I’m wondering how many of you have
experienced this fear of a blank sheet
of paper the intimidation well
my junior year at MIT I had that at and
a huge scale I was taking a class called
270 introduction to design and we were
all given a box of parts and we had to
build a robot out of it and I was just
completely stricken with fear because I
look into this box of parts and I said
how am I going to turn this into a robot
and what’s worse I actually I had to
take the class to graduate and it wasn’t
just any class it ended in a tournament
robot versus robot okay and so at MIT
that that basically was our football
nerd football and so the stakes were
really high and I was seriously thinking
about changing my major but then what I
did was I went into the shop and I
started tinkering and playing and this
is actually me in the shop and as I
spent some more time I realized that how
the parts might fit together and I
started playing and I started realizing
like oh I could do this I could do that
and as soon as I let go of the sort of
the end goal then I actually lost that
fear and as time went on I started
building it word got around that I was
actually gonna win so a TV camera
started to follow me around in fact I
made it into the finals and that’s me
right after I lost the finals turns out
but I did learn a really important thing
by letting go of the outcome and
allowing myself to explore I was able to
just kind of unleash my imagination and
my ability to create now the problem was
I was in for a rude awakening because
that’s not the way things worked in the
real world my first job I worked on the
space shuttle main engine and my first
project was to build a part for the
welding robot and the problem was I was
not allowed to work in the machine shop
anymore because we each had a roles the
engineer designed the parts and the
machinist made the parts and that’s the
way it was and it was totally separate
so I had to figure out exactly what I
wanted
drafted up I think we had CAD back then
but I’m not sure it was like basically
you know send it off and then wait for
weeks for it to come back and so and of
course you’re like hoping it’s gonna
come back the way you wanted it and so
there’s a separation between the
creating the imagining and the creating
and it was really stifling to my
creativity and it was really frustrating
so imagine you’re Michelangelo but you
can’t touch the paintbrush you have to
tell someone else what you want
and have them paint it for you and
what’s worse imagine that you have to
send the note across the country by Pony
Express and wait weeks for the message
to come back to you about what happened
and that’s what it felt like and that’s
kind of sometimes what it feels like a
lot of times when you’re working in this
environment where you really you know
you might be hiring a web developer and
you know you have to wait until they do
some work or maybe you’re partnering
with a manufacturer in China and you’re
waiting for to find out what they did I
believe we all have this basic intrinsic
creativity and throughout my whole
career I’ve been really passionate about
breaking down these barriers but it
wasn’t until I thought back to that box
of parts that I started thinking about
how deep those barriers can sometimes be
and I think that there’s two paradigms
for creating so there’s the old model
where the you’re separating out the
imaginary from the creating and then
there’s more of a new model kind of like
that that class that I took where
they’re really tightly intertwined and I
know that tinkering can have a really
bad connotation and there’s sometimes a
kind of there’s there’s a fine line
between tinkering and wasting time and I
can’t say how much I take heard of this
talk but I’m not talking about that I’m
talking about that kind of allowing
yourself to explore this this freeing
yourself during that creative process
and I see this really exciting future of
serious tinkering where we’re going to
have these tools that enable you to
tinker with really and iterate on these
really important and big problems and
these tools are going to be available
for anyone to use and I’m going to give
you a few examples today and then also
explore maybe a little bit about what
that means to all of us so throughout
the 90s I was involved in many tech
startups and there was a process back
then in software that we called the
waterfall method we may now call the
waterfall method so you know about this
so you basically you have
rolls again so I was a product manager
at one point developed with the
requirements are pass it on to the
development team the developers work on
building it then the build and then the
developers pass it on to the QA team and
they test it and then they release the
new version months and months later and
probably months late too and so if you
do things right you hope that you get
back what you asked for
the question also is did you ask for
what some but he wanted you could have
invested all this effort into a product
no matter how much market research you
did that nobody really wants to imagine
that you invest all item investment in
that all that time and effort and then
nobody really wants it there’s a new
there’s another approach which even
though many companies still do the
waterfall method but there’s another
approach that’s called agile development
and instead of figuring out all in one
go and then just kind of throwing it
over the wall and hoping for the best
instead you cope with a minimal Viable
