“If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.”

It’s the quote famously attributed to Henry Ford on his attitude to innovation. Although I just found out that its accuracy is suspect, the point remains that the automobile was the kind of disruptive innovation that few customers could conceive of.

The same dynamic is found in IT when it deals with its internal customers in the quest for innovation, according to Prof. Joe Peppard at a recent talk at the Irish Computer Society (ICS).

Ironically, it is not all about following bleeding-edge technology, Peppard said. It can be old tech used in new ways, he said. “It’s being fueled by new ideas … ultimately it’s not about the technology.”

Peppard’s comments came during a session on aligning IT and business strategies. And although IT will meet business units for feedback and suggestions, the quality of input is poor, Peppard said.

“There is a dearth of good ideas about how the organization can use IT,” he said. “The big game changers — the automobile — that is where IT has a tremendous role to play.”

Peppard’s research on the IT-business relationship and innovation has lead to the grid below outlining the push-pull driving IT innovation.

Innovation is about harnessing the power of IT, Peppard said. Using technology, engine manufacturers, Rolls Royce, threw out their old business model of selling engines and spare parts.

Engines have sensors built in and are monitored in real time, Peppard said. “Rolls Royce doesn’t sell engines any more. They sell availability,” he said.

Peppard acknowledged, however, that IT selling innovations to management can be a challenge.

One company that puts new ideas under executives’ noses is ASDA, Wal-Mart’s UK subsidiary, he said.

On their way to the video-conference centre, executives must pass through the Innovation Lab, a mock store showcasing technology that could give the company a competitive advantage, Peppard said.

Energy giant BP has an active IT innovation center with 13 full-time employees. They actively search out new innovations by asking Silicon Valley VCs to meet with them once or twice a year, Peppard said.

The VCs are asked to showcase their portfolio companies that may be of interest to BP, he said.

At daily, emergency management briefings in the aftermath of the Christchurch, N.Z., earthquakes, the police chief complained that officers were overstretched due to the amount of burglaries of empty houses.

The police force had no way of knowing which houses were deserted following the quake, he said.

But the CEO of the power company thought about it for a moment and then realized he knew because they had a list of houses where the power had been cut off.

Then came a new realization, according to Prof. Joe Peppard: “He always saw data as something that could be used to run a business. He didn’t realize data could be monetized.”

Speaking at the Irish Computer Society (ICS) last week, Peppard was kicking off a new round of his CIO Masterclass Series. (More posts on his talks can be found here).

Director of Cranfield’s School of Management IT Leadership Program, Peppard’s first talk was called Achieving IT-Business Alignment: The first steps towards strategy co-evolution.

“It’s not rocket science,” Peppard said. “But it still seems to be one of the top three issues” among CIOs.

However, Peppard identified one gap in business thinking that can cause companies to struggle with strategy or miss opportunities to innovate using IT. That is the gap between Information Services (IS) and Information Technology (IT), he said.

It is important to make the distinction, Peppard said. Companies must first look at IS strategy. This is demand oriented, information focused and business based — and has nothing to do with technology. An IS strategy should be drawn up by the business side and should deal with information and its manipulation, use and sharing.

And there were plenty of hugely successful CEOs to quote on the value of information, Peppard said.

Bill Gates: “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.”

Fred Smith, Founder of Fedex: “The information about a package is as important as the delivery of the package itself”

Only then can an IT Strategy be drawn up to align with business needs. This is supply oriented and technology focused, Peppard said. An organization typically has just one IT Strategy but can have many IS Strategies, he said.

An example would be a large multinational with several divisions. Each will have an IS Strategy but those will be underpinned by a single tech strategy, Peppard said. “But a lot of organizations often don’t recognize that.”

Peppard said he studied one company that had a strategy of acquisitions. The CIO did his job well and ensured the new companies were integrated efficiently. But the CIO reported to the CFO, and was not party to strategic conversations.

This hurt the company when it decided to divest of some units. It turned out the CIO had done his job too well for that to be an easy task.

Achieving Strategic Alignment

Achieving business-IT alignment is “nothing very, very sophisticated,” Peppard said.

