The Laws of Subtraction - Free Preview

Matt May, the former Toyota consultant and innovation expert, is in the process of writing his newest book, The Laws of Subtraction.

Matt has reminded us over the years that what constitutes an elegant solution is the ability to remove excess detail, and even leave some things unresolved so that users can fill in the blanks.  The Laws of Subtraction guide us through three critical choices inherent in every difficult decision in business, work and life:

• What to pursue versus what to ignore?
• What to leave in versus what to leave out?
• What to do versus what to don’t?

You can download a free preview of his new book, were the Laws of Subtraction are discussed:

• What isn’t there can often trump what is.
• The simplest rules create the most effective experience.
• Limiting information engages the imagination.
• Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints.
• Break is the important part of breakthrough.
• Doing something isn’t always better than doing nothing.

In a world were time is limited, it is essential to decide what not to focus on, and just subtract it from your life.

TEDs Top 20 Talks of All Time

You've probably watched many TED videos before.

If not, TED was a venture started in 1984, as an annual conference with speakers sharing new ideas about Technology and Design.   Afterward, it's objective was to promote "ideas worth sharing" about different topics that impact our life, and has featured speakers such as Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Clinton, Larry Page and many other celebrities.

Regardless of your acquaintance with TED videos, it might be worth your while to look at the top 20 TED Videos of all time.

Do you have any ideas worth sharing?

Dan Pink's Inspirational Quotes

We all need some inspiration from time to time.   Need some?  Check out the three quotes that author Dan Pink keeps on this wall.

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”– Viktor Frankl

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”– Steve Jobs

“Being a professional is doing the things you love to do — even on the days you don’t feel like doing it.”– Julius Erving

If you haven't read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, please do.

Steaks, Patents, Trade Secrets and Trademarks

Want to learn the difference between patents, trade secrets and trademarks, using a Vegas Steak as reference?   These kind of analogies only happen at Freakonomics, but as usual offer practical ways to learn.

If you are interested in where the Coca-Cola secret recipe falls in the Intellectual Property domain, and if the the rumor that only few executives at the company actually know the recipe is true?

John Wanamaker famously said: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

Seems the Marketing Execs at Coca-Cola do know which half is working.

Beyond the Jipp Curve

The Jipp Curve proves that there is a relationship between telephone density (teledensity) and the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country.   Back then, data showed that richer countries had higher penetration and use of telephone lines.

With the introduction of Smartphones a little more than decade ago, the Jipp Curve has been turned over its head, and Smartphone growth is spreading faster than any other previous technological innovation.  Some other incredible facts, taken from Dan Pink's blog:

• In 2006, smart phones accounted for just 6% of U.S. mobile phones sold that year. Today, "smart phones represent more than two-thirds of all U.S. mobile-phone sales."

• "In 1982, there were 4.6 billion people in the world, and not a single mobile-phone subscriber. Today, there are seven billion people in the world — and six billion mobile cellular-phone subscriptions." Of those subscriptions, 73 percent are now in the developing world, even though those countries account for just 20 percent of the world's GDP."

• Right now the world has 1.4 billion PCs in use. "Mobile phones, on the other hand, are already selling more than 1.4 billion units every single year."

Even if the world's connectedness will continue to bring enormous benefits to mankind, I wonder when being online, all the time, will overwhelm us to the point of saying, enough!

It is incredible to think about how two decades ago, without internet and Smartphones, everything worked well.  I guess every generation asks this question at a given point in time. 

Means I'm getting old, I guess.

The Secret of Life, According to Steve Jobs

There are many inspiring speeches out there.   From no other than Steve Jobs, I recently watched an obscure interview about life and changes that he gave when he was still working at NeXT, before returning to Apple as CEO.

Some excerpts from the interview:

"When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.

"The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.  — Steve Jobs 

Steve Jobs could have been a certified jerk, but his relentless focus on doing things with the potential to change the world, is admirable.

I just hope more of us had his vision and courage.

Don't Break The Chain!

Turns out Seinfeld was not only brilliant at comedy, but also at suggesting a simple tool that can make your life more productive.

It has even become an iPhone app, which I recently downloaded, and started to test.   Aptly titled Wonderful Day, you can take a look at the introductory video to understand how it works.  I'm planing on using it for getting disciplined on daily blogging, daily reading and healthy eating.   

I can imagine Seinfeld's voice reminding his audience:  "don't break the chain!".

If Seinfeld's methodology doesn't work, you can always use Charles Duhigg's habit changing methodology, which is simple and effective.

How disciplined are you in the things you want to achieve?  Are you breaking the chain?