Innovation Culture David Weekly, PBwiki Tecnológico de Monterrey August 18, 2008
The Mentality of the Successful Entrepreneur Confidence Knowing you will succeed where others failed. Humility Knowing you have more to learn. Energy The stamina to run a long, hard race & inspire. Insight Through training, seeing what others cannot. Curiosity Wanting to know WHY.
Ideas are Cheap! Innovation: 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. E=MC^2 doesn’t mean you can make a nuke. Value is execution: EBay, Google, Wikipedia. Don’t hide ideas. Make them valuable. Talking about an idea will help you hone it & make it valuable.
  You’re a Failure!   Most of your ideas will be bad. It will take a lot of hard work to find this out. You will feel bad. You will feel stupid.
   You.
  You’re a Failure!   The key to success in any discipline? Rapid, safe failure Learning how to fall without hurting yourself Learning how to recover from an error You need this in order to train @ 100%! Embracing failure will let you be more aggressive in vetting bad ideas. Which will let you find the good ones.
Expectation Management Paint a very humble picture … then try to knock it out of the park! Exceeding low expectations is great Makes you look & feel like a rockstar. Helps people believe in you. So expect the worst, hope for the best.
Technology Lets You Fail Fast Vetting technology ideas is faster, cheaper, and easier than ever. CPU, storage, RAM, bandwidth = cheap 8gb quad-core: $1600->$1150 in 9 months! Cloud compute & services = easy Rapid-prototype frameworks (Rails, PHP, Python) = fast
Advisers Let You Fail Fast If you need advice, ask for it, from whomever you think is ideal. You don’t need an introduction, just make be clear who you are, what your question is, and why you’re ask them. Make an Advisory Board This is surprisingly effective!
Why Does Silicon Valley Work? Value capability over everything versus your parents, GPA, school… Failure-tolerant culture From Gold Rush days Hard work buys you the right to fail. Hippy culture Rapid peer distribution of best practices Lack of formalism in peer connectivity
Steal Those Good Ideas! Practice Meritocracy Embrace Failure Connect with Others Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Twitter, your blog Read others’ FriendFeeds, blogs Create meetups to get to know others nearby
 
Guide to this Talk Start an innovative business. Build a culture of innovation. Profit!
 
Tips for Innovative Cultures Work should be  fun! Helps retention People work harder! That’s when the  best  work gets done. Focus on results. Office hours, dress code, working location? Four Hour Work Week & Getting Things Done Encourage vigorous experimentation with internal processes, backed by data. Offsite? (To Thailand?) Does your team work better in cubes or offices?
Avoid Mediocrity Bad people are easy to toss out, okay ones are very, very difficult. A-listers hire A, B-listers hire C. Great people attract great people! 100x  performance from good coders. Hire people who are smarter than you.
Avoid Mediocrity Be comfortable firing people. Set clear performance requirements. Shouldn’t be a surprise. This is good for them.
Avoid Mediocrity Learn how to spot Good People Confidence + Humility + Energy + Insight + Curiosity People who do  useful  things for  fun . Stick with them / stay in touch! …even if you can’t hire them right now.
Build a Thriving Culture Focus on making users happy. Collect good ideas from  everyone A PBwiki is a good way to do this.   Encourage respectful dissent “ Yes” people contribute nothing. @PBwiki you get fired for  not  disagreeing! Eat your own dogfood!
Build a Thriving Culture Can young people have good ideas? Most big ideas were had before 30. Einstein, Galois, Newton, Nash, Brin+Page, Zuck Can women have good technical ideas? Ada Lovelace – first programmer: 1850!  Admiral Grace Hopper – invented the first computer programming language . Can regular workers have good ideas? Why are Toyota & Honda killing Ford & GM? People who build cars have ideas about how to do it better!
Prove Your Success Record Everything. Learn or hire data warehousing. Be careful about explaining away failure or success – almost everything has a reason. If you don’t know why it went up, it will come down just as predictably. Regularly review metrics Even better: success dashboard
Guide to this Talk Found an innovative business. Build a culture of innovation. Profit!
Want a job? Want to give me feedback on this talk? [email_address] http://DavidWeekly.org http://twitter.com/dweekly

