That’s how.

These days, we are in serious need of creative firepower. And for all the startup incubators that are popping up everywhere, there still seems like creativity is a scarce resource. For me, creative personalities are passionate people who are not happy with the way things are and that not afraid to stir the pot. And, if your culture’s values are based on combining imagination with execution excellence, you can’t expect creatives to change their ways.

But what do you do if you have a creative friendly culture with immense creative resources like Disney? How do you manage all that creativity?

Fight to satisfy fans, not bosses.

Recently, it looks like Disney is in the business of satisfying bosses and not fans. For a Disney Fanatic, like me, it is sad to see Disney struggling to keep “Creating Magic”. Like other corporate juggernauts, it has become bureaucratic and lifeless. Even if the earnings say otherwise.

Having a creative friendly culture and vast resources doesn’t mean it will always stay that way. When bureaucracy steps in, all inspiration dies because employees fight to satisfy their boss. Maybe Disney should look at its most important acquisition to date, Pixar, for inspiration.

At Pixar, it’s all about satisfying fans. Not bosses.

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If you like these links, check out all the earlier “Innovation Must Reads of the Week“. And don’t forget to Follow @jorgebarba

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This past weekend was fast paced and intense. Exciting. Almost 50 participants, 25 ideas, 8 projects and 3 winners. Two of them left the event with seed capital.

Here are the projects:

• WachaBache. A mobile application to crowdsource the reporting of streets that have holes and make driving a miserable experience.
• Indueducation. A web service that offers leading indicators to help the government with academic decision making.
• Eventum. A community for public social events.
• Cruzas. A mobile application that shows indicators of when it is a good time to cross the border to San Diego.
• Happy Birthday 2 me. A web service to help you organize your birthday and take advantage of local business offers.
• Congresoplon. Monitoring the productivity of Congress and its participants.
• Pimiento. Mobile app that suggests cooking recipes based on the ingredients that you have in your home.
• Instapart. Find the auto part your are looking for in real-time.

And the winners were:

1. Instapart
2. Cruzas
3. Eventum

Great job guys.

This is my first time being part of an event like this. I was part of the organizing group so I didn’t get a chance to participate (and believe me, the fire in the belly was stoking me to participate), my role was more of supporting the participants by helping them stay focused and providing moral support.

Here are a few lessons from Startup Weekend:

Innovation breeds from play. How do children learn? Through play. Through trial and error. Children are not worried about making mistakes, they are more concerned with learning. This is important because the “innovation process” Startup Weekend follows is similar to the Lean Startup movement. And while the ideas presented were not ‘breakthroughs’, the next step is to iterate the initial ideas. Small or big, it doesn’t matter. What matters is people learn to become free of the expectation of failure.

Focus on the right things. Building a product in 54 hours might seem crazy to most. That is how it seems to most people who don’t understand startup culture. The way Startup Weekend organization structures the event is similar to the Lean Startup movement, this encourages a very fast and intuitive creative process. It is very loosy-goosey, this makes participants very anxious. The key is creating a very focused product, not one that appeals to everyone.

Collaboration is chaotic. Creating teams is a chaotic process at SW. Someone pitches their idea, people vote on it. Winning ideas are announced and people start deciding who they are going to join up with. It is an intuitive process and can make things seem out-of-order.

Execution matters more than the idea. It isn’t about launching X number of companies. It’s about opening people’s minds, it’s about understanding that execution matters more than just having simple idea.

You will fail, but you will learn. Taking the previous point further, there were three winners. But that doesn’t mean they will become sustainable businesses. Nothing is certain and most likely they will fail. It’s not about being first, it’s about doing it right.

The Pitch is important. This one is the killer and it played a huge role in determining who won. As much as the message is important, so is the messenger.

Not everyone is fit to be an entrepreneur. There were deserters. These people don’t have the passion and drive to create. Much less fail and learn.

Scarcity of leadership. When people don’t know each other, and are not familiar with one’s way of working, to a certain degree people follow ideas; not people. I think leadership comes into play in the form of persuasion. But leadership comes into play when the going gets tough. When problems arise. When the fun of creating seems like an afterthought.

