 Last year I enjoyed reading Abundance by this same pair of authors, and earlier this year I heard that the "sequel" was coming out soon. And now I just finished reading that sequel, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World.
I actually liked this second book a lot more as it went into much greater depth on a few important advances and actually gave lots of details and advice on how to execute on big ideas step by step. I also really enjoyed the specific anecdotes and transcripts of launch announcements, emails, blog posts, etc. that people have used successfully in the past. The book does a great job cataloguing the best practices and tools people use to get stuff up and running quickly and inexpensively; it's a great inspiration to kick your butt in gear and just work on SOMETHING. I enjoyed learning more about the founding ideas behind Google X and other corporate skunk works in the past. I also liked the enumeration of Peter's own personal collected wisdom and sayings ("Peter's Laws"). I was personally really impressed with what I learned about the state of 3D printing, what's been achieved, and how it's even feasible leveraging the cloud and the crowd. I really want to investigate that further myself and tinker in that space. Below are some of my notes and takeaways. Intro: birth of exponential entrepreneur Exponential technology is like an asteroid threatening the dinosaurs The worlds biggest problems are the biggest business opportunities Manual for exponential entrepreneur Part 1 exponential technology 1 goodbye linear thinking Kodak intended modern photography Its inventors created digital camera but buried and ignored it Cornered by the market Didn't realize what exponential growth would do 6 d Digitalization Spreads ideas Free to reproduce and share Deception Initial progress seems slow because numbers small But doubling quickly overcomes this with patience Disruption Breaks old businesses Demonetization Removal of money from equation Free Give stuff away Shadow economy Dematerialization Disappearance of actual old physical goods Democratization Hard costs drop so low that available for everyone Exponential organization Leverage networks and crowd The question is scale Quirky: crowd sourced product development and invention Air bnb Über 2 exponential technology Finding tech at cusp between deceptive and disruptive Public sentiment initially drops Nice new interface helps accelerate development 3d printing Tools created subtractive manufacturing Invention of addictive manufacturing Fully customized products Cubesats Made in Space Printing on ISS MakeU labs Cloud printing on others' 3d printers Customized products 3 five to change the world Networks and sensors Infinity computing and beauty of brute force Autodesk Computing not scarce Ai: expertise on demand Watson on cloud Modernizing medicine app for derm Jarvis user interface Robotics Robo jockeys for camel racing Genomics and synthetic biology Part 2; bold mindset 4 climb on bold Skunkworks Kelly Johnson 14 rules of skunk Business as unusual High hard goals Autonomy, mastery, and purposes Google X Progress must be measurable 10X goal Googles eight innovation principles Focus on the user Share everything Look for ideas everywhere Think big but start small Never fail to fail: fail fast and forward Spark with imagination, fuel with data Be a platform Have a mission that matters Flow states have triggers, requires focus Environmental triggers High consequences and risks Rich environment: novelty, unpredictability, complexity Psychological triggers Clear goals: sub goals; emphasis on the clear; challenging but manageable Immediate feedback; daily reviews Challenge skill ratio; midpoint between boredom and anxiety Social triggers: group flow Serious concentration Shared clear goals Good communication and immediate feedback Equal participation Element of risk Familiarity and common language Blended egos and humility Sense of control Closeness and being in real time Always say yes and Creative triggers: increase the amount of novelty in your life 5 The secrets of going big Born above line of super credibility Want to launch way above line of credibility so obvious to PPl they should get involved Shift audience mindset from probabilities to implications Familiarity matters: start with ppl who already know ur skills Slow down and study feasibility Staging ur ideas Sub goals How to make stone soup: passion is what starts project and others contribute things they think of Passionate ppl are beacons attracting others Asked for rfps and got others to contribute Peter's laws: mindset matters; write down your own laws to have external hard drive when ur internal one is guaranteed to crash (to avoid fight/flight/freeze) If anything can go wrong, fix it Best way to predict future is to create it yourself When faced without a challenge, make one; need to be alive to stay alive No simply means begin one level higher When given a choice take both; multiple parallel projects The ratio of something to nothing is infinite; doing something better than nothing Expert is someone who can tell you how something can't be done Multiple projects lead to multiple successes Start at the top then work your way up Do it by the book but be the author When forced to compromise ask for more If u can't win change the rules If u can't change the rules then ignore them Perfection is not optional Don't walk when u can run When in doubt, think Patience is a virtue but persistence to success is a blessing Squeaky wheel gets replaced Faster u move, slower time passes, longer u live U get what u incenticize If u think it's impossible then it is for u Day before something is a breakthrough it's a crazy idea If it was easy it would have been done already Without a target u miss it every time Fail early, fail often, fail forward If u can't measure it u can't improve it Most precious resource is persistent and passionate human mind Bureaucracy conquered with persistence, confidence, bulldozer 6 billionaire wisdom: thinking at scale Elon musk Passion and purpose Start with first principles Loss aversion