William Herp President and CEO, Linear Air www.linearair.com/

Herp is the president and CEO of Linear Air, a company offering private air travel to executives and families with superior and personalized service. Linear Air offers flexibility and convenience not offered from big name airlines. Herp is also an Instrument Rated Commercial Pilot.

• I’ve thought about 3 questions- what do I do, how did I get here, what lessons are there,
• Here’s a plane, the disruptive tech that I use. Cheaper to use and to run, engine innovation have allowed this
• Industry, about 30billion dollars. Options for many to use
• we have about 12k in database, have 6 aircraft, a 1000 customers in the NW North East
• it started with an interest in aviation, became a pilot in the 90s, i discovered I was good at understanding how aviation works. i was able to convince myself there was an opportunity to create a new business model, with the disruptive technology,
• around me I had a lot of great people who encouraged me, I put together a team of like-minded people. We are one of 3 companies who are well positioned to take advantage of this
• My previous company, e-dialog, I started in 1996, around marketing in email. It is about a 250 person company (now for sale! RC: this was meant as a joke, sometimes typing direct leads me to miss this, sorry William:) )
• So how did I get this way, ready to try all these things, I go all the way back to my early years, where I was encouraged to search out my interests and how they align with my talents. being encouraged to focus on these, that thinking big and looking for opps. The importance of team is great, finding people who think like you
• lessons learnt, is to encourage young people, help people on their talents, focus on talents is often ignored. In reviews we often try and fix weaknesses instead of focusing on talents. Getting them to know that you often need a team to get things done, not always possible to get things done on your own

Tags: BIF, BIF3, William Herp, Linearair

Jack Hughes  Founder and Chairman, TopCoder, Inc. http://www.topcoder.com/

Hughes is founder and chairman of TopCoder. TopCoder is the recognized leader in identifying, evaluating and mobilizing effective software development resources. Through its proprietary programming competitions and rating system, TopCoder recognizes and promotes the abilities of the best programmers around the world. Hughes also co-founded Tallán Inc. a provider of web-enabled business solutions.

• I want to talk a little about TopCoder.  generally we are trying to do a number of things, the biggest is culture, the nature of work
• Work is going to become much more like plat.  to keep people interested and happy, it will not be the same paradigm.  there was little leeway before in how people did things, they got told
• we think the work will not be done for any particular org, and people will do things for many
• we have tried to create a community that does work in a collaborative format.
• the community is a diverse group that has a common interest.  For a work community, there has to be some kind of structure to accomplish things.  what we do is do it, figure out what works and get rid of the rest
• there has to be some set of common values.     there’s a huge role for education, for fun, we weave them all together
• Diversity is a good thing, allows different points of view.  But you are dealing with many differences, so you end up in a herding cats problem, the structures have to help this
• Topcoders main theme is competition, this is the thread that runs through it.  Competition lets people find what they are good at.  it is competitive in that there are players at the top of their game and those who wan to learn
• We have to diverse, large products, so we have a project management methodology that helps this, to define a problem that can be broken up.  Then can be done to standards  we have people who define a problem, then a factory that can break it down, spread the pieces and bring it back together.
• We do not manage the workforce, it manages itself.
• members get excited about the competition.  people want to see who they do over time, so we have all sorts of stats to help drive the behaviour.  Work becomes a game and the competition is how well they do at the game,
• it is all open. the solutions to how to do things often come from the members., how to manage the competition comes from the members
• something is built across the world from multiple places.  if you structure the world correctly, model the problem, you can get many people quickly from all over the world.
• we learned a lot by trial and error, ways emerged to manage the process
• we bring people together as well, to connect

Tags: BIF, BIF3, jack hughes, topcoder

Robin Chase, Founder and CEO, GoLoco  www.goloco.org

Chase is the founder and CEO of GoLoco. GoLoco is a service that helps people quickly arrange to share rides between friends, neighbors, and colleagues. GoLoco also helps share trip costs online. Prior to GoLoco, Chase co-founded and was CEO of Zipcar, the world’s largest car-sharing company.

• I only have one thing on my mind incessantly – climate change and how we can get people motivated to act
• speaking to climatologists, talking to one of the leaders, looking at their slides – heavy in information.
• he says that if in 2015, if world wide CO2 gives down, we have a 50.50 chance of avoiding a climate disaster.
• in 2004, driving personal cars is 20% of CO2, 9% is making the cars and fuel, 17% was house electricity use
• biggest is car transport.  So what can we do something.  if we start today, when will it play out,
• politicians say buy fuel efficient car, use alternative fuel,, If everyone started now, then in yr 10, then only reduce by 5%.  In urban areas, changes are often 20-25 years before effect.
• Carbon taxes are good – people change when money involved.   it would transform demand for walkable communities, change behaviour fast
• Next piece, what is the role of business?
• carbon taxes is like that horrible medicine that you have to take, even if horrible.  the role of business is to make the medicine more palatable
• for people in suburban areas, car ownership can be 20+% of income, they are screwed.  so what can we do for them?
• i want people to be able to create their own personal transportation system, with their cars and trips – ride sharing.  this is goloco.  the word car-pooling I hate, so I’m looking at a new word and concept
• built on facebook platform,  tells you how much CO2 I have saved,  it’s based around my friends and their trips.
• a bike team are using it to arrange their trips,.  the payment system works well, no one gets left with it all.
• I’ve been called a one trick pony.   My previous company, innovative hire cars.  Goloco leverages the expensive asset, the car, to make it more efficiently used.    I realised I was a two trick pony, how can we get end users to create the infrastructure.  we are going to create a community public transportation network
• at zipcar, we got a one sentence email, from a customer.   ‘have I told you lately that I love you?’  That is what i am for

