I already wrote about the power of sketching, so here is follow up and a good example of how visual communications really enhances the Daniel Pink's talk. I also really enjoyed it, especially because money is not what drives me to perform.
Last week I went to the BayCHI monthly program meeting where Christian Crumlish from Yahoo, author of the book Design Social Interfaces, came talk about social patterns. He spoke about how people are using social network, what works and what doesn't work (what he calls anti-patterns like this one). This talk was an invitation to think how you are using social networks; I'm not a social network addict and I mainly use Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook in a "offline to online" way: I connect with people I already know in the real-life (except for Twitter, obviously).
Crumlish explained that the right social network that suits you is the one that will give you a good reason to talk to others, bridge to the real life and will take you offline. I mean by that meeting people, sharing new ideas around a coffee, etc. Linkedin, for instance, is really all about network reach - your effective network (your direct connections plus all those associated by degrees of separation) creates the total network reach which enables people to "find you" or you to "find them"...
The social ecosystem is vast and the possibilities are huge, everybody should be able to find its own place to create "online to offline" opportunities. Crumlish mapped it into a well designed diagram that may help to position yourself, as you can see that the potential is definitively underused.
(download)
What about you? Do you have true and significant "online to offline" experience?
Here is a Crumlish's Slideshare presentation to bring you a better understanding of social design pattern.
It's a shame that it is not taught in school, it's a powerful way to free your mind and draw the entire picture of a problem.
A caricature directory ... More than one hundred drawings on the office walls !
Last week, I have been to the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford, Packy Kelly presented the TOP 250 global private companies audited by KPMG, Bridge Bank and AO editors from all major sectors. LogLogic has been selected among 700 nominations based on these key criteria:
* Innovation
* Market opportunity
* Commercialization
* Stakeholder value creation
* Media buzz
The global AO250 list: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/32719
Tim Miller from 451 Group presented his finding, I retain this very motivating stat: over the last 6 years companies from AO250 valuation have been more than two time more successful than other - http://twitpic.com/clo6a
During the opening session Bill Campbell (CEO NextAdvisor) shared his key metrics for a successful company. Before all other consideration he said that great company should have a great product. To do that, managers should track progress of "one single thing", from the creation up to the market and be sure people are using their product. Success requires as well strong product marketing talents to wrangle techs and customers to make a market.
Campbell told about innovation and it inspired me these two slides. He said that it's really tough for big companies to innovate, it reminds me a quote from Shunryu Suzuki "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few".
Campbell spoke as well about influencers: experience shown us that the top 2% companies on the market influences the other 98%. He added that Internet business is still driving innovation.
During all the summit, talks has been spread all over the world in live, and people commented in real-time on the Twitter board. I guess it may be hard for speakers to not be attempted to read it during their speech :-)
I summarized in this slide 5 very simple tips I try to apply during demos, happy to share it.
