Learning in 3D hits a home run

Welcome to the thirteenth Blog Tour stop for Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration. With 22 more after this stop, I'll leave for others many topics I'm anxious to see explored from during this Blog Tour including: productive vs. generative learning, teachable moments, crossing the chasm and the "conceptual orienteering" archetype. Next stops after me are Janet Clarey followed by Cammy Bean. Meanwhile, I'll be focusing on the superb structure of this book from an Acquisitions Editor's viewpoint. What Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll have included in this volume is going have wonderful effects on its readers. I can already speak from my own experience:

• I've been rereading Part One of the book since I realized I wanted to think like Karl and Tony about the challenges and sensibilities involved with designing Virtual Immersive Environments (VIE's) for learning.
• I've begun imagining how collaborative training departments could function better in 3D environments as I became inspired by the examples of roles plays and operating practice included in Part Two.
• I've been incorporating ideas from Part Three for handling resistance to technology adoption as I'm developing a business model for giving college dropouts a second chance.
• My imagination got so energized by the futuristic forecasts in Part Four that I've been envisioning avatars entering models of the cognitive states of people stuck delivering productive learning in classroom environments and changing their simulated minds with hands-on practices that induce generative learning.

Effects like these on readers is largely the result of a book's structure. What gets included between the covers and how it's sequenced can greatly impact what the readers think about, bring up in conversations and take action to make changes. Poorly structured books get very little response and often effect the readers negatively. It's obvious to me that the structure of Learning in 3D has hit a home run out of the park and paid a visit to all four bases.

When any book is purely academic, it's usually extremely conceptual, abstract and analytic. Readers find it to be boring, preachy and easily forgotten. However, when the academic competencies are combined with the pragmatic approaches, more value gets offered to the readers. The combination of knowledge and praxis enhances both approaches. The academic component defines the problems with the status quo, what's missing in current approaches and likely consequences of sticking with business as usual. The practical component then provides solutions to those problems, paths out of the mess that's been created and methods to face those similar problems effectively.

Karl and Tony originally conceived of their book answering a long series of questions. They then combined their conceptual prowess to define some very intriguing problems within conventional training functions and useful methods for solving them such as:

• What will happen if the training department in organizations does nothing differently from their proven practices while the world around conventional training changes dramatically?
• Why do some VIE's turn into ghost towns that offer no return on the initial investment?
• What's missing in the sensibilities of training professionals to support their making full and effective use of VIE's after a career in "Flatland"?

When any book is purely pragmatic, it's usually comprised of tedious instructions, intimidating guidelines and sidebars with shortcuts for advanced users. Most readers find a "how-to" cookbook to be overwhelming, out of reach and far from user friendly. However when methods are combined with practitioner experiences, the readers benefit immensely. It becomes possible to picture how the methods apply to actual situations. The difficulties with putting techniques into practice appear easily handled in the case studies. The added dimensions of context and narrative make the methods seem so much more doable and valuable that the book gets reread several times.

Karl and Tony have included nine case studies that show us how varied the uses of VIE's can be and how captivating they can be when immersed in them. The design principles and archetypes come alive when put to use by different designers meeting diverse learning objectives.

When a book is filled with contributions from pioneers in the field, it usually reveals the state of the art to be highly compromised, under developed and plagued by obstacles. The readers find it discourages their motivation to personally advance the discipline. However, when the current field work gets combined with strategies for making changes and with visionary forecasts, the readers' passions get revived. The current state of the art gets contextualized with learning curves and change models. It becomes clear there is necessary groundwork prior to making faster progress in the field to fulfill its lofty dream.

Karl and Tony have asked some "change agents" in this field to answer some very insightful questions about overcoming resistance to Learning in 3D such as:

• What are the most compelling ways to make the case for 3D learning within the enterprise? 
• What are the keys to success in moving from concept to execution to avoid falling in the chasm? 
• What are the most important issues to consider when you move from successful pilot to executing at scale?

Getting questions like these answered by experienced implementors move the reader from shaky to solid ground. Going in this "unpaved" direction looks more feasible by learning from the experiences and following the advice of the pioneers in this field.

Following the diagram I've included, the book's structure can come full circle back to home plate. An analytical framework can serve as the means to appreciate the changes as the book's message takes effect. As the future becomes reality, Learning in 3D will enable us to value the sensibilities taking hold, the design principles getting applied, and the design archetypes finding new forms and effects on immersive experiences.

Thus the structure of the entire book is designed to effect readers in very valuable ways. It remains to be seen how deeply these insights, methods and strategies enter into the dialogue and praxis of training professionals around the world. Promoting their book "on steroids" suggests their message will get spread far and wide. Besides these 35 blog tour stops, the authors are presenting at conferences, speaking in podcasts,  providing: a website, a Facebook page, and a wiki for case studies, posting on Twitter with the hashtag #lrn3d, and offering a sample immersive experience of the archetypes in Protosphere. With so much going in the book's favor, Learning in 3D should rock the entire world like it did mine!

Is blogging changing?

Awhile back, Virginia asked "Is blogging changing" on her blog: Connecting 2 the World. Her many insights attracted numerous comments which all gave me much to ponder. Harold Jarche then followed up on her post last week. This is the first chance I've had to share my thoughts, having been immersed in writing a first draft business plan, completing the series on Pitfalls in planning a new venture and reading the 416 page book: Learning in 3D that I'll be reviewing here on tomorrow.

When I started this blog back in 2006, the blogosphere seemed very conversational to me. The abundance of comments I was leaving for others and receiving here stimulated tons of new learning. That pattern continued throughout 2007 and well into 2008. Then I noticed two changes. More of the traffic to my own blog was reading my archive of previous posts than the most recent ones. Also, the comments left on the blogs I read were less thought provoking. There were fewer opportunities to jump in, to add something helpful or to provoke a different direction for the exploration.

I partially buy into the widely accepted theory that the conversations have moved out of the blogosphere onto Facebook and Twitter. However, the quality of conversations in "micro blogging" platforms do not resemble the glory days of 2007 in those countless blog comment boxes. Rather than a migration to other Web 2.0 tools, I'm seeing a diminishment of thought provoking conversations throughout the panorama of social networking platforms.

