A Q&A with me on IdeaMensch

IdeaMensch, the online community for people with ideas, has just published a Q&A interview with me. You can check it out here.

Adding Another String To Your Bow

So my third book ‘Zoom!’ is now well and truly published; it’s on the bookshelves in UK stores and the first international orders are now being fulfilled. At the same time, I’m already working on book four, ‘Mash-Up’ (my second collaboration with David Sloly). So it’s that part of the journey where post-it notes are being stuck on the wall, interviews and research conducted, and evenings invested in editing and writing.

Of course, in this world you can’t *just* be an author anymore, you have to be a content creator (as well as a promoter of course). Content creation doesn’t stop with the manuscript, you have to think about the guest posts you’ll write for other sites, the video interviews you’ll grab so you have extra content, the stories you’ll reversion into manifestos and so on.

That multi-platform landscape is now where all marketing is played out and it’s something I evangelise to my business clients, ensuring that their message and content sweats, that they tell their story simultaneously across different platforms.

One of my own goals is to to become platform-agnostic in my business storytelling; to not stop at books, columns, blog posts or videos. So I’ve just started contributing to Monocle magazine’s new online radio channel Monocle 24, interviewing business pioneers for their show ‘The Entrepreneurs’. I’ve loved the quality of Monocle content since they launched the print title; now having contributed to the magazine it’s great to tell entrepreneurial stories for Monocle 24. Sure - this is not going to replace core business as the dominant activity, but it’s a natural by-product, another string to my bow. And on a personal note, conducting interviews takes me back twenty five years to when I started out, working on BBC local radio. One of my first interviews, back in November 1986 when I’d just left school, was with Billy Bragg (I’ve put it on YouTube here). The current series of interviews for Monocle includes Guy Kawasaki, Founder of Moo.com Richard Moross and French Radio London CEO Pascal Grierson. They’ll be featuring on ‘The Entrepreneurs’ show over the coming weeks, check the website here or follow me on Twitter for details on when they go live.

So have a think how the shifting content landscape can enable you to add another string to your bow. What additional talents or products can you offer the market? Have a think about those natural by-products. Can multiple platform opportunities act as a catalyst for your skills going ‘multi-media’ in 2012?

Stop thinking singular; start acting plural!

It's Not The Size Of Your Idea, It's Doing Something With It That Counts

A couple of themes converged for me recently: one) the potential of a side project, what you can do in your spare time if you put your mind to it; two) the importance of making an idea happen fast, rather than leave it gathering dust on a shelf.

So first, the side project. When I talk to some people about opportunities they can explore outside of their day job, they tell me they have no time. No time? Yep, they’re too busy watching TV or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want to develop your talents in a new area or try stuff out, you might need to make some sacrifices. Doing it ‘on the side’ is a perfect way of prototyping ideas or even shaping your next career move as Shane Mac remind us in this great little video. So when my wife and I said let’s create a manifesto of thoughts in words and doodles, we gave up TV for a week and created it on the side.

The result is ‘Little Twenty’, a seven page ebook that you can check out by clicking on the image below. We could have sat on that idea for weeks or months but instead we decided to just roll our sleeves up and get on with it, creating it.  The results aren’t perfect; our manifesto is hardly going to deliver a new book deal or change the world but it’s a nudge in the right direction. And we think it’s better doing *something* with an idea than nothing at all. I showed it to a publisher friend who made some smart suggestions about target audiences, niches and giving it more focus. And he’s right - it’s very much a work in progress, there are improvements to be made. But as I advocate in my new book ‘Zoom!’, it’s more important to make your ideas happen, fast, launch in beta, prototype. So, that’s what we’ve done with ‘Little Twenty’. We just put it up there, made it happen. It won’t change the world but it was fun to invest a few evenings creating something. And if it has two views or two thousand, the important part was that we did it. So it’s not how amazing your idea is, it’s doing something with it that counts.

