Stadium Fanatic Launch
By Brian Raney
Do you love the rush you get as you step from the concourse into the heart of an enormous stadium? Lexington web developer Tyler Green sure does, and he has created a new social network, Stadium Fanatic, to connect with other sports fans who feel the same.
"I've always enjoyed going around to ballparks, taking photos, and just experiencing the atmosphere, so I thought it would be a good idea to develop a place on the web where people could share those feelings," says Green, whose site allows users to document and share their sports venue experiences.
Visits, comments, and photos are the main components to the social network. Users are encouraged to mark stadiums in which they have attended an event as 'Visited', and watch their name climb the leaderboard as their number of visits increases. Commenting on venues allows users to share their favorite experiences and offer suggestions for future visitors. The final feature, sharing photos, Green feels is the highlight of the site. "I could spend days browsing photos of stadiums. Every venue is different and I think creating this community will help those who are interested explore them in ways they may not have been able to in the past."
Outside of the online network, users are encouraged to use the hashtag '#AwesomeStadium' when updating their Twitter accounts from a sports venue to group their updates with those of others. The use of hashtags creates a live update stream and allows users, who are either at the same park or not, to read about the various stadium experiences occurring at that moment.
You can start connecting with Stadium Fanatics across the country today by visiting http://www.stadiumfanatic.com.
Do Something Awesome #1 - Get Your Name Out
By Aaron Fons
There's nothing I love more than walking into a room full of important people or introducing myself to a high-level executive at a certain corporation, saying "Hi, I'm Aaron Fons" and seeing their eyes light up. Not having to explain who you are can come in extremely handy, and when you walk into a room and everyone knows who you are without the hassle of having to give a tired elevator pitch, it provides an instant shot to your self-confidence.
Unless you're walking into a room full of psychics, however, chances are people aren't going to know your name without you putting in a little bit of work at the get-go. No one will know your name if you don't take the extra effort to put it out in the first place, and no one will care about it if you're not bringing anything to the table. To get your name out effectively, you need to begin by creating some sort of value ahead of time for whoever you end up meeting with.
The first step is to identify your target. Figure out exactly who you want your name to resonate with by the time it's all said and done; if you don't know names, at least figure out the audience that you need to address as specifically as possible. For example, knowing that you want the board of directors at a given corporation to know who you are is better than knowing that you want "some execs" to know who you are. Once you have your general audience down, see if you can figure out their names and their interests; figure out what makes them tick.
Once you know who you're dealing with and have your target isolated, you can more easily figure out how to address them and what interaction you can create that will make you seem different from everybody else. If you know you have a meeting or conference coming up with them, send out an email or pick up the phone a week or so before the conference to introduce yourself. Come up with something more interesting to say than a simple "I'm excited about the upcoming conference." Rather, add a specific detail that you're excited about or address a particular issue or interest that you have and hope will be touched on in more detail later. This way, you don't come off as someone who is looking to kiss ass, but rather as someone who is proactive and wants to learn more. If necessary, include a resume or letter of reference so that whoever you're talking to can find out a little more about you before the meeting. With one of these documents as well as a letter expressing interest, you are no longer just a name.
The next step is going further than becoming more than just a face. When you finally are in the same room as your target, walk up coolly and confidently and introduce yourself. Everyone else is going to say "Hi, I'm Joe Nobody. It's a pleasure to be here." YOU, on the other hand, get to say "Hi, I'm Joe Baller. We spoke this past week about (whatever you spoke about) and it's nice to put a face to your name." Watch and see how different their reaction is upon meeting you for the first time than it is for everyone else. Congratulations, they now know your name, and won't soon forget it.
But you're nowhere near done. You must follow up. If you said you were curious to learn more about a certain topic, research it and have questions and conversation ready to go on it, so they know that you were serious. Create conversation that adds value, rather than focusing on the same questions everyone else asks. Once your bit is said and done, don't forget to write a thank you note, and in it address one or two additional topics you didn't touch on before. If you've done your job right, this person will remember you and tell people about you. The next time you have a similar meeting or conference, this person will likely tell other execs about you and make your job a lot easier, but that shouldn't stop you from starting the process all over again. By the time it's over with, your name will ring out loud and clear.
