Innoveering Nebraska

Do you know what this means?  Neither did I this time last year.  Which is why I’m writing about it today. 

Dogfooding is the process of using your own product or service to figure out whether it’s ready for consumers.  Google did it over the past holiday season with it’s new Android.  Dogfooding helps companies determine whether any problems remain.  It’s a good idea.  It’s a good term to add to your vocabulary.

Blue ocean refers to a market that is wide open.   In contrast, red oceans are crowded markets full of sharks that make the water red.  Blech.  There is an example in “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne that clearly communicates this concept. 

Cirque du Soleil was a blue ocean idea.  Before Cirque du Soleil, there were traditional circuses and theatre productions.  Each had set audiences (you know who you are), set expenses and had been done for many, many years.  These are very red oceans.  Cirque du Soleil removed expensive portions of the circus (animals) and theatre productions (well known performers).  It also blended elements of the circus and theatre to appeal to both audiences and attract additional crowds. 

What blue oceans can you see?  What blue oceans can you imagine?  How could your company benefit from dogfooding?  How could you benefit from dogfooding?  I tried napping in my guest room today and decided it’s far too cold and crowded in that room for guests.  Dogfooding works.  Blue oceans are worth the search. 

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This is a great little book by an impressive Nebraska author, April Kelly.  Kelly was an early employee at both X.com (PayPal) and  LinkedIn.  With her history, you might imagine Kelly’s book would be filled with advice on selecting great startups (and maybe this will be the topic of her next book).  Instead she ties many new business ideas (followership, humanitarian capitalism, positive psychology) together with the concept of gratitude.

The book has a fresh perspective on these ideas and is an easy read for those without a lot of time.  Especially nice are the action boxes which provide specific guidance regarding the concepts described in the book.  The more action oriented and the gratitude challenged amongst us will find these especially helpful.     

Gratitude itself is a timely topic.  Today’s Wall Street Journal included an article by Sue Shellenbarger entitled “Thinking Happy Thoughts at Work” which cited gratitude as one of the major ”happiness-inducing techniques.” 

The Omaha Public Library has four copies of the book which can also be purchased from the publisher, Woohoo Press or Amazon.  Besides having the best publisher name ever created, Woohoo Press is also a Nebraska business.  I for one hope April Kelly keeps writing.  Read the book and I bet you will too.   

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Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the World” is overbrimming with valuable insights and advice.  I read it through twice the first time I encountered the book and highly recommend it to everyone.  

Recently I’ve found myself explaining the But Out concept a lot.  I first encountered this problem solving tool in “A Whole New Mind.”  Here it is: 

I want to A, but B.

I want to A and B, so C.

For example:  I want to create a website, but I have no idea how to do this.

I want to create a website and I have no idea how to do this so I need to hire Toolulu and Think.Do.Be.Create to help me.

Try it.  It’s fun.

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Every now and then I’m reminded strongly of the biggest reason I haven’t left Nebraska.  Last night was one of those times. 

Last night there was a solid sheet of ice on all the roads leading up to my lovely neighborhood on a ridge above the Missouri River.  It was a very unexpected sheet of ice which caught me at the bottom of all the hills rather than safely at the top of the ridge where I belong.  After many failed attempts to drive up the hills, I parked the car in a church parking lot. 

At this point I gathered my belongings and began a slow and careful trek up the ridge.  It was dark and cars kept sliding backwards on the street, turning circles and bumping into each other and the piles of snow stacked up between the street and sidewalks.  I was nearly hit by a spinning blue PT Cruiser.  I was cold, sore from the gym and much more frightened than I’m accustomed to feeling. 

I was also worried about my car.  There at the bottom of the ridge, nicely lined up for robbers, was my car and at least a dozen other cars whose drivers had also been caught off guard by the ice and had had to walk home. 

Which brings me to the point of family.  My father and brother also thought this wasn’t the best place for my car.  They also knew I wouldn’t sleep well with the car not in the garage, would venture down the ridge as early as I could in the morning and would be greatly upset if the car had been crashed or broken into overnight. 

So they ventured out later that night to get my car up the ridge and safely parked in my nice, warm, snug garage.  I was so relieved.  Very sillily, I kept peeking out into the garage just to revel in the fact that the car was home safe and sound.    

It wouldn’t have been the end of the word if they hadn’t done this, but it’s ever so wonderful that they did.  And it’s one of the reasons I love Nebraska.  My people are here – which means that my back up crew, a big chunk of my support network and my largest source of technical and mechanical expertise are here.  Here is a very good place to be.

The car safely in it’s garage thanks to my father and brother.

I met with someone today at a local Panera (Starbuck’s was full).  We were covering a dry, practical, boring, but necessary topic of business.  Nothing thrilling until he asked about how I came to be a small business owner and I wrapped up my little synopsis with “and now I can’t imagine ever going back to the way things were before.” 

