If You’re Explaining, You’re Losing

Julian Mulvey gave a talk on “Reinventing the Political Campaign”. He spoke about a political campaign he was working on where they were put on the defensive having to explain several instances that had been over-genearlized by the opposition. Describing this, Julian said something along the lines of, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” This stood out to me as an excellent take-away!

A few days ago I shared the insights of Rohit Barghava in the post “Don’t Just Share, Be Shareable”. When creating a movement, advancing ideas, or starting a business, we as leaders to distill our messages so that they can easily spread. Similar principles are stressed in Malcom Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” and the Heath brothers’ “Made to Stick”.

What Julian brings to the discussion, is that we must constantly be ahead of the news. Increased transparency and authenticity allows us to build stronger relationships with our constituencies. We never want to get caught in a lie, have to backtrack, or explain ourselves after-the-fact. Get out in front of the news, and break things down so its easy for people to understand and explain to others. I think with the rise of social media, we are facing a world of increasing transparency and the rapid spread of ideas. We can either choose to leverage this to our benefit, or let it run us over. But I see this societal shift as a huge opportunity for high-impact leaders and ideas, as it gives us an opportunity to build loyal and personal relationships with large constituencies, engage them, and bleed authenticity. If you take one thing away, it should be that authenticity wins every time.

Plan For the Beginning of Something Great, Not the End!

Kim Scheinberg gave a great talk on “Reinventing Angel Investing”, where she pointed out that we invest way too much energy into planning for the end of things (eg. Prenuptial Agreements and Term Sheets for Angel Investing)! Kim’s strategy for angel investing through her fund, Presumed Abundance, is based on building strong long-term relationships with entrepreneurs. In fact, the entrepreneurs she invests in become her partners in choosing future investments. Kim doesn’t just invest in businesses, she invests in people — and I think that’s what we can all learn from her. Build strong relationships based on “the beginning of something great”, rather than planning for the “break-up”.

Don’t Just Share, Be Shareable

Rohit Bhargava gave an interesting talk on “Reinventing Marketing”, where he shared a seriously critical takeaway: ”Creating a story that is shareable is much more important than the actual story.”

We hear in the business and marketing world a lot about the importance of stories in creating successful brands. Rohit’s point takes this one step further, stressing the need for that story to be quickly and easily shared. Everybody knows the story of Humpty Dumpty because it’s easy to understand and share: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…you can fill in the rest! When designing the story around your brand or product, remove the complexity and focus on simplicity and ease of re-telling.

If the story rocks, people can easily share it with friends, you brand will be on its way to becoming a household name!

Know Your Audience, Relate

The very funny Seaton Smith gave a great talk on “Reinventing Black Comedy”. As he spoke about growing up and walking the line between “White Comedy” and “Black Comedy”, he came to realize that different audiences have what he calls “their own truths”. In order to succeed with a particular audience, you must come to understand their specific truths and relate to them. This is a lesson that applies across the board when working with groups of people. The better you can relate and connect with you audience, the stronger your relationship will be and the more you can elicit from them in terms of support.

Design to Motivate Others

Kes Sampanthar gave one of the more interesting talks, distinguishing between LIKE and WANT. Placing these two variable on individual axes, you come up with a chart mapping four quadrants: User Experience (Like, Don’t Want), Usability (Don’t Like, Don’t Want), Addiction (Don’t Like, But Want), and Motivation Design (Like, Want). The core of his talk was on “Motivation Design” — a concept that is so critical when designing a product, service, or organization that people both like and want!

I think the best example of motivational design is the game of golf:

• Create a Challenge – Golf is such a widely popular sport because it is challenging! We set goals for our game, practice, but continually face new challenges to conquer. Without the element of challenge, nobody would be interested in going out to the course knowing exactly how they are going to play.
• Understand Behavioral Economics – People are not rational, and going along with the example above: they are going to keep playing golf even though it can be SO frustrating!
• Social Engagement - People want to be a part of something larger, and to be engaged with other people! The social aspect of golf is a major reason for the sports’ success! People can play together, talk about the sport, and have that shared experience that strengthens relationships. I’d even argue that the social component is what drives individual practice to get better! This is increasingly becoming something we can integrate into products, services, and organizations through social media.
• Game Design – The structures of games come with a set of rules, standards, goals, benchmarks, etc. When thinking about how to design a product/service/organization, keep in mind how we design games and plan accordingly.

Reflect, Sketch, Plan, Iterate, Mentor

Chris Bernard shared some interesting reflection on the “Reinvention of Visual Design”, but more importantly some tips for being a successful creative.

