Where to Begin…

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

Hey guys.

I’m sorry for not sooner getting back to writing after our time in Finland with Like Minds Conversation Helsinki. Part of it is that I just don’t know where to begin. So I guess a good place to start is to first thank those who put in much of the hard work, my team:

This is Jonny, James, Rachel, Jon, John, Jason and Claudia. The oldest in the photo is me (26), and the youngest is James (15).

All of these guys are punching well above their age. Jason, for instance, who has worked with me for almost a year now, and on all the Like Minds events thus far, is personally known by everyone of our Like Minds Alumni – a collection of 50 industry leaders like Mel Exon, Olivier Blanchard, Molly Flatt, Maz Nadjm, John Bell and the rest.

I keep on saying, over and over and over that firstly, it’s all about people, and that secondly, one is too small a number to achieve signficiance.

Well here are the guys who are helping Like Minds be significant - most recently by using our international platform to promote the incredible work being done in Helsinki.

That last sentence made an important distinction that you might’ve missed – so I’ll make it clearer: Like Minds is about using an event to promote a community, and not about using a community to promote an event. If one is too small a number to achieve significance (and it is), then you need to partner with the communities around you to build something of shared value to everyone.

It’s far too easy to crucify people on the altar of running the event that was built to serve people in the first place. In other words, the event is made for people, not people for the event.

In building participatory events (or attendee-centered events as they are known), you have to be very prepared in order to make it as easy as possible for your participants to learn, but you never sacrifice their learning at the expense of standards or protocol.

I have lots of things that I want to talk about that I’ve experienced over the last 2 weeks. It’s the amount of stuff that has happened and that I’ve learnt that has literally paralyzed me from communicating it. But – I must get it down. I’ll post some of it at the Like Minds site, and then carry out some deeper analysis on the topics and ideas here that we can then munch over and discuss.

I also want to, again, thank you for your support and encouragement. I felt it everyday that I was there.

Yours,
Scott

In A Year…

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Scott Gould

I started this blog of ours a year ago today. Since then, well, awesome things have happened.

A year ago I never thought I’d be running an event in Helsinki today, or meeting the incredible people I’ve got to meet, or spend a day consulting Finland on their Social Media strategy.

But more so, I never thought I’d appreciate people I’ve never physically met so much.

Thank you guys.
Scott

Building The Kingdom: Generalists and Specialists

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Scott Gould

We’ve been discussing the mini-series of “Building the Kingdom”, which has been a very insightful time for us to hear from one another on what it takes to build something that is strong, influential and significant. Notice I don’t say successful, which has personal and financial nuances, but rather I say significant, which instead speaks of legacy and making a difference to others.

Today I want to discuss something that came from our church leadership team, and is something that we have been thinking about and working out over the last 9 months.

A Leadership Dilemma

Despite having pioneered a number of successes over the last 7 years that I have been self employed, 6 months ago I found myself again in an all too familiar situation: I hadn’t built team, evidenced by these core symptoms:

I was doing a lot of the final production work that was being delivered in my areas of responsibility
I kept attracting people to myself who weren’t team builders themselves
I wasn’t regularly adding people into my teams
I wasn’t getting past the issues of scaling my areas, due to a lack of team
I was the bottleneck for at least 70% of the tasks being done in my areas of responsibility

The diagnosis? I was a perfectionist. Or rather, I was a specialist.

Specialists

If it’s focussing on one particular task or element that you often find yourself doing, tinkering over one cog in a machine almost obsessively, then you may well be a specialist.

Specialists are those who have a perfectionist, often creative, streak and tend to over focus on something in order to master it. They can multi-task, but they find it hard to have too many priorities in general in their life at a time, and often when a few interest or ‘fad’ is found, the old interests are cast aside.

As a result of their ability to focus deeply on one thing, they can produce at a high level of excellence in their interest. This is why I find most academics, creatives, athletes, geniuses and such are specialists.

Generalists

If it is organising multiple parts of a project, having an instinctive ability to put people to task, and bringing an idea to fruition, then you’re likely to be a generalist.

I think most people who are ‘born leaders’, and tend to be the typical number 1, are generalists because they see the bigger picture. If the specialist is obsessing over the function of a single cog, it is the generalist is overseeing the production of the machine – or rather it’s ability to produce.

Generalists tend to think with the end picture and with result, whereas specialists (myself) are more motivated by things being done right and in their perfect order.