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Robin Chase, zipcar, goloco

Ellen Levy  Founding Managing Director, Silicon Valley Connect
www.linkedin.com/in/ellenlevy

Levy is currently the founding Managing Director at Silicon Valley Connect. She also serves as the Deputy Chair for the Global Health track within the Clinton Global Initiative; she is the Network Advisor to venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson; she is a consultant to the Kauffman Foundation; and she is an Industry Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology in the School of Engineering.

• want to talk about ‘living the network effect.’
• I was been giving my lecture by my PHD supervisor to focus, to pick a topic.   A that point I thought about being the masterjack of all trades, instead of master of none
• I ran Media X at Stamford for a few years.   Earlier this year I left Stamford and did 2 companies. 
• MediaX – a model for university-industry collaboration,  it looks at getting money from industry to support work.  There were 55 affiliate programme at the time.  No-one told me the rules at the time.   So I put together a programme of taking on questions from industry and providing answers.    If you want to think about questions, universities are not easy to ask them, the challenge is who do you ask.  we are bound by structure so you have to pick a place to ask
• you have faculty and students, you have disciplines, you have schools, then you have the university on top.  So looking at creating this dialog, how do you do it. The university itself does not know itself well.    My programme looked at being able to navigate the structure.  We had 25 paying partners, entry level 50k, we said come ask us something multidisciplinary – our group did the navigation around the university. we played with the layer of information.
• Everything was simple, we used simple mechanisms, it was easy to move ideas around.  It was all about the questions.   We ran on a small budget, we put money back to the university, it was not a large infrastructure it was people who could move ideas around.
• En example, we had a number of partners talking about mobile devices, eg Nokia and cisco.  we got them talking together.  we wrote a one page question, which we took a month on.  Asking who was working on mobile devices and what applications.  What we got back, 17 proposals, and half of them had faculty rom more than one schools.  We had the right question, we got back good answers.  half the money went direct to graduates.
• Tech transfer is not the same as idea transfer.  We had companies that said that stamford could not help them – they had gone to the tech transfer office, looked at IP,  but if you get to talking about ideas then that is where the richness.
• Organisational principle is not the same as organisational structure.  Structure can get in the way of the process – this should not happen
• It’s all about the ROI, for industry this is Investment, University is Research of Interest and Government is Results of Importance.
• So start with good questions, Look at relationships over transactions  Sufficient Metrics do not yet exist.
• I’ve started Silicon Valley Connect, work with multiple companies.  The network effect says that every time you add a node, the network benefits.  Everytime I add a new partner, the network benefits.  VCs, Linked in, multiple partners.
• My challenges: how do you capture the value you create?  How do you scale? How do you answer what do you do?

Tags: BIF, BIF3, ellen levy

Stephen Lane  Co-Founder and CEO, Item (design consultancy)
www.itemnpd.com

Lane co-founded Item Group and over two decades has built up a dynamic and entrepreneurial design and development firm. Steve focuses on defining and executing new initiatives, both corporate and long-range planning, capitalization and strategic partnerships. Lane thrives as an active leader in the design, entrepreneurial and venture communities, and is an adjunct faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the department of industrial design.

• at the beginning, the former head of the design school Mark Harrison, was the pioneer of universal design,  he created language such as inclusive design.  He embarked on a project called the universal kitchen.  Looked at modularity, integration,  human factors, let people to think outside their specialities.  it was a new way of thinking
• showed video of an A&E, emergency medicine
• the place has so many opps to improve and integrate.  So how do we attack such a challenge.  My neighbour was the head of emergency medicine and had seen the universal kitchen. he asked me if the same principles could be applied to the resus room.  We had people in the hospitals who were interested in getting things done, we worked with BIF.  It took a little money and all the parties put 50k.  we all said we would create this ourselves and put this up for a beacon.
• IN the video we saw 30-40 tech companies that make equipment, that do not talk to each other.  that has to change.   Very splintered, on a good note there is no one large owner of things that happen.  Information keeps flowing around the world, between people,  There can often be 8-15 people at any one time.   There were wires everywhere, there are tubes everywhere, a hazardous environment.
• We looked at 100s of hours of tapes, 1000s of images, 100s of interviews. 
• In 10 weeks,  we redesigned. we produced a full scale model.  We organised things together.  If we would get some standardisation into the packaging, so they are easy to sort, it will help all.
• Getting all the information, consolidated together and making them easy to see,
• All the neighbours all worked together, that was the lesson here.

