Kawasaki on Innovation and Evangelism

Here are two posts from Guy Kawasaki that will help anyone seeking breakthroughs. The first is called The Art of Innovation. He offers nine suggestions to fuel forward movement of innovation. Notice I did not just say - innovation. What I like about some of these suggestions is that it reminds us that it is not enough to have a great idea, we need to be able to move it forward and OUT. I particularly love (this one's for you JJD):

Don't worry, be crappy. An innovator doesn't worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it's truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect--Macintosh, for example, didn't have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn't matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits--for example, the engineers convince management to add more features--until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

(I hope my new publisher does not read this part) The last book I turned in, Focus Like a Laser Beam, was light years from perfect or being my best work. I was under a self imposed time crunch AND I was suffering from general malaise of business books (not good when you are writing one). So I decided just to have fun, pump up the creativity and worry less about convention or making it perfect. Guess what? It turned out better than if I had more time and discipline. I turned in a highly imperfect work that I really love. They liked it too! My only regret is that I did not get permission to reprint one of Tom Peter's highly imperfect and amazingly emotional blog posts.

Guy's second post is called The Art of Evangelism. The secret to producing breakthroughs is getting out there. Enrolling people in your work and goals. Being and creating evangelists.  This is a great list of suggestions for how to enroll people such that they take on the cause/product for themselves - perhaps in a very deep and personal way. I love the way he ends the post:

Live long and kick butt.

Guy is one of the most goal oriented people I have met, he wants to leverage for maximum input. Even so, he is conscious of doing this in ways that do not bite him or his family in the butt later.

Creating breakthroughs is easier when you get outside your head into the world - even if you aren't the picture of grace and polish.

Comments

[Dennis Swanson]

Thanks