How to sell your ideas

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Do curso por Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas

189 ratings

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas

189 ratings

Curso 1 de 4 em Specialization Startup Entrepreneurship

Skill at discovering new ideas, and delivering them, may be one of the most important practical job skills, in today’s and tomorrow’s job market. Creativity is an acquired skill, one that improves with practice. This course aims to empower individuals who believe they have lost their innate creativity, because they, their employers or teachers prefer the three R's: replication, repetition and rote, to innovation. We show how to re-ignite rusty creative powers. During this course, you will learn proven tools, frameworks and concepts useful for discovery– generating an endless stream of new ideas implementing at least some of those ideas with skill and persistence, based on books and articles written by the instructors. In the first part of the course, you will learn a proven structured method for generating and implementing world-changing ideas known as ‘Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom in’ that makes creativity more accessible to everyone. In the following weeks, you will learn practical proven tools useful for delivering ideas by employing the basic principles of business and management. You will practice the method, use it to tackle challenging real-world needs and produce a 2-3 minutes video presenting your idea. Course Learning Outcomes On successfully completing this four-week course, you will be able to: - Manage a process to generate an unending stream of creative ideas - Lead a process of innovation and implement ideas through all phases from discovery to delivery. - Apply creativity to a wide range of strategic management issues. - Solve problems with a high degree of innovation, creative thinking and risk taking. - Use and apply proven structured method for generating and implementing world-changing ideas known as ‘Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom in’. - Develop and implement an innovation in your own practice. - Identify new and unfamiliar challenges and reflect on these challenges from a creative point of view, action they require and service they provide. - Demonstrate creative problem solving skills for defining, structuring and solving real world operations management problems.

Na lição

Creativity in practice

The ZiZoZi method: continued. Zoom in: The role of accidental discovery and serendipity9:59

Sharpening observation skills8:45

Empathic Discovery (Leonard & Rayport, “Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design” HBR Nov-Dec 19977:18

The Role of Failure In Achieving Success8:11

Zoom Out: Collecting data through direct observation6:17

The IDEO approach7:54

Zoom In: Taming Wild Ideas6:59

How to sell your ideas6:28

How to be creative In large organizations (Intrapreneurship)8:42

What is YOUR story? Building powerful narratives. Case Studies13:25

Conheça os instrutores

Prof. (Emeritus) Shlomo Maital
Prof. Shlomo Maital Sr. Research Fellow, S. Neaman Institute, Technion
Industrial Engineering

This is Session #8 of week three, and

in this session we're going to talk about selling your ideas.

Persuading other people to join you in your change the world project.

But the first person you need to convince, before you embark on implementing your

idea, investing your years of work and savings and so on.

The first person you need to convince is yourself.

So, I'd like to make a key point about convincing yourself and

avoiding two key mistakes.

When I teach my course on innovation, I sometimes ask my students,

which of the following two errors is the most serious?

This is kind of based on statistics where there are Type I and Type II errors.

In creativity and

innovation there's a Type I error, which is discarding a great idea.

In statistics, it's like rejecting a true hypothesis,

throwing out an idea that's really great, because we think it won't work.

There's Type II error, and that is implementing a idea that

really is terrible, that doesn't have legs, that isn't going to work.

Now of course we want to avoid both, but

I ask my students, of these two, which is worse?

And I think, personally, that the Type II error is 100 times worse than Type I.

Because if you implement a terrible idea, you will spend years of your life,

years that you can't get back, working on an idea that if you had properly

checked it out, probably you would of realized not going to succeed.

Now, after all we said about failure it's not a total loss,

you'll learn a great deal.

Setting up a company, doing the marketing, the business plan,

the finance, you'll learn a lot.

And a great many successful companies are built on failed ones.

In Silicon Valley if you raise money from venture capitalists and

you tell them you've had two failures,

you actually get a lot of credit because you've gained valuable experience.

But, in general, try to check out your ideas before you implement them,

you can save yourself a great deal of grief.

Now, how do you do that?

Well, part of it is building a business plan, that's really

to be deferred to our part two, delivering ideas

which is the second part of this course, but I'll give you a little preview now

about points to consider when you're selling an idea, especially to yourself.

But also to other people as you build your team.

Four key points.

Point one, the need.

Can you show beyond doubt that people really need your idea and

that it creates value for them?

To do this you're probably going to have to create some kind of example, or

prototype.

And this isn't always easy.

When Fred Smith started Federal Express, FedEx.

He had an idea of creating an overnight package delivery.

The only way that you can really create a prototype for

overnight package delivery, is by spending $50 million and buying some planes.

And other infrastructure and some delivery vans and actually making it happen.

And he was willing to do that.

He was willing to take the risk.

But sometimes you can create a prototype.

Today we have 3D printing.

You can use that to create almost anything as a prototype.

And then try it on people, and see if it really does create value.

The only way to test an idea,

is to test it on real breathing living people, yourself and other people.

Point to the difference, the strategic differentiator.

Can you show that your idea creates value that's much higher

than anything available today?

A 5% improvement, 10% improvement, a small improvement,

usually not enough, because you are unknown.

No one knows who you are.

Your company, you're a startup.

Why should we rely on you?

So, you need to have a real strong differentiator,

something that creates enormous additional value compared to what's available.

Now, if you don't have that, probably not worth your investment of time and money.

The future.

Can you show that your idea, when it succeeds can lead to more and

better ideas that build on it?

Sometimes, one idea is enough.

The Adams Chewing Gum Company, that's lasted for a long time.

But in today's competitive global environment,

you probably need to build a platform, a system in which you bring

an idea to market, it's well received, and as it is well received,

you've already begun work on stage two, 2.0, 3.0.

Look to the future.

Build your idea, and build other ideas on your idea,

and try to have a long range plan, a roadmap for how you're going to do this.

And then the last point.

And we'll talk about this in great detail in part two, delivering ideas.

Cost, price and value.

Can you create value?

Can you create value at a reasonable cost?

And can you charge a price that creates value for people?

But leaves you with enough profit so you can reinvest and grow your business.

You need a profit margin for your company.

And you need a value margin for people, so that they get substantially more value,

than the value of the money that they pay for your product.

Those are four kind of hurdles or

key questions that you need to ask to sell yourself on your idea, and

then to sell other people to build a team and make your idea happen.

That's it for Session #8.

Come back for session nine.

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