A Reason to Smile

Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs is all about making people smile. 

I just read a study that concluded that female graduates with genuine smiles in their yearbook pictures went on to have more satisfying lives.  When they say “genuine” smiles, they mean the ones that involve not only your mouth, but your eyes.  What experts call a Duchenne smile. 

So, perhaps the new service may not only make the day of someone you find remarkable…it could actual improve their life and yours!

Sign up now to be notified when our upcoming beta is ready.

SomeoneYouKnow.isRemarkable.com…like Charles M. Schulz

I think everyone must be familiar with Charles M. Schulz, the man who penned the iconic Peanuts comic strip for a remarkable 50 years with out interruption.  He would have been eighty-five today, on November 26, 2007, had he not lost his battle with colin cancer in 1977.  As if his fame and influence was not enough, I found it interesting that Forbes Magazine has rated Schulz the second “highest paid deceased person” in America (right after Elvis Presley). 

In the wake of a controversial biography that was just published a few months ago, his family has shed some light on the artist as a father and friend.  This makes me believes something I read recently that was attributed to Mr. Schulz.  The gist of it is that the people that make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.  They are the ones that care.  They are your parents, your teachers, and your friends. 

So, it is true that you and I might never draw a cartoon strip that touches millions of people (or ever appear in a “highest-paid” ranking in Forbes magazine), but we all have a profound effect on others around us.  Like good ‘ol Charlie Brown, you may not ever kick the football, but that will not keep you from being on someone’s short list of the most remarkable people that they know.

As I have mentioned before, I will be featuring extraordinary folks, worthy of notice or attention, on this blog.  If you would like to recommend someone to be featured on this site, please email Someone@CreativeOutletLabs.com and let me know why and how I might learn more about them.  Is your Dad, your daughter, your nephew, your teacher, your secretary, or your financial advisor remarkable?  Is someone celebrating a big birthday, graduation, or retirement?  Is someone you know achieving a once-in-a-lifetime honor or an everyday occasion?  Let me know.  I will be featuring remarkable people several times a month and look forward to hearing from you!

Courage

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”  – Erma Bombeck (Credit).

….and, dreams become reality and infinitely more beautiful in their reveal.

This photo by Allan was taken at the breathtaking Chinese Gardens in downtown Portland, Oregon.

When the “Right Way” Isn’t Right

I am often struck by the irony of doing things the “right way.”  Whether it is a rigorous new product introduction process that seeks to remove all of the risk in a product launch or an exhaustively detailed product specification document which outlines customer needs before any customers are acquired, there seems there is a “right way” to do things that often doesn’t work, despite the amount of effort put into the process.

Tom Peters and the authors of Made to Stick both have written about a skunk-works project at the industrial products company, Ingersoll-Rand, who sought to improve their time to market from 4 years to less than 1.  When faced with a decision to build a casing from plastic or metal, they knew they would have to test for durability, whi ch often involved “protracted, careful studies of the tensile and compression properties of both materials.”  However, they didn’t have time to spell “protracted,” so they tried something else.  The team tied samples of both materials to back of a rental car and drove around the parking lot.  The plastic composite held up just as well as the metal and they moved on to the next decision.  No extensive metalurgy, but rather a quick, real-world test.

Another entrepreneur who has applied this same approach is Kara Goldin, who founded Hint, Inc., who makes water-based beverages.  She wrote in an article published by Andrea Adelman for Ladies Who Launch that “Our focus groups are friends, family and individual customers. I’m a big believer in just launching the product and getting it to market as opposed to doing elaborate focus groups. Get your product out there and show demand to impress investors. If you have an idea, just go for it. Launch in a small local market, even among friends at work and school. Ask for honest opinions of your test products. My business wouldn’t have happened if I got bogged down in focus groups and didn’t just take a chance!“

When taking a leap of faith, we are often encouraged not to “look down.”  I think the same applies to planning.  Rather than focusing on process and doing things the “right way” (usually driven by fear of failure), better to just overcome the fear with action.  Launch something.  Get real customers using the product and providing feedback.  Develop a true empathy for the customers, which will ensure that at each decision point that you can best advocate their priorities.  This will have a greater impact on business success than extensive focus groups, market research, or just about anything else you can do to mitigate the risks of starting a business or launching a product.  Don’t look down.  Look up and out and take the leap!

