I was amused to learn that the show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ is doing away with the phone-a-friend lifeline. There was Meredith Vieira with her big smile and syrupy voice explaining that the time had come to take away the lifeline that has been a staple since the beginning of the show because too many friends were using the internet (doing Google searches) to help the contestants. No kidding. Did the show’s producers just figure that out? It was plain to see the progression from the early years of the show when contestants would call wicked smart people to today when they just call people that are really fast at doing on-line searches. What’s next, “ask the audience” to check their iPhones at the door of the studio? Let’s face it lifelines are enabled by the web. Should we just get used to it or is there something more important than a game show going on here reflecting on the state of human interaction.
This comes as no surprise to anyone with a teenage daughter. When is the last time you shouted to your teenager, Get off of that phone you have been talking for an hour? It is far more likely that you have said, get off of that computer and do your homework or no text messages during dinner. It is obvious that phone-a-friend has been replaced with text messaging and Facebook walls. Phone conversations have been replaced with an always-on lifeline connecting friends in real time. Answers, information, advice, entertainment, and connections are all available 24/7. Conversations are now just fragments, short poorly spelled text messages, or 140 character epithets.
Is the loss of phone-a-friend necessarily a bad thing? Maybe new web-enabled lifelines are expanding our universe of possible friends and opening up new opportunities for deep engagement. I think that may be true but there are serious questions that need to be asked about real human engagement. I worry that the web and social media platforms have become the driver more than the enabler. Are we “friending” people because they are web-savy, spending a lot of time on social media sites, and quick to return our text messages? Or are we “friending” smart, interesting, caring people that leverage the web to enable connections and who will be there when you need them the most? Will these connections stand up to the crises that we all will face when personal engagement and support is critical? Is “friending” even the same thing as being a friend? I wonder if we have become so focused on our follower or friend counts on-line that we are forgetting what true friendship is really about.
Seems to me that lifelines are more about the people at the other end of the line than about a connection to the web. Technology is a great enabler that can help us to be better friends but it is not a replacement for the hard work of being a good friend. There will be times in all of our lives when we will need to say, I would like to use a lifeline. If it is all right with you I would like to hold on to my phone-a-friend.
I was walking to school with Ella last week when she said to me: “Mama, when will I get paid for work?” Thinking she was speaking in generalities I replied, “Oh, usually when you’re about 15 you can get a job where you earn money.”
“No no,” she said to me, “I mean for the job I have now, Political Playground, I want to get paid and I want a bank account.” (I swear this really happened.)
“Hmmm…” I said “How bout this. I can’t make any promises but I can try and set up a meeting for you with my boss, Executive Producer Steve Friedman and you can make your case for why you should get paid. Do you want to do that?”
*Enthusiastic head nodding from Ella*
“Alright but you’re going to have to take it really seriously and work really hard at it. OK?”
“OK.”
The rest of our short trip to school Ella fantasized about her bank account and credit.
She also determined that her account would not be at Bank of America because they’re “terrible.” (I’ve really got to watch what I say around this child.)
Steve agreed to take the meeting with the stipulation that I not be in the room. My agent Henry agreed to “represent” Ella and the result of their negotiation can be seen in this video. I’ve got to say, Ella secured a pretty good deal. Maybe when I renegotiate she can give me some tips.
If I had a dollar for every person I have driven crazy popping those addictive plastic bubbles…….. Today marks the fiftieth birthday of Bubble Wrap, the ubiquitous stress reducer disguised as a packaging cushion. Did you know that this pop icon (pun intended) has over two million Facebook fans? Did you also know that its inventors parlayed Bubble Wrap in to the juggernaut, Sealed Air Corporation, with over $4 billion in revenue operating in 52 countries? My favorite part of the story is that the inventors didn’t set out to create packaging material at all. Bubble Wrap is a classic innovation and unintended invention story.
