Bold

Highlights

The 6 D’s of Exponential Growth:

1. Digitalization: Once something goes from physical to digital, it gains the ability to grow exponentially.
2. Deception: Initial exponential growth is such small increases (.01 to .02) that it goes largely unnoticed.
3. Disruption: Either a new market is created, or an old one is overturned. You either disrupt yourself, or you are disrupted.
4. Demonetization: The major assets in the industry will become free. Free music, free reading, free communication.
5. Dematerialization: Removal of the original product entirely, lumping alarm clocks, cameras, notebooks, and phones into one smartphone.
6. Democratization: The costs drop so low that the technology becomes available to everyone.

The Hype cycle:

If you can get into something right when it is exciting the trough of disillusionment, you’re likely on a gold mine.

Google’s 8 principles of innovation:

1. Focus on the user
2. Share everything, let the crowd help you innovate
3. Look for ideas everywhere
4. Think big but start small, aim to impact 1 billion people, but start with a niche group
5. Never fail to fail, iterate rapidly, test new things
6. Spark with imagination, fuel with data
7. Be a platform
8. Have a mission that matters, that people (and you) can get behind

Environmental triggers for Flow:

1. High pressure, high stakes, high value work
2. A rich environment of novelty, uncertainty, and complexity
3. Deep embodiment by engaging multiple sensory stimuli at once.

Psychological triggers for Flow:

1. Clear goals, knowing what you’re shooting towards and when you’ve arrived there. Clarity is the most important part, so could also apply to clear process or system.
2. Immediate feedback, quick acknowledgements of what’s working and what isn’t so you can adjust course.
3. The right ratio of challenge to skills, being in that “sweet spot” right on the edge of your abilities.

Creative triggers for Flow:

1. Instead of coming at problems familiar ways, come at them backwards, from the side, and so on. Stretch your imagination.

(Some of) Peter’s Laws: Create rules and guidelines for yourself to keep yourself on track, and to provide motivation. Here are some of Peter’s:

1. The best way to create the future is to create it yourself
2. When faced without a challenge, make one
3. No simply means begin again one level higher
4. If anything can go wrong, fix it
5. When given a choice, take both
6. The ratio of something to nothing is infinite
7. An expert is someone who can tell you exactly how something can’t be done
8. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes
9. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live
10. If it were easy, it would have been done already