On the Journey

How do you get your audience to care about your latest innovation? Well, the latest issue of Fast Company has a great article on this topic. Chip and Dan Heath’s regular column digs into the practical side of this problem. The article is entitled “Selling Your Innovation: Anchor and Twist.” I highly recommend checking it out, particularly as it relates to making your idea “customer friendly” so people will relate and understand your concept.

And if you haven’t read Chip and Dan’s book Made to Stick, go out and get a copy. It is almost two years old now, but a great read. They are working on their next book that will release in 2009, and I recently received a short teaser for it. Good stuff. These guys are really smart!

Reading magazines is a great way to stay up to date on culture, trends, news, and fresh ideas. Here are five (actually six) that I recommend you subscribe to:

1. Fast Company- what I believe is the best combination of business and innovation content available. Always great articles and lots of profiles on young business leaders.

2. Paste- if you are a music fan, definitely make sure you are subscribed. Paste is headquartered here in Atlanta, and run by friends Josh Jackson and Nick Purdy.

3. Wired- technology driven magazine. Sometimes a bit too futurist, but always great articles and ideas that are fresh. 

4. GOOD- a relatively new magazine that donates all revenue from subscriptions to several different charitable organizations of your choice. Really good design, and each issue focuses on areas of “social good” in culture, and also innovative trends in grassroots networking and marketing.

5. Risen and Relevant – both considered Christian magazines, even though both take a unique approach in terms of looking at culture and faith. Risen is more interview driven around celebrities, and Relevant focuses primarily on issues for twenty somethings. 

What magazines do you recommend that aren’t on this list? 

Spirit week here at Catalyst is wrapping up today, with our final celebration being Beach Day. Here are some pics from Spirit Week to give you a glimpse into the fun we have around here.

A few points of interest:

- The favorite day of the week for our interns (Ansley Lawhead, Lara Morris, and Sabrina Joseph) has been Beach Day, and after seeing the pic above, you can see that they were decked out from head to toe!

- On favorite team day, here were the schools represented by our team: Chad Johnson- Boston Red Sox, Dwayne Melton- Virginia Cavaliers, Ben Arment- Atlanta Falcons, Melissa Kruse- Stetson Mad Hatters, Sally Heffner- Alabama Crimson Tide, Jesse Phillips- U. of Cal Berkley, Beth Nelson- Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Dustin Ahkuoi- North Carolina Tar Heels, Ansley Lawhead- Georgia Southern Eagles, Chris Ediger- Oklahoma Sooners, Lara Morris- St. Louis Cardinals, Sabrina Joseph- Georgia State, Brian Cole- Virginia Tech Hokies, Jason Haynes- Georgia Bulldogs, and of course the Oklahoma Sooners for me. 

- Country Day made me not want to listen to country music for at least the next six weeks. However, I did have the guitar in the office for a few country favorites (Country Boy Can Survive, Seminole Wind, Garth Brooks).

- Relay races are actually a great way to take a break during the day. Seriously. You should try them at your office. Or at least timed races. For all of the type A’s, it feeds the competitive juices for sure. 

- Dodgeball was the favorite activity. Our motto of work hard/play hard was truly demonstrated this week. 

So Ben Arment has been busting my chops the last couple of days during our spirit week here at Catalyst. And probably deservedly so. I wore a pretty ridiculous outfit on Monday, thanks to my father who wore the exact same outfit during the 70’s and 80’s as a football coach at Bristow High School in Oklahoma. And I must say, we used to kick some serious butt around the state on the football field.

Tuesday was favorite team day, and of course I donned the Crimson and Cream to represent my Oklahoma Sooners. And yesterday was Country Day, which required wearing wrangler jeans (in the closet), a tacky western shirt (easy), red wing boots (done), and a few extra surprises- one of which was my endless supply of duck calls throughout the day. I know, it sounds redneck, but duck hunting is one of my favorite things to do, and duck calling is a huge part of duck hunting. I have to give props to my close friend Matt Weaver, who first introduced me to duck hunting back in 1997, on a trip to Mississippi. Since then, it has become a constant passion and lasting hobby.

When it comes to duck calling, you have to understand (which you won’t) that it is both a science and an art. I an nowhere close to being a great duck caller, but figured I would give you a quick example of what my calling sounds like. I have recorded myself on my trusty MacBook Pro to give you a taste. Enjoy. 

Yesterday had lunch with Micah Davis and Ethan Fisher, co-founders of Roov, a very cool online community that connects folks at the local community level around their shared passions and interests, including jobs, hobbies, causes, and random areas of interest. Highly impressed with Micah, Ethan, and Chris Capehart (the other co-founder). These guys are young, entrepreneurial, and very intentional about creating community for our generation- not just connecting someone online, but also making it easy for those in the same city or community to connect IN-person. As Micah stated, the online environment is the means to an end, not the end. 

Make sure to check out what they are doing, and also sign up to be part of the Roov experience. 