Free AwesomeCamp Demo Session
By Luke Murray
Okay, so this whole idea of a week of ludicrous speed business growth seems to be a bit tough for people to wrap their heads around. I feel you….that makes sense.
If someone came to me and said ‘Hey Luke, I’m going get Awesome Inc to go from 100mph to 400 mph starting basically…now!” I would at best be a bit skeptical and at worse just flat out not talk to the guy.
I'd probably be a bit defensive too, “Have you seen how hard we work? I mean, we put on 4 mobile conferences in different cities in 2 months! What…are you going to help us put on 16 in the same timeframe?”
Fine – we get it. So we decided to show you what’s possible in an action packed hour that will simulate just one of the 70+ you’ll be putting in in the 6 days of AwesomeCamp.
We’ll go through the 1 hour long ‘clarification’ process that we do with almost everybody that I help when it’s ‘on purpose’ (read – they actually scheduled some time to meet with me with a clear agenda so we could make some progress).
This session will be just a small taste of what the week will be like, but in it we’ll be able to DELIVER VALUE in a whole bunch of ways right off the bat by helping you with:
Prioritization – What are you wasting your time on that doesn’t matter? THIS STEP ALONE IS WORTH EVERY DIME OF THE CAMP’S COST! It could help you shave weeks off right away by simply NOT doing a whole bunch of stuff you think you need to do but actually don’t.-
Infrastructure – You can’t do every job…so how do you delegate and outsource the others? The answer: Build infrastructure – we’ll show some examples and help you build some of your own.-
Motivation – Worried that you don’t have what it takes – we’re going to get you pumped up AND we’ll point out several people that have LESS talent and potential than you in a lot of ways that are making it happen!-
Networking – Want to connect with people that are serious about making their ideas happen? Well, why don’t you meet them here? That way you can keep in touch with them and if you don’t go to AwesomeCamp you can just have them teach you everything they learned ;)-
MORE – We’ll have a few fun/funny surprises for you…but that’s all I’m telling you for now….
So that’s it!
Monday, June 28th at 6pm - come to a value-packed free event (that we’ll be streaming live and posting later for those that can't make it). Get a taste of how AwesomeCamp is going to go down and see if it’s something you want to do this summer!
See you there! Until then…follow rule #26 Never let stupid things keep you from doing awesome things.
Introducing AwesomeCamp!
By Luke Murray
We wanted to answer an inevitable question up front:
What’s the deal with AwesomeCamp?
Now, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by just copying and pasting the information from
the page itself (you can obviously read) so I’m going to talk more about the story BEHIND AwesomeCamp and more of what AwesomeCamp will feel like…if you want to know the schedules, mentors, cost, services, etc. – check the actual
page.
Okay, so the back story. Needless to say we have a TON of people come to Awesome Inc and just say ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for a company. What do I do?’. We’re happy to meet with these people and sometimes they have a specific request (i.e. funding, marketing, software development) and we can point them to the correct resource and we’re done….but other times it’s not that easy.
Oftentimes they will have no clue what they think they need to do. They’ll just have all these ideas about what they think they should focus on. Their mind is spinning around like a Tazmanian Devil. So we’ll spend 30 minutes to an hour with them helping them get their head on straight and figure out what they need to do, who they need to call, what they need to write, or figure out, etc.
This point is critical because now we've been able to:
1. help them get everything out of their head
2. organize all these thoughts and concepts (i.e. people will say things like "I need to design a website, do marketing, make a flier, and get a facebook page up" We’ll help them mentally simplify and ‘chunk’ things so it’s not overwhelming. In this instance, we'd point out that ‘marketing’ is really the heading, and all the other things they just mentioned go under that)
3. prioritize them
4. clarify what the three most important next action items are.
Everyone that we’ve met with that’s come to us with an idea has said that just this 30 minutes to an hour long session helps them SO MUCH by making the whole ‘business idea’ less overwhelming. It’s empowering because they know EXACTLY what they need to go out and DO IT.
If they were doing a 2 hour session with us then we’d probably be able to help them knock out the first 2 of their 3 most important action items on their list just through the contacts that we have or the zillion other business ideas that we have tested out.
It’s like the iron is red hot and ready to strike!
Heck if they spent the afternoon with us they might even have a first stinking customer!