Innovation Culture

  • 1.
    Innovation Culture DavidWeekly, PBwiki Tecnológico de Monterrey August 18, 2008
  • 2.
    The Mentality ofthe Successful Entrepreneur Confidence Knowing you will succeed where others failed. Humility Knowing you have more to learn. Energy The stamina to run a long, hard race & inspire. Insight Through training, seeing what others cannot. Curiosity Wanting to know WHY.
  • 3.
    Ideas are Cheap!Innovation: 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. E=MC^2 doesn’t mean you can make a nuke. Value is execution: EBay, Google, Wikipedia. Don’t hide ideas. Make them valuable. Talking about an idea will help you hone it & make it valuable.
  • 4.
     You’rea Failure!  Most of your ideas will be bad. It will take a lot of hard work to find this out. You will feel bad. You will feel stupid.
  • 5.
    You.
  • 6.
     You’rea Failure!  The key to success in any discipline? Rapid, safe failure Learning how to fall without hurting yourself Learning how to recover from an error You need this in order to train @ 100%! Embracing failure will let you be more aggressive in vetting bad ideas. Which will let you find the good ones.
  • 7.
    Expectation Management Painta very humble picture … then try to knock it out of the park! Exceeding low expectations is great Makes you look & feel like a rockstar. Helps people believe in you. So expect the worst, hope for the best.
  • 8.
    Technology Lets YouFail Fast Vetting technology ideas is faster, cheaper, and easier than ever. CPU, storage, RAM, bandwidth = cheap 8gb quad-core: $1600->$1150 in 9 months! Cloud compute & services = easy Rapid-prototype frameworks (Rails, PHP, Python) = fast
  • 9.
    Advisers Let YouFail Fast If you need advice, ask for it, from whomever you think is ideal. You don’t need an introduction, just make be clear who you are, what your question is, and why you’re ask them. Make an Advisory Board This is surprisingly effective!
  • 10.
    Why Does SiliconValley Work? Value capability over everything versus your parents, GPA, school… Failure-tolerant culture From Gold Rush days Hard work buys you the right to fail. Hippy culture Rapid peer distribution of best practices Lack of formalism in peer connectivity
  • 11.
    Steal Those GoodIdeas! Practice Meritocracy Embrace Failure Connect with Others Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Twitter, your blog Read others’ FriendFeeds, blogs Create meetups to get to know others nearby
  • 12.
  • 13.
    Guide to thisTalk Start an innovative business. Build a culture of innovation. Profit!
  • 14.
  • 15.
    Tips for InnovativeCultures Work should be fun! Helps retention People work harder! That’s when the best work gets done. Focus on results. Office hours, dress code, working location? Four Hour Work Week & Getting Things Done Encourage vigorous experimentation with internal processes, backed by data. Offsite? (To Thailand?) Does your team work better in cubes or offices?
  • 16.
    Avoid Mediocrity Badpeople are easy to toss out, okay ones are very, very difficult. A-listers hire A, B-listers hire C. Great people attract great people! 100x performance from good coders. Hire people who are smarter than you.
  • 17.
    Avoid Mediocrity Becomfortable firing people. Set clear performance requirements. Shouldn’t be a surprise. This is good for them.
  • 18.
    Avoid Mediocrity Learnhow to spot Good People Confidence + Humility + Energy + Insight + Curiosity People who do useful things for fun . Stick with them / stay in touch! …even if you can’t hire them right now.
  • 19.
    Build a ThrivingCulture Focus on making users happy. Collect good ideas from everyone A PBwiki is a good way to do this.  Encourage respectful dissent “ Yes” people contribute nothing. @PBwiki you get fired for not disagreeing! Eat your own dogfood!
  • 20.
    Build a ThrivingCulture Can young people have good ideas? Most big ideas were had before 30. Einstein, Galois, Newton, Nash, Brin+Page, Zuck Can women have good technical ideas? Ada Lovelace – first programmer: 1850! Admiral Grace Hopper – invented the first computer programming language . Can regular workers have good ideas? Why are Toyota & Honda killing Ford & GM? People who build cars have ideas about how to do it better!
  • 21.
    Prove Your SuccessRecord Everything. Learn or hire data warehousing. Be careful about explaining away failure or success – almost everything has a reason. If you don’t know why it went up, it will come down just as predictably. Regularly review metrics Even better: success dashboard
  • 22.
    Guide to thisTalk Found an innovative business. Build a culture of innovation. Profit!
  • 23.
    Want a job?Want to give me feedback on this talk? [email_address] http://DavidWeekly.org http://twitter.com/dweekly