This is why that we are Creative Outlet Labs are planning a public beta of our new service Remarkable.  If you have not yet signed, up go to www.CreativeOutletLabs.com and we will let you know as soon as it is ready!

Photo by Alan.

It’s The Thought That Counts

Apparently, there is a common military expression that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.”  This is ironic considering the effort and expense that goes into military strategy and planning.  Yet, despite all the best planning, unpredicatable things happen.  They could be as serious as an underestimated enemy arsenal, or as simple as a change in the weather.  Plans aren’t built to last, but that isn’t the point.

As I have written about previously, plans are an exercise in wishful thinking.  However, planning is critically important.  It helps work through the scenarios, prioritize the myriad demands for money, time, and focus, and it can be a great team builder.  In the final tally, they planning itself is more important than the plan.

This applies not only to business, but to other portions of our lives as well.  With Christmas and other seasonal holidays quickly approaching, I am reminded the though and planning behind the “perfect” gift may be more precious than the actual gift itself.  So, even business planning, can be a gift to customers, vendors, employees, and the community - as you think through how best to delight them.  Even if things don’t turn out exactly as planned (and when do they ever?), you can be assured that you know the levers of the business, what is important to your stakeholders, and how to best proceed under the new conditions.  You might have to change tracks, but you still know how to drive the train.

Photo by Alan.

Action Heroes

My young son has gotten into action heroes.  Their super powers.  Their cool costumes.  Their personality quirks.  Their backstories.  He is even writing his own adventures, which is fun to see.

Why do we love action heroes?  I believe it is because the goods ones are fearless.  Sure, they have special abilities (and often a bit of a death wish), but they face every situtation with pure confidence and come out ahead. 

I believe there is a bit of super hero in each of us and that there are things we can do to cultivate our fearlessness.  

We all have seen examples of where action cures fear.  Placebo medication cures illness.  Making lists make us feel productive.  Walking faster helps us have more energy.  Starting something creates its own momentum.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, a famous German author, is attributed with the following statement, a portion of which has hung in my office for years:

 Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

Said another way, once the bee is face-first  in the flower, he no longer is overwhelmed with the work and complexity of making honey.  He is “heads down” and can focus.  He is beyond fear.  He is an action hero (complete with a cool colorful costume and wings).

Photo by Alan

SomeoneYouKnow.isRemarkable.com

The new service under development is called Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.  Why call it Remarkable?  Because I firmly believe that everyone knows someone who is remarkable and having a better way to appreciate, collaborate, and celebrate would itself be remarkable. 

I love what Webster’s says about the word “remarkable”:

1.  Notably or conspicuously unusual; extraordinary

2. Worthy of notice or attention

So, I believe it is true that SomeoneYouKnow.isRemarkable.com.  I can’t honestly wait for the application to be ready for you to use.  Sign up for the beta to make sure you are the first to learn about it.

Until then, I will be featuring extraordinary folks, worthy of notice or attention, on this blog.  If you would like to recommend someone to be featured on this site, please email Someone@CreativeOutletLabs.com and let me know why and how I might learn more about them.  Is your Mom, your son, your cousin, your boss, or your pastor remarkable?  Is someone celebrating a milestone birthday, graduation, retirement, beating cancer, or serving in the military?  Is someone you know achieving a once-in-a-lifetime honor or an everyday occasion?  Let me know.  I will be featuring remarkable people several times a month and look forward to hearing from you!

As the colors of the season continue to change, remember the vibrancy and diversity of those you know and how remarkable the everyday can be!

Photo by Alan R 2

Names, Names, Names

I read recently (in the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath) about the founder of the Daily Record in Dunn, North Carolina.  A man by the name of Hoover Adams.  He set out to be the best local paper ever and boiled that into a mantra that he used with employees, “Names, Names, Names.”  The thing that a local paper could do better, he reasoned, was providing local news about people you know, including the reader themselves.  “I’d bet that if the Daily Record reprinted the entire Dunn telephone directly tonight, half the people would sit down and check it to be sure their name was included.”  People are just like that and businesses that understand the importance of personal relevance win.

