Crossroads Dispatches

The ROI of Curiousity: The Why of BzzAgents

It's a mystery that more folks, especially Worthwhile Magazine, haven't read the BzzAgents New York Times piece for its meaningful work and entrepreneurial lessons and out of sheer curiousity as to why people are intrinsically motivated to be BzzAgents. Dave Balter has built a very large volunteer corps and has one of the best recent examples of employing the concept of leverage in business.

BalterIM: The volunteers cite the feeling of being 'on the inside', like sharing opinions with others, and enjoy feeling altruistic. Has Madison Avenue figured out what open source developers knew all along? - a blogged internal IM conversation referencing a Slashdot post

Yes, you heard me right. I said curiousity. Where's the ROI in curiousity? Yes, marketers and business people live, eat, breathe curiousity about our own and other people's underlying motivations and desires. That's how you recognize opportunity, unmet needs and untapped markets.

[T]he craving need to make meaning is part of the human condition. And again, if you don't satisfy a craving need with a commercial answer, you should be thrown into the business hall of infamy. - The Culting of Brands, by Douglas Atkin

I'd re-read the NYT piece looking for the WHYs - for instance, why do agents drawn to do this? It goes beyond wanting to appear to be influential and in-the-know - i.e. be blessed as one of the Influentials, or the Magic People the article refers to. Although that's one of the more easily surfaced and obvious motivators.

When she signed up for her first BzzAgent campaign -- ''The Frog King,'' in fact -- she was working with a pharmaceutical researcher, mostly doing paperwork, and thinking about finding a more fulfilling way to spend her days.... So participating is both a chance to weigh in and be heard, and also something close to an act of altruism. - NYT

Reader Mike Rhodes mentioned to me that Ben Saunders set out from Cape Arktichevsky in Northern Siberia in an attempt to be the first person in the world to make a complete crossing of the frozen Arctic Ocean in a 1,240-mile journey ending in Canada, solo and unsupported. He says that part of the reason that he did so was to demonstrate human potential; he felt we use only 5% of our potential as humans. If you ask me, we're not even tapping that much of our potential.

Over the past five years, organizations have paid more attention to creativity and innovation than at any other time in my career. But I believe most people aren't anywhere near to realizing their creative potential, in part because they're laboring in environments that impede intrinsic motivation. The anecdotal evidence suggests many companies still have a long way to go to remove the barriers to creativity. - The Six Myths of Creativity, Fast Company

I think the other thing I read in the piece was that perhaps we're all Magic People. We're all Magic People when our intrinsic worth and potential is recognized and called forth. I think ultimately that people want to make a difference with their lives and are seeking opportunities to do so.

Under some circumstances, we will expend more effort for social rewards than we will for monetary rewards. This suggests that the agents may do more to spread word of mouth precisely because they are not being paid...

Crucial to the BzzAgent system is the small team of young people in Boston who read and answer every single Bzz report. They offer encouragement, tips on how to improve word-of-mouth strategies. Every report is rated and every agent ranked according to a complicated formula, one that is constantly being tweaked, taking into account everything from how often the agent reports to how many people they tend to buzz to the quality of their summaries -- plus intangibles like originality....[Hence in next paragraph we're told the reports are full of personality and creativity.] - NYT

The Rich Dad Poor Dad series by Robert Kiyosaki advocates that individuals join MLM programs not so much for the income opportunity but for the leadership, sales, business and personal development training that comes along with them.

Desjardins is ranked the 45th most effective BzzAgent, out of 60,000 nationwide, and proud of it. He has learned to influence.

Throughout the story, I continued to read that people aren't motivated by their jobs, aren't continuous learning in their jobs, aren't connecting with others in their jobs, aren't able to fully utilize and see their talents expressed within their jobs, aren't challenged by their jobs, and aren't feeling a sense of making an individual difference to the success of the organization.