I really value what remains in the blogs I read. I'm now asking different questions from "how can I jump in to this conversation?" I read blogs with questions in mind like:

• What are you currently thinking about? 
• What have you recently read/watched/heard that got you thinking about that? 
• How has that changed what you were previously thinking along those lines? 
• What does that give you to explore further, question deeper or change direction?

I regard this evolution as very favorable and valuable. I now view blogging as transparent thought processes. We share what's on our minds and how that's changing. We make it possible for others to expand and refine their thinking by "thinking in public view". Blogging first seemed like democratized publishing that liberated citizen access to the reading public from the controls of assignment editors in print news media and acquisition editors in book publishing. I think the blogopshere has evolved into platforms for following thought leaders who follow other thought leaders. The network of connections between resourceful writers makes our collective exploratory thought evolve much faster and better.

A process for growing a new venture

The process for growing a new venture is not something I could have written off the top of my head prior to now. It has emerged from writing about pitfalls in planning a new venture over the past two weeks. I had to trust my process for exploring one pitfall a day to get inspired about creative strategies to avoid that pitfall. Once that series of blog posts was completed, I was capable of revisiting the issue from the opposite perspective of steps toward creating a success. I realized a better order to put these strategies in that follows a logical progression from a new idea to a venture operating one year out. I filled in more details where the strategies now seemed vague on the previous series of post. Here's the sequence of explorations to follow that has evolved by writing and refining:

What's our idea?

When we're planning a new venture, we need a new idea that will sell. A good place to begin includes:

• Starting with a user's pain, problematic situation or frustrated attempts to make progress. 
• Making a difference in the lives of other people who don't know they need an invention. 
• Serving users' abilities to get more out of what they are already buying. 
• Focusing on what good it does for those who do the buying.

When we get off to a bad start, we can fall for doing the wrong thing correctly.

What difference does it make?

Once we have an idea that will sell, we need to determine that's it's a good enough idea to get attention and to get favored over other ideas. When we consider the difference our idea makes, we can explore:

• Making a big enough difference to get noticed and to stand out from the crowd 
• Making a useful difference that will get valued and talked about by lots of varied users 
• Making an accessible difference that others can take advantage of without overcoming huge obstacles 
• Making an immediate difference that does not require lots of patience and trust to experience a payoff quickly 
• Making a long term difference that rewards deeper commitments and investments for buying into the difference 
• Making a range of differences to satisfy a variety of situations, expectations or limitations 
• Making predictable differences so the invention seems trustworthy, reliable and consistent to users

If we skip this step, we can inadvertently end up making the same difference as other ventures

What about copycat competitors?

With an idea that makes a big difference, we need to consider the possibility that our idea will get copied by other ventures. We can defy imitators by:

• Serving lots of different use cases that call for a variety of responses, functionalities and custom services. 
• Seeing that the idea works within an entire range of variations in traffic loads, weather, or other "environmental turbulence". 
• Accommodating lots of different, open-source combinations, mash-ups and pairings with our initial idea  
• Designing a "total solution" that appears we have "thought of everything" and "considered every angle".

If our venture's product/service mix remains too simplified, we may be assuming we have no imitators at our own peril.

How will it get better over time?

With so many issues to resolve for a successful venture, it can become an obsession that loses sight of the long range evolution of the enterprise. We can launch the venture with our sights on a continual stream of sustaining innovations by:

• Brainstorming a list of all possible improvements and prioritize the items to identify the next two upgrades to work on next. 
• Working enough iterations with the possible enhancements to identify difficult tradeoffs or forks in the development path where customers can provide valuable input. 
• Crowdsourcing suggestions for future upgrades and let the "most often submitted" and/or the "highest ranked submittals" establish which get implemented. 
• Creating part or full time positions to rapidly prototype new features, functionality and use cases to extend the life of the project.

If we get too caught up in refining everything for the launch of the start-up, we will fall for drop kicking our innovation.

Where will the customers come from?

When we're considering where the customers will come from, it's better to not steal them from incumbents who may retaliate. We can create new customers off the radar of sleeping giants by:

• Inventing new ideas to serve the non-consumers who can say the new offer is "better than nothing" which what they're getting so far. 
• Coming up with something simpler or easier to use for those consumers who feel over-served by too many features, too much sophistication and increasingly complex functionality in the incumbents' product/service mix. 
• Moving down market to offer new solutions to the customers current problems which are less expensive to purchase, less costly to maintain or cheaper to operate.  
• Remixing the strategy canvas so the new idea is playing by different rules and changing the quality standards which can be met as "good enough for starters".

If our new venture is so high profile that it steals customers away from rivals, we may suffer the consequences of provoking the incumbents to retaliate

How will adjustments get made in the original plan?
Once we've zeroed in on the idea, the difference it makes, the defeat of imitators and a safe source of customers, we commit to a trajectory. It may be a long shot, but we won't know until we "run it up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it". Our chances of success are greatly improved if we continue to make midcourse corrections. We can learn what adjustments to make by:

• Listening to those who are close to the customers as if they are the fingertips that can feel what's going on outside the enterprise. 
• Asking oneself and others "what's missing?", "what's not working?" and "what's in need for more refinement?" 
• Learning from what happens to get better or different results by changing methods, processes and strategies. 
• Theorize the underlying reasons for surprising successes, approval ratings and growth.

If we stick to our guns in order to never veer off course, we are likely to end up too smart to succeed.

How will surges of growth get funded?
When a venture takes off, two different aspects get bigger in a hurry: revenue and expenses. If expenses get bigger faster, the venture will run short on cash to fund the next expansion of capacity. We can keep revenue and expenses growing together by:

• Limiting the funding of growth to retained earnings instead of debt. 
• Slowing the initial growth rate while building the infrastructure for exponential growth later. 
• Withholding a cash reserve for unforeseen expenditures in spite of it slowing expansion. 
• Maintaining exclusive or close knit ownership to control decisions about expansion and expenses.

