Becoming A Creative Genius At Work: Wow Your Boss And Friends

I'm here to talk to you about innovation. I'm the head of innovation for IBM in Norway and I travel the world meeting with leaders and talking, not just talking about innovation, but they're saying, "We're really just being disrupted. Our margins were here and they're being smaller and smaller and smaller. What's happening? What's changing?" Innovation is one of these buzzwords that is just really hard to put your finger on. But let me play with you guys some more. You guys like playing? Or do you want to sit there and be bored? What do you want? Play? Play? Wanna play? Yeah! Yeah! How much coffee do you need? How many of you out here say you think you're innovative? Raise your hand high and proud. Who's innovative? Raise your hand. 3 people. Seriously? He's still got his hand up. Come up here. Do you understand? Now sit down, sit down. I'll call you up later. You really want to come up here? You want to do this presentation with me? Should we let him come up and give him his moment? Come on up, come on up. This is your moment. How you doing? What's your name? David Praise. David Praise. Ladies and gentlemen, David Praise. David, I don't know, we're just going to go with it. Is that good? Yeah. Okay, here we go. Innovation. Innovation cost. You raised your hand high and proud. You said, "I want to be innovative so much," you didn't put your hand down. Yes? Yes. Do you understand the cost of innovation? I know that it takes a lot of time and— Let me ask you this. Close your eyes. Everybody else, pay attention, maybe close your eyes too. Don't touch anybody next to you. Let me ask you. Ready? Close your eyes. When you go to lunch, do you look for someone to go to lunch with? Are you so obsessed with an idea you have that has to be born that this idea you just, you can't stop thinking about it? Do you even think about going to lunch with people? Or do you go to the cafeteria and do you sit alone? Or do you, the worst thing you could possibly do is ever when you go to lunch you have to sit with people, or do you even see that you're sitting alone? How innovative have you been? Have you ever been that obsessed with an idea? Not a woman. An idea. Yes or no? Yes. I love you, man. This is great. What is your idea? Keep your eyes closed, tell the world. Go, this is your moment. My idea is like creative a better place for every single one, whereby, like, to create like a software that would actually help people mostly. And do you have a company that's doing this? Um, right now I don't have a company. I'm a student, third year, uh, on my bachelor's. And so you're graduating next year? Yes. And your name is? Say it loud and proud. David Praise Chukuma Kalu. Ladies and gentlemen, give this guy a shot. How many of you, how many of you ever woken up in the morning and nudged your partner and go, "I gotta quit my job." Why are you guys laughing? I've done it 3 times. I'm serious, I've done it 3 times. My wife, whenever I nudge her in the morning, she's not happy, you know what I mean? Because she knows the nudge doesn't mean what you think it is, it actually means, you know, I can't do it anymore. Passion. Passion. Intensity of innovation. An idea. Innovation is that— do you understand what innovation is? Innovation is that when you have that epiphany that you connect all the dots, at that moment you have the first person in the history of mankind to have that thought. Does anybody else understand you at that moment? No. Do you know what I define innovation? Innovation means nobody likes you. I'm dead serious. That's what it means to be innovative. How many people here don't like to be liked? Raise your hand. We had zero. One? You don't like to be liked? Alright, nobody talk to you today. Do you understand? That's the cost of innovation. Innovation, where we are today, we have all these technologies. We have IBM, I'm IBM, we've acquired Red Hat, That's innovative and we'll go through all that today. But where you are in your company and where you are in your life, how do you take the next step? That's what my presentation is all about. Are you guys ready for this little storytelling? Yeah! David, give me a yeah. Yeah! Koffi! Here we go. Everybody know the Kodak story? Everybody heard the Kodak story? Yeah? You've never heard it this way. Are you ready? Anybody know who that is? Anybody? Steve Sasson. Thank you, Kareem. Whoo! This is an interesting group. Ladies and gentlemen, this handsome young man is the inventor of the world's first digital camera. And that's it right there. 