January 6, 2015 • 2:26 pm 0
Guess what raises more money.
“It’s close, but we’re winning. Donate HERE!”
OR
“It’s close, but we’re losing. Donate HERE!”
Todd Rogers, a social psychologist and behavioral scientist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government unravels voter motivation.
Via WGBH, found here.
Filed under: Politics, behavioral research, politics, social psychology
January 4, 2015 • 2:11 pm 0
Joel Beckerman thinks so. The man who specializes in “sonic branding” explains…
Via NPR Books, found here.
Filed under: Great Sounds!
January 2, 2015 • 2:04 pm 0
One of the most overlooked inventions of the 21st Century. We can thank…
Col. Leon Dostert. Born in France and a native French speaker, Dostert became an American citizen and a foreign language expert for the US Army.
“He was the person who thought it was possible for a human being to listen and speak at the same time,” Visson says.’
Via PRI’s, The World. Found here.
Filed under: Creativity, Language
August 31, 2014 • 11:28 am 0
Ambassador James Dobbins on the News Hour, lays out a short, concise lesson for future presidents dealing with foreign crises.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#111437
“The difficulty in making minimal commitments that don’t allow problems to boil over, but don’t ever solve any one of them.”
Filed under: Politics, Uncategorized
August 31, 2014 • 12:43 am 0
“The Coolest” cooler raised $13 million on a kickstarter campaign.
4 valuable lessons:
– Classic example of how voice of the customer (VOC) research can still produce blockbuster products. Ryan Grepper redefined the user experience of a cooler by expanding the definition.
– Fail, fail, then fail again… you’ll get better along the way.
– Kickstarting is as much about perception and communication than reality. Video quality, pitch and image quality is everything.
– Great way to evaluate commercial viability (i.e., see what kind of traction you get on Kickstarter before production)
Filed under: Lean Startup, Research, Start-Ups
March 31, 2014 • 6:52 am 0
Get meaning from your personal data. Now there’s an idea…
The Quantified Self is an international collaboration of users and makers of self-tracking tools.
Quantified Self Labs is a California-based company founded by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly that serves the Quantified Self user community worldwide by producing international meetings, conferences and expositions, community forums, web content and services, and a guide to self-tracking tools. Our aim is to help people get meaning out of their personal data.
Are you interested in self-tracking? Do you have questions to ask or knowledge to share? We welcome your questions and contributions. We are here to help.
Filed under: Uncategorized
February 18, 2014 • 1:37 pm 0
Good Stuff!
By LAURA PAPPANO
Summary:
- Once considered the product of genius or divine inspiration, creativity — the ability to spot problems and devise smart solutions — is being recast as a prized and teachable skill.
- These days “creative” is the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles two years running.
- The point of creative studies, says Roger L. Firestien, a Buffalo State professor and author of several books on creativity, is to learn techniques “to make creativity happen instead of waiting for it to bubble up. A muse doesn’t have to hit you.”
A “Shoutout”
Clarifying — asking the right question — is critical because people often misstate or misperceive a problem.
Ideating is brainstorming and calls for getting rid of your inner naysayer to let your imagination fly.
Developing is building out a solution, and maybe finding that it doesn’t work and having to start over.
Implementing calls for convincing others that your idea has value.
Failure is GOOD
Jack V. Matson, an environmental engineer and a lead instructor of “Creativity, Innovation and Change,” a MOOC that drew 120,000 in September, teaches a freshman seminar course at Penn State that he calls “Failure 101.” That’s because, he says, “the frequency and intensity of failures is an implicit principle of the course. Getting into a creative mind-set involves a lot of trial and error.”
His favorite assignments? Construct a résumé based on things that didn’t work out and find the meaning and influence these have had on your choices. Or build the tallest structure you can with 20 Popsicle sticks. The secret to the assignment is to destroy the sticks and reimagine their use. “As soon as someone in the class starts breaking the sticks,” he says, “it changes everything.”
Dr. Matson also asks students to “find some cultural norms to break,” like doing cartwheels while entering the library. The point: “Examine what in the culture is preventing you from creating something new or different. And what is it like to look like a fool because a lot of things won’t work out and you will look foolish? So how do you handle that?”
It’s a lesson that has been basic to the ventures of Brad Keywell, a Groupon founder and a student of Dr. Matson’s at the University of Michigan. “I am an absolute evangelist about the value of failure as part of creativity,” says Mr. Keywell, noting that Groupon took off after the failure of ThePoint.com, where people were to organize for collective action but instead organized discount group purchases. Dr. Matson taught him not just to be willing to fail but that failure is a critical avenue to a successful end. Because academics run from failure, Mr. Keywell says, universities are “way too often shapers of formulaic minds,” and encourage students to repeat and internalize fail-safe ideas.