 If we grow too fast or too soon, we will fall for underestimating the cost of growth.

How will prices get set?

When sales exceed our expectations, we begin to wonder how greedy we can get and what price the market will bear. We can find that optimum price for each paying client by:

• Developing a range of alternatives that offer different amounts of value at different prices so the customer can choose for themselves. 
• Helping the customer compare our prices to competitors with opposing considerations like "getting what you pay for" vs. "not getting more when you pay more". 
• Explaining the amount of work and expense that goes into the offering which deserves a fair price in return -- that customers can decide for themselves. 
• Factoring in the customers' ability to pay with a sliding scale of prices adjusted for different economic conditions.

If we try to get the price right by making stabs at it on our own, we apt to fall for undercharging the customer.

How will it survive the end of the honeymoon phase?
When the successful sales leads to press coverage and buzz in the marketplace, it's time to build a loyal following that will endure "after the thrill is gone" for what was the "next new thing". The long term commitment from customers can be cultivated by:

• Consciously dismissing the hype as seductive, misleading and distracting from appealing to the pragmatic early majority who want proof of specific features and benefits.
•  Cultivating relationships with early adopters as if they can provide feedback to develop the next upgrades and forewarn you of potential negative reactions to the current version.
•  Putting the ball back in the laps of the fans who are final arbiters of why they like it, want it and see uses for it - whenever we get asked to extoll the virtues of our "next new thing",
•  Giving a heads up to reporters about the long term development plan that could evolve into other stories for them to work with us on in the future.

If the bubble of enthusiasm seduces us into false confidence about the long term success of our venture, we're likely to fall for flaming out before catching fire.

How will the setbacks get handled?

Once sales begin to lag and instill fear of success slipping away, the enterprise needs to be better managed than ever. The team can endure the setbacks better when we:

• Regard employees as internal customers who will serve the real customers in turn -- as well as they are served, respected, listened to and supported. 
• Consider employees to be equally entrepreneurial, using the employment experience to advance their careers and refine their abilities to create value. 
• Show employees the respect of trusting their own judgement in defining their job description and appraising their performance with the help of their peers and internal customers. 
• Creating an internal marketplace for new ideas, process revisions, strategy refinements, and cost savings - where the best get rewarded and each gets acknowledged.

 If we allow our fears to dictate our reactions to the setbacks, we will turn up the heat and create jobs from hell for every member of our team.

Drop kicking our innovation

It's human nature to get ensnared in the perils of perfectionism when developing any new project or venture. There always seems to be room for more improvements if we give it a little more time. It's never seems realistic to say "good enough" and go with what we've got at that point. It becomes a major struggle to release version 1.0. We fear getting criticized for imperfections that we already know need more work. We postpone the inevitable reactions of envy, contempt, rivalry and dismissal by continuing to make our good idea better and better.

We fall into the last of the ten pitfalls I've explored here when we escape our perfectionistic tendencies. We drop kick our innovation and and let the market run with it. We give up on refining the project for many years to come. We introduce our innovation with no upgrade path in the works. We flip flop from relentless refinement to abandoning the improvement process out of frustration. We have no plans to grow enhancements slowly with insights realized from users and their varied uses. We assume we're no longer in possession of our innovation's process of evolving and maturing.

Here are some ways to run with the ball for many more generations:

• Brainstorm a list of all possible improvements and prioritize the items to identify the next two upgrades to work on next.
• Work enough iterations with the possible enhancements to identify difficult tradeoffs or forks in the development path where customers can provide valuable input.
• Crowdsource suggestions for future upgrades and let the "most often submitted" and/or the "highest ranked submittals" establish which get implemented.
• Create part or full time positions to rapidly prototype new features, functionality and use cases to extend the life of the project.

When product development becomes an ongoing process, the sustainability of the enterprise improves. The longevity of relationships with customers becomes more likely.  The market values the obvious commitment of the enterprise to find better ways to serve the customers and create valuable experiences for them.

Too smart to succeed

A new idea, project or venture usually seems like a long shot at first. It cannot be a sure thing without copying what already exists, stepping on the toes of giants or getting a "ho-hum" response from the market. Being innovative involves taking risks, exploring new territory and venturing into unproven possibilities. It's not for the tentative, fainted hearted or overly-cautious. Succeeding with a new venture calls for turning up one's determination and fortifying one's resolve.

We're headed for a pitfall when we lock into an unwavering trajectory toward our long shot at success. We've become too smart to succeed. Our conviction has become conceited and selfish. Our optimism appears arrogant and pig headed. Our determination seems insensitive and unresponsive.  We're making the wrong impression on others and failing to correct our trajectory in the process.

Success also calls for midcourse corrections. The trajectory needs to waver off the initial course. There's much to be learned in the process of launching a venture from the early reactions to it. The customers, rivals and industry analysts can all teach lessons and suggest upgrades. Changes in the context can call for adjustments or revisions. New developments may require new solutions. There will be many occasions of throwing out the bath water while taking care not to discard the baby. 

Here are a few strategies for ensuring the long shot trajectory gets revised insightfully:

1. Listen to those who are close to the customers as if they are the fingertips that can feel what's going on outside the enterprise.
2. Ask oneself and others "what's missing?", "what's not working?" and "what's in need for more refinement?"
3. Learn from what happens to get better or different results by changing methods, processes and strategies.
4. Theorize the underlying reasons for surprising successes, approval ratings and growth. 

Each of these transforms the long shot trajectory into a learning organization. The enterprise is continually in a process of discovering, exploring and coming to new realizations. The conventional emphasis on delivering reliably and consistently gets counterbalanced by seeking out the unforeseen and unsettling evidence. The way to success combines being very smart with being "not too smart" to continue learning.

Creating jobs from hell

Lots of us, including myself, have started businesses to get out of "jobs from hell". We assume we can work for ourselves better than working for someone who has "perfected the art of mismanagement". We believe we understand ourselves better than we will ever get understood by another. We also think we are far more insightful into the customers, their unmet needs and their unanswered complaints. We launch an enterprise with a value proposition that we've designed to be exceptional and far more responsive than the employer's package deal we've left behind. 

