All of us get MANY new ideas everyday. Majority of these ideas will never see the light of the day.They die in our minds. But, some ideas we choose to pursue. How do we determine which ones to kill and which ones to pursue? It’s a million dollar question, really.
Here is one model to think about what makes you pursue some ideas and what makes you abandon most of them. At each stage, there are a few attributes that become VERY important – so I have chosen to include a short note with each of the attributes in various stages.
So, here is that simple model:
1.Think: This is where you are bouncing off many ideas and determining which ones to pick
The focus attributes in this stage are:
Curiosity: Curiosity moves you from the sidelines right into the arena. It’s an entry ticket to the playing field. Without curiosity, you are a mere spectator.
Connection: You may be curious about many things but not all of them you will connect with so much that you want to spend your time, energy, money and other resources to pursue them. For example, you might think of a new kind of crib or a baby stroller but you just may not connect with the idea enough to do anything about that brilliant idea.
Conviction: You make a deeper connection when you feel it in your gut. That’s when conviction comes in. You just know that this is something that you want to make it happen.
2. Tinker: This is where you have zeroed in on one or two ideas to pursue. You are now mobilizing the resources to pursue those ideas.
The focus attributes in this stage are:
Challenge: You know it takes time, energy, money and other resources to make this work. You know it’s not going to be easy. You know that the odds are stacked up against you. You know that you may not get all the support to make this work. Yes, you know lots of things might go wrong and still, you are willing to face the challenge and pursue that idea.
Courage: You are bold enough to take the first step – this is where the rubber meets the road.
Capacity: You are able to convince enough people to build the capacity now and in the future to make this idea a reality.
3. Take Off: This is where you are off to the races with the chosen ideas.
The focus attributes in this stage are:
Creativity: Things won’t happen the way you planned out. That happens only in the movies. In real life, it’s all above “improv” – real-time re-adjustments and adaptations. You have the creativity (within yourself or within the team that you have put together) to keep the momentum going.
Change: You are not only for change but you look forward to it. You welcome it. Change is the name of the game for any idea to go from a concept to reality and you have to be able to embrace it with grace.
Commitment: You are committed to the see this through and it shows up everyday in your words and actions.
I wish you the very best with those ideas that you plan to pursue and make them a reality!
Steve Piazzale interviewed me on TV regarding my new book “Upbeat.” Here is the entire interview in four parts. We covered (parts of) two of the five chapters of Upbeat in these thirty minutes. Here it is:
Part 1 (9:39 min)
Note: The interview starts after the intro about the show. The intro lasts for close to 90 seconds.
Yes, you too can be flawless and make the judges say things like…
“Utterly, utterly electrifying..”
“Jawdrappingly outstanding performance. Just breathtaking. I could not take my eyes off you and I did not want you to end.”
“You have shown that – with focus, commitment, confidence and hard work, you can achieve something. It is one of the best things I have seen in my life.”
However, you do have to “pay” the price – four years of friendship, practice EVERY day, focus, commitment and hard work.
I created my first cartoon on BitStrips. This might be a cliche but “If I can create a cartoon on Bitstrips..you can definitely create one too.” It is dead simple.
My new column was published today at TomPeters.com. It’s about the Invisible Competitive Advantage.
Businesses are constantly in search of competitive advantages. The question that they constantly ask themselves is “How can we be ‘the choice’ for our prospects as they evaluate products or services that we offer?” Books have been written about how to get and sustain competitive advantages in the short term and long term.
If you want to “earn” traffic, you have to be prepared to “creating compelling content” online and creating a powerful identity offline and online.
If you want to “get” traffic, you can use cheap tricks and tactics.
“Earning” traffic helps you in the long run and may not show big results in the short term.
“Getting” traffic shows big results in the short-term (may be) and hurts you in the long-term.
You make the call, of course.
Here are some of those cheap tricks anyway:
1. Be Controversial
Just say something like “Slum Dog Millionaire Sucks” even if you like it. If the popular opinion is that “Slum Dog Millionaire” is a great movie, you will get immediate attention – even if it is just out of curiosity.
Of course, if your stand is controversial but stupid, people will laugh and go away.
2. Do the Opposite
If everyone is saying something, say the opposite. If people are going west, go east. If people are saying Yes, say No.
Again, out of curiosity, you will get the attention. If your stand is baseless, they will laugh at you and go away.
3. Comment on popular blogs without adding value to the discussion
Most commenting systems will allow you to place a link to your own blog or website. You can keep commenting on popular blogs and get attention.
