, MIT grad created powerful-imaginative techy firm amidst "all boys" industry

Ted Turner, ridiculed for imagining CNN; potent social entrepreneur

**John Coleman, Weather Channel, thought a joke at the start, valued in the billions of $$$$

Dame Anita Roddick ("the late," alas), mother of large-scale corporate social responsibility (wish she'd been running a big bank)

Vernon Hill, made Commerce Bank the poster child for consumer-friendly banking before troublesome departure

**Howard Dean, de facto creator of "high end" Web-based politics

Idiots on the Loose

Former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl criticizes current Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis for stupid acquisitions. Pfizer, unable to develop new drugs, will pay $68 billion for Wyeth. When will these idiots learn?

[Tom called to say that he wrote the above lines very early in the morning at Logan Airport.—CM]

Mr. Buffett

"I don't invest in anything I don't understand."—Warren Buffett

Is there more to the current crisis than this?
I (more or less) don't think so.

100 Ways to Succeed #152:

Ask & Ask & Ask Until You Understand!

Make it one of your 2009 and beyond resolutions:

"I shall lead the league in Asking Dumb Questions."
"I shall become Questioner-in-Chief."
"I shall persist until I 'get it.'"
"I shall evaluate others in part on their skill at Asking Dumb Questions."
"We shall hire in part on perceived or measured Instinctive Curiosity." (For every slot.)

Swallow your damn pride, especially "top" bosses.
Ask until you understand!
The "dumber" the question the better!
If the askee is pissed off at you for your "stupidity"-or pigheadedness, consider that Victory.
Ask!
Ask!
Ask!

(And require whomever to boil the damn thing down to one paragraph in VPE, Very Plain English—or whatever your native tongue is.)
(On the other hand, sweat the details—the weird, incomprehensible thing about whatever may well appear in Footnote #7 to Appendix C in the full version of the report.)

Creativity Award in Tough Times

Tough times require a special emphasis on creativity. My top award to date (I'm late on this) goes to Hyundai, for its program of allowing a purchase to be returned within a year if the purchaser becomes unemployed.

Bravo, for the decency, for the marketing value, and for unadulterated creativity!

Be Suspicious of Across the Board Cuts

Yes, I said that. Be suspicious of across the board cuts.

If your company declares, "We are cutting all salespeople's travel by 25 percent," or "Every department will cut staff by ten percent," lift your eyebrows superciliously, and say, "That's pretty stupid."

Making across the board cuts is like going to the bank and asking for five inches of money. A ten dollar bill and a one dollar bill take up the same amount of space, but their value is not equal. Your company does many things, and making across the board cuts ignores that each of these things has its own value.

Maybe some salespeople in your company should double their travel because they are great in person with customers, while others should stay in the office and talk to customers by phone. Maybe certain departments should cut 50 percent of their staff and others should add people.

Now is the time to think! Avoid the temptation to "be bold" and use the budget bulldozer to plow through tough times. Discernment will result in profitable action. Slash and burn will feel good for a few minutes, but in the end, it will cost you.

Don't confuse movement with progress! Do things, and do them quickly, but do the right things. Otherwise, you're really not doing anything.

A Leader's Values

In working with leaders, we help them to be clear about who they are and what they stand for. The values of leaders should be easily recognized in what they do and in what they say. Yesterday, President Barack Obama was clear about what he values. I gathered that courage, hope, honesty, faith, collaboration, and unity were a few of those qualities. President Obama's actions in the past seem to reflect the values that he articulated yesterday and the expectation is that he will continue to live them out. The questions to think about today are, as a leader, what are your values? Are you living them out so that others can see them in you? As an individual, are you clear about your values and, more importantly, are you standing behind them and making decisions based on them? If you haven't thought about what you value, now would be good time to reflect on it.

Noon

Sixty-six years and 74 days, and I have never been so proud to be an American.
Anything is possible.
Still.
Godspeed, Mr. Obama.
Now the work begins.

Cool Friend #132: David Meerman Scott

Why do some ideas spread like wildfire, while others never get noticed? Especially on the Web, news can go around the world in minutes, if not seconds. Our new Cool Friend, David Meerman Scott, has a book coming out in March called World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories. In the book, and in his conversation with Erik, David prescribes specific strategies to turn your message into an online viral phenomenon. You can learn more by reading his Cool Friends interview, visiting his website, or catching up with his blog: www.webinknow.com.

The 19Es of Excellence

Today's joyous commemoration of the birth of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and tomorrow's unique show of peaceful American renewal and celebration of limitless American possibility got me thinking about Excellence—no surprise. Out of which came these "19 Es of Excellence." You will also find it as a PDF.

If Not Excellence, What?
If Not Excellence Now, When?
The "19 Es" of Excellence:

Enthusiasm. (Be an irresistible force of nature!)
Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!)
Exuberance. (Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)
Execution. (Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: "Blame no one! Expect nothing! Do something!")
Empowerment. (Respect and appreciation rule! Always ask, "What do you think?" Then listen! Then let go and liberate! Then celebrate!)
Edginess. (Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)
Enraged. (Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)
Engaged. (Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)
Electronic. (Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing rules!)
Encompassing. (Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se "works"!)
Emotion. (The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)
Empathy. (Connect, connect, connect with others' reality and aspirations! "Walk in the other person's shoes"—until the soles have holes!)
Experience. (Life is theater! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard: "Insanely Great"/Steve Jobs; "Radically Thrilling"/BMW.)
Eliminate. (Keep it simple!)
Errorprone. (Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)
Evenhanded. (Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)
Expectations. (Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Amen!)
Eudaimonia. (Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle's philosophy. Be of service. Always.)
Excellence. (The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?)

What a Splash!

"Daddy, the plane turned into a boat" said the daughter of Martin Sosa, who was a passenger on the now infamous US Airways flight 1549 of 16th January. This was the flight that was involved in the amazing emergency landing in the Hudson River that we all heard about in the media last weekend. (Observer, 18 January 2009)

The stories of real heroism from last Friday's miraculous experience are plentiful and heartwarming. Thank goodness for the sheer dedication of the professionals who got involved in the landing and rescue missions that saved the lives of all passengers and crew. In particular, the pilot has been rightly praised for his skill and devotion to duty.

But how about the amazing resilience of the aircraft that survived this most extreme of circumstances? Just how do you design and build an aircraft that can cope with the failure of two engines, followed by the crash landing in the water ... with pretty much every piece intact?!!

