Perspective-thinking to successfully face challenges of an emerging future

By Simon Dutton — “Is this time to make some final notes (thanks for the photo Carlo Spellucci) now that this year’s LEGO Serious Play conference is over and thoughts turn to drive 1,386 kilometers from the Home of the Brick in Billund back to home?”

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is prospective-thinking that enhances creative confidence. Thinking, communicating and solving problems building a 3D model before any participant has already expressed his or her position, really takes our insights and ideas to another level. It provides a safe space and an efficient and focused process, igniting possibility through play and exploration. It allows all participants to benefit from diversity. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY helps to generate more visible and detailed ideas, more elements to react to and better meanings.

One of the best thing for a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator is to immerse 3 days into the annual LSP facilitators global community meeting in Billund. During those days we really share and learn from each other focusing and thinking about LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. The learning is formal through refresher sessions offered by the Trainers and through presentations into the conference program. A big part of the learning is informal through the chats with other facilitators gathering from all the world.

#LspDays18 all facilitators participating to 2018 global community meeting in Billund (thanks Erik Rondeel for the photo)

Last year I started to realise it (and run experiments accordingly) while this year I really got aware that we have reached the tipping point that shifted our profession to another level. This is the way I coined the term “perspective thinking”. This term has its roots in:

• The presentations of the last day in Billund where the topics were Education and Research. Thanks to Alice Shipman, Juha Ruuska, Wendi Dykes, Jilian Gilbert, Edgar Barron, and Simon Bourdeau;
• Some small talks with Jette Rasmussen and Masao Ishihara;
• The refresher sessions and small talk with our Master Trainers Per Kristiansen and Robert Rasmussen;
• The article “Research: Perspective-Taking Doesn’t Help You Understand What Others Want” by Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, and Nicholas Epley on Harvard business review blog at OCTOBER 09, 2018;
• The post of Simon Dutton on LinkedIn with a photo of Carlo Spellucci;
• Generative dialogues with Michael F. Forni, Carolina Murillo, and Jacopo Sabba Capetta.

Photo by Laurence Sato of Robert Rasmussen slide

We all know (reading on newspapers, listening on the radio, TV, podcast, and following on the internet and social media) that we live in a more complex world to just take it with the usual linear way of thinking. Supranational institutions like the European Union, the World economic forum, tell us that the skills needed to live the present and the imminent future are very different from those we have learned in the educational and training paths of the past. Though we continue to have schools, university and work-based training employing the same model of the past: a teacher telling and participants listening. Space is still those used at first in the German churches of the post-reform: just resembling churches, with “banchi” (benches) and “cattedre” (church chairs).

Jilian Gilbert told us about what does it means teaching to Millennial and Generation Z, Wendi Dykes told us about the need for managers and entrepreneurs to move from linear thinking to creative confidence and Edgar Barron told us about the urge to co-create among people with different point of view, to benefit from the diversity and perspective-taking. All of them with the experimental works of Juha Ruuska, Simon Bourdeau and Alice Shipman demonstrated that LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® possess the values to make this shift in education, dialogue, and co-creation happen. To explain this let me express it through my small talk with Masao (with as a matter of fact happened just after the morning session, the last day of the conference in Billund).

Edgar Barron introducing his presentation and those of Jilian Gilbert and Wendy Dykes

During the 2017 Conference, in the open space technology part, I met with some facilitators to discuss the use of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® with Scrum, indisputably the most spread framework in the Agile Software delivery industry, nowadays.

Based on that dialogues, in iterative collaboration with Michael F. Forni, we decided to validate our common ideas with a first experimental workshop, where we empowered Scrum sprints using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (we named it “ScrumLSP”) addressing the hands-on/mind-on activity purposely to a mainly “non Agile minded” audience (Journalists, Teachers, forward thinkers besides startuppers and consultants).

After that first one (in Rome at the beginning of November 2017) we organised and facilitated 4 new workshops, where we validated other aspects of ScrumLSP. Our work on Scrum and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® was the topic of my talk with Masao. He was interested to know what a real-world experience thought me as a facilitator.

Me, Michael F. Forni and Andrea Romoli in a ScrumLSP workshop in Milan

Our experience made us focus on 3 different areas where LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® can be used effectively within the Scrum framework:

• Product Backlog emergence and prioritization
• Sprint review (reasons behind “not Done” items inspection)
• Sprint retrospective (RetroLSP as a possible variation of the central 3 phases)

Besides the technicalities of Scrum and of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops, the following are the main lessons learned.

In product backlog (an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed to add value to the product, the single source of requirements for any changes to be made to the product) the use of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® it really “helps to generate more visible and detailed ideas, more elements to react to, better meanings” (Simon Bourdeau).

In sprint review, too, a more detailed representation is reached, but beyond this, the “interpersonal safety (psychological safety) is added to the equation” (Wendi Dykes). In particular if in the sprint some task couldn’t be accomplished, the use of the LEGO® model as an intermediate allows to focus on details and tasks, rather than on the person. Using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in the sprint review really allows to easily employ perspective-taking by all participants. The application of the technique n. 3 “Landscape” of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology allows to move forward and combine individual achievements into a common highly detailed story.

