David Rose is at it again. He’s the CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ambient Devices and a successful serial entrepreneur. Spiral Up describes Rose’s adventures in developing and launching the Ambient Orb. His wildly successful story continues here.
First of all, if you haven’t seen the Orb, you’re in for a treat. It’s a “zen simple” and “glanceable” information device that also happens to be beautiful. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up, the orb glows bright green. When stock prices are falling, it looks more like Rudolph’s red nose.
Rose learned an unexpected lesson from the Orb, however: “Our technology is not just pervasive,” he says. “It is persuasive.” When people monitor their stock portfolios with the Orb, they tend to trade more often, he explains. And we know that more frequent trading generally results in poorer portfolio performance.
With that persuasive effect in mind, Rose began to look for ways the Orb could be used to promote more positive social outcomes. Today’s Ambient products can track weather, wind speed, pollen count, traffic congestion, and in some areas, the load on the energy grid. As a result, people with allergies can plan their days with a clear head, travelers can get where they are going more quickly and we can all monitor our electricity usage better. (Check out Ambient’s products at http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/products.html )
But Rose wasn’t finished. He teamed up with a company called NextBus to use the Ambient effect to encourage public transportation in San Francisco and 12 other cities which sorely need improvement in this area. NextBus puts GPS pucks on buses so people can use the Internet to find out when the, well, next bus will arrive at their favorite bus stop. Ambient has added its own distinctive twist to the idea. It is building a fill bar—the same idea as the little slider on your computer that fills up to tell you your file is saved or your document is printed—except this one stands on its end, nine feet high, at the bus stop. It fills up as the next bus nears the stop. Rose says, “You can see it from blocks away and use it to judge whether you have time to grab a cup of coffee or you have to hurry. It not only takes some of the pain out of waiting for the bus, it’s also beautiful to look at.” And by the way, it is powered completely by solar energy.
I find something quite heartening from this chapter of David Rose’s wildly successful adventure. Rose started all this with a big idea—a contrarian notion that computing should be simple and elegant rather than ever more complicated. This big idea wasn’t something he could invent or build or sell; it was a principle. Now, some “practical” people roll their eyes at big ideas, but look what Rose has accomplished with this one. His company is successfully selling pervasive, persuasive devices that customers love. More importantly, his work is making our cities a little cleaner, greener and more beautiful. That’s a powerful result.
© Jane Linder, Progress Board LLC 2007. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The "Do" Point
Most people have aspirations. They want to be heard. They want to take on a challenging problem. They want to do something important--something that matters. I'm not being critical here, but most people don't make much headway on these goals. Why not? There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is that aspirations are daunting. And that keeps us from even starting.
You know what I'm talking about. You can hear that little voice in your head saying "How am I ever going to accomplish that?"
I'm going to let you in on a secret. The people who actually DO accomplish their far-reaching goals feel exactly the same way when they start. For example, Chet Wayland and Phil Dickerson, the two EPA managers who brought air quality information out of the backroom and put it under everyone's noses in USA Today and on The Weather Channel, remember feeling distinctly uncertain. They had applied for a federal grant and had promised results, but, in the beginning, they didn't have a clear idea how they were going to meet their promises. [See my book, Spiral Up, AMACOM 2008.]
What did they do? They didn't let their big idea get in the way. They just did what they could do. And that took them forward. It's what I call the "do" point. Instead of waiting until they had pulled together a grand plan, they did the simple things that were right in front of them.
They started by working with their colleagues in the New England states, who had already begun to pull the air quality information together in an online map. They reasoned that, even if that's all they accomplished, it would be a step in the right direction.
There's a lot more to the story, but they ended up doing us all quite a service. All 50 US states and all 10 provinces in Canada now pool their air quality information and next day forecasts on a near-real time basis. You can see it for yourself if you have young children who should be playing indoors on a bad air day.
Did I mention they had no budget and no staff to work on this when they started?