We fall into another pitfall when customers are not buying what we're selling. For unknown reasons, our superior value proposition has become a tough sell. The customers appear to need a lot of convincing, educating and enticing to get them to say "yes". We morph the sales responsibilities into a pressure cooker that sales leads find repulsive and sales people dread each day of work. We have fallen into the pitfall of creating jobs from hell. We believe the sales effort has to be pushy and insistent in spite of evidence that customers are full of excuses and giving sales the runaround. We're convinced the solution lies in "trying harder to make sales" since there is no obvious alternative for trying smarter or backing off to succeed. 

When sales responsibilities resemble jobs from hell, so do most other jobs in the fledgling enterprise. The nightmare of mismanagement we sought to escape by launching a startup haunts us still. Sales support becomes non existent. Quality assurance, cost controls and productivity fall apart. Employees fail to take responsibility for problems or initiative to prevent problems from occurring. There is a noticeable lack of cooperation, coordination, communication and commitment. Relationships have turned adversarial, distant and manipulative. A groundswell of backbiting, gossip mongering and office politics rears its ugly head. The problems with sales are merely the symptoms of much more pervasive, dysfunctional systems.

This pitfall can be avoided by using management approaches that:

• Regard employees as internal customers who will serve the real customers in turn -- as well as they are served, respected, listened to and supported.
• Consider employees to be equally entrepreneurial, using the employment experience to advance their careers and refine their abilities to create value.
• Show employees the respect of trusting their own judgement in defining their job description and appraising their performance with the help of their peers and internal customers.
• Creating an internal marketplace for new ideas, process revisions, strategy refinements, and cost savings - where the best get rewarded and each gets acknowledged.

Each of these sends an unmistakable message to each employee of understanding, validation and gratitude for their contribution. Each employee gets under the impression they can make a difference and get recognition for their initiatives. Each gets much more value out of the working for and working together with others than in jobs where they simply "do their job".

Flaming out before catching fire

Hollywood has found they need to score big on the opening weekend of a new film. Slowly building an audience over several weekends underperforms "bursting out of the starting gate". The promoters of new movies have mastered the art of generating buzz. They care much more about how high the buzz goes at first than how long it lasts in the coming weeks. They fuel this fire with paid advertising, guest appearances on TV talk shows and reviews by entertainment news reporters. 

Hollywood's strategy can be applied to any perishable good or service with a short window of opportunity to make sales. For any enterprise "in it for the long haul", this skyrocket to fame and glory is the road to yet another pitfall: flaming out before catching fire. The enterprise passes up slowly building a following of loyal customers, repeat purchases and long term relationships. It opts for generating a furry of press coverage. It appeals to early adopters as the next new thing without any clear use, benefit or outcome offered. It's extremely fashionable like the latest "it" boy, girl or thing. The hype is very seductive. It looks like the startup is going to scale until the flameout comes along. Suddenly the future looks like the end of hype cycle or the chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. 

Once again there are several strategies to avoid this pitfall:

1. Consciously dismiss the hype as seductive, misleading and distracting from appealing to the pragmatic early majority who want proof of specific features and benefits.
2. Cultivate relationships with early adopters as if they can provide feedback to develop the next upgrades and forewarn you of potential negative reactions to the current version.
3. When asked to extoll the virtues of your "next new thing", put the ball back in the laps of the fans who are final arbiters of why they like it, want it and see uses for it.
4. Give a heads up to reporters about the long term development plan that could evolve into other stories for them to work with you on in the future.

Each of these strategies ground the flighty excursions of early adopters with long term relationships. They present a humble, grateful and unassuming face to the public. They turn off the desperate approval seeking of insecure product introductions. They turn on intentional collaborations with fans and reporters to improve on the initial launch. 

Provoking the incumbents to retaliate

When we've developed a great idea, project or venture, we need some people to use it, buy it and tell their friends about it. If our idea is nothing like anything they've seen before, we don't have to tear them away from what they're currently using. However, it will take a lot of explaining, demonstrations and selling to get the concept conveyed as useful, valuable and easy to adopt. 

It may seem easier to stick to ideas the customers already know what it is, how to use it and where to apply it. That usually puts us very near a pitfall of provoking the incumbents to retaliate. Our idea competes directly with giants in the market space. We've invaded their turf and threatened to steal some of their customers. Our success could easily decrease their revenue, market share and profitability. We look an enemy on their radar that they will want to shoot out of the water before we make any further progress. 

There are several strategies to steer clear of this perilous pitfall:

• Invent new ideas to serve the non-consumers who can say your offer is "better than nothing" which what they're getting so far.
• Come up with something simpler or easier to use for those consumers who feel over-served by too many features, too much sophistication and increasingly complex functionality in the incumbents' product/service mix.
• Move down market to offer new solutions to the customers current problems which are less expensive to purchase, less costly to maintain or cheaper to operate. 
• Remix the strategy canvas so your idea is playing by different rules and changing the quality standards which you can meet as "good enough for starters". 

Each of these approaches let "sleeping dogs lie still". The incumbents will not get upset or aroused by innovations that pose no immediate threat. Considerable momentum and customer loyalty can get built up initially while remaining off their radar. 

Undercharging the customer

Whenever we're deciding what to charge for our new product or service, it's easier to get the price wrong than right. When we dwell on how much work we've put into our innovative offering, we're inclined to charge more than the market will bear. We try to amortize our initial investment on too short a schedule. We flip-flop from a slow development process to a "get rich quick" scheme. Our minds have fallen into an "I - it" mode that dehumanizes the paying customer while we do the wrong thing correctly. We let our greed lead us away from our better judgement. We assume those who can afford our high price are our preferred clientele and those who cannot are unworthy.

When we're cautious about going into excessive greed, we fall for under-charging the customer. Our minds are functioning in an "I - Thou" mode that humanizes the customer with our empathy, compassion and perceptions of common interests. We feel their pain from previous rip-offs and anticipate their apprehensions about getting their money's worth from this added expense.

