Lifehack Overlap

Here's a great way to "make time" when it seems like you have too much to do at once: overlap.

Since most of us tend to be involved in 20 different projects at once, it stands to reason that there's a good amount of overlap among these projects -- same people, same topics, same resources.

Is there a way you can combine seemingly disparate tasks to accomplish multiple goals at once?

For example: while answering an email just now, I realized I was imparting the same information I'll cover during a presentation I'm giving later this summer. So I copy-and-pasted that email into a new document before sending. Now the emailer has the answers he needs, and I have the outline and talking points for a 40 minute presentation -- AND a blog post! Check, check and check!

The answer isn't always improving the ORDER of how we work -- it's improving the FLOW. And flow almost always means overlap.

How can YOU combine tasks in a new way today?

Thoughts on MicroHoo!

While discussing the potential Microsoft / Yahoo! merger on Friday, David Armano referred to the hybrid as MicroHoo! Catchy as it is, the commenters on his blog had some of the day's best insights, including - from Madhu:

This is what losing companies do. I think it would become -

MicroWho ??

From Andy Didyk:

You've got two giants of companies that both try to do everything for everyone; in other words, they are both specialists at being generalists instead of two specialists combining to become a generalist. I foresee this working well for both companies, and a natural response to Google's policy of "Invent everything useful on the web, and buy out what others have already invented."

And from Paul McEnany:

Well, i love the idea that one slow company + another slow company somehow has a greater chance to beat one innovative one.

My Two Cents

Watching massive companies merge is almost always a good thing -- for the little guy.

As McEnany mentions, massive companies cannot move quickly. They cannot innovate swiftly. They must rely on scavenging the ideas from the smaller, quicker, more nimble competition. Imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a firewire port.

Smashing two of these companies together may be wonderful in terms of available in-house resources, but all it really means is that it'll take this ship twice as long to turn around or adjust on the fly. Sure, there will be a trimming of fat from both companies, but the overall increase in people mass will only make them go THAT MUCH MORE UNSTOPPABLY in one direction.

And this leaves room for all kinds of small and mid-sized competitors to thrive in their shadow.

Cafe Witness Moment

Returning to the roots of this blog for a moment -- back when it was a glimpse into the coffee culture of Pittsburgh, rather than a treatise on new media...

I walked to the Tazza D'Oro cafe tonight, only to realize it was the meeting place for the latest of their (seemingly irregularly-) scheduled "women's nights," for which the place is closed to non-club members (like me).

So, instead of working from home, I hopped in my car and zipped down to Crazy Mocha in the South Side Works. The trip took half an hour. Along the way, I passed a Starbucks (no free wireless), a Coffee Tree Roasters (no free wireless), a Kiva Han (janky free wireless that doesn't always work) and ANOTHER Crazy Mocha (which allows smoking), all to come here.

My point is not to prove my loyalty to Crazy Mocha (though I do like this joint).

My point is: is it so hard to give away a free wireless signal? Think of the business these cafes are missing out on from 100 other people like me, who would rather drive out of their way for the free wireless (and the good coffee, and the comfortable scenery, and the pleasant community, and the friendly baristas) than pay to login.

John Moore touched on this in his "What Must Starbucks Do?" ChangeThis manifesto, which tackles the larger problem of what Starbucks must do to become relevant again. The lessons there are fairly specific to the Starbucks challenge, but the need to reinvent yourself applies to all of us sooner or later.

And why do most of us need to reinvent ourselves? Because we're out of touch with what our customers / clients / audiences want.

In this day of instant uber-communication, isn't that inexcusable?

The Value of NOT Getting It

Over at BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis has a great post about the litmus test a new spearheading team at The Economist is using to determine if their "outside-the-box" ideas for the next wave of change in their company is actually working:

"They say they will know they have succeeded when they present their big idea and get someone saying, 'I don’t get this at all.'"