Much to my astonishment (and delight once the shock wore off) he high-fived me right there in the middle of the quiet, suburban Panera.  It was a very enthusiastic high five and a very quiet Panera.  I’m sure you can imagine the stares. 

And I loved it.  I was honored to be recognized by a fellow adventurer and thrilled to exchange tales of our experiences. 

It reminded me of a sappy story I heard once about how we should follow our dog’s example and greet all our loved ones enthusiastically when they return home. 

Greet the next innoveering entrepreneur you meet with an enthusiastic high five.  It will make their day and encourage them to work even harder – even on the boring, dry aspects of business.

Is anyone researching what the results of our searches mean?  Has anyone even verified that our search results are a valid reflection of or commentary on our society?  They must mean something.  Are we documenting this electronic landscape for the job security of future archaeologists and historians?   

Ironically, I spent way too much time today trying to answer these questions using my favorite search engine.  The closest I could find was Jonathan Harris‘s TED presentations (here and here) describing his work collecting and telling stories through new means.       

If you know anything more about this or find out anything more through better search skills, please contact me.  I don’t know what else to say about this – except that I feel it’s important to explore the potential of this area as a research tool.

The results of my Google searches for “rest” and “relax” have been haunting me.  This often happens when I become aware of a long held assumption or blind spot.  I’m troubled and am doing my best to think it through. 

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what would change in our physical environments if we became a society that valued rest more.  In other words, what would our personal, public and semi-public environments look like if we valued rest?  What would our businesses look like?  What would you change in your home?  Could some of these changes be made relatively quickly and easily?  Could we give it a try for a little while and see what happens? 

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I’ve never been very comfortable with the word rest.  Which is unfortunate for so very many reasons. 

My problems with the word have varied.  The biggest reasons are grammatical and guilt ridden.  To me, “rest” sounds far too much like ”wrest” and, in my experience, nothing good ever happens when that verb is in use.  I’ve also always felt guilty resting unless it was a verifiable and officially certified ”well earned rest.”  Until now. 

Now is different.  Now I’ve learned the value of rest.  It’s priceless.  A good rest brings clarity of thought, order to emotions, fresh ideas and an overall sense of joy.  In short, I’ve discovered that rest is actually a very active and productive verb.   

If I pitched those outcomes to your business, wouldn’t you sign up for the product or service?  So why did I resist it for so many years?  Why are you resisting?  Embrace rest – and don’t let anyone wrest it from you (or make you feel guilty).   

Shocking discovery!  Search Google Images for “rest” and see what you find.  It’s a terribly sad representation of what our society thinks about rest.  Rebel and rest!

I have a theory that we’re returning to many of the societal norms of the 1700 and 1800′s.  Stick with me here.  If I’m right, it will have some serious implications for your future. 

It wasn’t until the industrial revolution (1760-1850) that we began reporting to little spaces in big buildings to do our work for a set period of time.   Until then we worked together in smaller collaborations featuring partnerships, craftmanship and apprenticeships. 

I’m not saying that having a small space in a big building is bad (I would have loved to have had a small space in Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park lab).  However, I don’t believe it is the optimal way for humans to work creatively on a long term basis.  Even Edison’s lab operated more by rote experimentation than imaginative exploration (>6,000 filament materials tested).     

But it isn’t just the work environment that I think we’re revisiting.  Instead of focusing on what degrees we’ve accumulated, I think our approach to education is beginning to value again what we know, who has invested in teaching us and what valuable experiences we’ve encountered.  Also technology has made it possible for the “gentleman” scholar to once again learn everything there is to know about his chosen field.    Lastly, technology has also made it possible for these field specific experts to find each other and correspond. 

It’s probably a good thing to resurrect some of these old norms.  After all the buildings can only get so big and the individual work spaces so small.

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I’ve not traveled much outside the United States, so I’m not certain about the rest of the world.  However I am certain that a shockingly large percentage of business in America is conducted in coffee shops.  Local, little, fragrant, friendly coffee shops. 

Today I’m at my favorite coffee shop – a Scooters near 120th and Blondo.  It even has a small meeting room you can sign up to borrow.  I’m sure business would get done without coffee shops, but life would be much less pleasant and we’d see our friends and aquaintances much less often.  Plus we’d all have to find another source  of caffeine – and who has the energy for that? 

My point is that in all this rushing around that seems to accompany modern life, I love the peace and companionship found in coffee shops. 

I long for a larger coffee shop that would contain the trappings of an office (basically a copier/printer) and rent tables or desks (though I’d refer a tall table) to really small businesses like mine.  Perhaps this would destroy the magic.  Let me know if you hear of any such place.  It would be fun to visit my personal business/coffee promise land.

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