• Use tools business executives are familiar with. These can include Critical Success Factors, Process Analysis or by extending the Balanced Scorecard a little.
• If there is no formal business strategy, ask each area of the business what their priorities are.
• It is best to develop IS and IT strategies in parallel.

And the final piece of advice from Peppard: “I believe there should be no executive summary because, if there is, that is all people will read.”

Image courtesy of NZRaw.co.nz on Flickr.

In times of cut backs, innovation projects can suffer. While it also opens up opportunities, cutting back on innovation now can hold companies back once the economy picks up again.

Those were some of the observations that came from #innochat, a weekly Twitter conversation on a selected innovation topic.

Moderated by an expert in the field, the chats are well attended and draw practitioners from all over the world. Some of the countries I saw represented this week were the U.S. (of course), Portugal, Germany, the UK, and myself here in Ireland.

This week’s moderator was Gwen Ishmael (@Gwen_Ishmael), Senior VP, Insights & Innovation at Decision Analyst. The framing post for the discussion is here.

Scarcity Related Trends

Ishmael’s first question was, what scarcity related trends are people seeing? While some answers — funds, people, time, for example — seemed obvious, some surprising replies came back.

My favorite came from Achim Muellers (@AchimMuellers). “In times of crisis, open-mindedness tends to be a scarce commodity,” he said.

Cathryn Hrudicka (@CreativeSage) said she is “seeing lots of scarcity as a mindset, in all sizes of organizations.” But it is more of a reality in small businesses and non-profits, she added.

Jose Baldaia (@Jabaldaia) said there is a “scarcity of leadership and good resource management.” While Ishmael pointed to a “scarcity of patience.” Companies want things faster, she said. Michael Dugan (@SaveInnovation) agreed and said it can prevent innovation projects from proceeding.

Baldaia also spoke of a “scaccity of critical thinking [that] leads to assumptions which are inhibitors of innovation.”

“I think there is a scarcity of clarity or certainty about the best way ahead in many areas,” said John Lewis (@JohnWLewis).

But one comment proved to be a running theme for the hour: “One thing we don’t have a scarcity of is data — we now have Big Data, Lean Data and everything in between,” said Ned Kumar (@nedkumar).

“Data yes, but insight is scarce,” replied Stacy Leidwinger (@StacyLeidwinger). “We have masses of data,” Lewis agreed. “But I find it hard to get excited about that.”

“We need insight in to behavior, not just data,” Leidwinger said. And data keeps growing, Kumar said. “I don’t think many companies are ready for the abundance of data.”

Why is Innovation Cut Back?

Ishmael then asked why companies cut back innovation in times of scarcity. “Because they think innovation requires a lot of financial and human resources,” Baldaia said. Resources are diverted to prop up current initiatives, said Eric Shaver (@ericshaver).

Others, myself included, spoke of the security found when companies stick with what’s certain and avoid risk. “When in doubt, people tend to go with what they think is tried, tested and true,” noted Kelly Burroughs (@KellyBurroughs). “To many, boldness at a time of scarcity can seem reckless or even just inappropriate, even if it’s the real remedy,” said Adam Hansen (@adhansen). “In times of trouble, F.U.D. might cause one to revert,” according to @JustJimCo.

Meanwhile, pressure to meet short-term goals can impact long-term projects. “Fincialization of the US economy is driving companies to focus even more on the short term than before,” said Jose Briones (@brioneja).

Another problem is the personal perspective of those in charge, he said. “Most managers expect to be somewhere else by the time the long-term results of their decisions are apparent.” Brenda Young (@4byoung) agreed. There is “very little downside for managers who kick the problems down the road.”

Successful Scarcity-Driven Innovation

Ishmael then asked for examples of successful, scarcity-driven innovation. Two India-based examples popped in to mind: One was of Tata Motors, the company that makes cars for the Indian market at a fraction of the cost Western companies, the other was of the concept of Reverse Innovation. Hansen cited clay-pot refrigerators that cool food without electricity in Africa.

“Non-profit managers know more about innovating with scarcity,” said Hrudicka. Other examples cited were crowdfunding and micro-finance.

“Start-up companies are scarcity driven just by their situation. At some point, Facebook was scarcity driven,” said Burroughs.

