“Don’t Worry, Be Crappy”

At the recent International Coach Federation conference in St. Louis, MO, keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki, former product evangelist for Apple Computer, challenged the coaches in the audience as he talked about the Art of Innovation.

Two points that struck home with me were these:

“2. Don't worry, be crappy. An innovator doesn't worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it's truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect--Macintosh, for example, didn't have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn't matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits--for example, the engineers convince management to add more features--until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

"3. Churn, baby, churn. I'm saying it's okay to ship crap--I'm not saying that it's okay to stay crappy. A company must improve version 1.0 and create version 1.1, 1.2, ... 2.0. This is a difficult lesson to learn because it's so hard to ship an innovation; therefore, the last thing employees want to deal with is complaints about their perfect baby. Innovation is not an event. It's a process.”

We launched the first Career Coach Institute web site in January 2001, just 45 days after the “moment of inspiration” hit me to combine my then 15 years of career development expertise with my just-completed coach training. How did we launch in 45 days? By using the “don’t worry, be crappy” principle. Not that we released bad content (at least not on purpose!). The point is that when you have the basic outline and structure of your widget (in this case career coach training course) prepared and the initial “beta” chapters ready for use, LAUNCH! Write the rest as you go – and let your students inform the content by their feedback.

What I didn’t expect is that I’d spend the next 4 years writing and rewriting content, developing new niche programs (we now offer spiritual career coaching, retirement coaching, executive career coaching, practice-building for coaches, coach as strategic partner, and more!) – and that the same principle would apply each time.

THEN, once it was released and the content written over the 12 weeks of the course term, it was refined, updated, and then version 2.0 was released for the next term. And people have loved it!

To see the full Top 10 list for the Art of Innovation (and other cool top 10 lists too), visit Guy’s blog at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_art_of_inno.html

And to see Career Coach Institute’s latest innovations (released November 14!) in streamlined coach training programs with maximum value (now including FREE admission to our Sept. 2007 LIVE in-person Career Coaching Conference!), visit www.careercoachinstitute.com and check out the drop-down menus at the top to peruse all of our offerings. You’re sure to find one that works for you!

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