12 kilos of— I don't know what you call that stuff. By the way, can anybody tell what that is right there? Anybody that old? Before you went on a date, what did you used to put in the— It's a cassette player. How many people have never seen a cassette? How young are some of you people? You guys don't want to raise hands anymore. That is the world's first digital camera. Alright? And this is the actual story of Kodak and what happened. Steve woke up one morning and he had an idea. And remember, in the 1970s, Kodak was worth how much? A couple of billion dollars. Is a couple of billion dollars a lot of money in the 1970s? Yes or no? Yes. Steve's working for Kodak, he woke up in the morning and he says, "We're doing something wrong." So he worked on his free time and he created that thing there. The world's first digital camera. And he says, "We have to change what we're doing." So he went to the top floor. You know, American company, at the top floor is where all the executives are. You know, the executives that are sitting here, all these guys are on the top floor. Right, gentlemen? Yeah! Hello! You go to the top floor, the elevator door opens up and the carpet's that thick and mahogany wood and all very expensive. So 1970s. Steve takes the elevator up to the top floor with his 12-kilo thing, his world's first digital camera, because he wants to show the executives the future. How many of you would do that? Maybe? Yeah? Some of you? Yah! He goes down the corridor, he knocks on the door of one vice president, he puts it down on their desk, and he goes, "We have to stop what we're doing. We have to stop making cameras, we have to stop making film, we have to stop making liquid." We're doing everything wrong. This is the future of our company. This is the world's first digital camera. 1970s, was the word digital even alive? No. If you were making billions of dollars and you were the CEO of Kodak, how much was your Christmas bonus? Too much. Too much. And Steve comes into your office and puts down this 12-kilo monstrosity and says, Stop what you're doing. You shouldn't get a Christmas bonus. The company should go 180 degrees that way. If you were the CEO or the vice president of Kodak, what would you tell Steve? You're fired. Anybody else? You're outta here. Somebody plays baseball. That vice president said, "Get out of my office." Steve then went down to every single store, every single door, went to every vice president and told them, and every one of them threw him out of their office. Let me ask you a question. Would have any of you ever taken the elevator up to that office to do that? Yes. Got one yes. That's interesting. Do any of you have digital cameras? Yes. You have mobile phones to take pictures? Okay. The pictures on your mobile phones, are there pictures of people that you love? Of special moments in your life? Yes or no? Yes. When you take those pictures, do you ever think of Steve? Yeah. Yes! You're up to date on this. You're up to date on this, good. Because of Steve, because Steve woke up one morning and gave birth to an idea, the idea that the world needs a digital camera, because of him, he's the reason why— don't look at me, look at him— he's the reason why that every single moment that you captured —of your beautiful daughter or your grandchild taking their first step, of your girlfriend or of your boyfriend, you on vacation, selfies, the whole world of Instagram, everything that we've seen that has digital life. This screen here would not be here if it wasn't for him. Every single moment that you've captured on your mobile phone, your entire life, when you take a picture, they say, "Yes, I captured that moment. Yes, that makes me feel good." Your wedding, you look at yourself saying, "That's what I used to look like 20 years ago. Yes!" It's because of him. Steve is not famous. Not one of you— there was one guy who said he knew him, I believe. He never made any money. He never made a penny, a dime, a whatever, shekel, kroner. Nothing. But because of him, all the special moments in your life, are captured because of him. Do you know what the cost of innovation is? He's changed the world. Every single person on this planet, all 7 billion people, have to thank him for capturing all the moments in their lives because of him, but he'll never be known. Are you willing to pay that price? Are you willing to be never known in your entire life, but you know when you die that you changed and touched every single person in the world? That the world has changed because of you. That's the cost of innovation. Do you understand? Innovation means you have to do something that nobody understands, nobody believes, nobody can see it. This was 1970s, and all of you now have this thing in your hand, your mobile phones, and you're taking pictures like it's easy. Do any of you know him? That's innovation. Innovation costs, but it's worth everything. Do you get it? Yeah! Better! Anybody know what that is? Anybody seen that? Grandma's house? Great-grandma's house maybe for some of you? Those are pots and pans made by Corning. That's— they're called Pyrex. Anybody know what's special about these pots and pans? You guys have a lot of money, right? Let's pick— should we pick on the CEOs and executives over here? How many exec— we got a lot of execs. All you execs would make too So much money here, just for you. When you guys cook your ribeye steak this weekend, right, you cook it here, but when you hold the handle, it's nice and cold. They have a patent that this can get hot, but this stays cold. Corning makes pots and pans. Again, we're in the 1970s. This is a very powerful story. Corning was the number one pots and pan company, not just in