On the Importance of Critical Thinking

This morning I saw a post claiming that, “Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase.” I found this claim to be bold beyond the point of believability. Taking myself as a single data point, I do many searches on my mobile phone each day and rarely – almost never – do they lead to a purchase of anything. Perhaps I am a crazy outlier, but I called BS on the poster and asked him for a source to back up such an audacious claim.

The poster sent me a link to this page, which turned out to be just a blogger’s summary of some research published by Google in 2010. Leaving aside the use of four-year-old data being used as “facts” today – which would be quite a big leap in and of its own right – I quickly found the reference being promoted by the original poster. According to this blogger, “Google says that 9 out of 10 mobile search users have ‘taken action as a result of a mobile search, with over half leading to a purchase.’”

By this point my spidey senses were really tingling. Did Google actually say that? And, if so, did they actually mean it the way the blogger – and ultimately the re-poster – communicated it? Unsurprisingly, a Google search for this particular research report returned the correct document as the top search result. A brief scan of that document revealed that the blogger was referencing quotes from pages 17 and 18.

On page 17 of the report, Google claims that, “9 out of 10 searchers have taken action as a result of a smartphone search.” This result was obtained from 5,000 survey takers in response to the question: “Which, if any, of the following actions have you taken as a result of conducting a search on your smartphone?” Apparently 9 out of 10 respondents said they had ever taken some action as the result of a smartphone search.

On page 18, the slide title is, “More than half of Smartphone Searchers Purchase.” This conclusion was drawn from responses to the same question. Apparently 5.3 out of 10 respondents said they had ever purchased something as the result of a smartphone search.

The author combined these two quotes – and misquoted them – to write, “Google says that 9 out of 10 mobile search users have ‘taken action as a result of a mobile search, with over half leading to a purchase.’” In so doing, he implied that more than half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase, instead of the true meaning, that more than half of people who use mobile search have ever purchased something as a result of mobile search.

At best this is sloppy journalism and, at worst, it is willful twisting of meanings to further the blogger’s own agenda. Either way, it was blindly picked up by the re-poster and posted without any source checking or diligence.

This is a long anecdote about something pretty trivial, but it reminds me of the changing nature of “information” today. It used to be that we had to search high and low for most information and there were only a few, trusted sources of well vetted information, like encyclopedias. Now, an instantaneous search will yield millions of pages of information about any topic we seek, many ostensibly from “authoritative” sources. So finding information is no longer a critical skill; finding good information is much more important.

Critical thinking is the key to filtering such information overload to find the good nuggets. Critical thinking is further complicated by our very human tendencies toward confirmation bias. We tend to be much less critical and much more trusting of claims that reinforce our existing beliefs. Likewise we tend to be much more critical of those sources of information that cause cognitive dissonance for us, often resorting to ad hominem attempts to discredit the source or other fallacies.

I wonder how much of the art of critical thinking is being intentionally developed in our young students these days. I know of one teacher who specifically teaches a high school course on critical thinking, but I wonder how exceptional she is. If we spend all of our efforts teaching students legacy skills like information regurgitation for standardized tests, then I fear for our next generation. If that’s the case, then I’m buying Google stock, because there will be a lot of people blindly spending way too much on mobile search advertising soon . . .

Weekend in Minnesota

Last weekend Katie and I took off for a quick jaunt to the Twin Cities for our godson’s birthday. You know we love that part of our family because we left NC just as spring was springing, trading the gorgeous weather for the cold and snowy northern Midwest. It was very worth it, though, because not only did we get to celebrate our nephew’s birthday, we were able to spend relaxed time with much of the rest of Katie’s family as well.

The trip was fun and afforded us the opportunity to watch two children-oriented movies that we might not otherwise have seen: Frozen and The LEGO Movie. Given all the buzz around Frozen, I expected to love it more than I actually did. It was visually beautiful and I admired that it didn’t send a lesson to young girls that their fulfillment solely depends on the attraction of some prince. There were some funny parts, too, and I particularly enjoyed all the Scandinavian-ish-ness in the setting and characters. However, it was hard for me to connect with the story – the characters’ motivations and actions seemed pretty unbelievable – and I found the music to be unoriginal – if I would have closed my eyes, I would have sworn I were listening to Wicked!

