The first followers

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By now hopefully you know the backstory - but if not, check it out so the rest of this post makes sense. In short, I'm going to execute on one idea that this guy comes up with and ship it by May 1st, 2010. And, I've opened up my project space to anyone who will commit to writing about the project once a week on their blog.

Already, 11 people have signed up to be a part of the project and blog about it and I wanted to share their blogs with you so you can check them out. It's crazy the diverse group of people that have already joined in on the fun. There are musicians, a fitness professional, someone who takes awesome self portraits of themselves, and a bunch of others.

There a are people from the US, the UK, and the Netherlands that are already part of the project.

It was pretty funny - I sent out a little welcome message to everyone yesterday after adding them to the project, and a couple responded by saying they weren't really sure what was going on yet, and I was thinking to myself - yeah, me either!

I've literally never done anything like this before so it's a little scary - but also really exciting. Here are some of my first followers - you should check out their blogs and read a bit about them.
It's really great that all these folks have signed up - and a few others have sent me notes saying that they're getting a blog going for this and will be sending me links - which is awesome.

Remember, anyone can sign up to be a part of the project - but only until March 3rd. Come on in, we'd love to have you join us.


Dancers need music

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I thought a lot over the weekend about the Dance Party post I wrote, and the absolutely amazing response that I received. Derek even tweeted about it, Andrew Dubber wrote another post about it, and many of you commented on the post. I really feel like I've joined some huge thing and all of a sudden I'm.....well, I'm dancing.

I'm so excited I can barely contain myself.

I've also been struggling with something a little bit though. I want and need to follow Derek and Andrew's lead by doing everything I can to make sure that this project isn't about me, but continues to be about the larger idea. Embracing the reality that in our own way, when we follow someone first, we become leaders ourselves. But also understanding that the only way to lead is to make it easy for people to follow you and to embrace people that want to join in on the fun.

I've had to juxtapose this against the reality of managing a project; understanding that the more people that are involved, the more channels of communication there are, the more complex it becomes - the more difficult it is to then actually ship something on time.

My point is, I've been thinking about this a lot. I guess I just want you to know that I'm serious about not just executing on one of Andrew's ideas, but also in following Derek's original lead - that this is about giving not taking. It's about including, not excluding.

And so, I've come up with a couple things for my particular project that I think can make it possible for anyone that wants to join in on the fun to do so, while also giving me the appropriate amount of control over the project that's going to actually ship something.

Here's the plan:

1. Anyone in the world that wants to observe this project (the specific unknown thing that I'll be working on) can do so by filling out this form. I'm going to call you music makers - though you'll be dancers in your own right too. In exchange, you agree to write one blog post a week about the project. Anything you like. Good - bad - anything. If it's in the project space, you can write about it. One caveat - this invitation is open only until March 3rd, when Andrew Dubber begins publishing his ideas. Want to join in? Get in now!

2. All profits - every single last penny - of whatever is made will go to charity. My time will not be an expense for this project, but if I have to buy $3,000 in materials to make this "thing" then I'll recoup that. All profits though - they all go to charity. I'm currently talking with a non-profit that I like very much and I'm trying to get a few specifics worked out but I hope to have some more details by the end of the week.

There are a couple reasons as to why I'm doing these things. First, by opening up the project, I'm letting anyone that wants to follow to join in. One thing I became concerned about was that as a lot of people expressed an interest in helping, I didn't know who I was going to need help from to make the as of now unknown thing.

I thought about opening the project and saying, "we'll get together once I have the idea and figure out who's going to do what", but I fear that would possibly just make the scope fly out of control, bloat the project, and basically put everything at risk. Since the whole point is to actually ship something, I'm going to need to maintain a certain amount of control over my portion of the project.

This bring us to the other reason of letting anyone in. What's the point in making something if no one is going to know about it? One of the things that really stuck a cord with me in Seth Godin's latest book Linchpin is that "art", by it's definition, has to change people. And in order to change people, it must be received. So even though I don't know what we're going to be making yet, I know I want it to be received.

So spreading the word - continuing to make this dance as big as it can be - that's one thing I know I'm going to need help with. And, it'll let YOU be creative with how you want to follow.

If you play music - maybe you want to follow by writing a song. If your a cartoonist - maybe you want to make a drawing for the website. If you make videos.....you get the point.

