June 14, 2011

One of my most enduring memories from childhood is my slingshot. I still have it. I'll always have it. What makes it precious is the memory of making it with my father. He had a slingshot from his childhood, and I had always envied it, was infatuated with it, and wanted one of my own.

His slinghsot was nearly perfect, because he had carefully selected just the right sized and shaped maple branch (still on the tree, mind you), soaked it overnight to soften it in order to both more easily peel the bark and ply the shape to be more symmetrical, dried it for for days, painstakingly whittled notches for the rubberband, then sculpted, shaped, sanded, stained and varnished it to be nearly indestructible. He repeated the process with me, and I'll never forget the rather awesome and wondrous experience.

Recreating that childlike wonder and infatuation in business, work and life, is the subject of the new book, appropriately titled Slingshot: Re-Imagine Your Business, Re-Imagine Your Life, by Gabor George Burt.

Slingshot poses a deceptively difficult question in an imaginative way: Suppose a visitor from 200 years ago appears. The visitor is naturally quite curious about the world today and asks someone to tell him all about the most wonderful things that he could have never even imagined in his time. Would your company's offering be on that list?

If Gabor's intent was to put me in touch with the playful curiosity and imagination that define the worldview of young children, he accomplished his purpose. And, at least for me, he couldn't have conjured up a more appropriate metaphor than the slingshot.

Big Idea:

There is no such thing as a perfectly and continuously satisfied consumer. There is, however, such a thing as an infatuated consumer.

Key Takeaways:

The Slingshot framework is straightforward, and centers on the goal of creating childlike infatuation.

• Consumers by nature are insatiable. You need to keep them continuously or extendedly infatuated.

• In order to infatuate, your offering must reflect compelling lifestyle or workstyle enrichment, and stay relevant to consumers.

• Ongoing lifestyle enrichment is achieved by daring to be market driving and to defy conventional wisdom. Reconnecting with your childhood creativity and sense of limitless exploration is your personal reservoir for this thinking process.

• Tools such as Gabor's "Accordion Chart" and "Blue Ocean Strategy" can help to turn unconventional thinking into actionable and market-shaking strategies.

Liked Most:

While the ideas in Slingshot aren't new, and the territory is well-traveled in recent books like Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment and Sally Hogshead's Fascinate, the presentation (which, let's face it, is everything these days!) is original and theme-reinforcing: Slingshot is illustrated with original artwork created by elementary school children from St. Stephen School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Here's one of my favorites:

(source: Slingshot)

What People Are Saying:

"An uplifting and universal blueprint for inventive thinking."—Chip Conley, founder and executive chairman of Joie de Vivre, author of Peak

Related Topics

• Innovation

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Matthew E. May, Article, guru review, business books, customer satisfaction, Gabor George Burt