Southwest Airlines Magazine Article

Last month (November), Best Practices Are Stupid, was featured in Southwest Airline’s Spirit Magazine.  Now that it is no longer on planes and can’t be found on the internet, I figured it was time to share the article with the readers of this blog.  They did such a nice job, I feel as though their work should live on.  Click the image below to launch the article in a new window. Enjoy!

 

 

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How To Publish A Book In 2 Weeks (For Less Than $250)

It seems as though everyone wants to write a book. Unfortunately, most people don’t know where to start and, therefore, become under-motivated or overwhelmed. The result? Good intentions; no book.

But what if you could have a bookstore quality paperback book in your hands in two weeks? And what if you didn’t have to do much writing? Here’s a technique that I used to publish a nonfiction book in a fortnight, and sold tens of thousands of copies.

Why do you want to write a book?

It is important to start here. It’s a question many people fail to ask themselves. They don’t think about what they want to achieve with their writing. And they should, because the objectives will define the approach. I’ll give you three common reasons people want to write (in addition to just wanting to see their name in print or to share their ideas with the world).

1. You want to be rich and famous. If this is your objective, you may want to look elsewhere. Only 1,000 out of 172,000 books published each year sell over 50,000 copies. Very few authors become wealthy from books sales. In fact, most top-selling authors were rich and famous before they published their book.

2. You want to establish your credibility. If this is your objective, then using traditional publishers (e.g., Penguin, Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill, Wiley, etc.) may be the best approach. These publishers reject 98 percent of the books submitted to them, so getting your book published by them is like getting a stamp of approval; it’s automatically credible. In addition, these publishers handle all distribution, so you don’t have to worry about getting your books into stores yourself. If you’ve never before published a book, and credibility is your objective, then you may want to consider this path first.

3. You want to boost you existing business. Do you already have a business with an established client base? A book can be great marketing material. Instead of pushing your business, it teaches readers (and potential customers) what you know. And yes, it can generate some extra income, too.

Print-on-demand (POD) publishing

Even if you want to establish your credibility via a traditional publisher, you have one challenge: getting a publisher.  Publishing is a bit of a Catch 22. Authors who are not published are most interested in traditional publishers, yet publishers want only those people who already have a following.

Also, traditional publishing can be notoriously slow, and your content could very well be dated by the time your book gets released. In contrast, print-on-demand publishing allows you to have 100 percent up-to-date content, since you have the opportunity to update the content before each printing.

Another advantage of POD is the cost per book. Even with author discounts, you are lucky to get copies for $10. This makes it too expensive for many companies to order in bulk.

Finally, a potentially important advantage to POD is the fact that you retain all of the rights. You can reprint your content in any form you want: workbooks, audio books, eBooks, flash cards or training manuals. You are somewhat limited when you work with traditional publishers as they require you to sign over most of the rights.

Writing and publishing your book

You will probably make less money from your book than you will from the services or products you sell as a result of the book. However, the book still has to be good enough for people to want it, yet inexpensive enough for you to be able to give it away.

I have boiled the approach down to eight easy steps. Although a lot more can be written on the subject, this should give you enough to get started.

Step 1: Get clear on the content and format

Here are some important things to consider for your two-week book.

• Your book should provide the reader with insights on your area of expertise. You want to share the breadth of your experience, but not necessarily the depth. The key is, you must already be an expert and should be able to talk about your topic for at least an hour. Two hours is better.

• Create a book that is concise and easily digestible. The final length should be under 100 pages. Fifty to 75 pages is fine.

• Identify an overarching framework. Most business books have some type of framework that’s incorporated into the book. It can serve either as the table of contents or, at the very least, can guide the development process.

Step 2: Record a speech or workshop

This is the step where most of the content is generated. Many of us, especially in the professional services area, give presentations, do training and facilitate workshops. Buy yourself a digital recorder and record a session. It’s that simple.

If you don’t give speeches, you can record a workshop. Or you can simply record a conversation with someone where you describe your approach. Doing is better than discussing. The key is, don’t do it alone. You must record a session where you interact with one or more other people.

Step 3: Transcribe your audio

This is the simplest, yet most expensive step. You can of course do it on your own if money is an issue. Or you can use a third party that charges approximately 1 cent per word.  If you record a two hour conversation or workshop, you might end up with 90 minutes of usable content. This would translate to a little more than 10,000 words, which is perfect. Your cost would be under $100 for the transcription. And if you go overseas, you can get it done for as little as $40 for 90 minutes (this is what I do).