A few observations

We have touched upon most of the lessons from above in some way or another in this blog. But, as I’ve argued before, we’re too focused on technology as the main source of innovation. It isn’t. Innovation isn’t just about technology. It’s about communication, delivery, business models, management, customer experience, etc.

All of these dimensions can become valuable in their own right. Each of them can help redefine the game.

With that said, I would like to see a different type of hack-a-thon. One where we take on real challenges in a fun way. One where we explore not just technological innovation, but also the other dimensions that make up a business. A hack-a-thon where teams are composed of not just techies, designers and marketers.

Breakthrough ideas are born in environments where cross-pollination of ideas is a natural occurrence. And breakthrough ideas, for the most part, are not born in strategic planning sessions. They are born from accidents, from mistakes, from trying things out and seeing what happens.

All in all, Startup Weekend Tijuana was a great success. The next step for me is to take part in the up coming Startup Weekend San Diego next month. This time as a participant, not an organizer.

For Omar Monroy, Ulises Elias, Jaime Valdovino III and me, the work has just begun. Our intent is to mobilize minds in Tijuana and break the status quo. SW was just one event, it was the beginning of the journey.

There will be more to come.

Fail Better!

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• Startup Weekend is coming to Tijuana(game-changer.net)

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But what book authors and biographers rarely mention, is all the mistakes that lead that specific person or company to all their successes. Nobody likes to make mistakes, and nobody likes to talk about them. Yet, that is where all the “lessons of success” are.

Of course, looking at the bright spots is a good idea. I’m not arguing that. But how about also looking at the reversal. More than looking for good ideas, I look for “what not to do ideas”. The ones that “impede progress”. I stay clear of those.

I’m not looking for the ones that say “engage employees or they’ll leave” type of ideas. If you’re in the “change the world game”, then that shouldn’t be a point of discussion for you. What I’m looking for are “what not to do ideas” that probably won’t resonate until later down the road.

Take this one for example:

Terrible idea. RT @BBCLiamMcLeod: Hi folks, due to new BBC Twitter guidelines, responding to individuals and RTs can no longer happen.

— GOOD Business (@_GOOD_Biz) May 2, 2012

Bummer! No interaction allowed. They just killed their ability to cultivate relationships with people outside their four walls. They just killed their ability to gain deeper insights, the type of insights only interaction can give you.

“What not to do ideas” are in the eye of the beholder

These “what not to do ideas” are not out there advertising themselves. They don’t have a “terrible idea” tag on them like the one above. People and organizations won’t say “hey, here’s a dumb idea. Take it!”. That’s why you have to look beyond the obvious. Think about all the “supposed bad ideas that have no future” venture capitalists have ignored.

Ask yourself: Why are people ignoring this? Why is this a bad idea? Who or what is dictating this behavior?

Perception separates the innovator from the imitator.

What have you spotted recently that fit into the “what not to do” category of ideas?

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Yes, that’s my browser. It had 100 tabs open at that point in time last night. Those 100+ tabs were accumulated over a week of browsing and not reading what was previously open. Not very productive, and a clear sign of procrastination on my part. The accumulation of un-read tabs is a clear sign, to me, that I need to focus.

I’m pretty sure my laptop can handle another 100 tabs, but what’s the point of having 200 tabs open? I’ll never read them. And that’s the point. At some point in time, when complexity overwhelms us, we just want to reset and start over.

Every system, whether a browser, an operating system, a car, an economy, a person will eventually start breaking down when you keep adding to it. Complexity in the form of used memory, excess features and/or personal problems will eventually lead to its undoing. It will lead a system to become less useful.

The result is a slow browser, a slow computer, an economy that no longer serves it citizens, and people who are not focused and productive. People who are sleeping and waking up with problems that they then take to work. This creates a vicious never-ending loop. Eventually these systems freeze. They get stuck.

When this happens, the system is ripe to be innovated. How? By simplifying.