Of course, if your comments provide no value addition, you will get attention of people who have a lot of time at hand (but don’t care about value probably)
4. Argue stating exceptions
If a blogger says something and claims it to be a rule, argue against it stating exceptions to the rule. If the blogger points that out, argue against it. Keep engaging the blogger until the blogger gets fed up and concedes defeat. Now you can boast to the world that you “cornered” someone and won
5. Ask for a link exchange
Who knows – there may be other desperate souls who might link back to you <surprise, surprise>
6. Mindlessly link to other blog posts
Trackbacks from these blogs might result in clicks. If the visitors come to know that it was a mindless link, they may not come back again but hey, you can always find new blogs and new visitors
7. Jam your blog post with latest buzzwords and popular keywords
First, you might get some search engine love
Second, there are many plug-ins that provide “Related Posts” feature that links to other blog posts. Your post may start to appear over there.
Plus if you are linking to popular posts, you might get picked up by TechMeme or some other similar engine.
8. Broadcast your blog post to all your networks.
Sometimes it is easy to get a lot of “friends.” For instance if you want 10,000 followers on Twitter, try following 12,000 people – chances are that 10,000 of them will follow you back. You can now say that you are popular on Twitter and think that these 10,000 people are really “following” you and reading your tweets.
Actually, even if a small portion of them are reading your tweets, they will click through and read your post.
9. Endlessly spend money on any and every SEO trick
Who knows – some of these tricks may work and you might get more traffic. Why not?
10. Buy Traffic
Yes, there are ways to buy traffic but I put this in the end as it may not be cheap
If you recollect your childhood memories, you loved change. In fact you were looking forward to it.
When you could not turn, you worked hard on turning around.
When you could not move, you worked hard to crawl.
When you could not walk, you didn’t give up until you were able to walk.
Then you wanted to run.
Then you wanted to ride a bike.
After that you wanted to go to school, college, work, get married (may be not in the same order) etc.
You were looking forward to these changes eagerly.
Then, one day (or may be gradually) you started hating change. You didn’t like it anymore. You just wished things stayed the same way.
There are many explanations for why this happens and here are a few of them:
1. The After Effects: Not all the change that you anticipated turned out to be great – meaning every change did not result in a happy ending. So there was some doubt about change.
2. Delayed Feedback: The changes during the growth phase (crawl-to-walk, walk-to-run etc.) provided immediate feedback on the progress. The changes in the later stages were not as simple as before. Many times the feedback about how you were doing with change came to you after weeks or months or sometimes it took years.
3. No guarantees: The effort that was involved with change could not be negotiated but the results were not guaranteed.
Example: You wanted to become a manager. You started learning the skills required to become a manager. You could not negotiate on that effort but putting in that effort would not guarantee you that you will become a manager.
4. External dependency: In the earlier scenario of crawl-to-walk, walk-to-run there was no external dependency. If you put in the effort, chances are you would get the result. However, most other changes later in life had external dependencies. Using the same example as above, if you wanted to become a manager, what starts becoming important is the relative effort. You can put in the effort but if your peers are putting in twice the effort, your effort falls short of what is required for you to become a manager.
5. Ability to Get By: You also notice that you can “get by” for a long time without paying the price for making the change. You notice that people around you are “getting by” and some of them are doing reasonably well (in the short-term) by not paying the price. So why should you?
Milestones or the pursuit of them can mess you up big time, especially if you are going after the wrong ones.
Social networks can blur the line, really. Take any social network and one of the easy metrics to measure is “quantitative” rather than “qualitative.”
On LinkedIn, it it is the total number of contacts
(It is easy to miss how many of these contacts really matter and it is also easy to miss for how many of these contacts you really matter)
On Facebook, it is the number of Friends
(Again easy to miss, how many are “really” your friends and it is also easy to miss, how many consider “you” as their real friend)
On Twitter, it is the number of followers
( It is easy to miss how many are following you just because you are following them. It is easy to miss how many quality Tweets do you actually write)
For me, the only measurement that matters is:
“Your capacity to contribute to make this world a better place.”
You can set appropriate milestones to measure this metric. Tools like social networks help but if these tools don’t contribute to help you with this metric, it really does not matter.
The performance is from students of a music school that teaches music to the blind.
The Southern California Conservatory of Music is the only place in the country that offers a braille music curriculum to teach musicianship of the highest caliber to blind and visually impaired students. It houses one of the largest braille music libraries in the world, and it also provides outreach programs to both blind and sighted children in the public schools who would otherwise receive no formal music education. After 37 years of steady service, this important community and national resource for the blind is facing severe financial difficulties, and has embarked on a fundraising campaign in an attempt to keep its doors open and continue its many programs.
I had an opportunity to talk to Dory Bavarsky, teacher over there and asked him about story behind the conservatory. Here is our conversation:
RS: Dory, what led you to get interested in this school?