The LEGO Movie, on the other hand, I found surprisingly enjoyable. Possibly I was biased by my love of LEGOs, or possibly by all the business cases we did at IMD on how LEGO was leveraging its brand to innovate in other media. Possibly I identified more with a male protagonist, or possibly I just had lower expectations for a silly movie – which it definitely was. At the end of the day, though, the song from The LEGO Movie is the one stuck in my head.

Now that we are back in North Carolina, we’re hoping to thaw out a bit – and I’m hoping to enjoy my last week as a 34-year-old!

Hill Running in North Carolina

Blogger’s note: I no longer use the term “Redskins” but am leaving my prior references intact in the spirit of learning.

They don’t call it Chapel Hill for nothing. While the hills here in North Carolina’s Research Triangle are nothing compared to the steep slopes of Lausanne, which is built up the side of a small mountain, they certainly are a topographical change from flat Houston.

At no point has this fact been more readily apparent than when running. Even though I have strong legs relative to most runners, it is amazing how much I have to slow down on uphill slopes in order to maintain a constant effort level. This has been especially evident during the few races I have run here, all of which have been at least a minute slower than my PRs at 5k, 7k, and 8k distances. Clearly I have some work to do to improve my hill running economy and improve my hill running endurance.

During some downtime in December, I went through a battery of physical assessments, including a maximal effort running test. It turns out that I have a pretty high VO2Max (63) and a pretty high lactate threshold as a percentage of VO2Max heart rate (92%). I can probably increase my VO2Max a little, and I may be able to push my lactate threshold up to 95% or so of VO2Max, but the best opportunity for me to be faster in anything longer than sprint distances is to improve my running economy/efficiency – especially on varied terrain and trails, which I find much more interesting than flat roads and tracks.

Fortunately, Chapel Hill is replete with hill running opportunities, both paved and unpaved. Today, I ran my first longer-than-a-sprint hill running workout along E Franklin St, one of the major drags in Chapel Hill. My three-minute intervals were intended to stimulate both physiological and psychological adaptation to moderate hills – about 5% grade in this case.

About halfway through my workout I found an unexpected spectator – Katie at the bus stop on her way to campus! While it may be more difficult to focus on running form with the love of your life across the street, it also provides extra motivation. It reminded me of the times when she would visit me in Switzerland. At the end of each trip she would take the train to the airport and I would run alongside it until the platform ran out. Those were sad occasions, but this time I only have to wait until this evening to see her again – much better!

I was also honked at by several cars driving by. I’m not sure if that was because I was looking awesome or if I was looking so exhausted that they feared I might fall into their lane on the road. One of the drivers slowed down to ask if I would train him, though, so I think they were friendly honks. Still, I may need to find somewhere more private for future hill workouts.

In other news, the SuperBowl was quite a dud. I was really pulling for Peyton Manning, my second favorite QB of all time (after Joe Montana, of course), but neither he nor anyone else on the Broncos gave me much to cheer about. Now it’s Day 1 of the next season, which means that all teams, including my Redskins and Texans, are undefeated. More immediately, the start of the college baseball season is upon us, so it will soon be time to cheer on the Rice Owls. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can figure out how to run hills well – hopefully by this weekend for my next 5k race!

Rough Start to the New Year

2014 is here! But it started off inauspiciously. Actually, 2014 started off just fine; it was 2013 that didn’t end so well. After an excellent Christmas with family up in Virginia and an impromptu visit from Czech IMD friends in North Carolina, Katie and I flew to Memphis to cheer on the Rice Owls in the Liberty Bowl.

Rice earned its second consecutive bowl appearance by winning the Conference USA football championship and this New Year’s Eve game had all the ingredients to be an historic win for Rice. If the Owls were to have won, they would have achieved the first 11-win season in the history of the school – and the first back-to-back bowl wins. We wanted to be there not only to support the team but also to witness the momentous occasion!

