Instead of striving to be different we should look for opportunities to make a difference and then try our best to manifest that difference.

We can make changes all day long but, to create difference by understanding what people want and incrementally improving that experience.

Innovation is not incremental but, can be achieved through iteration.

The traditional product development cycle.

Have a brilliant idea.
Develop on it incrementally.
Launch said product, service, or company.
Market that thing and seek customers.

Start with empathy look for painful truths.
Think about how this truth effects people and try and find an idea that reduces, minifies, or exorcises that pain.
Launch that Idea and improve peoples lives one at a time.

Marketing is dead.
Long Live Marketing.

So here are the ten steps to changing your brain to think in terms of difference.

Practice empathy in your lives. Think about how others are feeling about there experiences as we all go tumbling through space.

For Our Clients it's a must. We have to try our damndest to walk in their shoes and hopefully see beyond what they say and discover what they need by observing and understanding what they do.

Sometimes good medicine tastes bad.

-Shopping cart story.

Think about how you wish to perceived.
Then consider what you can do to give that perception.

We can sense when what we are doing is wrong in some way and in the same breath we also have a sense of what's right. Trust that sense and don't give up stop and relish the challenge. Work to clarify that sense of righteous change.

Making a difference is hard work be up to the challenge.

In designing a strategy for change, We must realize that we're trying to make our clients to fall in love with us and our work.

We can and should take as much time as we can to get it right.

Ask Questions. Then Ask more Questions.

We are being paid for expertise and we had better have something to say. Our projects are our children. They are a product of love and when you are passionate about something it should come easy to you talk passionately about it.

It takes twice as much guts to speak up and say something hard as it does to grin and bare the pain of it's consequences later.

Observe. Watch our clients. Watch what they do. Watch their competitors, their potential customers, and their peers.

We can always learn more about the problem by observing it and it's impacts.

Every crazy idea is worth exploring at least a little bit.
If you see a problem solve it. If you see a different way try it.

Ignore common wisdom and trends. If you believe it's right measure it and stick with it.

This is pretty straight forward.

But I would reiterate that sometimes we have to innovate around the edges and work from what we believe to be that painful truth. The heart of the clients problem despite what the client may say. To truly innovate we must be able to fight for what we believe.

Seriously, Blow their fucking minds.

Give them what they could never have asked for and change things profoundly wherever possible.

We want our clients to feel warm and fuzzy.

Failing that we want their ideas and feelings to what their business is and could be changed for the better in some way.

BetaMax(sony) vs. VHS(JVC)

The innovations that occur along the way can be invaluable. And the effect of exploring a wrong idea is an invaluable learning experience that could never be fully appreciated through theory alone.

You are participating in and hopefuly contributing to a long rich and rapidly changing history of computer science, technology, culture, and geopolitical change.

Relish in that fact.

The ideas in this talk are deeply inspired by a section of this book called the ten characteristics of difference thinkers.

Difference.

The one-page method to reimagining your business and reinventing your marketing.

The difference map

The difference map.

Maybe at our next retro?