The Power of the Few

I am so disappointed by the violence at the G20. A few misguided people managed to damage the reputation of Canada and Toronto.

I hope the G20 has the sense to hold future summits either on a ship or at a military base.

So the question is - can the same impact be done by a few good people doing good things?

Perhaps I am an optimist but I think they can. Good seems to have a longer term impact than bad. And like many things of value, good can take time and persistence.

Peace.

Work Your Strengths

I read an awesome, well researched book called Work your Strengths - A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match them to the best Career for You by Chuck Martin, Richard Guare and Peg Dawson. The author team has an impressive track record in research and psychology.

Through a questionnaire, they get the prospect to identify their strengths on 12 different scales that they have identified as being crucial for success.

The 12 key executive skills include:

1 - Response Inhibition - the ability to think before you act (I am weaker on that one than the rest)

2 - Working Memory. The ability to remember things while doing complex tasks. I often call this innate intelligence.

3 - Emotional Control.

4 - Sustained Attention. (I have often thought I was a bit ADD but I actually score high on this scale. I am thinking despite handling multiple things at once, I do tend to keep my focus)

5 - Task Initiation. I am great on this. I like to start things and I do. This is the one area I often coach people on - Just Do It.

6 - Planning/Prioritization.

7 - Organization

8 - Time Management - I hate to say I told you so but Time Management is one of the critical skills for success. To summarize the key point of the book - you should buy my Time Management Book (or at least that is what I took away from it)

9 - Goal Directed Persistence. This is one of my big strengths. I believe in and practise goal setting.

10 - Flexibility. I have often seen executives struggle with things when circumstances change without warning.

11 - Metacognition. This is the ability to take a birds eye view of of yourself in a situation and understanding what you need to do.

12 - Stress tolerance.

My initial inclination was to figure out how I could be stronger in each of these key areas.

What I notice is many of these overlap. EG - Being able to have Goal Focused Persistence ties to Sustained Attention. Strength in one area is often used to handle a challenge when it could also use strength in another area to handle the same issue.

Strengths are shades of grey. Not Black and White (at least not in most cases)

The one part that I had a knee jerk negative reaction to was "you cannot change your strengths". But as I read the book, I actually came to agree with what this book calls a "truth". I know innate intelligence cannot change.

My technique for dealing with challenge is to study and learn. Learning does not change inherent strengths but can give us systems and processes to deal with an area. One reason I wrote my book on time management is that I am not naturally good at it. So the book is mostly about tricks, systems and processes on how to cope so you can appear "good" at it.

Work Your Strengths then goes on to review dozens of jobs and areas/industries and point out what areas need key strengths can tolerate certain weaknesses. They list 3 key must have Executive Skills, 3 that are ok with be weak in and then one area that is called a "determining trait" where the theory is having that strength differentiates the true achievers in the field/position.

The research the book is based on is impressive. There are pages of companies that participated in the study. They do 2000 surveys every 2 weeks.

What I learned is I would be a good CEO/Leader especially in a marketing role.

Web 3.0 and Enterprise 2.0

Today must be my day for social and new media. I read 2 books on it.

I read a great little book by Michael Tasner called Marketing in the Moment - The practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First. Michael is a marketer (like me) who teaches people about new media and how to use it for marketing.

It was not clear to me where Web 2.0 becomes Web 3.0. The book says Web 3.0 is about mobile, twitter, texting, video etc. It has one title "From Blogging to Microblogging(like Twitter)" - I do not believe one replaces the other (and the book also advocates both) - they just have different purposes. And I do both.

The book is written as a how to guide which would make it useful to the novice. It also has many calls to action and correctly notes that knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. So get out and do.

My experience with media is the newer the media, the better value it tends to offer since people do not yet understand its value. So it is logical to me to understand newer medias as a way to get marketing value.

In addition to Blogging and Twitter, the book explores some areas that I do not yet do much with like:

1 - Mobile Marketing

2 - Virtual worlds

3 - video marketing (I know this is huge - I am just not a video person)

4 - Open source code

5 - Web Apps

The book ended with a chapter called "The Art of Giving Back". When I was reading the chapter titles, I assumed he meant giving back value through posting things of value. My personal social media strategy is to try to add value 95+% of the time to the reader and only ask for the readers to buy or help me at most 5%. And I reviewed a book recently on Internet for Non-Profits on the Karma411 site and thought it might have to do with that.