• Take Time to Reflect — It’s no coincidence that many of the greatest minds and leaders in history kept journals. This practice allows you to put your thoughts and ideas on paper and reflect. Articulating your thoughts is a critical step toward bringing them to life!
• Sketch – As we go back in history, a common theme across cultures is the use of “sketching” to communicate thoughts and ideas. We are naturally visual learners, and this process of sketching out ideas allows for both ourselves and those we are trying to motivate to map out all of the aspects and angles of a concept. (Something cool Chris shared were early napkin-sketches of major US companies!)
• Plan – Dwight Eisenhower once said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” With a game plan at hand, you have a reference for where you are, where you want to go, and what needs to be done to get there!
• Iterate – Don’t spend too much planning, though! Start simple, get it out there, and iterate like a mad man! The earlier you expose your project to the outside world, the quicker you can get feedback that will invaluably shape what you’re doing for the better!
• Mentor – I’ve always heard that you should have 3 mentors, and mentor 3 others. We need to share what we learn, and the process of mentoring exposes our thoughts and ideas to somebody that can bring a fresh and new perspective to what we do!

Overcome Your Own Boundaries

Frank Lantz shared some insights at TEDxPennQuarter that he’s gained from the world of poker and gaming — most notably the need to overcome the boundaries we place on ourselves (or that are imposed superficially by society). Negative emotions (eg. fear) distort our view of the world, and force us to make poor decisions that are either not optimal or hold us back from achieving our full potential. The more we take risk, like playing hands in poker, the more we learn that bad hands don’t mean the end of the world. Taking risk allows us to make decisions that will lead to growth and “self-overcoming”.

Sweat

Chris McDougall, author of the book Born to Run, shared some REALLY interesting insights from his own paradigm of running. One that really stood out was that, ”The only thinking we [humans] do really well as a species is SWEAT” – it’s our primal competitive advantage. This has been the one characteristic that has evolved our species over time: our ability to work our asses off until a problem is solved.

Travel With A Pack

Another critical point from Chris McDougall, and something I’ve learned the hard way over the course of the last couple of years: ”Travel With a Pack”. On our own, there’s no way we can take-on all of the challenges that mother-nature throws at us. Going along with this is to, ”Swallow Your Ego and Pull Together”. We’ll need the wisdom of our elders, the energy of the youth, etc. When you “travel with a pack”, you have a tool-belt of resources with which you can come to rely — dramatically increasing your chances for survival (and success)!

This past weekend I had the pleasure to attend my very first TEDx event: TEDxPennQuarter. If you’re not familiar with TED, you’re missing out on a HUGE repository of innovation! The theme of TEDxPennQuarter was “Reinvention” — a theme that spans many areas ranging from “Reinventing the Self” to “Reinventing the Cocktail”.

Reflecting on the day’s speakers and their remarks, a few really key points and lessons can be distilled. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be publishing these lessons in what I’m calling the “ReInventing Series”. I hope that you find these lessons valuable in your own experiences, and that you enjoy the posts! For today, ponder this:

“Reinvention” is not a process of individual genius, but rather of the ability to inspire a movement. Successful “Reinvention” requires the acceptance and support of many individuals.

Stay tuned for more insightful lessons from TEDxPennQuarter!

So last night I headed up to Bethesda, MD to visit the headquarters of Honest Tea — a great organic and sustainable beverage company. The event, “An Evening with Honest Tea” is part of a “sustainable local business tour” hosted by the Professional DC-Chapter of NetImpact and the William James Foundation.

I had the opportunity to hear Seth Goldman, the Founder and “TeaEO”, speak about about a year ago and was really intrigued by his story. In particular, I remember him speaking of the challenge of distribution and how Honest Tea piggy-backed off preexisting networks of what Seth called the “3C ‘s”: Cheese, Corned Beef, and Charcoal — all of which went to grocery stores and had extra room in their trucks. Eventually, they landed the “Big C”: Coca-Cola.

While last nights event was certainly a great opportunity to meet and mingle with local-area social entrepreneurs, it was pretty disappointing that we didn’t get much opportunity to hear Seth speak or have a Q&A. Several people I spoke with after the evening said they were equally upset, especially after hearing so much about Seth and Honest Tea!

Clarification: I need to apologize and clarify, because as Ian rightly points out in the comments, Seth did speak at the event. It was partly my fault I missed what he had to say because I got into conversations immediately after we broke from our big introduction circle, and for that I’ll admit I’m slightly embarrassed.

However, I will add that several people at the event did in fact comment they also missed the opportunity to hear Seth and I still think there is a TON of value in kindly asking Seth to share part of his story and experience with the broader audience that was unable to attend the evening.

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What Questions do YOU Have for Seth Goldman and Honest Tea!?

If you have a question you’d like to ask Seth about starting Honest Tea, challenges he’s faced, lessons he’s learned, etc. — leave them here! I’m going to reach out to Seth and see if we can’t get a video interview on the site (or at the very least written responses to our questions)!

So leave your burning questions either in the comment form below, through the contact page, or by e-mail!