Product MVP and you test it you take
that you evaluate you iterate and you
test it you evaluate and you keep on
building building building and so
creating becomes learning and big tech
companies like Amazon they’re masters at
this they will actually unsuspecting to
us they will be testing a be testing new
ideas on a live site and then always
evaluating how immediately how it’s
impacting the sales on that site and so
they are constantly creating and they’re
constantly learning now a lot of folks
talk about technology as a way of making
things more efficient but I love how
good tools can make anyone be able to
play a really integral part in this
development process and they don’t have
to be experts so there’s none of this
like you know you’re not a web developer
or you’re not allowed in the machine
shop technology is available to anyone
and the creator’s can have
permission to play so let me give you a
couple examples let’s say I have a new
company or a new initiative I can go and
use one of these really easy-to-use
tools web tools put together a website
have a beautiful simple but beautiful
website to start and now I’m a real
business or for example and back in the
day like oh my god
HTML I couldn’t imagine creating just a
basic website with HTML it would take
four months we renounce takes like four
hours Garage Band I when I first used
GarageBand I started tinkering around I
was like oh my god I’m making music and
I’ve no virtuoso and I’m not saying that
it was amazing but I do have to say that
the first like one of the first pieces I
made I liked so much that I now have it
as the intro to my podcast the art of
manufacturing so so it’s pretty amazing
what you can do I think that what we we
take these things for granted right so
we’re like oh of course you know I of
course I can create this kind of a
website but I don’t know if any of you
who realize like the what those examples
have in common
all the examples up until now have been
in the digital domain
but what I’m especially excited about is
the potential to tinker in the physical
domain and I think that we’re about to
enter this pivotal moment in
manufacturing because we are going to
have these tools in these platforms that
will enable us to now iterate on this
grand and physical scale so let me give
you an example this is a CNC machine and
estancia stands for computer numerical
controlled and and what’s really amazing
about a CNC machine and I mean this
isn’t new my back when I was in college
they just started they started having
these but CNC machine will enable you
not only to make parts faster but it
enables you to create parts that you’ve
never been able to make before you can’t
do this by hand right so the challenge
is that you’re the programming of a CNC
machine is incredibly challenging and if
you’re a designer you need to understand
the intricacies of working with one of
the
machines in when it’s like the program
now there’s a company that’s out to
change that they’re kind other name is
plethora they’re an automated Factory in
San Francisco and what they have is a
software tool that anybody can design
something and CAD software but what it
does is it tells you it gives you
feedback it tells you you know what is
hard to manufacture it’ll give you
recommendations for making it easier to
manufacture and as you make the tweaks
it will change the price so you know how
much you’re going to be paying and when
you’re ready you press the button and
then that there it is the part is back
you have it in three days it’s
automatically made which is amazing and
you don’t even have to be an engineer
and so this is an amazing way of just
delaying commitment you don’t have to
commit you can tinker before in the
software before you commit to metal
oh speaking of commitment I had this
really funny thing happened to me a
couple of weeks ago I was staying in
front of white board I was working with
a branding agency and we were
brainstorming and things were going
great and we had all these ideas and
we’re playing and you know like this
idea of that idea and then all of a
sudden were we decided we’re gonna go
over to this butcher block paper where
we had these different categories and my
brain froze just like a few minutes ago
and I said said um oh my god I I just
can’t think of anything and I realized
it was the it was the permanence of the
Sharpie pen that got to me and it was
the weirdest feeling and we’re all
laughing and they ended up with me
literally went over to the butcher block
paper and started scribbling on it just
to remove the preciousness of this piece
of paper and then once they started
doing it we started being able to come
for these ideas and so it’s just such a
funny experience and it made me think
about what what would happen if not only
if we could delay commitment but what if
we didn’t have to commit at all what
would we be what would be be capable of
and I think that there’s a real
opportunity there to explore that so
that reminds me of an
her name is Jessie janae and she started
her first company when she was 16 years
old she was making t-shirts and then she
started making inks and dyes for other
entrepreneurs who were doing t-shirts
and printing and like any of the
up-and-coming and big really big
direct-to-consumer brands that are
coming out so like Warby Parker and
Casper me undies all these companies
she started realizing the importance of
packaging because packaging is the first
experience that you have or a customer
consumer has with your product and so