The Sprint Retrospective is where LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® actually unfolds all the qualities needed for:

Generate a detailed statement by all participants (the inherited feature to be a 100–100 meeting)

Produce a “safe place, a multisensory approach with an efficient and focused process that really ignites possibility through play and exploration, allowing all participants to benefit from diversity. This takes participants insights and ideas to another level” (Alice Shipman)

Thinking, communicating and solving problems building a 3D model before any participant has already expressed his or her position allow:

To easily employ perspective-taking by all participants (Edgar Barron)

A level of comfortability with uncertainty (Wendi Dykes)

Deeper learning through mental challenge and visual artifact (Wendi Dykes

Enhance the creative confidence in the participants, i.e. having the freedom and courage to fail/take creative risks and the knowledge that all of the ideas you create have value.

Alice Shipman final slide

On top of that, repeated experiments of RetroLSP© run in diverse cultural (Swedish, British and Italian) and Industry (Big data, Fintech, Software development) Scrum teams have indisputably shown the power of the LEGO® approach in facilitating the emergence of insightful and meaningful issues, among which one (the “emerging kaizen”) would have been agreed to be tackled in the very next Sprint (Michael F. Forni).

Talking with Masao we shifted from the initial assumption of using our experience to validate the potential of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in enhancing Scrum results, to what does it take to introduce Scrum ceremonies into an organization. This is where the power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® comes into power as a way to sustain innovation and co-creation. From a methodology to a strategic plan, we should be able to facilitate the shift from ceremonies to a series of workshop and practice, that will allow a “proper agilized” organization to move in a shift of procedures and way of working together.

But this is another story, ops Epic and I’ll maybe write it in the future together with Masao.

All this said, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is perspective thinking because it goes beyond perspective taking and perspective getting (Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, and Nicholas Epley on Harvard business review blog), unfolds the full potential of a generative dialogue, that in a safe space takes full advantage of diversity in order to co-create an emerging future.

The wording “perspective thinking” came out from my lips during my small talk with Jette Rasmussen, who always inspires me in my profession and contributions to the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® community.

Selfie taken by Gilberto Novelo Pardueles with Jette and Robert Rasmussen with Mauricio Bock

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fabrizio Faraco is a Certified Facilitator in Design Sprint, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, Design thinking, Coach, Project Manager, and Speaker. A lifetime of experiences all aimed at developing marketing and strategic skills and in deploying innovation.

The original article was published on Oct 12, 2018 on medium.com.

Design Thinking: cos’ è e perché adottarlo in azienda

Il Design Thinking è un approccio al problem solving pratico e creativo che ha come obiettivo principale quello di promuovere il benessere quotidiano delle persone. 

Un processo interattivo che cerca di comprendere le necessità dell’utilizzatore finale, mettendo in continua discussione le assunzioni più scontate e ridefinendo il problema al fine di identificare strategie alternative e soluzioni innovative che altrimenti non verrebbero fuori.

Gira intorno al forte interesse nello sviluppare una profonda comprensione delle persone per le quali stiamo “disegnando” il prodotto o il servizio, aiutandoci ad entrare in empatia con il nostro target e spingendoci a mettere tutto in discussione: il problema, le assunzioni, le soluzioni.

Sviluppato all’università di Stanford e poi diffusosi rapidamente in USA, Canada e in gran parte d’Europa, il Design Thinking si ispira all’approccio human-centered design nel quale scienza e tecnologia si sono incontrate per stimolare creatività, condivisione e co-creazione e trovare soluzioni per problemi a volte estremi per la vita delle persone (come povertà, mancanza di igiene, scarsità di acqua, ecc).

La metodologia manageriale del Design Thinking mette quindi al centro le persone. Ne osserva i comportamenti, ne intuisce i bisogni.

E’ di fatto un metodo di gestione aziendale innovativo e dinamico, che ribalta la visione tradizionale delle Business School (che vedono il business al vertice del triangolo con persone e tecnologia alla base), con una visione incentrata sulle persone.

E’ estremamente efficace nell’affrontare problemi dove la “malattia” è incerta o sconosciuta, reinquadrando il problema da un punto di vista “human-centric” che parte dal consumatore/cliente per comprendere le sue reali necessità e trovare soluzioni che rispondano in modo efficace a questi bisogni.

Così, partendo "dal basso", si costruiscono modelli di business che aumentano drammaticamente la capacità delle organizzazioni (aziende profit, no profit, pubbliche amministrazioni ecc.) nel prendere decisioni innovative e redditizie, creando condivisione e “benessere” per tutti i suoi stakeholder, interni ed esterni.

Il processo si snoda attraverso 3 grandi fasi: Ispirazione – Ideazione – Implementazione.

Nella fase dell’Ispirazione si impara direttamente dalle persone per cui si sta “disegnando” il progetto, vivendo a stretto contatto con loro in modo da comprenderne i reali bisogni.

Nella fase dell’Ideazione si dà un senso a quello che si imparato, identificando opportunità da testare e prototipando possibili soluzioni.

Nella fase dell’Implementazione l’idea si materializza diventando prodotto o servizio.

Queste fasi vengono a loro volta dettagliate in 5 momenti:

Empatizzazione, Definizione, Ideazione, Prototipazione e Testing.

In ognuno di questi step vengono utilizzati attività e tools creativi, dove l’arte si combina con la scienza e la tecnologia. sessioni di brainstorming per generare idee che poi verranno prototipate e testate attraverso strumenti esperienziali.

Teatro, video, metafora, musica, visual display si uniscono ed alternano con statistiche, canvas, modelli gestionali, al fine di affrontare fattivamente seri problemi di business e innescare processi innovativi.

