Exploring the random variable and the space in between ...

One of my students provided a link to another great TED talk last week. This time it was a presentation by Shawn Achor. He talks about the "cult of the average" and shows a graph with a perfect trend line and one outlier above the curve. He then goes on to say that in courses, such as economics, we teach "how in a statistically valid way, to eliminate the weirdos, eliminate the outliers, to find the line of best fit". http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?And suddenly, I was back in my home discipline of economics, justifying the fact that in my PhD I wasn't dealing with a line of best fit, or indeed with equations or numbers of any sort (except of course the page!).  Rather, I was interested in the random variable at the end of the equation, where I think this most interesting area of entrepreneurship often occurs - where there has been an  "escape" from the cult of the average.

I think that entrepreneurs are able to "escape", to move beyond the normal because they see "the space in between". I discussed this in a book chapter I wrote a couple of years ago with a colleague that opened with a quote from a wonderful book by Lloyd Jones called "The Book of Fame" (2000, p.75). It is a fictionalised account of the 1905 All Black rugby tour of Great Britain where he describes the innovative style of play of the All Blacks (known as the Originals) as follows:

"how we think

The [opposition] saw a thing
we saw the space in-between
The [opposition] saw a tackler
we saw space either side
The [opposition] saw an obstacle
We saw an opportunity. " 

I think this is a wonderful way of describing entrepreneurship, of being able to see opportunities by seeing the space in-between and the space either side, of making connections and patterns that do not conform to the "line of best fit", a way of moving beyond the normal.

                                              

Audible, Seabiscuit and remarkable!

In the previous post I asked the question "what product or service have you encountered recently that is remarkable?". A clear favourite to answer that question, for me at least,  is Audible.com. I love Audible - "talking books" are a wonderful way for me to be able to "read" while doing something else - exercising at the gym, walking our dog or commuting to work. Being stuck in traffic is such a waste of time. Yet when I am listening to a good book, I have been known to look out of my office window and see the traffic building on the motorway on ramp. I then figure if I stay at work for an extra 10 minutes I will get an extra 20 minutes in the car to listen to the next "installment". I recently did this with "The Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown - the story of a rowing eight from Washington State University who make it to the 1936 Olympics. Listening to the narrative of the final was so exciting - then I went straight onto youtube to watch actual footage of the race. I then did the same listening to Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenrand - this time staying in the University Car park to listen to a horse race commentary from the book and then race up to my office to watch the actual race, from the 1930s, on youtube. And if you don't know much about Laura Hillenbrand,  check out this article from the NY Times magazine - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/the-unbreakable-laura-hillenbrand.html?_r=0. Hillenbrand has written the NY times best sellers Seabiscuit and Unbroken, with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which means she barely leaves her home.  Her journey is both life affirming and remarkable! 

Follow your dreams ...

Last week a student recommended a book for me to have a look at - pay back perhaps for my constant suggestions to the class to add to their "optional" reading list of entrepreneurship/business books! It is called "The $100 Startup:reinvent the way you make a living, do what you love and create a new future" by Chris Guillebeau (http://100startup.com/).  I downloaded it from Audible.com (of which I am a raving fan) and  began listening to it earlier today when I was walking our dog Cheywa.  The focus of the book is to provide examples of microenterprises - businesses that fulfill at least 4 of the following criteria: 1. People followed their passion (typically a hobby or interest), 2. low start up costs - less than $1000, 3. at least $50k net income pa, 4. no special skills - anyone can operate  (e.g. coffee roaster rather than a dentist), 5. full financial disclosure for approx 3 years  6. Less than 5 employees. The idea is that these businesses have enabled people to follow their dream, not through a large business but on a scale that enables them to keep their independence and freedom. Of course this is nothing new, as the author points out; rather today there is an ability to reach customers and  make connections on a scale that is unprecedented because of the internet.


Which brings me to the second book that I am listening to "Tribes: we need you to lead us" by Seth Godin. He argues that mass marketing is over and businesses should now look to developing a "a tribe" - a group of people with shared ideas, interests and values.  http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/). Growing that "tribe" contributes to the success of the $100 Startup.