Step 4: Choose your book format and paste in your transcript

Go to a book store and find books that have a similar layout to what you want. There is no right or wrong approach. For this book, the content is more important than the layout. The nice thing is, you can refine the layout with future printings.

Make a template in Microsoft Word (or whatever editing software you are comfortable with). Use the “Styles and Formatting” as a way of setting your text, headers, bullets, etc.  Once you have your template created, you can paste in the text from your transcription. Be sure to paste the text in an unformatted style so that you pick up the fonts of the template and not those of the transcription.

Step 5: Add headings, ask questions and edit

First, try to find logical headings. The more the better, as you can create a content rich table of contents page.

Next, edit the text so that it reads like a book rather than a speech. Although you can hire people to do this, it can be quite expensive. Take your time. So far you only invested a few hours and less than $100. If you do want professional editors, 10,000 words should cost about $200 to $400 for light editing/proofreading. Extensive editing is more.

Once you have a reasonable edit, give the book (printed on your inkjet printer) to a friend or colleague. Have them critique it. The objective is not to wordsmith at this point. Rather you want to make sure your friend understands the content. Have him or her write down questions as s/he reads it. Then have a conversation where you answer those questions. Record the conversation. Transcribe the conversation. And then paste in these refinements.

Now finalize the text. Paste in graphics that will help illustrate your points. If you have a framework, it certainly makes sense to include that. Pictures help improve readability.  I used 99designs.com to create a first graphic, and then I hired the designer to create the rest to my graphics.  But to save money, you can do this on your own using PowerPoint or any other graphics editing package.

A lot of white space also makes a book seem less intimidating. And then edit. Proofread. Make sure the text says what you want and is laid out the way you want. If you want something better looking, you can go to eLance.com and have your MS Word document converted into a professional layout for $100 to $150.  I did this for one of my self-published books.

At this point, you know the page count and the page size. You will need these for the next step.

Step 6: Find a printer…

Read the rest of this article on the American Express OPEN Forum

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My Interview for Enterprise Leadership

A while back I was interviewed by Tom Parish at EnterpriseLeadership.org.  On their site, you will find the following description:

In this podcast, Steve Shapiro, InnoCentive’s vice president of strategic consulting, talks about how InnoCentive’s open innovation model has helped companies solve the most challenging problems.

When the Oil Spill Recovery Institute in Alaska wanted to find out how to pump out the almost solidified oil at the bottom of Prince William Sound from the Exxon Valdez spill, the Institute did not turn to its researchers. Instead they posted a challenge to InnoCentive, an emerging company that specializes in open innovation also called crowdsourcing. According to The New York Times, the Institute paid John Davis, a chemist from Illinois, more than $20,000 for his idea. Davis, an expert on cement, figured that if vibrating cement can keep it from hardening, then a similar concept can be adapted to keep the oil in the tanks from freezing.

Founded in 1998 by three scientists working for Eli Lilly, the major pharmaceutical company, InnoCentive became an independent company in 2001. To date InnoCentive, companies, such as Dow Chemical and Procter & Gamble, and not-for-profits have posted more than 1,000 challenges on InnoCentive. Research areas include everything from business processes to chemistry. Steven Shapiro, InnoCentive’s vice president of strategic consulting, says that today corporations cannot depend on their internal research and development departments to solve their toughest problems. “They need to look at external resources. InnoCentive’s enables these organizations to tap into a global network of 200,000 solvers who enjoy the challenge of competing for a cash reward. Our partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation is helping to solve problems posted by not-for-profits working in poor countries.”

In this podcast, Shapiro explains the reasons for using open innovation to solve tough problems, InnoCentive’s business model for generating revenue, some of InnoCentive’s most successful challenges, the benefits of using InnoCentive, and the challenges this company faces in this economy.

You can listen to (or download) this podcast here.

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LG Electronics Uses Open Innovation

According to a press release I received, “LG Mobile Phones (the fastest growing mobile phone brand in North America) is partnering with crowdSPRING (an online marketplace for creative services) and Autodesk (a leader in 2D and 3D design and engineering software) to hold a new competition to define the future of personal mobile communication.”

They were looking for people to “design their vision of the next revolutionary LG mobile phone and compete for more than $80,000 in awards.”  The top prize was $20K.

The competition ended last week, so don’t get your hopes up about winning that money.

But what this shows is that Open Innovation is taking hold in many interesting ways.