Nel mio lavoro, tanto che si tratti di un progetto di consulenza, di formazione o di una facilitazione, mi avvalgo spessissimo dell’approccio metodologico e degli strumenti che il Design Thinking mette a disposizione. Il cliente è sempre al centro dei miei pensieri e la sua soddisfazione e la soddisfazione dei suoi clienti, dei suoi consumatori, dei suoi impiegati, diventa la mia soddisfazione.

Ne è un esempio il Sales Design Training Program, il primo programma di training esperienziale dedicato ai reparti commerciali che punta allo sviluppo delle risorse e delle potenzialità interne attraverso una maggiore presa di coscienza di sé stessi delle proprie capacità, ma anche delle potenziali lacune, in grado di innescare creatività, processi di autocritica, empatia e al tempo stesso garantire un alto grado di coinvolgimento e partecipazione.

Se vuoi sapere qualcosa di più sul Design Thinking e sulle possibili applicazioni per la tua azienda, chiedi un contatto, sarò felice di ascoltare e comprendere le tue esigenze e disegnare insieme il progetto adatto alla tua organizzazione.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachele Soliera is the founder of RS Consulting, Business Consultant and Sales & Marketing Trainer. Certified in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® & Design Thinking. Her mission is to help clients to find practical solutions to strategic issues, combining her strong experience as executive in large companies (almost 20 years in P&G and J&J), with innovative and effective methodologies as Lego® Serious Play®, Design Thinking and Business Design, able to develop and exploit the internal resources of the client organization.

Change overnight?

While coaching people all over the world, it is fascinating for me to see how quickly they create positive change in their reality. Sometimes from one day to the other.

Wherever you turn, people seem to struggle with inner dialogues going on in their mind, raging like battles. Usually, we focus on the inner voice that is predominant while more subtle contributions go unheard: a hunch, a doubt, and feelings such as fear or even hurt. No matter if we are aware of them or not: They do affect the way in which we show up in life. These inner parts or voices that go unheard over time tend to be highly effective in interfering with the actions and reactions we initially had in mind. For example, as I’m writing this, my inner critic keeps telling me I should rather quote some scientific research here instead. As I ponder about it, I find my inner critic pretty dominant, causing a feeling of discomfort. So what do I do? 

Over the years, I have become familiar with my unique inner space in which I can’t help but process the world as I experience it. And meanwhile, I’m also aware that I’m free to make changes to my inner space, that support me. It is all happening in my imagination anyways - so why not tweak it to my benefit?

To accommodate my critic’s point, I invite you to ponder this: As we are focusing our attention, our mind constantly constructs our world. We tend to strongly identify with our perceptions, which is why we call that mental construction of ours “reality”. Simply put: our perceived reality is built on subjective sensations, emotions and past episodes that inform our thoughts and conclusions. But what about undeniable facts then? As we take them in and process them in our inherently subjective system they become part of our unique reality as well. This is how we create behavioral patterns and beliefs we hold to be true. Our individual model of reality determines how we react to it, be it with regards to the present or the future. Our perception of the past appears to be built on episodes we activate in our memory, which can't but happen in the here and now. This is why German children books author Erich Kästner stated: „It’s never too late for a happy childhood.“

The plasticity of the brain has been evident in Neuroscience since the 1950s: According to Hebb’s rule, neurons that fire together, wire together, and vice versa. As we shift our attention and learn to focus on something new, we are building new neuro-connections and new neuronal networks gradually form in the brain. This is how we create change and invite new possibilities into our world. By repeatedly focusing our attention on solutions instead of the problem we face, we gradually build differences that nurture a shift of perception in a positive way.

The process I follow with my clients supports them in becoming aware of the shifts they want to experience in their reality. And this may lead to an exploration of their unique inner space. That space of inner dialogues and predominant voices that sometimes feel like raging battles... If that happens, the common reaction is that you want to get rid of all the inner noise. With usually limited success as people admit.

This is where the wisdom of our organism comes in. In Western civilization, we tend to heavily rely on the potential of the Neocortex that is steering our analytical and visionary thinking. But visually speaking, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the water surface lies the realm of the emotional brain and the reptilian brain, which are millions of years older, 80% faster and much more effective (and therefore naturally much stronger in case of a battle). But those old parts of our brain don’t use words. They “speak” in images and metaphors. And images and metaphors don’t know negation (do NOT think of that pink elephant crossing your inner space right now…).  ;o) So when striving for change in whatever way, there is a cooperation model that is truly impactful: Conscious thinking directed towards solutions and unconscious knowing revealed from the body to support the path. 

As all our experiences are mirrored and located in the organism, there is a wealth of wisdom to be unveiled. It is a matter of allowing subtle sensory signals, metaphors and images to rise to the surface where they become visible, tangible and useful. And with a little help, you can start to re-arrange and adjust them in a way that will turn your inner space into a safe and protected place that strengthens you from within. (My inner critic feels at peace at this point…). 

As you decide to focus on possibilities and at the same time learn how to use the wisdom of your organism you start to create change. This will have effects for you to notice in your reality within and around you. And yes, my clients confirm it can happen overnight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sandra Schmoldt is a Certified Coach, communications expert and founder at EQUILIDO Transformation Support. She help business leaders and individuals to transform the roadblocks they are facing into stepping stones towards effective solutions, authentic discoveries and notable progress. Every client leaves the session with priorities and clear insights of how to create positive change in their reality. Step by step, in their optimal pace and equilibrium.