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Stephen Lane

Juan Fernando Santos

Chief Creative Officer, Studiocom (digital marketing agency)
www.studiocom.com

Santos is the creative director for Studiocom, where his responsibilities include leadership for the design team, user experience concept creation and strategic consulting for highly engaging interactive experiences. Prior to joining Studiocom, Santos was the chief creative and technical officer for iKioskos Communications Corporation, a leading provider of Internet enabled public access kiosks in Latin America, and founding partner/creative director for Azurian, one of the largest new media design and consulting companies in Latin America. Santos holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of Visual Arts as well as studies in industrial engineering from Universidad de los Andes of Bogotá, Colombia.

• ugc? cgm? both weird and nasty terms
• I want to touch a little on the democratic publishing
• the definition of publishing has changed.  At studiocom I tell stories about complex things that cannot be simplified
• It started with the tools to create; desk top publishing,  It changed the world for a lot of people.  It made some things easy, it made some things standard
• Desktop video changed things.  Amiga video, allowed a ‘TV studio on your desktop’
• Now it is desktop everything
• democratisation of the creation of content, we empower individuals to express themselves
• we had tools to share.
• But for a long time, you could only create, there was no successful way to share.  So technology helped there…the web
• the definition of community has also changed…from people who live in a particular place and are usually linked by common interests to one where people exchange ideas through a network (but still people you ‘knew’) and now to just a people who exchange ideas via technology and networks.  the WOM factor, tech enhanced
• if I want to find info on Fried Turkey then I use the web.  DP review was started b one person and is now a premier place for content on cameras.
• you can write a book or a blog,  you can lifecache, record your life with images,
• in my work I often have to answer brands who want to empower UGC…but I have to educate them with the legal issues.   They can sponsor places, they can do mediated content.  Mediated content is often done with a set of tools that are provided, gives an expected range of results.  
• A mantra – every action, if shared, is content
• look at relations as content, create points in the mesh, ie Facebook
• as we understand the changing role of the individuals, it is a great way to innovation.  The network can provide sources of innovation,

Tags: BIF, BIF3, studiocom, Juan Fernando Santos

Matt Mason Author, The Pirate’s Dilemma and ex-pirate radio DJ The Pirate’s Dilemma

Mason began his career as a pirate radio and club DJ in London, going on to become founding Editor-in-Chief of the magazine RWD. In 2004, he was selected as one of the faces of Gordon Brown’s Start Talking Ideas campaign, and was presented the Prince’s Trust London Business of the Year Award by HRH Prince Charles. He has written and produced TV series, comic strips, and records, and his journalism has appeared in VICE, Complex and other publications in more than 12 countries around the world. He recently founded the non-profit media company Wedia.

• pirates can cause a lot of problems but a lot a lot of solutions; pirates are innovators
• I grew up in London, fascinated by music, listening to the pirate radio stations.
• I spent a lot of my youth as a pirate radio DJ, playing to London.  There are 150 at last count, about 10% of the audience tune in
• it is illegal but sort of tolerated; the DJS are providing new audiences, new music.  In a different space.  The most popular tend to be the ones that are the most experimental
• by day i worked in a record store and then got into advertising.  I found myself being approached to be the editor in chief of RWD…a music magazine with a terrible package.  All about pirates.  The mag acted as a pirate itself, in a different space to the other mags.  We gave the mag away for free but only in cool places.  We had a cool audience, so could charge a premium for advertisments.  Went from 5k to 30k
• Then I got bored.  And something amazing happened.  I met a girl.  And got married.  And we moved to the US.
• I was trying to work out what to do once I cold work; i started volunteering at a non-profit – trying to get news teams in Africa, Mali, etc, Action Against Hunger.  The mainstream media here all do the same big stories.   They all said that if they had footage then they would show it.  I then used my contacts to try and find a cameraman to go out there.  This email went out…I heard from 30 cameraman from 3 continents…(2 Emmy winners) we got people there and all the stations took it.  The media people were sating they never got to do it with the mainstream.   It was the same model as pirates..all these media people, all these non-profits.  We worked on bringing them together.  Wedia-  send news people all over the world.
• I’m obsessed with the spaces outside the mainstream…where the people are.  where there opportunities.  Look at music and film piracy…it’s the pharmaceutical industry, look at the Indian market, providing affordable drugs.
• Pirates are at the sharp end of innovation.  The usual response is to throw lawsuits..sometimes right, but what if it is not, if there is a real need.  They will keep coming back.  so the best thing to do is compete with them, use the opportunities
• The Pirates Dilemma – to compete or not to compete