and narrow framing: think more broadly Think probabilistically Richard Branson Having fun and giving others fun Experimental customer service Risk mitigation Jeff bezos Long term thinking, market leadership, focus on what will not change over next 10 years Customer centric thinking Larry page Why not and why not bigger Healthy disregard for impossible Toothbrush test Even when fail to do something ambitious, u end up doing something important Part 3 the bold crowd 7 crowdsourcing Size of crowd will double Comm tech improving exponentially New tech from before accessible to masses Case study 1 Freelancer.com: coding and design, science Case study 2 Tongl: creative ads Case study 3 Recaptcha and duolingo Crowdsourcing tasks Microtasks and macro tasks Creative and operational assets Caddle Topcoder Testing and discovering insights utest Abundancehub.com Crowdsourcing.org Crowdsortium Establish context and be specific Prepare your data set Qualify your workers and give a few a trial run Define clear simple roles Communicate clearly, in detail, and often Don't micromanage; encourage new ways of thinking Pay to play; go for quality first, price will be low no matter what Prepare for flood of ideas Be open to new working methodologies 8 crowdfunding Provides social proof Donation: charity Debt: microlending Equity Reward Pebble watch Late prototyping stage Product is community focused and consumer facing Market validation and real demand measurement Stepping stone to raising bigger funding Development of paying customer community Cheap cac How to guide for execution Scarcity in rewards Key team members Use language with Reciprocity, social proof, liking, authority Put faces to ideas in video Affiliates, advocates, activists Launch announcement critical Sample emails to supporters Live streaming Trend surfing, keywords Upselling 9 community DIY community and exponential community Galaxy zoo Citizen science website Law of niches: u are not alone in oddball interest Locomotors Underserved pent up need and fantasy Topcoder 9 stages of community building 10 incentive prizes Clear goal Freedom from bureaucracy Linked new business opportunity HeroX
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Back in January, I hosted Mick Ebeling at Google LA for an Authors@Google talk. Mick is an award-winning film/television/commercial producer, philanthropist, idea-generator, and author. He discussed the maker movement and his new book Not Impossible: The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn't Be Done. It was inspirational and really made me wonder how I too can make a similar big impact.  I just finished reading In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. It was a gory, wild tale of the Nantucket whaling ship attacked by a whale, where only a few sailors barely survived to tell the tale. The story was riveting and unbelievable and was the inspiration for Melville's Moby Dick.
It really got me thinking about the intensity of human clinging to life and ability to withstand extreme conditions. I can't believe how unlucky and lucky the survivors were at the same time: the captain managed to be on TWO whaling boats that sunk over the course of his career and yet managed to be saved by randomly passing ships. I was impressed with the sailors' abilities to rig up their lifeboats for sailing thousands of miles and to figure out where in the world they were without GPS/radio/etc. The in-depth details of whale and tortoise killings (as well as the cannibalism) were my least favorite parts of the book, though they showed me how deeply the author researched the story. I was sad to read about how xenophobia, racism, and disrespect for animals got these sailors into such trouble. Overall, it was a very entertaining story, and below are some of my notes. Preface Whaling industry Inspiration for Melville and moby dick 1 Nantucket island Superstitious about the sea Whale oil Separate island culture Equal pay for blacks Minimal pay for years of work with only months at home 2 countdown Not following safety procedures in storm Aggressive decision making No margin for error 3 first blood Special language for spotting whale There she blows Bloodlust for whale Minuscule food provisions 4 Mysteries in the Galapagos Problems on the ship Collecting tortoises for food and oil like with whales 5 Enormous size of pacific No caution in whale boats Noticed whale near them but didn't try to avoid Whale rammed ship Largest brain of any mammal Echolocation and clicks to communicate 6 the plan Avoided unknown islands like Tahiti which they were afraid of but much closer to them Suspicions of unknown Xenophobia Democratic leadership worse in disasters than authoritarian 7 at sea Daily rituals and log keeping for sanity Salvaged items and rigged up ghetto mast Damaged food provisions and thirst Prayer meetings Instinct to keep clinging together Could've stopped at Society Islands but decided to go on at sea 8 centering down 9 there is land Found island Afraid of savages Had to leave island again for real settlement 10 whisper of necessity Deaths to starvation 11 games of chance Leadership in impossible circumstances Shackleton Narrow hopes bound us to life (job) Casting lots to kill one to save others: one for who would die and who would kill But games of chance not allowed for Quakers 12 in the eagle's shadow Active passive approach to survival Give yourself up to what happens Found ship randomly sailing nearby when we're just about to die 13 homecoming Both ships saved by other ships Those left on island saved as well Public judging those who resorted to cannibalism Saved sailors returning home and telling story Went back to sailing 14 consequences Lunar observations to determine longitude New ship hit coral reef Had to be saved again Melville joined as sailor and read account of Essex Sailors coming back to new children of theirs Huge fire in Nantucket Whale population resilient but became angrier Another boat broken by whale in same waters Epilogue: bones Beached whale Bones are all that are left |
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