The Timestream of "Getting It"

When I attended Video on the Net in Boston back in September, I was one of a few podcasters -- or "disruptors," as Jeff Pulver referred to us -- swimming in a sea of suits. I was one of the people creating the exact same media that people driving Mercedes were trying to wrap their heads around: What IS this? Why does it MATTER? What does it MEAN to me?

And, of course, "How do you MONETIZE?"

Surprisingly (to me), that was 6 months ago. I'll be speaking at Video on the Net in San Jose in two weeks, and I can tell you right now that the number of suits in that room who "get it" is ten times greater than it was in September. The world has changed, and the concept of user-generated content is no longer the head-scratcher it was to the CNNs and NBCs of the world. (They still may not understand exactly how to utilize it, but they definitely know it's there.)

Suddenly, the bar for the future has been raised -- and it's not enough to simply be one step ahead.

Worst-Case Scenario

Let's say the folks at The Economist spend six months of time and money developing new ideas to take their company where no other company has gone before, media-wise.

They walk into the boardroom, surrounded by suits who've been paid just as much money to ensure that the status quo has been maintained for those six months. They whip out their laptops, Power Point presentations, Second Life walkthroughs, and whatever other materials they need to get their point across to their colleagues.

And, at the end of the presentation, everyone else in the room looks around at one another and they all say, contendedly, "Yes, this makes absolute sense. We get it!"

The presenters' shoulders will drop and their smiles will crack, and rightfully so.

They will have failed.

Twice Removed

Being an innovator means seeing into the future, understanding what's possible, and then leaving a trail of bread crumbs behind you so the mass of humanity can catch up. It does not mean taking that same mass of humanity by the hand and shepherding them to the next plateau; it means calling down from the top of the mountain while sending carrier pigeons to the sherpas.

If your next great idea is easily graspable by people who only now have a vague understanding of new media -- or of whatever your current emerging industry "trend" is -- your idea is not the next great idea: it's the next logical idea. No one gets a promotion for having the next logical idea. No one writes front page articles about the next logical idea. And venture capitalists surely don't scour the earth looking for the next great logical idea.

You need to disrupt the status quo. And the only way to do that is by being at least two steps ahead.

Let's presume the folks at The Economist walk into their meeting in six months and do the same dog-and-pony show as mentioned before. This time, baffled looks of bewilderment cross the faces of the suits in the audience. One man coughs violently, a psychosomatic reaction to vaguely perceived threats.

Finally, the chairman stands up and, red-faced at having wasted six months of resources on these clinically insane people, says, "I don't get this at all."

Then the presenters can hold their heads high and rest assured that the money and time was well spent.

Separation Anxiety

Innovation is not a smooth process. It's not painless, stress-free and placid. It usually involves massive amounts of blood, sweat, tears and caffeine.

Mostly, it requires two teams: the advance team that scouts ahead and starts to build the new infrastructure, and the security team that's sent back to escort the old infrastructure to its new home.

As an innovator, you want to be on the team that sees what no one else sees. You want to understand not what's next, but what happens after that.

And then you need to send word back to the village that it's safe to proceed.

The biggest danger an innovator faces is in not being innovative enough. If the ideas you report back to the village are met without conflict and argument, then clearly you haven't seen far enough beyond the horizon.

The Middle Manager Test

Whenever you feel you've developed a sufficiently innovative idea, ask yourself the following question: if I presented this idea to the average middle manager in a company in my field -- a person whose job it is to maintain the status quo and ensure that the existing (and therefore, by definition, obsolete) machine is running smoothly -- would he or she grasp it immediately and sign off on it as a good idea?

If the answer is yes, you're not an innovator. You're on the security team, and you've just discovered the proper wording to motivate the village to follow you into the clearing.

Now you need to figure out what's beyond the clearing. Think bigger.

As an innovator, you need to be able to see farther into the future than everyone else. You need to identify a potential disruption in your market, see the possibilities that can grow out from that tidal wave, and then discern which ripples in the pool can start the wave toward rising.

Anyone can see the ripples. You need to see the wave.