Scarcity in one area can help those in another, noted Lois Martin (@LoisMarketing). “My firm has rapidly grown in recent months as clients have outsourced,” she said. “Like it or not, automation in general, when cheap labor becomes a scarce resource,” said Mueller.

However, Mike Parker (@Sysparatem) urged skepticism about claims of constraint. “[I'm] not sure I know a company that doesn’t have scarce resources. It’s like the tax man asking a farmer if he’s had a good year,” he said.

Encourage Innovation in Times of Scarcity

The final question asked what can be done to encourage innovation when resources are scarce or diverted elsewhere.

Quoting an unknown author, Deepak Patel (@3DeeQuotes) said, “If necessity is the mother of invention, scarcity is the mother of innovation.”

“Begin by asking questions,” Martin said. She can provide value to clients because she is “on the outside looking in.” While there was a general consensus to share knowledge and best practices around innovation, Hrudicka advised starting small to build confidence before moving to bigger innovations.

The “key is also to show in ‘VP-friendly’ terms the roadmap that justifies the allocation of time and resources,” said Briones. But Muellers was more adventurous: “Be prepared to stick your neck out!”

Image of drought courtesy of Bert Kaufman on Flickr.

This is Part II. Part I is here.

Another example, O’Carroll told of was a businessman with 40 years’ franchising experience who has developed a franchised early education model for kids in deprived areas.

Despite, or because of the recession, EI has seen a jump in the number of business proposals coming their way, O’Neill said. “These are not just me-too type companies, they are highly innovative,” he said.

Asked about the Irish stereotype of begrudgery, the panelists were quick to dismiss it. Holohan said it is “totally acceptable to succeed and totally acceptable to fail.” For those worried about the latter, he said, “The good thing about the recession is pretty much that everyone has failed to some degree.”

Roche said people like to back experience and be associated with success stories. VCs doing their due diligence “try to get behind why did it succeed or why did it fail,” he said. O’Neill said EI will look at the entrepreneur’s background and the market. An accountant looking to manufacture world-class stents is unlikely to pass muster, he noted. For State support, evidence of jobs and export potential is also a key driver.

In addition to voicing concern about jobs, the panelists had some thoughts about education. They were asked initially if the system supported entrepreneurs. Roche said he thought it was unnecessary in schools. Kids rarely say they want to grow up to become an entrepreneur, but it is something they grow in to. Unemployment or dissatisfaction with an employer who refuses to develop a new product can lead to a decision to go out on one’s own, he said.

Holohan said we “probably have too many [entrepreneurs] in Ireland.” Speaking of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and others, he said, “Look at all the great tech companies, they were founded by geeks.” More important are maths and science education to “let them be geeks,” he said. Once qualified, they will be hired or go on to become self-employed.

O’Neill agreed and said Ireland risks losing companies to locations that can supply job-ready workers. He said Mathematics and analytical thinking are essential. Those should be emphasized over the provision of more PhD graduates, he said.

“Maths underpins everything,” Roche agreed, adding, “It’s somewhat self-serving because my industry depends on them.” Problems include the points system and the lack of qualified teachers, he said.

O’Carroll agreed but then pointed to one bright spot, Coder Dojo. This is a free programming club founded by James Whelton and Bill Liao. It started in Cork but has spread nationwide and is now going international. It has become very popular and had to turn kids away from its most recent gathering at the Science Gallery.

Asked for advice, O’Carroll said, “The boring stuff is really, really important.” Entrepreneurs have to pay attention to business basics, she said. Recalling a trip she took to the U.S. during the dot-com bubble, O’Carroll said one start-up, that had still to reach profitability, was taking employees on a cross-country treasure hunt.

“That’s where all the VC money went,” Roche quipped.

Image of ship close-ish to Beauchamp’s office courtesy of Infomatique on Flickr.

Despite a national mood of doom, where the only relief seems to be bouts of gloom, the feeling in Ireland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is positively buoyant.

At a good-humoured and lively panel discussion in the MBA Association of Ireland’s Beauchamp’s Speaker Series, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists gave an upbeat assessment of Ireland’s current start-up climate.