Flat Earth

Hi world!

Emerald here reporting on her perspective about flat earth.

What if flat earth is a legitimate concept? I am really real. As much the round earth concept is adopted by many, could flat earth concept co-exist as a popular one too, I wonder.

Once upon a time, I had a dream where I saw the earth as flat.  In the flat surface, there was a vortex in the middle of the earth.  Absorbed I went in with the vortex toward earth, I sensed that earth has various dimensions of consciousness one can adapt to (live in).   Living a dharmic path is. . .

Pause

For sure let’s define Dharma
According to Wikipedia,

Dharma (/ˈdɑːrmə/;[7] Sanskrit: धर्म, romanized: dharma, pronounced [dʱɐɽmɐ] (listen); Pali: धम्म, romanized: dhamma, translit. dhamma) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others.[8] There is no single-word translation for dharma in western languages.[9]

In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with Ṛta, the order that makes life and universe possible,[10][note 1] and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living".[11]  In Buddhism, dharma means "cosmic law and order",[10] and is also applied to the teachings of Buddha.[10] In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for "phenomena".[12][note 2] Dharma in Jainism refers to the teachings of tirthankara (Jina)[10] and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word dharm means the path of righteousness and proper religious practice.[13]

To Emerald, the right way of living occurs in different levels of consciousness on earth. I mean the earth is a school.  So when on earth, we humans go through life as if something/some event is teaching us to evolve.  Evolve through conflict, evolve through love + compassion, evolve through chaos what have you. By looking with this lens, my consciousness evolves each time I learn valuable wisdom from chaos.  Thereby when I gain wisdom, I often do not run into the same scenario. As if I’ve passed a test.
Which levels me up to another level of consciousness.  Hence flat earth, dare you explore, is real in a sense that we live each moment based on the state of our awareness.


Dharmic path frees me

Dharmic path frees me of conditioning of this world

Dharmic path frees me


What do you say?  Flat earth or no earth or round earth?  The choice is ours.
Beauty is our choices to believe whatever we want

Beauty is
coexisting with fellow human beings
under the universal umbrella
of love
on earth



ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Kate Emerald is a founder of 'Emeraldate', an online studio based in Seoul, Korea with an emphasis on conscious media, creative arts, astrology, and meditation. Her background covers psychology, education, business, divination, philosophy, and esoteric ancient traditions.

The original article was published here https://www.emeraldate.one/blog on 5 June 2019.

Changes of Colonic Bacterial Composition in Parkinson's Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

One of four dies in Western societies due to neurodegenerative diseases. In a seminal work, we have concentrated on most devastating ones including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy, multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and pinpointed to possible new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches focusing on the subtle changes happening in the microbiome several decades before the onset of the disease.

Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

Abstract

In recent years evidence has emerged that neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are strongly associated with the microbiome composition in the gut. Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most intensively studied neurodegenerative disease in this context. 

In this review, we performed a systematic evaluation of the published literature comparing changes in colonic microbiome in PD to the ones observed in other NDs including Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple system atrophy (MSA), multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). 

To enhance the comparability of different studies, only human case-control studies were included. Several studies showed an increase of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Verrucomicrobiaceae and Akkermansia in PD. A decrease of Faecalibacterium spp., Coprococcusspp., Blautia spp., Prevotella spp. and Prevotellaceae was observed in PD. On a low taxonomic resolution, like the phylum level, the changes are not disease-specific and are inconsistent. However, on a higher taxonomic resolution like genus or species level, a minor overlap was observed between PD and MSA, both alpha synucleinopathies. 

We show that standardization of sample collection and analysis is necessary for ensuring the reproducibility and comparability of data. We also provide evidence that assessing the microbiota composition at high taxonomic resolution reveals changes in relative abundance that may be specific to or characteristic of one disease or disease group, and might evolve discriminative power. The interactions between bacterial species and strains and the co-abundances must be investigated before assumptions about the effects of specific bacteria on the host can be made with certainty.

Original work can be found here: Gerhardt and Mohajeri (2018), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29857583 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Dr. Hasan Mohajeri is passionate about developing practical and sustainable solutions leading to maintaining and improving human health and soul. Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Business & organizational Coach, 25 years of business experience, Project, innovation, business & general management, Co-founder of 2 startups, lived and worked on 3 different continents.

BEWARE OF EXPERTS | DON’T GET LURED INTO THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM

The path to success as defined by top-notch authors radically diverges from the current Startup ecosystem players’ advice and behavior!

Venture Capitals (VCs), Accelerators, Incubators, Angel Investors, top-notch Universities and Governments still promote and follow the status quo on Startups, usually with good intentions, but lack of knowledge and devastating effects. Exponential technologies, AI, robotization and the expected loss of millions of non-qualified jobs drives many of these stakeholders to rapidly assign resources to copy paste Silicon Valley’s model without clear understanding.

The Global Startup Ecosystem is full of self-called Gurus which don´t read nor build real companies

Entrepreneurship, as we now call the journey of turning the founder’s vision into a “sustainable”, real venture, is clearly not something new, and has always been ingrained into homo sapiens. It usually demands a mix of courage, intuition, emotional intelligence, resilience, antifragility, creativity, access to resources and networking to succeed. Kind of an art.