Open publication - Free publishing - More change

Using Visual Storytelling To Break Through the Clutter

Like many connections I’ve made over the last few years I can’t pinpoint exactly how or when I became aware of ‘Marketoonist’ Tom Fishburne and his distinctive cartoons. I think we met briefly at a drinks party Todd Sattersten hosted at SXSW 2010; Tom also came along to my Unplan Your Business ‘core conversation’ I co-hosted with David Sloly in Austin that year. Then later that year Google Alerts told me about a Neil Perkin blogpost on Unplanning that referenced Tom and a cartoon he’d created called ‘Waterfall Planning’ off the back of my SXSW talk (that incidentally Neil had stumbled upon serendipitously). So yes, it was all pretty random.

Starting out doodling at Harvard Business School, today Tom sets his stall out simply: to “create cartoon campaigns that help businesses communicate”. I’ve always liked Tom’s work - just as Seth Godin’s blog posts consistently resonate; Tom’s pictures always seem to nail it. He is based in San Francisco but is in the UK this week because he’s just been speaking at The Do Lectures (whose founder David Hieatt, we happen to feature in the Unplan Your Business booklet). 

We met up in London yesterday and grabbed a quick chat on video on the power of visual communication to break through the content clutter. In the video below Tom also has some interesting thoughts on ideas generation: rather than thinking of your capacity to come up with ideas as a well that will one day run dry; think of it as a muscle, that so long as you’ll exercise it - ideas will keep flowing.

SXSW: “One Giant Espresso”

So, okay you’re probably bored of all the news, tweets and blog posts that came out of the South By South West festival in Austin, Texas last month. But for professionals in music, film, technology and interactive, there’s no doubting SXSW remains an important force in connecting people, sharing and soaking up new ideas, talents and trends. 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the festival and a book - 'SXSW Scrapbook' - has been produced of recollections and highlights. I’m pleased to be featured in the book; here’s my recollection ‘Do Believe The Hype’ (click to enlarge and view).

Does Your Business Care?

Gary Vaynerchuk gave some great marketing advice for businesses with one single word: “Care”.

Caring goes a long way. Something I was reminded about yesterday in two experiences within a couple of hundred yards. I visited a bar for the first time for a coffee and emails. The bar was advertised as a venue with wifi, the website says “There's wifi, papers and good music - we would like you to feel at home...”. Sounds nice, yes? So when I turned up on a quiet afternoon and asked the waitress was there wifi, she told me it wasn’t very reliable, it might work but it might not. Turning to a guy I later discovered to be the manager, he said to her she might have to turn some equipment on and off to get it working, but he didn’t offer any engagement with me. He wasn’t bothered. So okay, it was a quiet afternoon and I was the only customer, but no-one cared. The wifi was very intermittent and I left soon after. It was a lacklustre experience. Two minutes away I found a little espresso bar, a great coffee for £1, served with such great service and a welcome. The espresso bar guy might never see me again and I only paid him a quid but he cared. That was obvious. Two contrasting experiences.

So however good your website promise, your Twitter feed, whether you have a loyalty card or a great promotion - none of that matters. It just matters if you care.

My Year of Exploration

So how did you score on meeting new people in 2010?

Lots of people and organisations don’t seem to extend their networks. They hang out, work and collaborate with the *same* people, year in, year out. The long-term staffers, clients and suppliers don’t change. It’s all very predictable and safe. Yawn!

Being self-employed I’ve always been stimulated by my ability to renew and refresh who I work with, who I hang out with. I can change that whenever I fancy.

Hey, but nothing wrong with the long-term contacts. I have friendships and business relationships that have endured over fifteen years and that I value highly. But the relationships that promise to shake-up my business and fuel inspiration are those new people I meet. People in unrelated fields, doing totally different things challenge and inspire me in equal measures.

Those connections are often more about personal development than business development. I’m not selling them anything, but inevitably they evolve to a relationship of reciprocity where we help each other, work with each other. Or maybe not, we just have a damn good lunch.

So back in January I set a goal of meeting at least one new person a week this year. Looking back , I did at least that: not quick handshakes at a conference, I mean quality exchanges over a coffee. Some of those connections have come from existing contacts who are good at ‘I don’t know if there’s anything in it, but you must meet Sam’ type of introductions. Others are more random or have come via Twitter. This year Twitter has brought me a new client, a book deal, some great stories for my blog and just some good espresso time.

