I had the opportunity/privilege to participate in a conversation with other health activists and e-patients about a Digital Patient Bill of Rights recently.
The headline on this post is the title of Richard Branson‘s business memoir. The full title: Screw It, Let’s Do It: Lessons in Life and Business. The link will take you to the book on Amazon, so you can just do it and buy the book.
I had the opportunity to literally see Branson in action on Friday, 9/9/11 at Richmond Unite’s #DSRPT11 conference right here in River City (Richmond VA), which also featured some other visionary thinkers who exhorted the crowd in attendance to get out of their business comfort zones and create some disruption.
Richard Branson has disrupted many industries: music, aviation, travel, mobile, broadband, just to name a few. He talked about his failures (Anybody here remember Virgin Cola? Yeah, me neither.), and was anxious to convey the message that his “screw it, let’s do it” rallying cry became even more important to him because of those failures. There is only do, or not do. There is no try. Thanks, Yoda.
The other big thinkers on the stage all shared the same ethos – look beyond what you perceive as your borders, whether those borders are physical, mental, geographical, or just imaginary. If you have an idea, chase it down and make it real. If you fail, get up and chase the next idea. Immobility is your only enemy.
One of the speakers, Harry Singer, said two things during his presentation that really stuck with me, and with other folks I talked to at #DSRPT11:
Don’t ask why, figure out how
Don’t tell them what it is, tell them what it does
The first is something we should teach children from birth, and keep on teaching them and each other throughout our lives. The second is a titanium nugget if you’re in sales or marketing: what your product or service does for your customers is much more important than what it is. Communicate the doing rather than the being.
Kelly O’Keefe, a branding guru who’s also on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University’sBrandcenter – which is one of the top design schools in the world – spoke about the opportunities present in our current economic downturn to focus on social entrepreneurship. He talked a lot about Detroit – his home town – and the true crisis that city has been in since the Japanese started eating the lunch of Detroit’s Big 3 car makers. That crisis has deepened into a catastrophe as the global economy has imploded. Kelly said it was the outliers – the nerds, the artists, the revolutionaries – who were making a true difference in Detroit, and helping that city rise from its own ashes.
I too had the opportunity to take the stage. I was to have eight minutes, and was invited to create a slide deck for it, which I did. My slice-o-time was to be during lunch. As will happen, the morning speakers ran long, and since Richard Branson was to take the stage at about 3:30pm, the time was to be made up during lunch come hell or high dudgeon. Each of us would have only TWO minutes, no slides. Two of the eight presenters dropped out because their presentations were so visual. The remaining four that weren’t me did what they did, some ran over.
I was always slated to be the last speaker. My topic was that patients need to seize control of healthcare, which is the only sane path to real and meaningful healthcare reform, no matter what your politics are. I knew I had to do two things: Keep it tight – I took the stage at 1:26pm, the afternoon session was starting ON TIME at 1:30pm – and, since there was a post-lunch food nap induction driven further snooze-ward by the fact that the attendees had been in their seats since 9:00am, WAKE ‘EM UP.
My attitude? Screw it, let’s do it.
Here’s a from-the-seats clip of the last :56 of my total 1:48 (I timed myself like every pro speaker must). The full version will get posted as soon as I get it from the video group who did the gavel-to-gavel coverage. Let me know what you think – I really DO want to know.
I consider London to be one of my home-towns – I grew up in a government-service family, we moved frequently, and one of the places we called home was London in the ’60s and ’70s.
I watched, with deep sorrow, as large parts of Greater London, and then Birmingham, fell under the torches and bricks of rampaging looters, ostensibly in protest of the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham during what was either a traffic stop or a drug-squad operation. Whichever version is true, the aftermath was crystal clear: chaos.
Fueled by SMS technology, unrest armed with bricks and gasoline spread like wildfire across the London suburbs: Tottenham, Ealing, Barnet, Camden, and a host of other communities became war zones. Scotland Yard was caught flat-footed, with the recent leadership shake-up driven by the Murdoch mess getting blamed for their slow response.
The viral nature of 21st century communication is a powerful tool – for good, or for ill. Like the viruses it takes its name and nature from, “viral” has no morals. It just knows one thing: SHARE ME.
The danger compounds itself by what’s usually seen, in the heat of the moment, as the only way to prevent chaos, to control the message: shut down free access.
That’s what governments in the Middle East are doing to shut down their citizens’ demands for free democracy, and what the British government was asking companies like Research in Motion (the Blackberry folks) to help them do: shut down the viral vector. SMS technology, social sharing.
It’s a dangerous game, that shutting-down. Because once you’ve started, where and when do you stop? When the High St. stops burning? When the last street is cleaned? After some kind of vetting-council “approves” you for re-connection to Facebook?
The lesson here is the same one I advise businesses to take with their communication strategy: LISTEN FIRST. If governments – be they in Lagos or London – have an active listening program in place, they’ll know that they have a problem before it literally bursts into flame.
That’s true for corporate governance, civic governance, every part of human endeavor. Mark Duggan’s death may have been the match that lit the flame, but the fuel was laying all over the ground long before that match was struck.
When it comes to your community, are you LISTENING? To your fellow citizens, to your customers, to your constituents?
Failure to use your ears will mean you’ll have to learn how to use a fire extinguisher. Which is really challenging when your house is already on fire.
You can spend a lot of worthwhile time on LinkedIn – it’s a great place to study industry trends, listen to meaningful conversations, and keep an eye on your competitors.
What does your LinkedIn profile say about YOU?
Sure, it’s got a chronological list of all the great companies you’ve worked for, and the degree(s) you’ve earned. It’s got some information on your interests, and a listing of the groups you’re part of.
But what does it say about you…really?
Does your Summary list a blizzard of buzz-words, or an assortment of acronyms? What does it say, in real words, about the value you deliver to your customers? Is your Experience list just a straight list of companies, job titles, and years there?
Even if you’re on a corporate payroll, you’ve got customers. Customer #1 is your boss, and Customer #2 thru infinity are your boss’s and your company’s customers. Every single one of them.
When a potential customer Googles your company, LinkedIn results appear. Which means your profile could be on view. What does it say about you, your company, and your value?
If your LinkedIn profile reads like an old-school job application – and that’s so 20th century – here’s how to turn it into a 21st century value statement:
Clearly state who you are – what you bring to the table, what your talents are, and what kind of terrific value you’ve delivered over your career.
Clearly state why you matter – why do you do what you do? What fires your enthusiasm? How do you inspire others?
Make it clear who should care – obviously, your boss is someone who should care that you show up. Who else might be on that list? What do THEY do – what job titles make that list? How would you make a difference to those folks?
Interview colleagues, co-workers, former bosses, your professors. Find out what kind of impact you’ve had on them. Work on putting that into a compelling narrative statement about who you are, why you matter, and how you make a difference. Tell that story in your Summary, and in every section of your Experience.
Everybody’s got a list of jobs on their resumes, and their LinkedIn profiles. What they really need is a great story.
If you need help putting together that great story, let me know.
This site – the main presence on the web for my business – was hacked by a group of losers who fly under the banner h4ck-y0u. They replaced my deathless prose (well, some of it is, at least IMO) with a handprint graphic and the theme from the X Files.
Jeez, kids, bored much?
I have to give both myself and GoDaddy some props – me for figuring out the MySQL fix via the WP Codex (speaking of hackers…); GoDaddy for actually providing real tech support, and it only took two calls to reach a dude named Brian who, to my utter surprise, really did help. Brian: new BFF. Srsly.
Bottom line? I’m working hard over the next couple of days to further harden my WP security.
