Lessons

Lesson Info

Backstage Interview With Brian Solis

everybody doing? I am chased Jarvis, co founder of Creative Live, And I'm emceeing this thing. This Ah, Over these two days, we're learning the secrets of Silicon Valley from some of the best minds in business. I feel so lucky. I've been on the main stage over there, and now I'm in the backstage area, one of places where I feel really, really comfortable. We're gonna get to sit down and chat with someone who I have a huge amount of respect for. I just met Brian about gosh, about a year ago. I've been a fan of his work for a long time. Uhm, he wrote a book. Ah, while back called The end of business is usual, which was very transformative for me on a lot of other folks. It sold off the shelves like it's going out of style and we're here today with him. He was very gracious and we stole 30 minutes of his time to talk about his new book, which I am interested to dive deeper because I have not read it, which is usually I devour his stuff when it comes on. A gravity is blawg and all that stu...

ff This is. What's the future of business? And so, without further ado, please join me in giving a huge round of applause for incidents and you folks over there in Tanzania and Canada and Argentina. Big round of applause for Brian Solis. Thing is, your seat right there. All right, For the next one. I think I get you for 30 minutes before you get twist off in a private jet to go. Absolutely. Yeah, that's just how I roll or fly. Fly. Nice to see you, man. So can I see that book for a second? Because I want it. I'm gonna hold it up here for a second. So fancy pants love it. I saw that early design, Remember? We were talking with their friends at mechanism. Um, So tell me about the transition between, um, the end of business as usual and the new book, like, talk about how you know where the end of business left it. Ben. End of business, as usual, left you and this new sort of, uh, project that your nose nose into, You know, by day I'm a nana list. I studied digital trends, disruptive technology, its impact on business and nights and weekends. I like to think of myself. This, like aspiring digital anthropologist, looking at how tech is affecting us as human beings, right? And what you find out is that the effect on business a technology is having is a direct result of the effect it's having on consumers just everyday behavior. And if you can find out that the gap and what it takes to bring those two worlds together, you learn a lot. And so as I was as I was thinking about the new book, I thought, Man, you know, you take off the sleeve that wraps a business book cover and you have a book that looks like every other book out there, you know, same hardcover, same paper font. I thought, You know, Look, if I am going to talk about the future of technology and consumerism, why would I write another business book that looks like everything else out there? I can't even sit through a business book as a reader, let alone another one like that. So I started to study user experience, and I realized that this was an opportunity to show people that not only are things different but as they turn the page there, actually, witnessing and becoming part of this revolution Eso I decided to take a whole inventive approach were writing the book would be the easy part. But redesigning what a business book or a book could be right would be a real wonderful opportunity to shake things up. Well, we were talking about that at that conference out in called a Conference. A private gathering, if you will, of smart people out in the on the desert east of L. A. There, um, and you've produced it now that we was just a sort of a fiction then and now. So when when people pick up that book, what what can they expect in there? Well, look, I'll tell you the the challenge I had with book was going to a publisher that does things the same way every time and saying, Hey, I got a great idea. How about we change the shape of the book and why don't we put some really crazy, thick paper in there and go full color and let me do graphics and let's get rid of the old concept of a table of contents and let's just say that they weren't excited to hear that idea. And especially when you want to call the book, What's the future of business with a big WTF on the cover of it? It's not necessarily something else that they're looking for. Buyers can hijack that. Just percent thought, because to me, one of the things that I want, um, here it creativelive reason we have creative in our name is because create is not necessarily a we don't We don't actually pause long enough to look at what the word Creator created means. It means to take something that wasn't into in being and making it happen. And so you it seems to me you approached this a lot like an artist. And I think for people that are science people or you're an analyst, like the idea of thinking creatively, it freaked people out like I like, I don't I'm not painter. I I do riel work. I'm a math person. I'm and increasingly, ah, across our culture. And that's one of things that I'm trying to inspire in the world. Is the idea that no, no, no. We're all its fundamental feature of being human is that we're creative and creativity is, is the new literacy, if you will. And so a creative approach to a business book seems to be. Do you think of yourself as an artist? Is the short version? Do you think of yourself as someone who's creative in the approach that you took notice of the form out of the book, but the thinking behind it? And so this is This is a type of philosophical discussion that I think the whole book is premised honest. You have to challenge convention not just for the sake of being a revolutionary, but because it's