by Dan Roam
How about being more selective and searching for “value” and “innovation” (the two words in Kim and Mauborgne’s original title)? That’s better: only 664 books to choose from—but still a lot to slog through. Now imagine that just one of those had “blue ocean” and “strategy” in the title. It would stand out, certainly—and more important, it would trigger our recognition of something new yet familiar. I don’t know about you, but I know which book I’m buying.
There are tens of thousands of books with “strategy,” “value,” and “innovation” in their titles. How many with “blue ocean” and “strategy?” One.
Judge a Book by Its Cover
Is this use of a visual metaphor as a recognizable label an anomaly among new ideas? Not at all. Look over the following page and see if you can find a pattern among the fifteen simple portraits.
Below are fifteen simple portraits. See if you can find what they all have in common.
All fifteen are titles of recent blockbuster business books. From the list below, see if you can identify each.
Blink
Malcolm Gladwell
2007
Blue Ocean Strategy
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
2005
Drive
Daniel H. Pink
2010
Linchpin
Seth Godin
2010
Made to Stick
Chip and Dan Heath
2007
Purple Cow
Seth Godin
2003
Switch
Chip and Dan Heath
2010
The Black Swan
RG> a> Nassim Nicholas Taleb
2007
The Long Tail
Chris Anderson
2008
The Six Thinking Hats
Edward de Bono
1999
The Snowball
Alice Schroeder
2009
The Starfish and the Spider
Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
2008
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
2002
The World Is Flat
Thomas L. Friedman
2007
Your Vivid Idea*
You
?
* Why not? You’ve got an idea and can draw a portrait of it, right? You’re already halfway there.
The Difference “Recognizable” Makes
All the books listed here have become influential well beyond the traditional “business” market. (In several cases, bookstores had to come up with new categories just to find a place to put these books.) Notice also that certain authors appear more than once. What do the Heath brothers, Seth Godin, and Malcolm Gladwell know that hundreds of thousands of other idea creators don’t? Among (many) other things, they know the power of expressing an original idea through a recognizable visual metaphor.
Visual Metaphors from Nature
Where can we find these visual metaphors? Our hummingbird has a simple answer for that one:
We spend our lives learning to recognize the world around us; where better to look for the essence of our own ideas? Here is a set of recognizable visual metaphors drawn from the natural world, terms we apply to them, and examples of recent ideas they might reflect. (This is our hummingbird’s chapter, so let’s not say much else. For now, let’s roll with her.)
Ocean, sea.
A new day.
Opportunity.
Potential.
Tida wave.
Unprepared.
The internet.
Love.
Peak.
Ascent.
The guru.
Health care (for some).
Tornado.
Chaos.
Anger.
Health care (for others).
Tree, roots, branches.
Family.
Network.
Facebook.
Nut.
Compact.
Hardened.
Politician.
River, stream.
Fluid.
Ever changing.
Time.
Ice.
Cold.
Prone to melt.
North Korea.
Leaf, veins.
Transport.
Health.
FedEx.
Aphids, disease.
Cancer.
Destruction.
SARS.
Elephant.
Memory, longevity.
Threatened.
Culture.
Ostrich.
Gangly.
Willfully unaware.
Wall Street.
Big fish, little fish.
Cycle of life.
Capitalism.
Microsoft/Yahoo.
Turtle, shell.
Defense.
Protectionism.
Missile shield.
Beaver.
Industrious. R atrious.
Endless.
Taxes.
Swan.
Aloof.
Furious below the surface.
Google.
Visual Metaphors from the World We Make
If nature doesn’t give us what we want or throws a challenge in our way, in the real world we build something to compensate. The same goes for visual metaphors: If we don’t see our idea in the natural world, we look for inspiration in the world we create. Here is a series of portraits drawn from our built world.
Bridge.
Bring together.
Cross.
Cisco.
Wall, barrier.
Keep apart.
Limit.
Immigration.
Stairs.
Ascend. (Descend).
Trend.
Stock market.
Chain.
