The 99 Conference post mortem
It’s rare to attend a conference where everything seems tailored exactly for you and your way of thinking. And yet this is what the 99% conference felt like. The 2-day conference featured an assortment of speakers covering a range of topics having to do with “making ideas happen” or, in other words, increasing productivity. Interestingly, for me, the main theme to emerge was the value of communication—verbal or visual—to that end.
The power of storytelling
Jay O’Callahan, storyteller, was compelling in his skillful demonstration of the power of stories on our imagination and understanding using an excerpt of Forged in the Stars, the story he created for NASA to celebrate its 50th anniversary. He also explained the importance of presenting a developing story to an audience when the story is solid enough to be told and improved upon. He delved into how using listener appreciation can allow the teller to identify the successful points worth emphasizing which will result in a natural minimizing of the less successful ones.
Progress through iteration
Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect, spoke of the need for iterative development when exploring the best avenue for an idea. He memorably chose the example of the Ice Hotel in Sweden and the—seemingly meandering—path that led to it. In fact using various incarnations of the core idea, which is that people seem to be willing to pay and travel to interact with ice, allowed the instigator to minimize costs whilst still getting the information he needed to refine the idea. Here once again the process included communication and interactions with the right audiences to gauge response.
Small steps to a big plan
Leslie Koch, President of Governors Island—a truly unique space just off the coast of Manhattan—illustrated convincingly the necessity to continually and consistently express a long-term, macro vision but to cement it in small, quantifiable acts as stepping stone to making it reality.
Leveraging community
In that same vein the notion of sharing ideas with like-minded people and naysayers alike was explored by several speakers, including Jack Dorsey, creator and co-founder or Twitter and Fred Wilson, venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures. Sharing ideas early and at critical points in their development yields immediate real-life feedback from people who don’t necessarily share your obsessions and may help shed light on the holes in your thinking or approach.
Knowing when to retreat
The flip side of all this communication—whether it’s leveraged to test, to convince, to set-up a framework for accountability or to simply move forward—is the necessity for incubation time. Ideas come from our obsessions and passions. To maintain their integrity and determine their future, we must be prepared to digest then set external feedback aside and make decisions for ourselves.
Day One of the conference left me inspired and pensive, which was a perfect mood to move into Day Two.
If Day One was centered on bridging vision and action in fairly general terms or using other people’s experiences, Day Two’s workshops were decidedly in the practical realm. I attended Simon Sinek’s Start with Why in the morning and Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen in the afternoon. They both focussed on clarity of intent and consistency of execution. Simon spoke specifically of finding your passion and expressing it to allow people with similar values and culture to find you in a crowded marketplace. Scott’s workshop consisted mostly of an informal exchange of best practices surrounding workplace communications (between employees, with clients, with the community through social networking) and personal productivity systems.
In both cases the moderators used knowledge that is compiled in their respective books: Making Ideas Happen and Start with Why. I found both sessions to be interesting and valuable though neither of them yielded any real “a-ha” moments. I recognise that the success of most productivity techniques rely on the personal adaptations we make of them, but one thought for future installments might be to make the workshops more like workshops. This might better echo the saying that stylishly adorns the yellow conference tees: a little less conversation and a little more action.
Were you at the conference? What were memorable/useful moments for you?
Thanks for the summary. I would like to hear more about “Knowing when to retreat” and the framework for incubation. Were there any resources provided you could share?
Thanks for that Steve. There were no resources given as the conference didn’t focus on having ideas but making them happen. Jack Dorsey spoke of pulling back and letting his idea for Twitter sit for a while until he was reminded of it when the market seemed ready. He also spoke of luck or the ability to recognize opportunity when it manifests itself. All ideas are different but the key might be a balance of instincts and due diligence.
Thanks Isabelle. Was really considering going this year — wish I had!
Oh well, next year. Are you coming to Design Week? Congrats on Design DNA : )
[...] contributed to the feeling of alienation. I first heard of Governors Island’s rebirth in April and have been curious to see it for [...]
Leave a comment
Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked*
Please be constructive.