So tell me what do you want to talk about? The weather? A problem at work you're having? The Olympics? Wait. Maybe you want to discuss this new killer idea you have that will take the world by storm! Whichever one of these it is that you want to talk about, I am sure that you don't want to people to just "hear" you but you want them to pay close attention to what you are saying.

Just take Paul Jay CEO of the The Real News from our previous post. His conversation is engaging. It’s passionate. It’s telling you what it is that he is about and what it is he is trying to do in a way that captures your attention.

Now whether you are an innovator trying to discuss your new breakthrough idea, networking to find a new job opportunity, or informational interviewing to find out valuable information about a particular field, your success will be determined in large part by how strong your conversational skills are.

In many ways conversation is an art and a science. Not many think of it like that but once you shift your thinking about it to this way you'll definitely see a different world when it comes to talking and discussions. Michael Jordan was a master craftsman when it came to basketball because he  perceived his "job" as an art and a science. Reading about it. Studying it. Practicing it. Performing it - again and again and again until he was proficient and absolutely dominant. He had a "weight training" program to build a strong, effective, and dangerously efficient basketball game that would dominate his competitors. It’s the same thing with Tiger Woods, David Beckham, or Roger Federer.

It’s the same with any endeavor anyone chooses to pursue. Be it car design, marketing, or teaching you have to see it as an art and a science and weight train in it so that you build strong and effective strategies to accomplish your goals. Now your objectives  can only be fine tuned when you establish and build a strong foundation. As a sports player that base is conditioning - being in shape. You can have all the dribbling, kicking, passing, and swinging skills in the world but if your body isn't prepared for the rigor -  you can forget it. In business that strong foundation needs to be conversational skills. You can have the best idea, the best product or the best service in the universe but if you can't have a great and/or effective conversation about it - you're done.
 
Now this isn't to say that you need to be a conversation guru in order to be successful.  But what I am saying is that being savvy with your conversation skills will alleviate many obstacles for you and in numerous ways will streamline your success in whatever endeavors you are pursuing.

Next post I'll discuss the top 5 strengths needed in order to have successful, effective and productive conversations.

Over the last handful of years the advent of user generated content has transformed  and innovated the way we interact with the web.  Established businesses such as Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Flikr (and the list goes on) have proven that the new paradigm, where  consumers and customers dictate what it is they want, is here to stay.  Ebay, Amazon, and Netflix are other business which have grown and prospered as a result of also harnessing this approach of leveraging the power of their users. This strategy successfully utilizes not only your ideas and opinions but those of the thousands upon thousands of other individuals who are looking for something that reflects the ideas of what you as an audience member wants and how to enhance that customer experience. 

Interestingly enough I was in a conversation with a good friend of mine who always brings to the table cool ideas, great insight and new perspectives to all of our discussions and she introduced me to the Real News website, which I found in many ways - revolutionary.  Not because it was going to have better reporters, or more interesting stories, or smarter commentary but because of their business model - which as CEO Paul Jay states "will have no corporate funding, no government funding and no advertising". 

HUUUHH?!?!?

When my friend first told me about it my antennas immediately went up.  I LIKE IT!  But how the hell does that work?  I watched  the Youtube  clip and was seriously taken in by Jay's passion and this new concept of "real news".  One reason to me why it is so intriguing is because it puts an interesting twist on the idea of "user generated".  Take 6 minutes and watch the clip.  Maybe the REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED. . . 

By Rasul Sha'ir, 15, July, 2008
 

THE BUILDING PERSONAS

The four remaining personas are building roles that apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen.  When people adopt the building personas, they stamp their mark on your organization.  People in these roles are highly visible, so you'll often find them right at the heart of the action.  

7.  The Experience Architect designs compelling experiences that go beyond mere funtionality to connect at a deeper level with customers' latent or expressed needs.  When an ice cream shop turns the preparation of a frozen dessert into a fun, dramatic performance, it is designing a successful new customer experience.  The premium prices and marketing buzz that follow are rewards associated with playing the role of an Experience Architect.

8. The Set Designer creates  a stage  on which innovation team members can do their best work, transforming physical environments into powerful tools to influence behavior and attitude.  Companies like Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic recognized that the right office environments can help nourish and sustain a creative culture.  When a business team doubles its usable output after reinventing its space and a sports team discovers a renewed winning ability in a brand-new stadium, they are demonstrating the value of the Set Designer sometimes discover remarkable performance improvements that make all the space changes worthwhile. 