But they don’t have all afternoon…they don’t even have two hours….now this doesn’t mean they couldn’t just go ahead and make the calls right there at the conference room table once we’re finished meeting…they could. We don’t schedule meetings for longer than 30 minutes, unless it’s an entrepreneur with an idea – in which case we sometimes give them an hour – but nothing is stopping them from making progress except their own schedules...
They just don’t have time…to run their business?
To pursue their dream?
To take action on that thing that’s been eating at them for months and sometimes years?...No time?...Really?
Well the fact is of course they have time and of course this their dream…and so is eating healthy, getting in shape, being a good dad, student, son, etc.
So other things get in the way – makes sense. Don't worry, this happens to us all the time.
But what about the things they do make time for? Video games, sports, cards, kids, work, etc.
They are comfortable doing these things. Why? They have LOTS of experience with them. They’ve done them for hours and hours on end so it just feels natural, relaxing…like they are in the zone….
Well, what do you think we feel like at Awesome Inc all day long? Startups are our ZONE! What if you came home and instead of playing video games you worked on your idea and it felt JUST AS GOOD…or how about BETTER than playing video games, watching TV, or whatever else you spend your free time doing?
How Awesome would that be?!
Okay so back to the backstory….we meet with people, get them totally psyched and prepared, they leave right when they are ready to get to work, and never actually get started (although they are completely ready) because they don’t have ‘time’ which really means they are just not comfortable with it yet. It feels like ‘work’, it’s awkward, etc.
Another thing we realized is that almost as soon as we send someone on their way, if they do start making progress, one random piece of advice or feedback from someone (especially someone that is a ‘successful businessman’ but that has never started their own company) and they jump off track in heartbeat.
Even people that have started their own business, pulled the trigger on their dreams and are living them right now come to us and tell me how they know that there are certain parts of their operation that are just plain screwed up…and I mean WAY OFF…they want to get our advice or time, etc. Sometimes we will spend some time with them right there on the spot and try to see if we can get them squared away.
But they often end up not doing anything with the system we set up for them because they have ‘so much other stuff going on’. Translate: ‘they aren’t comfortable with it yet’. It's feels awkward.
PLUS we see a lot of the
same problems in both the pre-launch and post-launch companies that we know or that come to us for advice.
SO…the thought process went like this “Okay people with ideas all need to go through a similar process to get started. They need to get comfortable with the tools and systems necessary to get them rolling and we’ve got to get them to take action as soon as they are clear about their next steps. But they need more time and probably not just an extra hour because we’ll have to keep recalibrating them for their first few steps or they might fall hopelessly off. And regardless it will take them some time to be comfortable. The same thing is happening with small startup businesses…how do we rock them more effectively and efficiently and make them not just comfortable with the process, but enjoy it?”
BAM! AwesomeCamp! (details on
that page).
Okay great…so that’s the need that we saw and the backstory…now to what will Awesomecamp feel like?!
Here it is in mathematical form for you tech guys in the house:
Party + bootcamp + deepest conversation of your life + most efficient networking event ever + personal trainer pushing you way past your ‘last rep’ + jumping off a cliff with no parachute and a box of metal…planning to build a plane on the way down = AwesomeCamp
If you’ve read about how we came to the idea, what the week should be like should be pretty obvious – we’re going to get you clear and focused, and get you to PULL THE TRIGGER, CRACK THE WHIP, MAKE IT RAIN!!!!
You’ll have super short deadlines to hit multiple times per day. Brian, Luke, and others from Team Awesome will be there to coach you in real time (almost none of the classroom lecture stuff, we will be there guiding you AS IT GOES DOWN – ever heard the phrase, it’s impossible to steer a parked car?...yeah same thing…it’s also the same reason that the UK basketball team doesn’t spend all of every practice session listening to Calipari talk and draw up plays…they GO PLAY BASKETBALL).
You’re going to be in the trenches next to other people that are pushing towards their definition of awesome.
As soon as you need to get a question answered or connected to someone – we’re on the phone with them. We’ve got a
list of mentors that have agreed to be on call for the week – willing to answer any emails or phone calls that have to do with helping AwesomeCamp participants.
We’re going to make you comfortable, with all the aspects of starting and running a business by making sure we get you spending as much time as possible ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING and that what you are doing is THE RIGHT THING.