Dr. Schwartz commended in 1959 that “every year shrewd manufacturers sell more brief cases, pencils, Bibles, and hundres of other items just by putting the buyer’s name on the product.”  The growth of crowdsourcing, personalized products, and the like are evidence to this fact as well.

Names will be extremely important in the new service Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.  Sign up, by name, for the beta at www.CreativeOutletLabs.com.

Benchpress Your Creativity

There are a lot of pressures on a new business.  So many reasons to get distracted.  So many reasons that to explain why things are not progressing.  Furthermore, we all know the statistics around new business enterprises and it is no surprise that many would-be entrepreneurs face the odds and talk themselves out of doing anything at all.

I have just finished re-reading David Schwartz’ The Magic of Thinking Big which I last read early in the 90’s.  Although some of the examples are a little dated, there are lots of great ideas and I recommend it.

One exercise is in the chapter called “How to Think and Dream Creatively” under the seciond called “Believe it Can Be Done.”  The exercise is to take an unthinkable concept (the example in the book was “How many of you feel it is possible to eliminate jails within the next 30 years?”) and allow people to come up with reasons why it isn’t possible.  For the jail example, it is easy to think of dozens of reasons why it is impractical to let criminals out loose on the street.  Then, the moderator changes the activity by asking “Will you try extra hard for a new minutes to believe we could?”  He asked the group, “Now assuming we can elminate jails, how could we begin?” and the group begin slowly brainstorming ideas.  Before long, the group in his example came up with 78 concrete ideas on something that they thought before we impossible.  Dr. Schwartz’ summarized the activity like this:  “When you believe, your mind finds ways to do.”

So, the lesson for me and any other would-be entrepreneur is to realistically assess the risks of their business, and then put focus on all the reasons that the business will be sucessful.  Stretch your creativity to see the possibilities on the horizons, like the ship in the picture above by Alan, and the path will become clearer.

Fast Forward and Look Back

Fast forward 10 years.  We have a highly successful company that is doing tons of good for our customers and the community.  The team has grown along with the business and we are having a blast.

I pause one day and think back to a random Saturday in the early, early days of the business.  November 2007.  I am am up to my elbows in requirements planning and the hard prioritizations that must occur in product development.  I am on the phone with suppliers exploring new levels of partnership.  At my feet are two little kids.  Both of them a little too noisy when I am on the phone.  One asking me to stop my work to write out the words in the latest superhero adventure he has illustrated.  College football and household chores in the background.  My son asking me if I like building software, in the same way that he likes building with Legos.  All of us pausing for a lunch of chicken nuggets before their naptime. 

Perhaps today is the day that some breakthrough feature was envisioned.  Perhaps this day is a turn-point that I don’t yet recognize.  Perhaps today is just a perfect day.

5 Year Plans and Other Works of Fiction

In a recent lecture at MIT’s Sloan Business school, Ricardo Semler said some provocative things about business planning.  Below is an excerpt:

“A 5 year plan is just an extrapolation added to wishful thinking. Have you ever seen a business plan that says, “I’m going to go up 5% and then down -14% and then -22% and then I’m going to recuperate a little bit and then it’s going to go to hell?”

‘Cuz that’s what happens. That’s how it looks in practice, but that’s not the way we design it. We’re willing to trick ourselves into thinking we have control as long as we do it with wishful thinking.”

I am a planner.  Big fan of planning, actually.  Love making lists and checking things off.  Love twiddling with spreadsheets.  Just wish I could be better at making and executing a plan.  I bet you feel the same.  Who wouldn’t want to be able to predict the future?  Especially for new enterprises that don’t have years of trend data to extrapolate from.  No tracks in the snow that can be followed to the top of the mountain.  How do you make a five year plan?  All it is is wishful thinking.

Guy Kawasaki in his book, The Art of the Start, talks about how forecasts are mythical.  Everyone knows they are made up.  Any research company worth your subscription fees will tell you that there is a big market to be exploited.  Any schmuck can do spreadsheet exercises to arrive at a $50M company.  The truth is not in the forecast, but in the passion.

