Soulsearch and Risktaking deliver happiness

There are some parts from Delivering Happiness that I'd like to keep close to heart and that I hope that I will be in position to apply on my own employees sometime. It's Tony Hsieh about him starting to put the company’s core values on paper:

I thought about all the employees I wanted to clone because they represented the Zappos culture well, and tried to figure out what values they personified. I also thought about all the employees and ex-employees who were not culture fits, and tried to figure out where there was a values disconnect. (s155)

I find this a wonderful way to review oneself, the one you want to be and the one you are.

And about one of the company’s final core values Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded:

We want everyone to not be afraid to take risks and to not be afraid to make mistakes, because if people aren’t making mistakes then that means they’re not taking enough risks. (s168)

I love taking risks, and I love people taking risks. How boring everything would be with only safers.

Start small - make change

So today I was invited to speed coach 29 particpants from Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and Sweden in the Young Leaders Visitors Program at Swedish Institute. It was five very intense hours where about 15 different projects were presented to me in five minutes each, expecting a ten minutes feedback. These are probably the most passionate and engaged social entrepreneurs in the world, and it was this passion more than anything else that rested to my conclusion and reflection of the day.

It striked me that it is common that those who are passionate about their cause tend to see an online application from one perspective. They build an idea on a need - to upload or create something, or to get some information for example - while there are almost always at least two perspectives, two target groups - those who upload and those who are going to enjoy the uploaded content, those who read the information and those who would like to add information. To create a full experience not leaving any of these two users disappointed you have to see the needs from both sides. What will the visitor experience when looking at the uploaded content, and how can she/he take it further? What does the visitor expect to happen when uploading her/his content?

My relation to the Internet is almost presumptuous. All of these online projects presented can be reality. Anyone who has this much passion will be able to offer it as a gift to the user and the user will engage back in return. Clearify to yourself and others what your driving forces and words of values are and stay stick to them in every little decition to mediate them to everyone around you. Most webbsites, applications and communities can not offer this personal passion. If you love your one and only user and care for him/her - she will tell her friends and you will soon be more.

Start small - make change - grow big - make big change.