Starting in 2003 and 2004 insightful authors (e.g. Steve Blank, John Mullins, etc.) started developing and putting together paradigm-shifting methodologies for entrepreneurship that lead to reducing risk and seriously maximizing chances of success. The influence of many previous business books by other authors can’t be understated (e.g. Geoffrey Moore, Clayton Christensen, etc.). If interested, you can always have a look at some fundamental top-notch literature which influences our own proprietary startup methodology which we teach and apply. But let’s get back to the point:

Startup Gurus and respected ecosystem stakeholders mention and recommend these same books but act and misguide their entrepreneurs in the opposite way!

Is it lack of knowledge? Economical interest? What drives this behavior?

Well, let me try to offer a simplified explanation:

1. Venture Capitals (VCs) are financial intermediaries, not investors. Before investing in Startups they raise their own money from high net wealth investors which are encouraged to assign around 5% of their portfolio to “risky” investments under the financial principle of diversification. Remember the well-known advice “put your eggs in different baskets”? Non-mysteriously there’s another point on which VCs usually insist: “Startups are risky” and then justify “only 1 over 100 succeed”.

2. You don’t need experience on Startups to run a VC. Do you know the world has more than 1.200 billionaires, and this number grows each day? Can you imagine how many millionaires? Just take that 5% of 1 billion is 50M. More money, more liquidity (interest rates have been lower than ever), more opportunities for unknowledgeable financial intermediaries with high net wealth networks to join the game. I’m not generalizing the institution is bad per se. When Venture Capital was originally invented it was instrumental to build many of the big corporations we know and admire today, by combining knowledge, network, and resources, which by then were scarce, and investing on powerful business models, with predictable sales roadmaps. Suggestion: try to find and watch the documentary “Something Ventured” to see the many differences from VCs today.

3. To run operations “properly” VCs charge an annual administration fee on money raised of 2–5%. They need to hire a top-notch team with business acumen and startup knowledge, which will be able to scan and select highly scalable and profitable startups from so many existing ones. Just remember as an example, 3% of 100M is 3M, 3% of 1B, is 30M.

4. Imagine you are now a VC and have just raised 100M.

Would you really have the incentives to spend your annual fee (3M) on building a fantastic team in the belief (uncertain) that you will build a new Facebook and profit from a percentage of the 7 year fund return?

How much time would it take you to select the Startups in an effective way? What about the time-value of money for investors? Why not instrumenting a low fixed cost structure, hiring interns (with fancy titles) just out from 1st year MBA and partnering with “Accelerators”, “Incubators”, “Universities”, and now “TV Shows” for them to organize “Contests” & “Competitions” to access a relevant pool of startups (the missing part of the marketplace) and disburse the money quickly in small chunks (50k to 150k) while assuring great contract conditions for future rounds? Why not try to invest a relevant part of your fund’s money in well-known (not necessarily good) startups where other prestigious VCs have invested too and will almost certainly receive more funding series? (even without due diligence)

5. Distinguished executives, ecosystem stakeholders, government officials, and other figures are invited as honorary “Judges” to select the winners in an elevator pitch competition.

I must recognize the system has truly adopted some of the methodological discoveries, making the process simpler for more and more startups to be misled through the funnel.

Once we had Business plans and 20-30 minutes pitches, with intensive inquisitive questions. Now, just terribly completed business model canvases, an imaginative deck full of non-tested hypothesis, and a 5 minutes “elevator pitch”. With this respectable allocation criterion in place: “they won a contest where X participated!”, let me ask you something:

Would you really hand your money for risky business to people you don’t know by watching them describe 5 minutes an idea, while mentioning exponential technologies and some kind of plan?

I am continuously invited as Judge and president of the Jury to many of this competitions, organized with the best of the intentions (I’m being serious here), by Governments, NGOs, or Universities, to help entrepreneurs! (help!). When I hear them speak, they haven’t been properly trained, nor have been taught how to apply correctly the new powerful methodologies at hand. They are miles away from a virtuous business model, and worst of all: they are going to get the money! together with the terrible conditions which come with the deal. They will feel really proud, validated by external forces, their ego will rise to the sky! What they don’t really know is everyone will profit but them.

More Startups into the funnel derive in VCs raising more investors funds, executing more rounds, and swallowing more administration fees while preparing for their famous celebrated “exit”.

Not by chance the Startup Ecosystem “traditional knowledge” measures success and Startup maturity as the number of rounds (series A, B, C, etc.), the number of exits or the amount of funds raised.

6. Then entrepreneurs sign the contract (oh, if you read those contracts!) immediately becoming modern slaves (or as I call it, labor without labor rights!). They become amateur actors, pitching full time, selling an image to the world, to their friends, to their families. They become fake heroes! While their anguish is strong and simply grows.

There is no clear Business Model, nor they know their customers pains or gains, results are not coming, they are continuously trying to scale without a proven sales roadmap by pushing demand with more investment.

No one cares about customer acquisition costs (CAC) or Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). More revenue brings more valuation and the illusion of success. More “illusion of success” (and burning of cash) generates more rounds, more pitches and more profits for everyone (unless cash is not raised or investors have an incentive not to continue, and the entrepreneur is the last to cash out, usually losing everything). Even if things go “well”, everyone will assure their exit before the entrepreneur does, or if it goes even better, they will assure the entrepreneur’s exit by firing the founder and keeping the company, after so many equity dilutions.