By the time you’re finished you’ll not only be comfortable with moving rapidly on an idea, but you’ll be coached on how to move rapidly IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
We’re going to take you to some places in Lexington that we guarantee you’ve never been, introduce you to people we know you’ve never met, and most importantly we’re going to GET YOUR BUSINESS FARTHER IN A WEEK THAN YOU COULD GET IT IN A MONTH BY YOURSELF.
You’re gonna be dead tired by the end of AwesomeCamp on Saturday….but you’ll have an IDEA that is ALIVE!
So that’s the backstory. And that’s what it’s gonna feel like.
Any questions? Ask Jay Z…
“I came I saw I conquered…”
Rule #76 No excuses. Play like a champion.
luke@awesomeinc.org
SXSW Download
By Nick Such
SXSW = South-by-Southwest. "SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. "
Translation: I had a busy week in Austin with Awesome Inc.
I greatly enjoyed SXSWi 2010. No better place to make connections in the tech startup scene, while chatting with touchscreen UI designers, eating
Rudy's BBQ, catching up with old friends and making new ones, and wishing that
AplusK would get out of the way so we could extract a nugget of wisdom from
Paul Graham.
My favorite sessions
Ok, so I liked almost every session I attended. These are the ones for which I condensed my notes into sharable length:
- Touch + The Holy Grail of Delight: Met the RazorFish guys, lots of insight on what fits in public places between mobile devices and home web shopping
- The Happiness Project: Reminder that "the days are long, but the years are short", inspiration to cut back to a 1-sentence-per-day journal
- Roadtwip: met Kurt from CitySourced and heard about his adventure into the near future of America
- Third Coast, How to Be a Startup Outside of Silicon Valley: The CrowdSpring guys from Chicago shared how they did it
- Don't Move! Build a Startup Community Where You Live: Boulder, Portland, and Omaha talk about how they're growing w/o going
- Why You Aren't Done Yet: a little shot in the arm from David Heinemeier Hansson from 37Signals
- How Nerds Can Foster Democracy in Local Government: We use tech, we have different perspectives. Time to use them.
- Zero Waste, The Future of Green: Toyota did it. Austin is ambitiously on their way there. Waste is so 20th century. I've started looking into urban composting.
- Moblizing the Power of Interns and Managing GenY: Our rockstars from Team Alpha could have taught this session.
- Student Startups, Entrepreneurship in the University: why wait? Software and ideas are cheap, your time is prevalent, and your co-founders are sitting next to you in class!
- 'Seed Combinators', Startup Incubators 2.0: There was energy in this room! But too few women and 40-yr-olds. Most important session for Awesome Inc.
- Pervasive Games and Playful Experiences, Rendering the Real world: I learned this lesson through a chore challenge for my roommates: Points --> Productivity. Games have always been fun. Mobile devices just make it easier to keep score.
- How The Other Half Lives - Touring The Digital Divide: I may not have an iPhone, but most of the world is struggling to learn how to use a mouse and radio buttons. The internet scares them. How do we help? Discussion led by two librarians.
- How to Save Journalism: Led by Lexingtonian and Fark.com creator Drew Curtis, new and old media discussed their strategies for the future. Pay walls don't sound fun.
Hung out with some cool people
- On the CapMetro Bus: Baratunde, Alexander, Damien
- Monks of Invention Conclave SXSW 2010: Moshe, Shaun, Pek, Tim, Jason, Andy, Julian, Sasha, Brian,Bradley, Cecilia, Russ
- Olark: Matt, Ben, Zach
- David McGee's crew: Alex, Kennon, Brad
- Henry's friends and the Chevy Roadtrip Champions from Detroit: Hajj, Brandon
- Student Startupers: Brandon, Ellen
- RazorFish: Steve
- MobileXers: Charles, Adam, Jon M
- Kentuckians: Randall, Will, Luke, Brian, David, Drew, Jon C (now in Seattle)
Closing Thoughts
- Time to relearn web development. I was so cool writing HTML back in 1996, but the world has come a long way. Some UI/UX design insight will help for touch screen apps, too.
- Crowdsourcing some answers for this one: What is more valuable: go through a seed combinator program (get paid, network, create) or MBA (pay them, network, learn)?
- Creativity WILL drive the future. I want to be at the wheel, not just along for the ride.
- HUGE opportunity to bridge the Digital Divide (see above). It will take simplicity on the far side of complexity.