Prize-Based Open Innovation, which got its roots in “tangible” challenges (e.g., creating a new chemical compound) has morphed nicely into “softer” (and more subjective) areas like design.

Although, the cost of running this competition is probably far greater than the $80,000 in prizes, I suspect the overall cost dwarfs what would have been spent on in-house designers or consultants.  Regardless, the real value is in the breadth of ideas. Instead of hiring a few designers, they got potentially thousands of designers fighting for the prize money…and the glory of being the winner.  Quite often, the so-called “experts” do not have the best ideas.

Case in point…When I was at (the then) Andersen Consulting, a modified form of Open Innovation was used to develop a new name.  A highly paid advertising/branding company developed a list of 25 potential names.  Other names were submitted by Andersen Consulting employees.  The winning name, Accenture (means “Accent on the Future”) was submitted by an employee – not the branding experts.

In previous blog entries, I wrote about how I used Open Innovation to create my new logo and on the challenges I faced in using Open Innovation.  Open Innovation can be used for anything these days.

As an aside, what I thought was interesting about the LG competition was Autodesk’s participation.  According to the press release, “Autodesk will supply participating designers with a free 15-day trial of SketchBook Pro. Autodesk SketchBook Pro software is a digital sketchpad.” This is a nice way to get designers hooked on their product. Everyone wins in this deal.

I am eager to see the winning designs.

And I am more eager to hear when lessons LG learned by doing the competition. Fortunately, LG has agreed to answer any questions I have (ok, maybe not ANY question).

Therefore, in the name of Open Innovation…

If you have questions you would like me to ask LG, please submit them as a comment on this blog entry.  I will write a future blog entry on the LG competition and lessons learned.

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Making Your Products/Services Affordable and Accessible

One of my last blog entries discussed the need to create affordable and accessible solutions as a way of staying competitive. Given  globalization, cheap labor, and a damanged economy, this makes more sense than ever.

Here are three starter questions to ask to help you generate new ideas:

How can you productize a service? One way to make a service more affordable and accessible is to turn it into a physical or digital product; something that requires little or no human intervention. In my earlier entry, I talked about Cybersettle automating insurance claims processing. My Innovation Personality Poker enables people to recreate one of my most popular speeches/workshops. Self-assessment tools can reduce reliance on consultants. Remote diagnostic technologies can speed medical exams and pre-qualify patients before they come to the doctor. Legalzoom.com offers affordable legal advice for people who might otherwise not seek counsel. TurboTax simplifies tax filing. Experts convert their intellectual property into books, mp3s, DVDs, digitally delivered training (including eLearning) systems, or online databases. The possibilities are endless.

How can you offer a low-cost product/service? In an earlier blog entry, I quoted Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince, who once said, “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away.” I love that.  Ask, “Why are people really using our products/services and what are the bare minimum ways of delivering the desired outcome?” $300 netbooks are stripped down computers because most people want to do word processing and surf the net. Tata is offering a $2,000 car in India (ok, maybe that is a bit too scaled down). Ernst & Young Consulting (now Cap Gemini) once offered a subscription service, Ernie, which provided small businesses with a low-cost alternative to high priced consulting. Dow Corning, the maker of silicone-based products, created Xiameter, an internet-based division that sells product only in bulk… with no call centers.  Which features, services, or qualities can be reduced in order to tap into a new market?

How can I make my product addictive? Drug dealers know that if you get someone hooked on your product, they will come back to buy more. This strategy can be useful for attracting – and retaining – customers. Last month I spoke with the CEOs of three software companies. The one strategy that was pertinent to all three was the development of a stripped down version of the software…and potentially offering it for free. The idea is to get the customer hooked and using the software on a regular basis. Then as the customer’s needs grow, they will need to upgrade (note: this is not the same thing as offering something free today and then charging in the future). I worked with a major computer manufacturer many years ago where this concept was applied. Their flagship computer was (let’s call it) the “F” series. But that was too expensive for most companies, so they introduced a much slower and less expensive computer – the “E” series. Interestingly, the two models were 100% identical except a computer chip was added to the “E” to slow it down. The company knew that many customers would eventually want an upgrade, and they simply pulled out the chip and charged an exorbitant fee.

All three of these strategies move your innovation to the left-hand part of the bell curve (above) rather than the right. All three can be used by any company to augment their existing products and services.  The point is to make your “core competency” available to a broader market – without negatively diverting energies.

I will be including more strategies in future blog entries.

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