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Matt Mason

Bill Taylor Author, Mavericks at Work  www.mavericksatwork.com/

Co-Author of Mavericks at Work, Taylor is a provocative and inspiring voice on the future of business – an agenda-setting writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who has shaped the global conversation about the best ways to compete, innovate, and succeed. As a cofounder and founding editor of Fast Company, Taylor launched a magazine that won countless awards, and earned a passionate following among executives and entrepreneurs around the world.   Blogs: http://www.mavericksatwork.com/ and Game Changer: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/

Dan Heath Author, Made to Stick www.madetostick.com

Heath is the co-author of the best-selling book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. A consultant at Duke Corporate Education, Heath designs and teaches executive education programs for clients such as Microsoft, Dow, and Home Depot. Heath also co-founded a company called Thinkwell, a company producing innovative new-media textbooks that incorporate new approaches to learning.   Blog: http://www.madetostick.com/blog/

Dave Balter Founder and CEO, BzzAgent, Inc. (word-of-mouth marketing firm)  www.bzzagent.com

Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, Inc., one of the advertising industry’s most recognized word-of-mouth marketing and media firms. A co-founder and board member of The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Balter currently serves as Chair of the Association’s International Committee. In 2005 Balter co-authored Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.   Book: Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing – http://www.amazon.com/Grapevine-New-Word-Mouth-Marketing/dp/1591841100    Blog: http://blog.bzzagent.com/

Paul English,  Founder, the gethuman project,  Co-Founder & CTO, Kayak.com

English is the co-founder & CTO of Kayak.com a travel search engine. Recently, English has gained recognition as the founder of gethuman, a consumer movement, with the goal to change the face of customer support in the United States. Gethuman provides company contact information so consumers can talk to actual employees instead of automated machines when they call a helpline.    Blog: http://paulenglish.com/

Dan Heath

• asked us to write down in 15secs everything that was white and then everything that was white in your fridge.  A limited challenge often produces better results.   Everyone says think outside the box, but thinking inside a box can produce better.  you have to be able to improvise on something
• so I want to go to bat for the box.  we need to find the right box and get in it!
• Paul Sawyer looks at improv comedy – and good improv needs a setting, some fodder to get going
• Improv actors get trained…ask direct questions, guide the dialog, which can make it easier to riff.  The box can be liberating
• Hollywood uses this…the High Concept Pitch.  Die Hard on a Bus – Speed.  Jaws on a spaceship – Alien.  Business: Blockbuster by mail – Netflix  Used on education etc.  Quebec City says – we are like France without the attitude!  All have a flavour of concreteness and specificity  – aids decision making
• Look at the set design for Aliens – diff form previous spaceships on film.  So Jaws on a spaceship gave ideas for the set, changes the mental image
• Chip Conley, created boutique hotels in CA, each needs to have own identity  He wants to bring magazines to life, to drive creativity.  Framing it this way got the team to come up with innovations. 
• Savings and Load – does not want to be first but definitely does not want to be third.  They are fast followers, they do things better/
• Staying in the box can be a guide to thinking, an inspiration to thinking.
• About 10 years ago I created thinkwell, to re-create the college text book.  Not too hard to get seed money as it was in the dotcom era…the only thing easier than getting the money was blowing through it in 9 months.  We were spamming the VC community with business plans.   My mentor, Kevin, worked with me to get money…I used to always say how great things were but never followed through.   He had to tell me that no-one were ever go and say no, as you were so passionate.  they will pat me on the back and never return calls.   He told me I had to stop pitching a textbook and start pitching an investment.  I had to change things – do a business model, revenue model etc.  Someone had to tell me.
• So the right box can make all the difference, I was trapped in the educational product box, I had to change the box. It made all the difference.

Dave Balter

• in 2001 I was told it was the worst time to start a business….it was the best for me.  cheap rent, lots of talent.  So we started bzzagent
• we wanted to start a bit of a lifestyle company…a relaxed place.  But it turned out to be more a creative plce..the whole business was about creativity.  We wanted to turn marketing on it’s head.  We grew and grew, we focused on building, profits etc.   And lost some of the magic.  In 2003 we started a blog called insidebzzagent.  We were transparent, we opened up.  We asked an author to come in for 90 days on 2005 and get him to write about us transparently
• we got corporate passion but could not keep the creative passion…talked to others and they agreed once profit was there, it goes.  So we looked at keeping.  In 2006 we started a project, 10 days at BzzAgent, we invited a painter in everyday to do something.  It was fun and frenetic and did not work!   We found that the artist itself was too polarising….staff would not going nearby, the PR agent jacked up the prices
• on the last day, the staff joined in for something…got 16 bird paintings.  it worked
• the staff liked being part of the project,
• next was 180 days, everyone could write about the porject….it was fun, enticing, exhaustingly complex.  Some did not like it, it was hard work
• we thought about giving up.   But Seth (the painter)_had moved in and was painting in the back room.  Started to be part of the team
• We invited Seth to be part of the agency days, where we trained the agencies on how to do it.  He painted all day and the people all went away with a painting.  He painted the staff, we used the images
• it became part of the company, he came the artist of residence
• we removed the constraints, the blog, the time limits etc,.  it became part of the process and the team
• it creates WOM for ourselves, people talk about it
• it has all the WOM elements-  exclusive, storytelling, souvenirs,
• we needed to fail a few times to get to this stage
• we decided it would be fun to have Seth talk about his art.   We took this and used it as our hold music…recently a big CEO heard the talk..he hung up  After it being explained..he hung up again./  We are still working out the kinks.