The truth is the not every can exploit a growing market.  Not everyone can build a $50M company.  Not everyone can start something.  So, throw a dart at the board or spend hours doing sensitivity analysis in Excel and convince yourself in the viability of your business.  Because it is not the accuracy of the forecast, but your own depth of your conviction that makes the difference.  You will not find a track.  You must leave one.

Photo by Jason.

Questions To Ask Yourself

If you haven’t seen Canadian executive coach Michael Bungay Stanier’s 5 3/4 questions, you should.  Steal away, grab a colored pencil, and spend 5 minutes changing your point of view and perhaps your life!

The Best of Times

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

I loved this quote.  As a naturally impatient person (or should I say “I have a healthy sense of urgency”?), I can relate to this sentiment.  What is interesting, however is that no matter how strong the Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs idea is, it couldn’t have happened 20 years ago.  Frankly, the core technology didn’t exist.  Technically, infeasible.  Economically, disasterous. And, I don’t need to remind you that 20 years ago, I was not ready to start a business with this level of sophistication (any entrepreneurship activity would have been limited to birthday party planning or lemonade stands).

So, I shouldn’t lament that I didn’t start this business 20 years, but rather celebrate that I am starting it now!

This beautiful photo was taken by my friend, Allan, who is a fantastic photographer and artist…and the designer behind my corporate identity.

Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Today, we are going to learn how to write good requirements.  Requirements, for those of you who might not be familiar, are the instructions that a person uses to tell a develop where they need to build.  These can take several thousand forms and there are a number of standards that are used in different industries to represent requirements, but we are going to do a very simple set of requirements that illustrate the challenges I have been facing getting things moving for Creative Outlet Labs.

We are going to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.

First, we will describe the end result.  Let’s see, would that a layer of peanut butter and a layer of jelly spread between two pieces of bread?  Or is it a common lunch meal used to satisfy mid-day hunger?

Second, we can show a picture of what it looks like.  I can provide the photography below.

Is this whole wheat bread?  Is it toasted?  Is this grape jelly or is it current jam?  Is this peanut butter or is it hummus?  Am I supposed to build something half-eaten?  Ok, the picture isn’t great after all.

So, I can create a detailed, step-by-step requirements for a creating a sandwich.  It would start with selecting sliced bread and putting two slides flat on a plate.  Find a jar of peanut butter.  Open it.  Take a knife and spread peanut butter on one piece of bread.  Find a jar of jelly.  Open it.  etc, etc, etc.

Ah, the joys of requirements!  Bridging the gap between a mouth-watering vision and the stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth reality.  It is a lot of work, but the rewards are sweet!

Earthquakes and Aftershocks

 

A few days ago there was a 5.6 earthquake near our place in the Bay Area.  The epicenter was near San Jose, California and rippled throughout the region. 

Epicenter is the term that 37Signals and others use to describe a method of development, which starts at the center of core functionality and ripples out to additional features.  Even down to the functionality on a single webpage.  Epicenter development is a different approach than the “start at the beginning and develop from beginning to end through the user experience” which people may be tempted to use or the “let’s build the entire site structure and plug the content into it” approach.  Taken further, iterative development, especially for things like web applications, combined with real user testing, are the best way to uncover user preferences and drive reasonable feature development.

 

Creative Outlet Labs is adopting this approach and will be conducting a public beta test, once we have the user interface built-out enough that you can indeed use the tool.  We may even add some features in there for you to start playing with.  We are hoping that the epicenter of our development is cool enough that it ripples out to lots of great ideas and new features that you will use and love!

That way, instead of guessing what you want us to deliver next, you can just tell us.  It’s all part of us trying to do good.

Don’t Forget to Dry Clean your Labcoat

 

You will now find a new site posted at www.CreativeOutletLabs.com with some features you should check out.  The most exciting of which is that we are now collecting volunteers for an upcoming beta test of a new service called Remarkable by Creative Outlet Labs.  Dust off your chemistry set, pick up your labcoat from the cleaners, and sign up to try out this new service!  We’ll let you know when it is ready.

…because SomeoneYouKnow.isRemarkable.com!

Take Part in Development

While you are waiting for the beta, be sure to fill out the survey.  We are collecting some information that will help us direct our development to the things that will be of the greatest benefit to you.  Be a part of the development by filling out the survey and encouraging others to do it as well.