Bubble Wrap provides us with an almost too good to be true invention story beginning as the movie script demands in a Hawthorne, NJ garage in 1957. The narrative begins with two entrepreneurial-minded engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, who set out to invent plastic wallpaper with a paper backing. They thought there would be a market for plastic textured wallpaper. Yuck. Thank goodness there wasn’t. Company legend has it that Chavannes came up with the idea for Bubble Wrap while coming home from a business trip and his plane was approaching the Newark Airport. He was staring out the window on the descent and it seemed to him as if Newark was cushioned by the billowy clouds surrounding the city. And you guessed it the rest as they say is history.
I love this story. It reminds us of how most innovation happens. Creating new ways to deliver value requires combining and recombining ideas and capabilities across silos in new and unexpected ways. Our current assumptions and approaches to problem solving and solution development are never adequate. It is only when we open ourselves and our organizations up to the unusual suspects and ideas that we create real breakthroughs. Capabilities developed for one purpose are often underutilized until we learn how to connect them to potential new purposes. We must be open to the possibilities and quicker to experiment with different configurations, which often open up new product, service, and business model opportunities. Our initial set of ideas and approaches are almost always inadequate. Success finds those that put themselves in a position to capitalize on derivative ideas at the margins.
Let’s virtualize the inventor’s garage. Social media platforms and networks provide us with the enabling technology to quickly connect ideas and innovators across silos. We are getting really good at the connecting and sharing ideas part. What we need to work on is how to create more purposeful networks. We must practice doing more together. Self-organization is the next wave of creativity and creation but we will have to get better at moving beyond the ideas to put the ideas to work in the real world. Our virtual garage is loaded with ideas, tools, and motivated innovators. Free agents are beginning to believe that we don’t need intransigent large institutions to make progress. If purposeful networks can demonstrate progress on solution development and deployment capital sources will materialize.
I sense we are near an inflection point making this a very exciting time to be an innovation junkie. If I am annoying you with my incessant bubble wrap popping, too bad, it keeps me from bouncing off the walls during these exciting times. Happy Birthday Bubble Wrap.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Does it pay to be an author?
Of course it does.
Sometimes it pays a whole lot.
Other times not so much and you just have to hope to aim higher and hit the next time around.
And at still other times, depending on what sort of math calculations you choose to use, writing can actually cause you to lose money and make you wonder, “Is merely having a book listed on Amazon.com worth the money you are in debt to make this book?”
I can say that of the three categories I am probably most familiar with the third category.
Above is a copy of my first check for profit on my book Musings from the Middle. I chose not to try to make money off it and charge only about a dollar profit a book just to cover costs.
As you can see my first check (which I have been advised is going to be by far my biggest) is $119.12. Now that’s nothing to sneeze at, of course, and is clearly in the “three figure range.” At least until you realize that has to cover a family of four including two teenagers with one in college and one just a few years away. When looked at that way, $119.12 doesn’t sound like as much as it did at first blush.
Given today’s college tuition prices, $119.12 will only cover about 33 minutes of one class your freshman year at a state university.
When you factor in the help I got putting the book together, organizing it, designing a cover, etc, well….all that cost about $400. So when you add the $119.12 to that figure you get something like….well, about — $280.
So let’s assume that over the next year (or five years), I get other checks totaling this amount? I am trying to be realistic. My book is currently ranked on Amazon.com at #1,972,197. Again, nothing to sneeze at. Until you realize that means that 1,972,196 books are ranked ahead of you.
So if I do get a total profit on the book of $240 that means I am only in the hole a mere $160.
Click here to purchase
Which now leads to the big question. Would I pay $160 to be able to say I have a book on Amazon.com?
The answer is, I apparently already have.
Had I not yet done it, I would be willing to pay…..hmmm…..maybe $150. And could see myself caving in if pushed on $160. So, I guess, all in all it is a good deal. And 33 minutes in a class at a state university is nothing to sneeze at–with today’s college tuition prices.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 7, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
There is an historic impasse between two groups of our nation’s leaders.