Some cautionary notes were sounded, however, about industry’s apparent inability to fill 5,000 tech posts and on the quality of second-level education.

On the panel were: serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Paddy Holahan; Maurice Roche, Chair of Irish Venture Capital Association and Partner at Delta Partners; former spin-out guru, Dr Brian O’Neill, who is now with Enterprise Ireland (EI); and Annalisa O’Carroll, Head of Social Impact at Social Entrepreneurs Ireland.

The talk was the first of 2012 and launched a series on innovation the MBAAI will be running. In March, NGOs will explain how they struggle to provide the same services on fewer resources, and in May, there will be a session on how MBA grads find themselves in second careers either through design or accident.

Asked to compare the start-up Ireland of 20 years ago to today, the panelists said there was no comparison. Indeed, Holohan said Ireland “the second best place in the world to start a business” after Silicon Valley. He is now  General Manager of NewBay Software, which he founded in 2002 and sold to RIM last October for $100m.

Despite the late arrival of venture capitalists to the country, the entrepreneurial environment now includes angel investors, State support, and legal and commercial expertise in areas such as intellectual property. “The whole ecosystem is here,” Holohan said.

Roche, who moved home from New York in the early 1990s, joked about the reaction he got at the time when he told his family he was going to work for a VC firm in Dublin. “Is that legal?” they asked. Raising money for Delta’s fund at the time was also very different to today, he said. Not only were pension funds extremely reluctant to invest in entrepreneurs, “They were calling people with white coats to take you out,” he said.

Holohan and Roche said seed money is available for startups from various sources. Roche said the government’s bank recapitalization included a requirement than financing be available for start-ups. Delta is now managing one of those funds, he said.

Holohan noted that many successful entrepreneurs go on to become angel investors, and said that “things are an awful lot easier in the tech sector.”

On the other hand, said O’Carroll, “social entrepreneurs always work in a recession.” Although resources are constrained, money is not their prime motivator, and they are resourceful and deeply committed, she said. O’Carroll cited one example where a woman created an app to help autistic kids. Although there is a book-based system to help them communicate, it is not portable. The app is “an interesting idea borne out of mother’s frustration of not being able to communicate with her two children,” she said.

Part II of this post can be found here.

Image of ship close-ish to Beauchamp’s office courtesy of Infomatique on Flickr.

This is one of these blog articles that could go all over the place.

During last Thursday’s innochat on Twitter, Kris Ronald Anderson, founder of Berkshire Idea Generators in Monterey, Calif., suggested a new verb based on Kodak’s recent bankruptcy filing.

Anderson said kodak could become a verb, meaning “the act of holding on to one’s past performance too long.” He was referring, of course, the photo giant’s bankruptcy filing, which was largely brought about by its failure to properly address the challenges posed by digital photography.

Since Kodak has long been an iconic brand, that got me wondering if its name had entered the language in any other way. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary said it had as a verb, meaning to take photographs. Not all dictionaries, however, agree while others restrict its meaning to taking a photograph with a Kodak camera.

Score one for Kodak’s marketing department. But that pales in comparison with the innovations that came from its R&D group. Then management fumbled, and it is when you look at how they blew those opportunities, that Anderson’s definition becomes all the more poignant.

Digital Innovation

It is widely accepted that a big part of Kodak’s problem was its failure to properly handle the threat to its film business posed by the disruptive innovation posed by digital photography. But a closer look at Kodak’s history shows just how badly they handled it.

According to Knowledge at Wharton:

• Kodak actually invented the digital camera in 1975!
• Between 1900 and 1999, Kodak filed 19,576 US patents, and more than 1,000 of those were for digital photography alone.

As recently as 2005, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) was lauding Kodak for its “success with two disruptions” — disposable cameras and digital technology — because at that time, it was “market share leader in digital cameras in the United States.”

By 2008, however, the HBR published an article called “7 Ways to Fail Big” that used Kodak as an example of how to bungle innovation and strategy. Executives had analyzed the digital threat “as far back as 1981 when Sony introduced the first commercial electronic camera, the Mavica,” according to the authors.

But Kodak had its moment and blew it. Enamored with the 60 percent margins on traditional photography, Kodak stuck with film and chemicals. It reduced emphasis on lower-profit digital because it feared cannibalizing its high-margin business.

