SAMBA Blog

This might not work

If you're like me you spend most of your time playing it safe...scared to try anything that might not work. At work and at play, with my kids and most certainly with my spouse.

But it turns out that most great things...most things that impact the world...might not have worked.

Dave didn't have any guarantee that if he created the best leather bags in the world anyone would buy them...but they did.

Derek didn't know back in 1998 if he started selling CDs for indie artists if anyone would buy them...but they did.

I didn't know if leaving my wife and kids for six months to do Seth's MBA would be worth it...but it was.

Six months ago my wife Amy finished her second novel. I read it and it was good...really good. So she asked me if we should explore getting it published. I knew the answer was yes, but to be honest I was afraid for her. You see, I know the publishing industry. I've spent the last five years working with publishers and agents and authors. And I know that it's a mess. Most great books never get published...and let's be honest many of the books that do get published aren't that great. In fact, publishers are largely in the business of gambling. They're taking chances. Making educated guesses. There's a reason they call them "surprise" best sellers. It's because it's almost always a surprise.

So back to my wife and why I was afraid. I was afraid she'd get missed...that her manuscript would end up in a pile somewhere, glanced at but not read. I was afraid for the inevitable rejection letters she'd receive and what they would do to her artist's heart. But I was more afraid that she'd hide behind the manuscript submission process and play it safe. You see, there's one good safe thing about taking the traditional route: you get to do it in secret. Nobody knows you're being rejected unless you tell them. The truth is I was most afraid that Amy might play it safe and the world would have to wait to experience her gift.

So I asked myself, what would I tell my wife if she was a client? I knew immediately. I'd tell her the traditional publishing system is broken, and there's no need to wait for a publisher to pick you. Instead you can pick yourself, offer your art to the world, and let the readers pick you, and if a publisher wants to come along for the ride and brings something of value to the table, then let them.

It sounded good when I said it...but then I realized...crap, this might not work. But it was too late. Amy believed me. And so I've spent the last six months pretending to be brave...as I pulled in a director for a book trailer...as I convinced a famous musical arranger to do the score...as I worked with the best artist I know to create the cover. And then on Saturday, the date I've been waiting for dreading arrived. And we launched Amy's project into the world complete with a ridiculous challenge to publishers. And I'm still incredibly scared that it might not work.

But then again...it might.

What are you doing that might not work?

A Song for Seth Godin

The four and half months I spent with Seth Godin in 2009 changed my life.  The experience shook me to the core and scared the crap out of me. It woke me up to how irrational fear (lizard brain) cripples my projects. It woke me up to the possibility that I can actually make a difference and commit to something great, something that matters.

It sounds lovely, but it's actually been frightening to realize my potential. It's hard to commit to making a difference.  It's much easier being lost in a dream of myself as somone who would let Seth Godin down, as someone who has nothing remarkable to give.  And despite how inspiring that time in New York was for me, I came home to Atlanta still lost in a sea of too many choices, except this time I was aware of the waves, the rudder and the captain at the helm.  

When things got tough during the production of my band's new record, it was much easier to go do something else. And many times, I did. Over and over and over again. 

Seth lays out his final takeaways from SAMBA in this blog. There he writes, "If you're stuck, getting unstuck is not only possible, it's an obligation."  

My band released our record today at 3pm. We shipped. I consider this record launch getting "un-stuck". I also wrote a song about my experience following Seth's Alternative MBA (SAMBA) and include it on the record.  Here, have a listen...

Thank you, Seth. And thank you to my friends from SAMBA, whose work over the years inspires me to keep going, to not give up and to take responsibility for steering the boat myself. Love y'all. 

My book launches today and it's free

The book I've been working on for months and months, Read This Before Our Next Meeting is finally here (published by Seth Godin's revolutionary Domino Project)

Meetings are broken and this manifesto is designed to fundamentally reinvent the institution as we know it.

And I'm so excited to announce that Citrix, the brains behind GoToMeeting have decided to be our official sponsor.

That means, thanks to them, the Kindle version of the book is available for FREE download for the next 7 days!

Just go here to download, and please tell everyone in your organization to do the same.

What have you got to lose?

 

I'm the newest author on The Domino Project

For the past 4 months I’ve been quietly writing a book.

And today I can officially announce that my book, Read This Before Our Next Meeting will be released by the Domino Project on August 3rd, 2011.