the right thing to do. Especially now. You don't need to follow a template to tell your story. If you see things from a perspective. And if artistry is involved in that, then absolutely, but so a self expression right? And to me, artistry here was a function of communicating the point right. I'll share an example with you, you know, when this first when this book first hit the market, it was a review that rubbed me the wrong way, and I think I pulled sort of like the equivalent of an Elon musk reaction to the to the reporter you about a space station. Exactly, Uh is sort of akin to his reaction to the New York Times review of the S latticed. And the review said, Look, we'll get we're gonna give the book a B, you know, when I gave it a but we'll give it a B. Ah, it's a great book. But coming from Brian as an analyst, we expected to see more case studies and more examples. And I reached out to the reporter and I said, You know, you are not the reader that I want for this book. Don't remember, Don't read my book and knowing you, knowing here customers are and knowing your customers aren't his ex something really, really important and build A Soon as you try and build something for everyone, you end up building something for No. One because it's like it's half measures and you cut this one around this corner and all that stuff so good for you for calling him out on it. And I said, Look, and this is important for all of us. And this is aside from the book itself is this is a bigger mission. Yeah. What? What's your purpose? You know what your vision, Why are you here and what are you trying to do? And my point was, Look, I don't need to read or write another book that has the same old examples of people who you think are doing things right. This is a time for leadership, not management. This is the time for leaders, not followers, and this is equivalent to a blank canvas. You need to try something differently to reach people differently. That's the whole point of the design of the book the whole way, that presentation of the book. And if you can't see that if you're not willing to operate in life without a template, then don't read this book because then you won't even be able to finish it without calling it rubbish, right that leaders not followers thing. Is this so adroit? If, like it's like you're you're right onto something there, and I don't think about our culture. I referenced this earlier. I hope it's not gonna be redundant for anybody here in the audience are out there in the world. But, ah, big fan of Mark Ecko. Yeah, there's a street artist you've probably familiar with his logo It's a rhino, um, amazing street artist. He went from like, airbrushing shirts to creating his own clothing brand. Um, and he's an amazing underpin. I think it's a $1,000,000,000 business now, so he's crushing it. More power that mark. Um, but I watched him talk to a group of people and he said, Okay, how many people here, our founders, which people's hands went up during people? If you're not found, you consider yourself an entrepreneur. A lot of people's hands went up. How many people here consider self an artist? No. Hands up. And he's like, That's a major problem. I have a major problem with that, because how many of you founders were walking in the woods and saw the thing fully made and picked it up in tonight? Facebook. All right, none of them is the easy answer. So there's this creative process that has to happen, and when you think about leading rather than following, at really at its fundamental sort of core is making something, and you have to when, when you when you make something that hasn't been made before, you're taking a leadership position, so I couldn't agree more with you that the idea of leading is like it's probably crucial. Like we talk about innovation. We throw that word around so casually. But that's how you how you move something forward. That's how you stand out in your field. And that's what you've done, obviously, with your book. Yeah, look, there's them. I'm inspired by champagne. There's This is not a secret. I think if you if you look at my instagram feed, it's probably 90% of champagne, which is a sponsorship up to the Freddie Champagne houses out there. But in all reality, I'm inspired by the frustrations that people have and more importantly, by just the inability to sort of see clearly of how to solve it. I deal with that all the time. You know, whether it's trying to put this book out or trying to just accomplish things in a way that just haven't been done before. I don't I don't necessarily believe unorthodox practices just because they are orthodox. I don't believe in following a set of instructions, because that was the way that somebody wrote it at a certain time in society. But I am. I am a big believer, though, that in order to solve problems. You have to sort of not just be artistic or creative, but to step outside of your zone, to see the world through the eyes of another so that you can close the gap. And that was the hardest part for me with this book was not only coming up with creative design, but reason I studied. Ux was I was looking at Why can't somebody get through a 400 page book? Why can't a student sit in a classroom and get through a textbook? Why can't a student sit in a classroom and get through a lecture? Why can't they do a book report without watching the synopsis on YouTube and you start to learn a lot Synopsys of books on you? Oh, yeah, yeah. A lot of a lot of a lot of teachers don't necessarily know that their kids aren't reading books, but they're watching it on YouTube. The reason, though there's a lot of reasons that they can't do it. And so when you start to study what it would take to then get someone to get your