But the final chapter was really about charity and donating. He advocates generosity. Interesting way to end the book and it did make me feel warmer towards the author.

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The second book was Enterprise 2.0 - New Collaboration Tools for your Organizations Toughest Challenges by Andrew McAfee.

This book was more about the tools of collaboration like wikis, Google Wave etc and how they can benefit a company.

To me, he is preaching to the converted. I use Enterprise 2.0 tools. He used a number of case studies to get his case across. Good book to give to anyone who does not yet believe in the tools.

I really liked one section he had on the dangers of using social media in public companies, banks etc. Paraphrased "Social media like blogs and twitter are public for all to see so everyone can see if there is an issue and work to correct it" "Contrast that to IM or email. Many companies keep copies of these and have the right to read it but rarely do because of the volume. Since they are largely invisible, it is tough to correct and detect inappropriate behavior".

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And if you are interested in social media, Myventurepad is having a free webinar this week on using Twitter to Grow your Business. Should be interesting.

Achieve Anything In Just one Year

I received Jason Harvey's Achieve Anything In Just One Year: Be Inspired Daily To Live Your Dreams and Accomplish Your Goals.

As the title implies, this book is meant to be read over 365 days but of course, being an impatient reader, I read it in an evening. The title reminds me of a quote "we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a day but underestimate what we can accomplish in a year".

Each day starts with a quotation which of course I love. For those connected to me through linkedin or following my Twitter stream, you get my daily quote. This book gave me many more that I will use.

For example, Day 12:

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time...The wait is simply too long"-Leonard Bernstein.

Each quote is followed by a discussion of what the quotation might mean and what to do. So the page following the Bernstein quote talked of ways to "inspire" yourself and how to set up systems and process to stay or get inspired.

Each day is about a page so it only takes a minute or two to read.

Some of the days I liked were:

Day 23: "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be"-Abraham Lincoln. The gist of this is that we choose whether we want to be happy. Make the choice to be happy.

Day 38: "Speak little, do much"-Benjamin Franklin. The quote says it all. I could write several paragraphs on this one, but...

Day 46: "A person's faults are largely what make him or her likable" -Anne Lamott I always wondered why I was so likable.

Day 91:"In life as in football, fall forward when you fall"-Arthur Guiterman. This ties into my Fail often, fail fast, fail cheap.

Day 221 "I always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody"-Lily Tomlin. So now I better move on and start doing something.

It is a good book. A gem each day for a year.

The Art of Innovation and Wired to Care Reviews

I feel like I'm way behind in posting my book reviews. I thought I would get 2 done at once.

One great book I read was The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley. Kelley works at IDEO, an award winning design and development firm. Best known for bringing the Apple mouse to the world, but also known for bringing Polaroids instant access camera, palm handheld and hundreds of other cutting edge products to market.

What I got from the book is, despite being wildly creative, IDEO has a method or process for innovation which is laid out in the book as follows:

1) Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the problem. Later in a project, we often challenge those constraints, but it's important to understand current perceptions.

2) Observe real people in real-life situations to find out what makes them tick: what confuses them, what they like, what they hate, where they have latent needs not addressed by current products and services.

3) Visualize new-to-the-world concepts and the customers who will use them. Some people think of this step as predicting the future, and it is probably the most brain-storming-intensive phase of the process. Quite often, the visualization take the form of a computer-based rendering or simulation, though IDEO also builds thousands of physical models and prototypes each year. For new product categories we sometimes visualize the customer experience by using composite character and storyboard-illustrated scenarios. In some cases, we even make a video that portrays life with the future product before it really exists.

4) Evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations. We try not to get too attached to the first few prototypes, because we know they will change. No idea is so good that it cant be improved upon, and we plan on a series of improvements. We get input from our internal team, from the client team, from knowledgeable people not directly involved with the project, and from people who make up the target market. We watch for what works and what doesn't, what confuses people, what they seem to like, and we incrementally improve the product in the next round.

5) Implement the new concept for commercialism. This phase is often the longest and most technically challenging in the development process, but I believe that IDEO's ability to successfully implement lends credibility to all the creative work that goes before.