For many years, I have enjoyed working with engineers and manufacturing folks from different parts of the aerospace industry. We've had many an intellectual tussle over their propensity to check and re-check, with me encouraging them to "see failure as part of the learning process." But when you see something as astonishing as Friday's emergency landing on water, you can see the payoff for their discipline and consistency. Okay, so future excellence in aerospace will be dependent on some lateral and out-of-the-box thinking, but let's not forget to treasure the mastery and expertise that delivers today's excellence. Bravo ladies and gentlemen of the aerospace industry!

Event: Informa

Tom spoke to Informa executives outside London yesterday. Here's how the information specialties company describes itself in the 2007 Annual Report:

Informa provides specialist, high value information to the global Academic & Scientific, Professional, and Commercial markets via Publishing, Events and Performance Improvement.

At the heart of every Informa product and service is research-based, proprietary information for a highly targeted expert audience. Informa publishes approximately 2,500 subscription based products and services delivered both electronically and in hardcopy, and 45,000 books.

Each year Informa produces over 12,000 events around the world powered by a marketing database of over 20 million contacts. We have an extensive portfolio of prominent brands including Lloyd's List, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, IIR, IBC, AchieveGlobal, ESI, Euroforum and Datamonitor. Informa operates in over 80 countries, employing more than 10,000 people.

If you would like to download the PPT file for the event, you can do so here: Informa, London. And if you were there, we'd love to hear from you in our comments.

What a "Personal Brand" is NOT

A personal brand is your promise to the marketplace and the world. Since everyone makes a promise to the world, one does not have a choice of having or not having a personal brand. Everyone has one. The real question is whether someone’s personal brand is powerful enough to be meaningful to the person and the marketplace.

I thought it would help to highlight what is NOT a personal brand. Here is a quick (partial) list:

1. It's NOT what you say about yourself.

In simple terms, what you say about yourself falls under the category of "freedom of speech." You can say whatever you want. Does not mean a thing. Your personal brand is an assessment the marketplace makes about who you are and what you bring to the marketplace.

2. It's NOT an extension of your employer's brand.

Unless you are self-employed, it is hard to extend your employer's brand to make it look like your personal brand.

3. It's NOT your presence in the social media.

Yes, social media can amplify your personal brand, but the presence itself cannot be a substitute for a personal brand. There are a few exceptions here, as some people have built a brand as social media experts and they live in the social media (for obvious reasons).

It is also NOT how "popular" you are in the social media. You can be entertaining (and funny) and become popular, but that does not automatically grant you authority unless humor is part of your offer to the marketplace.

4. It's NOT something that you can ASK for.

People give it to you when you deserve it.

5. It's NOT something that you are entitled to.

It does not come with a job position or a title. A job or title might help with your personal brand, but it can't be proxy for your personal brand.

6. It's NOT a perk.

It is not something a company can decide to give you as an "extra" because you did a good job.

7. It's NOT about the power alone.

While it provides you the power, a "personal brand" is mostly about giving. Power and influence are mostly the side benefits of your personal brand.

Here is something to think about:

What is it you are giving to the world that is so valuable that the world will reward you back with a powerful personal brand?

8. It's NOT a gift that someone can give you.

Someone cannot give you a gift of a "Personal Brand," but they can give you a gift to amplify an "already powerful" personal brand. A well-deserved link, an endorsement, a testimonial, etc., are all gifts that can amplify a personal brand.

9. It's NOT permanent.

It's not something that you can get and keep it for life. You have to work hard to get a powerful personal brand. But that's only the first step. You have to continue to work hard to keep that powerful personal brand and grow it.

[Cool Friend Raj Setty works with like-minded entrepreneurs to bring good ideas to life and spread their adoption. You can learn more about him at www.rajeshsetty.com or follow him on his blog, Life Beyond Code, or on Twitter @UpbeatNow.]

BETT 2009
And the Four-year-olds Shall Lead Us ...

Red-eyeing it from Boston to London last night, I read in the Guardian about today's opening of BETT 2009 [British Education and Training Technology], advertised as the biggest and best show of its kind in the world—the collection of global education ministers expected to attend gives cause to take the claim seriously.

What's up?
In a word, everything.

The article led off with this little vignette about 4-year old Multimedia Masters of the Universe, part of a Global Surge re-inventing education. Or should I say, better yet by far, re-inventing LEARNING & LIVING:

"In Blackburn, four-year-olds are making podcasts. In Suffolk, the sometimes tedious and impractical ritual of morning Assembly has been replaced in one school by a news video compiled by pupils; posting it on YouTube means parents can watch as well—and they do. ... Learners at all stages and ages, from all over the world, are downloading free tutorials while they replenish their iPods, courtesy of iTunes U. ..."

Among many other things, the key ideas are hyper-creative group collaboration on the one hand—and, on the other, completely customized, "user driven" learning, starting by, uh, age 4. (Or less?)

Other examples are more "ordinary" (by the standards of the distant past, say 2007 or 2008). Consider:

"MirandaNet is pioneering the concept of 'braided learning'—digital exchanges using instant messaging and social networking where members contribute their comments, judgments and evidence to create shared insights to influence current professional thinking. ... Braided learning allows professionals to create their own knowledge that can be used locally, regionally and nationally; they become activist professionals."

Again group-crowd sourcing-learning and production and 100% customized knowledge are the keystones.

Naturally, some education systems are way ahead (parts of the UK are at the front of the front of the line), and others trail miserably, even if their scores on national technological sophistication are high. Our British friends see the chance for global leadership in an enormous industry ticketed for fast growth over the next 10–20 years.

As I prepare for a seminar tomorrow to a company involved in and dependent upon information collection, analysis, and dissemination, I find that the kids, wee kids in part, from Blackburn and Suffolk are my principal source of inspiration. Dear God, do they have a lot to teach us!

Right now!

100 Ways to Succeed #150:

Forget the Labor Laws!
Staff Your Advisory Boards with 4-year-olds!
(I'm serious.)
(Very serious.)

"Everything" is changing.
Our recession-depression will not slow the change; it may well accelerate it.

The change is being "consumer led" by, yes, 4-year-olds, among others.

What do 4-year-olds have to teach you and your small or large, public or private, organizational unit or company?

A lot.
Period.

So, what is your Grand Plan/Tactical Plan for gleaning the Wisdom of the Four-year-olds?

   (1) I'm not kidding in the least.
   (2) So what's your plan?
   (3) Be specific.

NB: Yesterday, driving to Boston, I heard the news that the Christian Science Monitor is, after 100 years, discontinuing the paper edition of its paper. It'll soon be 100% electronic. Yup, stuff, lots of, is happening.

The Real, Large-scale "Gamechanger" Innovators:

Pioneering Users of Technological Innovations

The term "completely original analysis" is overused—by me, among others. But Amar Bhide's well-received book, The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World, deserves this accolade.