This might be the most peculiar thing about BzzAgent: not only are its volunteer agents willing to become shock troops in the marketing revolution, but many of them are flat-out excited about it. At his apartment, Desjardins told me about another book he had read because of BzzAgent. Called ''Join Me,'' it's about a guy who decides he wants to start some sort of voluntary group -- a commune, a cult, whatever you want to call it. He puts an ad in the paper that just says, ''Join me,'' and to his surprise, people are interested. They didn't know what they were joining, or why, but they joined anyway. The guy, whose name is Danny Wallace, decided to turn his followers into a good-deeds army, basically on the ''Pay It Forward'' method. The book is nonfiction. - NYT

Because things are so crazy out there, people like to find out if they see the world the same way as other people. People will believe anything - from a chocolate bar to a political view - if it makes them feel that they belong to something bigger than themselves. - Charlene, loyal Snapple drinker, from The Culting of Brands

After all, some people are lucky enough to find meaning and fulfillment through their work, family or spirituality. But many people don't. Many people have boring jobs and indifferent bosses. They feel ignored by politicians. They send e-mail to customer service and no one responds. They get no feedback. It's easy to feel helpless, uncounted, disconnected. Do you think, I asked Desjardins, that there's some element of that going on with BzzAgent?

''I think for some people it probably is,'' he answered. ''For me, it's being part of something big. I think it's such a big thing that's going to shape marketing. To actually be one of the people involved in shaping that is, to me, big.'' That made sense to me too. After all, there is one thing that is even more powerful than the upper hand, more seductive than persuading: believing. - NYT

Re-read the last sentence slowly. There is one thing that is even more powerful than the upper hand, more seductive than persuading: believing. And being part of something bigger than ourselves that's engaging ourselves and the world.

When somebody asked Einstein what question he would ask God if he could ask one, he replied, "How did the universe start? Because everything after that is just math."

And after thinking for a while, he changed his mind. He said, "Instead I would ask, 'Why was the universe created?' Because then I would know the meaning of my own life." - The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey

What Sustains Us Among the Naysayers

How can we lend money to poor people?

They are not creditworthy.

Our rules won't permit it.

They cannot offer collateral, and such a tiny amount is not worth lending.

These are just a few of the objections Muhammad Yunus faced as he tried to convince banks to lend money to poor folks who just needed a little capital - perhaps 20 cents to buy bamboo so they could continue crafting their bamboo stools. The first "loan" Yunu gave out was out of his own pocket to 42 people. Total cost: $27.

He went to banks to convince them to loan out money to these people on a regular basis. You saw the answers he got at the beginning of this story. They wouldn't lend money directly, so Yunu had sign off for the loans. "They warned me repeatedly that the poor people who receive the money will never pay it back."

When they did pay him back, the bank manager then warned, "Oh, no, they're just fooling you. Soon they will take more money and never pay you back."

"And so it became a kind of contest between them and me... I came up with results they could not deny because it was their money I was giving, but they would not accept it becauase they are trained to believe that poor people are not reliable."

"Finally I had the thought, Why am I trying to convince them? I am totally convinced that poor people can take money and pay it back. Why don't we set up a separate bank?" 

Grameen Bank has lent over $4.5B to date.

To lend $500 million annually required 3.7 million people, 96 percent of whom are women, to make a decision that they could and would take steps to change their lives and the lives of their families; 3.7 million people had to decide that they were capable of creating change; 3.7 million people survived the sleepness night to show up trembling but committed at the Grameen office the next morning. At the heart of this empowerment lies individual women who chose individually and in synergestic norm-producing groups to become self-reliant, independent entrepreneurs producing goods out of their own homes or neighborhoods or backyards to become economically viable and successful. They found their voices. - The 8th Habit, by Stephen Covey

I tell this story lifted from The 8th Habit for many reasons and you'll find your own. I had to shorten it considerably. Here's a bootstrapper's tip: Don't (necessarily) buy the book but go to your local bookstore, The 8th Habit is on the bestseller display and read pages 6-9 for yourself - it's worth it.

I should point out that Yunus through the traditional banks lent out money first to one village, then when that was paid back he expanded out to two villages and kept growing the number of villages he was lending money to in an organic fashion. Finally he had his ephipany that the bank weren't just naysayers but albatrosses as well. He really needed to change the entire system and the rules of engagement - so he created another system of lending. The banks weren't into creative destruction, but entrepreneurs are.