Later in the book they talked about inspiration by observation. Which allowed them to develop a bigger toothbrush for small hands (kids).

Wired To Care: How companies prosper when they create widespread empathy Dev Patnaik was another great book. It wasn’t really what I had expected. I had expected much more touchy feely on how we treat the people that work in our firms, rather more it was thinking about our companies and products and services from the point of view of the customers.

"Companies prosper when they tap into a power that every one of us already has-the ability to reach outside of ourselves and connect with other people."

"The quickest way to have empathy for someone else is to be just like them. For companies, the answer is to hire their customers."

"We've seen how empathy can be a driving force t develop more prosperous, more ethical, and more enduring companies. But it also has the power to hep us see how we can change the world for the better. Ultimately, every single one of us is biologically wired to care. Scaling that ability to the level of an organization can transform its mission. When we develop real empathy for the people we serve, our jobs start to become callings. There are no low-interest problems-only problem-solvers who don't have strong connections to the people they serve. Companies can serve a higher purpose than just making money. They can create wealth by enriching the wider society we all live in. Empathy can awaken us to the power that we have to change the course of everyday life. But only if we're willing to step outside of our own preconceptions and see the world through other people's eyes."

The Art of Innovation and Wired to Care Reviews

I feel like I'm way behind in posting my book reviews. I thought I would get 2 done at once.

One great book I read was The Art Of Innovation by Tom Kelley. Kelley works at IDEO, an award winning design and development firm. Best known for bringing the Apple mouse to the world, but also known for bringing Polaroids instant access camera, Palm handheld and hundreds of other cutting edge products to market.

What I got from the book is, despite being wildly creative, IDEO has a method or process which is laid out in the book as follows:

1) Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the problem. Later in a project, we often challenge those constraints, but it's important to understand current perceptions.

2) Observe real people in real-life situations to find out what makes them tick: what confuses them, what they like, what they hate, where they have latent needs not addressed by current products and services.

3) Visualize new-to-the-world concepts and the customers who will use them. Some people think of this step as predicting the future, and it is probably the most brain-storming-intensive phase of the process. Quite often, the visualization take the form of a computer-based rendering or simulation, though IDEO also builds thousands of physical models and prototypes each year. For new product categories we sometimes visualize the customer experience by using composite character and storyboard-illustrated scenarios. In some cases, we even make a video that portrays life with the future product before it really exists.

4) Evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations. We try not to get too attached to the first few prototypes, because we know they will change. No idea is so good that it cant be improved upon, and we plan on a series of improvements. We get input from our internal team, from the client team, from knowledgeable people not directly involved with the project, and from people who make up the target market. We watch for what works and what doesn't, what confuses people, what they seem to like, and we incrementally improve the product in the next round.

5) Implement the new concept for commercialism. This phase is often the longest and most technically challenging in the development process, but I believe that IDEO's ability to successfully implement lends credibility to all the creative work that goes before.

Later in the book they talked about inspiration by observation. Which allowed them to develop a bigger toothbrush for small hands (kids).  So observation is also part of their process.

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Wired To Care: How companies prosper when they create widespread empathy by Dev Patnaik was another great book. It wasn’t really what I had expected. I had expected much more touchy feely on how we treat the people that work in our firms, rather more it was thinking about our companies and products and services from the point of view of the customers.

"Companies prosper when they tap into a power that every one of us already has-the ability to reach outside of ourselves and connect with other people."

"The quickest way to have empathy for someone else is to be just like them. For companies, the answer is to hire their customers."

"We've seen how empathy can be a driving force to develop more prosperous, more ethical, and more enduring companies. But it also has the power to hep us see how we can change the world for the better. Ultimately, every single one of us is biologically wired to care. Scaling that ability to the level of an organization can transform its mission. When we develop real empathy for the people we serve, our jobs start to become callings. There are no low-interest problems-only problem-solvers who don't have strong connections to the people they serve. Companies can serve a higher purpose than just making money. They can create wealth by enriching the wider society we all live in. Empathy can awaken us to the power that we have to change the course of everyday life. But only if we're willing to step outside of our own preconceptions and see the world through other people's eyes."

