startups Archives - Page 45 of 117

The Bibliography is over

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I was talking to someone about a presentation I will be making to his marketing staff in the coming weeks. I took him through a basic flow of the topics and ideas and explained a little bit about each. But also made reference to the point that it was only about 60% finished. He then asked me when I expected to have the final presentation ready, and I’m pretty sure I surprised him with my answer:

“I’ll just make the rest up on the day”

It wasn’t a throw away comment either. I meant what I said. He paused for a while, and seemed concerned. After all it is a paid for gig. He then laughed and said; “Are you serious?” I told him that I was and went on to explain the following.

“You’ve heard me speak before, which was what lead to you inviting me to speak to your team. The good news is I made up about half of that talk too. So I’ve done it before, and it is pretty much how I roll. The reason I do it that way is it enables me to feel the audience. It enables me to react to the content which is resonating more strongly with them. My job when communicating isn’t about delivering a canned sermon. It’s about sharing information that matters and inspires the audience, and I can only know what that is once I get started. So it is up to me to know enough about the topic to change direction on demand.”

He was pretty satisfied with that answer. But it also brings me to another point.

Why do we teach our kids and our employees that everything must be justified?

Why is it that where we got our information from matters so much in a corporate world and the academic world? The people ‘in charge’ so often like to reference where the facts come from, and all too often dismiss any idea which isn’t justified and verified before by some ‘authority’. As far as I can tell this is another example of old world thinking.

If the real value in life and in business is built upon originality, ideas and inspiration, then it might also be about time that we stop validating intellectual and emotional labour. Just because it’s new thinking doesn’t make it invalid, in fact, the opposite is often true given the pace of change is now so rapid. If our thoughts only have currency based on research, there’s a good chance we are already behind the crowd.

Startup blog says – forget the bibliography and make stuff up instead.

Advocacy

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

We don’t create advocates, we are advocates and then others join in and follow. Our social mission should define what we sell. If we attach a social cause to what we already sell, then we have got it back to front.

Inspiring change – Superhumans

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

Changing someones opinion is one of the hardest things to do in business. Our world views are very often entrenched and shaped over many years. A consistent improvement in products or service over many years can often get the job done. But this is a long game. Every now and again someone manages to do it a couple of minutes. I have recently had one such moment personally with an advertisement. Watch this below and then I’ll bare my soul to you…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKTamH__xuQ]

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but before I saw this advertisement I had zero interest in the Paralympics. I honestly felt as though I was compelled to respect them. As though it was evil not to like the event or even care about it. But I didn’t care at all.

Fast forward 1 minute 30 seconds and I not only want to watch them this year, but have a new found level of respect and interest. It’s another great example of how we no longer buy what people do, but why they do it.

Philosophy – Martin Potter

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I’m an avid surfer and in the pre-internet days I would video tape television shows featuring surfing and watch them over and over. I have over 20 of these 3 hour video tapes and can still remember every word of the dialogue off by heart. Today I was thinking about one of the tapes. It was from the Coca-cola classic held at Manly beach in Sydney in 1987. At the start they interviewed the top 5 surfers in the world. One of which included Martin Potter and he said this:

“The one thing to do in surfing is win the world title. And until I get it, I’ll be going for it. And when I get it, I’ll be gone.”

This statement is carved into my brain with blood. I’ve never forgotten it. It was just so succinct, said with such confidence, belief and direction. He even sounded cool as a cat when he said it. Two years later he blitzed them and won the world title. Shortly after that he left the circus that was the world surfing tour and went on to other things in the surfing arena. I always felt as though he wanted to prove what he was capable of, but not be a slave to the system once the game was one.

The question for entrepreneurs is what kind of a victory or proof point are we really after, and when is enough, enough? This is something we should know before we start or we may never know when or if to call it a day.

Random things

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of random things I have done during my life:

Take gymnastics classes

Play Australian rules football

BMX race

High board diving

Build multiple cubby houses

Swim in the local river

Learn basic code on a 16kb ram TRS-80 computer in 1981.