However, it wouldn’t be easy. Our opponent was Mississippi State. The Bulldogs definitely weren’t the best team in the SEC, but the SEC is the best conference in college football, so they could still be very good. Indeed, when I looked into them, it turns out that all of their losses were to top 25 ranked opponents. Yikes! Still, we were hopeful, especially given how well Rice had played earlier in the season against the SEC’s Texas A&M.

We flew into Memphis late the evening of Dec. 30. We were too late to attend any of the official Rice events so we headed immediately to Beale Street, grabbed a table at Rum Boogie, and met up with others for a night of Bourbon, blues, and BBQ!

New Year’s Eve started off nicely. It was cold but sunny – great football weather! After picking up some Rice souvenirs on Beale Street, we headed over to the Liberty Bowl for a pre-game meal. There wasn’t much there for my vegetarian wife, but there was plenty of Memphis BBQ for me. It was great to spend time with other Rice alumni, many of whom we hadn’t seen for years, especially many of my former teammates.

As the afternoon wore on, we made our way into the stadium in preparation for the opening kickoff. As expected, this would basically be a home game for Mississippi State. Not only are they a much larger school than Rice, they’re also located just over the state line from Memphis. As such, the stadium was almost all red, with just a few splotches of Rice blue.

Mississippi State also has a tradition of ringing cowbells to cheer on their team, so they were not only a big crowd, but a loud one too. I knew the only way to shut them up would be to score touchdowns. And that’s exactly what Rice did! Early in the first quarter, Rice drove on Mississippi State and took the lead 7-0. The sun was shining and this game was starting off right!

Let me cut right to the chase, though: that was the last time we scored all day. It quickly became dark and cold and Mississippi State dominated the Owls for a final score of 44-7. It was brutal. To add to the misery of the experience, I was feeling increasingly nauseous for the duration of the second half. When we finally left the stadium, I threw up in the parking lot. While I would like to blame it on an overdose of prescription-strength cow bell, it seems pretty clear that it was food poisoning, although I’m not sure from what.

We were among the last to leave as we stuck around in the cold and dark to help a new Rice friend find her car. My condition precluded me from attending a New Year’s Eve dinner I had helped organize at the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale Street. I showed up just to make sure everything was set – and it looked like a great time – but then I headed home to recuperate.

Both the outcome of the game and my brief sickness were big disappointments in this trip. Still, I had a good time with some great people, so I really can’t complain. I’m really proud of what Rice football has accomplished over the last few seasons and I hope they are able to build on it. 2014 is already off to a great start for me (feeling much better!) so here’s hoping for a fantastic new year for you all too!

The First Follower Principle in Action

Anyone who has seen the famous TED talk on “first followers” knows the speaker’s argument that movements aren’t just started by leaders; the first follower is just as – and possibly even more – crucial to the spread of a movement than is the originator of the idea. The first follower shows everyone else A. that it’s OK to follow the movement and B. how to join in. Effective leaders embrace their first followers as equals and empower them to help take the movement to the next level.

I recently witnessed this principle in action. When the Rice football team won its last regular season game and earned the right to play in the Conference USA championship game against Marshall, it set the stage for an historic event. To show my support for the team, I changed my Facebook profile picture to a scanned image of my old Rice football portrait from 1997. It attracted a few comments but certainly didn’t incite any movements.

Later that day, however, one of my teammates noticed and decided to do the same thing. He had been a leader on the team so, when he changed his profile picture to one of his action shots from the glory days, many other former Rice football players took notice. He even went so far as to tag other Rice football alumni on Facebook, encouraging them to do the same. With him “on board,” I had enough confidence to encourage all of my Rice football alum buddies to join in too, which I did by liking his post and tagging all the rest of them.

One by one, almost every Rice football alum I knew changed his profile picture to an old Rice football picture. Soon, other players from other generations were following suit as well. That day my entire Facebook wall was filled with pictures of Rice football alumni showing off the pride in and support for our team. Many of the pictures were action shots which incited story telling and reminiscing about battles out on the field in ages past. It was awesome.

Our society tends to idolize the trailblazing leaders who start big movements. Being a first follower is a form of leadership as well, though, and I witnessed it first hand last week!