Strength through numbers.
Weakest link.
The Beatles.
Lever, fulcrum.
Influence.
Move the world.
Social marketing.
Drip.
Ration, allocate.
Influence.
Apple.
Bubble.
Flexibility.
Surprise.
Housing market.
Org chart, family tree.
Patriarchy.
Influence.
Democracy.
R wi ant>
Scales.
Yin-Yang.
Tradeoffs.
Red & blue states.
Compass.
Unseen forces.
Course.
GPS.
Funnel.
Selection.
Delineate.
Standardized tests.
Boat, sail.
Travel, freedom.
Vulnerable.
NASA.
Balloon.
Vision.
What goes up . . .
Investors.
Radar.
Warning.
Stalking.
Customer tracking.
Mouse hole (& cheese).
Safety.
Temptation.
Financial services.
Compass, ruler.
Data, numbers.
Uncertain certainty.
Polls.
Flame, fire.
Energy.
Could get burned.
Nuclear power.
Watch.
Mechanism.
The universe.
Economics.
Door.
Willingness.
Potential.
United Nations.
Cage.
Protection.
Trap.
Homeland Security.
When Worlds Collide
Sometimes visual metaphors from the natural world and the built world collide. What happens then?
We get an even better metaphor.
Sometimes visual
metaphors from both worlds collide—making an even better metaphor.
Now What?
Wow, hummingbird, that was an awesome job. Who knew there were so many visual ways to make big ideas look so familiar? From now on, we should all be sure to look for the “recognizable” in every idea we see.
One last question, though: If the only things we can recognize are things we’ve already seen before, how does anything truly new ever come along?
Good question—and the answer is the next stop in our forest.
CHAPTER 10
E Is for Evolving: Vivid Ideas Are Complete—but Not Done
he fourth stop in our forest tour is E, for “evolving.” Because thinking, leading, teaching, and selling are always fluid, Vivid Ideas are always works in progress. It is true that to be presentable an idea must be complete, but it is also true that for the idea to be adopted, it must also be open to change. “Evolving” reminds us that Vivid Ideas are always complete—but they are never done.
Vivid Ideas are always complete, but they are never done.
The More Things Stay the Same . . .
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In 1483, Leonardo da Vinci was thinking about ways people could escape from high castle towers in the event of fire or attack.61 Rather than a ladder or a rope (both of which would always be limited in length), he designed the world’s first parachute. The way Leonardo saw it, four large triangular sheets of linen sewn together over a wooden frame should do the trick. In the margin of his notebook he drew his concept and specifications:
Leonardo’s notebook-margin parachute design, 1483.
If a man is provided with a length of gummed linen cloth with a length of twelve yards on each side and twelve yards high, he can jump from any great height whatsoever without injury.
There it was: the first fully articulated concept of the parachute, complete with description, shape, materials, and dimensions. It wasn’t done, of course—no one could be found who was crazy enough to jump from a tower to test it62—but the idea of the parachute was born.
Had nobody ever thought about escaping from a burning tower again, Leonardo’s sketch might have been the end of the parachute. But others did think about it, and by adding bits here and changing the materials there, the idea of the parachute evolved. It took exactly three hundred more years before anyone became confident enough in the idea to actually jump with one (and live to tell about it). On December 26, 1783, Frenchman Louis-Sébastien Lenormand successfully leaped and landed from the tower of the Montpellier observatory. A working parachute was finally complete. But the parachute still wasn’t done.
Lenormand’s first successful parachute jump took place in 1783, exactly three hundred years after Leonardo’s drawing.
In the years since, the parachute has evolved through hundreds of steps. While the dimensions, materials, and details have changed, Leonardo’s original idea has proven essentially correct: Jumping with a cloth held overhead can work. (You just need the right cloth.)
Five hundred years of parachute evolution. Leonardo’s original idea was complete, but parachutes will never be “done.”