The argument in a nutshell: The most important innovations are not the highly visible technology breakthroughs. They are, instead, the innovations created by consumers of the breakthrough innovations.

Here are a few of the media reviews cited at Amazon:

"In [Bhide's] view, many analysts put too much emphasis on the production of new technological ideas. Instead, he observes, the real economic payoff lies in innovations in how technologies are used."—Steve Lohr, New York Times.

"Arguments for protectionism are based on fears that are wholly at odds with the evidence. The experience of recent years does not support the idea that millions of jobs will be outsourced to cheap foreign locations. ... [Amar Bhide argues] it is in the application of innovations to meet the needs of consumers that most economic value is created, so what matters is not so much where the innovation happens but where the 'venturesome consumers' are to be found. America's consumers show no signs of becoming less venturesome, and its government remains committed to the idea that the customer is king."—Matthew Bishop, the Economist.

"Innovation everywhere is a boon to America. That's the argument from [Bhide] who sees hidden value in America's unique ability to integrate and consume big new ideas, no matter where they're spawned."—Kirk Shinkle, U.S. News & World Report.

"A rigorously researched and original analysis that challenges much received wisdom about the process of innovation, particularly in the U.S. ... In his analysis of innovation, Bhide distinguishes between cutting-edge scientific discoveries and ideas—what he calls 'high-level' know-how—and the kind of know-how needed to turn these ideas into innovative products and services to meet the needs of specific markets ('mid- and ground-level innovation'). He says not enough attention has been paid to this mid- and ground-level activity, in particular to the commercial and organizational effort needed to turn scientific breakthroughs into useful products, or to how well America does it."—Fergal Byrne, Financial Times.

"[Bhide's] core message is that you need innovative consumers. This, rather than the cutting-edge stuff in the university labs or the research departments of the multinationals, is what gives America its edge."—Hamish McRae, the Independent.

If I am a good judge, I predict you'll never look at the world of innovation the same way again if–after you read this book.

A Mission Statement Must, Circa 2009

Gerson Barbosa posted a Comment yesterday that included the following: "The mission statement of Johns Hopkins includes 'cultivate their capacity for life-long learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.'"

It got me thinking. In our rapidly gyrating world (see the two Posts immediately above), learning-for-life is no longer an option. This is true of you at 6 or 26 or 46, and of me at 66 and my great pal Warren Bennis in his 80s. Moreover, explicit focus on "life-long learning" for everyone on board may be the most sustainable advantage an organization of any flavor can have.

Hence, I strongly suggest that "A commitment by all of us to accelerated lifelong learning," or some such be made a formal part of your mission statement. It deserves to be right up there with the likes of superior quality and profitability.

100 Ways to Succeed #151:

Commit to Lifelong Learning as a "Core Value"

I hereby suggest that you add to your mission statement or corporate charter the following:

"An unstinting commitment by all of us to accelerated lifelong learning."

(And then I suggest you do something "radical" "profound" "bold" to bring said core value to life.)

Latest Whoops!

The Innovation120 once again grew; it's now the Innovation121. Tom assures us "This is it." We'll see!

Whoops!

The Innovation114 grew to the Innovation120. Plus I added two Appendices. The first is a collection of some of my favorite innovation quotes—87 to be precise. The second Appendix is a personal story of "spontaneous discovery," to steal from F.A. Hayek.

Mr Speaker, May I Respectfully Offer An Amendment ...

A couple of years ago, outgoing HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said that obesity, especially childhood obesity, was a bigger longterm problem than terrorism. And surely there are numbers to support that point—numbers from which there's no place to hide.

To deal with this issue, a host of governmental, as well as private sector, programs have been launched with varying degrees of success here, there, and surely not yet everywhere.

Massachusetts is the latest to jump toward the bandwagon. The first page of the Boston Globe of 8 January led with this headline: "State Readies Campaign to Curb Obesity Epidemic." Among other things, 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th graders will be sliced, diced, and weighed, and the results in the form of Body Mass Index will be the hallmark of a health Report Card that will be sent home to the parents of the heavyweights, along with guides to abet remedial action. There's a lot more to the story, but the report card is the centerpiece.

In my own small way, I've been among those railing for years at the pronounced bias of our health system toward fixing things after they're broken rather than obsessing on prevention; e.g., Wired recently reported that the National Cancer Institute spends only 8% of its research budget on early detection. Hence, I am a vociferous champion of any and all prevention-wellness programs such as Mike Bloomberg's trans fat ban and the likes of the proposed Massachusetts program.

But there's a hitch.

If there is a single trait of leaders which is of unchallenged importance, it's the notion that the leader must exhibit in a very personal way the values he-she is attempting to inculcate in the organization. My colleague Jim Kouzes was, I believe, the first to use the powerful phrase "model the way." And, of course, the Old Faithful from Gandhi, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

In short, if you ain't modeling it, fuggedaboutit.

Have I told you about my speech to MHHA/the Michigan Health and Hospital Association a couple of years ago? We discussed obesity, and I used a slide with the following three words: "Bust fat docs!" You could have heard that proverbial pin drop. In particular, I singled out pediatricians. There's no group of docs I respect more, and that's not hyperbole; but I nonetheless said, "A significantly overweight [we're not talking 10 pounds, or maybe even 15] pediatrician is simply not credible lecturing young patients, or their parents, about obesity. In fact, the lecturing-hectoring will necessarily be self-defeating."

You can probably see what's coming.

I buy MA's idea of the Body Mass Index report card. Which, of course—of course!—means that we have to follow the exact same ritual for teachers, and particularly principals.

Right?

There is no group of human beings, except maybe for those pediatricians, whom I respect more than our underappreciated teachers—again, no hyperbole. (And their likewise underappreciated principals.) They clearly deserve as much adulation and support as our soldiers and sailors and airmen in battle zones.

So this is not about respect or appreciation.
It's about childhood obesity.

In short, a significantly overweight teacher-classroom leader [again, we're not talking 10 pounds, or maybe even 15], or principal-school leader, lacks any semblance of credibility relative to this issue which is arguably "more important than terrorism"—childhood obesity.

Fire fat teachers? Of course not. Post their BMIs on the school bulletin board, or at least in the teachers' room? It's appealing, but I guess not; I'm a privacy freak.

But send the teacher-principal report card home in an envelope with District Office of BMI Report Cards as the sending address?
Semi-annual high BMI Teacher-Principal conference?
Semi-annual high BMI Principal-District Administrator conference?
Official annual letters-of-warning in the personnel jackets of offenders?
Deny superhigh BMI teachers tenure if they are not progressing relative to a sane weight-BMI reduction program?
Deny the high BMI-ers access to any of the increasingly popular bonus-incentive programs?