Now, there are a handful of people who are preaching that complexity is pretty cool. And, that those of us who embrace it are actually pretty smart. It’s an intellectual challenge no doubt, but do we really need to make things more complex? Do we really need to ‘be able to manage complexity’? Is that what we will tell our kids?

Complexity exists, and I agree that we live in and interact with complex adaptive systems, but let’s be honest, how many humans really know what a complex adaptive system is? How many even make the connection that the economy is a complex adaptive system?

Simplicity, is much more powerful because every single human gets it. No need to explain. It just works.

I’m pretty sure that the Google team that created Chrome (their browser) didn’t have a long discussion on how to make the browser more complex. No, they aimed to make the browser much more faster and responsive. They simplified it. They created the anti-Internet Explorer. That was their innovation.

This is exactly the type of mindset we need as entrepreneurs and innovators. To simplify and eliminate complexity.

How? Ask yourself: Does my product or service overwhelm people? Does it overwhelm my mom? If your mom doesn’t get it, that’s your signal.

So go ahead, embrace simplicity. Subtract. Edit. Eliminate. Whatever you want to call it, just make it work.

Ok. I’m out. Need to go back and read all those 100 tabs. Or should I reset and start over?

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This is what Walmart is doing with its “Pay with Cash” program. It is offering a solution for customers without debit or credit cards:

Walmart launched a novel new online payments plan on Thursday: “Pay with Cash,” or the ability to pay for goods online with actual cash in a physical store.

The idea is to allow customers to shop Walmart.com – which can have a broader selection of offerings than even the giant retailer can stock in a physical store – but allow them to pay for a purchase with cash. The new program reflects the reality that some Walmart customers who might be poor – or what Walmart calls “underbanked” or “unbanked” – may not own a debit or credit card to make an online purchase.

“Many of our customers shop paycheck to paycheck and are looking for more ways to purchase items online but don’t have the means to a credit, debit or prepaid card,” said Joel Anderson, president and chief executive of Walmart.com, in a statement. “Our new ‘Pay with Cash’ offering is designed just for them. It makes it easier for our customers to shop the way they want, where they have access to a broader product selection at Walmart.com coupled with the convenience of payment and shipping as they want.”

The “underbanked” or “unbanked” are non-consumers who are not fully benefiting from Walmart’s services. Yes, they are existing customers. But ones that are un-served and therefore, not fully satisfied.

And that is the key. To find new market opportunities and grow, study non-consumers, not current customers. But also remember, that non-consumers may also be your current customers. And just like Walmart’s “underbanked” customers, they may just be hidden in plain sight.

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• Walmart: Buy Online, Pay With Cash (pcmag.com)
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• Walmart.com Lets You Pay With Cash When Shopping Online (allthingsd.com)
• Walmart Adds “Pay With Cash” For Online Shoppers At Walmart.com (techcrunch.com)
• Wal-Mart takes cash for online purchases (gigaom.com)

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Created by Adobe’s Chief Strategist, Mark Randall, the “Table of Strategic Elements,” lets him analyze existing companies to identify new combinations. He has identified 14 “elements” ranging from bD, (big data), through Ga, (Gamification), to Ad, (advertising).

By combining “elements,” you can identify niches in the market and see who occupies them. For example, if you mix Lo (local) with Lc (location) and Ga (gamification) you get Foursquare. Or Ad (advertising) combined with Tr (transactions) and Lo (local) gives you … Groupon.

To the existing elements (categories), we can further add augmented reality (Ar), tracking (Tk), diy (Diy), publishing (Pb), artificial intelligence (Ai), crowdsourcing (Cs), movement (Mv), vision (Vs).

What would you add? What’s missing?

Hat tip: oetzitterd.nl

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Another brain-shaking tactic would be for marketers to switch places with operations people. For sales people to switch places with customer service people. For R&D people to switch places with management.

That would create surprise.

I think this tactic will only grow in importance in the coming future because the nature of our work is becoming more collaborative. Problems are more complex, the future seems less certain. Organizations and it’s people need to have wider lens of their industry as well as non-related industries.

Of course, only organizations with guts and an open mind will try this. Are you?

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