Putting Them Together

For team building you need both generalist and specialists, and they need each other to achieve significance. As it’s said, one is too small a number to achieve significance:

A generalist, the natural team builder, needs the specialists to perform the expert and intricate tasks, in order to achieve an end result
A specialist needs the generalist to focus their work and link it together with other specialists, in order to achieve an end result

Nature and Nurture

The big question then, coming back to where I found myself 6 months ago, is can you be a specialist and become a genrealist, and vice versas?

Having discussed this concept with our church leadership team 6 months ago, I gained the self-insight that I am a specialist by nature. Every since I was a kid, I’ve had a fascination with order and doing things right, and focussed obsessively on my creative endeavors to make them the best that I could.

However the dilemma was facing me: I wasn’t building team. Through gaining the self-insight into myself, I was able to deduce two things:

I have influence with people because I have focus, expertise and a good track record
I can learn anything that I decide to specialise in by obsessing over it

Therefore, I decided that I could turn my obsession onto becoming a team builder, and expand my influence into building my team.

The result? I’d like to discuss that later, actually. What I’d like to discuss now though, is what I’d like your leading thoughts on.

Your Leading Thoughts

Are you a generalist or a specialist? Why? What’s the evidence for either?
Can you learn one or the other?
Are their General Specialists and Special Generalist? If so, what the two axis in this 2×2?

Like Minds Conversation Helsinki

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Scott Gould

Tomorrow is a big day for me as I leave for Helsinki to hold the first international Like Minds event – Like Minds Conversation Helsinki: Real Time in Real Life.

I am, of course, thrilled. I’m going to be meeting some exceptional people over this coming week, as well as taking with me a contingent of exceptional people to Helsinki to engage in a very exciting learning experience.

This has also been a learning experience for me. I can tell you right away I’ve made mistakes and learned some valuable lessons for the future, mainly about community and how to organise an event over email and phone, without being there. Whilst I’ve spoken at events and planned events around the world, this is the first time I have planned an event from afar. I’ll be sharing these lessons over the coming weeks – probably in video form – which will be good to get your input on too.

Want to know one of them now? Ok, you’ve pulled my leg.

We received a lot of praise and feedback for how well Like Minds Conference 2010 was organised, which I have to agree with. Without being arrogant, it was the most well organised event that I have designed, and it was the best event that I have ever been to with regards to being minute perfect (which is mainly down to my wonderful wife Faye.)

We were pretty prepared for that, but I never knew how easy it was until planning Like Minds Conversation Helsinki. The level of preparation that you need for an international event that you are organised virtually, as opposed to physically, is ten-fold, and likewise communication is ten-fold and the amount of lead time you require, and advance booking of all the elements is also ten-fold. I’ve already outlined how to improve this, and am already drawing up the partnership documents and the event run sheet for Washington DC in September and then Exeter in October now.

My Itinerary This Week

My itinerary is arrive in Helsinki on Tuesday, and then meet with the local press and media as well as locals in general during the day. If you are in Helsinki, let me know. I want to meet you!

Wednesday night I am speaking, as you know, at Dicole Oz on People-to-People (which will be streamed live), and then Thursday 17th June is the big day – Like Minds Conversation Helsinki.

You’ll be able to follow the event live online at http://www.twitterface.com/likeminds, thanks to the wonderful team at Fresh ID, lead by my friends Lisa Qualls and the inestimable Kristi Colvin. Please do support me on the day by tuning in and also engaging on the #likeminds hashtag.

Then Friday I am privileged enough to take our team of speakers and guests and spend a day with Visit Finland, the tourist board of the country, discussing and developing a Social Media plan for the country. I can’t begin to tell you how humbled I am that I find myself in this position – it doesn’t seem real to be honest to think I’ll be consulting a country – and I certainly feel the weight of the responsibility. Of course, the team of people we have is exceptional and I have every confidence that we will deliver a very high degree of value for Visit Finland.

Probably the biggest thing in all of this (and as much as it seems a big deal, I know it’s still a small thing in the grand scheme and all), is that this is all happened quite unexpectedly. This is a theme I want to discuss later – I can categorically tell you that 6 months ago (with Like Minds already underway), I didn’t think I’d be here. And a year ago, I certainly didn’t think I’d ever be here.

And where is here, exactly?

I’m not here for profit. I’m here for a cause. I believe that the connections I am making, and the community I am fostering, will be a force for change, and ultimately, for the spiritual and physical benefit of many.