Now, a shadow of its former self, its innovations wasted, and seeking protection from creditors, the word Kodak risks becoming the definition of willful blindsiding and strategic failure.

Image of FunSaver camera courtesy of Capt Kodak on Flickr.
Image of Abandoned Kodak building in Canada courtesy of Insight Imaging on Flickr.

Does the push for lean, for efficiency, or for Six Sigma crowd out a company’s ability to innovate? Has the constant striving to strip fat created a corporate “one-trick pony”?

Those questions and others like them were tackled today on innochat, a weekly, fast-paced Twitter conversation on innovation.

It also introduced many participants to a new verb to describe companies that hold on to the past while refusing to innovate. They Kodak themselves (more thoughts on that can be found here).

While personally interested from an organizational innovation perspective, today’s chat also dovetailed nicely with the topic of Business Processes that I taught to undergrads last semester at the National College of Ireland (@ncirl) in Dublin.

In that course, we covered concepts such as lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, and explored how companies seek to eliminate waste from their processes. But the question then arises if lean, mean processes have any capability to innovate.

As usual, this week’s innochat was framed by a blog post here, and was hosted by Jeffrey Phillips (@ovoinnovation), a popular innovation blogger based in Raleigh, NC. After the talk was over, I pulled all the Tweets from Hashtracking.com using the hashtag, #innochat.

Focus on Efficiency Create Barriers?

Phillips first asked if a focus on efficiency creates barriers to innovation within an organization. Some of those agreeing were Harvey Briggs (@obx_harvey), who said it can make it tough for businesses to focus on new products. Stacy Leidwinger (@stacyleidwinger) said an efficiency on focus can make it hard for outside voices to be heard. “When you are lean and mean, you offer no space for innovation to breath,” according to Paul Hobcraft (@paul4innovating). By taking slack out of the system, he added, there is no room for innovation.

“[A] Laser focus on efficiency will result in an innovation deficit and eventual demise of a company,” said Natasha Gabriel (@natasha_d_g). “The pendulum has swung too far to cost reduction. If you only improve what you do now, there’s no room for the new,” according to Andrew Marshall (@drewcm).

On the other hand, Kevin McFarthing (@innovationfixer) said a focus on efficiency “can suppress radical innovation,” but if done right, can help incremental innovation. I didn’t see McFarthing’s point when I chimed in with an observation that practices like Kaizen usually lead to incremental innovation.

However, the majority opinion seemed to be that efficiency gets rewarded since it is easily measured in costs or profits.

Do Efficiency Tools Limit Innovation?

The second question posed by Phillips asked if efficiency tools like Lean or Six Sigma reinforce a short-term mentality that limits innovation?

Bradley Bendle (@wbendle) called them “customer-centric” processes that address their needs. However, Briggs said customers can be barriers to innovation, too. In his talks on innovation, David Trevitt, often quotes Henry Ford on his customers. The car mogul is reported to have said that if he asked his customers what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses.

My own take was that Eric Ries (@ericries), the lean startup guru, advocates stripping the fat from startups. Yet these are the very companies most people would see as being many more times as innovative as large corporations.

“Lean can sometimes be helpful,” Briggs said. There are “too many cooks in most innovation projects.” Kris Anderson (@berkshire_ideas) said lean may limit innovation, but the processes they apply to may not be staffed by innovative thinkers anyway. But drawing on the analogy of pruning a tree, Daniel E. Trujillo (@VolcadoDePila) said lean can spur creativity by forcing people to work with less.

But drawing on software experience, John W. Lewis (@johnwlewis) said, “Over-optimisation makes further development more difficult; this is well known in software.”

Others said there should be no conflict. Renee Hopkins (@Renee_Hopkins) said, “If innovation is seen as a separate initiative instead of the company’s core mission, there’s trouble ahead. Saul Kaplan (@skap5) said, “Efficiency vs. innovation is a false choice.” It is “more about tweaks vs. transformation. Both [are] within [the] innovation continuum.”

Innovation Balance

So where is the balance, Phillips asked.

