Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Guy Kawasaki: "So What?"
If you spend any time at all at our office, you'll probably hear us saying "So what?" quite a bit. We're not being short with each other- "So what?" is the mantra we repeat to make sure that everything we do is relevant, concise, and impactful. It's really one of our most valuable tools.The phrase comes from Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start," which is a guide for entrepreneurs on managing startups. The part we like is chapter 3, "The Art of Pitching," which as you might expect, is about pitching ideas to venture capitalists. Although we're not in the venture capital business, we are in the business of quickly communicating big ideas, which is what Guy is talking about.
His big tip to entrepreneurs is to ask yourself "So what?" when creating your presentation. Imagine the audience asking you "OK, so what?" after every slide.
We all have a tendency to fall in love with our own ideas. In our excitement, we sometimes lose sight of the big picture and lose our way by muddying the waters with unnecessary details. We're so proud of the thought that went into the carefully considered nuances of our idea that we have to point them out, but in doing so we can overwhelm the audience. In this case, too much information is effectively the same as no information at all.
This is where "So what?" comes into play. It's our number one tool to keep ourselves honest. It's not just a tool for presentations: it's a great way of evaluating product concepts and features. Five different ways of adjusting the volume? So what? A fridge that plays CDs? So what? Obviously those examples are over the top, but the point is that stepping into the consumers' shoes asking "So what?" is perhaps the best way of looking at design.
You can download an MP3 of Guy reading "The Art of Pitching" here, or buy the whole book on Amazon.
Labels: design management
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