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The Willing Crowd

Lesson 36 from: Jumpstart Innovation with Adventurous Thinking

Sally Dominguez

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Lesson Info

36. The Willing Crowd

Next Lesson: Activated!

Lesson Info

The Willing Crowd

Another key part of frugal is the willing crowd. And the willing crowd has two aspects to it. One of it is our opportunity to cross-pollinate and idea share. The idea that sharing ideas with others invigorates everybody. It creates growth, community growth. People love it. Online with CreativeLive, for every class, if you ever do go online in the classes, you get this vibrant community. Most of it is not asking questions to the instructor. Most of it, I was once a host, is sitting there talking to people go, "Oh my goodness, that's a really good idea." "Oh, I did this. Oh, I've got that." And then people are just, right, they just intersecting with each other in a way that, you know, these are strangers, but the willingness to connect, they've got common emotional ground, they're watching the same thing, they're learning the same stuff, and then they're sharing with each other all of these findings because that's what we love to do. What invigorates us? Whether it's strangers, whether ...

it's people we know. When it comes to realizing some of the stuff we want to do, outside of our work place, of course, if you want to realize something, you can go to the people you work with, the people you work for, and say, "Hey, I've got this," and perhaps they have the structures in place to help you implement. But if they don't, you can also bypass traditional funding structures because while we're rethinking everything, while we're being adventurous in everything we do, why wouldn't we rethink the way we outreach to people, both for idea-sharing and development and also in funding. One thing to bare in mind when we are outreaching, if we're kickstartering or gofundmeing or anything where we decide that we're going to be the front man or woman, or whatever it is we're doing, one thing to bear in mind is happiness. It's a reward not a consequence, that's one thing, but also the carrot is so much more important than the stick. There's this great research, this great case study, of this hospital in New York where people were not washing their hands and staff were not washing their hands. They put a camera in to observe them and told them all they were on 24/7 surveillance. The hand washing barely increased. Then they decided to break people into teams and for each shift, they gave them a golden star rating which was on a huge liteboard on one side of the room and when the shift ended, depending on how many people in that shift had washed their hands, there were a number of stars awarded and hand washing more than doubled. People like reward. They're not really into punishment. You can threaten that something dire is going to happen but it's not really going to motivate somebody to do something, but if you suggest to them that this is fantastic, all this happiness will come, they are much more likely to support you, to help you with idea building, and perhaps even help fund you. When you look at the statistics on Kickstarter and various other crowdsource, crowd-funding projects, the ones that get the most money are the ones who make people feel really happy. If you're telling a sad story, you're trying to get donations for a charity that has really sad stuff at the heart of it, a happy picture of one of those poor, unfortunate whatevers is going to get you more money than a wretched picture. A wretched picture will make people feel bad but if people feel bad, they're not giving you the money. They're feeling bad. You just made them feel bad. Guilting is not a way to get money. If you're trying to get your idea up off the ground, no matter what it is, no matter how it is you're outreaching, bear in mind, at the heart of everything, you're trying to make as many people as possible feel uplifted and happy and understand, perhaps, that what you have is going to bring happiness to a bunch more people. So that's one aspect of the willing crowd is this idea that you could outreach directly and using social media, using videos, using some of those basic crowd funding sites, you could try and outreach, in which case remember: it's about happiness and reward and optimism, if you really want funding success. The other aspect of the willing crowd is that idea of cross-pollination and idea sharing. I have a friend of mine who lives in Australia and used to live in the UK. I barely ever see him but occasionally we run brainstorming sessions on Facebook Messenger and I send a whole lot of things. He, at one point, wanted to have these little samplers of chili sauce and somewhere down the line, I said, "Oh, wouldn't it be amazing if we used this idea of Kuwaii?" And we made these miniature chilies and you would fill them up with a sauce then afterwards you could use them as party lights. You could just put little light bulbs in them and they'd be so cool, but you know it was based on this idea that in Australia, when you get your soy sauce in your sushi, you get this tiny diko fish. Now, who's familiar with the diko fish? It's awesome and there's a whole cult around this cool diko fish because even though it's super wasteful and it's plastic, it's this cool little Japanese fish full of soy sauce with the red lid and you always want it. I used to bring them back here for a while because I was like, "Yeah, I've never seen this and it's so cool; beats foil wrappers." I asked him, "What if we had the tiny red chili?" So we're back and forth, trying to work this out, and I was like, "Oh my gah, we could have six of these things as samplers for chili on a thing and we'd call it Cluster Pack." I thought it was really funny. We even went so far as to patent this concept, of this miniature chili, which I just let lapse because I was like, "What was I thinking?" But the point is this: the willing crowd is everywhere and as much as you could outreach with your Drury clock exercise of three letters, you can outreach with ideas online as well. When you're trying to think adventurous, don't only think of traditional ways to get your idea out there and traditional ideas to get funded. You want to think beyond that. You want to think, "What is possible? Who are my connections? Who's really into this? Who could I outreach to?" because most people want to share ideas. They want to be a part of your success. They don't necessarily want to invest in it and then get a return. Some do, but less and less I find. Most people are just really happy to come along for the ride because you're going to energize them and that growth mindset is really catching. I do have a quote that I didn't read earlier that I really like for quiet and it's from Stephen Hawkings no less. Just a thought as you all remain quiet. "Quiet people have the loudest minds."

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Creativity Quiz Worksheet
Rebound Worksheet
Core Value Worksheet
Innovation Quadrant Worksheet
Which Lens Worksheet
Backcasting Worksheet

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Ratings and Reviews

Ivana Vucinic
 

This class is truly AMAZING! It is really unique and it got me thinking in new and innovative ways. Very much out of the box thinking! Makes you become courageous, Well done, Sally!!!

Sukey Dominguez
 

Jumpstart Innovation with Adventurous Thinking exceeded my expectations! Sally brought practical tools that, "lenses" to flip every situation inside out and find the possibilities in every situation. As one who works to lead teams, healthcare providers facing incredible demands to achieve results in population health / ultimately global health and the wellness of business operations, I'm thrilled to have found this course. Design is one thing, taking risk is another. I'm inspired by Sally because she drives energy to see what CAN be in the future. This is a unique class and I look forward to her next offering.

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