Paul English

• talking about gethuman.com.   My mom passed away, left me as primary caretaker for my dad.  (early stage Alzheimers).  I took his keys away, removed his freedom.   Then I started to take care of his finances, realised that he had a very difficult time on phone calls.   As the banks grew, it went to an automated system and my father got frustrated, he could not get to people.  Many times he would try and call people, he could not get a real person.
• I started to help him with the photos.  one time too many O could not get in touch with someone.  Too much.
• I wrote a blog entry one day about this change to off-shores and machines.  We were getting our dignity taken away.  I started to get a big response to this post.  I realised that it was not just me,   there were others.
• I did some research, found a WSJ article that listed phone numbers for about 10 companies
• I did more work and came up with 100 companies.  I started posting more tips, took it off the blog and to a website.
• I stopped having to do work – the community got involved and started giving information.  we got tips from the companies themselves, from support reps giving out secret numbers.
• The web will not let people hide anymore. 
• We started seeing companies pushing this as a benefit now, that you could talk to a human
• Hiring engineers, I see that they are lazy….when they have problems they look for ways to reduce the hassle, looking at ways of never having the problem again.  As a product, service, the only way to do this is to talk to people.  Let your engineers talk to your customers you may get some good things out of it, remove issues
• kayak.com has 39 employees, does about 1 million sessions on the website a day.  We give personal answers to all, even with the small numbers of staff.  IT was a requirements…so forcing us to communicate with customers, the engineers make sure there is little need for the customers to ask the same questions – it works!
• i wrote a few years ago about DELL being in a customer service death spiral – too many layers between the customer service rep and the engineer who could fix the problem.  Companies try and do it efficiently, cost save.  the engineers do not have the heat or accountability to fix things,
• so gethuman is to restore some dignity and get the ability to talk to them.  if a company won’t let you talk to them – you should switch

Panel discussion

• BT: themes that i have seen today, one is the power of humanity.  So much of innovation is about the human connection.  Second is the power of locality.  Finally, the power and value of simplicity.  So Dan, what can the folks learn about making more effective connections with humans,
• DH: simplicity.  It’s almost become a cliche; I fear that people think simplicity is dumbing down, but really this is about priorities.  Too much choices can make people freeze.  As innovators, you have to keep things simple, priority, break log jam at point of decision. 
• BT: Dave, you are in the business of getting your agents to talk about stuff.  what works best?
• DB: when we started we believed the incentive was the stuff.  We had a whole reward syste,  But we found that people reacted better to a pat on the back from the brand, or recognition for their knowledge.  We talk to the individuals, we recognise them
• With marketers, we try and get them to talk in this way, treat them as real people.
• BT: you site, it spread like prairie fire.  why did it connect so well?
• PE: it was a problem, did not require work about the story, everyone already had their story about it.  
• BT: when mass media talks, people still listen.  gethuman was in the mass media as well; we think about social media strategies, but there is still an option to get mass and use that
• PE: you had to do something the journalists care about as well, it resonates and that helps to get mass media.
• BT: what makes a good story?
• DH: one of my favourite pieces of my brother’s research was about stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul…3 main types in the series – connection plot, when 2 people share a moment, transcend a boundary.  Second is a challenge plot, avid vs Goliath, 3rd is the creativity plot, the McGyver plot.   What they have in common is the power to inspire. 
• DB: a lot of companies forget that you need a great punchline – the great product.  Look at how Borat grew.  You need great product and it will grow
• BT: what advice do you give entrepreneurs telling stories to funders
• PE: make sure you believe your story, your idea. I like co-founders, you see what people bring to it, some diversity.  Have belief.
• BT: another theme is authenticity, if you have an idea, you have to believe it and you have to be the idea, so this story about the advisory board
• DB: the board had a lot of bigwigs, over the years they stopped paying too much attention.  We sent them board decks every quarter.  In the last deck, we out a slide in the deck about lawsuit and 2 out of 15 responded.  So we asked the blog audience what we should do…the agreement was to disband
• BT: so companies understanding that who we are internally is who we are externally?
• DH: FedEx is good at mirroring internal and external – reliability is what they do.  There reward people for doing this.  They had a driver in NY, truck broke, by the time it got fixed it would have been too later.  She talked the driver from another company to drive her around.   Motel 6 had a ‘we’ll leave the light on for you’ sold a promise , friendly, that was never real
• BT: Paul has insights into how to conduct yourself as a CEO
• PE: it starts with belief; if you have a vision, you think you will make the world better, people will galvanise around that.  Self doubt can be seen..  In what you say and in what you design,
• BT: what is the one parting gift/advice that you would give?
• DH: ideas do not stick naturally.  give time to figuring out how to translate it and get people behind
• PE: have fun.  have a great time
• DB: everyone has passion for something…look for passionate people.