See you at SXSW 2011!
“Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars”
By Brian Raney
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One of the pictures on the break room wall at Awesome Inc is of Tom Perkins. I would speculate that most of my friends don’t know of Tom Perkins. Most of them probably don’t even know of his venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, (KPCB) which happens to be one of the first and most successful VC firms in Silicon Valley. Of course my friends heads will turn when you mention some of the companies in the KPCB portfolio – Google, Amazon, Compaq. Tom Perkins is just one of the almost forty entrepreneurial rock stars on our wall at Awesome Inc.
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Redefining the definition of “awesome” has been a core mission of Awesome Inc since we opened the doors almost a year ago. Whether it’s through rewarding success, encouraging failure, or recruiting all-stars, we plan to change the social norm. Awesome Inc is working to provide an environment where if you aren’t doing something innovative, starting your own business or building something of value, you’re the odd one out. It’s about creating a culture where hard work, innovation, and taking risks are not only encouraged, but rewarded.
Everyone on our rock star wall has done something “awesome”. Not in the sense that they are famous for what they've done, but rather that they took on insurmountable odds and took ridiculous chances where failure seemed not only probable, but almost certain. And they all did it in pursuit of their own definition of awesome.
People like Larry Page & Sergey Brin who redefined the internet search engine with the creation of Google.
People like Ralph G. Anderson whose company, Belcan, made only $200 in the first three years, but later went onto employ 4,000 people and earns $250 Mil annually.
People like David Cohen of Techstars and Paul Graham of Y Combinator who are currently changing the way investments are made in startups.
People like Lee Todd who chose challenge over comfort every step of the way from his small town in Earlington, KY, to Murray, to UK, to MIT, to launching a company that was later sold to IBM.
People like Jack Welch who worked his way up from junior engineer to become CEO of GE.
These are just some of the names that make up the wall of rock stars, their picture forming a giant “A” and “I” on the walls at Awesome Inc.
So, while our rock stars may not be like your rock stars (rule #2, Intel, 2009) they do have one in thing in common – they are changing the world.
                             
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Awesome Inc Welcomes in the Team Alpha Spring Class of 2010
By Brian Raney
We don’t have interns at Awesome Inc. We have Team Alpha - a well oiled machine that knocks out to-do lists quicker than Muhammad Ali can knock out Sonny Liston. They tackle assignments better than Ray Lewis tackled opponents in his prime. They throw down projects with more authority than Lebron James.
Unafraid of any task – from building sound proof rooms, to fixing ping pong tables, to dominating Google sketch-up, Team Alpha can and will do anything to make Awesome Inc more awesome.
This semester’s class is highly rated among startups nationwide. Allow me to introduce the Team Alpha Spring Class of 2010.
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Leading the way is Therese Henrickson. Therese is in her 2nd term and is the captain of team alpha. Some people say they’ll take talent over experience any day. I say, “give me both”. Therese is an all star and will be responsible for three primary initiatives:
1. Managing the team
2. Awesome Space administration
3. Event Coordination |
| Ashley Williams is our other returning team alpha member. Ashley was our utility player last semester and will be taking on a similar role this semester with a focus on:
1. Awesome Space administration
2. Online and Offline purchasing |
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Coming in from the University of Kentucky Department of Communication is Bert Berry and Zach Magoto. Investors beware: this dynamic duo doesn’t take no for an answer. Bert plans to focus his semester on the following:
1. Organizing the creation of the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame
2. Marketing Events
Meanwhile, Zach will be dominating these projects:
1. The creation of Awesome Media – the new media outlet for Awesome Inc
2. Awesome Space administration |
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| Another University of Kentucky undergrad, Garrett Ebel, comes in standing 6’2” and weighing 175lbs. He was recruited to Team Alpha through Startup Weekend ’09. Garrett likes to play soccer, work with his hands, and enjoys long walks through the Awesome Space while listening to #3. Garrett has one goal for the start of his career at Awesome Inc – victory over the garage and its team of junk, filth, and disorder. |
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Two team members come from local high schools through a program called EBCE. EBCE stands for EveryBody Can Execute – and so that’s exactly what this crew does! Actually it stands for Experience Based Career Education but all that matters is that Matt Storrs and Desny Guerrier follow rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Matt is spending his time on:
1. Entrepreneur Profile Wall – showcasing our rockstars including the likes of Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), and Jack Welch (GE).