I believe my suggestions are rather Draconian. But there's ample reason to believe that the terrorism analogy is not much over the top—so, Draconian measures are urgently called for. (I also acknowledge that the teachers unions would scream bloody murder—a pretty good sign that I'm onto something.)

Leaders lead to the extent that they are role models for the change they aim to make and the values they aim to instill.
Period.
Classroom teachers, and their principals, are the Ultimate Leaders when it comes to our nation's future.
Period.

Bust fat pediatricians!
Bust fat teachers-principals!
Or lose the war before it's launched on the terror of childhood obesity.

Mr Speaker, I offer the above, appropriately reformatted, as an Amendment to any obesity program passed into legislation in the great and glorious Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

NB: Alas, I'm one of the kids whose parents would have gotten the damn report card. And I could damn well afford to lose 20 pounds right now without fear of becoming emaciated. But I am neither pediatrician nor classroom teacher nor school principal. (Bust high BMI management gurus? Hmmmm, maybe not such a bad idea.)

Me! Me! Me! Me!

Did you know, my dear young, under-55 readers, that me and mine, those of us over 55, "are more active in online finance, shopping, and entertainment than those under 55?" That's the word from respected Forrester Research. The quote is from a story in USA Today, 8 January, titled, "Older Folks Like Tech Toys, Too." Tomorrow, the humongous Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show will have its first "Silvers Summit" in recognition of the above.

My reaction?
Duh!

I repeat in this Blog for the Umpteenth Time: The Mother of All Markets for Approximately Everything for the next quarter-century is the deeply underappreciated, insanely underserved Boomer-Geezer clan of 100 million or so in the U.S. alone. (Then add the Super-silver EU and Super-silver Japan, and the story grows even more important.)

"Silver Summit"?
This market is not about "silver initiatives."
This market is the market—the rest is details.

That I Should Live So Long

Agree with Jim Cramer?
Agree 100% with Jim Cramer?
Agree 100.00% with Jim Cramer?

Yup.

He was interviewed by Chris Matthews last night on Hardball. In his typically, shall we say, raised voice he said-screamed-ranted that we need the giant stimulus package.

Right now.
Not on President's Day.
Right now.
Or insane amounts of shit are quite likely to hit the fan and get sprayed, to be selfish, all over you and me—from head to toe.

I agree.

(FYI, try this link to "The Horrible Jobs Report May Save the Economy.")

This Is Not a Recession

Don't think of our current economic crisis as a recession. Instead, think of it as a recalibration.

Everything is different now.

If you think of it as a recession, you may be tempted to "hunker down" and wait for the economy to cycle back.

If you think of it as a recalibration, you will be motivated to focus on what you have to do differently, since everything is different now.

The way your business generates results is different, now.

Your customers think differently, now.

Your customers care about different things, now.

Your customers act differently, now.

Your customers may actually be different people, now. brand viagra without prescription

Customers aren't disposable anymore; more than ever, you have to create sustainable customer relationships.

Everything is different now.

I'm posting this on January 7, 2009. One thing I'm convinced of is that the world I am working in today is different from any world I have ever done business in. The world has been reset. We can no longer look at the "LY" column on reports to use last year as a benchmark for what will happen this year.

(Please join me on January 9th for my free 2009 Readiness Teleseminar. You can register here. I'll address six questions that you must answer, to thrive in '09. Please sign up, and if you can't make it live you'll receive an audio recording after the event.)

[Visit Steve's website and share ideas at www.yastrow.com. See his books at www.yastrow.com/products.html.—CM]

Innovate or Die: The Innovation114
A Menu of [Essential] Innovation Tactics
Part Four: Tactic #76 through #114

[If the numbering in this post doesn't seem to jive with yesterday's, that's because the list of 110 tactics seems to have grown in the course of the week; we've adjusted accordingly. As promised, however, a PDF of all 114 tactics is also available. Addenda 01.13.09: Now find 121 tactics in the PDF!—CM]

Adhocracy.
Love It or Leave It.

76. Projects "emerge." Recall "spontaneous discovery process," our item #3. Most projects invent themselves, rather than being the product of a formal planning process; and their growth into something big is also mostly organic. An effective culture of innovation is largely ad hoc—which drives many senior managers crazy. If they can't "get it," then they don't belong.

77. Leadership is on the fly. Things change rapidly. Teams are born and teams die. Yesterday's leader is today's follower—and vice versa. Developing "on the fly" leadership skills is no walk in the park. First, it must be perceived as a describable and learnable skill. (Hint: Women are better at this than men. Arguably, much better.)

78. Plan-less-ness. If your organization chart "makes sense," then you probably don't have an innovative enterprise. Adhocracy requires letting go of linearity assumptions.

Skunkworks.
Creating Parallel Universes.
Invisible/Shadow Organizations.

79. Parallel Universe/Unit within unit (School within a school). Big firms win in part through focus—which eventually means blinders that destroy them. The best way to innovate is often to create a Parallel Universe. It's effectively a "shadow company" with its own staffing, its own culture, in fact. As business schools saw the 2-year resident MBA decline, for instance, they sensed a rise in demand for executive education. But professors often balked. Smart schools set up schools within schools using new assets to experiment with and deliver exec ed. In many cases, the school-within-a-school was eventually re-integrated, but only after it had enough muscle to resist the regnant culture; in some cases the "shadow organization" eclipsed the traditional organization.

80. Skunkworks at all levels. Lockheed invented the term "Skunk Works;" the Lockheed Skunk Works was a small unit, in Burbank CA, that used a totally unconventional approach to developing essential military aircraft in record time with an astonishingly small group of astonishingly motivated people. The generic "skunkworks idea" is a variation on #79 above. That is, a "band of brothers and sisters" who are contrarian in nature, determined to go their own way and do it their own way, and who stink-up-the-central-culture as they pursue what they believe is an earthshattering dream. For example, Apple boss Steve Jobs "left" his own company and set up a Skunkworks, complete with pirate flag proudly flying, to develop the first Mac—it took dead aim at the heart of the company's then-current (successful) product line.

81. All Units/One-off projects. All units of all sizes should mount at least one "sorta Skunkworks," that is, separated bands pursuing no-fit, low-fit projects. Such a "band" may be one person in a 6-person department.

82. Centers of Excellence. A more formal approach to important innovations is setting up "centers of excellence." For example, GlaxoSmithKline created 7 CEDDs, Centers of Excellence for Drug Discovery. Previously, GSK had used a huge functional organization to do its development work; now these CEDDs became self-sufficient units led by powerful project managers.