Jeff Hollender and Robert Brunner

Jeff Hollender wrote the Responsibility Revolution. I had heard of him and had great expectations for another great environmental lecture. He works with some of the big companies like Walmart. Working with huge companies can allow him to have great impact. If you can save 10% of a big number, it has a lot more impact than 50% of a small number.

His comments:

Why should companies care? No one wants to show up at a party now and say they work at BP.

Measurement counts - so measure it

Radical transparency works

Dialog cannot be controlled. People will always talk.

Sustainability needs to be real. You cannot fake it. Mission matters.

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"What did you do in the war" will be replaced by "what did you do when the world was in environmental trouble".

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The final speaker was Robert Brunner a famous designer, professor and blogger. Design strategy is far too important to be left to the designers.

Unfortunately I had to leave before he finished.

Joel Makower - Green Business

At World Innovation Forum, Joel Makover, writer and green guy spoke. His latest book is Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business. This is a contrast to one of his previous books that Rolling Stones called the "definitive book an Woodstock" (not the one I grew up in in Ontario, Canada - but the rock concert).

He suggests many companies are doing random acts of greenness. Some things here and there but not any coordinated approach. I know from my time at SYNNEX, it is tough to be able to afford a coordinated effort. Fortunately SYNNEX was big enough to have a Chief Environment guy. In contrast to the, EMJ did not have one - we were too small. But that smallness allowed us to be fast at implementing and decision making.

I am an environment guy - drive a Prius (and had one of the first one), started the first recycling program at University of Waterloo Coop Residence, one brother in the wind business, one in the biodiesel business and a son in solar power. For some reason, it runs deep in the Estill blood.

He is a good speaker. Points "it is about doing less bad", "have a plan", "Innovation can be the key", "Green wins as long as it is truly better".

A review from Amazon by E. Bruce Harrison,( Author himself of Corporate Greening 2.0):

With more than a dozen previous books, including "The Green Consumer", already on corporate and small-business bookshelves, Joel Makower has become a master green business analyst. This book draws on his knowledge and analytical skills, with market research assist from Cara Pike, and his talent for clear writing to provide business executives a set of insights they need in planning green strategies.

Makower came onto the scene at about the same time that business was being shocked into dealing with stratospheric ozone damage from CFC emissions, and he has come to know the movers and shakers from all the communities engaged in greening over the years. This book looks forward, to show why corporate greening will endure (even if media's attention wanes), citing climate change as a major spur. He notes a parallel shift: the environmental movement morphing into the climate movement and business coping with carbon constraint linked to climate change.

Problems for greening companies include a lack of standards by which to judge "how good is good enough", leaving the bar free to drift higher; an escalating investor intensity for companies to acknowledge, reduce and report on environmental risks (which I would connect with corporate governance influenced by climate change activism); and the erosion of "sustainability" as a green leadership characteristic.

As he has done in his Greenbiz.com commentaries, Makower makes business choices easy to grasp. On energy use and climate change, he makes it simple: reduce the amount of energy used, buy more renewable-source energy, and remedy climate impact of even the renewables by moves such as carbon offsets.

Business opportunity -- starting with GE's "green is green" -- and communications are focused through the perspectives of context, relevance and good, plain talk. Easy to read, well organized, with nearly 40 short chapters, this is Makower's best book yet for corporate C-suite green strategists.

Ursula Burns - Xerox CEO

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox was interviewed at World Innovation Forum.

I am impressed by Xerox. I knew Burns predecessor - Anne Mulcahy (Anne was awesome and responsive - SYNNEX was a huge Xerox reseller). Must be something at Xerox that fosters(or does not limit) leaders without thought of gender or race. Good for them. I would say more companies should copy Xerox but it seems to me Xerox already copies a lot.

Xerox files 10 patents per day! 5% of sales spent on R and D.

As expected, she is a good speaker - poised, natural etc.. All great leaders are (which is why I always suggest all aspiring leaders take Toastmasters)

Some of her points:

(Crisis) is the greatest motivator in the world

Xerox is in the problem solving business

Assume most people you talk to are intelligent.

People don't always know. Henry Ford heard "faster horse" but he gave them a car. Are you really listening? Get close. Solve real pain

support user centered design process. Involve the customer in 'dreaming' early and often

Xerox is a green company already

Theme based research is how Xerox is mobilizing it's staff.