the United States, but in the whole world. Every single city, every kitchen had a Corning pot and pan. Corning's been around for 160 years. The CEO of Corning came to work one day and he said, "This is not good. We're number one in every market, we're number one in every kitchen. This is horrible." How much was his Christmas bonus? Would you, if you're the CEO of the number one company in every kitchen in the world, would you want to disrupt yourself? Anybody? No, it doesn't make any sense. But he did. So what he did was the very next day he called in 3 people into his office, 3 engineers, and he told them, "Gentlemen, you have 1 year. You're going to go offsite, unlimited budget, spend whatever you want, but in 1 year you're going to come back to me and you're going to present to me the future of our company." Would anybody want to be one of those 3 engineers? I would. You would? Yeah. Yeah? Well, you'd probably go to Hawaii and start drinking for a while. No, no, of course not. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Those 3 engineers, they came back 1 year later. Anybody know what they presented? So, the 3 engineers come in, the CEO sitting at the table, folded arms, And they go, "S-s-s-sir?" How nervous would you be? Heavy at the beat. I like the Italian accent. So they go, "Sir, we're not a pots and pans company, sir. We're a glass company. We know everything to know about glass." And sir, this is the 1970s, sir, but there's something coming in the future, sir, that's called the internet. And in the internet, all information, all communication, everything will run through the internet, but the internet is going to be made up of networks. Sir, and he took out the world's first 10-centimeter piece of— fiber optic cable. They came back after 3 years and they had made a 10-centimeter piece of fiber optic cable. They said, "Sir, this is the future of our company. Everything, the entire world will run through our glass. Will run through our glass." The CEO said, "Gentlemen, thank you very much." If you were the CEO, what would you be thinking? Are you happy or sad? Super happy. Super happy. Super happy. The strangest audience in the history of audiences. So the CEO said, "Thank you very much, gentlemen." The very next day, the CEO had a presentation to his board of directors. Now, what is the board of directors of a company like Corning? A pot and pan company. What is the board of directors made of? Older than Grandma and Grandpa, right? So these old people are sitting there and the CEO presents to them and he goes, "Gentlemen!" 'Cause they were all men, right? That's the way things were back then. They go, "We're no longer gonna make pots and pans. We're making this cable. This is the future of Corning. For 160 years we made pots and pans." We're now in two. What do you think happened? The chairman of the board stood up and said, two things are about to happen. What's the first thing that happened? Say it louder. Fire. Is that how you fire somebody? Fire me. Fire me. Stand up and fire me. Be a man. Fire. That's it? I want you to fire me. Can I get a hug? So, first thing the chairman of the board said was, "You're fired!" The second thing the chairman of the board said was, "We have already called the local mental hospital and they're coming to get you." I swear to you, that's the truth. They actually called the mental hospital to put the guy in one of those straitjackets. Alright? The CEO went to court and Fortunately, he won. When I showed you this picture, when you saw that picture, did any of you see the birth of the internet? No. Why not? I'm serious. We're talking about innovation. We're talking about how to be innovative. Innovation is just changing your perspective. The internet is in there. That's the internet. The birth of the internet came from there. Let me show you something else. Here are the 3 guys that he sent, he chose. I like looking at this black and white picture here. This is what they looked like when he chose them. Don't they look like the people you work with or your neighbor down the block? They're nothing special. They don't look like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk. These are the 3 guys who created the physical internet. These are the 3 guys who looked at this for a year and created the internet. These 3 guys. Do you understand? That's innovation. Your innovation. You don't look at yourself and give yourself enough credit. You think you see these guys on TV and on YouTube and everything, oh, look at them, look at them, nice. Look at them. That's you. You have it within you, you just gotta change your perspective. Look at something and look at it a little bit different and you'll see that there's innovation in there. The CEO wasn't done. Like, know any CEO, right? They want more, more, more. Give them, I love you, just give me some more, more, more. No, no more, no more, no more, I'm Italian, that's enough, that's enough. Here we go, the CEO wanted more. Everybody has a mobile phone? Yeah? What's the glass of your mobile phone called? Gorilla Glass, made by Corning. Corning Gorilla Glass is in every mobile phone