Things little bird told me : Book review

I am an ardent user of Twitter. Love this internet platform that restricts the usage to 140 characters, emphasizing on the need of crisp and clear communication, allowing us to be more creative in sharing our messages with people around. And hence, picking the book - Things little bird told me, became an obvious choice for me. The book gives a powerful insight into the life of Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter. It is engaging and full of interesting anecdotes. This book chronicles his journey from college drop out to becoming a cofounder of one of the internet sensation platform. It's a journey of an individual who believed in creation of opportunities via creativity and not plain hard work alone.

Stone always believed in creativity and creating opportunities by himself. Whether it was his job as a box mover, designer at a publishing house or at google, or being a podcaster, the fellow kept working on creating new opportunities to test his skills and passion till his heart finally found the idea that struck a chord. From there, there was no looking back. Though, like any other startup, the ride was not an easy one, from bumpy days of software failures and scalability issues etc. , team triumphed all shortcomings by owning their mistake and improving the service. The team put to use the common tricks mentioned in every success books such as know and follow your customer, which they popularly termed 'wisdom of crowds'. Knowing where the trend is going and customizing the tool functionalities to meet those needs, being open-minded to new ideas led Twitter floating so far.

During the course of time, role of Stone also matured in his relationships and at work. There were exits and home coming. There were offers and denials. There were conspiracies and righteousness. He has been open about how his life unfolded at every step. Like that, Twitter also transformed. Who would have thought that a simple communication platform will empower people to do great things. It's astonishing how human race uses this tool in their own creative capacity. Be it doing promotions during political elections, fundraising initiatives, driving positive social changes or simply sharing about mundane work, it has done its work of creating a connected society. As Stone rightly puts that technology has the power to become the 'connectivity tissue of humanity', unite and mobilize people for a better cause. 

Overall, the book is an interesting and easy read, power packed with the life lessons for entrepreneurs. Stone is relatable and quotable. In his closing remarks, he encourages readers to alter their course of journey by taking action ( time and a bit of luck does matter) versus jumping into the chasm blindly. His way of putting events in a quirky way is what brings life to this book. Happy reading!

Missing 'Creative Hat' in Strategy?

Coming from a consulting background, most of our assignments are related to designing a strategy for our client – new product introduction, revenue increment strategy, data and analytics strategy etc.  And by default, our minds are wired to use standard mental models, proven analytical models in our work. But time are changing and so is the demand. Clients are now looking for innovative, disruptive solutions to set an example, increase their market share. And I believe, this has led the consulting world to acknowledge the missing pillar of ‘creativity’ in their modus operandi. If you see the trend, in last 3 years or so, we have courses on ‘design-thinking’ on online educational websites, in premier institutes. Big consulting firms have roles related to it and are boosting about this newly acquired credentials. 

In my view, this is the need of the hour – bringing creativity in strategy. But often, our conventional thinking holds us back in accepting it, practicing it in our daily routine tasks. Recently, I read an HBR article which resonates the same idea – “Strategy needs Creativity”. It list four effective and different approaches to embrace creativity in our thinking –

1. Contrast

2. Combination

3. Constraint

4. Context

Contrast- Going by its literal meaning of strikingly different from something. We need to challenge the underlying assumptions of the problems we are looking at and seek answers. Do they still hold true? For example, IKEA challenged the conventional furniture business by questioning is it necessary to deliver assembled furniture only? Can we create furniture that consumers can assemble themselves and reduce assembly costs? Who knew, people all over the world would embrace this idea. Similarly, look at how Netflix has challenged the conventional notion of video stores, took advantage of growing telecom reach, by delivering videos to the customers on their devices in much more convenient manner.

Combination- In today’s world, this is most sought out approach. Look around and we are surrounded by numerous such examples where in two independent products or services are working together in sync and delivering value. Be it banking and telecom, health tech, transport etc. For example, Nike+ IPod, where in Nike shoes counts the steps and communicate with IPod. And with the advent of IoT, we are bound to witness many more disruptions in coming times.

Constraint- Some results are best delivered under constraints. We are challenged to work around within the given boundaries of work and deliver results. So, instead of thinking what we are missing, our mind starts thinking how to take the best advantage of given condition. Many artists make use of this approach to produce one of the finest piece of art. This is a way to turn our weakness into strength unlike SWOT analysis, wherein our focus is on strengths.

Context – This is the most heavily used approach in consulting these days. We often do a lot of context switching across industry esp. in analytical use case scenarios. Clients often wants to know what is best in-class solution / strategy. And they are open to ideas which have been implemented in other industry and can be tweaked in their context. With machine learning based AI solutions gaining momentum, this approach will play a key role in deciding how a product can be used in unexpected ways, discovering new ways of looking at problems at multiple dimensions.

With these four different approaches making its way in the world of consulting, we can surely expect amazing and out-of-the-box strategies in market to blow our minds. As far as being a consultant in this new age world, it means, we need to put our creative hats and sync the ideas with our conventional competencies to sustain and grow up the ladder.

P.S.: You may read the full HBR article here - Strategy-needs-creativity