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Paul English, kayak, Dan Heath, Dave Balter

Steven Johnson

Author "The Ghost Map" and founder Outside.in
www.stevenberlinjohnson.com
www.outside.in

Johnson is the best-selling author of five books. His most recent work The Ghost Map tells the story of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London. Johnson is a contributing editor to Wired magazine and is a Distinguished Writer In Residence at the New York University Department of Journalism. Johnson’s latest project outside.in, is a website that collectively builds online conversation about geographic locations neighborhood by neighborhood.

• In 1995, I started an online mag called Feed.  had established writers etc.  We had 2 people doing all of it.  went on for a year or so, building an audience.  A year later, Walt Mossberg was writing about web mags, we did an interview.  We had a new design and tried to get it up for when the column was going live.  As I was trying to get it up, we had about 150 people subscribe..they had read it online.  I was then racing against 1000s of trucks around the country bringing the newspapers to all.   New and old media combined.
• After this, I wrote a book, Interface Culture.  I was reading about brains and cities, trying to decide what to write about
• on my 30th birthday I got a book of 19th century of maps.   Looking at a map of Hamburg, it looked like a brain, and I started to think this may be one book.  I followed the hunch for 8 months, turned into the second book Immergence.  that hunch took a long time to evolve.
• the idea for Ghost Map came to me in the middle of Seabiscuit…I got up and called my agent there and then.  It came to be suddenly, a different way of getting hunches
• London in 1854 was the largest city the world had seen, a city as an organism, having waste problems,  Led to large breakouts of disease,
• the existing health institution were in the grips of a bad idea, the miasma theory, that all smell was disease.  London was very, very smelly.
• For innovation you also have to understand why bad ideas stay around.  For this one, we evolved avoidance of smells, there were bureaucracy reasons, people were stubborn
• People in Flickr trace the map landmarks – There is a John Snow pub there now
• Snow did a number of studies.  He saw an opportunity in this outbreak, to prove his theory.  Slowly he managed to convince people.  Whitehead was also key – a connector.  Knew all.  He had a social intelligence that was couples with Snow’s science intelligence.  They were inside the community, the experts on the ground
• As I was writing the book, I wasted time by reading people who were blogging their communities, who wrote about what was happening.  I started to see connections, when we look at the scales of our lives,, our local place is somewhere we care about.   the placebloggers are amplifying their knowledge, most was stuck in direct WOM face to face.  I started to think there were some opportunities.  I chatted with a friend who then funded the building of outside.in  Allows people to see things on maps, see queries on different scales. 
• Idea is to amplify the voices.  All the debates about bloggers fade away at the local community level, the community is the best source, the local bloggers are the experts.
• the connection and key thing, the moment of insight the quick hunch is not always the way.  Most ideas need time to develop, take time, the source for some of the best ideas.  
• we need to build hunch supporting environments, to incubate ideas, to build things
• organisations not normally structured for these things, this way of thinking.

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Steven Johnson

Jay Cohen

Under Secretary for Science & Technology, Department of Homeland Security
www.dhs.gov

Under Secretary Jay Cohen, vice Rear Admiral, USN Retired, serves as the Under Secretary, Science & Technology Directorate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Having led the US Office of Naval Research office for an unprecedented 5+ years, Admiral Cohen is now responsible for structuring research and development activities for the DHS.

• a big confederation of departments, still coming together
• created to try and do away with seams, anything we can do to reduce seams is good
• there are 35k fire departments in the US, 80% are volunteers.  When I say to them I’m here to help, they ask me to by a raffle ticket or a muffin.
• There are 700k police, 571 bomb disposal units
• we are going to talk about the perils of innovation…for you it is to put bread on the table, meeting the payroll.
• I get to take risks with millions of your dollars to keep billions safe
• I get most of my ideas for innovation mostly from fortune cookies!
• In 2001 they were being told they needed to be more innovative (the US NavY0.  they say the Navy is 230 yrs of tradition unhampered by progress
• They built an experimental ship, manned by navy and Coastguard.   A prototype to teach them lessons about new ways of doing things.  An XCraft.  SeaFighter  Fastest large naval craft.  1400 tonnes that does >50knots
• Have modular weapons and sensors – swap in and out as needed.  Keep it flexible
• Built for <90million.  Been tested.  Now being used for risk reduction – demonstrated how to do it
• But building production models, running into problems.   The bureaucracy slows things down; once it was in the system, it changed everything, overlaid new requirements.  The ship that was contracted for was not the one they had to build. It’s got huge budget overruns.  The test worked, the end product did not.
• Now looking for places to demonstrate technologies and practices, to try things out.  For first responders etc.  We will not have a failure of imagination on my watch.