There are several ways to avoid this pitfall without going to the opposite extreme of overcharging the customer:

1. Developing a range of alternatives that offer different amounts of value at different prices so the customer can choose for themselves.
2. Helping the customer compare your prices to competitors with opposing considerations like "getting what you pay for" vs. "not getting more when you pay more".
3. Explaining the amount of work and expense that goes into the offering which deserves a fair price in return -- that customers can decide for themselves.
4. Factoring in the customers' "ability to pay" with a sliding scale of prices adjusted for different economic conditions.

In each case, we avoid setting a firm price and hoping we get it right on our own. We create a transparent process which customers find useful for trusting us more than before. Rather than prices becoming a sticking point or source of misunderstanding, the process of finding a price together deepens the basis for future collaborations.

Underestimating the cost of growth

There are two ways to finance the costs of growing a business: retained earnings and increased debt. I play these two different approaches a few times a year in my Railroad Tycoon 3 game. When I play the scenario that prevents me from borrowing any money, the growth of my empire is very slow and incremental at first but eventually expands with multiplier effects. I've found that debt-free scenario has tempered my tendency toward runaway borrowing in the scenarios that allow it. I borrow more slowly and judiciously now. Expanding a business on retained earnings is called "solid growth". The enterprise does not get "ahead of itself" or "too big for its britches". The revenue, and the capacity to serve the revenue providers, grow together. 

It's very tempting to fall into the pitfall of underestimating the cost of growth. The mistake then requires borrowing heavily, committing future revenue to debt service. It sets up needing to give up some ownership to get cash infusions from investors. The bigger the enterprise becomes, the deeper the hole it digs for itself. Rather than climb out of debt with surges of new revenue, it sinks too lower into obligations. This is one of the big reasons the vast majority of startups fail in the first few years. 

The way around this pitfall is to start out strapped for cash and grow only from retained earnings. The growth is slow and solid. The delightful jumps in revenue can fund a little expansion or deepened reserves. The occasional shortfalls in expected revenue can be weathered without a cash crisis or flurry of desperate borrowing. There are no short sighted and selfish investors, lenders or creditors demanding faster growth to protect their interests. The decision making about expansion can be calm and clear headed. 

Assuming we have no imitators

Once we've fallen in love with our idea for a new project or venture, we're usually scared to death that someone will steal our idea. We wish everyone would sign a non-disclosure agreement before we reveal any of our ingenious plans. We want no one to find out about it while also hoping the idea will take the world by storm. If we entertain these fears for long, we incapacitate our mental resources. Creative thinking is cancelled until further notice. We can conceive of acts of desperation and little else.

To avoid this state of mind, we fall into the pitfall of assuming we have no imitators. No one will copy our idea or surpass the improvements we're making. We imagine that we are so far ahead of others and superior to their approaches -- that they could not catch up to us or catch on to what we're doing. We're usually in for a big surprise when we become this arrogant in our estimation of others' capabilities, motivations and determination.

When we discover that someone has actually imitated our approach or stolen our idea, we typically become devastated. We perceive a certain danger, obvious threat and established enemy. There's no way to argue with those facts or change what has already happened. It's only a "valuable opportunity" or a "useful lesson" if we're kidding ourselves. What we presume to be "facing reality" fills our minds with panic, anxiety and nightmare scenarios.

We actually "face reality" when realize that ideas can be copied, but ecologies cannot be cloned. Imitators can only replicate simple facets of complex systems. Many portable MP3 players imitated Apple's iPod -- but none copied the deals with the music industry, the online iTunes store or the digital rights management encoding in downloaded files. If all we're offering is something that can be copied, it's a mere package, trinket or commodity. The value proposition is flawed. The benefits realized by users is superficial and easily substituted. 

The threat of imitators is an opportunity to grow our own complex ecology. The offer needs to serve lots of different use cases. The situations where our idea works need to include a range of variations. The kinds of combinations, mash-ups and pairings with our initial idea need to boggle our minds. The newcomer to our "total solution" will awed by how we "thought of everything" and "considered every angle". The value proposition has evolved into a robust and potentially viral complex ecology. 

Making the same difference

When we've got a great idea for a new project or venture, we're aiming to make a difference in the world. It has already made a difference to us to have a new idea to develop further. We're typically excited, energized and optimistic to have escaped our mundane world old ideas. We naturally assume the effects the new idea has on our outlook and mood will effect many others the same way.

Most inventors fail to steer clear of the pitfall of making the same difference as other innovations. They fail to take stock of what else is being done, changed and refined. They assume their idea is so new and clever it has no rivals. They may even be afraid to study the market and assess their competition due to the negative impact on their own outlook and mood. This anti-pattern is comprised of over-optimism at all cost with a perilous lack of humility and realism.

Whenever we want to make a difference, it's not enough to simply be different. There's the question of:

1. making a big enough difference to get noticed and to stand out from the crowd
2. making a useful difference that will get valued and talked about by lots of varied users
3. making an accessible difference that others can take advantage of without overcoming huge obstacles
4. making an immediate difference that does not require lots of patience and trust to experience a payoff quickly
5. making a long term difference that rewards deeper commitments and investments for buying into the difference
6. making a range of differences to satisfy a variety of situations, expectations or limitations
7. making predictable differences so the invention seems trustworthy, reliable and consistent to users

These seven criteria for making a difference can be satisfied many different ways which avoid the pitfall of making the same difference. The combinations of these attributes can create a significant difference that could be called a "game changer", "revolutionary breakthrough" or a "disruptive innovation". The combinations can also create an incremental difference that could be called an "upgrade to version 2.0", "added features and functionality" or a "sustaining innovation". In either case, the combinations avoid the pitfall of making the same difference as every other new entrant and incumbent provider. 

Doing the wrong thing correctly

When we're creating something new, we have a lot on our minds. It can be as small as a new web page or as comprehensive as launching a new start-up. Our minds naturally fixate on solving the immediate problems. There's a lot to consider to avoid making mistakes, looking bad and failing to perform as promised. We become obsessed with "doing the thing right" while hoping we've chosen to "do the right thing" with the particular new thing we're creating. 