the only problem with packaging is that
it takes a lot of resources to manage
that process and it’s annoying because
it’s not really core to your product
right so why are you spending all this
time dealing with a supply chain and all
that and so what Jesse decided to do is
she her company Lumi now manages the
supply chain at all the details of
packaging for e-commerce brands they
have a dashboard you can go there
customers can go on board they can
tweaked you know with the fonts and
everything and they see what it’s going
to look like and they can basically push
it got button the same way and then they
get it delivered to them on demand and
the thing is what’s special is that Lumi
will handle they negotiate cheap prices
both prices and they handle all the
logistics and so changes are really easy
and they’re cheap so changing the logo
is no big deal changing all the
packaging is no big deal so orders can
be customized and delivered on demand so
what does this mean here’s an example me
on DS which is a direct-to-consumer
brand of underwear this is their first
package they’re a Lumi customer but
because it was so easy to make the
changes the marketing department started
saying well which is why don’t we do a
special holiday edition and why don’t we
do this why don’t we do that
so now the marketing team just like in
social media and in website the copy on
the website they can tweak the packaging
as much as they want and they never were
able to do that before and so it’s a
constant evolution of the product and
the packaging is now integral to their
brand and I think that we take this
constant evolution for granted but think
back it wasn’t even 10 years ago the
very first ever TEDx this is the first
program this is the program of the first
ever TEDx and the TR team had to we
produced it and our team at USC and our
team had to get all the copy together
two weeks before the event to print the
program and I’m thinking like ask any of
the producers here to try to get us to
give them the stuff two weeks in advance
anymore forget it why would you do that
nobody has a printed program you put it
in the app you put it on the website
it’s constant evolution and so things
are completely different now our
expectations are totally different okay
so one final example because you might
be saying well geez you know that’s fine
but these things are kind of simple and
there’s not much bigger than a breadbox
what if we were to look is something
much bigger like a car well what does it
take to make a car well it costs a
billion dollars to build a factory it
takes five years for an auto company
should recoup the costs on that car and
think about how fast things are changing
Tomasz vehicles how is Detroit going to
start playing in the game of autonomous
vehicles with a new car if they have to
wait five years between editions of
their car well Kevin zinger doesn’t play
by those rules he’s the founder and CEO
of divergent 3d and they’re a car
company car factory that uses advanced
technologies like robotics and 3d
printing and I’m not talking about
plastic junky part 3d printing whatever
this is the first car it’s beautiful
aluminum alloy chassis and so they can
make all of the changes in software so
they can iterate as much as they want so
that’s the learning by creating the
factory now costs 50 only 50 million
dollars compared to a billion and it
only takes them two years to bring an
idea to market and that’s low commitment
and also the first Factory is in LA next
ones
Shanghai they’re gonna be opening these
micro factories around the world with
each factory creating a car that’s
appropriate for that particular location
so that’s like that constant evolution
so this is some serious tinkering we’re
talking about so we talk a lot well you
hear a lot about advanced manufacturing
and what it means and you know people
get really excited
the fourth fourth Industrial Revolution
and people get excited about the
technology they’re often worried about
jobs I like to ask a different question
I like to look at what does this mean
for creativity and innovation and things
are changing incredibly fast we’re
talking about mass customization coming
on a grand scale and we already see it
so plethora on the individual level you
have Lumi working with emerging brands
and divergent 3d there they’re just
starting from scratch so that they can
tinker right but I think we all have to
ask ourselves a question now so what
does it mean for us in the workplace and
as leaders how do we apply these radical
principles of tinkering to the sort of
the legacy organization and so I’d like
us to think sort of in conclusion about
how can we as leaders give our teams of
permission to play regardless of their
expertise what think about what tools do
they need in order to succeed and in
order to constantly learn by creating
and then also what are the how can we
have a decision-making process where
it’s like you’re standing in front of a
whiteboard instead of building a program
and also how can we focus our creative
energies into constantly evolving rather
than reducing costs because I think
every day we and our teams are looking
into a box of random parts right we have
these big goals we never have enough
time we never have all the resources
that we want but if we apply these
principles to our existing
organizations I think we can fully
unleash our creative potential and meet
the opportunities and the grand
challenges that we have ahead in the
future thank you [Applause]