Luckily, and thanks to the work of many talented authors and researchers, there is another way of starting up! More to be said on the existing literature and methodology on other articles. But for now always have in mind:

Early Stage Startup Success = Knowledge [methodology, reading, learning from others, formulating and testing hypothesis instead of executing tight plans] + Community [networking, diversity, learning from others, learning how to actively listen and ask open questions, giving first, understanding what is important for others] + Hard Work [it will never be easy! forget about the illusion of being your own boss or working less] + Purpose [understand why you are doing what you are doing. It is the only thing that will reinforce your resilience when times are tough] + Emotional Intelligence [the same antifragility, resilience, and attributes, kind of an art old entrepreneurs use to have] — #Risk* [reduced fixed costs, asset-light business models trying to reduce investment, get paid before you produce or need to pay your suppliers] — Seed Capital (which we are sure hurts entrepreneurs at early stage.

*For now, to grab insight on starting up without investment, check John Mullins’ great book: “The Customer Funded Business”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Francisco Santolo is an economist and MBA, with General Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies in prestigious Universities such as Harvard, MIT, Kellogg, Stanford & Singularity, recognized by Forbes Magazine as "The Startup Hacker" in 2017. Francisco, besides becoming a successful entrepreneur at a young age (13), has 12 years corporate international managerial experience, has been co-founder and Board Member in more than 50 companies, has credentials as a recognized Consultant, Investor, Entrepreneurship MBA Professor, International speaker, recently invited as Keynote to G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance, Member of AIESEC Argentina Supervisory Board, FIJE Board, and Charter Member of TiE Delhi and Hong Kong.

The article was originally published on Medium.com. To see it follow this link.  

FORD STILL SHOULD HAVE ASKED A CUSTOMER

I’m sure you’ve been in a presentation that, at some point, puts up a slide with the famous Henry Ford quote, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’” It’s usually used as a justification for ignoring customer feedback on an amazing new disruptive innovation.

It’s Cold, I’m a Horse by Craig Damlo

First, let’s all agree that Henry Ford never said those words. Patrick Vlaskovits has already researched this and proven that Ford never “uttered this famous” quote. Patrick goes on to further discuss,

However, even if Ford didn’t verbalize his thoughts on customers’ ostensible inability to communicate their unmet needs for innovative products — history indicates that Henry Ford most certainly did think along those lines — and his tone-deafness to customers’ needs (explicit or implicit), had a very costly and negative impact on the Ford Motor Company’s investors, employees, and customers.

This is the real danger of using this quote when talking about innovations; it closes the mind and diminishes your group’s culture of innovation, risking future value in the process.

Let’s look at the quote more closely because, even if Ford never said it, it is still part of our cultural memory and probably not going anywhere. We can break this quote down in two ways: (1) How many people would have really said a “faster horse,” and (2), even if they had, that doesn’t mean that’s what they needed.

Let’s start with the people who may have actually answered with a “faster horse.” Ford’s customers may have answered a “faster horse,” because they didn’t know they had another option like Ford’s automobile and, depending on how the question was phrased, this might have been the correct answer for them.

The piece of information we are missing is what question Ford intended to ask his customers. Based on his answer, I suspect his intended question was, “What do you want in a new horse?” If so, then the answer of a faster horse makes sense. That question implies that a horse is part of the correct answer. Faster transportation is almost always desirable. Think of how much time is saved by being able to move from point A to point B in a fast amount of time — the entire airline industry is built on this premise.

This highlights the problem with surveys: The questions themselves can skew the answers. One of my Stanford professors, Bill Burnett, said, “A survey is not an interaction.” What Ford needed to do was either ask a better question or, preferably, get out on the street and interact with his customers.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

But Ford could have dug deeper if he had actually talked to a customer. For example, “Why do you want a faster horse?” This could have had many answers: “It takes me 7 trips to move my goods from farm to market, and I want to get it done faster.” A modern solution is a pickup truck to haul more, reducing trips. Or maybe, “I have to make 3 trips to get the whole family to church on Sunday.” A modern solution is a minivan.

And this is the culture we should be pushing for innovation and entrepreneurship, a culture that not only wants more information but one that needs it. An innovative team should trust their ability to solve a problem, but not their own judgment to define the customer’s problem. Get outside of your building, outside the box, and let your users show you why they need that faster horse.

Let’s avoid the faceless survey with carefully crafted questions. Even the best questions elicit single-word answers or, at best, short answers. So don’t ask questions; instead, ask for stories. You can always ask for clarification of a story. If Ford had followed this advice, he wouldn’t have asked what his customers wanted in a new horse; instead, he would have asked his customers, “How do you get around, and what’s the worst experience you’ve had with it?”

Doing so would have allowed Ford to collect a multitude of answers beyond “a faster horse” and may have short-cut his journey to the mission he ended up with:

I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

This is the quote from Henry Ford that we should be sharing. It has everything a great innovation needs: a target market, a value proposition, a worthwhile mission, and, most importantly, a story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Damlo has an extensive background in innovation and new product development. He specializes in using human-centered design principles of design thinking. He brings this “customer first” approach to venture capital and incubation, empathizing with customers, and understanding the problems to be solved before a product or system is developed. An award-winning speaker and innovation influencer, Craig is a sought-after thought leader who has given talks at events across the globe and is an engaging innovation coach.

The article was originally published on Medium.com. To see it follow this link.  

OVERCOMING PROCRASTINATION FOR EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT

In today’s world, we are more overloaded than ever before – with many of us managing portfolio careers or a multitude of roles within the same job title, coupled with tight deadlines, the speed of social media and the general juggling of our everyday lives - it can often feel impossible to get the workload finished and at times, even started. 