Has it been good for my business? Yep. Has it been good for my soul? You bet.

“What was your ROI on all those connections” a friend asked me. “I don’t know” is my honest answer. But what I do know is that renewal feeds my ideas and I intend to keep up the pace of making the effort to meet a bunch of totally new people in 2011.

Because who knows where it will take you? So get out there and go explore…

* above is me and a bunch of new people at SXSW 2010. Picture credit: Marc Salsberry

How To Co-Write A Business Book Part 1

So, David Sloly and I are working on our Secret Book Project, that will be published next October. We’ve both written books before but – apart from a short ebook we created earlier this year – this is the first time we’ve co-written something. With the bar set high (by us, the marketplace and our publisher) the pressure is on. With our busy work lives and us living in different parts of the UK,  we knew we needed to invest in some time together to start the writing process (Skype, email and telephone calls was not going to cut it).We agreed on a trip away, as a journey is essential to productive ideas generation. So last week we took the Eurostar to Paris for 4 days of thinking. Talking, walking the streets, riffing back and forth, stopping for a coffee to capture our thoughts in a moleskine, then repeating the process. The outcome was not about word count, it was about ideas.

Back at the apartment I chatted with David about how the experience was going. So here’s part one of How To Co-Write A Business Book: 

Why You Need A Journey If You Want To Come Up With Good Ideas

As an ideas junkie, I’m passionate about exploring what makes good ideas. For me, journeys are always productive in generating ideas: a train ride, a cycle or a flight always prompts some valuable scribbles in the obligatory moleskine. It’s why I’ve taken mini ‘inspiration jaunts’ (see my book ‘Juggle! Rethink Work...’ for more on this) throughout my career and why I’m taking a train to Paris next month to start my third book.

Last week I met up with Martijn Sjoorda for what is becoming our bi-annual lunch. Martijn is Research Director at Fresh Orange in the Netherlands and is an expert in organisational development. Martijn takes the ‘ideas + journeys’ formula beyond the individual; his company takes teams on train journeys across Europe to help unlock innovation and explore leadership potential. After lunch we had a stroll and I asked Martijn to explain the science behind taking journeys; why changing our environment is so productive.

Make A Job, Don't Take A Job: The Essence Of Enterprise

The world of work and business has changed radically. I’m writing this in a bar in Spitalfields East London which I have commandeered as my office for the morning. There’s loud music playing and I’m taking advantage of the wifi, running my business sprawled on a sofa. To those not familiar with this style of working, I may look like I’m at play. But I’m working; and this is how thousands of people work today. We have created our own micro businesses, monetising our talents, working for ourselves, running businesses our way.

This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and when I think of business and enterprise, I don’t think about the office blocks of the City a stroll away from here, I don’t think about business tycoons on their private jets, I think about people like me, and you. Through the window I can see the red awnings of lines of market stalls at Old Spitalfields Market - to me, this is the perfect example of business at its most basic. A bunch of stall-holders have paid £10 for a table for the day. Some are selling handmade bags; others prints and photographs. Someone else is selling second hand books, another clothes and jewellery. They may not think of themselves as entrepreneurs but they are: they are selling their wares in the market. Some may fail, others will succeed.

What unites the coffee-shop entrepreneurs and the market traders is that we have all made jobs for ourselves: there is not a job description or appraisal form in sight. The theme of Global Entrepreneurship Week is ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ and that’s music to my ears. It’s what I’ve always done in my career, whether I’ve been self employed or not. Carving out a role that reflects my talents and desires, breaking the boundaries of a fixed job spec. I’ve always encouraged working for yourself; my first book is a guidebook for people taking the leap. You don’t need a bunch of qualifications or a business education to work for yourself, but you do need the right mindset;and it’s not for everyone. Working for yourself and setting up your own business is tough: there’s no switching off, it takes stacks of perseverance, commitment, energy and passion. So ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ is a good mantra for entrepreneurship so long as we recognise that not everyone has the self-belief and motivation to make their business idea happen. To help people believe in their ability we need to bust a few myths about business, taking it out of the boardroom, doing away with the jargon. And that market stall is a damn good place to start.