experienced this fear of a blank sheet
of paper the intimidation well
my junior year at MIT I had that at and
a huge scale I was taking a class called
270 introduction to design and we were
all given a box of parts and we had to
build a robot out of it and I was just
completely stricken with fear because I
look into this box of parts and I said
how am I going to turn this into a robot
and what’s worse I actually I had to
take the class to graduate and it wasn’t
just any class it ended in a tournament
robot versus robot okay and so at MIT
that that basically was our football
nerd football and so the stakes were
really high and I was seriously thinking
about changing my major but then what I
did was I went into the shop and I
started tinkering and playing and this
is actually me in the shop and as I
spent some more time I realized that how
the parts might fit together and I
started playing and I started realizing
like oh I could do this I could do that
and as soon as I let go of the sort of
the end goal then I actually lost that
fear and as time went on I started
building it word got around that I was
actually gonna win so a TV camera
started to follow me around in fact I
made it into the finals and that’s me
right after I lost the finals turns out
but I did learn a really important thing
by letting go of the outcome and
allowing myself to explore I was able to
just kind of unleash my imagination and
my ability to create now the problem was
I was in for a rude awakening because
that’s not the way things worked in the
real world my first job I worked on the
space shuttle main engine and my first
project was to build a part for the
welding robot and the problem was I was
not allowed to work in the machine shop
anymore because we each had a roles the
engineer designed the parts and the
machinist made the parts and that’s the
way it was and it was totally separate
so I had to figure out exactly what I
wanted
drafted up I think we had CAD back then
but I’m not sure it was like basically
you know send it off and then wait for
weeks for it to come back and so and of
course you’re like hoping it’s gonna
come back the way you wanted it and so
there’s a separation between the
creating the imagining and the creating
and it was really stifling to my
creativity and it was really frustrating
so imagine you’re Michelangelo but you
can’t touch the paintbrush you have to
tell someone else what you want
and have them paint it for you and
what’s worse imagine that you have to
send the note across the country by Pony
Express and wait weeks for the message
to come back to you about what happened
and that’s what it felt like and that’s
kind of sometimes what it feels like a
lot of times when you’re working in this
environment where you really you know
you might be hiring a web developer and
you know you have to wait until they do
some work or maybe you’re partnering
with a manufacturer in China and you’re
waiting for to find out what they did I
believe we all have this basic intrinsic
creativity and throughout my whole
career I’ve been really passionate about
breaking down these barriers but it
wasn’t until I thought back to that box
of parts that I started thinking about
how deep those barriers can sometimes be
and I think that there’s two paradigms
for creating so there’s the old model
where the you’re separating out the
imaginary from the creating and then
there’s more of a new model kind of like
that that class that I took where
they’re really tightly intertwined and I
know that tinkering can have a really
bad connotation and there’s sometimes a
kind of there’s there’s a fine line
between tinkering and wasting time and I
can’t say how much I take heard of this
talk but I’m not talking about that I’m
talking about that kind of allowing
yourself to explore this this freeing
yourself during that creative process
and I see this really exciting future of
serious tinkering where we’re going to
have these tools that enable you to
tinker with really and iterate on these
really important and big problems and
these tools are going to be available
for anyone to use and I’m going to give
you a few examples today and then also
explore maybe a little bit about what
that means to all of us so throughout
the 90s I was involved in many tech
startups and there was a process back
then in software that we called the
waterfall method we may now call the
waterfall method so you know about this
so you basically you have
rolls again so I was a product manager
at one point developed with the
requirements are pass it on to the
development team the developers work on
building it then the build and then the
developers pass it on to the QA team and
they test it and then they release the
new version months and months later and
probably months late too and so if you
do things right you hope that you get
back what you asked for
the question also is did you ask for
what some but he wanted you could have
invested all this effort into a product
no matter how much market research you
did that nobody really wants to imagine
that you invest all item investment in
that all that time and effort and then
nobody really wants it there’s a new
there’s another approach which even
though many companies still do the
waterfall method but there’s another
approach that’s called agile development
and instead of figuring out all in one
go and then just kind of throwing it
over the wall and hoping for the best
instead you cope with a minimal Viable
Product MVP and you test it you take
