FLYING CLOSER… Part 2 – Seth Godin’s Intensive

FLYING CLOSER… Part 2 – Seth Godin’s Intensive

The 5-Minute Pitch (the first swing)

Part 2 of my learning experience with Seth Godin and twenty potential impressarios.  For Part 1, go here.

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At the end of the first day, we were given an assignment – Create a pitch for a project you care about.

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  photo by CEBImagery.com

  5-minute time limit.

• Make sure you can finish this project by December.  (So, if it was a long-term project, then detail out the goals you could accomplish by the end of December.)
• Only spend 7 hours preparing the pitch.
• Present in any way necessary.
• Include 1-3 of our fellow students to help with the pitch.  This was not required, but highly recommended.

It was invaluable to run ideas by relative strangers on a project close to my heart.  We had only met roughly 6-hours a go, coming from all walks of life, interests, ages and specialties.  There was so much potential in these condensed, highly-focused conversations.

It was also extremely challenging.  How do I summarize the dream, the ‘Go To Market’ strategies, the project’s assets and needs plus entice the audience in 5-minutes?  How do I tap in to a group that might not have any idea or common vocabulary involving my occupation and focus?

All of these are real-life dilemmas put into experiential learning.  Seth also implemented key elements to maximize our potential:

• Limiting time (both in preparation and presentation)
• Limiting collaboration (1-3 people as sounding boards)
• Establishing high-stakes (Pitching to Seth Godin and each other – potential collaborators down the road)
• Platform for vulnerability (How truthful were we going to be about the project we really wanted to spend our time on?  How much of ourselves we were willing to put out there during our pitch?)
• Platform for creativity (Necessary in order to address the above elements of time, collaboration, stakes and vulnerability)

The next morning we presented our pitches in small chunks 3-4 at a time with breaks in between.  Questions asked by and for Seth.  As a group, we were still timid about expressing confusion or differences of opinions on the pitches.  On the whole, we were all supportive of everyone getting through it and not going over (or too over) time.  That’s a step.  But in this workshop it was a quick step.

Seth pulled out the defining traits on our pitches, the glaring problems and the missed opportunities.  We were all able to take leaps ahead with our own pitches by what we learned from others’ pitch feedback.  We were all able to take those leaps, but it was interesting to see how some did and some did not put those leaps immediately into their work.

Over the next few hours, we interacted with 20 pitches.  About half way through, Seth raised the stakes by clarifying the exercise’s intention.  The intention was the get the clearest 5-minute pitch on a do-able project that activated the group.  We were learning pitch by pitch what was working and what was not.  Why were the pitches being presented later in the day not putting those lessons into the work in actual time, immediately?

Remember (going back to my first post), Seth told us on day one that he needed to make it clear to us how the industrialized education system was limiting us.  This direct question at the half-way mark was another example of his original purpose.  Because we had all spent, at most, 7 hours preparing our pitch, did we feel there was no way to make changes in say 15 minutes?  Was the idea of “I did my homework”or showing our work more important than the actual outcome?  Is it truly engrained in us now, after decades of schooling, that how long you spent on a project adds to its value?

After everyone presented, we got into more details about “Go To Market” strategies, which benefitted us all.

But, before that intense session, Seth then us to go around the table and recap our pitch in 6 words or less.  After we all laughed and then realized he was serious (SIX WORDS, people!), we went around the table restating our pitch.

He then asked us to make 2 lists: the top 5 pitches we thought were interesting and the top 5 people we thought would actually achieve their project goals.

What a great exercise!  We never revealed our top 5’s, that wasn’t the point.  The point was his next questions:

Do you think your pitch was on most of the lists?    Were YOU on these lists?  If not, why not?

The silence was thick.  Another mind-bender courtesy of Seth Godin.  I looked around the room like an Agatha Christie character.  Who put me on the list?  Why didn’t I put myself on my own list?  What could I do better next time to make sure I was on those lists (including my own)?

Would we get a second chance?  Yes.  The next day, in fact, the last day of the intensive.  Lots of lessons learned, lots of tips given, lots more ahead… Part 3 coming up.

SELF OBSERVATION QUESTIONS:

• How can you break down a long-term project into manageable, “Shippable” steps?
• Take one project and try it.  What can you accomplish between now and the end of the year?  What’s at your fingertips?  What’s in your way?
• Are you the one to see your dream through?  Alone?  With a team?  There’s a difference between a great idea and a great idea with someone behind it that can see it through.

TAKE A RISK:

• POST your latest project in 6 words or less.  Let us see your passion and commitment.

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