Derek Sivers' 3 Minute TED Talk (Video)
37signals.com
37signals.com
While we were waiting for the next act, someone brought up the story of the shirtless dancing guy and I jokingly challenged my slightly drunk friend to be that guy. He said "I can't dance." I told him "Dude, just do the Hokie Pokie."
He started singing and dancing and we all backed up a few steps. He was joking, but he soldiered on to the second verse, and then the third. During the 3rd verse, we kinda felt bad for how ridiculous he looked and people were watching us. So I and a few of our circle started in. Then, a girl in a giant dragon costume ran over to join. As soon as the dragon girl showed up, everyone was watching. We started the song over, expanded the circle, and before you knew it, there was 3 more people running over. By the time we actually made it through the whole song without having to expand the circle, there was almost 40 people doing the Hokie Pokie!
The weird bit about this story, however, is that doing the Hokie Pokie in a circle limits how far you can grow. As the circle kept expanding, it became less and less space efficient. People were excluded simply because there wasn't space for them to join. At almost 40 people, the Hokie Pokie circle had effectively collapsed under its own size. Maybe next year we'll try a dance that scales better.
Keep the original small circle, and form progressively larger concentric circles around that.
Or turn in into a line dance with lots of rows.
Of course, a "lone leader" is an oxymoron. By definition, a leader requires followers. The concept of "first-follower advantage", as opposed to "first-mover advantage", is interesting to think about in the context of technology. Haven't most or all of Apple's really big things been "first-follower" or "early-follower" products?
1. They totally validate my value proposition
2. None of them offer multi channel, web enabled, real time power monitoring
3. I am the bomb.
Okay, perhaps 3 is exaggerated, but I've got to stay sane somehow!
The list: http://blog.mapawatt.com/2009/10/07/list-of-energy-monitorin...
In other cases, the risk may be greater - when thesixtyone launched a full interface redesign, they could have sat on their hands indefinitely, not just because of stage fright, but because something that they put a whole lot more of their life into is on the table than the opinions of other shirtless concertgoers.
I think it's related to a lot more than inhibition, although I would agree that the risk-taking personality trait probably spans both situations.
And to be fair, Seth also said we need more leaders(1) and artists(2) - encompassing all three of the core team, really. Also, it's worth note that a stoned customer is still a customer :)
Money back guarantees, free trials, browsing existing sites, services that attract groups of people are all great for this.
Gridspy offers a 5 year back to base hardware warranty. I'd like to offer a "if you don't like it, send it back for a full refund any time in the first year" warranty.
Bolero - Maurice Ravel