Last week I was fortunate to participate in the TED conference in Long Beach.  I learned a ton and it sparked a lot of new thoughts for me, which I will be writing about here on the pages of metacool for the next few weeks. 

One of my favorite moments was this talk by education innovator Dr. Sugata Mitra.  It's his acceptance speech for this year's TED Prize.  From the standpoint of technique, I admire it for his masterful interweaving of humor, information, and narrative; for those interested in the art of public speaking, it's a master class. 

Of course, he didn't win the prize for being able to give a good speech, he won it for what he's accomplished and for his vision going forward, and I'll allow you to learn about those via his own words here:

Here's a particularly thought-provoking section of Mitra's talk:

Well, I bumped into this whole thing
completely by accident. I used to teach people how to write computer programs
in New Delhi, 14 years ago. And right next to where I used to work, there was a
slum. And I used to think, how on Earth are those kids ever going to learn to
write computer programs? Or should they not? At the same time, we also had lots
of parents, rich people, who had computers, and who used to tell me, "You
know, my son, I think he's gifted, because he does wonderful things with computers.
And my daughter — oh, surely she is extra-intelligent." And so on.

So I
suddenly figured that, how come all the rich people are having these
extraordinarily gifted children? What did the poor do wrong? I made
a hole in the boundary wall of the slum next to my office, and stuck a computer
inside it just to see what would happen if I gave a computer to children who
never would have one, didn't know any English, didn't know what the Internet
was.

The children came running in. It was
three feet off the ground, and they said, "What is this?"

And I said, "Yeah, it's… I don't
know."

They said, "Why have you put it
there?"

I said, "Just like that."

And they said, "Can we touch
it?"

I said, "If you wish to."

And I went away.

About eight hours
later, we found them browsing and teaching each other how to browse. So I said,
"Well that's impossible, because — How is it possible? They don't know
anything."

Of course, those kids knew "something" because they were willing to mess around with a computer and fail until they knew how to make it work.  Kids are ever open and curious.  They learned by doing.

What's striking about Dr. Mitra's life journey and his ensuring discoveries is that he's so deeply rooted in experiencing the world instead of talking about experiencing the world.  He is an expert on education, but is no mere theorizer.  He is a doer.  He had a hunch, and acted upon it by putting a computer in a hole in the wall.  He learned something from that experiment, and kept on trying new stuff.  Never just theorizing, always learning by doing.

Today is National Girl Scout Cookie Day.  I used to not know much about the Girl Scouts, but my wife recently started a troop, and this has given me the opportunity to learn a bunch about this remarkable organization.  In particular, I’ve become really interested in the role of the fabled Girl Scout Cookie in the flow of the Girl Scouts organization, whose misson is to build “…girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”

From a purely financial point of view, sales of cookies help fund troop activities.  A percentage of sales go back to each troop, so the more boxes are sold, the more money a group of girls has to engage in activities in pursuit of the Girl Scout mission.  Selling cookies is a fundraising activity.

Of course, it’s about much more than money.  There’s a lot of potential learning to be had.  The Huff Post recently published an awesome essay written by Girl Scout Olivia Ottenfeld on that point, and here’s an excerpt:

…the Girl Scout Cookie Program is not really about the cookies, but about
all of the life skills girls learn as part of the program. Many people
don’t really understand that. That’s why we’re launching National Girl
Scout Cookie Day on February 8…

…There are so many positive values I’m learning from selling cookies.
There is no limit to what a girl can do: undertaking a service project
to help make a difference in her community, exploring new challenges by
kayaking in a nearby lake, or broadening her horizons by traveling to
another state, or even another country. When I hit the business world
after college, I will fear nothing.

So, people of the universe engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, I have a simple ask of you.  And I’m not asking you to buy cookies (only do that if you really want to eat them).  Instead, I’d like to ask you to pause and engage in mindful conversation with the next Girl Scout who approaches you to buy cookies.  When you’re asked to purchase cookies over the next few
weeks, consider treating that query as a valuable
learning opportunity for those cookie sellers.

Whether or not you buy cookies, you can choose to have a quality interaction with that girl by asking her about the project and what she’s hoping to get out of it.  For younger girls, ask how many she’s hoping to sell, what her troop hopes to do with the money, etc… for an older girl, ask her about her marketing plan, how sales are going relative to that plan, how things compare to previous years, how is the Fiscal Cliff impacting cookie sales this year, if at all, up to and including what she’s dreaming of for her future.  By doing so, you’ll help her learn some of the key lessions (including how to deal with rejection) articulated so well above by Olivia Ottenfeld.