One group believes that the root cause of what is most wrong in their lives is the threat of implementation of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare as some prefer to call it).
The other group believes that the root cause of what is most distressing in their lives is… the Tea Party movement and its influence on the Republican Party.
This is, for both groups, far more than merely a work-related or ordinary civic cause. It is, for most in this debate, the defining question at the defining moment for each of them and everyone around them.
And each group is ridiculing the other for being ignorant and self-righteous and trying to ruin America. But the problem is that those doing the name calling don’t really know –or at least know well–what those they declaim are really like in their daily lives. They often only understand only a caricature or stereotype of their political rivals.
So, here is my modest proposal.
Since you have the week off and are presumably with family, please sit down with them and give each a single sheet of paper and a pen. Then ask each family member to write down the 5 things about you that in their opinion are causing the most trouble for you personally and for your family.
These are the people who know you best and have your best interest at heart–and theirs.
I doubt the “implementation of the ACA” or the “Tea Party movement” will make the cut on many of those lists. And I suspect you’ll be surprised by what does make the list.
And now here is the immodest part of my proposal. If that is truly what occurs, will you show the same visceral disdain and devotion to ridding those things from your life that really are causing daily pain to you and your family and those around you–and do so with the same resolve and enthusiasm you show today when railing against either Obamacare or Tea Partiers?
If you answer yes, then I suspect you’ll all be back at work sooner than planned.
And if the rest of us who are deeply engaged and emotionally invested in this national healthcare stand-off would try a similar experiment at our home —and devotedly seek to resolve those items written on our lists, I suspect next week will be a lot less testy and a lot more pleasant for each one of us. And that is good for our health—and the political health of our nation.
#BIF9 carries a sense of homecoming, a reunion of sorts. The kind where all the crazy aunts and uncles gather, regaling us with tales of adventure and awe. Perhaps the family reunion metaphor is accurate; I believe that innovators are cut from the same DNA. We are insatiable optimists and see opportunity in everything.
We are curious about everything. We know that learning together is the best way to get better faster. We believe in transformation and disruption – both personally and across our industries. We are all storytellers, knowing that stories connect and unite us, and enable us to transform together.
Each year, when I look towards the Summit – this is the promise I see. 400+ innovation junkies, who share this DNA, reuniting. 32 fabulous storytellers will jumpstart your heart and mind, pushing your thinking to the edge. But their stories are just the beginning. Their stories catalyze your conversations and collaborations. I see this happening time and time again from the stage, from the audience, and in the hallways of the Trinity Repertory Company. It is always awe inspiring and overwhelming.
This is what makes #BIF9 special. We don’t need more meetings of the usual suspects; we need the ability to think and act in new ways, laterally across silos and disciplines. The world doesn’t need incremental progress; it needs wholly new possibilities born from disruptive, creative people working together in entirely new ways.
This is our promise, catalyzed every year at the Summit. #BIF9 is really your platform – to plug in with your fellow disrupters. Your conversations and collisions will mold it and shape it. We trust this implicitly. We merely create the conditions for something beautiful and purposeful to emerge. The rest is up to you.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Oct 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Have you ever noticed that the people who bragged the loudest about the SAT scores when they were 17 are hardly ever the same people in middle age who boast regularly about the Credit Score?
Sure both tests are on a scale that goes up to about 800 and both are important.
But I think there may be some sort of inverse relationship between high SAT scores and high credit scores.
And what about the rest of us? Those who haven’t had a chance to brag about either score? Is there a third test in our later years we could still ace and get to brag about?
If not, we sure would appreciate it if someone out there would please think of one. And one more thing.
I think that the “Super Score” rule for the SAT should apply with Credit Reports, too.
Whatever my highest score on any given day for the year was with Experian, Transunion, and Equifax should be “My score” for that year.