83. Center of Excellence/Design. Design, writ large, is increasingly the route to product or service differentiation. Many companies are now beyond lip service, but a long way from fully incorporating design and experience creation into the heart of the company culture. One effective approach is a center of excellence with the avowed goal of nothing less than becoming a "hotbed" of global excellence—for example, Samsung followed this path and is giving Sony a run for its money.

84. Center of Excellence/Women's market. Tom rant. Creating products and services tailored to women's desires is obvious as the end of one's nose—and still honored in the breach. Especially when the magnitude of the effort adds up to strategic repositioning of the enterprise as a whole. My advice: Don't mess around, get serious, win big.

85. Center of Excellence/Boomer-Geezer market. Equivalent to #84 above. Market potential enormous. Will dominate for next quarter-century. Many "trying a few things." But strategic re-alignment more aptly suits the magnitude of the opportunity. My advice: Don't mess around, get serious, win big.

86. Acknowledgement. This section is about acknowledging the limits of change in the regnant culture. Hence, creation of parallel, shadow, etc. organizations-within-the-organization becomes part of the "way we [necessarily must] do things around here." There are no guarantees of success—but the ideas are worthy of serious consideration in small organizations as well as large ones.

Decentralization.
First Among Equals.

87. Decentralize. #1 innovation strategy. Big company. Pretty small company.

88. Keep decentralizing.

89. Decentralize "before it makes sense."

90. There is "decentralization," and then there is Decentralization. Beware the difference between "sorta" decentralization—and the real deal, à la GE or Johnson & Johnson or PepsiCo. Decentralization is an attitude as much as the shape of an org chart.

91. Form a cadre of formal "centralization fighters" with muscle. Beware ICD, Inherent Centralization Drift. (This is a top management task.)

The Team at the Top.
Diverse or Dead.
Cherish & Demand Disrespect.

92. Top team risk profile. You are what you eat. You are where you've been. A successful commitment to innovation will only come when the top team, in every function, has a l-o-n-g history of unflinching commitment to innovation.

93. Top team CQ/Curiosity Quotient. Innovators are unhappy if new ideas are not the currency of their everyday affairs. While execution is paramount, catholic interests must be permanently in evidence. Curiosity may well have killed the cat, but the lack thereof is the bane of successful longterm organizational vitality and, indeed, survival.

94. Board composition/Innovation experience. Boards must ooze with experience in and commitment to innovation. (Most don't.)

95. Top team/Innovation coaches and mentors. Top team members in innovative enterprises take innovation personally—from the top to the bottom of the organization. Among other things, they act as mentors for innovation projects, including small ones three or four levels down in the organization.

96. Women as leaders in project organizations. Women do better at adhocracy than men. Women do better with minimal hierarchy than men. Women do better with diversity than men. Women do better with shifting leadership that disobeys traditional ideas of power distribution than men.

97. Top Team Calendar management. If you are an Innovation Obsessive, it will show up in unmistakable fashion on your Calendar. Calendars never lie. They are 100% accurate and visible indicators of your priorities. Micromanage them accordingly. Make your Innovation Obsession scream from your calendar! (There are few more powerful change levers.)

98. Chief Forgetting Officer. Learning is a cakewalk. Forgetting is hell—particularly for "seasoned" successful executives. Therefore, the idea of "forgetting" per se is of perpetual strategic importance. Perhaps it should be formalized in the shape of a Chief Forgetting Officer?

99. Diversity. Diversity. Diversity. (Rare in top teams! Fix it! Fast! It works! Especially when innovation is the goal!)

100. Forward look. Beware offices (especially that of the Big Boss) and hallways and cafeterias awash in tributes to the past—even terrific ones like a Baldridge Award or a "product of the year award" from 1993, or even 2003; also dump the photos of you and famous "people of the past." When Steve Jobs re-arrived at Apple he tossed out all the models of yesterday's great "industry changing" computers—and replaced them with prototypes "from" tomorrow. Such "mere" "look and feel" stuff is potent medicine.

101. Irreverence. Innovation is about changing course before it's absolutely necessary. Hence excessive reverence for the past is Public Enemy #1. Establishing a "culture of irreverence" at the top is far easier said than done. But done it must be.

Commitment to Excellence in Innovation.
Or Bust.

102. Innovation is fun.

103. Innovation is a glorious way of life.

104. Innovation is scary. (But what is life without risk? Living death!)

105. Innovation is enthusiasm.

106. Innovation is passion.

107. Innovation is a matchless source of pride.

108. Innovation is life at the speed of light.

109. Innovation is an "all hands" game.

110. Innovation is big.

111. Innovation is small.

112. Innovation is an iPod.

113. Innovation is a Tuf-E-Nuf hammer.

114. Excellence in innovation.

We can't all be Apple or Cirque du Soleil or Basement Systems Inc.
But we can damn well die trying.

Innovate or Die: The Innovation110
A Menu of [Essential] Innovation Tactics
Part Three: Tactic #43 through #72

Celebration!

43. Celebrate! Innovative organizations are places where people enjoy their peers' work, good tries, good screw-ups, milestones reached, etc. Celebrating these events, large and small and very small, is a fullscale part of the "innovation culture."

44. Celebrate failures. This peculiar form of celebration deserves particular mention. "Fast failure" is innovation's bedrock. Hence the encouragement thereof, rather than the stigmatization, is of paramount importance. Hence, the hearty celebration of the quick try run amok is of strategic importance.

R&D, Ubiquity of.
"Staff Department" R&D Paramount.

45. R&D spending/Overall. This is a "boring" staple of innovation, but obviously of great importance. Aggressiveness is called for. In addition to the firm itself, having, say, a set of vendors, most or all of whom are top-quartile in R&D spending in their industry, is also of great importance.

46. R&D/Big Co, Small Co. Aggressive R&D is not just the provenance of the big company. In fact, it is more important to the 2-person Professional Services Firm than the lumbering giant—talk about "Innovate or die"!

47. R&D spending/Small projects. Make sure the R&D portfolio includes many one-off, short-term projects. (Quite often, these little fellas grow to become the biggest of the big.)

48. R&D/100% Staff Departments. Aggressive R&D is as important in Finance and Purchasing as in IT or New Product Development!!!

49. R&D/Systems! Innovative systems are as important as innovative products (witness Dell's 2-decade systems-driven run, which changed the world). Manage the hell out of this!

50. R&D/Practice "Nudgery." Small system nudges can cause grand behavior changes. Become a "nudge aficionado." Teach Nudgery.