Ran across an interesting list from Time (from 8 years ago) on who they ranked as the greatest 100 leaders of the last century (the list came out in 2000). So thought I would attempt to put together my own top ten greatest leaders list from the last 100 years. Here you go:

1. Martin Luther King

2. Ronald Reagan

3. Winston Churchill

4. Mother Teresa 

5. Billy Graham 

6. Franklin Roosevelt

7. Nelson Mandela 

8. Walt Disney 

9. Gandhi 

10. Oprah Winfrey 

Do you agree? Who would you add or take off?

We had David Salyers at our office last week from Chick-fil-A. David is the VP of Marketing for the chicken sandwich giant, and a frequent speaker and consultant on leadership. He had some great points during his talk to our staff, specifically as it relates to the idea of Recalculating our leadership GPS.

- We tend to think that Leadership is mainly about leading those who are subordinates or work FOR us.

- However, 360 degree leadership is first and foremost about leading ourselves. 

- 50% of our energy should go towards leading ourselves. 20% should go towards leading across (peers), 20% towards leading up, and only 10% towards leading down (those who work for us directly). 

- With this scenario, 90% of leadership is for everybody, regardless of whether you have a team you manage or not. We tend to think that the only kind of leadership is when we have a team we are managing, but that is not accurate. 

- Most of us view leading up as “brown nosing.” Instead we need to recalibrate- leading up is not “sucking up.” Sucking up is selfish, but truly leading up is serving. 

- A self serving leader is one who is usually money motivated, while a servant leader is one who is mission motivated.

- Significance is about impact we have ON others. Success is about comparing ourselves TO others. And comparison is the thief of joy. 

- We cross the line of selfless to selfish as leaders when what we receive goes from appreciation to expectation.

(Many of his thoughts on 360 Leadership he gave credit to Bill Hybels, and a talk that Bill gave at Leadership Summit several years ago). 

You can watch the video of David speaking to our staff here. 

One minute you are driving home, content. The next minute you are really, really, really thankful you are still alive.

My vehicle is the silver durango. It was anyway. This past Tuesday night. Thankful and grateful to God for protection. 

The interview I did with Craig Groeschel, Mark Batterson, Perry Noble, and Steven Furtick is now up on the Catalyst Website as well as on itunes. You can stream the audio on our website or just download for free on the catalyst itunes page. 

This was a fun interview, considering it was more of a conversation between all four of these great leaders and visionaries. Make sure to check in on the One Prayer Initiative and see the latest happenings. 

Check out the video below from Chad Johnson and Dustin Ahkuoi. Some of you may have already viewed this on Ben Arment’s blog, but if not, enjoy! 

“The number one battle for a Leader is overcoming one’s selfishness.”         

                 Jim Blanchard, former CEO of Synovus

Unfortunately, selfishness comes very naturally to all of us. 

In honor of the US Open playoff today….. thought I would create a dream golf day……

Course: Augusta National (where the Masters is played)

Time of Year: spring (late March)

Foursome: Me, My dad, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus (me and Nicklaus vs. my dad and Tiger)

Outcome: all square (my dad wins in a putt off)

How about you?

We get asked all the time about how we come up with new and fresh ideas for Catalyst. It’s a pretty simple process that has proven to be effective. This can be useful in any organization or scenario, whether you are launching ideas, or just looking to make sound decisions. Here you go:

1. Create- we spend a ton of time just brainstorming, which is obviously a very important part of the process. The more ideas on the board, the more opportunities for one of those to make it through the process. For example, we have probably 300-350 programming ideas every year for our October conference. And creative meetings are “yes and” meetings, not “but or”. Important!

2. Criticize – every idea, in order to stay in the process, has to be critiqued and criticized significantly. This is key in order to make sure you don’t spend tons of time chasing too many rabbits and driving everyone crazy with lots of good ideas but nothing ever happening. And make sure everyone doesn’t take things personal- criticizing an idea is much different than criticizing the person who came up with the idea. It’s not personal.

3. Optimize- anything that makes it pass the criticize phase has to be built on. In some ways, this is a second and third wave of innovation. Most of the time the original idea will turn into something that looks totally different. This is really the essence of putting icing on the cake. 

4. Validate- every idea has to be validated- financially, operationally, personnel wise, and direction/vision related. Lots of big ideas appropriately get held up in this phase, either to be released later or put on the shelf for good. Conversely, lots of bad ideas make it through this phase because of bad systems and/or leaders who aren’t willing to say no. 

5. Execute- it all comes down to getting things done. Hard work is time consuming and tiring. We take tremendous pride in execution on ideas. If it has gone through the entire process and made it to this point, the idea deserves the attention and focus to make sure it happens. And if every level of the Idea process grid was correctly put in motion, the idea is probably going to be good!

That is quite a title for a post, huh? Well, we decided to go on the road with the Catalyst creative team and spend the day with Lanny Donoho down at Big Stuf Camps in Panama City, Florida. Reggie Joiner was also down teaching at Big Stuf, so he joined us for our creative time. By the way, Lanny just started blogging, so head on over to his site and give him a warm welcome to the blogging world!