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Jay Cohen

I’m at a conference up in Providence for the next 2 days, here at the Business Innovation Forum. I’m posting my notes from the talks, which are 15min sessions from great storytellers.

Jason Fried (as interviewed by Walt Mossman)

Founder and CEO, 37signals (web-based software and services)
www.37signals.com

Fried is the founder and CEO of 37signals. Fried is a passionate leader in the field of simple, clear, and elegant web-based user interface design. He spearheaded the concept, design, and development of Basecamp, 37signal’s web-based project management tool for designers, freelancers, and creative services firms. Fried is also the co-author of Defensive Design for the Web.

• JF: we build web-based software for small businesses…we think of our products as tools to get things done.  We give things that solve problems and then we get out of the way.
• WM: what products?
• JF: we have 7.  3 main: Basecamp – project management tool.  Highrise – a CRM tool, a recent tool, keep track of who and what you have talked about.  BackPack- personal tracking of things to do
• WM: you also have Ruby on Rails-
• JF: a web development framework, takes care of 80% of the stuff.  lets you focus on the 20% that is useful
• WM: over the last year, we have developed allthingsd.com, we hired Mule Design in SF (I recommend them) we use basecamp to corral feedback etc on the design.  So how come most people are shackled to a piece of crap called outlook?
• JF: software industry is structured to build crap.  Traditional software is based on shipping a CD/download.  the only way to get more money is to add more stuff.   The industry does not work for many people anymore.  We build services that are not shipped, you pay a monthly fee to use the products – we focus on a service.
• WM: I do not buy it.  I saw outlook before it was released, it was done by a small, smart team at MSFT.  it was a great idea, a combination of PIM and email.  very sleek and small and clever.  But it has become a mess.  But i disagree with you, you have a more continous flow of updating but you are still subject to feature creep.  Never seen a company that does not have this problem .   So, how do you balance your mantra of simplicity with the demands of enthusiastic customers who want morre features
• JF: You need good editors to curate.  The model allows us to say No more often than Yes.  The most anyone can give us us $149.  We do not have to please the large customers that pay a lot of money
• WM: I agree,  but even the ones that are not sold to enterprise still have feature creep- ie Quicken.  
• JF: you have to be hard ass and know that you cannot make everyone happy
• WM: you have to be Seve JObs>
• JF: yes.  I think SJ is the best business mind in the last 50 years.  He says no a lot
• WM: agree, at an interview at my conference he said he was proud of the things that he has not done.  iLife is great, ne of the best media suites available.  The new version of iMovie has had features stripped out, very simple.  The jury is still out on this.  But Jobs is a dictator, does everything, 
• JF: I love that, I think it is fantastic!
• WM: is that a business model to replicate?
• JF; i think people and companies need opinions.  We believe in our way of doing things, if you like that you will like our products
• WM: Google is like that, I hate gmail.  I had a fight with them about this, they have the same attitude as SJ
• JF: I think this is like Italian restaurants…you have your favourites.   We do not build for everyone, but some people like us
• WM: let’s spend the last few minutes speaking about why Open Source is a failure.  Firefox is one big success that I recommend,  OS is a failure because they cannot stop adding features…and they do not associated enough with regular people.  The writers would not know a normal consumer from a bag of cheetos
• JF: good for techie stuff not for consumer facing.  OS is not about usability etc, it is for software development.  If you think about customer interface and experience than you will have a great consumer product.  OS is not like this, usually.  OS paint the walls at the end, but experience has to be bought in from the start.  Everyone is involved and it can get pretty terrible.  You need a leader to make decisions.  FF is an anomaly
• WM: FF< it has now gone to a company that can grow it.
• JF: i do not think the crowd should decide anything-  you need a leader to make great decisions.  A lot of people hate us, I’d rather people cared about us, to love or hate us, than to have no feelings.  People need to say no more

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Walt Mossman, Jason Fried, 37Signals

Matt Cottam

Cofounder and Principal – Tellart (design consultancy)
www.tellart.com

Cottam is a co-founder of Tellart and serves as the company’s CEO and creative director as well as being a part-time faculty at RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design.) At Tellart, Cottam uses information architecture and design methods to discover challenges, find opportunities for design, and build design strategies and processes. Cottam’s current research and course topics at RISD involve design for Search and Rescue and Disaster Medicine.