After his epiphany and the success of more than ten villages under his belt it took another two years for the Grameen Bank to be a reality. Radical new models don't happen overnight.

Part of the value of blogging about being an entrepreneur is getting my take about what it feels like and getting an inside-my-skin perspective. I have no idea what went through Yunus' mind in those early years where all was not certain but I can tell you about what goes through mine. And I'll be doing more of that. In the meantime, I wanted to share this story because the model I have in mind (start-up doesn't convey the extent of the concept just as bank doesn't convey all of Grameen) parallels Yunus' vision.

And because it seems fairly obvious what sustained Yunus through the ups and downs. It's the conviction of the clarity and beauty of the vision and our individual purpose that sustains you - and not having people pat you on the back and offering their admiration (they won't) or everything going smoothly (it doesn't).

When you are inspired by some great purpose, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (this version from The 8th Habit)

Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we move toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which we say in the language of the desert, `one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.'" -- from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (via Worthwhile Magazine)

Banking on Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity

This may be a bit rambling but I tried to keep it stream-of-consciousness. I'm answering a question on my intrinsic motivation and why I'm going the entreprenerial route.

You may have noticed this blog seems to go through phases. They mimic my creative phases. Sometimes I'm deeper and more creative than other times. I'm currently in a pretty intensive saturation phase. Which is another way of saying (excusing) this isn't going to be as much as an intimate voice post as I'd like. It's hard for me to stay connected to my heart when I'm so totally consumed by my beta-brain-waves. The good news is that this particular intense concentration phase is coming to its natural conclusion.

I've been reading and immersing myself in a topic for the last ten days without much of a reprieve. Even some of my meditative rituals (read: running) have come to a screeching halt. Yeah, I can get pretty focused. In an email message I sent out at 4 a.m. one morning, the recepient wrote to me the next day: When do you sleep?

Certainly seems to contradict some of my own advice.

But I have some strange peculiar or maybe not so peculiar creative cycles. You have to remember just prior to this intensive ten-day-shut-in, I'd been hiking solo in the horizonless expanse of Canyonlands and Arches National Park away from the hub-bub of cellphones, laptops and even people for days on in. And the drive to and from Utah was itself meditative and incubating. And it's typical for me to take several European style holidays in one year. I vacationed in Ireland and the U.K. three weeks this summer and spent seven weeks last winter in Mexico and Guatemala. Workaholic I'm not. And I goof off a lot of days in between ;-)

I respect what works for me. Which is fairly bursty in nature. After my clarity retreat post where I outlined the creative process stages, I received a few emails that seemed to validate this was more universal.

Jeremy Heigh, an economist, said that he thought this could be true of economic cycles as well. I think and I'm not the only one that's postulated that the origins of the blogosphere itself (um, quite a lot of time on many folks' hands to write posts helps) and a lot of what you'll see arise as Web 2.0 came out of that fallow time called the dot-com downturn. The industry itself has had time to incubate - both collectively and individually.

I've never felt that I could work within my own natural creative cycles in a corporate environment. I was once dinged pretty heavily in my annual employee review at GE for being consistently five to ten minutes late to work. It was an entry-level engineering position and no one else's work came to screeching standstill in those few minutes. I was never and will never be an 8-to-5 gal and be creative. Or an eighty-hour-a-week gal (gee, I get to choose which 80?) and be creative either.

But while I watched the clock and couldn't wait to head out the door at 5 (usually a pipe dream in technology though), I notice now with no one intimidating me with threats of what would happen if I didn't show up on yet another Saturday I find myself choosing to work at 4 a.m. sometimes. And I'm drafting this post on a Sunday evening.

And all the difference in the world is what is called intrinsic motivation.

I also took three years off (that means for me less than 20 hours a week average, not watching Oprah for three years) from 2001 to 2004. My role models for ultra-long incubations are Henry David Thoreau, Buckminster Fuller and Isaac Newton. Bill Gates even goes off on 'think weeks'. (Mine are a bit more like un-think weeks.) It's pretty clear that those three years were a BIG BIG incubation time with smaller iterations of the cycles of saturation-incubation-illumination-translation nested within.