Xerox can print on anything.

Xerox does a lot in nanotechnology

Company culture is the people so changing the culture means changing the people

Wendy Kopp - Teach for America

Wendy Kopp (Teach for America) spoke at World Innovation Forum about the major challenges education faces. Your education opportunities depend on where you are born. How fair is that?

Teach for America's mission (from their web site)

Our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort.

We recruit outstanding recent college graduates from all backgrounds and career interests to commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. We provide the training and ongoing support necessary to ensure their success as teachers in low-income communities.

The challenge is to change things at a system wide model. There is evidence that it is possible.

It is appropriate for her to be speaking at an Innovation Forum.

She is trying to change education. She speaks to having 10's of thousands of Teach for America alumnus who will change the world.

She does preach optimism and feels there is a solution and that it is not rocket science - it is about leadership, accountability, culture, continuous improvement etc. Sounds like running a great company.

Brian Shawn Cohen - next technology

World Innovation Forum speaker was Brian Shawn Cohen.

Interesting to me since he is an angel investor.

Why companies fail.

They confuse clear vision with short distance (just because you can see the goal - does not mean it is easy)

Ego and greed

Does not create understanding of product

Does not iterate well. Most successful companies need to iterate to succeed. Iteration is the new innovation.

Angel investors invest $20B in 55,000 deals vs $3B by VCs.

Not smart fast enough.

What he said about how good angel investors are is accentuated in a study on Angels.

Seth Godin - Marketing Innovation

I am blogging live at day 2 of World Innovation Forum.

The day started with a demo by Panasonic of an awesome (but $30,000 per site) video conferencing system. Awesome 1080 resolution, perfect audio and no choppiness. It takes 3 megabytes of bandwidth. I look forward to these becoming pervasive. It helps communication, time management, and the environment. Seems compelling.

The first speaker was prolific author, speaker and thought leader Seth Godin. He is a marketing genius and a leader in social media. I have heard him speak before and we have even traded some emails.

Seth says:

I can't give you a map, but I can point you in a direction

People think - if it was not impossible, someone would have already done it

TV attracts "average" people.

You cannot interrupt your way to success

Old fashioned marketing is rude

Tribes are groups of people with a connection - traditionally - work, church and community now circles of people who spread ideas that matter. We have a need to connect.

Marketing is not about spreadsheets. It is the act of a human being who changes things. A genius is a human being who is genuine.

Instead of trying to find customers for our products, we should find products for our customers.

An innovator at school gets a D.

Art is about creating something unique that people resonate with.

Competence is no longer a scarce commodity

The only thing we need to teach people is to solve problems and to lead

Companies will always pay for the impossible

His advice:

Make art

give gifts

do work that matters

go make something happen

He believes this is the era of the artist. We went from hunter to farmer to assembly worker to information and now we are going to creativity. He would agree that we are going to soon value the left brainers.

You really had to be there to fully grasp what he was saying. Not sure my notes here do him justice.

Andreas Weigend - Marketing and Web 3.0

Andreas Weigend, previous chief scientist from Amazon spoke at World Innovation Forum. History for him:

1800s - Transport energy - Industrial revolution

1900s - Transport Data - Information revolution

2000 - Create Data - Social Media revolution

All the statistics are available on the web (including your competitors). But with the overwhelming amount of data, can you properly analyse it?

Data doubles every 1.5 years. That works out to 100 times more data in 10 years.

It is all about the data. What did people buy? What did their friends buy? What did other people who bought what you bought? What did people search for? Identifying who you are - your interests, your purchases etc. You tend to buy what your friends buy.

His talk is enough to instill a bit of indignation about invasion of privacy combined with a reaction that I do not want to be typecast.

It is about Content

- Context

- Connection (this provides market targeting)

- Conversation

"Twitter works because of the illusion of an audience." (I wonder if blogging is a bit like this)

Bridging he digital and the physical is a big thing. Chips (like GPS) in devices, cars etc.

"You do not own your customers anymore. Same with the brand."

We have moved from eBusiness to meBusiness to weBusiness. It is now about community.

He is an interesting speaker. Inspires thought.

