I’ve e-mailed Guy Kawasaki during my tenure at Qumana…he liked our editor…now I hope I can finally shake his hand.
First remark, getting a chuckle, about the number of Macs in the audience.
Guy gave us a choice of topics … and the audience chose: Evangelism.
Guy was the second Mac evangelist … not the first as popularly believed…
Guy Kawasaki almost got fired from Apple because of Dave Winer … because trying to promote Apple and Macs … he spend $750k on software for dealers.
“High tech CEO’s suck as speakers.”–Guy
After showing a really interesting Nike ad …
To be successful you need to:
- Make Meaning
- Make Mantra
Correlation between mission statements and golf courses … giving the how Silicon Valley way of making a mission statements … in a hotel, next to a golf course, facilitated by a New Age hippie, to generate a pointless, meaningless, and useless mission statements.
A mantra should be two or three words … that’s it.
- roll the DICEE … Guy’s Golden Touch: Guy touches what is gold
Deep: example: Faning (Reef) opens beer bottles
Intelligent: BF-104 Flashlight … Takes three sizes of batteries!
Complete: GS Hybrid from Lexus. It’s what is the sum of the whole of the product and services
Elegant: iPod Nano … simplicity
Emotive: Harley’s … strong feelings …. not in between
- Niche thyself (to thine own self be niche?)
The magic niche … unique and high value … Fandango. Quicksilver … watch with tide clock. Breitling Emergency…can broadcast emergency beacon. SmartCar … LG Kimchi refrigerator
- Let a hundred flowers blossom
“Pagemaker was a gift from God to Apple”
“Apple’s continued survival proves the existence of God” (paraphrased from Guy) … essentially when Pagemaker cam out … Apple saw that the “wrong people” were buying a Mac …
- Make it personal
People don’t care about ” the fifth paradigm of computing” how does it effect you.
- Find the true influencers
Startups always look for the CxO level … higher up, thinner air, less air, less air brain function. Talk with the tech support people, etc. People who actually would use the darn thing.
- Enable test drives
Try it and let them decide.
- Look for agnostics, not atheists
Trying to convert someone who is hard-care … impossible to convert.
- Provide a slippery slope
Start simple. Start with easy things. One small step. Trying to change the world in one fell swoop, rarely works
- Don’t let the bozos grind you down
Two kinds of bozos…the losers easy to ignore. The dangerous ones are successful, rich, and well-known … harder to ignore. Guy turned down the chance to interview as CEO of Yahoo.
Looking at the early Yahoo … and didn’t get it …
Bottom line: Create something great and don’t let the bozo’s grind you down. “what’s wrong with the C prompt as a UI”.
Reflecting on Truemors … the cost of entry of great or decent ideas is much, much lower. Meaning that we can try, fail, and not lose your house … or at least you hope so.
To get Guy’s time to chat or something, what charity would he like people to support? (long pause, and EFF turned down). Guy and his wife support IJM to Ethiopian woman
[...] Guy Kawasaki’s talk at Gnomedex (I think he put the slides online somewhere…have to check that) one hands down one of the best 2 or 3 of the conference. This morning I was passed a link to an article with quotes from business leaders on how an MBA isn’t needed; and might even be detrimental to your business: Guy Kawasaki was one of the original players that got Apple on its feet with the Macintosh. He now works as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley as CEO of Garage Technology Ventures. Kawasaki holds an M.B.A. from the University of California but doesn’t believe it’s been the source of his and others’ success in the tech industry. Kawasaki remarked, “I don’t think an M.B.A. matters very much for starting a company. A much better educational background is an engineering degree. You can always hire MBAs, but if you don’t have the ability to conceptualize and deliver a product, you’ve got nothing.” Source: Proof M.B.A.s Are Overrated, by 20 People Who Are Smarter and Richer than Your Professors - Inside CRM [...]
[...] Guy Kawasaki talk at Gnomedex last week. He, in fact, talked about this very topic. I jotted notes as I was live blogging, which btw is not easy, I’ve e-mailed for a copy of the slides, but here are two tidbits that [...]