Guy Kawasaki offered the opening keynote at the 2006 Nonprofit Technology Conference on the art of innovation. What stuck out most in an audience of mission-based organizations? Mission statements are stupid. It's about mantras: if you're Wendy's, you don't provide "innovative service delivery" - you provide "quality fast food." Having received many, many ugly mission statements that use ten-dollar words yet mean nothing, I couldn't have agreed more:
Something else that seemed important: When you're trying to achieve a goal or grow the organization, don't listen to people who aren't using your services, or who haven't already engaged with what you do. Listen to your existing community ("the customers that are already buying"), and make that group your target. When you see people using your services in ways that you didn't anticipate, find out why, and then give them more reasons to use it.
I also really enjoyed Kawasaki's bit on how to pitch. Both nonprofits and for-profit startups can use this lesson. Pitches should be 10 slides - just 10 ideas that you share in a meeting. You're lucky of people can walk away with that. And don't use small font - Kawasaki's rule is a 30-point minimum. Kawasaki voiced what every venture capitalist thinks when they see a crowded slide: If you cram lots of words onto the slide, it means that you don't know the slide. The only reason to jam in all of that text is because you have to read it in order to make the pitch.
PS Want a copy of Kawasaki's full slide deck? Send a note to Gina and ask nicely.
Tags: christine herron christine.net space jockeys 06ntc guy kawasaki nonprofit mission best practices venture capital innovation nten