One of the things that Godin remarks on is the fact that "the market is looking for remarkable". That has me asking myself - how many times do I experience  "remarkable" ? What product or service  have you come across recently has been "remarkable?

        And the thought for the day ...

What do these have in common?

Over the weekend I was reading the Herald, Auckland's daily newspaper - telling my children that I wasn't playing on the ipad, I was actually reading the paper! I came across an article by Dr Michelle Dickinson, an Auckland University nanatechnologist (aka Nanogirl http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=11500936). Michelle was writing about Powerbyproxi, a company developing wireless charging technology that  "could help turn our static furniture into functional charging stations .. [This] mobile-device wireless-charging market predicted to be worth $5 billion globally by 2020".  A few days before that I had been presenting to the finalists of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year competition and a fellow presenter was Greg Cross, the CEO of Powerbyproxi ( http://powerbyproxi.com/). And one of the EY finalists in the room was John Wikstom, from Magic Memories  (http://www.magicmemories.com/ ), a company with the wonderful tag line of "we make people smile"!  

And the thing these all had in common? Spark - the University of Auckland's Entrepreneurship Challenge ( http://www.spark.auckland.ac.nz/).  Both Michelle and John were guest speakers at some of the Spark events held earlier in the year and PowerbyProxi was a previous spark winner, cofounded by Fady Mishriki ( http://www.spark.auckland.ac.nz/alumni/alumni-profiles/hi-tech-products/artmid/10733/articleid/4/fady-mishriki ).

And to round off my Spark week, a student in my undergraduate Entrepreneurship class was part of one of the teams that qualified for the 2015 Spark $100k Challenge. Would be great in a few years time to be writing a blog entry about how well a company that he founded is now doing :)

Where do good ideas come from?

I am currently teaching a third year undergraduate class in Entrepreneurship. One of the activities I ask students to do is to send me resources they have found on line about entrepreneurship. This semester a group sent me a link to this youtube clip by RSA animate on Steven Johnson's book "Where do good ideas come from? "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at2NBtq0h_g

If you haven't seen it, do check it out. While its only about 4 minutes long, be prepared to spend another couple of hours watching other RSA Animates - but more of that in another blog. It is a clip I had seen before but was delighted to be reminded again of the power of the combination of pictures and words. This particular animate highlights so many things that link with Entrepreneurship - creativity, innovation and my favorite  "the slow hunch". Ideas often need time to incubate and collide with other hunches "lurking in someone else's mind". I have a slow hunch that I am working on at the moment and love the collisions it is having with ideas lurking around in the heads of some amazingly talented people I know.  A reminder that opportunities don't always shout, they sometimes whisper ... (thanks Murray - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpD7gnCzBWg).

And of course it has reminded me, yet again, that many good ideas come from my students - and how thankful I am to be working at a University which has an abundance of talent coming through its doors every day :)

Piglet ears and 'catching' entrepreneurship

Now you may be wondering what piglet ears have to do with entrepreneurship - for me they are a reminder of when I first 'caught' entrepreneurship. I worked for a time in Malawi as a Small Business Advisor and instead  of catching malaria, I caught entrepreneurship instead! And I blame piglet ears and Mrs Malombe. She was this amazing Malawian entrepreneur, passionate and committed to providing for her family and community. She had a vegetable garden, village shop and a knitting machine - all enterprises that employed local woman and provided income for her large extended family. When I met her expansion was underway - she had built a piggery and all she needed was the pigs. So that day I drove half way across Malawi with Mr Chokani, one of the men I I worked with,  to pick up two piglets and transport them back to their new home. This was done in the Mazda station wagon that belonged to the Aid agency I worked for. As we reached Mrs Malombe's home I remember looking into the rear vision mirror and seeing four piglet ears and thinking what a difference these two would hopefully make  for that community. The delight and appreciation from Mrs Malombe was touching and her passion and energy was contagious - I had 'caught' entrepreneurship. 

Over twenty years later I am still 'suffering' - I love working in this space - whether it's research, teaching university students or working with entrepreneurs - for me it's all about the piglet's ears !