Rice Football Wins The Right Way

Yesterday, the Rice football team won its first outright conference championship since 1957! The Owls are now 10-3 on the season with the opportunity to achieve the first 11-win season in school history if they can win in the Liberty Bowl this New Year’s Eve. That won’t be easy as they will be playing against an SEC opponent, but it’s such an exciting opportunity!

More important than Rice’s winning record is that they’ve been winning the “right” way. Rice wins awards every year for the high academic standards it sets for its student-athletes and for its student-athlete graduation rate. Rice players are not in the news for sexual assault or NCAA violations. When David Bailiff became Head Football Coach six years ago, some of his first initiatives were aimed at engaging the players with the rest of the university and with the community – largely through service (such as helping freshmen move their heavy furniture on move-in day and holding Football 101 clinics for international students).

In short, Rice is winning with smart, good-hearted young men. That isn’t wishful thinking from a proud alum; that is empirical evidence from having taught several football players and other student-athletes in my Rice entrepreneurship course over the last couple of years. There are probably exceptions to that generalization and there have been times when they have lost their composure on the field but, by and large, I am proud not so much of the fact that Rice has been winning, but much more so by how they’ve been winning.

Go Owls!

Enderpreneurship Part 3

This is my third and final post in my series on entrepreneurship lessons from Ender’s Game. For the previous posts, see Part 1 and Part 2.

Lead a startup the way Ender leads Dragon Army.

A startup is very much like Ender’s Dragon Army: newly formed, constantly learning, and searching for patterns that work in a complex, rapidly changing environment. Ender’s Game provides many examples of poor leadership in this circumstance, most especially that of Bonzo Madrid. Bonzo uses bullying and command-and-control to lead his Salamander Army. Ender senses the suboptimality in this approach immediately, noting that a good commander doesn’t need to make stupid threats. Dink reinforces it when he posits that commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. Ultimately Bonzo’s “orders are orders; obey or die” style leads to unnecessary losses when Ender is prohibited from firing. His fiery temper not only gets in the way of rational decision-making, it ultimately gets him killed.

Ender’s leadership style is much softer and it would be an oversimplification to claim that it is the “right” or “best” style for every situation. However, it clearly works in the novel and I have seen similar styles be very effective in the startup environment. Ender’s leadership journey begins before he is ever given formal authority, as soon as he starts the free time practice sessions. In these, Ender leads by example (As founders must – there is no cushy corner office in a startup!) and by inclusion (Founders must be open to ideas from their employees.).

As Ender gets his own army, he exemplifies the leadership skills of trust and empowerment. He trains his teammates, and especially the toon leaders, to think on their own and gives them the authority to make the best decisions in the heat of the moment in the battle room. This is most evident with Bean, whom he trusts to innovate completely new battle tactics. Startup founders who try to hold onto too much control find themselves as bottlenecks stifling innovation and forward progress. The best startup founders hire people whom they believe to be better than they are, co-create clear visions with them, and let them work the way they best see fit. Additionally, Ender shares his vulnerability with Bean; the best startup leaders know how to share not only their confidence and optimism but also their fears sometimes – it makes them more human.

Perhaps most importantly, Ender realizes as he grows from practice session leader to army commander to admiral of the entire IF fleet that a different leadership style is needed in each scenario. It is also true that the same leadership qualities that help a leader get from nothing to a small startup are usually different than those necessary to get from a small startup to a thriving, expanding business. One of a startup leader’s greatest assets is adaptability to these changing circumstances – and awareness to know when and how to adapt.

Empathy is a critical skill for entrepreneurs.
Ender’s greatest “weapon” by far is his empathy. His empathy for opponents helps him find ways to beat them – and ultimately resurrect them, in the case of the Formics – while his empathy for peers helps him lead them more skillfully. Entrepreneurship is a constant exercise in understanding people so empathy is incredibly valuable for ascertaining client needs, working well with teammates, inspiring people to join your team in the first place, negotiating with business partners, and staying one step ahead of your competition.