Leaving corporate America and consulting I found wasn't the silver bullet. Yes, I have much more autonomy around my creative cycles but ultimately it gets frustrating to hear: "Yes, but." Usually, "Yes, but that will never work here" time after time after time. And you know with that attitude it truly won't ever work there. Those pitches weren't even my very best ideas as I was well aware of the confines of the box I was given. So having autonomy over your creative cycles ultimately isn't sufficient. A lot of consultants might be quite happy with collecting the fees for advice that falls flat and concepts that go nowhere, but it's not working for me.

That's basically some of the backstory for how I came up with the start-up idea. I realized I would take everything that corporations de-valued and everything creative, innovative people value and their customers value and make that the foundation for a new model that wasn't inspired by factory production model for black Model-T's. Part of my barrier to entry (just one) are the fact that most corporations think like Electronic Arts.

The conceptual age isn't even remotely resembling a factory.

And I've always been inspired by Nipun Mehta's weekly ritual of giving for the sake of giving. I was given an incredible gift of three years to be clear about who I am and my purpose. And in some small way I'd like to give that opportunity to others. And that's the biggest intrinsic motivator - at least for me.

So if you are expecting the dot-com dream of an IPO windfall to rescue the ground floor employees and finally deliver the life they always wanted at the end of this unfolding story, then this isn't going to be intensely interesting. But if on the other hand, you wonder what a vibrant creative economy and the individuals within it might look like and what living the life you want moment to moment looks like, well then, stay tuned.

Of Answers and Wikis

Sharing and leaking one's new business venture idea via a blog is proving to be very interesting.

But I see I've raised more questions than I've answered. Here's a few more answers.

I don't have anything against Corporate America per se. I just think managerial capitalism is history. And I'm a futurist. I'm moving onward. (And I find it rather boring to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.) I'm merely aggregating the globally distributed folks that are riding the crest of that thinking - perhaps corporate refugees, creative class free agents, soloists, boutique firms, consultants, frustrated multinational employees, etc. - you get the gist.

It would take too long to go into my philosophy on change-the-world business plays. Or what I think of the whole idea of changing (read typically: save the world) the world. For a teeny drop of the bucket hint, read the closing quote.

Finally, I can't wait unti the wiki is up. I thank Peter Kaminski, CTO of SocialText, whom summed up the difference between wikis and blogs nicely: Blogs are author-centric and wikis are content-centric.

Email exchanges with readers and collaborators is one-to-one (and rather slow if you awaiting a response from me). Blogs are (primarily) one-to-many. And wikis are many-to-many. So that said, I am brimming with anticipation to see the interaction and exchanges among the readers that have stumbled onto this blog. Some of you really ought to meet each other.

Joe Kraus speaking of JotSpot last week said the company had recently reached a very crucial milestone: The first beta customer had helped another beta customer on their forums. (BTW, I'm still waiting on the beta account, she said in nice pleasant tone.) Now a CEO that actually gets that this is a crucial milestone is on to something.

We can do no great things; only small things with great love. - Mahatma Gandhi

Disrupting Business and Leisure

"I won't kid you - it's a start-up. It's not 35 hour weeks."  - the pitch to a prospective ground-floor employee, overhead in my office away from home, Mission City Roasting Company, Santa Clara, California this afternoon

Hmm, I guess I'll be disrupting that truism as well. My start-up will resemble Ricardo Semler's model (he's the multimillionare CEO who works from his garden 35-hours a week and his factory workers enjoy a Seven-Day Weekend too).

Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for--business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.  - Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle essay

What if business was life-supporting, art-supporting, love-supporting, poetry-supporting, learning-supporting, butterfly-supporting.....?

Here's the Thoreau quote I was looking to share when I got diverted via Google (the words constantly and invite are scattered in the full essay above):

We are constantly invited to be who we are. - Henry David Thoreau

Accept.