manufacturer. Apple, Huawei, Siemens, blah blah blah. Everybody uses Corning Gorilla Glass. Let me ask you the question again. Did you see the world's largest telecom company in that picture? Do you understand where I'm going? What is it? What is it that you're looking at today? What is it that you're doing today that could give birth to the internet, that could give birth to telecom? Innovation is seeing something from a different perspective. And when it comes to your personal life, if I could just touch on that, it's the same thing. You see someone, look at them from a different perspective. Everybody okay? Everybody's never going to look at the kitchen the same way again, huh? Let's keep on going. This is a slide for any of you guys working with some of the old people who are like, Nothing ever changes, everything's the same, blah blah blah. Anybody work with people like that? 3 people again, this is, you know, you guys work! Okay, got jobs, good. This is the top 5 publicly traded companies in the world. Back in 2001, sorry, there was only one IT company, the rest were big banks, and oil companies, traditional, right? 2006, the same thing. Nothing changed. One IT company, big established companies. Everything is the same. 5 years later, 2011, one IT company, everything is the same. 2016, all IT companies. And none of these other oil companies and banks will ever come back. The fact is this: A lot of you, you or maybe your bosses think everything's fine, nothing changes, it's all just marketing hype, everything's going to be the same, everything is fine, years have gone by, oh I got 10 years of experience, I got 15 years of experience, I know what's coming, I can predict the future, what the hell just happened? Did I pay you for that? I'm like, "Perfect." Boom! Okay. Just because everything seems fine, things are changing slowly. Things are changing all over the place. Do not wait for them just to change and you go, "What happened?" Be a part of that change. And this is how you be a part of that change. Have any of you ever been to a meeting, and this is, I'm picking on guys, I'll leave women alone, I know nothing about women. Truly, I know nothing about women. Have you ever been to a meeting where a guy walks into the room 5 or 10 minutes late, and he walks into the room to the meeting and goes, "You know what? We gotta do this, we gotta do that, we gotta do this." And I would do that, and then the guy sits down and for the next 2-hour meeting he doesn't say a damn thing. Has anybody been to a meeting with that idiot? 3 people again. Okay, interesting country. What that gentleman did by throwing out ideas like that, he's being creative. Creative is just a person just thinking up new ideas. If you just come up with an idea and you just throw it out, that's just being creative. And being innovative is actually doing it. Big difference. Just because you have an idea doesn't make you innovative. Doing it makes you innovative. He had an idea, but he did it. Everybody get that? Who wants to be innovative now? Who's going to be committed to— I'm looking at you, yeah. She's scared as hell of it. Okay. I love this slide. This slide explains everything. Here we go. In your office right now, probably within your mind right now, you're going, "There's a friction that's happening inside me. I get what Thomas is talking about. I want to be innovative. I want to be cool. But I'm part of this old-school mentality. I do things this way." Anybody feel that? Anybody want to jump on stage other than Dave? Anybody feel that now? Or you guys are just— 3 people. Here we go! Today, the world— we're all from this side of this picture here. This is the world that exists today. This side of the picture is the world that is coming and is replacing us. All of us, we've been through business. When you come to your first job, your second job, it was all about making money. Does anybody have phone calls on Friday where your boss tears you apart and says, "How much money did you make me this week?" Yes. Oh, I get it, people are alive now, okay. You come from a world that we've been trained for the last 40, 50 years, it's all about profit, make money, make money. Hierarchies, every organization, how many bosses that say, "I'm the boss, I'm keeping my information." They got silos here, say don't share the information with this silo or this guy, or don't share the information with this woman. Anybody in a company with silos, raise your hand. Oh, that's a lot more, that's a lot more than 3, good! Control. Mm-hmm. Every boss wants to control, every boss wants to make decisions. You work for 5, 10 years, someday you're gonna be like me, I'm the boss. You want to make all decisions. This is the world we came from. It's not your fault. This is what we were told that we're supposed to work towards. This is what we were told is the model that we're supposed to live with. This is the world that's replacing us. This is the world of Airbnb, Uber. This is the world of the millennials. Anybody have any millennials? I have 3 millennials at home and I am in hell. How many parents have 3 teenagers at home? Come on. Am I the only