51. "R&D" Play Money/Ubiquitous. The ability for virtually anyone to get their hands on a few bucks (and a mentor) to play around (right term) with a new idea is essential.

52. Venture Funds/All levels. This can run to billions of $$ at Intel to much smaller sums, but the idea is casting a wide, speculative net.

53. University support. Research universities are among America's most vital competitive advantages, and are likely to be so for decades. Associations, large and small, with universities are an important part of the innovative enterprise.

54. "Sell-by" date, consideration of. Peddling old stalwart parts of enterprises when they become commoditized may help free the spirit of the enterprise to move toward a new playing field. (On the other hand, oldie goldies can surprisingly often become hotbeds of new innovation under inspired leadership.)

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55. R&D/good times and bad times. R&D may have to take its lumps in tough times like the present. But beware of cutting too much muscle. Moreover, bad times can be the perfect time to get the jump on competitors with innovations if at all possible. Tough times are also ideal for little R&D projects that might just grow legs.

The Essential Role of Lead Customers.
Loving Angry Customers.

56. Lead customer portfolio. Innovation is not natural in the best of circumstances. Stasis is comfortable. Hence, we must force ourselves into uncomfortable circumstances. (I accept speeches to groups where I have no expertise.) Customers who are far from our norm are frontline change agents. We must formally create a portfolio of lead customers—and then commit to joint product development and connection in general. Again, this must be managed and not left to chance.

57. Customers on all teams. Customers must pervade our electronic and physical halls. They must especially be part of all innovation teams.

58. New network forms. Constantly experiment with new forms of networking with customers of all sizes and shapes.

59. Pissed-off Customers Association. No group is more valuable than pissed off customers!! (Even, or especially, irrationally pissed off customers.) Make them part of the family. Shower them with love. Reward them for their contributions. Bring then into electronic and physical networks.

XFX/Cross-Functional Excellence.
No Option.

60. XF Obsession. Implemented innovations generally (100% of the time?) include and are significantly shaped by contributions from all departments. Lousy cross-functional (XF) communication-cooperation-synergy-esprit is often Problem #1 in enterprises of all sizes. Thus a culture of innovation is dependent on constant-strategic-executive attention to XF effectiveness.

61. XF Innovators. The heart of an innovation that goes in a wonderfully unpredicted direction is very likely to have come from a contribution by a "secondary"-to-the-project functional expert.

62. XF Programs. Formalize numerous programs and nudges, small more important than large, to specifically and measurably attack-enhance-vivify XF effectiveness.

63. XF Friendships (measurement thereof). It is this simple: Friendships across boundaries are the best lubricant there is. Foster them! Formally!

64. XF-centrism in evaluations. Repeated XF obfuscation is a firing offense. XFX (cross-functional excellence) is cause for early promotion, hefty bonuses, etc. This part of the evaluation must have sharp teeth.

65. XF/All teams. Foster cooperative XF involvement in activities of all sizes and shapes by all sorts of folks, even, or especially, when the need is not obvious.

66. XF assignment as requisite career step. Promotion to relatively senior positions or above is dependent on at least one full XF assignment—e.g., a year or so tour of duty.

67. XF/Finance. Get as many managers as possible to spend non-trivial time in finance, to develop a "business" perspective on their work—this is especially important regarding innovation activities.

Project Team Primacy.
Project Managers Rule.

68. Project team as basic organizational unit. The largely independent project team, the coherent entity of 2, 21, or 212, is the basic building block of the innovating enterprise. This comes as no surprise, but must be underscored anyway. Innovation work is rarely accomplished via a routine grouping that follows the conventional org chart and involves members from various functions who remain under the jurisdiction of their traditional bosses. Obvious or not, innovating organizations are collections of energized project teams—with functional affiliations secondary.

69. The excellent project manager is the Superstar of the innovation-centric enterprise. These are the small numbers of superstars who must be retained at almost any cost. And they do stand out as superstars.

70. The development and care and feeding of your cadre of project managers is human resources Job #1. Effective project management is a peculiar discipline requiring a raft of skills, from the very hard to the very soft. Understanding the discipline and carefully developing project management skills is paramount to creating and maintaining a culture of innovation.

71. Project manager cadre diversity is imperative. Period.

72. Entire talent pool available to project managers. Creating a process, preferably Web-driven, for project managers to cobble teams together for the long haul or for a 48-hour project is essential. But remember to take into account the "soft stuff," and not over-mechanize the process.

Innovate or Die: The Innovation110
A Menu of [Essential] Innovation Tactics
Part Two: Tactic #17 through #42

We Are What We Eat.
(And Who We Hang Out With.)

17. Hang out/"We are what we eat" We are what we eat/We are who we co-habit with, and variants thereof are of infinite importance to the effective innovator. Managing "the hang-out factor" is of the utmost strategic importance—and usually an under-tended lever.

18. Hang out/Basic axiom. Hang out with weird—get more weird. Hang out with dull—get more dull.

19. Hang out/Customer portfolio. Consider one's customer portfolio. Perhaps a few giant customers account for 85% of one's revenues. One must listen to them, but the odds are that these giants are relatively conservative. Hence one must purposefully and urgently recruit oddball-"on the frontier" customers. Their revenue stream may be limited, but these folks force you to play with novel products and services to meet their peculiar needs. Hence careful construction of the total customer portfolio is an essential practice.

20. Hang out/Customers everywhere. Customers at various staff meetings, on various teams, etc.

21. Hang out/Our folks at customer sites. Imbedded staff at lead customer locations. The success watchword is "intermingle."

22. Hang out/Vendors/Outsourcing Partners Portfolio. Instead of a few "strategic suppliers," as important as they may be, one needs "far out" vendors and outsourcing partners whose innovations force you into an innovation mode. I.e., repeat #19 and #20 and #21 for vendors.

23. Hang out/Locale (Hotbed). Company or unit HQ location is important beyond measure. Working in a "hotbed" (e.g., Cambridge MA and biotech) is an immeasurable spur to innovation. (Beware: Hotbeds eventually become lookalike and-or complacent—think Detroit, 1920 vs 1980–2008.)

24. Hang out/Team placement. An offsite team in an innovation hotbed often takes on the attributes of a gang of on-the-make pirates. A team near a plant takes plant-derived considerations particularly seriously. Etc. Want weird? Start with consideration of locale.

25. Hang out/Space management. Space management is arguably the singlemost important strategic lever. Designer moved next to the CEO? Design vaults up the importance scale. Etc.

