1. Make meaning. The people who wake up in the morning wanting to make meaning usually succeed. The people who want to make money usually fail. Those who perpetuate good things, cause good things, or end bad things – those are the innovators.
2. Make a mantra. “Most organizations make mission statements and most mission statements suck.” A mantra is no more than two or three words. For example, Wendy’s should be “healthy fast food;” Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance;” eBay represents “democratization of commerce;” and Target could be “democratize design.”
3. Jump to the next curve. Don’t be satisfied battling it out on the same curve. Macintosh created a whole new curve, not a slightly better DOS computer. The telephone was not a slightly better telegraph, it was a whole new curve. Most organizations define their business on the curve they’re on. If you truly want to be innovative, it’s not about doing things 10 percent better – jump the curve to do something 10 times better!
4. Roll the DICEE. All innovations share the following elements.
   Depth: Create great products and services that are revolutionary (i.e., Reef makes a fanning sandal to protect feet and has a metal clip to open a beer bottle).
   Intelligent: Someone has anticipated what’s necessary (i.e., Panasonic developed a flashlight that takes three sizes of batteries so you’re sure to have one on hand).
   Complete: Not just the leather and steel and glass of the car – it’s the totality of the experience, it’s the Lexus experience.
   Elegance: The beauty of the industrial design.
   Emotive: Generate strong emotions – people love what you do or hate what you do, but they are certainly not indifferent. The worst case is that people don’t care about what you do.
5. Don’t worry, be crappy If you wait for perfection, you’ll never be ready.
6. Polarize people (emotiveness). Many organizations try to be all things to all people, which inevitably produces mediocrity. Don’t try to anger people, but do not hesitate to alienate a group.
7. Let 100 flowers blossom For example, Apple’s original goal wasn’t to spark a new desktop publishing industry, but it did encourage many software companies to write programs for the Mac. Apple Computer would have died if the Aldus Corporation hadn’t developed PageMaker for the Mac in 1985 – thus expanding the Mac beyond a simple word processor or spreadsheet tool.
8. Churn, baby, churn Take version 1 of your product, and make it 1.1 and 1.2 and 1.3. To be an innovator, you need to be in denial. Ignore the bozos who keep telling you it cannot be done. Then listen to customers to see how to fix your product.
9. Niche thyself. You want high uniqueness and high value. If you’re a great value but not unique, then you always have to compete on price (i.e., Dell Computer). If you’re only unique without value, you’re just a clown – you own a market that doesn’t exist. If your product/service is neither unique nor valuable, fahgeddaboutit! You want to produce something that is unique and of great value to the customer, like the Smart car, which can park perpendicular to the curb, among other things.
10. Follow the 10-20-30 rule. Create a maximum of 10 slides in a PowerPoint presentation; deliver it in 20 minutes; the optimal size font is 30 points.
11. Don’t let the bozos grind you down. Rich and famous parses to “lucky” not necessarily smart. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at who he gives it to.” So watch for Bozosity. Take a shot of Bozosity to inoculate yourself against it

His message also included “The top 10 things he wishes teachers would teach students.” It struck a chord with me and I think applies to anyone interested in business as well.

What our schools do should prepare people for living. Part of living is working. But generally speaking, we’re preparing people for life, not work.

1. Teach students how to figure out anything by themselves.
2. How to explain anything in 30 seconds.
3. How to do a one-page report.
4. 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint (see above).
5. Optimal length of an e-mail is five sentences, without an attachment.
6. How to survive a meeting (basically you get what you want out of the meeting and then you park your brain).
7. How to run a meeting (start on time, end on time, involve as few people as possible).
8. How to work as a group (the solo brilliant person doesn’t work in business).
9. How to negotiate win-wins.
10. Learning is a process not an event. It’s a lifelong process that is not limited to school.

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It was my goal to immediately post interesting articles in an effort to axe my eternal procrastination. But as soon as I found out about the “Send To” feature I ended up sending all of my delectable delights to my personal account so I could more appropriately deal with them when at another time.

Well, my Stumble smart mailbox is quickly filling up with hundreds of interesting post ideas yet there has been no increase in my posting activity; which brings us to the present where, today I just so happened to come across a website sharing words of wisdom in the form of “Mental Heuristics” and a line sharing the same sentiments as this post’s title, struck a chord, and decided to follow suite.

A few of my other favorites are

Always Assume That You Will Succeed

If You Can’t Find A Solution, Change The Rules

Go Check out the rest at Mental Heuristics.

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Aside from its amazing potential as a tool to expand my web services to UI consulting, it pulls my eco/ethical heartstrings as well. Clearleft, is donating 10% of the proceeds from all sales to saving the Gorillas. This is an awesome model more companies should follow.

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Upon reflecting further, I realized she was right! I am not trying I wasn’t trying. I have a list of ideas 67 items long that have not been fully explored. I even started this website as a way to explore these ideas, but even so I haven’t really done anything yet.

Thinking about all of this I realized that even this website is more a way to distract myself, than a way to go out there and actually do something. I have been fretting over the information I want to post on this blog for the past few weeks. Constantly worrying whether or not I am releasing to much information or not enough.

“What if my boss finds out about this blog? What would happen if he knew about my intentions?”

I have wanted to market this site to garner some traffic, but have been in a panic about whether or not I should link to this from www.facebook.com, www.linkedin.com and the like, for fear of the consequences. It seems as though the more successful this website becomes, the more risk I am taking in it’s existence.

I realized that by censoring myself I wasn’t trying. I tried coming up with excuses like “I when I quit my job, I will post anything I want without worry, and really make this site what I want it to be.” But that completely defeats the purpose of this whole website, it is supposed to chronicle my journey from 9-5 to that of a self sufficient financial machine and I can’t very well document my experiences if I am worried about the consequences of doing so… To say that I was trying, was a lie.

This website becomes like the proverbial carrot dangling in front of a starving horse.  I want this website to be successful but I am unwilling to promote it until I quit work.  However I can’t quit work until I can create a successful business venture (website).

So in conclusion I have two options.

1. Do nothing, and continue on in a delerious state of hoping that things will eventually and magically work out in my favor, with little to no effort on my part.
2. Actively seek out opportunities to promote and market myself, this website and my brand, while giving every ounce of energy, heart and soul into making this venture successful.

I choose #2.

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Inspired by indexed.

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