Cross Polination
“The new people who will be creative will sit at the juxtaposition of two or more fields,” she says. When ideas from different fields collide, Dr. Cramond says, fresh ones are generated.
Approach the Unfamiliar
Asked to elaborate, students talked about confidence and adaptability. “A lot of people can’t deal with things they don’t know and they panic. I can deal with that more now,”
Filed under: Creativity, Research
January 30, 2014 • 11:45 am 0
Louis Von Ahn describes Eric Riess’ lean start-up loop at work in his Duolingo sensation:
Von Ahn says he could find no satisfying data demonstrating the most effective method for teaching languages, so he A/B tests various methods in the app to see what works best. “If we want to know whether to teach adjectives or plurals first,” he says, “we do an A/B test set, measure which does better, and then start using the winning method for all users. In doing that, we’ve already modified our teaching methods quite a bit.” For instance, when teaching English to Spanish speakers, Duolingo starts with personal pronouns. But von Ahn discovered that, because Spanish does not use the pronoun “it” in sentences like “It is snowing outside,” novice students were baffled. “We learned from A/B testing that a lot of people were failing right there when we introduced it, so we started teaching it later. Anything super confusing when you’re just starting makes people give up.”
Also good insight on the App’s overall position in the language learning marker:
According to von Ahn, reaching the current endpoint of the app means you will have achieved roughly the B2 level (“upper intermediate user”) in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. “You won’t sound native,” he says, “and when you’re talking you’ll do a lot of simplifications. You’ll probably mess up the subjunctive form. But you’ll get around. You’ll understand what you hear very well. You’ll be able to read books and watch movies in the language.”
Filed under: Lean Startup, Start-Ups
January 19, 2014 • 10:29 pm 0
Number 5, the “Observability” factor is interesting… full article here
The 5 Common Characteristics of Ideas That Spread
by David Burkus
Your success as a creative depends not only on coming up with great ideas and making them happen, but also with getting those ideas adopted by your target audience. Whether it’s the buying public, an art dealer, or just your direct supervisor, getting your work off of your hard drive and into the world is perhaps the most important (and scariest) part of creative work.
So how can you improve the chances of getting your great idea adopted? Ask Everett Rodgers. In 1962, he published Diffusion of Innovation (where he coined the term “early adopter”) the end result of a large-scale research project on why innovations spread. Rogers, then a sociology professor at Ohio State University, gathered the results of over 500 hundred studies on why innovative ideas are adopted among people and organizations. The result was a set of five factors identified as essential influencers in our decision to adopt or reject new ideas: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability.1. Relative Advantage is the degree to which an idea or product is perceived as better than the existing standard. Just how much of an improvement is it over the previous generation? The higher the Relative Advantage, the greater the chance of adoption. Many of the most renowned works of art are heralded for the way in which they dramatically moved their genre forward. Think of how Citizen Kane was able to push the boundaries of the screenplay and camera angles compared to the films of its time. Relative Advantage is what most people think of when they visualize something being “innovative.”
2. Compatibility. How easily can I use my past experience to understand how this new product functions or what this new work means? The higher the similarity with existing norms, the better the chances of adoption. Ideas and people that miss the Compatibility factor are often described as “ahead of their time.” For example, for all of their ground-breaking special effects, many blockbusters films from Star Wars to Iron Man 3 borrow plot elements from Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to make them compatible with the stories we already like.
The higher the similarity with existing norms, the better the chances of adoption.3. Complexity (or simplicity) is how easy it is for people to understand the new idea or use the new product. Is this idea a simple extension of logic? Is it an easy-to-use product? If the work or product is seen as highly complex or difficult to grasp, people will shy away from engaging with the product or adopting the idea. Artist Hugh MacCleod reduced the complexity of his work to drawings on business card sized canvas’ and saw his work spread even more rapidly. Or consider the case of Instagram, the app actually started as an unpopular Yelp-like service called Burbn with the photos as an added bonus. It was only after the complexity was reduced to a single-purpose that its popularity took off.
4. Trialability. How effortless it is for the target audience to interact with the new concepts or experiment with the product? How easily can they try it out? The more potential users or patrons can test the product or view the work, the more likely individuals will adopt it. In the past decade or so, many recording artists and groups like Jonathan Coulton have taken trialability to new levels, giving their music away for free and adjusting their business model to leverage live concert tickets, giving artists like Coulton the ability to make a full-time living from music. Listeners try for free and demonstrate their support afterward. The more they can try it, the less uncertainty there is around committing to it.