Chip Heath - Switch Implementing Change when Change is Hard

Chip Heath (one of my favorite authors) started by scaring us with some hard facts:

Change is hard.

Change is feudal.

People resist change.

But is that true? Many changes like the change from ketchup being the number one condiment to salsa today actually happened. Or the biggest change in life - having kids.

The bottomline - we like some changes.

When is life hard and easy?

He talked about his rider(will power, limited, overthinks, overanalyses) vs elephant(automatic - hard to change). (This is one of his great concepts that really resonates.)

The key is to use the strengths of both sides of the brain if you want action to occur. The elephant needs the incentive and encouragement. Make things easy for the elephant. (I call these Success Habits)

I like his concept of "bright spots". Look at those things that are working and then see how to replicate or expand on them. For example, even someone who eats poorly sometimes likely eats some things that are good. Focus on the good and just do a bit more of them.

There was a health study in West Virginia. Researchers determined that just changing people from drinking one glass of whole milk to 1%. To move the "elephant", they connected by explaining that one cup of whole milk has as much fat as 5 strips of bacon. By spending 10 cents per person, they were about to communicate the message and change behavior. That small thing beat the food pyramid in impact.

Script the critical moves (and they are few).

Chip used a examples from his book. I am glad I had read it (although I think his talk would have held together well even without that). I respected Chip before hearing him talk (from just a couple of emails and from reading his book) and respect him even more now.

Jeff Kindler - Leading Change

Jeff Kindler is CEO of Pfizer. He was interviewed today at the World Innovation Forum.

On "how do you reward innovation at Pfizer?"

He spoke of the power of the small with the scale or the large. It is about balancing. (I have always said "The goal is to be a big company but act like a small one").

Of course he talked about healthcare again - continuing the theme from this morning.

He spoke of the high rate of that change and also pointed out that there is nothing he can do about that rate of change. His suggestion "face reality and have a mindset that you will get ahead of those changes"

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This was followed by a stats presentation on innovation by Cap Gemini. % of companies who view innovation as strategic vs their success. Interesting stats but too tough to repeat here.

Engaging customers in innovation improves the quality of the innovations and the value created by them.

Michael Howe - Minute Clinic

The speaker now at World Innovation Forum is Michael Howe - former CEO of Minute Clinic. He took it from 19 clinics to 500. This is a clinic located in CVS drug stores that eventually sold to CVS that does no appointment health care appointments. This innovation has been touted by Forbes Magazine as the biggest (or only) healthcare innovation in America.

One challenge or concern when this was implemented was that prescriptions would soar. They did not increase.

It makes so much sense. Make it convenient. They use doctors and nurse practitioners.

Howe says part of the reason for Minute Clinic is the younger generation (millennials) who accept it more than some of the older people. I am thinking Time Management people would also value these clinics.

He did talk about the pace of technology advance. 9 months for Facebook to hit 1,000,000 users.

Howe:

"Need clarity of purpose". "Most environments today stifle innovation". " Not all changes are good". "You need a mechanism for capturing innovation". "Encourage people to understand their gifts".

He asks good questions that spawn innovation:

Purpose

What are you doing? Why? How?

Acceptability

Who are you serving? What are their needs

A culture of accountability

We are responsible.

External Influences. What needs to be dealt with in the environment to make it work. Minute Clinic had lots of regulatory barriers to overcome.

Michael Porter on Redefining Health Care

The first speaker at World Innovation Forum was Harvard professor and author Michael Porter. He spoke about health care (he wrote a book - Redefining Health Care).

"The fundamental key in healthcare is to improve the value". Incremental improvements will not get us there. "The structure of the healthcare system does not deliver value to the customer". "Health care reform bills are all about process and not about transforming delivery". "We need to change the nature of competition in healthcare". "Much of the struggle has been over price - not value. Insurers push health care providers and vice versa." "Restricting services is not the solution". "Improving outcomes reduces the cost. Good health is less expensive than bad health - use the power of quality to control costs" (This reminds me of a great book - Younger Next Year that had the thesis that vibrant health does not cause immortality but it allows people to age "well" - live without sickness, move well etc and rather than going slowly down a hill of poorer and poorer health, you can live well before dropping off a cliff.)