Stress, anxiety and overwhelm are very real symptoms of overload, with serious implications on our social, mental and physical health.

Enter procrastination - the biggest culprit that prevents our effective time management and all-round productivity.

WHY DO WE PROCRASTINATE?

The theory of why we procrastinate is actually fairly straightforward.

Let me explain: Procrastination works to actively limit our performance.  When our performance is limited, we don’t work to our full ability. And when we don’t work to our full ability then our self-worth is protected, regardless of how well we actually do.

Our self-worth has often been set to correlate directly with our abilities – we hold our pride in what we can achieve. We are usually educated that way – the pupil with the high marks gets more attention, more approval. So our self-worth can be a vulnerable thing and we unconsciously work pretty hard to protect it.

If we do things at the last minute and do well, then we can glow in the knowledge that we could have done even better. If we leave things till the last minute and don’t do so well, then we can console ourselves with the knowledge that we know we can easily do better. It’s a double bind.

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?

FIVE STEPS TO EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT

1. Remember the fable of The Tortoise and The Hare? Slow and steady wins the race! Break down each task you need to get done into 3 smaller bite size chunks and stay consistent with your effort. Steady, consistent effort is way more effective than last minute pushing, whatever you may tell yourself.

2. Incentivize yourself by adopting the Pomodoro Technique. This is where you set a timer to work for 25 minutes without interruption. If something pops into your head, scribble it on a piece of paper and get back to the task in hand. After 25 mins, take a short 10-minute break. Repeat four times. After 4 cycles, take a longer break of 30-60 mins. You will get so much more done and feel far less overloaded and overwhelmed with this one! (NB. You can download the free app Focus Keeper to help you with this.)

3. Learn how to say no and push back. Our people management skills sit hand-in-hand with our time management. Steps one and two are all very well but what about the people who can hijack our time?  Saying no isn’t always an easy thing to do but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing affair. Sometimes buying time can be very useful. Phrases like, “I can speak to you about this in 30 minutes” can be very effective. So long as you stick to it, it can be a very useful way of not only shifting your own negative patterns around time management but also other peoples’. Another one is along the lines of, “I can help you with this after 2pm but not before.” This phrase gives a positive and helpful response whilst also creating boundaries and push back on those time-encroachers. Practice these kinds of phrases where the stakes are low initially, then you will feel more comfortable using them in high-pressured situations or influencing upwards within the hierarchy.

4. Manage your self-talk. Our monkey minds can tell us all sorts of things that can sabotage our effective time management and often these things are unconscious. Sit down with a notebook and a pen and spend 15 minutes writing down all of the reasons why you procrastinate. Things might include ‘the project is too big’ or ‘I want it to be amazing’. Be honest. Then look at how accurate that self-talk is. Usually, it knocks things way out of perspective and exaggerates. Get it back in balance with how things really look, rewrite them and claim your perspective back.

5. Remind yourself of your own unique strengths and qualities. Write them down and revisit them regularly.  To maximize your potential you need to develop the skills you already have, not beat your head against a wall repeatedly trying to fix the things you are less good at. Focus on your strengths and you build confidence. Build confidence and you work more effectively. Fact. Try it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dannie-Lu Carr is a thought leader in Creativity, Communication and Change. She internationally advises and coaches businesses and individuals as an external coach and consultant, as well as carrying out her own creative roles as a writer, singer/songwriter, theatre director and Meisner Technique specialist.

YOUR OWN BUSINESS: ARE YOU READY?

So you have a dream of starting your own company. 

Let’s say a sustainable clothing brand. You love sewing and designing new looks. It has been your hobby since you were a child and it has become your passion as a grown-up. Now you want to share it with the World... 

But you feel like you don’t have enough knowledge and experience in the industry. So first you plan to get a job at a bigger clothing company.

There are certainly benefits to it.

1. You are not taking financial risks. 

Unlike in your own business, you don’t need to put your own money on the line. Every month you will get a paycheck to cover the rent, food, and travels. Any production company would require quite substantial capital investments. If you haven’t tested the market that can easily become a sunk cost. 

2. You learn about the market.

Any big company has a division that researches the market and customer behaviour, tests what products take off or not and why. You also get to see B2B and B2C interactions in the chosen industry. Having access to this knowledge early on can help you to choose your niche and develop your style of communications. It can become a great foundation for your future business activities. 

3. You get the network.

One way or another through meetings with your colleagues or external counterparts or by visiting relevant events, you grow your network in the industry. So once you are out on your own, you will most likely have people you can partner with to build or grow your business. 

At the same time taking a job at a bigger brand has significant setbacks you need to consider. 

1. Your enthusiasm is wasted on big corporates

There are just too many stories where young people full of hope and eager to act get undermined and undervalued in a big company. You risk getting your brilliant ideas and your entrepreneurial buzz crushed against the hierarchy and corporate politics. Eventually, you will leave the place, but the bitterness will reflect on your future business for a while.

2. You can’t do what you want when you want

Well, it’s a job. You probably have to stick around in the office from 9am to 6pm. For you as a newbie there, most of that time will be filled with unnecessary time-wasting tasks and gossip in a coffee corner. If you have a true entrepreneurial spirit, you will not last long in those conditions. But you also risk getting locked in a “golden cage” - a comfortable pay every month vs few compromises on the side of your freedom, potential, and sanity. 