Step Away From The Desk: How To Get Those Big Ideas

There was a piece in the FT on Monday entitled ‘How To Be An Iconoclast’ that featured Gregory Berns, professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University and author of ‘Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently’. Berns says that if you are in the same environment with the same people every day, you’re unlikely to have radical ideas: “the easiest way to create new ideas and remix old ones is to put yourself in situations you’ve never been in before”.

I’ve banged on about this in many previous posts but it still amazes me when I see companies - big and small - task their people to come up with great ideas, and expect that to happen at their desks or in the office. It ‘aint gonna happen.

That’s why I use train rides and coffee shops to do my ‘big thinking’. It’s why I’m going to Paris next month to start writing my third book.

So if your business or organisation is looking to produce new thinking, send your people out to a coffee shop, for a walk in the park, a train ride to see a client. If you liberate people from the corporate baggage of flip charts, brainstorm sessions and agendas, you might find that’s when the ideas will flow.

Try it.

Lessons From A One Man Factory

I'm always keen on exploring non obvious places for stories that can inspire us in business. Before I met the musician Dave Stewart I did not see him as an obvious business role model but it’s clear his success as an entrepreneur provides lots of lessons in business. Dave describes his business as his very own ‘ideas factory’, and recently I spent an hour in the studio of another creative who turns raw materials into ideas: potter, Richard Baxter. Richard's an original sole trader; he’s never been on a payroll, instead monetising his talents to create pieces of pottery for nearly thirty years: “I’m going from a real raw material dug out of the ground ... through to totally finished material. I’m a one man industry”.


Here are five lessons from Richard's story for sole traders and micro entrepreneurs:

1. MOTIVATION. Richard told me he’s motivated by passion not money, and that has driven his success.
2. PUT THE HOURS IN. Malcolm Gladwell famously said you need to invest 10,000 hours to be good at something. Richard reckons he’s produced 90,000 thousand pieces of pottery over his career, which reminds us you can’t be an overnight expert.
3. MONETISE YOUR TALENTS. Richard’s story is a reminder of the real basics of what enterprise is all about. He takes raw materials (in this case clay) and turns them into functional pots and pieces of art that he makes a living from. And it doesn’t get much more basic than that.
4. PLOUGH A NICHE. In order to get a reputation and stand out from the crowd, you need to plough a niche. As the first in his field to go online with a website, Richard has really benefited from the web, using it as a shop window to win high-profile commissions from clients like BBC TV and Stella McCartney.
5. BE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. Richard’s talents do not stop by the pottery wheel. He’s also an accomplished musician, playing in two bands The Famous Potatoes and Arcadian Driftwood. He gigs, teaches and also helps organise a local art festival. His work life is a reflection of his multi-dimensional talents and passions.

Here’s a brief video excerpt of me talking with Richard:

A Long Shot, Well Aimed

People ask me how I came to hang out with Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi on a rooftop in Paris, and how did I meet Dave Stewart? And the answer is, I asked. Getting face time with high profile and busy people is a long shot, but in these cases it was a long shot well aimed (admittedly, it also took much patience and perseverance). Often it’s worth taking a risk and reaching out to someone you want to meet whether it’s an author you really like or the boss of a company you’d love to work for.


Last week I was sitting with my friend Adrian in a bar in East London talking about his upcoming art exhibition. He was thinking how could he get his art show noticed, who should he invite to the private view? A couple of minutes later, two smartly dressed gentlemen walked into the bar; none other than Gilbert & George, big names in the art world. “You should invite those guys” I told him. Fifteen minutes later, a handwritten invitation was sitting on their doormat around the corner. 

In the end Gilbert and George couldn’t make it to Adrian’s Private View but it was worth taking that chance. 


So whether it’s grabbing a dream job, meeting your idol, or trying to get your next client, set your sights high and go for that long shot.

Digital Exploration In My Local Park

As an ideas junkie I'm used to traveling some distance for my stimulation fix. For the past two years that's seen an annual pilgrimage to South By South West Interactive in Austin Texas which, for that one week in March, is *the* place on Planet Earth for soaking up cutting edge ideas on technology and business. So this week it was great to travel just minutes from my own house to my neighbourhood park for the launch of The Digital Exploration Centre.

