Sourcing Creativity

In 2007, Prof. William Duggan from the Colombia Business School in New York wrote an excellent book called Strategic Intuition that shed some light on how we form creative thoughts, specifically, those 'aha' moments that we often encounter at random times (in the shower, while driving to work, etc).  Duggan describes these moments as 'flashes of insight', something I think we've all experienced at some point in our lives.  For example, recall a time when you were faced with a work related problem but no matter how long you stared at your computer, the answer just wouldn't come.  Perhaps frustrated, you decide to take a walk, go home for the day, do something else, and then, all of a sudden it hits you: the solution.  Somehow, while you were distracted with another task, your brain was able to sift through all of the information and construct a clear solution.  These flashes of insight are called 'strategic intuition' because they provide an action plan (strategy) to solve a problem.  But where exactly did this solution come from?

To answer this question, Duggan draws from a wide variety of fields to illustrate how creative ideas are really just new combinations of old ideas.  Take Duggan's example of Google:  The founders of Google did not intentionally set out to create an internet search engine; rather, they were doing academic research at Stanford when they combined their knowledge of computer science, the citation ranking system used by academics, and a feature they saw on the Lycos search engine to create the first version of Google.  Similarly, while Steve Jobs (and Apple) may have perfected the graphical user interface, he certainly did not create it.  Rather, it was a fortunate visit to Xerox Parc that sparked his imagination to create a new, user friendly operating system for personal computers.  In both cases, the revolutionary ideas were nothing more than new (and better) combinations of old ideas.  

As I read this book, I couldn't help but think about how SlideStacks came to be.  Although I spent over 6 years working in the software industry, had given hundreds of presentations to a wide variety of audiences, it wasn't until my boss suggested that rather than just delivering my slide deck start to finish, I should instead engage my audience in conversation to see which topics they wanted to discuss.  I struggled with this ambiguity because traditional slideware made it difficult to bounce around the slides in a non-linear fashion.  That's when it hit me.  I immediately wrote the following question on a Post-It Note: what if there was a way to display slides based on the flow of an unpredictable conversation?  I spent the subsequent weeks answering that question, but everything started from that single flash of insight when I unconsciously combined my experience of user interface design, delivering presentations, and my boss' suggestion of conversation-based slide delivery to create a new idea: SlideStacks.  I did not intentionally set out to create an online presentation software, but when the idea struck, the path to creating the product was so vivid that I immediately jumped on the opportunity.

~Marc

PowerPoint Humor

Hello readers!  I'm just getting back from vacation and will get back on the blogging trail this week.  In the meantime, I stumbled across this little piece of PowerPoint humor that I thought I'd share: http://thetangential.com/2011/12/14/power-point-marriage-proposal-for-the-modern-businessman/

~Marc

Meetings at Microsoft

A mentor of mine recently shared an interesting excerpt from an interview with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.  I thought it was worth sharing because I think Ballmer does a good job describing not only the perspective of the presenter, but also the decision making audience.  Needless to say, I think he would appreciate the approach we've taken with SlideStacks :).  Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/business/17corner.html?_r=1 

Q. What’s it like to be in a meeting run by Steve Ballmer?

A. I’ve changed that, really in the last couple years. The mode of Microsoft meetings used to be: You come with something we haven’t seen in a slide deck or presentation. You deliver the presentation. You probably take what I will call “the long and winding road.” You take the listener through your path of discovery and exploration, and you arrive at a conclusion.

That’s kind of the way I used to like to do it, and the way Bill [Gates] used to kind of like to do it. And it seemed like the best way to do it, because if you went to the conclusion first, you’d get: “What about this? Have you thought about this?” So people naturally tried to tell you all the things that supported the decision, and then tell you the decision.

I decided that’s not what I want to do anymore. I don’t think it’s productive. I don’t think it’s efficient. I get impatient. So most meetings nowadays, you send me the materials and I read them in advance. And I can come in and say: “I’ve got the following four questions. Please don’t present the deck.” That lets us go, whether they’ve organized it that way or not, to the recommendation. And if I have questions about the long and winding road and the data and the supporting evidence, I can ask them. But it gives us greater focus.

Rice Business Plan Competition

Last night, the +SlideStacks team received some exciting news: we were selected to be one of 40 participating teams (out of 400+ applicants) in the 2012 Rice University Business Plan Competition!  This is the world's largest and richest graduate level business plan competition and has over $1.3M in prizes at stake.  We are honored to have been selected and are very much looking forward to the opportunity to share our vision of better presentations to a large audience in April.


Congrats to the team - we put in a lot of work to get here and have plenty of hard work ahead of us to take the next step.