Most inventors fall into a pitfall of doing the wrong thing correctly. They end up serving themselves accurately instead of serving the customers functionally. They rely on the features and specs, not the use cases and other purposes the thing can enhance. The invention becomes a good idea in itself that took lots of work to make it right. It becomes "the inventor's baby" that is adored, clung to and admired without question. The new thing comes across to others as too new to accept, too strange to comprehend, too difficult to use or too complicated to think through how to apply it.

We get seduced by this pitfall, in part, due to the way our minds function. When we're being productive, we take others for granted. We close our minds to distractions and focus on the task at hand. We cannot relate to others, consider their feelings, empathize with their situations or tune into their outlooks. We function in an "I - it" mode of  dehumanizing and de-contextualizing others. This enables us to get the job done and solve the obvious problems. But we lose sight of making sense to others from their own frames of reference. Our invention shows up in their worlds as nothing they'd want to buy, use or look into further.

Entrepreneurs utilize several heuristics to successfully avoid this pitfall. Here's a few of them:

• Don't start with an idea, start with a user's pain, problematic situation or frustrated attempts to make progress.
• Don't make an invention, make a difference in the lives of other people who don't know they need an invention.
• Don't deliver something for customers to buy, serve their ability to get more out of what they buy.
• Don't dwell on what is getting bought, focus on what good it does for those who do the buying.

When we get trapped by this pitfall, the value of our inventions are extrinsic. It's in the item and presumed to be the same for everyone who buys it. When we steer clear of this pitfall, the value is intrinsic. It's in the eye of the beholders, in the strength of the rapport with their outlooks and in the trust established with them. We practice an "I - thou" mode of humanizing and contextualizing others. We get where others are coming from and meet them there. We discover ways to give them what they are looking for. We ease their pain, solve some of their problems and facilitate their own process of making progress. We appear to be on their side or in their corner. They feel understood by where we appear to be coming from. The invention now looks very useful, valuable and alluring to their outlooks. We've done the right thing correctly.

Pitfalls in planning a new venture

I'm currently writing a business plan to give an affordable second chance to college dropouts. As I develop the details of the plan, I am also critiquing it. There are many ways for a business plan to be inadequate, ineffective or simply flawed. I intend to write up these pitfalls over the next two weeks, to clarify my own thinking about them and make sure I hold my evolving business plan to these standards. I hope you'll find them useful in any new ventures or projects you're considering.

Here are the design pitfalls I have in mind and will explore here:

1. Inventing a new product/service that buyers see no use for that's worth the trouble of adjusting to it - see Doing the Wrong Thing Correctly
2. Lacking feature/benefit differentiation that makes the new business compare unfavorably to established enterprises with more experience and customers - see Making the Same Difference
3. Assuming the rivals won't copy or surpass every improvement which then results in getting ambushed by the imitators - see Assuming we have no imitators
4. Over-estimating increasing revenue and under-estimating soaring costs which yield shortages of cash and loss of ownership control - see Underestimating the cost of growth
5. Pricing the offer beyond what the market will pay or so low it fails to cover costs which makes customers wary of being manipulated - see Undercharging the customer
6. Attacking incumbent positions that provoke their retaliatory strikes and wars of attrition to quickly eliminate the start-up from the market space - see Provoking the incumbents to retaliate
7. Getting a bubble of press coverage that quickly fades without generating customer loyalty and  a steady stream of repeat business - see Flaming out before catching fire
8. Resorting to pressure sales tactics which results in seller reluctance, buyer remorse and negative reputations - see Creating jobs from hell
9. Locking into a long shot trajectory that fails to make adjustments to hit the moving target and steer clear of unforeseen obstacles - see Too smart to succeed
10. Introducing a single innovation with no upgrade path which has the effect of destroying the long term sustainability - see Drop kicking our innovation

After writing up all these pitfalls, I took the opposite approach of developing a framework of success strategies - see A process of growing a new venture.

Getting a degree and an education

The two times I've been a college student, I walked away with a degree AND an education. Both my B.Arch. and M.B.A. programs gave me opportunities to instruct others and prove to myself that the best way to learn something is to teach it to another. Both degree programs involved working together with peers on projects with lots of meetings outside of class time. I learned as much from fellow students as from the formal instructors. Because there was so much action and interaction involved in the learning processes, I got a clearer sense of my own aptitudes, passions and values. I discovered how much I differed and how much I had in common with others I found compatible with me, interesting to me and understanding of me. 

Since then, I taught college courses for a dozen years. I did my best to ensure that the students enrolled in my courses got lots of takeaway value from my instructional designs. I could not, in good conscience, merely cover the material, test students on the assigned reading, or give lectures that were as boring to give as to receive. But I saw the results of other classes they endured and heard some of their horror stories. Many students were getting a degree without getting an education. The only thing they would have to show for their 4+ years of academic credits was their diploma and transcript -- all credential with no credibility! 

I suspect the increasing number of college dropouts is partly the result of this failure to provide an education. It becomes evident to enrolled students that they are getting no value beyond the piece of paper at the end of the line. It no longer appears worth the phenomenal expense, long term debt and anxiety while attending college. I believe many of those dropouts who dropped out to minimize the rip-off still desire a real education. If they cannot get both a degree and an education, they will settle for a useful, customized and experiential education.

This morning I notified the Penn/Milken contest administrators of my intention to submit an executive summary and business plan to "provide an affordable second chance to the growing number of college dropouts". I have in mind a social learning system that will provide a very valuable and enduring education without the credentials they've already lost hope of attaining. I will argue this is a far better bargain than those college graduates who walk away with the reverse result: the diploma without an education.

Conflicts with collaborative endeavors

The model I've been developing for the past month has evolved into three phases. There are conflicts with collaborative endeavors before they get started, in the midst of getting underway and once fully established. Each presents a unique set of challenges for those striving to keep the collaborations from falling apart and fading away. 