Here’s a great video which builds on these ideas:

Opportunities to frame one’s character and worldview as that of a creator, builder, and entrepreneur need not happen solely in a classroom, nor can they.  They happen just as well on a playing field, at the keyboard of a piano, or out selling cookies to benefit your fellow scouts.  Please consider being part of that learning journey, and positively influencing a girl’s life forever.

I’ll take a few boxes of Tagalongs, please!

As a non-trivial coda to my series of posts on the Nissan DeltaWing and the process of innovating, here's a brief account of how the DeltaWing team fared over the weekend.

When we last checked in on this intrepid crew, they had just finished an epic all-night push to repair their mangled car.  They then took their place on the starting grid at the 1000 miles of the Petit Le Mans, and had a flawless race, finishing an incredible fifth place (as the head of Nissan remarked, likely the most celebrated fifth place in the history of racing).  The drivers drove with speedy care and finess, the work of the engineers endured through the long hours, and the mechanics and support team all did their part along the way.  Though racing always centers on the drivers, it's a team sport of team sports, and when it comes to actually running the race – executing the vision, in other words – the team cook and physical trainer are as important as the head engineer and lead mechanic. 

Here's a nice recap of the team's race experience:

Innovating isn't just about killer ideas or designs.  To say that you've truly innovated, you first need to ship something, which means embodying your ideas in a form which can influence the lives of others.  And then you to achieve impact at scale, which requires meticulous execution of the total business system surrounding your innovation.  Innovation is nothing without experiencing the crucible of having to ship, and the discipline of executing at a level commensurate with the potential you envisioned in the first place.

They payoff to doing what other people said say you cannot do?  Just listen to Ben Bowlby's voice in the video clip above, and then remember his joyous expression.  Priceless.

As a boy growing up in Boulder, I attended a wonderful school named Burke Elementary.  An amazing place, staffed with passionate, dedicated teachers, and named for a great American, Admiral Arleigh Burke.  Admiral Burke used to visit our school once a year, and he made a big impression on me.  Why?  Because he was kind and attentive to us kids, but also because his nickname was "31-knot Burke".  That caught my attention!  Here's where Burke's moniker came from, per Wikipedia:

He usually pushed his destroyers to just under boiler-bursting speed, but while en route to a rendezvous prior to the Battle of Cape St. George a boiler casualty to USS Spence
(a jammed boiler tube brush used for cleaning) limited his squadron to
31 knots, rather than the 34+ they were otherwise capable of.
Thereafter, his nickname was "31-knot Burke," originally a taunt, later a
popular symbol of his hard-charging nature.

That idea of charging ahead, going that extra distance in order to make things happen, really struck a chord with me.  You can call it "hurdling", as my colleague Tom Kelly does in The Ten Faces of Innovation, or you might call it being entrepreneurial — doing the most with whatever resources you have at hand — or you can say it's about having true grit: to me these all describe the same worldview, one where effort does indeed equal results, where you can make your own luck, where putting forth that extra bit of energy is what elevates the winners.  For folks engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, it's an essential attitude and skillset to carry in your quiver.

Back to the Nissan DeltaWing, which will go down as my big point of obsession and inspiration for the year 2012.  Here's what happened to the DeltaWing on Wednesday while practicing for this weekend's 1000 mile endurance race:

In case you're wondering, getting clobbered with a 7G hit by an errant green Porsche 911 (not a good example of how to drive a 911, by the way) officially qualifies as an unexpected speedbump in the best-laid plans.  Fortunately only the car was hurt.  But, the car was a wreck, and qualifying was only a day away.  What do you do?  The DeltaWing crew decided to 31-knot it with a truly epic repair session.  They worked through the entire night and the next day brought forth a rejuvenated DeltaWing car:

Wow.

In the spirit of Arleigh Burke, I hereby propose the addition of a new verb to the English language: deltawing.

Deltawing.  As in, "Things went totally wrong, but we pulled the team together and decided to deltawing it". Or, "I didn't think I had anything left, but I deltawinged, and that saw me through."  To deltawing means to stick with your goals and beliefs even in the face of great adversity and calamity.  It's a verb which all innovators need to know how to put into action. 

If you're trying to be innovative, you will fail.  You will fail many times.  How will you respond?  Your only choice has got to be to deltawing.