that you evaluate you iterate and you
test it you evaluate and you keep on
building building building and so
creating becomes learning and big tech
companies like Amazon they’re masters at
this they will actually unsuspecting to
us they will be testing a be testing new
ideas on a live site and then always
evaluating how immediately how it’s
impacting the sales on that site and so
they are constantly creating and they’re
constantly learning now a lot of folks
talk about technology as a way of making
things more efficient but I love how
good tools can make anyone be able to
play a really integral part in this
development process and they don’t have
to be experts so there’s none of this
like you know you’re not a web developer
or you’re not allowed in the machine
shop technology is available to anyone
and the creator’s can have
permission to play so let me give you a
couple examples let’s say I have a new
company or a new initiative I can go and
use one of these really easy-to-use
tools web tools put together a website
have a beautiful simple but beautiful
website to start and now I’m a real
business or for example and back in the
day like oh my god
HTML I couldn’t imagine creating just a
basic website with HTML it would take
four months we renounce takes like four
hours Garage Band I when I first used
GarageBand I started tinkering around I
was like oh my god I’m making music and
I’ve no virtuoso and I’m not saying that
it was amazing but I do have to say that
the first like one of the first pieces I
made I liked so much that I now have it
as the intro to my podcast the art of
manufacturing so so it’s pretty amazing
what you can do I think that what we we
take these things for granted right so
we’re like oh of course you know I of
course I can create this kind of a
website but I don’t know if any of you
who realize like the what those examples
have in common
all the examples up until now have been
in the digital domain
but what I’m especially excited about is
the potential to tinker in the physical
domain and I think that we’re about to
enter this pivotal moment in
manufacturing because we are going to
have these tools in these platforms that
will enable us to now iterate on this
grand and physical scale so let me give
you an example this is a CNC machine and
estancia stands for computer numerical
controlled and and what’s really amazing
about a CNC machine and I mean this
isn’t new my back when I was in college
they just started they started having
these but CNC machine will enable you
not only to make parts faster but it
enables you to create parts that you’ve
never been able to make before you can’t
do this by hand right so the challenge
is that you’re the programming of a CNC
machine is incredibly challenging and if
you’re a designer you need to understand
the intricacies of working with one of
the
machines in when it’s like the program
now there’s a company that’s out to
change that they’re kind other name is
plethora they’re an automated Factory in
San Francisco and what they have is a
software tool that anybody can design
something and CAD software but what it
does is it tells you it gives you
feedback it tells you you know what is
hard to manufacture it’ll give you
recommendations for making it easier to
manufacture and as you make the tweaks
it will change the price so you know how
much you’re going to be paying and when
you’re ready you press the button and
then that there it is the part is back
you have it in three days it’s
automatically made which is amazing and
you don’t even have to be an engineer
and so this is an amazing way of just
delaying commitment you don’t have to
commit you can tinker before in the
software before you commit to metal
oh speaking of commitment I had this
really funny thing happened to me a
couple of weeks ago I was staying in
front of white board I was working with
a branding agency and we were
brainstorming and things were going
great and we had all these ideas and
we’re playing and you know like this
idea of that idea and then all of a
sudden were we decided we’re gonna go
over to this butcher block paper where
we had these different categories and my
brain froze just like a few minutes ago
and I said said um oh my god I I just
can’t think of anything and I realized
it was the it was the permanence of the
Sharpie pen that got to me and it was
the weirdest feeling and we’re all
laughing and they ended up with me
literally went over to the butcher block
paper and started scribbling on it just
to remove the preciousness of this piece
of paper and then once they started
doing it we started being able to come
for these ideas and so it’s just such a
funny experience and it made me think
about what what would happen if not only
if we could delay commitment but what if
we didn’t have to commit at all what
would we be what would be be capable of
and I think that there’s a real
opportunity there to explore that so
that reminds me of an
her name is Jessie janae and she started
her first company when she was 16 years
old she was making t-shirts and then she
started making inks and dyes for other
entrepreneurs who were doing t-shirts
and printing and like any of the
up-and-coming and big really big
direct-to-consumer brands that are
coming out so like Warby Parker and
Casper me undies all these companies
she started realizing the importance of
packaging because packaging is the first
experience that you have or a customer
consumer has with your product and so
the only problem with packaging is that
