Remember Sun Microsystems? In 1998 they had a great ad that should bed on the wall of every startup and the goal of every manager, especially founders. It said, “Information shall circulate as freely as office gossip.”

Open communications is the basis of an enlightened workforce and enables world-class performance, unleashing creativity, and promoting a good working environment.

Great leaders/managers start with three basic assumptions:

1. People are intelligent, motivated, and want to help their company succeed.
2. People are required to act with initiative.
3. People’s performance is directly impacted by the quality and quantity of the information they receive.

Open communications means

• managers providing employees with all the information they need to do their job
• sharing knowledge between employees. The double goal being to encourage employee growth and substantially reduce the time they spend reinventing the wheel.
• eliminating one of the two pillars of political power.
• documenting. Good documentation plays a role in every part and process of a company. Without the knowledge of what has been done in the past, it is difficult to fulfill the demands of the present, let alone make viable decisions for the company’s future. Documenting is as much attitude as action, so it is critical to continually develop the mindset among employees that no project is finished until it is documented.
• making sure that people can easily understand information. Visuals, from a manager’s quick sketch, to the detailed drawings used by engineering to describe a product to manufacturing, are the fastest and easiest way to present information to busy people. Processes and information that can not be represented visually are probably too convoluted and bureaucratic.

Make open communications one of the core values on which you base your company’s culture.

Image credit: Communications Network

Before we get back to business, I thought I’d share my New Year’s Eve dinner party with you.

(I’m the coolest cat at the party.)

Video credit: Freshpet

Brainstorming is as vital to disruption and innovation as pizza is to all-nighters.

But what if you have no one with which to brainstorm?

IDEO’s founder David Kelly brainstorms on his own; here’s how he does it.

“When I want to do something analytical, I make a list. When I’m trying to come up with ideas or strategize, I make a mind map. Mind maps are organic and allow me to free associate. They are great for asking questions and revealing connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. I start in the center with the issue or problem I am working on and then as I move farther away I get better and better ideas as I force myself to follow the branches on the map and in my mind. The cool thing is that you allow yourself to follow your inner thoughts, which is different than making a list where you are trying to be complete and deal with data.” Bloomberg Business Week

Here’s an example of how it works.

Image credit: IDEO and servicedesigntools.org

Entrepreneurs are notorious for their 80 to 100 hour weeks.

In fact, many of them see that work schedule as a badge of honor; an initiation by fire to an exclusive club.

What they ignore is that as time goes by each week, the quality of the work produced goes down.

Because, much as they want to be superman, entrepreneurs are human and humans require food and their brains require rest to function at their best.

Many have tried napping, but often feel worse afterwards.

The good news is that there is a scientific reason why naps that exceed 30 minutes have the opposite effect as desired.

The secret to revitalizing a tired brain and juicing creativity is not found in grabbing an hour’s sleep here and there.

It’s found in the practice of Power Napping.

Try it; it works!

YouTube credit: AsapSCIENCE

Ryan Grepper’s Coolest is proof that necessity is the father of invention.

Not that his invention is a necessity and it won’t save the world or even a little bit of it, but it will make your summer fun easier.

The original galvanized metal cooler was patented in 1954.

Coleman introduced a plastic liner in 1957 and wheels were added a couple of decades later.

But nothing, including the fancy electric versions, even comes close to Grepper’s Coolest.

There are far more moving parts to manufacturing a complicated product such as Coolest, which Grepper seems to understand.

It’s also nice to see a “real” product from a twenty-something that while focused on fun will generate revenue through sales, not ads.

Obviously, others agree. Coolest has raised over $5.5 million dollars from more than 29,000 people—and the campaign still has 42 days to run.

Coolest is definitely a global business in the making.

I’m sure it won’t be long before he will have to choose between building a company and selling or licensing his technology.

What would you do?

Image credit: Coolest on Kickstarter

Writing in cursive is considered slow and inefficient, not to mention old-fashioned, whereas computers are productivity tools.

They help people do stuff faster and more efficiently.

They can automate repetitive work and help organize complex projects.