Photo from Like Minds Conference 2010, courtesy of Benjamin Ellis.

Developing A Strong ‘NO’

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Scott Gould

Last week, Rich Quick posted an excellent comment on this blog, talking saying “NO”. It came in the middle of the discussion of the 5 innovations of the iPad, and that Apple’s strength was by saying no to a lot of things, in order to have a stronger and more defined yes. In actual fact, MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote the same thing yesterday.

Rich’s comment was so good, and so encapsulated the journey that I’ve been on over the last 2 years (and in particular, the last 2 months), that I’d like to share it with all of you. Consider it a lesson in “No.”

The question to ask yourself as you read is, like Apple, what should you say “no” to, so that you can “yes” to?

If you need more advice on a “strong no” when you’re done with this, then watch this video from Robin Dickinson on the subject.

How Rich Quick Learnt To Say No

By Rich Quick

It’s something I’ve discovered over the course of my business career anyway. The power of “no”.

I come from a sales background. Salespeople love the word “yes”, it makes them money.

I also trained to be a teacher – and both my parents were teachers. (Good) teachers also love to say “yes”. Yes, I can help you. Yes, you did do well on your homework.

So, “no” come unnaturally to me. Continue reading →

Transparency in 2012

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Scott Gould

This week began interestingly when I commented on a Telegraph article on the iPhone 4, which had it’s ‘10 reasons not to buy the iPhone 4‘, none of which were factually grounded.

I commented saying that it was poor journalism considering it was false information, but the shock came when my comment was promptly deleted. What followed, as you can imagine, was a storm in a tea cup of accusation to the writer of the article and the Telegraph when it was clear they were not just deleting but actually EDITING a large number of the comments that people were making.

Of course, we all know how poor this behaviour is, but I want to look at it in the light of another post by Vikki Chowney at Reputation Online the week before, looking at a recent example of crisis management from Starbucks.

Starbucks’ Facebook page was jacked and a large number of offensive messages were broadcast to it’s 7.5m fans. Starbucks got to work and deleted the comments (which took a long time), but then received criticism for removing all presence of these messages without acknowledging what had taken place. Vikki asked me for my insights, but I think our friend Olivier Blanchard made a great comment in which he said what I was quoted as saying better:

Deleting a comment because it is “inconvenient” is a big no-no. You can’t do that in this space, as Nestle found out. However, deleting (or not approving) a comment because it is purposely offensive and malicious is absolutely fine. I wouldn’t bury the deletion though. It doesn’t hurt to state that one or several comments were deleted because they were offensive and violated the the rules of acceptable behavior on the community page. That takes care of the transparency issue. Starbucks shouldn’t sweat it, though. They did the right thing and acted responsibly in this instance.

Here’s my point: Transparency in 2012 will mean documentation of every action.

You can’t just change anything anymore. The Wikipedia model, that every change (no matter how miniscule) is documented is going to become the standard.

For the Telegraph, this means that if you really must moderate and eject comments that touch your brand, then you need to put them in an ‘eject section’ that can be perused if users so wish. (By the way, watch this and tell what is difference between Nestlé and Telegraph?)

For Starbucks, it means and me and Olivier pointed out, you need to acknowledge the incident at the least.

Your Leading Thoughts

How do you think this will effect bloggers like myself? Like editing pages and posts?
How do you think this translates into deleting tweets, etc? Does this mean we have to think a lot more before we tweet?
Most importantly: Why is transparency becoming a big deal?

Building The Kingdom: Knowing Me, Knowing You

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Scott Gould

My friend Robin Dickinson had what I described as the greatest blog ever recently. His post “Share Words“, in which he gave hands on advice on assisting people with their own share words – short phrases to help him share what they are about – to every person who commented. The best bit was how the community began helping one another with their share words, and to date, there are 697 comments.

To be a king maker, you have to know your kings. The strongest teams are those who know each other inside out, and can maximise each other’s strengths and minimise each other’s weaknesses. This is why Robin’s share words are so important, because they help us know each other.

Knowing you, and you knowing me, means that we don’t compete with each other but we complete each other:

When anyone asks me who to speak to about digital publishing, I tell them it’s Andrew Davies and Ed Barrow at Idio.
If anyone needs measurement and integration consultancy with Social Media, I tell them they need to speak to Olivier Blanchard and attend Red Chair in London later this month.
Anyone who is overloaded I tell to read Robin Dickinson’s blog immediately and start developing diamond-focus.
Those who want Social Media advice and are in Bristol or Cheltenham I tell to speak to Chris Hall and attend Media140 in Bristol this month.
Any person who wants to really impact on a social scale I hook up with Stephanie Rudat and the exceptional work she is doing, or point to Jeff Hurt and Dave Lutz to learn how to improve learning.
For those wanting to take their organisations beyond marketing, I refer them to Ann Holman.