I’m a little bit in shock. I’ll be joining an elite group of past Domino authors:  Seth Godin, Steven Pressfield, Derek Sivers; Giants whom I idolize, and have no business sitting at the same table with.

So I'll stand. 

Meetings are broken. You know that.  Many of you are spending 30%, 50%, some of you as much as 60% of your day inside of meetings. Meetings that are pointless, agonizing, and drain the vitality from your soul.

Sound about right?

But if you thought it was just your organization, think again. The meeting problem is pervasive. As a former IT Advisor for Ernst & Young, I spent countless hours sitting in on the meetings of Fortune 1000 companies all across the country (and I barely survived). These organizations (save a few exceptions--thank god) had meeting cultures that were attrocious.

But it's not the inconvenience to me or any individual which meetings might cause that has me so agitated; No it's the impact to the organization. What has me most frustrated is watching organizations that have amazing people and brilliant ideas fail to bring them to the world because meetings stand in the way. Ineffective and excessive meetings create a culture of compromise and kill an organization's sense of urgency. Great work rarely survives through the bureaucracy, groupthink, and indecision that pollutes these sessions. After a while individuals learn to not bother trying.

Once a reason for us to complain about not getting to happy hour on time, the meeting problem is now limiting our potential to do game changing work…the kind that makes the world better for all of us.

I can't stand by and watch any longer. This has to change. I’m taking this on…with a fury.

Let's go.

I’m certainly not the first author to write a book on meetings, but I hope to be the last.  My book is different. For two reasons.

1. I know the secret. All along, we’ve been trying to solve the wrong problem.
   
   Meetings aren’t the problem, they’re the solution to the real problem. The real problem quietly hides beneath the surface. (I explain this secret, the real problem at my new site ModernMeetingStandard.com)
   
   
2. I’m working with the amazing guys at Domino to spread my idea. The Domino platform has already proven itself to be a force to be reckoned with in book publishing. It’s allowing provocative manifestos to get into the hands of enthusiastic readers who want to read, want to change, and want to share. This is critical, because if we really want a modern meetings revolution, we need a lot of people to join. It’s not enough that you change the way you do meetings, your colleagues have to as well.  If a critical mass of us can enthusiastically adopt a new standard for meetings, others will have no choice.

This is a new beginning for me. An exciting one.

I’ve been blogging at this site for over 2 years now and many of you have read, loyally, and I thank you.

But now my new home base will be at ModernMeetingStandard.com.  (I may occasionally still post here as well but if you want to catch me regularly, come to my new site).

I hope you’ll go there right now. You can read a post I just wrote (Title: A Call for Revolution) that goes into more depth about the meeting crisis that’s before us, and the solution: I call it the Modern Meeting.

I hope you'll subscribe to my new blog via e-mail (see the signup box on the top right of the homepage) or of course via RSS. In the coming weeks I’ll be updating subscribers of ModernMeetingStandard.com with articles, exclusive info about my upcoming book, a whole bunch of other goodies, and how you can contribute to the modern meetings revolution and make a difference in your organization.

Let’s go.

The power of your word

Our word is the most powerful tool we have.

Human determination is so tenacious, so limitless, so alive that once we commit, truly commit, we can achieve amazing things no one around us thinks is possible.

Jerry Weintraub, just an ordinary Jewish kid from Brooklyn told his wife he was going to bring Elvis to Madison Square Garden. He didn't have any idea how he was going to do it. It didn't matter, all he had to do was say it and mean it. He found a way.

Sylvester Stallone said that not only was he going to make his movie, but he was going to be the star of it. No one wanted his script, and the few that did, didn't want him to be Rocky. Well now he is, and by the way, he won an Oscar.

Lisa Shannon was watching Oprah one day and saw the the horrible attrocities happening to the women of the Congo. She said she would start a race that would raise awareness and money helping thousands of women. She did.

Time after time, we see evidence that our word is powerful beyond belief.  But we forget one critical factor. When we throw around our word irresponsibly: we ruin it. 

"Sure, I'll call you next week and we'll get lunch" (we don't)

"I'll go to the gym tomorrow morning." (we never do)

"I'll have that assignment on your desk by 5:00PM, no later." (we hand it in at 5:30pm).


Everytime we invoke our word, and fail to fulfill those commitments, even the tiny ones (especially the tiny ones) we diminish it's power. Gradually, one missed coffee date at a time, our word deteriorates so much, that not only do those around us not trust our commitments, but we don't even trust our own.