“I see no reason why a company can’t be lean or efficient and and still innovate,” Anderson said. Bendle said he didn’t know where the balance lies, but, “I do believe there can be a harmonious coexistence.”

On a scale of 1 to 10, Paulo Machado (@pjmachado) placed efficiency at the low end and innovation on the high end. Others, meanwhile, quoted Jeff Jarvis who said efficiency can actually lead to innovation.

Innovation as Usual

Finally, Phillips asked if efficiency is “business as usual,” is it possible to build “innovation as usual”?

Continue business as usual, “wait for a crisis and watch the panic for innovation,” Hobcraft said. “Link innovation and efficiency together in one common strategy. Innovate efficiency, simplify innovation,” Hopkins said.

Business as usual is achieved through a use of process and “a reliance on serendipity,” according to Gwen_Ishmael (@Gwen_Ishmael). Creating a process of innovation is possible by saying you want more of the same, just better, quipped Jose Baldaia (@Jabaldaia). In a similar vein, I suggested efficiencies could free up resources that could then be devoted to pursuing innovation.

Machado cautioned that innovation can be short lived. “Tomorrow’s big innovations become yesterday’s efficiency projects,” he said. Innovation must become a continuous process to stay ahead of the competition.

Anderson drew on the recent bankruptcy filing by Kodak, and said that company’s name could become a verb meaning: “The act of holding on to one’s past performance too long.”

Image of pruned tree courtesy Keith Williamson on Flickr.

Keep an eye on the basics and the boring stuff even though movies about businesses turn it in to a montage.

A couple of comments made recently drove home the point that the “boring stuff” is where an entrepreneur should spend his or her time. The first comment was made by lean startup guru Eric Ries (@ericries) at a recent talk on his visit to Ireland.

In that engagement and in his book, The Lean Startup, Ries pokes fun at the “mythmaking world of Hollywood.” In his book, he wrote:

“First, we see the plucky protagonist having an epiphany, hatching a great new idea. We learn about his or her character or personality, how he or she came to be in the right place at the right time, and how he or she took the dramatic leap to start a business. Then the photo montage begins. It’s usually short, just a few minutes of time-lapse photography or narrative.”

That movie montage tradition was lampooned to great effect by Team America: World Police, which was made by the creators of South Park, Matt Parker and Trey Stone. In that film, the hero’s secret-agent training is condensed in to a 90-second montage with one of the authors’ trademark, satirical soundtracks (the scene is below).

As Ries noted, by the time the montage completes, the founders are successful and the next scenes show their faces plastered over newspapers, magazines or papers.

“Unfortunately, the real work that determines the success of startups happens during the photo montage. It doesn’t make the cut in terms of the big story because it is too boring.”

The word, boring, was raised by Annalisa O’Carroll at a recent MBA Association of Ireland (@mbaai) discussion on entrepreneurship. O’Carroll, who worked with many startups and is now Head of Impact at Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, said, “The boring stuff is really, really important.”

O’Carroll recalled a trip she took to the U.S. during the dot-com boom. She told of a visit to one company — that had still to reach profitability — and how it had taken employees on a treasure hunt across America. That company ultimately folded, and their money and energy should have been deployed elsewhere, she said. “A lot of the boring and foundational stuff is something we need to pay a lot more attention to.”

Team America still is one of Paramout Pictures publicity shots for the movie.

Bill Liao is a techie entreneur who made his first million by changing his language. And not PHP, Javascript or some other computer language.

He did it by changing plain old English (or maybe plain old Mandarin, because he’s bilingual).

Liao (@liaonet), successful entrepreneur, co-founder of Xing, author of Stone Soup, Special Diplomatic envoy for St. Kitts and St. Nevis, philanthropist founder of WeForest.org, business mentor, investor, TED talker and, most recently Coder Dojo co-founder, was speaking at the Science Gallery (@sciencegallery) in Dublin this evening.

Liao’s talk was on language and the impact it can have. Our worlds occur in language, he said: spoken, physical or emotional. Meanwhile, a lot of talk is also going on inside our heads and interfering with listening and our ability to comprehend, he said. A half-Chinese Australian, Liao said his bilingual upbringing “gave me an interesting insight in to the world.”