• he’s been called a  professional amateur – goes in and learns about lots of things at different times
• was a tech lead for a project with the DOD, Hospital and art college
• train army medics – build a human casualty robot
• had to learn how to ask the right questions to the army medics and doctors
• had to learn all about the biology and anatomy to build the robots
• I became an EMT during the project and then went to paramedic school, 2 years worth of study
• it was way more than I needed, probably a big mistake…in the middle of the process I got engaged and it became a huge mistake!  24 hour shifts were not the best thing
• now part of an emergency team that can be deployed to disasters – a lot of training
• then looked at designing suits for medical personal to enter contaminated areas, improving how they can be out on and managed.   Designed a suit that can be put on without help, with great seal management
• then looked for a way to apply medicine to things he was passionate about – joined the national ski patrol.  Looked at ways to improve medical care for the mountain rescue.   Top of mountains it is difficult to get life support – load and go was the way to do – get people off the site and to the hospital
• researched the injuries, looking at ways to get care as soon as possible, looking at using the sleds to store stuff and the best way to keep things
• he thought he would become a better designer from studying medicine – and that was true, but the real lesson was that it completely changed his life, how to deal with parents and children, getting intimately involved with people, impact of these individuals on his understanding of social responsibility.
• last week he got to catch 6 babies…great day

Tags: BIF, BIF3, MattCottom

Dean Esserman

Chief of Police, City of Providence
www.providencepolice.com

An expert in community policing, Colonel Dean Esserman’s innovative approaches have revolutionized law enforcement since the late 1970’s. Esserman, a protégé of former New York City police chiefs William J. Bratton and Lee P. Brown, is using his community policing technique to transform Providence’s approach to law enforcement and redefine the role police play in the communities they serve.

• after 9/11 Bin Laden said he would be back.
• what I want to talk about is that we are doing it for him..we have 50 people a day being murdered.
• the face of the victims are young.
• as a father and patriot it is hard of me to conceive that we have become a country that buries its young
• and that has become the face of violence in America
• my son graduated college (remarkable if you knew him).  I bought him a bike for graduation, but it was stolen in his first few days…his first call was to me.  And if even the son of a police chief does not know to call 911 then what about the rest if the country
• the relationship of ‘call 911 and we will come’ is the paradigm of American policing.  But why do people not do this?
• crime is intimate and personal, and then you call who you know and you do not know them anymore, you do not know the police.  We wear name and number so you can tell who we are.
• the deal, for American policing for a generation, but people do not
• most crime is not reported in the US.  People do not bother to tell the police.
• Never entered my mind to tell my son to call the police…
• the police have become strangers… the deal we figured out is not working to well, even when you report it that us when it stops.  Most crime does not get solved.
• there has to be a better way…a different way.  What’s beyond 911
• to see the police as simple enforcers and report takers is to miss the point.  we are the agency of first and last resort.  It is remarkable what they need.  they call is for everything but they do not tell us about crime
• the do not tell us a lot as they do no know us.  That realisation led to conversations, gave birth to community policing, about returning to the neighbourhoods.
• America has accepted that – the anonyminity of police.
• we are looking at becoming a different type of police force, that has moved into the community.  becomes part of it.
• Look in town, you will see business cards in shops, with officer names and cell numbers.  we are becoming known
• crime is down 5 years in a row/  we will bury less children this year.  We do not have more cops…
• we have an honest mayor.  the chief is only as good as the mayor.  The mayor gave the police back to the people.  we have begun to develop relationships again.
• go to a murder scene, you see the cell phone of the patrol men going off – the people are calling their cop to tell them what is happening
• you have to know and love the person in the uniform and that is where we are going.
• next time my son has his bike stolen, then I’ll be the second caller – he’ll have already called his local cop and the day that happens then american policing will be in a better place.

Tags: BIF, BIF3, Dean Esserman, policing

Licorice Film Hazel Grian and Jonathan Williams

About: started as a marketing tool. First key one recognised was The Beast, where cryptic messages led people to the web and a whole different story. Hazel cam it to from the POV of a film maker and story teller. Wanted to reach a larger audience. Wanted to tell an interactive story. Looking into it, discovered AUGs

Meigeist – the only one (as far as they know) that was publically funded. 6 months to prepare, 8 weeks to run.

Story – a scifi story set in as much reality as they could get in it was free for players, the funding was public funding. All characters had their own blog, there were videoblogs, posted things through mail, ebay auction, had live chats, set tasks. SMS messages etc.. the mission was to help the main characters through here problems. Key challenge was to keep up the interactivity in as many ways as possible. We were working full time on it, had experience with improv and all this. We did a live event in Bristol, with actors in role, getting far more involvement. There were about 10 websites, plenty of content

One of the most impressive area is the communities that get involved. About 50/50 male/female, age 14-45, pretty wide range of people. We had lots of different ways you could interact depend on how involved you wanted to be in the story. Had 30k IP addresses logged in the game; global demographic. Used UnForums a lot to follow conversation – they lurked. Had ~500 signups, got 50 or so people playing every day. The costs was 30000, for 10 months for 2 people full time. Main community place was through Unforum.

Audience: the IRC channel was a great hub for the community, with lots of collaboration. This was a great way for the PMs to get feedback, for a performer.

Now looking at Geocashing etc. Hazel is working on a story with Bebo called Kate Modern. Has a lot of sponsorship and all of the brands need to be placed on the system. This is the English spin-off from LonelyGirl15

I’m in Edinburgh today for the TV Unfest, an unconference based all around TV, as an adjunct to the Media Guardian TV Festival.