1. Getting started: Those who will be collaborating have much to gain by abandoning their isolated or competing efforts. At the same time, those not directly involved get threatened with significant losses from the introduction of collaborative endeavors in their midst. 
2. Getting fully underway: Collaborative endeavors can get caught in a limbo state between past and future practices. There are habits to be broken, tasks to be revised, routines to be reorganized and patterns to get introduced. It will often seem easier to go back to business as usual rather than maintain the strain of new practices. It takes participants being on the lookout for that limbo state to resolve the dilemmas posed by past before they induce stagnation.
3. Getting back on track: A successful series of collaborative endeavors can be derailed by individuals regressing back to authoritative or argumentative behavior patterns. A culture of success can make those on the margins feel excluded, inferior or inadequate to participate fully. They may seek to get attention or get even for not feeling understood, accepted and included. 

In exploring different audiences that could benefit from this model, I've settled on the target population for my forthcoming peer learning enterprise. The educating by those participants are collaborative endeavors which are vulnerable to debilitating conflicts. The peers need this model presented as a troubleshooting guide to watch for warning signs, to nip problems in the bud and to discover ways to prevent future breakdowns.  That's the approach I'm taking to my full length presentation of this model.

A conspicuous absence of process transparency

The Firm as a Collaborative Community is a book about collaborating. It's assembled from the contributions of numerous collaborators. Most of the chapters make passing reference to other chapters and/or their authors. The preface mentions getting together at Rutgers University for three different meetings. 

The book makes no mention of how those meetings went for the participants or what was learned about collaborating from the process. The release of the book relied on a freemium model of offering the first chapter as a free pdf download while charging $125 for the printed book. There was no disclosure of how the decisions were made to use a freemium approach or to target the market segments that perceive high prices as adding to the book's value.

There were no tie-ins from the exploration in the book of exit and voice approaches to collaboration, and the approaches used by the various authors in collaboration on this volume. In short, there was none of the process transparency that was preached as essential to the formation of trust that provides the basis for collaboration. The book does not practice what it preaches.

We don't know why the book sends contradictory messages to its readers like "do as we say, don't do as we do". Here are some typical explanations that might apply to these authors and their conspicuous absence of process transparency:

• Their collaboration on the book resembled Detroit automakers setting up "collaborations" with parts suppliers who felt pressured, threatened and squeezed by the buyer side of the exchanges.
• The personalities / social characters may fit a pattern of "deference to authority" and "reliance on autonomy" that cannot interact with, openly contradict or gradually incorporate other viewpoints -- without enduring a crisis in confidence.  
• Their process of collaborating on the book may have revealed them to be inept - which could only undermine their positioning themselves as authoritative experts.
• Their approach to transparency may have been socialized by schooling and employment in hierarchies which hide behind firewalls, respect fortress mentalities and reward the formation of silos. 
• Their sharing of their own collaborative process could turn off their target market of high level executives in old economy corporations who were eager to sign huge consulting contracts with them.
• Their awareness of who practices process transparency may be limited to bloggers, new journalism models and therapy groups, but no colleagues, experts or executives.
• They were unconsciously teaching what they personally need to learn by first giving others they advice they need to listen to themselves, and slowly letting their own messages sink in.

Whatever explanation(s) actually fit the authors' collaboration, the value proposition of the book has been limited by their lack of process transparency. It's loaded with good ideas, insights and case examples. It's ideal for becoming more of an expert, like the authors themselves. It falls short of nurturing our own collaborative praxis.

Dead set against collaborating

In the many times I've taught negotiation skills and strategies, I've made a big deal about the difference between adversarial and collaborative contexts. I visualize adversarial negotiations as sitting on opposite sides of the table, keeping secrets and working against the opposing side. Collaborative negotiations sit on the same side of the table, sharing information and working together to satisfy common interests.  

• Adversarial tactics threaten to walk away from the bargaining table, to throw a deal breaker into the mix and bring a winner-take all competitor under consideration. The negotiations comes down to price, rather than satisfying secondary and long term objectives. They leave a legacy of mistrust, guarded revelations and suspicions of each others' deceptive maneuvers. 
• Collaborative tactics explore each others secondary and long term objectives. They interact to uncover common ground, shared interests and mutually agreeable compromises. They set a standard for working together again, understanding each others' viewpoint and trusting underlying intentions. 

Chapter Ten of The Firm as a Collaborative Community explores this same distinction within industry supply chain negotiations. Following on Albert Hirschman's 1970 book: Exit Voice and Loyalty, John Paul MacDuffie and Susan Helper contrast the "exit approach" and "voice approach" in auto industry procurement practices. Detroit automakers have long practiced the adversarial, "exit approach" of dropping suppliers to force added price reductions and relying on competitive bidding to get the best price. Japanese automakers have a long history of the collaborative "voice approach" of listening to suppliers while working together on cost reductions. Large suppliers of parts for both kinds of automakers, like Delphi, realized several fascinating differences within their organizations.

When faced with the adversarial, exit approach, auto parts were small, poorly designed, and different for each model of car. Cost reductions were sought from design 5%, material 50%, labor 15% and overhead 30%. Parts suppliers were told by auto executives to "stop your whining" Cost reductions occurred at the expense of quality which resulted in considerable returns, rework and warranty expense. The automakers displayed a "sink or swim" attitude toward the suppliers which undermined the long term health of the Detroit automakers themselves.

When immersed in collaborative, voice approaches, auto parts have been integrated into larger assemblies, become much better designed and are made uniform across many different models of cars.  Cost reductions were sought from design 70%, material 20%, labor 5% and overhead 5%. The increase from 5% to 70% design impact necessitated much more delegation of design responsibilities to suppliers, coordination of designs across bureaucratic silos and learning by the automakers from the suppliers' considerable expertise. Cost reductions were accompanied by improvements in quality, reductions in returns, rework and warranty expense. The automakers displayed a "we're all in this together" attitude toward the suppliers which nurtured the long term health of their entire industry.