And so when our word really matters, when it really could make the biggest difference, for our stretch goals, the ones that push the limits of imagination, it fails us (or rather we fail it). Our word, our direct access to the human spirit, the one that has built cities, discovered the theory of relativity, and sent men to the moon is lost.

Landmark Education calls honoring your word, integrity. Integrity isn't the same thing as morality, it's not about right or wrong, it's about what works and what doesn't.

Integrity works. 

What would happen if we lived our lives with radical integrity?  What kind of power might we have access to?

Are Companies that Restrict Social Media Access Serious?

According to a 2009 survey from Robert Half Technology, more than half of the CIOs who responded, prohibited using social media at work.

More than half? Seriously? What outcome is that supposed to achieve? Increased productivity?

It's just difficult for me to imagine a meeting in which intelligent executives got together and arrived at the conclusion that the solution to their productivity problem was restricting access to Facebook and Twitter.

If an individual is wasting time on social media, once taken away, won't they find another outlet to waste time?

The benefits of a no social media policy with regards to productivity seem trivial at best , but the potential costs are enormous:

1. You risk alienating your employees. People wanted to be treated with respect. Like they're professionals. Not like children. A no social media policy feels like punishment that you might offer to a child.

2. You risk decreasing productivity. As Dan Pink makes clear in Drive, one of the essential elements of motivation is autonomy, the drive to direct our own lives. An action like restricting social media access, can be interpreted as a signal that your company doesn't trust you to get your work done.  That your company feels the need to intervene into your work habits. This jeopardizes the feeling of autonomy for employees.

If your company has a productivity problem, why not focus on the things that really matter, like creating a compelling vision for the business that makes them want to work harder. It seems to me, that focusing on social media is an easy way out (and a useless one).

Book Review: Chris Guillebeau's The Art of Non-Conformity

All this talk about The World Domination Summit made me realize I still hadn't read Chris' book yet.

So I did (long overdue).

The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life you Want, and Change the World is an inspiring read. It's a very personal and real book, a proposition for a new way of thinking and living. An unconventional one. I loved it.

In the very beginning of the book, Chris points out that when we're young, we're often told not to "jump off a bridge" just because everyone else is doing it. Yet at some point, the tables are turned and we're expected to do the very things everyone else is doing.

Chris goes on to describe his own personal journey, and offers great practical advice about overcoming fear and being true to yourself.  But not as a "Guru", more as a friend. This caring tone is what makes the book special.

Chris Guillebeau's 11 Ways to be Unremarkably Average:

1. Accept what people tell you at face value
2. Dont' question authority.
3. Go to colelge becaues you're supposed to, not because you want to learn something.
4. Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England.
5. Don't try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English.
6. Think about starting your own business, but never do it.
7. Think about writing a book, but never do it.
8. Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it.
9. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work.
10. Don't stand out or draw attention to yourself.
11. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.

And Chris' doesn't just talk.  He walks the walk. Anyone who has followed him, his blog, and his career over the last couple of years sees the benefits of the kind of thinking he preaches so passionately about.

His recent World Domination Summit is the perfect example.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone willing to stand out, stand up, or stand for something they believe in.

 

 

A lesson on decisions

You're presented 2 boxes: Box A and Box B.

One of the boxes has a million dollars in it.  The other contains a box of Smores Pop Tarts.

You're truthfully told that Box A has a 55% chance of having the money.  You have to choose one.  

What do you do?

You pick box A.  You open it up.  GARRR!  It's the pop tarts!

Did you make a bad decision?  Most people would say so.  In fact they might live their entire lives regretting it, and wishing that they had chosen Box B instead.

But the quality of your decision is outcome independent.  Hindsight is 20/20.

In fact, in retrospect based on the intelligence you had, you made the best decision. The perfect decision.  

Dont' worry.  Keep making good decisions, and good outcomes are bound to follow.

So eat the pop tarts.  Enjoy them.  And pat yourself on the back for a job well done.  

Khan Academy for Business

I recently sat in on a product update meeting at a well-known training company. The head of the product team informed the staff of changes to one of the core products so they could educate the customers.

He convened a meeting with 35 staff members and recited every single change out loud. The monologue took 45 minutes. With 15 minutes left, he asked for questions.

No questions here.