2. Graphics Design
Desny has a niche focus on the arts and will be solely dedicated to making Awesome Inc more awesome looking by painting our logo all over the place and designing a giant mural for the art studio. |
| Our ace in the hole this semester is David McGee. David tweets like his life depends on it. Our online reputation lies in the hands of this young social media expert. His primary focus will be Awesome Inc’s online presence, more specifically:
1. Online Social Media for Awesome Inc – twitter, facebook, etc
2. Website Content
3. Building Community |
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No team is complete without a video highlights reel. That is where Walker Miller, Henry Clay High School senior, comes into play. Walker can simultaneously record a shoot, mix a soundtrack, and render transitions, all while making himself a sandwich. Walker’s primary focus this semester is to develop Awesome Inc’s video presence into something that Paramount Pictures will be begging to acquire within the calendar year. |
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Rounding up team alpha are three big names – two more from the University of Kentucky, Hilary Perrine, recent grad and Josh Strange, computer science genius and one from East Jessamine High, Madeline Knoblett. Hilary, Josh, and Madeline are focusing on the mobileX conference series and assisting with marketing, planning, and website development. They don’t let the fact that no one has ever pulled off five mobile conferences in a two month span in various cities throughout the Midwest before even phase them. They just execute. Period. |
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We have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy at Awesome Inc – don’t ask for extensions and don’t tell me any excuses. Its business 101 – keep a low FF (flakey factor) and a low SS (crap to substance ratio). It all goes back to rules
#21 and
#76.
So – if you’re part of team alpha, that means you’re launching a series of conferences, building a media conglomerate, inventing a hall of fame…or doing something else equally as Awesome. If you have the guts to follow
rule #22 and are interested in being part of the team, we’re accepting applications at:
http://awesomeinc.org/information/team-alpha/
Special shout outs to last semester’s team alpha for creating the environment and culture that promotes excellence -
Eric Prince, Chase Bullock, Sarah Frank, and Simeon Kondev.
Rewarding Success & Celebrating Victory
By Luke Murray
Andy Cox manages our art gallery, fixes up our art studio, and is just an all around handyman. He is great! Andy's most recent project was to install a "Victory Bell" - an idea we got from
Gray Construction - a local construction company here in Lexington that rings a giant bell mounted near the roof of their building at the closing of each contract...one ring for every million dollars the contract was worth. We decided this idea was awesome...so we replicated it for ourselves and put it in the same room as our
failure dashboard.
Almost as important as
encouraging failure is rewarding & celebrating success. Celebrating success is easy to do as long as you remember to do it. You don't have to mount a bell to a 4"x4"...just throw a party (or do whatever your company culture would consider 'fun').
Rewarding success, however, can be a little tougher because it typically requires more resources than taking an extended and festive break (aka. 'party'). Since Awesome Inc. isn't flush with cash right now (or really any other resource besides great people like Andy) we have to get creative in the ways that we reward success. Luckily we have found that most of the people that help out around here are happy and self-motivated by the intrinsic reward of doing something they consider awesome...and they stay that way. Lots of this has to do with the fact that this place is already filled with happy people, but the other part (we'd like to think) is that we've consciously made sure that those that did good work and/or succeeded in their endeavors were appreciated.
There are several ways in which you can 'positively motivate' people. In Jack Welch's book "Winning" he notes that the three main ways are: 1. Money 2. Training 3. Recognition/Reward. Some incentives (i.e. promotions) are a combination of both money and recognition. The more you are aware of what types of rewards motivate people, the more effective you can be with your resources to do so.
As I look back on the tools we've used to motivate people thus far, we really haven't used much of #1 or #2, and in the classic sense, we haven't done much with #3 either. I'd like to say that the main reason we have yet to use these tools as motivators is because we don't have the money to, but the more I look at it, the more I realize that we haven't done a very significant step. One of the most important things that needs to be in place before we can start rewarding people via #1, #2, or #3, or ringing our victory bell is that we have to have clear metrics/measurements of their success.