When I was growing up Chalkwell Park was somewhere you'd go on the weekend to kick around a football. But when I moved back to the town four years ago, something was happening. An arts organisation called Metal were moving into the park's dilapidated Chalkwell Hall, keen to have a presence in the Thames Gateway regeneration area. Their arrival acted as a cultural catalyst, creating the energy for some world-class events happening right here on my doorstep. On Saturday, Metal hosted their third Village Green, a free annual arts and music festival that featured four stages of music plus workshops and art installations, attended by 26,000 people: think of it as a compact version of The Latitude Festival. 

And then on Wednesday I was back at the park for the launch of the Digital Exploration Centre, 'a network of innovators using digital technology, formed to be a catalyst for cross-disciplinary work, the sharing of ideas and a public programme of exhibitions, events and debate'. The evening featured a keynote from Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica - below is a 90 second clip on the theme of ‘digital exploration’.

So okay, Southend-on-Sea is not quite Texas but it's great to have this kind of cultural and intellectual stimulation on your doorstep.

photo credit Village Green 2010

Great Ideas, Slow Hunches And Coffee

If you share my fascination with how great ideas are generated, invest 18 minutes of your time in watching Steven Johnson’s TED Talk ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’.

Johnson talks about ‘the slow hunch’, busting the myth that all ideas occur in eureka-like flashes. The slow hunch is where ideas may linger for years fading into view slowly, rather than emerging in a single flash of inspiration. If you allow hunches to connect with other hunches, they can be really powerful.

Johnson argues we should be focusing on connecting ideas rather than protecting them. We tend to be nervous about sharing ideas because we don’t want to lose control, or have someone else steal it. I’m not sure I agree about slow hunches; I have ideas that have lingered around for years, and I figure the reason I haven’t made them happen is that they just aren’t strong enough. Otherwise they would’ve happened – right? Isn’t success sometimes about executing your idea ahead of the competition?

Johnson frames his presentation in the historical context of the 1650s when Britain saw the emergence of the coffee shop. Before then the prevalent drink was alcohol that would be consumed from breakfast right throughout the day. As coffee shops opened people started drinking tea and coffee, a stimulant rather than a depressant, and with that came great clarity of ideas. The coffee shop created the perfect incubator for connecting, exchanging and sharing those hunches. It’s a tradition I am proud to uphold 350 years on where the coffee shop/ my coffee ritual is part of my own ideas generation.

You might do R&D, but are you making time for E&D (Exploration and Discovery)?

We’re familiar with the notion of R&D departments in organisations, where products are innovated and developed. It’s a critical investment that gives businesses their edge. But how about an investment in personal discovery? Increasingly we’re locked down in demanding roles and projects, with no time to just stand back and reflect, free of an agenda. Some organisations have introduced initiatives to liberate staff from this kind of working culture. Google allows staff to spend 20% of time on their own projects as a way of developing talent. A small business I’m working with goes one stage further and encourages staff to develop their own ideas extra curricularly with hobby businesses. Another business I know is visionary in advocating that team member sit back and reflect from time to time, rather than be confined to head-down mode all day.

As well as nurturing talent, taking time to explore and discover can be the source of great ideas, adding value to projects and clients in ways that might otherwise have been missed. It’s in those moments of research or reflection that I get my own inspiration flashes. This month I’m aiming to create more E&D time, whether on train rides, in coffee shop thinking, even spending 15 minutes each morning reading the ‘papers. Whilst the tendency is to say ‘I’m too busy to read the newspapers’, these moments have actually been really valuable in spotting ideas and I’ve identified some tangible client opportunities in this way.
So invest in E&D time in your organisation: it could give your business that competitive edge or be the catalyst for a game-changing idea. Don’t say you’re too busy.

Are You Delivering On Your Promise?

'Business With Personality' proclaims the masthead of 'City AM' the daily paper serving London's financial community. 'Fresh Business Thinking' shouts the website for the conference of the same name.

Nice promises - I like both of them.

The problem. Well, ‘City AM’ is hardly ‘Fast Company’; apart from a couple of lifestyle pages it doesn't have much personality to me. And sure, 'Fresh Business Thinking' had some decent speakers but there was nothing 'fresh' or different about the conference, it was like any other I’d been to.

