I’m back from vacation and 2 weeks with longer periods of digital detox. But now I continue to provide my weekly findings from “sailing trips” through the net.
Nugget #1 has long been a contribution by Nadja Petranovskaja. Nadja chooses some nice examples of great things that existed before someone talked about project management or even digitization. For something like the pyramids, “only” ingredients such as dedication, enthusiasm and a common vision were needed. And additionally it needs the motivation of the inventor. In this context Nadja points to the 16 motives of life after Steven Reiss, which I did not know so far. In the next steps she moves to the current century where big players like Airbnb develop and big players like Nokia disappear. What I find most interesting about her article, is that it takes disturbances and irregularities to create something big. And what do we usually do with these noises? We fight it and try to “fix” it. I join Nadja in her call for more “sense of urgency” and courageous small steps on the way to something great. Be curious and start your journey!
How can you make somthing BIG if no one ever freaks out? (8 min, text, German)
Nugget #2 is about a new topic, which I’ve been following for some time, but I didn’t use it consciously and also on the blog here it wasn’t a topic yet. That will change. It’s about effectuation and who better to explain it than the founder Saras Sarasvathy. She has studied many success stories of entrepreneurs and has worked out several principles. In her TED Talk, she explains the approach using a simple example, a pen. Two of the principles are particularly well explained. On the one hand, that the future is unpredictable and better shaped through interaction with others. On the other hand, it is more effective to determine and use an affordable loss than to make big ROI considerations. Here science is really vividly explained. Unfortunately the slides are not always shown in the video, but you still can understand it well. (25 min, video, english)
Video-Link: https://youtu.be/t5HZW4NqZ-E
Nugget #3 is the smallest or shortest nugget I have ever had in my treasures. Alex Osterwalder, the inventor of the business model canvas, regularly tweets about innovation. His tweets always cause me to nod heavily. This tweet gets to the point and so I couldn’t avoid putting it into this treasure:
Why are so few companies good at innovation?
A lack of ideas or smart people is RARELY the problem.
Companies can't innovate because innovators have to explore ideas within the culture, processes, and incentive system of EXECUTION.
There is no space for EXPLORATION!
— Alex Osterwalder🇨🇭 (@AlexOsterwalder) June 6, 2018
That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend!