From: Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

- Rowan Simpson, in Idealog

- Rowan Simpson, in Idealog

Google Reader

This is a handy little application that allows you to add all of your web sites into, such as favourites and then it will tell you when they are up-dated, and how many up-dates there are.  So instead of having to troll through of your favourites, you just click on one website, and then you can also read them within Google Reader.  It halves the time I spend going through my favourites, making me think “geeze theres nothing on the internet, just like TV.”

Google Talk

Skype may have the strong hold on computer video chatting but it can be pretty messy.  Google also have their version Google Talk attached to Gmail, and you can do audio or video calls PC to PC for free.  It is much clearer, and more reliable connection than using Skype.  I will be thrashing this in the UK!

He argues that innovation isn’t a sudden light bulb, just like success not being a sudden exponential curve. Instead he argues innovation follows the predictable 10,000 hours.

“… when you look at the lives of truly innovative people or organizations, you discover that the opposite is true. Innovation is what happens after a long period of intensive hard work.”

But he brings in two concepts which I like, around learning achievement strategies. One is called capitalization strategy and the other is a compensation strategy.  Capitalization is where you build on your strengths and try to be innovative from there. The compensation strategy is around making up for your weaknesses, and Gladwell gives examples of people like Richard Branson who is dyslexic. How when we have difficulties we have to learn our way around them, and thus learn skills we would not have otherwise learnt, and consequently be innovative. I like that theory – especially because I didn’t do well at school… actually I barely passed bursary!

“At the end of the day, being hungry is more important to being successful and innovative in a given field than entering the field with all of those advantages [of the capitalization strategy].”

I think it is good he points this out, because it barely touches on it in Outliers, and I think it is a major facet of what we end up doing, or being or evoling into.

“… when people are aware of what their weaknesses are and they try to overcome them, that makes them better, more innovative, more creative than people who capitalize on their strengths.”

“When you are facing difficult times, we have an ability to be creative and innovative that was denied to us when everything came easily.”

He also breaks down innovators into two types: conceptual innovators are people who have big grand ideas, all of sudden and execute them quickly, and experimental innovators who start out slowly and carefully, and go through that slow gradual process of trial and error. Gladwell, of course points out that developing slowly through experimental innovation has advantages, all conducive to the end product being bigger through the 10,000hr rule.

“There are things that cannot be solved overnight; they can’t be solved easily, and can only be solved through a process of trial and error. We must be willing to let ourselves fail if we are ever to solve problems.”

In many ways I despise the show me what you’ve got philosophy that is prevalent in many industries or systems – especially what I’ve seen in NZ sport. And I’ve seen the “we’ll support you, believe in you” model work, yet they are somewhat contradictory to the compensation strategy, and experimental innovation.

Gladwell ends by saying it is essential for a support organization that fosters creativity and innovation, that allows you to fail and experiment. But if you have too much support doesn’t that go against it, and verge on the capitalization strategy? There must be a magic balance of both – support to give space and time, yet not enough to squash growth, learning and innovation?

1- Deliberate practise designed to specifically improve performance.

2 – Deliberate practise can be repeated a lot… 10,000hrs

3 – It’s highly demanding mentally.

4- Feedback on results is continuously available.

5- It’s hard.

6- Before the work.  Self regulation and specific building block goals.

7- During the work self-analysis and observation.

8- After the work, feedback.

“But where does the cycle start? Why do certain people put themselves through the years of intensive daily work that eventually makes them world-class great? This is the deepest question about great performance, and the researchers do not offer us a complete answer. We’ve reached the point where we must proceed by looking in the only place we have left: within ourselves. The answers depend on your response to two basic questions: What do you really want? And what do you really believe?

What you want – really, deeply want – is fundamental because deliberate practice is an investment: The costs come now, the benefits later. The more you want something, the easier it will be for you to sustain the needed effort until the payoff starts to arrive. But if you’re pursuing something that you don’t truly want and are competing against others whose desire is deep, you can guess the outcome.

The second question is more profound. What do you really believe? Do you believe that you have a choice in this matter? Do you believe that if you do the work, and do it with intense focus for years on end, your performance will eventually reach the highest levels? If you believe that, then there’s a chance you will do the work and achieve great performance. But if you believe that your performance is forever limited by your lack of a specific innate gift, then there’s no chance at all that you will do the work. What you really believe about the source of great performance thus becomes the foundation of all you will ever achieve.

Such beliefs can be extremely deep-seated. Regardless of where our beliefs in this matter originated, however, we all have the opportunity to base them on the evidence of reality. The evidence offers no easy assurances. It shows that the price of top-level achievement is extraordinarily high. Maybe it’s inevitable that not many people will choose to pay it. But the evidence shows also that by understanding how a few become great, all can become better.”

- Geoff Colvin

When I worked by myself for a year I struggled.  Being surrounded by a team is so much better – because abnormal siutations come up, and they extend me whether I want to be extended or not!   Every successful athlete that spoke at the conference did the complete opposite of their competition.  They looked outside the box, did the abnormal. 

Normal is to do the same thing, and get the same result.  This year I’ve decided I’m devoting to the abnormal.  Changing habits, doing anything and everything out of the box.  Why? 

Why the hell not.

1. Day-dream > clear vision > tangible goals. He thought that successful athletes and people are separated by the “day-dream,” level versus the clear vision level. People that succeed have a clear vision of where they want to get to, and then find the path. He gave a great example of people he thought wouldn’t succeed but they had the vision, and the shear bloody mindedness, and have indeed succeeded.

2. In the pursuit of excellence is about leaps of faith & not allowing your ambition to be limited by your surroundings.

3. Things will also go wrong but you have to be constantly adapting:
- Learn quickly
- Battle the dogma
- Question yourself and others
- Emotionally detach from the processes you created that not longer perform

4. Build in time to step back and reflect.

5. Learn to live with uncertainty, fear of failure, anxiety. They create the level of drive necessary for excellence.

6. You need to be fascinated by the process required to pursue your goals, not just the possible outcome.

Key Questions:
1. Are you pursuing your dream you once had? Can you see the vision clearly to success?

2. Is your ambition being restricted by the environment you are in?

3. Do you have enough time to regularly reflect?

4. Are you managing your fears, and anxieties effectively?

5. Are you still fascinated (but not obsessed) by the day to day processes required to pursue your dream?

In a way it is almost a depressing thesis, should we want magic bullets! But in reality I think he discounts determination – something I think it of utmost importance. Fire in the belly.. grh.

I guess another way of looking at it is how to define success. Successful people may not think they are successful. You just have to read this article about Victoria Pendleton, how she “just wants to be good at something.” [note - she is currently the Olympic sprint champion... but still wants to be good at something]. I’ve published a book, have a masters degree, have my own business, blah blah blah, but I do not perceive I have achieved success, no way.

I do like what Gladwell says about the three things that keep people in jobs:
1. Autonomy
2. Complexity
3. Connection between effort and reward

I particularly like number [3]