But like most things, computers, and now other smart devices, have a dark side.

Computers can kill creativity and thinking itself, along with social skills like empathy.

Keyboarding is a good example; it eliminates the need to write, which people see as a good thing, because they can type much faster than they can write.

But that efficiency is a double-edged sword.

Research now shows that kids learn better when they write longhand using cursive, as opposed to printing or typing.

For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information.

Beyond damaging the ability to learn, the inability to write cursive usually reflects an inability to read it.

While at first glance that may not seem important, a second look and you realize that it shuts you out of anything that was discussed in correspondence, first person journaling and dozens of other human interactions over centuries.

Even if Google was able to scan all the hand-written archives, they could not be read.

If you aren’t familiar with cursive, trying to read something written in it is akin to trying to read a Russian document when you don’t know the Russian alphabet.

If you don’t know cursive, find a place to learn it.

You’ll be surprisedatn the value it will add to your world.

Of course, you may be one of those people who believe that anything that predates computers and the Internet has no value.

If so, you deserve my sympathy—and my contempt.

Flickr image credit: derrypubliclibrary

What do Google, Facebook, Amazon and iPods have in common?

None can claim first-mover status, yet all are recognized winners.

First-mover position isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

In fact, it takes a very special mindset beyond what’s mentioned in the article if you are truly in first position.

Let me illustrate.

Way back in late 2009 I worked with an offshore client who had developed a location-based advertising  platform that provided ads, bought through a bidding system, targeted to users’ exact location, context and behavior in applications on mobile phones, portable navigation systems and internet sites.

They had fully developed software and filed for patents overseas and in the US.

Unfortunately, they were years ahead of the market and couldn’t get traction.

As a result of the frustration and the educational effort/cost needed to move the market they chose to pivot and move on to other ideas.

It was a logical choice at the time, although it doesn’t look like it in hind-sight.

First-mover status, especially in consumer tech, equals primary market educator—an effort that makes the actual product development feel like a piece of cake.

That ‘s why it is often second (or even third or fourth)-mover status where you find the big winners.

Flickr image credit: Tom Ray

I thought I’d share some advice with you today.

It comes in two parts with images you can save and share (just call me InstaMAP).

I’ve always believed that humans shouldn’t talk in absolutes, such as ‘always’ and ‘never’.

That said, I have found the following to be as universally applicable, i.e., absolute, as is humanly possible.

I especially like it because it underlines that you always have a choice.

Sometimes people choose not to find a way for reasons that seem valid, but most don’t hold up to scrutiny.

The following provides a roadmap for how they should behave.

Flickr image credit: Arya Ziai 1 & 2

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

What do you get when you cross an engineer, a craftsman and an artist?

A timeless, utilitarian piece of art that consistently rises in value and can’t be duplicated with technology.

YouTube credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Intelligently sharing information, commenting or arguing in 140 characters or less is challenging, but can you sum up your life, career, mood or tell a story in just six (real) words?

When challenged to tell a story in six words, Ernest Hemingway came up with “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

Since 2006, Smith Magazine has challenged readers to write their memoirs in six words and the effort is still going strong. Here are three examples from the Smith site,

Ecstatic, elastic, eccentric, electric, ever-changing existence!

Dreams diverted; life proceeds. Embracing detours.

Lesser people would’ve given up already.

A while back I wrote Birth, death, fun and happiness in-between, because that’s what I’ve always wanted and got from life—including obstacles and detours.

The great advantage six words have is to focus deeper thought, creativity and clarity upon the subject.

It’s fun to read through the Smith website and share your own thoughts, but much better to create your own version of it for your company.

Whether you do it digitally, on whiteboards or create a scrawl wall, it’s easy to set up a place for people to post their six-word thoughts.

In six words your people can

• describe your culture;
• spark creativity and innovation;
• facilitate bonding;
• clarify projects and goals;
• strengthen the team; and
• much more.

Analyzing the differing descriptions can go a long way to making sure everybody is on the same page.

It’s also a great tool to provide you with insights and a heads-up, so you can address molehills before they become mountains.

Image credit: HikingArtist