26. Hang out/Consultants Portfolio. Types of consultants brought in influences who we talk to-live with, how we approach problems. There are "hot" consultants, and "not-so-hot" consultants. Again, purposefully and strategically manage the portfolio.

27. Hang out/Crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing stands a good chance of radically changing the world of innovation! You simply must experiment vigorously. The tool is powerful, but the process is not automatic—it needs lots of thought and oversight. (And it applies to every nook and every cranny of the enterprise—and to small enterprises.)

28. Hang out/Clubs, learning networks, etc. Electronic, physical, any and all formats. Turning the enterprise into a de facto university, with learning and growing honored and ubiquitous and fast and furious and fun, is the point here.

29. Hang out/Staff. Where staffers live relative to their line customers is critical. A finance person imbedded in the logistics department, for example, changes both perspectives.

30. Hang out/Lunchmates. Never waste a lunch!!!! Lunch is 5 opportunities per week, 220 opportunities per year, to get to know interesting outsiders, folks from other functions, customers, vendors, frontline staffers. This is remarkably important. "Lunch management," a "lunch culture" is not an amusing aside.

31. Hang out/Meeting Attendees. We spend enormous amounts of time in meetings. Never waste a meeting. Invite interesting outsiders, folks from other functions, etc. (See #30 immediately above.)

Diversity Per Se.
Sine Qua Non.

32. Diversity/Every flavor/Management & Measurement. Diversity with a lower-case "d." Black, white, brown, purple ... tall, short ... North American, Asian ... public school, private school, no school ... etc. ... etc. (Etc.) Decision-making of every sort is far, far better with diverse views of any flavor. Period. I have come to view this as a gamechanger—for a 6-person project team, a 20-person company, a huge enterprise.

33. Diversity/Hiring. Search every oddball corner of the world for interesting people. Hire dull, get dull results. (Duh.) (This holds across the board—and irrespective of the size of the enterprise.)

34. Diversity/Freak Acquisitions. I'm an enemy of 99% of mega-mergers, and a vigorous ally of small acquisitions that allow skipping steps in obtaining interesting new pieces of the puzzle for an enterprise. This can be the purchase of an intriguing 2-person accountancy by a 15-person accountancy, as well as a small-acquisition overall strategy by the likes of Cisco Systems.

35. Diversity/Promoting. Diversity of every stripe at every level, achieved by design. Remember, diversity-qua-diversity works.

100% Enthusiasts.
100% Innovators.
HR = Supercool.

36. "What do you think?" Innovation-an innovation culture engages one and all. (All = All.) Getting everyone to think about improvements small and large comes from, de facto, constantly asking "What do you think?"—perhaps the 4 most important words in the innovator's vocabulary. Treating every voice as valued yields more value from every voice.

37. Hire enthusiasts. Innovation is about active engagement. The more enthusiasts, the more people want to "opt in" and fully engage. Enthusiasts are innovators almost by definition. (Or, at the least, non-enthusiasts are guaranteed non-innovators.)

38. Promote enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are important in all roles. Enthusiasts as bosses is a "no option" imperative—if you want to create an "innovation machine" in organizations of any size.

39. Innovative behavior is the best predictor of innovative behavior. Want to discover an innovator? Best test: a history as an innovator, apparent at the latest by, perhaps, age 10 or 12 or 14.

40. Re-invent HR to be a Center of Innovative People. It's not that HR has to "support" a culture of innovation. HR must be a chief carrier of the culture of innovation, must model innovative behavior 100% of the time. An "innovation culture" in HR is arguably more important than an innovation culture in marketing and new product development. (Think about it.) (Alas, this is ever so rare.)

41. Get the incentives right! Profitability, quarter by quarter, is essential—in organizations of all sizes. But a commitment to innovation as evidenced by the likes of share of revenue from products introduced in the last 24 months should be a major component of discretionary compensation. Equivalent measures must be developed for logistics, purchasing, HR, IT, etc. Incentive schemes must "speak" innovation.

42. Get the evaluations right! Per #41 immediately above, the evaluation process must focus on risk-taking, innovations launched, "excellent failures" as one exec puts it. Department bosses might be evaluated by comparative innovativeness at similar departments in peer-competitor firms. Etc. Innovation-in-evaluation is a 100% affair.

Good as It Gets!

If there are two better quotes than this pair I came across yesterday, which capture the spirit and practice of innovation as I see it, I don't know what they are:

"America is probably the best culture in the world at failing. We're willing to navigate in a fog and keep moving forward. Our competitive advantage tends to be at the fuzzy front end of things when you're still finding your way. Once the way has been found, we're back at a disadvantage."—Geoff Moore, Mohr Davidow Ventures, on the importance of investing in innovation (New York Times, 0104.09)

"We normally shoot a few takes, even if the first one is terrific, because what I'm really hoping for is a 'mistake.' I think that most of the really great moments in my films were not planned. They were things that naturally occurred and we said, 'Wow, look at that—that's something we want to keep.' That's when you hit the truth button with the audience."—Robert Altman, on his Academy Award winning Gosford Park

Both emphasize the role of failure and the unplanned—the twin centerpieces of effective innovation.

2009: Week One

I started jotting down a few summary thoughts about innovation this past Saturday. Next thing I knew I had a list of 110 items. I decided to break the list into four parts. One part will appear each day through Thursday of this first full week of the new year. On Thursday we will also offer a PDF of the entire list.

Innovate or Die: The Innovation110
A Menu of [Essential] Innovation Tactics
Part One: Tactic #1 through #16

Recession or no recession, deep recession or not, the challenge to add more and more value grows, and the importance of innovation, and a culture of innovation, grows exponentially. A "culture of innovation" covers "everything." There is no halfway. There, of course, are "first principles." Or are there? I started a list of "stuff" that's imperative to creating an innovative enterprise. The list of 10 or so grew to 25, then 45, and at the moment includes no less than 110 "tactics." Of course you can't do all of them. Or must you? Well, you can't do all 110, or maybe even half that number, but the absence of any one or two or three or six weakens and perhaps even imperils the entire structure. Use what follows as you will.

Trying Stuff.
Screwing Stuff Up.
Fast.

1. Tries. Darwin rules. More stuff goin' on, more interesting-good stuff happenin'. Innovation is to a large extent a "numbers game": He-she who tries the most stuff wins. (Astonishingly true.)

2. Culture of "Try it! Now!" Culture! Culture! Attitude! Attitude! Mindset! Mindset! "The way we do things around here." "Around here, we try things first, fix 'em fast, try again, talk about it later, when we've got something to talk about."

3. Philosophy/F.A. Hayek/"spontaneous discovery process." Firm as market economy. New stuff emerges "spontaneously" from lots of trials and lots of errors. The innovator's life is life on the run, zigging here and zagging there—but always hustling.