Since this was the first time the staff had heard the information, they hadn’t had the opportunity to even think of relevant questions. Faced with the prospect of asking a question that might seem stupid, attendees sat silently instead. Feeling the vacuum and because they felt sorry for the speaker, a few asked some inane questions anyway.

Over thirty-five working hours later (!), the staff slunk away, back to their desks, and entire week’s worth of productivity shot.

Imagine another scenario using the Khan approach. What if the product manager recorded himself giving his presentation into a web cam, watching it afterwards to make sure it’s engaging. He then edits it and sends it out to the group. The group watches the video online, self paced, with the option to rewind or repeat if necessary. Two days later, have a Q&A session. Think it will be more productive?

Perhaps there was ten minutes of the content that was controversial, sensitive, or nuanced, stuff that actually needs to be discussed or debate. Well let’s have the meeting centered around those topics.

When invited to a memo meeting, decline to attend. Ask them to tape it and send you the video instead.

 

The Best Kind of Education

Is the kind that forces you to interact with the real world.

For me, college operated inside of a bubble.  The campus wasn't the real world.  Neither was the work we did inside of class.  It was safe.  But I've done other kinds of eduction that weren't so safe:

At SRI Coaching's Masterneurostrategies course, they dropped us off in downtown Las Vegas and asked us to find our way back to the hotel without any money (just our skills of persuasion).  

At Landmark Education, the homework assigment during our break times was to call people we were having real problems with, and resolve them. On the spot.  

At Seth's Alternative MBA, we built real businesses.  We made real sales calls, resulting in real money changing hands.    

So often education is about learning how to do things in the real world, instead of actually doing them.  But it's overcoming the fear to act that people so often need help with.  

A Letter to the Daily Deals Industry

You've seen breathtaking growth over the past couple years, but I (along with many others) see an impending bubble on the horizon.

Recently, I tried using a Groupon for headshots I bought 3 months prior.  No dice. The photographer was evasive, didn't return my calls, seemed to be dodging me.

Groupon customer service gladly gave me a refund, and assured me I wasn't the only one having this problem with that photographer.

My Mistake:  Waiting 3 months to use the Groupon.

When a business decides to work with one of your companies, they usually do so with the magical assumption that it's going to guarantee them a boatload of new business.  When your customers pour in the door and they don't come back, businesses get jaded. I suspect my photographer was one of these businesses.

On one hand, businesses that use a Daily Deals service should stop whining.
 

After all, every small business dreams at night, "If only I could get people to try my product, they'd fall in love!".  You guys are only calling their bluff.

I understand that you're not guaranteeing them profitable new business, what you're guaranteeing them is a shot.  A shot to wow the customer, to show them a remarkable experience they can't get anywhere else.  That's an amazingly valuable service for the business.  I get it.

On the other hand, I'm pointing the finger right back at you.

Groupon used to be one deal each day (something different).  A service for adventure seeking people willing to try and be exposed to new fun things in their city.

But with Groupon, Living Social, and other sites on a frenetic race to see who can conquer the globe first, you're like tornadoes leaving a trail of destruction in your wake. You're creating a hyper efficient marketplace that is becoming such a good deal for the end consumer at the sacrifice of the businesses.

Once, a sign of prestige to be featured, now, you seem to be featuring any and every business under the sun.

The number of deals going on at the same time is increasing, with no end in sight.

Now, people are using the daily deals space as a marketplace to get services they were going to get anyway, at half of the price.

There's a real opportunity here.

Opportunities for innovative new sites like Jon's Moolala, to not be driven by the allure of quick scale and growth but to a return to a real authentic focus on customer service.

But that means treating the business as the customer, instead of the end consumer (the end consumer wins no matter what anyway).  Here's what I think you can do:

1.  Focus on businesses and services that lend themselves to repeat business.  Refuse to work with business types where you can't imagine consumers coming back for more (and where you have data to back it up).

2.  Pick unique businesses.  Screen businesses ruthlessly like Oprah does books for her book club.  Find the true undiscovered gems, the special ones that you can't find on every city block.

3.  One deal a day.  Focus all your time, energy, resources, and most importantly your audience's attention, on just one business.

4.  Teach business how to keep the customers that walk in the door.  I mean REALLY teach them.  This should be at the heart of what you do, not just an obligation, but your core skill set.

Your industry isn't young anymore.  You're growing up fast.  That's no question.  The question is will you mature?

Regards,

No meeting is absolutely necessary

By now we know the enormous costs of holding a meeting.  Would a memo suffice?