9. The Caregiver builds on the metaphor of a health care professional to deliver customer care in a manner that goes beyond mere service. Good Caregivers anticipate customer needs and are ready to look after them.  When you see a service that's really in demand, there's usually a Caregiver at the heart of it.  A Manhattan wine shop that teachers its customers how to enjoy the pleasures of wine without ever talking down to them is demonstrating the Caregiver role - while earning a solid profit at the same time. 

10. The Storyteller builds both internal morale and eternal awareness through compelling narratives that communicate a fundamental human value or reinforce a specific cultural trait.  Companies from Dell to Starbucks have lots of corporate legends that support their brands and build camaraderie within their teams.  Medtronic, celebrated for its product innovation and consistently high growth, reinforces its culture with straight-from-the-heart storytelling from patients' firsthand narratives of how the products changed - or even saved - their lives. 

By Rasul Sha'ir, 7, July, 2008
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

THE ORGANIZING PERSONAS

The next three personas are organizing roles, played by individuals who are savvy about the counterintuitive process of how to move ideas forward. In an ideal world a great idea should speak for itself, but even the greatest concepts will continuously compete for time, attention ad resources - and no one knows this better than the Hurdler, the Collaborator and the Director. Those who  adopt these organizing roles don't dismiss the realities of budgets and resource allocations as 'politics' or 'red tape' but they recognize it as a complex game of chess and their endgame is to win.

4. The Hurdler knows the path to innovation is strewn with obstacles and develops a knack for outsmarting those roadblocks.  When bad news or a problem arises the hurdler doesn't become frustrated but sees the situation as a challenge and an opportunity to be creative in solving the problem he/she is now facing.  The end result could be a new solution for an ongoing problem with the company.

5. The Collaborator helps bring eclectic groups together, and often leads from the middle of the pack to create new combinations and multidisciplinary solutions.  Whether it is an entrepreneur building a team of sustainability innovators to begin creating business strategies for industries that will decrease your carbon footprint by 15%, or you are a customer service manager who wins over a skeptical corporate buyer to the idea of brainstorming new forms of cooperation, and the new program doubles their sales, the role of collaborator is being played successfully.

 6. The Director not only gathers together a talented cast and crew but also helps to display their creative talents. When a creative Swedish entrepreneur assembles a block of businesses in Northern Sweden which included a car dealership, a McDonalds restaurant, and a gas station (selling both gasoline and biofuel) to begin creating a "Geen Zone", an industrial region free of fossil fuels, you have a an example of a role model for Directors everywhere - directing, organizing and assembling all the necessary moving pieces to makes sure the initiative is a success. 

By Rasul Sha'ir, 3, July, 2008

THE LEARNING PERSONAS

Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow, so the first three personas are learning roles. These personas are driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent.  The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today's great idea may be tomorrow's anachronism.  The learning roles help keep your team from becoming to internally focused and remind the organization not be so smug about what you "know." People who adopt the learning roles are humble enough to question their own world view, and in doing so they remain open to new insights everyday.

1. The Anthropologist brings new learning and insights into the organization by observing human behavior and developing a deep understanding of how people interact physically and emotionally with products services and spaces. When an IDEO human-factors person camps out in a hospital room for forty hours with an elderly patient undergoing surgery - as described in the first chapter of the book- she is living the life of the Anthropologist and helping to develop new health care services.

2. The Experimenter prototypes new ideas continuously, learning by a process of enlightened trial and error.  The Experimenter takes calculated risks to achieve success through a state of "experimentation as implementation." When BMW bypassed all its traditional advertising channels and created theater quality short films for bmwfilms.com, no one knew whether the experiment would succeed. Their runway success, which underscores the rewards that flow to Experimenters is talked about in greater detail in the second chapter of the book.

3. The Cross-Pollinator explores other industries and cultures, then translates those findings and revelations to fit the unique needs of your enterprise.  When a open minded Japanese businesswoman travels 5,000 miles to find inspiration or a new brand, she finds a concept an ocean away that sparks a billion-dollar retail empire, and demonstrates the leverage of a Cross-Pollinator.  Her full story is captured in Chapter 3 of the book.