message, you realize that everything you know or everything you thought, you know you're sort of taken for granted and what you have to do moving forward is change how you talk. Don't change your vision or your purpose or or your soul, but changing how you would present that so that it has the best chance to resonate with somebody and inspire someone. So I studied how people read what they look at online, what they share, which I think is the biggest. The biggest thing here, especially with social in all of these platforms and APS and what was crazy was that I had to completely re learn how I wrote a sentence. Wow, yeah, fundamental, Fundamental! And the book is his shorter bursts of tax. I had to translate what a paragraph would have been into a visual so that people can learn it a little bit better that way and differently and others. All kinds of my wife is a teacher for a long time. And there's all kinds of different learning styles. Yes, and this now is it was your real mission toe. Unpack the mechanism of sharing information, or are you focused on the Obviously the content is what you're sharing, but it was it was to do both things. Is that what I'm hearing from me? Like you had to unpack regular and how you approach it and what you presented. You talked about the package of the book, and that is enough. Is it A to like is the content also. Is it something you just know intuitively? You're just building it out there, Or did you go through struggles with creating the content that you're going to share with? Yeah, Yeah, that. I actually really like that question because this is my fifth book. The other books, I would say that there things based on experience, research, things that I've done with working with businesses, studying their customer base so I could I could literally fill pages, you know, And it take a while. It's hard to do, but this was trying to show people intuitively that things were different. And you can't just say it right. You have to show it. And I had to go on research that so while I I would have loved to have this sort of conceit of accomplishment, you know? Hey, I have This is my 5th 1 I should you know you're gonna love it cause It's my 5th 1 Something new for me. Uh, it wasn't It was treated it like it was my 1st 1 and I didn't take anything for granted. I studied, man, and I'll tell you what blew me away was how little I really knew. About what? What I really believed to be the case where you feel like if you're 1/5 time author, you start figure that stuff out. So you're telling me I've only done three books now that I've still got a lot to learn in my next to Well, look, man, it's it's It's based on the mission, right? I am. I'm trying to take this story out to people who don't There are people who know me, but people who don't necessarily know me, and it's also a proof point, right? It's as you're turning the pages you're going. Wow! All right, if I'm a business and I'm trying to embrace all this new technology to tell my brand story, get more customers, build better relationships. It's sort of the same thing you take for granted the position you have in world and society and in your markets, and you're not really trying anything new, even though these air new opportunities for you. So my my riel mission here was to say, Look, if I had to do this But this is the result. Imagine what? What's possible for you? What opportunities are there for you. And it's really trying to unlock what I hope is creativity and inspiration to get people to try it in any way. So let's let's go tactical for a second. So, um, when someone picks up Wow, that is a beautiful I just love the feel of it heavy to Yeah, it's heavy. It's sexy. Um, so, tactically changing the way businesses create experiences give me, like, five things. Three things I know you probably got some sort of a list in your brain. I'm trying to get it. Create a tactic that the folks out there in the Internet and say this is definitely make you wanna pick up this book. What is what is the essential, like thesis of this thing? All right, so that it's all in the subtitle cam, changing the way that businesses create experiences. If you think about what you do with with the product, what you do throughout your day with technology around you. You know, you're essentially capturing and sharing experiences. Um, if you buy a new car like a test last, for example, you did so probably cause you want to save on gas, but also because you wanted to be part of that lifestyle and there was an experience associated with that, and you share that. So whether businesses or organisations, musicians, artists, whatever, whether they know it or not, they're creating experiences and in a connected economy in a connected society, those experiences air shared. So you're either creating them intentionally or you're reacting to them. And the thesis of the book is I believe that as a society, as businesses that we are actually reacting were using new technology to react to experiences, and I think it's an opportunity to create him. So that is why study, design, make the book and experience. First of all, wow, it feels great. Looks great. It's beautiful. It's a coffee table book for business. It's an experience. It was designed to be that way, of course, as a proof point. But if you look at just any business, any government, whatever it is, just Kanye West, you know, dropping his new album this week. You could look at that experience. He wanted people tohave right. He put everything he had probably into every song, into the album cover into the way that was marketed. And then you look at how people experience it and what they're sharing on Twitter with the shine on vine, Facebook, every community, every blawg out