At Gray Construction it's very simple: One ring for every million dollars of a closed contract. At Awesome Inc. each person is working on a different project (The Interactive Touchscreen in Labs, The Awesome Inc. Experience, The Awesome Space, events, and then you have the individual companies) and while each company has clear goals and milestones, we have yet to pick which ones are important enough to be celebrated or rewarded with a party, a bell ringing, or anything else. We need to define 'celebratable' success for each department or project. Maybe we should only ring it for every million dollars we make as well? The point is we have to define which success should get celebrated before we can start throwing parties just yet.
Up to this point we have done a very good job with giving people recognition informally in weekly meetings, or giving small gifts or (and this is hands down the most important and most effective) being frequently and sincerely appreciative of people's help. But as we move forward, we need to crystallize our definition(s) of success so we can apply more principles of motivation to encourage it...and so do you, that is, if you expect to motivate your team towards awesomeness as well.
Just remember that when you do throw that party, follow rule #17...
"Bring the Fun"
How to Get People to Fail More
By Luke Murray
Winners are the ones who fail.
Failures are the ones who never play.
First, the best podcasts on entrepreneurship are the ones found at Stanford's Entrepreneur Corner, or e-corner (http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html). Speakers for Stanford’s Entrepreneur Seminar Series include such high profile people as Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO), Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO), and Mark Zuckerberg (facebook founder & CEO). However, one of the best talks I've heard in this series (and I've listened to at least half of the 100+ lectures) is by the director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program - Tina Seelig. She teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and gave a talk on how to do this well.
The part from the lecture that stuck out to me the most was how much she encouraged failure. The ratio of your successes to failures is probably going to stay the same, so the path to more successes is more failures. The same is true in so many other things in life - the salesman with the most sales has probably been told 'no' the most, the baseball player with the most hits probably has the most strikeouts, the musician with the most hit singles probably has more "dud" songs than other musicians...and the person with the most successful company has probably had more failed companies and more failures within their current company than the person with the mediocre company.
So, if failure is so important to success, then why don't people do it? The same reason they don't go skydiving or ride rollercoasters...the perception of danger. 99.99% of the time, going skydiving or riding in a rollercoaster will not kill you or even hurt you. But people see what could happen and this keeps them from doing it. To a much lesser degree, people don't embrace failure in life because of the perceived pain as well. Getting shot down by a girl at a bar doesn't actually physically harm you or put you in danger in any way. Neither does being rejected when selling a product, or putting together an event that nobody shows up to. It's just not worth the perceived danger or the damage to our egos or feelings.
How do you fight this? How do you create a culture that embraces and celebrates failures? We don't know yet, but here at Awesome Inc. we must figure it out if we want to build a culture full of winners. This is what we've done so far:
- Go Big Friday - fail big every Friday. The risk must have a massive potential upside for you and a very high likelihood of failure. It must be at least somewhat relevant to your personal goals (i.e. contact the president of the most successful company in town and ask to meet with them). Twitter hashtag: #gobigfriday. Website: www.throughfailure.com
- The Failure Dashboard - a large whiteboard in the middle of our break room where you record your failure & the lesson you learned from it. Awards will be given monthly for the largest failure and the highest number of failures each month.
What ideas do you have that would help create a culture that encourages trying new things and embraces failure as a tool to reach success?
Start-Up Slam: Six New Kentucky Companies by Lunch
By Matt McGarvey
That's right...six new innovation-driven Kentucky companies started by lunch. Not a bad morning’s work. Ten additional entrepreneurs signed-up for vouchers to start their company within the next 90 days.
This was the outcome of a Start-up Slam held in Lexington on Friday, November 20th at Awesome Inc. Start-up Slams are a new experiment of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC) and its partners – the Cabinet for Economic Development’s Department of Commercialization and Innovation and the Council on Postsecondary Education…as part of an ongoing strategy to build new entrepreneurial companies in the State. Slams bring together entrepreneurs and business professionals in a high-energy setting to learn, network and start innovation-driven companies.
A similar event was held in October in Louisville at the Louisville Science Center and one is scheduled for Northern Kentucky on March 19, 2010 at NKU’s Center for Entrepreneurship. A potential 25 to 30 new companies could be started as a result of just the Louisville and Lexington events alone. Slams are now in the works for Eastern and Western Kentucky as well.
For additional information or to learn more about the Start-Up Slams,
click here or contact Matt McGarvey at (859) 233-3502 ext. 240 or mmcgarvey at kstc.com.