Luck plays a strong role in entrepreneurship.
This final lesson isn’t from the content of the book so much as it is from the book itself. Ender’s Game is a phenomenal novel, so it is easy to assume that Orson Scott Card is an amazing author. However, 30 years after Ender’s Game he still hasn’t produced anything of remotely that caliber again. The Shadow series was pretty good but all the rest of the Enderverse offerings range from so-so to downright bad.

This happens in entrepreneurship as well: sometimes people are just in the right place at the right time and they succeed in spite of – rather than because of – themselves. Similarly, sometimes people do everything right and it still doesn’t work out for them. Orson Scott Card may not be that great of an author; he may have just kind of “lucked out” with Ender’s Game. However, he would never have had the chance to luck out that way if he hadn’t picked up his [metaphorical] pen and given it a go. And so it is with entrepreneurship: you can’t hit it out of the park without stepping up to the plate and taking a swing. Luck plays a strong role in entrepreneurship, but you’ve got to put yourself in positions to take advantage of it.

These were the entrepreneurship messages that resonated with me from Ender’s Game. What do you think? Best of luck to all the budding entrepreneurs out there and remember, the enemy’s gate is down!

Enderpreneurship Part 2

This is Part 2 of my series on entrepreneurship lessons from the Ender’s Game novel. If you haven’t already read it, start with Part 1.

The best entrepreneurs don’t play the game; they create a new game by playing by different rules.

Throughout the novel, Ender turns disadvantageous situations to his advantage by bending, breaking, or completely reinventing the rules of the game – starting near the very beginning in his fight with Stilson. First Ender changes a many-against-one hopeless battle to a one-on-one fight, neutralizing his enemy’s strength in numbers. Then he gains the upper hand with a surprise attack and keeps it by explicitly ignoring “the rules of the playground” with a crotch shot. He does the same thing against Bonzo (shaming him into a one-on-one fight then using soap and hot water to thwart his grappling), in the battle room (freezing legs to use as body shields, giving toon leaders autonomy, launching immediately into the room rather than waiting to size up the situation, letting Bean experiment with, e.g., string), against the Formics, and even in the mind game, as he completely transforms the Giant’s Drink minigame – previously unwinnable – into one he can win. I explain this game-changing habit of entrepreneurs in greater detail in slides 34-36 of my Entrepreneurship 101 lecture:

Play to your strengths.

The best entrepreneurs don’t simply change the rules of the game haphazardly; they change them so as to match up their strengths with their opponents’ weaknesses. Ender’s most common disadvantage is size – be it his own physical size when confronting a gang of bullies or be it the size of his fleet/army when hopelessly outnumbered. Startups often face similar scenarios, squaring off against large, well-established companies with strong brands and loyal customers. Trying to beat such competitors on their own terms, playing by the very rules that have made them successful, is folly. Ender knows he can’t win the open war against a bully like Bernard, for example, so he takes the war to the desks, where he is stronger by far. History is full of examples of disruptive startups (like Square, AirBNB, Uber) that have used their small, innovative, agile approaches to disrupt huge industry incumbents.

Seek out weaknesses in clients too.

Playing your strengths to others’ weaknesses shouldn’t be limited to competition; it is important for clients as well. Bernard kisses up to some launchees but mistreats and bullies others. Ender finds those who are mistreated, like Shen, and begins to form an alliance. Clients in every industry are mistreated by their vendors and business partners, often believing that there are no alternatives. The best entrepreneurs often start by working with the most abused clients, those most motivated to help a startup create a better offering for them. When a startup establishes a reputation as a hero and savior to even a small group of clients, that can be the foundation of a very strong brand!

There are no parents to save you in entrepreneurship.

Graff spends much of his focus cultivating the sense in Ender that there will be no parents to save him in a dire situation – the sense that sometimes it even feels like “God is a Bugger!” Whether fighting Stilson or Bonzo or the Formics, Ender is on his own. This is true in entrepreneurship as well; there is no greater power waiting in the wings to swoop in and save the entrepreneur if things get too tough. And that’s OK; hardships and trials lead not only to better IF commanders, but also to better entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs aren’t totally alone, though; as I’ve said before, they derive a great deal of strength from their secure bases.
In Part 3 of this series, I propose some lessons in startup leadership from Ender’s own leadership journey.