there, you can either see parity or disparity between what he wanted you to have his experience and what people are having and sharing. I actually think this is a lot of alignment. I've been looking into this cause because I I actually see that he was really trying to do something here. And there's a lot of alignment, but you look at other businesses that I don't think about. That kills me on that. Like as Ah, I fancy myself a little bit of a product person just emotionally, Aiken more intuitively pick up a product, um, or use a product and feel it starting to feel right. And as we are, you know, I'm actually just going to use creativelive is an example like, um, I don't know if there's anybody here in the audience that's willing to talk about their experience when you walked in. What it feel like Anybody? Anyone here got the Thea desire or will to talk about that? You're all scared like it. Just like no way Don't call on me, okay? I won't go into the audience because they might, But just generally speaking, like we want it when you come in, you feel welcoming for warm. Someone comes and guide uses. We're gonna go today sort of a nice meal so they can get comfortable, tell them where they're going so that they know that they're either in one of the two studios and who they want to see, and they can sit down until it's still the Phyllis eats that ideally and that they're part of this. They're participating in the process. They feel like they have some sort of ownership in connection to the brands. That's all experience driven, and that's totally on purpose. And how did how did you feel walking in here when we I called and said, Hey, man, I would love to if you could drop by our studio opening. I think you're one of the best minds in Silicon Valley. Drop in how did it feel to walk in here and you feel taken care of? Yeah. Uh, I'll set the stage. No, there's also a story telling aspect. Allah vistas. Well, right. And I was racing around the block a few times trying to find parking. Find the right building came through the door. Elizabeth greeted me, and I was suddenly at ease. Everything was taken care of. Here's what I need you to do. Then come and walk with me. Let's get you some water. Do you want anything to eat? You need a desk here. We're gonna Mikey up. At this time. We're going to sit you down here for this time. Chase is gonna come and get you this. It was just real nice. And I was at ease instantly and nice. And so in your book. Do you Are there any case that is you feel, like, are really remained what it is that we're talking about, Like like brands that are creating experiences that are undeniably above and beyond their competition. Yeah. So there's a lot of little examples in the book of how businesses like Giant nerd, for example, are tackling things differently involving the community. to help the community become part of not just experience but the storytelling experience. Uh, but I intentionally did not put good because that other expecting different business book. Yeah, absolutely. Because right everybody would talk in that case about Apple or Nike, and you start to think about what is it about those that are what are the essence of experience and what do they do better than everybody else? Because then what? What ends up happening is saying Okay, well, I needed. I need to design my box better so that people feel this my casing better. And that's not what this is about. You called it earlier. It's an emotion that you want to unlock its a feeling you want somebody to have. And if you do really, really good job, it's a feeling you want someone to share because that's contagious. And when something emotional and something special is contagious, you don't just sell products manual, you create a church, and that's what this is about. Well, I know that's one. The reasons that we filtered the institute audience toe have people that really wanted to solve and wanted to solve real problems that they were having an unlocked that and creating an experience. A brand for one, but also in experiences. What that brand stands for I know was on some of the ah, some of the sort of the resumes that came in from the people who wanted to be here in the in studio. So your book will be a solution for them. I know that there may be, is if there's any any questions in the incident audience I've got, Ah, a few pumping in here on my IPad. Give me one second here. So, um, raise your hand if you've got one while I get this, but yeah, right there. Yeah, one second here. And we're gonna find that Mike. So grab that Mike, and I'm gonna land my next one. Please tell us who you are. Um, what you want to know from from this superstar here? My name's Maggie. And, um, my question is about is about apple. It seems as though there's been a bit of a backlash because they've kind of gotten so big. Um, and recently they talked about how they reaffirmed their values and talked about how that's how they've always been in LA but What's your opinion about kind of the recon recent backlash against them. You know, um, nice to meet you, Maggie. Uh, this is a really important question, because when Steve Jobs was alive, he ran that company like a leader with vision, and he put a CEO in charge of a visionary company. And a lot of people lost faith because there wasn't vision being communicated out of the Church of Apple. And it almost seemed that he was reporting mawr to shareholders and stakeholders than he was to an adoring public that actually used apple products to accomplish things, you know, it zone aspirational brand, and you can't lose that You, in fact, it's still missing. You know, you can't You can't fix that with problems. And you can't your products. You can't fix that with inspirational