DB: I was enrolled as a piano student at the conservatory at age 13. My teacher was Grant Horrocks, who along with Richard Taesch had founded the Braille Music Division of our school. I was studying classical piano quite intensively, and spent many of my weekends practicing at the conservatory. Since I was often there on Saturdays, I began to observe and then participate in the group classes for blind children. It was fascinating because the way these children were taught to engage in music was somewhat different than what I had been used to. Also, the range of abilities and disabilities presented in our group of students was quite vast and remarkable. I met children who had tremendous music gifts, including a few with incredible ears. Many of our blind students have perfect pitch, and some to such a degree that they can easily play back complicated music upon a single hearing. I was especially amazed by Rachel Flowers, who at age 4 was playing Beethoven sonatas by ear, though she could barely reach the keyboard. Eager to work with this special group of people, I continued volunteering as an assistant throughout my high school years. After graduating from UCSB, I was hired as a faculty member at the conservatory.
RS: Tell us more about the wonderful work the school is doing?
DB: Our school provides a variety of important services. We operate as a regular music conservatory, offering private lessons in all the major instruments, including voice, piano, violin, guitar, and flute. Our Braille Music Division offers the same level of intensive musical education to the blind community. We hold weekly group classes in Braille music notation, keyboard skills, and ear training, as well as private lessons for some students. In addition, the Braille Music Division has conducted numerous outreach programs at other schools for the disabled throughout Southern California. Last year, our teachers, including myself, visited three different schools on a weekly basis, and conducted music appreciation classes for their students. These classes involve playing all kinds of music, discussing it, and even giving the kids an opportunity to feel and play various instruments. These outreaches are an important aspect of our program, as they provided a wonderful musical experience for kids who richly deserve and enjoy it.
Over our many years of service, we have developed strong relationships with many other organizations working with the blind community, including Junior Blind of America, California State University Northridge, and California Transcribers and Educators of the Visually Handicapped. We are also the headquarters for The Music Education Network For The Visually Impaired, which is an information network composed of musicians, specialists, students, parents, and music educators.
RS: What can you share about some of the success stories of the school?
DB: Our school has had so many successes, especially in our Braille Music Division. We’ve had several students who have gone on to study music at colleges and universities. In fact, some of them have come back and are now working as instructors! We have also had students who come to our program unable to read braille. In several instances these students’ school teachers had declared that they would never be literate. However, music brings out hidden abilities, and after a few years with us, not only were these students reading braille, they were reading braille music notation as well.
One of our most inspiring students is one I mentioned earlier, Rachel Flowers. Rachel started with us as a tiny, nearly silent little girl. Though she would hardly ever talk, her musical ears were astounding. Over the years, Rachel has developed into an extraordinary musician. Her participation in music has also aided her development into a cheerful, talkative young lady. She plays piano and flute, and during the last few years become an excellent Jazz player. Last year, Rachel impressed some of the biggest stars of Jazz, including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Hubert Laws, when she performed for them as part of an celebration honoring Herbie Hancock.
RS: What support are you looking for and how can people show their support?
DB: An important aspect of our Braille Music Division is that tuition for group classes is free for all our students. This policy ensures that no child is denied instruction based on financial circumstances. Thus, the conservatory has always relied on donations and grants to cover some of our operating costs. Unfortunately, because of the difficult economy, many of the annual grants we had been receiving did not come through this year. Simply stated, the conservatory needs immediate emergency funds in order to stay open for the next term. All donations help us keep our doors open and allow us to continue offering services from our current location. If we do manage to survive this challenging time, we will need continued support in order to continue and expand our programs. People can help us so much by donating to the school, and also by telling others about us.
Also, please visit http://www.sccm.us/index_files/Page1544.htm to view photos and performance videos of some of our Braille Music Division students. There is a terrific video of Rachel playing piano and flute, at the same time!
[Pardon the in-built sarcasm. Sometimes I like to have fun too]
Here is the list. Please feel free to add to the list. We both know that there are MANY more ways to do this.
1. Just say that it will only take a minute of their time and squeeze five to ten minutes out of their life.
2. Talk about something that is of importance to their project. In the end tag along your own project and continue the discussion.
3. Exchange a few (obvious kind of) emails where you get an “Yes” and finally ask for something that you want. They are now in a mood to say “Yes,” so they might say “Yes” again.
4. Just tell them that you had one more thing to discuss and go ahead and discuss a dozen things. They won’t notice it especially if they are weak in maths.
5. Tell them you are checking in to see if they need any help. If they say they don’t need any help, you can start by saying – “I was wondering…” and go ahead with your agenda.
6. Call them and say that you had a missed call from their phone so you wanted to check in. If they say they didn’t call you, blame it on the phone company and start talking about whatever you want.
7. Send them an email about some industry report. Five minutes later go to their office and ask them if they got the report. Whatever is their answer, say, “Isn’t that interesting…” and start on your agenda.
8. Send them an email. Leave a voicemail to check if they received an email. Send them an instant message to check if they got the voicemail. If you don’t hear back, send a message on Twitter, write on their Facebook wall and lastly also try to comment on their blog.
9. Use the power of reciprocation. Give them a “low cost” gift and make them a “high cost” request.
10. Just call them and talk as if you had an appointment with them.
Recent Comments