Waste all my pocket money on video arcade games (think Galaga)

Water skiing

Mountain Bike racing

Had 9 broken arms (well the same 2 nine times)

Stand up comedy

Surfing

Learn CPR

Do Surf Life Saving (so I could get free beach accommodation)

Live on a farm

Live in 4 of Australia’s 7 capital cities

Collect first issues of magazines ( I have many, it was a weird long term investment strategy)

Poultry farming

Start and sell a clothing company

Build a raft that sank on it’s first outing

Learn to speak Italian

Learn to speak Mandarin

Be a Sales Representative

Be a shelf stacker

A valet parking attendant (still my fav’ job ever… could write a movie about it)

Write a movie script (it’s waiting to be made)

Perfect break dancing (all the while wishing I lived in the Bronx)

Work in advertising

Lecture at University

Eat only frozen food for 6 months (don’t ask)

Your list is just as long as this list. Your list is probably more interesting than this list. This list that we all have tells us a great deal about our desires, our passions, our successes and our failures. It shows how much we know and what we are capable of. If we write it and study it closely it often gives us clues on the things that really mattered, and might just tell us what to do next.

Finding the connections

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I’ve recently happened upon a terrific documentary series from the 1970’s – which is up there with the best I’ve seen. It’s a series entitled Connections and was hosted by Science Historian James Burke.

In short the series is about the connections humans have been able to make with observations, science, mistakes and ideas. And how this has largely resulted in the civilized world we all enjoy today. While I’m sure all my readers like kinda nerdy stuff which this is, the reason I’m sharing it goes beyond that. This series is the greatest example I have seen of humans and our relationships with entrepreneurship. How our entrepreneurial nature has made us what we are. But the thing that really stuck in my mind was how technology is never about technology. It’s about discovery and putting all the pieces together in a new and interesting way. A timely reminder for the revolution we are living through right now.

You can watch the entire series here. Enjoy!

Simple innovation & fear

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I met a really smart person yesterday. It was a stand up conversation after a business breakfast seminar where like minds often gather to share a few ideas before parting ways. In this short time, it must have been less than 10 minutes, she managed to impart upon me two very innovative ideas that I immediately wanted to share on startup blog. They may not be new, but she put a certain spin on them and I’m yet to see them in market. A smart brand that actually cares would find a way to implement them.

1. The Full Supermarket Trolley:

Supermarkets should have an isle for their most valuable customers – those with full shopping trolleys. Instead what they have is specific isles for their least valuable customers – those with hand baskets. What supermarkets should have is a policy that says if your trolley is full – you never have to wait behind a person with one or two items or a hand basket. Maybe you press a button for the ‘golden trolley lane’ and someone comes from out the back to help you or something. Counter intuitive sure, but this is the type of thinking real marketers do, while engineers and logistics managers chase efficiency based on non customer metrics. While it’s easy to argue that it is all too hard, and that there is no quick way to scan all the items of a full trolley, it really is just old world thinking getting in the way of actually caring. In the age of ‘self scanning’ checkouts, surely every person using a trolley could self scan their items with a mobile scanner as they place them in the trolley.

2. The 19 hour Hotel Room:

We check into hotels in order to have somewhere to sleep and it is expected that this is largely overnight. But in this day and age, why should it be? With hectic business travel and strange flight times, surely the period of stay should be up to the customer. So why don’t any 5 star hotels allow you to choose the 19 hours you need? It is because they are more concerned with the rostering of their cleaning staff than they are with their paying customers. The regular business hours or work day is yet another legacy relic based on a passed era. Surely the staff can be reorganized around the customers?

Both of these are simple innovations we are yet to see. Both are technically possible. Both would create interest and attention. Both would reward valuable customers. Both are yet to happen because of inertia and fear.

A funny thing about these innovations and fear, is that the person who shared them with me didn’t want me to link back to her in this post. I immediately told her that I wanted to share her ideas with my readers and give her the due credit, but she didn’t want it. When I asked her why, she mentioned that some of her clients where large supermarkets and she didn’t want to upset them or big note herself. She said I could blog away, take the ideas….. And while I can see her point, and respect her decision, I can’t help but think that the world (and maybe her business partners) are missing out on more of her wisdom because someone just might be offended.

Ironically, the same fear that stopped her ideas being implemented in hotels and supermarkets, is the fear she is suffering from. The fear of upsetting the status-quo for a minority, at the expense of making things better for the majority. In reality almost all innovations have a cohort of detractors, it’s just the way it is. We should push things forward regardless.

Startup blog says: Ideas need to be free and shared, and if our sentiment is positive, nothing should stop us.