Super Secret Start-Up

I can yak about business as a powerful integrative force. But it's time to walk the talk. In fact, I was glacing at the Metro (Silicon Valley's weekly) horoscope for amusement:

This is Walk Your Talk Week for you Geminis. More than any other time this year, you will have everything going for you when you concentrate on translating your highest ideals into practical actions. Live up to your hype, you beautiful dreamer. Fulfill your promises. Call on all your ingenuity to create effects that are in harmony with your intentions. You are now capable of being as free of hypocrisy as it's possible for a human being to be.

Well then by golly! What fortuitous coincidence that the stars are aligned! A new category on this blog is Super Secret Start-Up (and if you don't know already, I'm being entirely facetious about the super-secret part...and the astrology). The concept squarely ties into global innovation networks. (BTW, I'll be at the KM Cluster's Innovation Networks event this Friday in LA.)

A lot of companies are already geared up around being Idea Companies (via Don the Idea Guy). Saatchi and Saatchi has staked their future in it. This isn't an idea company.

Companies don't innovate; people do. - Jeff Hawkins, creator of Palm Pilot and Handspring PDAs

It's a people company. A team company.

The most important thing about Kevin Robert's, Worldwide CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, strategy that's frequently overlooked is the mission:

I think the role of business is to make the world a better place for everyone. We're going to do that by giving people choices, giving them self-esteem. But fundamentally, we'll do this by including the 2.3 billion people who exist on less than $2 a day, and turning them into active participants in a free, capitalistic, choice-driven, self-esteem-driven market.

There really is a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.

Among the many reasons I have no problem revealing intellectual "property" are these two: As Ricardo Semler points out in his book, Seven Day Weekend, and in countless press interviews, hundreds, maybe thousands, of companies visit Semco to study its success and corporate culture. They all reel back and object: But we can't do that. I spent an afternoon with a foreign Internet portal on Google's innovation and product management practices. They were eager to hear all about it. At the end of the meeting: But we can't do that.

And, the next reason: Anyone that reads this blog is truly a collaborator, partner and co-creator in this endeavor not a competitor.

The Innovation Economy As An Integrative Force

At a time of intense division, with deep political and religious faultlines splitting the world, innovation stands out as a powerful integrative force. It ties countries, companies and consumers [try customers!] together in creating value, solving problems, and generating wealth. An innovation economy demands that society be open, dynamic, educated, international, and risk-taking. Given a chance, innovation can improve all our lives. - Business Week editorial (subscription required), October 11, 2004 issue

This sounds a little corny, but I think it's entirely possible for business to be a powerful force for social good. I like how that sounds: A powerful integrative force. The entire 75th Anniversity issue of Business Week is devoted to "The Innovation Economy."

The Innovation Economy is not confined to any geography. As Ricardo Sirolli, author of Ripples from the Zambezi, says, "As you know I believe that there is no geography to passion." The bricks-and-mortar success mantra of 'location, location, location' shifts into the webs of these collaborative global social networks themselves. They're called 'innovation networks.'

Because technology now crosses borders faster than ever -- thanks to the Internet, cheap telecom links, and advances in interactive-design software -- the location of R&D facilities matters less and less. What matters is who controls these networks -- and where the benefits accrue in terms of products, jobs, new companies, corporate profits, and higher economic productivity. "The real challenge is to commercialize technology," says Boston Consulting Group Executive Vice-President James P. Andrew. "Increasingly, that means integrating outside technologies and orchestrating global value chains."

To get an idea of how diffuse the innovation process has become, try dissecting your new PDA, digital cameraphone, notebook PC, or cable set-top box. You will probably find a virtual U.N. of intellectual-property suppliers. The central processor may have come from Texas Instruments (TXN ) or Intel, and the operating system from BlackBerry (RIMM ), Symbian, or Microsoft. The circuit board may have been designed by Chinese engineers. The dozens of specialty chips and blocks of embedded software responsible for the dazzling video or crystal-clear audio may have come from chip designers in Taiwan, Austria, Ireland, or India. -- Scouring the Planet for Brainiacs, Business Week "The Innovation Economy" issue