1Oct2015
An evangelist, a tech-guru, a marketing genius, a social media enthusiast. This guy allegedly has 24 hours in his day like all of us. Suspicious. His speech on The Art of Disruption was structured like an optimised-for-sharing Buzzfeed article and oh did we take notes. We, the listicle generation, felt at home with Guy Kawasaki on stage sharing his decades of learnings from the Silicon Valley world.
The Top 10 for The Art of Disruption
1. Great disruption occurs when people want to make meaning
Don’t attract the wrong kind of people, people who want to make money, not meaning. If you make meaning, you’ll also end up making money. Start with defining how you want to change the world.
2. Make a mantra
Choose two or three words that tell everybody why you exist. Be true to them. Don’t make a mission statement, make a mantra. Mission statements are generally non-rememberable and non-inspiring. Make a mantra that everyone at the company can remember, something that is truly inspiring.
3. Jump to the next curve
Don’t do what’s exciting now, do what’s exciting next. It’s difficult to jump from a curve to the next – so start by imagining what could be the next step in your industry. Be careful when defining and setting in stone what your company will do. It’s not about doing something 10% but 10 times better.
4. Roll the DICEE
Great products are deep, intelligent, complete, empowering and elegant. Make products that your customers didn’t expect to see, but something they couldn’t live without after seeing them.
5. Don’t worry, be crappy!
There hasn’t been one speaker at this year’s Nordic Business Forum who hasn’t mentioned the importance of embracing failure – Kawasaki didn’t let us down there, either. In product and service development, don’t wait for the perfect world, ship early and then test. And then iterate.
6. Let a 100 flowers blossom
You’ll never know for sure who will use your products, and how they’ll use them. Take your best shot at positioning and branding, but don’t get mad when people love you for the wrong reasons.
7. Polarize people
The number 1 thing you should be scared of is people not caring. People might hate you or they might love you – as long as they care.
8. Churn baby, churn
Start a revolution. Then get real and churn, iterate. Be bold and change the world, then go door to door asking how you can improve your products or services.
9. Niche thyself
Don’t compete on prize, compete on uniqueness and value. If you don’t add uniqueness or value, you don’t have a reason to exist. Communicate or make unique and valuable products.
10. Perfect your pitch
Maybe the hardest one for us Finns: you have to learn to sell yourself. It’s ok to say you’re the best when you are the best if you can sound humble and charismatic while doing it (today’s speakers seem to be world champions in this!). Remember to always customise to your audience: find a common language from the beginning.
Author: Mikko Hakkarainen (Mikko on Twitter: @mikmo)
Download Kawasaki’s slides here »