Enderpreneurship: What Andrew Wiggin Can Teach Us About Winning the Game of Entrepreneurship

This weekend’s release of the cinematic adaptation of Ender’s Game (and rereading the novel before going to see the movie) got me thinking about how many of Ender’s experiences can be translated into lessons on entrepreneurship. As I stated in my TEDx talk:

we can take MANY lessons on entrepreneurship from popular myths and I even singled out Ender’s Game in particular for one of those lessons.

Rereading the novel, I was inspired by many more such lessons; here are some of the first:

The entrepreneurship “game” is exhausting, exhilarating, and profoundly impactful.

The battle room game, around which most of the novel is centered, is an excellent metaphor for the practice of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial development. There are many aspects to Battle School: classes, combat training, free time, dining, etc., but the games are what the boys live for. Entrepreneurship is itself a game with rewards and payoffs and penalties and skill and chance just like any other game. The best entrepreneurs live for the game and thrive when playing it.

Entrepreneurship must be developed experientially.

As Colonel Graff explains, though, the calculus of what makes someone succeed in the game is very poorly understood: choosing the right launchees is only so good because the tests are only so good; you’ve got to start putting them through the paces ASAP. And so it is with entrepreneurship, which cannot be taught in classrooms or learned in books; it must be developed experientially.

Strategic agility is crucial to a startup.

As in the battle room game, rapid experimentation, a willingness to fail, and a propensity for learning from failure is key to entrepreneurial success. Through Ender’s experimentation in the battle room, he accidentally discovers how to rebound off walls, which turns out to be a crucial tactic. He similarly learns that command-and-execute toon formations are too rigid and inflexible to beat an agile, innovative opponent. So it is with entrepreneurship. As Steve Blank is fond of saying, “Big companies execute known business models,” like toons executing formations, “while startups search for unknown business models,” like autonomous toons able to learn from their environment (market) and react to it. Ender also finds that he must constantly adapt and innovate his strategy to keep winning games – both in the battle room and against the Formics. So, too, with startups: yesterday’s winning strategy is today’s losing strategy.

Measure and optimize the right metrics.

Initially Ender’s individual battle room metrics are outstanding due to his limited participation. Once he becomes truly engaged in battles, those metrics go down. That’s OK because they are vanity metrics – like website hits, facebook likes, or any other metric that conveys a sense of success but doesn’t actually move the needle for your startup. The metric that counts for Ender – wins vs losses – keeps going up, up, up!

This is Part 1 of a three-part series. See Part 2 for more thoughts on Enderpreneurship.

The Future of Energy

Last week I was honored to be asked to give a brief talk on the future of energy at 1776, Washington DC’s startup incubator. I was in town for less than 24 hours but it felt invigorating to present my ideas back in my home town.

The event was called RebootEnergy, and its purpose was to bring together entrepreneurs, policy makers, and corporate leaders to discuss trends they see in the energy industry and what their organizations are doing to capitalize on them.

After a fireside chat between Evan Burfield (1776 founder), Aneesh Chopra (former CTO of the US government), and Blake Burris (head of the Cleanweb initiative), the evening centered on lightning talks – three-minute mini-presentations given by the rest of us presenters.

I chose to focus specifically on the trend of increasing energy consumer empowerment, which is an area in which my startup is constantly breaking new ground:

The Future of Energy: Engaging the Consumer from Bryan Hassin

My lightning talk was well received (I was even quoted in the follow up press release!) and I met many new, interesting people afterward. Perhaps more interestingly, I was surprised and excited by just how many people I bumped into there whom I already knew:

Even though I was presenting professionally in DC for the first time, it felt more like a homecoming. This was good validation for me that I have been running in the right circles!

It was a great event and I was really impressed with what Evan and the 1776 team have accomplished. In stark contrast to the lack of startup culture when I joined UUNET back in 1996, DC is now bursting with startup energy. And that’s a good thing because energy is exactly what my startup is trying to revolutionize!