By joining the project, you get to see what direction the idea/product/service/thingy that I'm working on is going - and if you want to let that influence your dance you can. You'll have access to every note, every conversation, every file......everything.

And so then this brings us to the second item above - donating any proceeds to charity. As I explained in a comment on Andrew's blog, Derek's idea started with giving, not taking. Plus, I know that I'm going to need help and I don't think helping me make money would be much of a motivator.

But what if collectively we all got together, and made and promoted something that literally changed peoples lives? What if Derek's act of giving away his idea spawned something that even he couldn't have imagined? What if a human being lives because I shipped something and you wrote about it?

And look, I know it's scary to care. Because when you care about something you can be disappointed. When you care about something you can fail. But remember, nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished by people who didn't care.

I really hope you'll consider joining the project, and thank you so much for all the support you've already given me.

Podcast Episode Five - What can a project manager learn from a chef?

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In this podcast episode of "What can a project manager learn from X?" I interview Dale Levitski, Executive Chef of Sprout Restaurant in Chicago and Season 3 Top Chef runner-up on Bravo's wildly popular TV show.

We talked about the creative process involved with making a new dish, the challenges involved with running a restaurant, and the process of training new chefs, and a host of other things.  I had a blast doing this interview with Dale and am really grateful that he took the time to sit down with me.

Dale also writes and video blogs on The Sprout Crowd, which has quickly become one of the most popular food blogs in the city of Chicago.

I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did and can take something away from it that can help you better manage your projects, run your business, make your music, write your software or whatever it is that you're working on.

As always, you can listen right here on this blog, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Thanks again Dale!

Dance Party

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Derek Sivers gave a TED talk about how first followers are themselves engaging in a form of leadership, and it's been getting a huge amount of buzz. It was based on this video:





After he gave the talk, he wrote a post saying that a lot of people told him that he should write a book, go on a speaking tour, or do something else with this big idea. The only problem: he didn't want to. He has other projects he's working on that are more important to him, so he gave away the idea to anyone that wanted to do something with it.

A friend of his named Andrew Dubber then picked up on this theme and became a first follower of sorts. Instead of taking the idea and writing a book though, he's becoming a first follower by publishing one idea a day for 30 days starting March 3rd, and he's giving them away.

I thought this was in itself a pretty cool idea.

But then I remembered a post Derek wrote titled Ideas are just a multiplier of execution, where he explains that a great idea with no execution or lousy execution isn't really worth all that much - maybe $20. A weak idea with brilliant execution though could be worth $10,000,000.

So unless one of Andrew's ideas are executed on, then they're just a bunch of blog posts. Which is fine I suppose, but that doesn't really do the whole thing justice.

So now I'm going to be Andrew Dubber's first follower of sorts, but again in a different way.

Here's what I'm doing:

I am committing to executing on - and shipping - one of Andrew Dubber's ideas by Saturday, May 1st, 30 days after his last idea will be published on April 1st. This way I'm sticking with the 30 day theme Andrew has set out, but I also reward myself for making a decision and getting to work, and penalize myself a bit for delaying my decision.

Of course, I have no clue what ideas Andrew is going to publish. I've never even heard of him until the other day, and as I write this I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I even exist in the world.

I'm going to have to pick an idea to execute based not only on the strength of the idea, but also on my ability to execute on the idea, and execute it in the time frame I've set out. "Colonize the moon", for example, is probably not going to be the idea that I choose to execute on.

But here's what kind of fascinates me. Just by doing this; by doing nothing more than making this commitment, Andrew will now know that someone is looking at his ideas and looking for one to pounce on. I think that by it's nature, this changes things in the same way that a second or third dancer changed the way the first dancer was dancing in the video.

I know of course that I won't be able to do this alone, and I'm sure to need some help, but I think it's doable, and will be a lot of fun. I should also add that I'm completely intimidated by both of these guys and part of me thinks I have no business trying to do something anywhere near their league. But I figure that's probably just my lizard brain talking so best to shut it down right now.

So Derek gave a talk, and then gave away his idea. Andrew followed his lead and is giving away his ideas for 30 days. And now I'm going to execute on one of them in public.

I think we've got a party going on here. Let's dance!



New Look

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I've been wanting to update my blog from the basic Blogger template since about a day after I started it. I figured the launch of v1.4e1 should serve as enough motivation to clean this baby up a little bit. I hope you like the new look and feel free to let me know what you think.