"Most fundamental change needs to be to organize delivery around the patient - not around specialties. Measure outcomes (where did the patient start and where did they end up)." "Move healthcare to the lowest cost location (says to me that homecare should be a growth field) "IT system siloing also adds to the problem"

Despite the general gloom around healthcare, he did speak of hope. And the hope lies in innovation.

It is appropriate to have a speaker talk about healthcare at an innovation conference - especially Michael Porter who advocates innovation to "save the healthcare system".

My perspective on health care differs radically than most Americans since I only moved to the US from Canada recently.

I do not yet trust the US health care system to have my best interests in mind. My solution is to try to be healthy. There is always a comfort in familiarity and I am familiar with the Canadian system.

World Innovation Forum - Day 1 #WIF10

I am all set up to blog at World Innovation Forum.

I read a book today -Service Innovation - How to go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services. It is a fitting book to read at an innovation forum since it is about innovation of services. We often think of product innovations without thinking that more often, customers value services.

"Rather than ask - How are we doing, ask How is the Customer doing"

The obvious but often overlooked question. Look at it from the view of the customer. Create value in the way the customer defines value. Look at why your customers hired you (and if they bought your services - they did hire you)

There is a chapter on discovering opportunities for service innovation and one on service delivery innovation. They suggest:

Define - what ensures success

Locate - what must be located

Prepare - what is needed to be prepared

Confirm - does the customer confirm willingness to accept (or love) your service

Execute - What does the customer do to execute

Monitor

Modify - I always like refining systems to perfect them (and they are never perfect)

Conclude - What does the customer do to successfully conclude?

Resolve - What needs to be resolved to succeed?

Uncover outcomes - Now the company is ready to go

There is a chapter on differentiation that I particularly appreciated. I believe in being different. To some extent, different is better. If a company is different, there are always reasons why they can win and why they can tell customers to buy.

I find success breeds copying so it is necessary to always innovate to stay ahead.

Bright Triumphs Fom Dark Hours: Turning Adversity Into Success

I am looking forward to World Innovation Forum (#WIF10) later this week, where I will be blogging live.

I read an interesting book over the weekend called Bright Triumphs From Dark Hours: Turning Adversity Into Success by David Heenan. It seems I am reading a lot of books about overcoming adversity.

Like the book Comebacks, Bright Triumphs talks about the story of 10 people who overcame adversity:

Joel Klein-New York City school chancellor who overhauled the city's public school system.

Shirley Ann Jackson-The first African American woman to receive a doctorate from MIT

Bill Snyder-revered football coach.

Joanne Boyle-lead University of California's women's basketball team, while surviving a cerebral hemorrhage.

Gary Guller-scaled the world's highest peaks, despite only having one arm.

The Frozen Chosin-These US Marines escaped the deadly fog of war on the frozen Korean peninsula to fight another day.

Sacagawea-lone Indian, lone mother, lone female, lone teenager on the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Scott Waddle-Navy commander whose split-second mistake caused the Ehime Maru disaster. Against all odds, this tragedy for which he assumed all responsibility, led him to a new, unlikely career.

Patti Dunn- Former HP chair who fought cancer while trying to restore her professional reputation.

Steve Case-High-tech entrepreneur rebounding from ill-fated AOL Time Warner merger to lead a philanthropic revolution.

The lessons we learn from the book about adversity:

1) Learn from Adversity. Triumphant people know that not everything will work. Do not equate the occasional setback with defeat. Accept adversity, and move on. Like I say "Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap".

2) Fashion a New Dream. Set big goals. Decide where you want to go, and how you will get there. Imagine both your goals, and your pathway to success. Some changes may be beyond your control. Be able to make corrections as you go.

3) Sell Your Vision. Restore people's faith in the future. Do not allow nay-sayers to stop you from achieving your dream.

4) Share Your Dream. Connections are invaluable. Developing a team of alliances that you can turn to in tough times.

5) Focus, Focus, Focus. Know what you are able to do. Find the difference between what is important, and what can wait. Resilient personalities are able to smile in the face of adversity. I found this point particularly interesting since focus is not one one of the things I do well. I tend to jump into everything.

6) Start Now. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Set goals that are specific, and break them down into manageable parts, so that each success builds confidence and momentum.

I do believe we can learn from our mistakes but true wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others.