Road trips should always involve plenty of snacks (at least when I am involved they do), so here is a quick glimpse of what was in the trusty snack bag at one of our stops. Plus, a few signs from the Race Way gas station that provided nuggets of wisdom- only in the Dirty South…. 

We attended the Big Stuf Camp opening session, and then spent the day really talking about three major areas for the event coming up in October- the opening session, the music/worship, and some general ideas that are so out of the box that no one would ever believe us anyway. It is incredibly stimulating to be around and be involved with creative people, and to watch creativity and innovative ideas appear. And hanging out on the beach having the ocean as a backdrop tends to spur creativity….

What’s your tagline? When people ask, “do you know so and so?” and someone says about you, “yeah, he/she is the ______?” What is the fill in the blank? 

I guess the first question is “do you have a tagline?” I have one- “networker.” That defines what I love to do, and hopefully adds value to those around me. But it is the tag that most people use who know me well, as well as those who are simply acquaintances.

Let me give a few other examples, strictly based on my opinion:

John Maxwell- leadership; 21 Laws

Don Miller- blue like jazz

Tony Morgan- strategic blogger

Darlene Zschech- Hillsong worship 

Lanny Donoho- funny emcee

Beth Moore- women’s bible studies

Rick Warren- Purpose Driven

Jeff Shinabarger- ideas 

Mark Batterson- DC coffee shop 

Marcus Buckingham- strengths 

You may argue with some of the “tags” I’ve given to these folks, but the point is, whether you like it or not, you are being tagged. I believe “branding” and “tagging” are different. Branding is more about identity and emotion, where tagging is more about what I do. Sometimes they overlap, but most of the time they are closely associated but not necessarily the same. A tag is the subtitle of your book, if you were writing a biography. A tag is what comes to mind first when people think of you, that split second chance for someone to properly pull your file from their short or long term memory. A tag is no more than 10 words- a quick and concise snapshot of what someone sees you doing.

So are you creating your own tag, or is someone else creating it for you? 

If you don’t read Mike Hyatt’s blog, then you need to. Mike is the President of Thomas Nelson Publishers, and through his blog puts out some great stuff that is very helpful to leaders. It is one of the few blogs that I subscribe to receive by email, and not just on my bloglines feed. His posts come straight in to the inbox.

In a recent post, he talked about “the how of wow”, and ultimately some steps on how to create a WOW experience for your customers, employees, or just overall network. He gives 4 practical steps and a very practical example of how they’ve done this with their reception area at Thomas Nelson’s headquarters. Worth the read.

Here you go, the June edition of the Young Influencers List:

1. Jonathan Acuff- writer/blogger/consultant, and the voice behind the wildly popular Stuff Christians Like blog.

2. Chris Heuertz- International Executive Director of an amazing organization called Word Made Flesh. Chris spends most of the year around the world serving the poorest of the poor, and has a new book out called Simple Spirituality due out in July.

3. Shannon Sedgwick Davis- Shannon is incredibly well connected, and is involved in a number of projects, including The Bridgeway Foundation and The Elders, which boasts some amazing names attached to this high level humanitarian project.

4. Tony Wood – leader of the College/Young Adults ministry at Crossroads Church in Corona, CA.

5. Lecrae- songwriter, rapper, musician and speaker. Lecrae is part of Reach Records, and very involved in the Memphis community.

If you missed last month’s May edition, check it out here.

Coffee or Cola? What’s your preferred caffeine of choice?

I am a cola junkie. Diet of course….. How about you?

Attended a board meeting this past week for Gift Card Giver. This is an initiative launched by my close friend Jeff Shinabarger and his wife Andre. The focus of GCG is to provide a way for unused credit on gift cards to be given to those in great need. Whether it is $1 or $100 that is left on a card, the collective value of cards being sent in has major potential for greater good. This is an incredibly powerful initiative, and one with multiple areas of impact- helping others, fighting consumerism, leveraging current unused “currency”, and ultimately creating generous givers.

With the rise of the use of gift cards, and the popularity of giving them to friends and family, I am convinced that Gift Card Giver is going to have a major impact over the next 10-20 years. That is why I am involved.

So dig in the wallet, or the purse, or the kitchen cabinet, or the desk drawer, and gather up the unused cards and send them in. You’ll be glad you did. Here are a few pics from the meeting earlier this week.

Four great leaders 40 and under with four innovative and impactful churches. 

Had the opportunity today to spend 90 minutes on the phone with Craig Groeschel, Steven Furtick, Perry Noble, and Mark Batterson. We were discussing the upcoming One Prayer Campaign, which launches this Sunday, June 8. This unifying initiative now includes 1,400 churches around the world! Four Weeks. Unified. One Prayer. 

The interview from today will be released sometime middle of next week in the form of a brand new Catalyst Podcast. I’ll let everyone know when it is posted and available for download. It is really good stuff. To hear these leaders talk about the power of churches and leaders praying and serving together was truly inspirational. Make sure to check out the One Prayer blog over the next several weeks while the campaign is in full swing to keep up to date.