But he felt the sting of racism and struggled socially as a geeky teen, he said. Despite winning a major youth science competition in Australia, Liao said his worst experience came in school.

He was alone in a science lab one day looking at some equipment. Engrossed, he did not hear his teacher approach from behind. The man slapped his hand down hard on the desk, caused the young student to jump with fright, and stated: “Bill Liao, you will never amount to anything.”

The words cut deep, Liao said. The following year, despite his enthusiasm and talent for science, he had dropped out of school, and was working as a computer engineer. “For the next 10 years I basically didn’t succeed at anything,” he said, adding, “You can trace that back to a bit of language.”

By age 27, he had found a beautiful wife and was expecting his first child. It was also around that time that he was able to move his life forward by “rebelling” against the teacher’s ill-judged comments.

Again, Liao said, language helped him. He and his wife went on a work-sponsored, personal development course. His wife wasn’t impressed, but Liao felt he was on to something. He latched on to a definition of the work “integrity” as giving your word to something and honoring it. Taking that a step further, the budding entrepreneur decided that if you want to achieve something you have to honor what you just said you would do.

What finally spurred him in to action was when his wife went to hear about the work being done by the Hunger Project. Despite the young couple living in a room in his parent’s house, $30,000 in debt and both holding dead-end jobs, she came back from a meeting where she pledged $5,000 to help.

Aghast, Liao went back to say they couldn’t afford it. The charity worker asked him to close his eyes and visualize who he would have to become — within legal and moral boundaries — to be able to afford the donation. “That day, I pledged $50,000,” he said to laughter. He also pledged to himself to become a millionaire by age 30.

Realizing the key to wealth would involve becoming comfortable with sales, Liao quit his job and jumped in the deep end. He became a door-to-door salesman, cold calling at houses. Realizing other geeks would need the same skills, he set up a business to train them in the art of sales.

Liao missed his deadline. He hit his million one year late. But he overshot his target for the Hunger Project — they got $100,000.

“All of these things occurred because I changed the language I was using,” he said. He became careful about what he would say and how he would honor his commitments.

Meanwhile, Liao looked at our personal relationship with language. “There’s a lot of selective talk going on in the world,” he said. And many internal conversations revolve around fear of the future or regrets about the past. But that internal clutter can be clear by meditation, or by training ourselves to observe our own thoughts, Liao said.

Often while someone else is speaking to us, “we have our own commentary going on about what someone is saying,” he said. We should listen and think about the content later.

Addressing how people get their point across, Liao said humor is one of the most important tools. Citing “The Wombat” example below, Liao said humor combined with the right amount of force can be very powerful.

Humor can also be very effective at cutting through jargon to explain complicated concepts, Liao said. He asked the audience how many understood carbon offset credits, and who could explain that they were a bad idea. No hands went up, so he showed the video below.

Entrepreneurs

On the topic of business proposals, Liao lamented that they seem to suck the life out. When he meets entrepreneurs, “I am forever asking them to tell me their story,” he said. He cited his own decision to stop flying because his carbon footprint had become huge. His last trip to the U.S. was on a freighter, he said. But it also helped when he started his environmental work. “Walking in to a room full of environmentalists as a rabid capitalist, it gave me a good story to tell,” he said.

Coder Dojo

Co-founded with James Whelton, Liao said they worked hard finding the right name and tag line but “after a lot of iterations, we got the language really crisp,” he said. The dojo concept was taken from martial arts. And the tag, “Above all: Be cool” is both a target and fun. Another important aspect is that “the risk of not being cool is enough to end bad behavior.”

Us Mere Mortals

Liao said everyone has a great idea. But most people struggle to communicate it in a meaningful way. Fewer still can articulate it forcefully, fewer still with humor, and even fewer still will honor it by following through, Liao said.

Men Can be Trained to Listen

When people know they are not being listened to, they get annoyed, Liao noted. If this is happening in a group situation, it can annoy more than one person simultaneously. But there is hope, especially for women who often have a hard time getting heard by men. Training men is easy, he told the women in the audience. It is like dealing with puppies. “They need short, sharp corrections and lots of praise.”

Image of Bill courtesy of Illustir on Flickr.