Neither the outcome measures, positive role models or the rapport with suppliers realized by the "voice approach" has had much influence on Detroit automakers. Having recently sabotaged their unusually collaborative, Saturn Car Company, GM appears to be "dead set against the voice approach". This provides us with a wonderful case of "conflicts with the adoption of collaborative networks". To those not already benefiting from collaboration, the change from working against into working together appears like a very bad idea to be avoided at all cost.

Collaborative tribal market hierarchies

Chapter Nine of The Firm as a Collaborative Community explores collaborations between enterprises. The author: Lynda M. Applegate sits on an advisory board for the Nasdaq Exchange which gives her an intimate view of its complexity. Her chapter is a treasure trove of insights that I had to read more than once to extract all the value I was realizing. 

Nasdaq is a market for the exchange of securities founded in 1971. The Nasdaq Exchange and many of the member issuers of stock are institutions with hierarchical structures. The ways they work together to maintain the vibrant marketplace and their own institutions are intensely collaborative. To facilitate the numerous transitions, adaptations and revisions needed as the market grows or changes, there are special teams with cohesive tribal characteristics that respond to each of those challenges. Nasdaq has proven to be very responsive to setbacks as well as complex enough to be sustainable over several decades. It provides a model for collaborative endeavors that David Rohnfeldt would call a "quadriform society". It embodies tribe, institution, market and network (TIMN) functionalities. 

From my reading of this chapter, I have distilled a series of four design patterns and anti-patterns for collaborative enterprises. These can be used to avoid pitfalls, generate sustainable designs and compare alternative solutions. 

Anti-pattern: Over-simplification - When we idealize collaboration, our approach lacks requisite complexity. We rely too much on the benefits of collaboration while ruling out the functionality of non-collaborative forms of contribution, connections and combinations.

• Pattern: Requisite complexity - When we synthesize collaboration with small teams, huge hierarchies and competitive markets, our approach becomes much more sustainable. We include enough variations, ranges of responses and alternative resources to withstand shocks to the system, adapt to changing situations and evolve to better serve the entire panorama of constituencies. 

Anti-pattern: Over-emphasizing trust issues - When we assume that trust is a prerequisite to collaboration, we fail to rely on the gradual processes from which trust emerges. We dismiss the possibility that an institution or market could grow to trust suspicious members.

• Pattern: Varied processes of trust - Applegate differentiates between institutional trust, affiliation based trust and process based trust. She perceives process trust emerging from affiliation and institutional trust, rather than determining whether or not collaborations can occur prior to start of collaborating. 

Anti-pattern: Conflating varied kinds of relationships - When we "make a thing" of collaborating, interdependence or relating, we fail to discern the variations that need special attention. We take an ineffective "rubber stamp" or "cookie cutter" approach to nuanced dynamics. 

• Pattern: Differentiating varied relationships - Applegate separates task-based relationships, information or expertise based-relationships and social relationships. She characterizes the organization of those varied sizes of these relationships as nodes, alliances and consortiums. The range of scales, contributions and benefits received provides a sufficiently subtle appreciation of the differences worthy of customized design responses. 

Anti-pattern: Relying on the complexity of the community - When we're overwhelmed by the complexity of inter-dependencies and network linkages in a community, we assume there's enough variety to respond to whatever comes up. We fail to imagine that members could feel abandoned, neglected or misunderstood.

• Pattern: Integrating tribes into communities - Communities need special teams to respond to particular issues, crises and disconnects. Those teams ought to feel like tribes of insiders which regards the rest of the community as outsiders. Rather than having a divisive effect, these tribal teams add to the community's resilience and sustainability. 

Chapter Nine further explores contrasts between Nasdaq and two other, less successful large-scale collaborations. Situations where large buyers seek set up "collaborations without trust" with their sellers end up breaking down. Their unilateral price squeezing undermined the long term viability of collaborations for both automakers and health care providers with their suppliers. Both examples feed our appetites for a "peak hierarchy" phase of evolution and a demise of obsolete bureaucratic institutions. However, this chapter suggests that hierarchies won't go away, they will get integrated into far more viable and sustainable combinations of collaboration, market mechanisms and tribal cohesiveness. 

Collaborative Learning Communities in Health Care

In Chapter Six of The Firm as a Collaborative Community, contributing author: Michael Maccoby, explores a key premise of the book applied to health care. The book polarizes several distinctions, which remain unresolved by conventional models of organization , but could become integrated by collaborative communities:

• solidarity and conformity / individuality and autonomy
• deep trust among common interests / thin trust amidst transacting selfish interests
• bureaucratic governance / market incentives mechanisms
• policy compliance / entrepreneurial deviance

Maccoby's findings match my own intervention in a troubled merger between two pediatric health care providers. Some doctors operated private practices through their hospital and found ways to increase their revenue and profitability while giving superior service to patients and their families. The other physicians were paid salaries by the  second institution which dictated practices, policies and procedures over them. These two cultures clashed and saw no way to compromise the values, ethics and success patterns. 

Maccoby suggests that neither camp is supported with the necessary information, feedback and shared data to learn together. Everyone is perpetuating what they already know and working closely only with those they trust intimately. He foresees the transformation of the culture by making learning the norm which could dramatically increase collaboration beyond the confines of medical specialties. Yet he admits, the physicians conflicting values, social identities and camaraderie will impede unified efforts. 

This chapter, Health Care Organizations as Collaborative Learning Communities,  imagines the collaboration only among the experts providing medical services. The patients are the mere recipients, beneficiaries and consumers of those services. There is no exploration of the patients learning, trusting and collaborating more  when also supported by additional information access. Likewise the patients are not envisioned as becoming more responsible for initial self diagnosis, periodic self medication and ongoing self management of chronic conditions. There's no exploration of community health programs, support groups and preventative efforts. 

I expect the viable solution to emerge from the decline of privileged professionals, due to crowdsourcing and other P2P dynamics. We only need experts in charge of our health when we are feeling personally helpless and very much dependent on them. As information, tools, working arrangements and community support all come into play, collaborative efforts to keep each of us healthy and to orchestrate quick recoveries --  will result from everyone around us, including experts, contributing to those outcomes.