Archive - May, 2010

The Power of Perspective – Summit Series, and beyond.

May 19, 2010 in Culture, Entrepreneurship, Family, Generosity, Inspiration, Leadership, Life with 5 Comments

I attended Summit Series last week and through the weekend. I chose attending Summit Series over a 40th birthday party in Vegas and a special release party at Joseph Phelps in Napa Valley. I was torn with what to do as I love Vegas (especially day drinking poolside Vegas), Napa (especially free Insignia Napa) and love all my friends whom attended each of those events. I decided on Summit Series (Elliott elegantly pushed me over the line) because I wanted the perspective that can happen only at an event like Summit. In my belief, some things can only happen in person. You can connect deeply on a particular world issue involving helpless children only by looking each other in the eyes at 3 am (well, it doesn’t have to happen at 3 am, I suppose) – Sean Carasso from Falling Whistles and I made that connection. The amazing thing about Summit Series is the perspective that can be gained by spending time with people in a variety of fields with different viewpoints, priorities and goals, and seeing things through their eyes. To me, this cannot happen online, in print or on the phone. There are some things that cannot be replaced by eye to eye contact and even a hug from a dude – yup, a hug from a dude, at 3 am.

Perspective helps open our eyes and magnify a viewpoint – this is true in life and in business. The only other place that I have experienced the diversity that I found here, is at TED. I’m sure it happens elsewhere, but I haven’t experienced it (sidenote, I need to get to Burning Man). Elliot, Jeff, Brett and Jeremy brought together an amazing group of people. They brought together incredible speakers, content and diverse attendees. This diversity brings different ideas, viewpoints and a different perspective. You can bet that the people in the Transamerica building looking at the sun shining on the Bay Bridge have a different perspective than those looking at the approaching fog bank (photo taken on my way to Summit – click to enlarge).

Most of the people I spoke with at Summit have more ambitious goals than being at the top of their profession. John Legend is passionate about education, Chris Sacca is passionate about clean water and a cure for cancer, Ted Leonsis want people to find balance, Kristin Bell wants to save kids through Invisible Children, Russell Simmons wants us to find internal peace and passion, Scott Harrison wants to deliver clean water to 1 billion people – the list goes on – and it was awesome.

It’s easy for us to get caught up in our day to day. Don’t get me wrong – our day to day is really important. Even in our day to day, perspective is incredibly important. I recently interviewed Kostas Mallios for my book. Kostas is GM at Microsoft  – one of the key people involved in most acquisitions (he reports to Ray Ozzie) and wrote the acquisition process for Microsoft. I asked him whether his love of travel and photography has an impact on how he sees companies and buying opportunities, to which he replied “creativity provides a perspective that benefits the way I think about a deal. I see things from a unique viewpoint that I might not otherwise observe, without the creative view”. Perspective is the perfect connector between art and business. It’s what is required to solve today’s massive problems – a terrible US education system, a troubled environment, 1 Billion people without clean water, kids being killed in needless wars. Let’s face it – if you were born in most parts of the United States of America then you were born with advantage. I think it’s critical that we take care of our day to day but we also need to consider helping others, whether in the US or elsewhere, if even in a very small way. Think about life from the viewpoint of the person trying to figure out how to get food or water for their kids today – right now, while you are reading these words.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge fan of TED and have had the good fortune of attending 6 times. From my perspective, this Summit Series was as valuable and amazing as most TED conferences that I’ve been to – which is saying something really incredible since it’s only 3 years old. Elliott and the boys (average age of 25 or so) should be proud. And yes, I’m bummed that I missed those other events but I absolutely made the right decision – no regrets. If you like the ideas in this post, please help them spread by sharing it (tweet, like, link) – we need more people thinking about life from YOUR perspective. Thanks for reading – I appreciate your time.

facebook and twitter applications to improve education – steal my idea and run with it

May 17, 2010 in Entrepreneurship, Life with 24 Comments

I attended Summit Series this week and came away with 100 ideas, tons of inspiration, a bunch of reconnections and many new friends. Here’s one idea that I hope someone decides to implement – I’m happy to help but I won’t do anything with it myself as I have too many other projects ongoing, but I will help with it. I spoke with David Kirkpatrick (FORTUNE) and Sean Parker (facebook, Plaxo, Causes) about the idea and they both thought that it’s a great idea and that someone should pursue it.

Simply, let’s build facebook applications that improve education in America. I believe that one such application could allow parents and teachers (and perhaps students) to collaborate on projects, curriculum, mentorships, etc. Another application might incorporate some type of gaming aspects that allow peer mentoring. Each student has strengths and would love to share those strengths. Zack, my 7 year old, is a math wiz and he loves fishville, webkins and other games. I’m certain that he would love to play a game that can help his buddies.

The reason that I think facebook is great for this is due to the power and peer influence of the social graph. If I contribute to an activity such as answering a question for a teacher or parent, my friends are likely to see that an get involved themselves. The activity doesn’t have to live in facebook, perhaps, as long as all of the social graph and social tools are engaged. I’m certain that there’s a huge market for this and a ton of money to be made. I’m also fairly confident that it will improve the life of many children and teachers. Our teachers are overloaded without the proper tools or support do their jobs effectively – I think we can help. Our education system is hosed – let’s do this.

If you want to pursue or contribute to this idea, comment on this post to find others who want to be involved. Let’s crowdsource this idea. Maybe hit the “like” button at the top of this post to alert your friends, or tweet it. If there are enough people interested, perhaps we can incubate it somehow – if there are not, the idea will likely die. If you think the idea has some merit to it, please share it. Let’s improve upon this idea, improve it through sharing and collaboration, build concept drawings, a business plan (3 pager) and a prototype. I will help in the process and know that I can assist with angel funding for it at the appropriate time. By the way, I see twitter plugins also contributing to these apps or community.

I hope that some of you genius and or passionate friends of mine get stoked for this – our kids need you, as does our economy.

Peace out.

How I use the Cube Grenade from Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid)

May 6, 2010 in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration with 0 Comments

A friend of mine was asking what I do with the Cube Grenade that Hugh MacLeod created with me. I intentionally use “with” instead of “for” because it was a collaborative process – all Hugh’s work but he was receptive to my input and feedback. In addition to describing how I use the asset, I thought I would post as a reminder to make sure that you are making the most of the assets you have, in a way that leaves an impression that differentiates you from the noise. For me, Hugh’s work allows me to make a memory when I hand out a business card. I highly recommend having a look at Hugh’s work and think about whether he can help you differentiate or tell a story that is more easily expressed in images rather than words.

I also give Flip cameras to people whom I think can benefit from them – sometimes a client, vendor, partner or a company that I’m advising.
I love the Flip because it’s easy to carry, simple to use and dead simple to transfer and share videos.  I don’t give them a standard Flip, however, my gifts are customized. I want to remind my clients that they have the ability to excite and energize their audience, like a rockstar, at every turn.

With fierce competition for attention these days, it’s really important to differentiate. Fortunately, It’s pretty easy to do something unique when you can leverage the work of great artists, great technologies and great services (Flip uses Cafe Press to print screen the image). As far as return on investment – that’s easy. Hugh’s art has paid for itself in tangible and intangible ways. It has gained me a new client (which is significant because I am limiting my client work to 6 clients this year), word of mouth and great conversations.

How can you creatively use your assets to say thank you, please or sorry? As always, I would love your ideas. If you have a thought but it’s not quite baked – post here and ask for feedback or shoot me a private note and I’ll brainstorm with you. I don’t want anything in return for this – I just love doing it – the ability to help you think it through is compensation enough for me!

Cheers.