NO, we rationalize.  What we have to say is too important, so we go ahead and schedule a meeting instead.

But is your meeting really necessary?

Every US president before Woodrow Wilson delivered the State of the Union as a written report - our founding fathers never required it to be a meeting.

If the objectives of this country’s most important meeting can be achieved through writing, maybe yours can too.

How to do a conference

Next time you register and pay good money for a conference, try this experiment.

Skip all the sessions and speaches. Assume that you can learn anything you missed by watching video replays or reading the speakers' books or blogs.

Stay in the hallways and mingling areas and connect with the people there. You'll come out of that conference having enjoyed yourself more than any previous conference. You'll also have learned more.

This game that we play

We're entrepreneurs. We give our lives creating value, growing people and organizations, and changing the world. While in the arena, we fight the good fight, make promises, throw the dice when it feels uncomfortable, make decisions and shake hands on faith. We play a game many want to play.

Lawyers don't play this game. They sort of make sure our armor is put on the right way. But they shouldn't be allowed to tell us whether or not to get into the ring.

Never let your lawyer talk you out of doing something. They don't get fired for saying no. It's always safer for his career to advise you against doing anything. Status quo is the best friend of status quo.

Good lawyers don't say no. They figure out what your goals are and put your armor on the right way so you can go win the game.

Never Say Die

There are a lot of reasons to kill a startup. Chief among them is that no one wants to be your customer. Another might be that despite how hard you try, you can only be average and not one of the best.

Running out of money is not one of these valid reasons. A broke company is only a temporary condition. There are a million ways to get money to feed your company. Go sell your own brand of cereal to keep the company alive. Go do some consulting. Wait on tables if you have to. So long as you can generate your own money to feed your fledgling dreams, you never have to say die.

Paradoxically, when you raise money from outside investors by selling equity, even though you have more money as a resource than ever before, the clock starts ticking. Now your monthly burn becomes very meaningful. Now you have a board of advisors driving you to make decisions you would have patiently addressed otherwise. And when you run out of cash after raising outside capital, you probably have to say goodbye.

Negotiating like a rookie

When negotiating, figure out what your top priorities are. Then focus on those.

If you negotiate everything, point by point, as if everything is important to you, you come off as a rookie and you're bound to lose the big points.

One is all you need

You only need one Linchpin. That's all you need to start. And if you can spot him and support him, he'll make waves in your organization. If you can find her and give her the leverage to make change, she'll infect everyone else with Linchpin goodness.

But guess what? If you can recognize the Linchpin and bring yourself to backing him, you're a Linchpin too. And so it grows. Recognition is the key here. So be on the lookout.

One is never enough

Borders is just the first casualty. It's sad, we all love bookstores. But did you know that a huge swath of Americans never buy even one book per year? If you read this blog, you're likely not one of those Americans. You read books by the dozens. But then you buy most your books on Amazon.

Unfortunately, Barnes & Noble is next. And then some publishers who rely on these two bookstore chains to sell their products will go the way of the dinosaurs. It's just a matter of time.

Imagine a world where future books look nothing like books today. How will you stay engaged? How will you collect ideas? I suspect you're already solving this for yourself in a haphazard and experimental way. But who is solving this for everyone else?

When to jump through hoops

If you find yourself jumping through hoops merely to look like the average specimen in an established profession, that Dip is almost certainly not worth leaning into.

If you're facing the prospect of jumping through hoops to emerge where no one has gone before, where there is no average specimen, then that Dip is almost certainly worth leaning into.

So the real question is:

How many others have jumped through these hoops?

 

How do you journal?

I don't think that there is a journaling class out there so it isn't like we're taught to journal in some conventional way.

Do you just write lines upon line, paragraph upon paragraph of what happened to you?

Do you write about ideas that you could attempt in the near future?

Do you draw or sketch?

Blogging has sort of replaced journaling. The problem with blogging is that sketching isn't as easy as just typing your thoughts. So we replace sketching with just finding and inserting some open-source or free image somewhere that approximates what we're trying to illustrate. Sometimes we're lucky and find a perfect picture. Most times, we're settling for a real stretch of the imagination.

Blogging platforms should take the iPad and other touch tablet devices as an opportunity to usher in a new era of blogging. Make it easy for us to sketch our ideas. No attaching images. No linking of image URLs. Just sketch it and forget it.