it takes a lot of resources to manage
that process and it’s annoying because
it’s not really core to your product
right so why are you spending all this
time dealing with a supply chain and all
that and so what Jesse decided to do is
she her company Lumi now manages the
supply chain at all the details of
packaging for e-commerce brands they
have a dashboard you can go there
customers can go on board they can
tweaked you know with the fonts and
everything and they see what it’s going
to look like and they can basically push
it got button the same way and then they
get it delivered to them on demand and
the thing is what’s special is that Lumi
will handle they negotiate cheap prices
both prices and they handle all the
logistics and so changes are really easy
and they’re cheap so changing the logo
is no big deal changing all the
packaging is no big deal so orders can
be customized and delivered on demand so
what does this mean here’s an example me
on DS which is a direct-to-consumer
brand of underwear this is their first
package they’re a Lumi customer but
because it was so easy to make the
changes the marketing department started
saying well which is why don’t we do a
special holiday edition and why don’t we
do this why don’t we do that
so now the marketing team just like in
social media and in website the copy on
the website they can tweak the packaging
as much as they want and they never were
able to do that before and so it’s a
constant evolution of the product and
the packaging is now integral to their
brand and I think that we take this
constant evolution for granted but think
back it wasn’t even 10 years ago the
very first ever TEDx this is the first
program this is the program of the first
ever TEDx and the TR team had to we
produced it and our team at USC and our
team had to get all the copy together
two weeks before the event to print the
program and I’m thinking like ask any of
the producers here to try to get us to
give them the stuff two weeks in advance
anymore forget it why would you do that
nobody has a printed program you put it
in the app you put it on the website
it’s constant evolution and so things
are completely different now our
expectations are totally different okay
so one final example because you might
be saying well geez you know that’s fine
but these things are kind of simple and
there’s not much bigger than a breadbox
what if we were to look is something
much bigger like a car well what does it
take to make a car well it costs a
billion dollars to build a factory it
takes five years for an auto company
should recoup the costs on that car and
think about how fast things are changing
Tomasz vehicles how is Detroit going to
start playing in the game of autonomous
vehicles with a new car if they have to
wait five years between editions of
their car well Kevin zinger doesn’t play
by those rules he’s the founder and CEO
of divergent 3d and they’re a car
company car factory that uses advanced
technologies like robotics and 3d
printing and I’m not talking about
plastic junky part 3d printing whatever
this is the first car it’s beautiful
aluminum alloy chassis and so they can
make all of the changes in software so
they can iterate as much as they want so
that’s the learning by creating the
factory now costs 50 only 50 million
dollars compared to a billion and it
only takes them two years to bring an
idea to market and that’s low commitment
and also the first Factory is in LA next
ones
Shanghai they’re gonna be opening these
micro factories around the world with
each factory creating a car that’s
appropriate for that particular location
so that’s like that constant evolution
so this is some serious tinkering we’re
talking about so we talk a lot well you
hear a lot about advanced manufacturing
and what it means and you know people
get really excited
the fourth fourth Industrial Revolution
and people get excited about the
technology they’re often worried about
jobs I like to ask a different question
I like to look at what does this mean
for creativity and innovation and things
are changing incredibly fast we’re
talking about mass customization coming
on a grand scale and we already see it
so plethora on the individual level you
have Lumi working with emerging brands
and divergent 3d there they’re just
starting from scratch so that they can
tinker right but I think we all have to
ask ourselves a question now so what
does it mean for us in the workplace and
as leaders how do we apply these radical
principles of tinkering to the sort of
the legacy organization and so I’d like
us to think sort of in conclusion about
how can we as leaders give our teams of
permission to play regardless of their
expertise what think about what tools do
they need in order to succeed and in
order to constantly learn by creating
and then also what are the how can we
have a decision-making process where
it’s like you’re standing in front of a
whiteboard instead of building a program
and also how can we focus our creative
energies into constantly evolving rather
than reducing costs because I think
every day we and our teams are looking
into a box of random parts right we have
these big goals we never have enough
time we never have all the resources
that we want but if we apply these
principles to our existing
organizations I think we can fully
unleash our creative potential and meet
the opportunities and the grand
challenges that we have ahead in the
future thank you [Applause]
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