What's the lesson? Have big aspirations, but don't let them get in the way. Go to the "do" point. Find one simple thing you can do that will take you forward. Do it.
© Jane Linder 2007. All rights reserved.
You know what I'm talking about. You can hear that little voice in your head saying "How am I ever going to accomplish that?"
I'm going to let you in on a secret. The people who actually DO accomplish their far-reaching goals feel exactly the same way when they start. For example, Chet Wayland and Phil Dickerson, the two EPA managers who brought air quality information out of the backroom and put it under everyone's noses in USA Today and on The Weather Channel, remember feeling distinctly uncertain. They had applied for a federal grant and had promised results, but, in the beginning, they didn't have a clear idea how they were going to meet their promises. [See my book, Spiral Up, AMACOM 2008.]
What did they do? They didn't let their big idea get in the way. They just did what they could do. And that took them forward. It's what I call the "do" point. Instead of waiting until they had pulled together a grand plan, they did the simple things that were right in front of them.
They started by working with their colleagues in the New England states, who had already begun to pull the air quality information together in an online map. They reasoned that, even if that's all they accomplished, it would be a step in the right direction.
There's a lot more to the story, but they ended up doing us all quite a service. All 50 US states and all 10 provinces in Canada now pool their air quality information and next day forecasts on a near-real time basis. You can see it for yourself if you have young children who should be playing indoors on a bad air day.
Did I mention they had no budget and no staff to work on this when they started?
What's the lesson? Have big aspirations, but don't let them get in the way. Go to the "do" point. Find one simple thing you can do that will take you forward. Do it.
© Jane Linder 2007. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Working Wonders
Have you ever worked on something that turned out to be wildly successful? A surprising number of everyday people--people like you and me--have had this experience. Some of their stories are in my new book, Spiral Up (sorry for the plug, but I really want people who feel like they have more to contribute to read it and know what to do next).
Here's the thing. When you ask people who are working wonders how they are going about it, they tell you things you don't expect. Their approach doesn't match management "best practice" at all. Take this short true-or-false quiz, and you'll see what I mean.
1. To be successful, an initiative must be planned and scheduled carefully.
2. Important projects won't be successful unless they have explicit top management support.
3. The best way to staff an initiative is with people who have done the same type of project before.
4. Leaders of successful projects line up all the resources they need before they start work.
5. In the end, the leaders of every successful project will want to declare victory.
6. Every successful project needs a single, charismatic leader.
If you answered "true" to any of these questions, you should be proud of your mastery of good management practice. Unfortunately, wildly successful initiatives don't work this way. The answer that emerges from story after story is "false" for all six questions.
How can this be? The way we have learned to manage--to make our results more predictable than spectacular--stamps out all the upside possibilities. When we want to accomplish something wonderful, we have to choose another approach. Anyone can do it.
If you have a working wonder story--especially one that might help other people take up this way of working--please share it with us.
© Jane Linder 2007. All rights reserved.
Here's the thing. When you ask people who are working wonders how they are going about it, they tell you things you don't expect. Their approach doesn't match management "best practice" at all. Take this short true-or-false quiz, and you'll see what I mean.
1. To be successful, an initiative must be planned and scheduled carefully.
2. Important projects won't be successful unless they have explicit top management support.
3. The best way to staff an initiative is with people who have done the same type of project before.
4. Leaders of successful projects line up all the resources they need before they start work.
5. In the end, the leaders of every successful project will want to declare victory.
6. Every successful project needs a single, charismatic leader.
If you answered "true" to any of these questions, you should be proud of your mastery of good management practice. Unfortunately, wildly successful initiatives don't work this way. The answer that emerges from story after story is "false" for all six questions.
How can this be? The way we have learned to manage--to make our results more predictable than spectacular--stamps out all the upside possibilities. When we want to accomplish something wonderful, we have to choose another approach. Anyone can do it.
If you have a working wonder story--especially one that might help other people take up this way of working--please share it with us.
© Jane Linder 2007. All rights reserved.
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