And likewise, these people are plugging people into me who need the strengths that I have.

The Multiplying Effect of People-to-People

When we talk people-to-people like this, we encounter a multiplying effect. A scripture in the bible that confounded me for years was “One can put a thousand to flight, two can put ten thousand to flight.” I never understood how 1+1 could equal 10, but then I began to realise that if I spend my day doing what I am best at, and let others do what they are best at, then I no longer have to waste my time and neither do they. My day becomes more productive, and our combined productivity equals a 10.

The big question of course is “do you know me?” – or rather – “do I know you?” The volume-based game that most are playing online booms with a resounding “No” because everyone is too busy building their own super personal ego brand, complete with logo and 30 day programme, that they don’t have the time nor the inclination to get to know you.

However people-to-people is not a volume but value play and we must know each other – and know each other well. Without this, we do not understand each other’s strengths and therefore don’t achieve this multiplication of strengths.

The answer then is plain: know me, and enable me get to know you.

Note: this is an active pursuit, and the one of a leader. Followers not necessary.

Your Leading Thoughts

How do you get to really know people, practically?
How are you managing those relationships successfully and ensuring that you build deep, value-based relationships rather than getting sucked into the volume game that most people play?

P.S. If you have no idea what that photo above is about, watch this.

People-to-People: The Future Of Everything

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Scott Gould

On Wednesday 16th June, the evening before Like Minds Conversation Helsinki, I have the honour of being invited to speak at the prestigious Dicole Oz meetup.

Dicole Oz is hoted by Teemu Arina, one of our panelists at Like Minds, who Joe Pine referred me to – so it’s like minds allround.

I’m guessing most of you won’t be there in person (in fact, it’s full already) – but you can watch the live stream here at 18:45 on Wednesday 16th June, Helsinki Time.

I’m going to talk about People-to-People: The Future of Everything, something that any regular reader here will understand. People-to-People is the new way that we are operating in a knowledge economy, where people are more valuable than parts, and success is built not by the speed of a machine, but by the strength of your team. (Yes, there will lots of rhyming.)

Here’s the Test

I want to go to Helsinki and talk about this community. I want to talk about Exeter and bringing £100,000 into a city’s economy through social media. I want to talk about the stories of like minded individuals across the world – most of whom haven’t met yet. I want to talk about the depth of discussion that we generate here.

What I need are your stories and examples – from the boardroom, to the big deals, to the unique engagement, to the personal touches, to the new friendships – so that I go to Helsinki equipped with the examples to show what a people-to-people community looks like.

Let’s talk:

The 5 Innovations of the iPad

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Scott Gould

There’s been an iPad in my office for 2 months or so already, but with the UK release, I thought now would be a better time to talk about it. Whilst I’ll inevitably discuss some of the features, I want to keep to what I see as the key points of innovation, and draw some learning from those for future application.

Let me say right from the start: I think the iPad is a revolutionary device. Not so much for the device, actually, as it really is the culmination of 10 years of exceptional innovation from Apple that has created the right ecosystem to deliver the iPad. Without the ecosystem, it wouldn’t work.

So, here are the 5 innovations of the iPad:

1. You’re already using the iPad, even if you don’t have one

Because we are all pretty much accustomed to using some form of app store for our mobile device, whether it’s the iPhone or not, means that we are already using the iPad. You’ll understand what I mean when you get to holding the device, and then realise that there is no learning curve here – you already know how to use it, and if you’re on the iPhone, you already have a bunch of apps that are iPad apps that you know how to use and have installed.

This shows the power of the ecosystem that Apple have created – something that I would argue is actually Apple’s Real Asset that they’ve built over the last 10 years. They have easily tied in a new device into their existing ecosystem with such barrier-free adoption. I wonder what else they could do it with…

The fact that you already have been taught how to use it makes me think of Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch, who say that it’s easier to start a journey that is already part of the way there, than start a shorter journey where you have to begin right at the beginning. With the iPad, it’s all the former. Once I installed the iPad from my iPhone backup, I had all my apps and settings in place, optimised for the new device. I’m already most of the way there. Continue reading →