4. Failures encouraged/celebrated/cherished. Failure is the key to success. Period. Fast failure is the key to fast success. And so on. This must be "cultural" to the core.

5.Transparency. All info on all these tries and cock-ups available to all to inspire, to chew over, to add to, to attract adherents and champions, etc.

6.Connection/Ubiquitous. No barriers! Across-the-wall communication is as normal as breathing!

7. MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. An informal, in touch, high-camaraderie, on the move atmosphere underlies the "try it"-"screw it up"-"learn from it"-"fast" "culture."

8. Fail to share yields "death penalty." Sharing-transparency are the innovation organization's lubricant; therefore those who hoard must get the boot.

9. Fast prototyping/Serious play. Prototyping skills-attitude are more central than almost anyone can imagine. Entire organization as "playpen" with "playmates" gathering spontaneously to try stuff. Quickly. Quickly.

10. Tempo/OODA Loop mastery/RFA. "Ready. Fire. Aim." is the premier cultural trait. Try it-learn from it-try it again-spread the news-recruit adherents-etc. The organization has a high metabolic rate ("metabolic management"), a rapid tempo. The Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle, invented by military strategist John Boyd, is quick and the quickness per se confuses one's competitors.

11. FFFF/Find a Fellow Freak Faraway/"The Sri Lanka Strategy." Try cool-scary-risky stuff out in the boondocks, well away from HQ and typical HQ stuffiness. Find a playmate in "Sri Lanka" ready to give your idea a whirl; eventually, the network of Champions-from-the-boondocks become the premier carriers of the innovation.

12. Demos/Heroes/Stories. Tries and screw-ups and sagas of bold champions become the "stories" that animate the organization—and induce everyone to climb aboard, play with vigor, or lose out.

13. Social Networks. The emerging social networking tools become the accelerator for the process described and implied in these first dozen ideas. Nothing automatic about this—must be thought through, overseen (but also loose-as-a-goose, not judgmental). Emergent leadership from hither, thither, and yon becomes the de facto "leadership for innovation" in the organization.

Discipline.
Accountability.
Execution.

14. Department of Sanity/"Dreamers with Deadlines"/Fiscal responsibility/Budget skills. Warren Bennis called hot groups of innovators "dreamers with deadlines." Innovation is not pie-in-the-sky, "let's all have a blast, yo my man, cool, eh?" in nature. There is a compelling and disciplined "execution" thread that is central to the innovating organization. The innovating organization is focused on "new stuff," "cool stuff"—but is pragmatic to a fault. The project "budget and milestones guru" is as honored as the true believer-dreamer-champion.

15. Department of Sanity/Accountability. Screwing up, for instance, is essential to innovating. But there is as much accountability around screwing up as there is around inventory management in a traditional outfit; that is, the innovator takes responsibility for the screw-up and for insuring rapid learning and dissemination of lessons learned and for mounting the follow-up experiment posthaste.

16. Department of Sanity/Implementation training. Execution and Implementation are paramount skills, highly rewarded and cherished. Bunkmates to the end.

Status Check for 2009: Is Your Job Safe?

As we approach the new year, there is a big uncertainty looming everywhere. For a large majority of people, the uncertainty is about their job. Is it safe? In other words, will they have a job or not?

I think the real question should be "Is someone really employable in the new economy or not?" but that's a topic for another discussion.

This is a quick exercise to do a status check on the "safety" of your job. The questionnaire is in no way complete. The focus is to make you think beyond the "job responsibilities" outlined in your offer letter.

Note: Not all questions are relevant for people at all levels.

1. Is your job core to what the company stands for?

When there is a crisis, an organization tends to drop non-core and adjacent activities. The approach will be to play to their strengths to survive and thrive. If your job does not contribute to the strengths of the organization, you have to quickly re-invent yourself so that it does align with the company core purpose. If what you bring aligns with the strengths of the company, the follow-up question is "how much capacity are you adding to the company?"

2. What will the company/department lose by eliminating your job?

Please note that the question is not, "What will the company gain by keeping you in that job?"

During a crisis, avoiding threats (rather than going after opportunities) will take center stage. If there is no significant threat, there is no big safety net for the job. Even when you are in a strategic R&D project, look at what this R&D project will mean to the company. If you are not happy with the answer, it's time to re-think, re-invent, and re-act.

3. Who is borrowing the brand power?

Is your department proud of you because of your personal brand? OR

Are you proud of the brand of your department?

The answer should ideally be: Both

4. What is the assessment of your "value" in the eyes of the stakeholders?

If the answer is vague, such as "A lot" or "Significant," you have to re-visit the topic. Can you quantify your value in some measure, and is that value justifiable?

5. Is your job "offshorable?"

If your job can be moved offshore, then chances are it will be—in some form or fashion. In other words, you have to question yourself about whether you are doing commodity work. If you are doing work that a machine can do or someone in another country can do for a smaller fee, the chances of those moves may be very high. The thing is that you may not have control of your job if you are engaged in commodity work.

6. Do you care as if it's your own?

If you don't care about your product as if it's your own, you can't expect the company to do that (about you) either. When you care as if it's your own, the passion is clear. Passionate people win—all the time. In troubled times, an organization needs passionate people to keep the place alive. And, the thing about passion and caring is that you can't fake them.

7. Can you handle office politics well?

OK, you may not like office politics, but if you are working in an office, you better learn to deal with it. All else being equal, someone who knows how to deal with office politics will always come out a winner.

8. What is the cost of maintaining you?

There is the cost that you can measure (money, overhead, etc.) and there is the cost that is "real"—which includes, but is not limited to, the emotional cost of dealing with you everyday. For example, if you like to whine a lot, you increase your cost of maintenance. In troubled times, if your real cost to the company is significantly higher than the measurable costs, you are in trouble.

9. Are you likeable?

Unless you work for NASA, you don't have to be a rocket scientist. In tough times (and probably all times) a combination of 7 out of 10 on skills and 9 out of 10 on attitude is preferred to the other way around. If you are not likeable, it will hurt you in ways you would never imagine. People don't always make rational decisions, but they will definitely rationalize it after they have made the decision. So, people may not dismiss you because you are not likeable, but they will find a way to justify why they dismiss you beyond the likeability factor.

[Thanks to Cool Friend Raj Setty for providing us all with these questions for self-examination. Raj works with entrepreneurs to bring ideas to life and spread their adoption. You can learn more about him at www.rajeshsetty.com or follow him on his blog, Life Beyond Code, or on Twitter @UpbeatNow.]