3. You may get disappointed in the industry altogether

Even if you’ve been a loyal customer to this company before, once you are in, you will see its “kitchen”. You will see how things are done there and in the industry in general. Depending on what you see and what kind of person you are - you might decide to drop your business idea for good.

There is no one recipe for everyone. And if you decide that you want to join a big company - great! If you need further advice - get in touch with your Business Navigator.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Skupchenko is Personal Navigator in Business Growth. She enables companies and individual experts to unlock new markets and business opportunities using their uniqueness. To her clients, I provide a logical no-nonsense diagnosis of their business as it is. Julia has an international background and experience of working with clients from wide range of industries including Oil & Gas, IT, Consumer Goods, Social Media Marketing, New Technology & Innovation on the European and Russian markets.

Hephestos.io - Enabling the Digital Fabrication Revolution

The digital fabrication revolution is happening. Hundreds of thousand people, companies and organizations worldwide are beginning to print complete objects or replacement parts. This is a major risk for the intellectual property of the designers, and there are bigger risks with other scenarios.

There is more... There are ongoing projects worldwide to create the repair shops of the future. A perfect example would be an auto repair needing a part that is not in production anymore. Similar situations happen with almost any other type of repair or rebuild shop, being vehicles, electro-domestic devices, and any other man-made object or machine. The 3D printing revolution may trigger a comeback or a new flavor of professional repair and refit services. 

The above-described scenario becomes a business case with high risk for object creators and original equipment manufacturers (OEM). Examples are if such a shop is installed on offshore operations, or in a car repair shop or simply in the case someone fabricates a new contraption from existing objects. The same criteria can be applied to many other analog scenarios. 

This global transformation of the production or fabrication methods include and is not limited to the intellectual right of the original designer or creator of the object; the disruption of the business model of the OEM’s; and even liability for the end user using parts without the correct physical and chemical properties.

One of the projects I directed for innovation in the polymer/material industry, aimed at using this problematic situation in an opportunistic way that protects the intellectual rights, enable new service models, replacing old business models and assuring the right material to print objects with the correct functional features.

Some traditional rules need to be changed. Key enablers may include open source software development (API), cloud-based parts and material catalogs, linked in such a way to promote a “pay-per-print” service similar to the “pay-per-play” of the music industry. That is itself requires dedicated attention and may trigger new spin-off opportunities. The monitoring and administering such a licensing service should be nonprofit, relying on open source technology built by the alliance of public bodies, private companies and OEM’s worldwide.

HEPHESTOS.io is a consortium proposal. The goal is to set up a transparently governed organization to work on a shared and open set of standards and protocols to connect the dots of design, specifications, hackers, repairers, manufacturers, to unbind in the material world the same kind of transformation that the World Wide Web brought to the information ecosystem. The approach is based on the success stories of other initiatives like the World Wide Web consortium and LINUX, among others. 

The Hephestos concept proposes new manufacturing technologies and inclusive business models, made possible by the nexus of digital innovation (cloud, IoT, Blockchain) and new fabrication technologies (3D printing, additive manufacturing et similia)

By laying down a virtual shared infrastructure to handle transactions between the infosphere and the physical world, making it possible to disclose old IP without giving up return on royalties and business sustainability, and by offering glocality (global-locally) to the processes of adaptation and production, this will unlock novel innovation markets and an opportunity of inclusion and resilience for society. 

As a web for design and manufacturing, this infrastructure will be the horizontal substrate to build innumerable vertical business cases. With no longer the need to design protocols of verification, authorization handling, communication and exchange, all will benefit from a single, governed, and protected an underlying set of fundamental rules and tools, potentially turning the challenge of International Trade Agreements upside down: introducing a need to restrict rather than to open.

Each building block is important enough to become a project on its own. To stay up to date you can look for the label/hashtags #Hephestos or #DigitalFabrication, #MetaFactories.

The story behind:

I presented the first high-level concept of Hephestos.io at CERN back in 2015, in the frame of a "Collision event" organized by the SCimPULSE Foundation and hosted at IdeaSquare, the open innovation of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. I also presented the concept at the DTIM Europe 2016 in Berlin, and in part at the PON 2017 in the Netherlands. In 2019, I am again collaborating with key partners towards the realization of this highly advanced concept.

Since that time, there have been several initiatives worldwide to approach a few aspects of the Hephestos.io proposal. So far none had been brave enough to be 100% open in a shared platform. Still, it is important to recognize that each initiative on its own has been capable to solve specific challenges. Hopefully, the world is ready to benefit from joined learning.

Among those who contributed to enrich the concept was the Directorate of Innovation and Technology of CERN, that propagated the idea to the University of Bologna, and we can see some places where the idea flourished, such as EEFRA and the Connected Factories project sponsored by the European Union, while a few business companies such as Porsche have come close to the concept. I expect at some point we should be able to bring it all together and disrupt the industry 4.0 paradigm.

The Hephestos.io site will be closed in 2019 to evolve into a newly revised approach by a consortium of profit and non-profit, academia and SME, proposing for a new EU funded project


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Massimo Mercuri acts as catalyst for strategic dialogue and collective reasoning, facilitates problem-solving and new business models development. Active since 1990, he has extensive experience in innovation and business architecture with Fortune 100 brands in different world markets, including digital computing, research & development, industrial facilities, maritime operations, and entrepreneurial startups.