The Vivid Evolution Waddle
We evolve an idea through a combination of breakthrough insight and incremental improvement. In fact, th R qact, th e very process of evolving an idea itself requires two evolutionary steps. The first evolutionary step is inward: To make sure our idea is durable enough to become vivid, we must ourselves push it right up to within a hair’s breadth of completion. The second evolutionary step is outward: To make sure other people embrace our idea, we must leave it unfinished enough that they can add their own insights.
First we evolve our idea inward; then we evolve it outward.
Example One: How Not to Salt Popcorn
Let’s say that I wanted to convince you that salted popcorn is better than unsalted. I could just pour salt on your popcorn and tell you to eat it. You might eat it, and you might even prefer it to unsalted, but you would never forget that salted popcorn was forced upon you. Even as you ate salted popcorn years later, you’d still have that bitter taste in your mouth.
If I try to convince you without your input, I won’t convince you.
Example Two: How to Evolve Salted Popcorn
Let’s try another way. This time I’m going to “evolve” my salted popcorn idea in two steps. First, the inward step: I’m going to try by myself (remember, this step doesn’t yet include you) various levels of salt. I’ll start with too much, then too little, continually adjusting the quantity until I find what I believe to be the optimal salt-to-popcorn ratio. No salt = bad. That much salt = bad. This much salt = perfect. Now I know my salted popcorn idea is well evolved.
First step: I incrementally evolve my idea until I think it’s just about right.
The second step is the outward one. (This is when I include you.) I get two bags of unsalted popcorn and give one to you. I make a big production out of salting mine just right, then I put the salt shaker between us. As I enthusiastically enjoy my popcorn, I comment on how much better it is with exactly two shakes of salt.
Evolutionarily, I’ve done all I can: I’ve optimized my idea, demonstrated the essentials, and given you all the elements you need: popcorn, salt, instructions, and motivation. The chances are great that you’ll now discover the joys of salted popcorn for yourself. And even if you decide you don’t like the salt, you’ll know it’s not because it was forced upon you.
Second step: I let you take the last evolutionary step yourself. Now it’s as much your idea as mine.
Inward/outward: My idea becomes your idea—and becomes even better. Salted popcorn aside, this is exactly where most PowerPoint presentations go wrong. When we polish our slides to a high finish, we leave our audience with nothing left to add. Since they can’t evolve the idea in their own minds, they never fully engage.
The Essence of Evolution: As We Work on Our Idea, Our Idea Works on Us
As we evolve our idea—iterating, revising, reconsidering, trying options—we modify more than just the idea; we also modify our ability (and the ability of our audience) to think about it. Staying with an idea long enough to see it through to completion63 creates a bond between us and the idea that changes both: Our idea gets better, while we get better at thinking about it.
Edwin Land is probably the most famous inventor you’ve never heard of. Better known by the name of his once unbeatable company, Polaroid, Land acquired more patents in his lifetime than any other American besides Thomas Edison.
A Harvard dropout, Land invented polarized sunglasses, targeting devices for the military, the cameras used in America’s spy planes, systems for understanding human color recognition, and the original instant camera—fifty years before anyone had ever conceived of digital photography.
Land was a master of both inward and outward evolution. According to those who worked with him, Land’s greatest genius was in his ability to capture an idea in his mind’s eye and work it ceaselessly until it was near perfect,64 then hand it off to teams of assistants with just enough detail so that they could finish it. (This is the same thing people say today about Apple’s Steve Jobs.)
Land’s approach worked. The more things he invented, the better he got at inventing things. By the time he died, in 1991, Land had 444 patents to his name, for everything from sunglasses to satellite cameras.
The more things Land invented, the better he got at inventing.
Above all, Land understood two things: First, while truths don’t change (people throughout history have sought ways to “take pictures” of each other and then share them), the mechanisms for achieving those truths change all the time (the “camera” will always evolve). Second, if you want an idea to stick, give the people who use it the last few steps to fill in for themselves. That was the genius of the Polaroid instant camera in the era before digital Rute qigital photography: You got to join in the last step of the process by watching the photo magically appear in your hand.