There’s often a disconnect between a brand’s promise and what it delivers. Business owners get excited by the *idea* of a great market position or the allure of a new look and feel, but they don’t have the right mindset and offering to deliver.

I see it my local high street. Each month seems to bring a new estate agent office promising a new, different offering. They may have a fresh looking office and logo, but if it’s the same offering once you walk in the door, what’s the point?

So if you’re going to promise your business is a game-changer, different or radical, you’d better make sure it is.

How Do You Benefit?

So I was sitting in a bar last week, browsing my site analytics on my iPhone. When my friend came over, I mentioned my blog had 950 visits that day, the highest I’d ever had.

“Cool”, he said, “but how do you benefit?”

And it’s a good question. After all, it wasn’t as if I’d sold 950 copies of my book or won some new clients; I just had a new bunch of visitors to my blog. I wouldn’t see any revenues for that.

But there doesn’t need to be a ‘hard’ return on investment for everything; often it’s about a ‘softer’ ROI. Not £ or $ but satisfaction, recognition or just doing something you are passionate about. For small businesses like mine it’s important to recognise that they’ll be pockets of activities we get paid for, and pockets we don’t. And making choices accordingly.

Writing books, blogging, guest posts, doing video interviews are not motivated by money. I didn’t invest time - and money - in producing a video of Dave Stewart for a financial return (because I didn't get paid for it). I did it because I like telling stories, I enjoyed it. To answer my friend’s question: *that* is how I benefit.

So as you make your own choices, think about the return on investment. Whether soft, hard, measurable, immeasurable, whatever – that’s all that counts.

Work out how you benefit.

What the heck is SXSW anyway?

Those four letters: SXSW.
“What the heck is es-ex-es-double-u?”

“That’s a music festival, right?”
“I thought it was a film festival”
“Oh, that event for geeks?”

SXSW - South By South West - gets a lot of different reactions. Some consider it the ultimate geekfest and then there’s the inevitable yawns from people who are sick of seeing #sxsw on Twitter streams, especially for the week in March when people flock to the Austin Convention Center in Texas. SXSW offers an Interactive, Film and Music festival but it’s the interactive element that’s been attracting me for the last two years.

For me SXSW is an Ideas Festival. I’m not a geek, I’m an ‘ideas guy’ and that week in Texas is a mash-up between a tweet-up, TED talks and great parties rolled into one. It stimulates and inspires me. Going there isn't a complete no-brainer; a week in the US is quite a time investment and that’s before you factor in the flight from London and the hotel nights. Plus, the dates always fall on my wedding anniversary.

I’ve made some great connections at SXSW, meeting people I’ve connected with on Twitter and also making a stack of brand new connections. People like Espree Devora who I nearly met in 2009 (long story), and caught up with in 2010 (watch my video interview with her here). So when Espree said she’d pull together a panel idea for 2011 I said I’d love to be part of it. The rest of the panel line-up is Shane Mac, Giang Biscan (two guys I haven’t met yet) plus Lewis Howes (who I have). Our idea - which is now on the panel picker for the public vote - will see us share our experiences in business about doing it our own way. Our panel title is 'DITCH THE BOOK - Running A Business YOUR Way' and you can check it out (and vote for it) here.

At SXSW this year I met Ingrid Vanderveldt for a video interview (I’d connected with her producer  Lyn Graft about two years ago - it took us a while to hook up :) ). in the video ‘SXSW Interactive On The Road’ she asks me what the event means to me. Check it out below:

Lewis Howes: Making It Up As I Go Along

Lewis Howes used to play American football for a living. When a sports injury put him out of the game for six months he had to find ways to make a living. He had zero business experience but knew what he wanted to achieve. So without any great plan he set about building some businesses and writing a book. His first book was all about LinkedIn, a platform that Lewis is passionate about after having spent many hours each day learning how to exploit as a business tool. He now travels extensively giving talks alongside running popular webinars. 

What I like about his story is how Lewis reinvented himself and created successful businesses with no great plan. He's made it up as he gone along. I hung out with Lewis and here’s a two minute video of our chat.