5. Observability is the noticeable results of trying or consuming the idea. When new products are highly visible, it drives more people to share it and increases the likelihood of mass adoption. One of the reasons for Banksy ’s success is the observability of his work. Many artists challenge social conventions in unique, seemingly playful ways, but Banksy’s work is highly public and easily shareable. It isn’t just stuck behind the glass in a single gallery or museum.
January 18, 2014 • 11:59 am 0
This might apply to language learning products.
3. Crowdfunding works best when the backers have special knowledge about the project that leads them to fund things that otherwise would have been overlooked or undervalued by traditional investors. This happens, for example, in the Kickstarter video games category, where most of the backers are game enthusiasts. The most promising scenarios for startup crowdfunding are where the backers are potential customers of the product (e.g. HR managers backing new HR software).
All about the people…
5. Most successful seed investors will say that it is mostly about investing in great people, and it is very hard to evaluate people even after multiple in-person meetings. If founders are going to be evaluated online without in-person meetings, great care has to be taken to make sure the evaluation mechanisms are sufficiently nuanced and reliable. (The counterargument is that this might be true when individual professional investors evaluate startups. In the aggregate, the crowd can outsmart individual professionals even with fewer direct interactions.)
Also resonates with Y-Combinator founder, Paul Graham’s thinking… (Full Paul Graham interview here)
Most successful seed investors will say that it is mostly about investing in great people, and it is very hard to evaluate people even after multiple in-person meetings. If founders are going to be evaluated online without in-person meetings, great care has to be taken to make sure the evaluation mechanisms are sufficiently nuanced and reliable.
Full Article:
Some thoughts on startup crowdfunding
Like a lot of people, I’m excited about crowdfunding, and specifically the crowdfunding of startups now that’s it’s legal in the US. Based on my own experience investing in startups, here are some thoughts and issues that come to mind regarding startup crowdfunding.
1. Startup financings tend toward the extremes of being very oversubscribed or very undersubscribed. If you graphed out investor interest, it would look like a “U”. This is primarily the result of signaling – once a few investors commit (especially high quality ones), other investors pile on. If investors don’t commit, other investors start to wonder what’s wrong. So when you consider startup crowdfunding, it’s important to distinguish the oversubscribed cases from the undersubscribed cases. (Although one counter to this is that the U is the result of an inefficient market – when the crowds get involved valuations will float to their market clearing prices).
2. Historically, startup investing returns have tended to obey power laws (Peter Thiel has a good discussion of this phenomenon here). The vast majority of the returns came from the breakout hits. And if you go back and look at the early financings of breakout hits, a lot of them were hotly contested and oversubscribed. If amateur investors had been trying to invest in those startups via crowdfunding sites, they probably would have been squeezed out. If those amateurs were part of a syndicate, the syndicate lead would have felt pressure to drop them, at least for those hot deals. (Counterargument: the power law is caused by the myopia of traditional investors looking for the next Google. The crowd will be able to find new investments that greatly expand the set of successful startups)
3. Crowdfunding works best when the backers have special knowledge about the project that leads them to fund things that otherwise would have been overlooked or undervalued by traditional investors. This happens, for example, in the Kickstarter video games category, where most of the backers are game enthusiasts. The most promising scenarios for startup crowdfunding are where the backers are potential customers of the product (e.g. HR managers backing new HR software). This could also solve the adverse selection problem, as the startup founders would probably favor these backers over traditional startups investors.
4. When you look at the biggest crowdfunding markets – publicly traded stocks on NYSE, NASDAQ, etc – you find that a) In general, non-professional investors lose money when they try to pick individual stocks. This suggests that something similar to mutual funds would be the best mechanism for amateur participation. b) There is a constant cat-and-mouse game between regulators and sketchy market participants. If this happens with private financings, and more and more rules and regulations get added, many of the advantages of being a private company could go away.
5. Most successful seed investors will say that it is mostly about investing in great people, and it is very hard to evaluate people even after multiple in-person meetings. If founders are going to be evaluated online without in-person meetings, great care has to be taken to make sure the evaluation mechanisms are sufficiently nuanced and reliable. (The counterargument is that this might be true when individual professional investors evaluate startups. In the aggregate, the crowd can outsmart individual professionals even with fewer direct interactions.)
6. One way to look at startup crowdfunding is as the first step in a process that includes additional steps that prevent adverse selection, sketchy behavior etc. For example, a startup I know raised money recently from a single lead investor and then found additional investors via a crowdfunding site. They ended up rejecting many of the interested investors but found a few useful investors that they otherwise wouldn’t have found. In this model crowdfunding looks more like LinkedIn for investors – extremely useful for connecting, but only the first step of a process that includes interviews, reference checks, etc.
From Chris Dixon’s blog, here
Filed under: Start-Ups, crowdsourcing, startups
Media, Trends and Sattire 