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By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 3, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET
Why I am not sweating the government shutdown today.
Why not?
Because I have a general tendency to overestimate the impact of external political and economic events on my personal life.
And have learned this the hard way. Which is to say the, well, embarrassing way.
About 9 years ago during the winter months we had a snow storm that caused my work to close down for the day. My son, Johnny, was… about 9 or 10 years old and pleased Dad was getting to stay home for work and wanted me to join him outside to play and sled in the snow. He first asked me around 10 that morning and I responded, “Johnny, I will…but right now the stock market is down over 200 points. I want to see what is happening and monitor a little longer. Give me another hour and check back with me.”
An hour passed and back Johnny came ready for the snow. “Johnny,” I said, “the stock market is now down 300 points and I don’t know what is going on. Can you please give me a little more time and check back around noon?”
Noon came around and in came Johnny. Again. “Dad, how is the stock market going?” I responded, “Johnny, this is awful. The market is now down over 500 points. Unbelievable.”
Johnny paused for a moment and then said, “Why does it matter so much? Mom just told me we don’t own any stocks.” “Yeah,” I said….”Well, you know…That is ….that may be true. We really don’t own any stocks right now, come to think of it. I, uh. I…it’s just a big ….thing. A national , uh, bad thing. I guess. So, that’s why it matters so much to us, I guess.”
We then went outside and played in the snow. And I didn’t worry about the stock market plummeting the rest of the day.
How many times has your boss said, no surprises? Bosses want everything to go down exactly as planned. Of course they never do. Maybe instead of trying to avoid surprises we should plan more of them. When is the last time you genuinely surprised someone? Did you delight a customer today with the element of surprise? Did you do something so totally unpredictable that people all around you took notice? Predictability is overrated and boring.
When the Saints tried an onside kick to begin the second half of the Super Bowl everyone on and off the field was taken by complete surprise. I thought at the time that the game was over right then and there. The key was the element of surprise. If you look at the statistics behind onside kicks it was a genius move by Sean Payton, the Saint’s head coach. Turns out that only 26% of onside kicks in the NFL work when they are expected late in the game. The success rate goes up to 60% if the ploy is unexpected. The Saints not only had the underdog, post Katrina thing, working for them the odds were in their favor. The onside kick was a brilliant use of surprise and the Colts never recovered from it.
Lady Gaga is all about the surprise. We expect her to surprise us with her look and art every single time. Lady Gaga delivers. Her appearance at the Grammy Awards was no exception. Whether you are a Lady Gaga fan or not you have to be impressed with her capacity to surprise, provoke, and entertain. Her outfit at the Grammy’s was unlike any I have ever seen and her duet with Elton John was equally memorable. Lady Gaga is determined to be remarkable and to consistently surprise. No easy task to be surprising when everyone is expecting you to be. It isn’t my favorite genre (if you can call her music a genre) but I have to hand it to Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta for being surprisingly entertaining.
My friend Tony Hsieh has built an incredible movement and company at Zappos. The company is built around the simple idea of surprising each and every customer with service beyond expectations. It seems so logical and yet most customer service is awful and disappointing. Not service from Zappos. Just ask my wife and daughters who have been delighted on many occasions ordering shoes from the company.
Is the loss of phone-a-friend necessarily a bad thing? Maybe new web-enabled lifelines are expanding our universe of possible friends and opening up new opportunities for deep engagement. I think that may be true but there are serious questions that need to be asked about real human engagement. I worry that the web and social media platforms have become the driver more than the enabler. Are we “friending” people because they are web-savy, spending a lot of time on social media sites, and quick to return our text messages? Or are we “friending” smart, interesting, caring people that leverage the web to enable connections and who will be there when you need them the most? Will these connections stand up to the crises that we all will face when personal engagement and support is critical? Is “friending” even the same thing as being a friend? I wonder if we have become so focused on our follower or friend counts on-line that we are forgetting what true friendship is really about.