videos. You just can't. So they're going to need to fill that role. But the reason that that backlash existed is because we are talking about something that's not tangible. No one can put their finger on why. So they're exploring things. They're trying toe force apple to release cash, and we get into conversations that are so far from the center of what that companies soul is all about, that we lose sight of what that business represents. Right now, we're talking about share value. Now we're talking about product lines. We're talking about announcements. Apple is gonna have to sell for that sooner or later, and I don't know that it's gonna come down this, I've might, you know. But it they're gonna need someone to feel that that visionary role now. In the meantime, though, they have bought time those videos about experience. That's what they're talking about. That design is experiential. It's not because it's a beautiful product. But if you look at the imagery in those videos, they are making you get goose bumps. They're making you remember that you have the IPhone, and you can complain about how Samsung's commercials air better. You can complain about how looking at the IPhone compared to the S fours, it looks archaic. But then you get into the product conversation that misses the point. Apple changed your life, whether you know it or not, and what you do on a daily basis is because of Apple. Everybody else is just copying, and they might have faster processor. They might have a bigger screen, but they didn't change your life. They're just augmenting it. And they're competing for your attention. That is some of the most adroit way of articulating that point about Apple that I've ever heard. Thank you for saying that. Now I know why your that's your day job, right? Thing about that was just like, Wow, I just listen to people talk about that for an hour in London. I was very small round table, and they were just going on and on. Nobody said that. So I feel very lucky to have you on the couch. We're short on time, but I got one. I'm getting a bunch of questions that are coming off the old Internet information superhighway, if you will want to take that I'm going to is like Chase always says be different. Not just better. So in this in this world of of non differentiated products, can you give me a straight answer on what would you prescribe to be different? Not just better and applied to any field. And if you want to go specific, great. But just generally what? It was an approach. Yeah. All right, well, so one of the things that Chase has talked about is how we've been friends and we've been, you know, admirers of each other's work. So one of things, I'm gonna pay it, Pay it forward for you, man. You've actually been that that saying has actually inspired me? You've been an inspiration to me. There is, um, very easy to be better, right, Because hindsight is always 2020. You can see things the way that people didn't do it and you could apply to what you're gonna do. Sort of becomes this game of one upmanship that I think gets us into a real terrible cycle of that is just not innovation at all. When you look at things from a different perspective, I'm gonna share a quote. There is when this book came out. If if if you go to a change this dot com, you'll see a companion e book that I wrote for free just to give it away, change this dot com change this dot com on it's called, uh, innovation. Innovation begins here, and it's a picture of a heart being different. There's this quote that everybody sites from Henry Ford that if I would have asked customers what they wanted. They would have told me a faster horse. And, uh, I did a lot of research. He There's no proof that he actually said that and we go around, I'll take it. Even the Ford Museum can pin it down, so one has to assume then at that point that he didn't say that. It's just a business myth. And so already being different means that I'm not just going to regurgitate that quote that everybody else is quoting just to make my point, I'm actually gonna try to track it down and then you find he never said that. So you're already starting from a different standpoint, and I ended up starting to debunk the whole bunch of quotes from big visionaries and leaders that we don't give it away. But, um, being different starts with thinking differently, And I think actually it opens the door. Teoh justice, genuine flow of inspiration that just starts to unlock creativity and everything you do in that moment afterwards. It's not just different for the sake of being different, but it's inspired. It's inspired. It's a meaningful, different meaningfully different, and if you think about it, in an era where everybody's connected, where your whole Twitter feed or instagram feed is littered with selfies of everyone else, your self absorbed in a fun and creative way. You know this accidental narcissism? Never. Never mind this accidental narcissism that's going on is actually forcing people to follow one another and, ah, being different. It's easy to celebrate where it's at, man. Thank you so much for dropping, and I really appreciate let's review some of your info real quick so people can pay attention to you on the Internet. Give me given your stats or you're where you're at your at Brian Solis. Yeah, just at Brian Solis on Twitter. Brian solis dot com on the interwebs b r I a N s o l I Thank you. And, uh, the book is that wtf business dot com Please join me giving huge round of applause to run. So stay. You will stick around for us to have a champagne or something. Of course I'm all yours. Okay, give this awaited to somebody on on the internet. I will. Thank you so much. Be one more round of applause, folks. Thank you so much. Who