one who gave birth to 3 kids? One guy. Two? Jeez. Alright, a couple there. Thank you. So when you guys give birth to kids, 'cause some of you guys don't— you guys have jobs at least in this group. The millennial world here is all about purpose. You guys know the story of Airbnb? How Airbnb was founded? No? Here we go. How many of you got drunk in college? Say yeah! Yeah! You're alive! It's all about the alcohol. You guys got drunk in college, great. How many of you spent the night, got so drunk you had to spend the night at somebody's house? Say yeah! Yeah! That was the most embarrassing year in history. How many of you, when you woke up the next morning, when you woke up the next morning from your friend's house, you know, you spent the night on the sofa or you spent the night on the couch, you got up and you're like, "Oh, what a great party last night." Yes? Do you remember that moment? Yes. Everybody smiling? Yeah. Right? Everybody feel good now, feel younger, don't you? 7 years ago, a kid got up. He spent the night at a friend's house. He got up off a sofa, but instead of him being like us, he turned around and looked at the sofa and he said, "Everyone should have a place to sleep. There's sofas in every apartment and every house in the world. Everyone should have a place to sleep." And that was the birth of Airbnb. So let me ask you this. How many years, or maybe for some of you decades ago, was it when you got drunk in college and you fell asleep in your friend's house? How come you didn't invent Airbnb? There was no internet then. There was no internet then. How old are you? I'm joking. You can beat me up later. This is the world of Airbnb, Uber. The millennials are here. They create a world. When he woke up, he could have said, "I can make a fortune." Instead, he says, "I can change the world." Instead of him building— these millennials don't believe in hierarchies, they believe in networks. My son, one day he came to me. I'm in the kitchen, I'm trying to cook food. He comes to me with an iPad and he goes, "Papa, papa, watch this video." And I'm like, okay. I said, wow, this guy's got 20 million subscribers. Cool video. I said, Marcus, that was pretty good. He goes, Papa, I'm chatting with him. I'm like, Papa? I said, Marcus, he's got 20 million subscribers. Why the hell is he chatting with you? Marcus takes out his mobile phone and says, look, Papa, he's chatting with the guy. And in my world, it's like me calling Elon Musk. Any of you want to call Elon Musk right now and get him on the phone? Right? It's kind of ridiculous in our world. In the millennial world, they're completely different. They work different. If you're into what I'm into, they share information. My son was into what this guy was into, so my son sent him a message and the guy responded. They share information. Silos. Share. This world is blowing up. The friction you see, the friction like, why are things not working? Remember when I started my presentation and I said that profit margin is shrinking, the world is changing. The world is changing because This part of the world is replacing this part of the world, and the friction is what you feel. What's not working, what has happened, is this is replacing that. This is the most powerful slide that there is. This explains everything. And when you guys have kids, you'll understand why you're going through hell. Are you ready for one more slide? Yeah? Here we go. It's an IBM slide, aren't we happy? This is the history of IBM. IBM's over 100 years old. And IBM has been innovating for 100 years old. When we first started out, we came, we created mechanical machines, and if you have a patent on the world's first mechanical machine, we made a lot of money. Years went by, our margins got smaller, smaller, smaller. We had to innovate, we made the new electromechanical machine, and we jumped over to a new paradigm. We rode that wave and then we created the transistor tube that disrupted this one, that disrupted this one. And we rode that wave and we jumped again and created something that disrupts this one. And we keep on going all the way to where we are here. This is the world of cognitive and this is the world of Red Hat. This is where we are. All of you, as you move forward, where you are today, you say, "We want to be disruptive. Things are changing," right? We looked at the last slide. Things are changing. Things aren't the same like they used to work. Why are things not working? What you have to do And what we've been doing for 114 years, and what these executives have been saying, and what they're trying to tell you is for 114 years IBM, we get to a point like we are today, we're right here at that point. AI, cognitive, Red Hat. And what we do is we jump. What you're seeing right now is IBM jump. How many of you have ever seen an IBM presentation like you're seeing right now with me on stage? Have you ever seen this before? This is the jump. Do you understand? For 114 years, we have been jumping and innovating, and we're innovating again. You got it? So my last message to all of you: good luck. You gonna beat me up after I finish on stage, or what? Yeah!