Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
from the Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Seth Godin talks in his new book, Poke the Box, about how some people deal with their fear of failure by spending their time dreaming big. And he’s right—it is a lot easier to come up with 50 great ideas than it is to implement one. You can read an excerpt from the book over at Fast Company’s expert blog.

I have this problem myself—the allure of being an Idea Person is a lot sexier than the reality of being the Grunt Work Person. I can spend hours/weeks/months brainstorming, researching and putting notes on paper before I ever really get started. But turning ideas into reality is what makes the big bucks, and it doesn’t come easily.

Iterative Development

The solution? There’s a concept in software development called iterative development. You’re probably familiar with the traditional “waterfall” method of completing projects: you make a detailed plan and then complete the plan in phases, finishing one before starting the next. The down side to that method is that there’s no payoff until everything is completed and, consequently, a big risk. These days things change quickly and there’s no guarantee that your initial plans and assumptions will still be valid after months or years of implementation.

Iterative development, on the other hand, means getting a rough, bare-bones version of your software (or product, or service) out to the public as soon as possible. Then, you can use any feedback or lessons you learn from your initial offering to implement a round of changes. Once that version is released to the public, you start again ad infinitum. With iterative development you can learn and backtrack and adapt to changes in the market as you go along. You can measure the results of each round of development as you go, which provides ongoing motivation to keep enhancing your product or service.

The lesson for those of us who aren’t software developers is this: JUST GET SOMETHING OUT THERE. It doesn’t have to be great. Get over the hump of implementing your new idea now, and the motivation to refine and improve it will be there. Get a half-baked idea out into the world and invite your customers to tell you what they think. Customers can’t always articulate what it is that they need, but are great at telling you pros and cons of something concrete that they can see.

So if you want to add a new service but are stalling because you need a clever name and new brochure, don’t. Just start telling your customers, and let the rest come later. If you’ve been putting off getting an online presence, set up a Facebook page and ask your customers what they want to see on your upcoming website.

Have you implemented a half-baked idea that you later refined into gold? Tell us about it in the comments.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

Are you a big picture thinker like me? TED is a non-profit organization that sponsors conferences for people to share world-changing ideas. You may have heard of TEDTalks – 18 minute talks by minds like Bill Gates, Al Gore and Sir Richard Branson (you can find TEDTalks online). The goal is to amplify the impact of remarkable ideas and projects.

TEDx are independent, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. All TED events require you to apply and be invited to attend. The annual TED conferences are very exclusive, whereas TEDx events are easier for the rest of us thinkers and doers to get access to.

Learn more about TED and TEDx, and find an event near you. If you’re near Birmingham, Alabama, TEDxRedMountain is coming your way May 19th.

“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said ‘a faster horse.’” Henry Ford

Are you curious about how to make your customers more loyal? Or why they buy from your competitors? Or what could make them spend hard-earned money on your product or service?

One way to find out what your customers want is to ask them. There are market surveys, phone surveys, and focus groups. However, while conventional research methods may produce some quality information, they rarely produce remarkable breakthroughs.

So how can you find out what customers really want out of their relationship with you?

Start by putting yourself in their shoes. If you own an independent hardware store, you may not have the inclination to visit Lowe’s very often. But visiting your competitors can give you insight into how they get and keep customers; it may also tell you what you should not do in your store.

Visit your own website. Click every link and fill out every form. If you sell via your website, get out your credit card and buy something.

Tell me a story.

Rather than asking point blank questions to your customers, give them the opportunity to tell their stories. How do they use your product? How would a perfect interaction make them feel?

Facebook is a great forum for your customers to share stories in an informal manner. Have them photograph how they’re using your product and post it to your business’s Facebook page. Consider hosting a contest or giveaway to a customer who shares their story with you via Facebook.

By becoming a customer yourself and paying close attention to your customers’ stories, you can gain greater insight into their wants and needs—and eventually solve a problem they didn’t even realize they had.

How do you find out what customers want from your business? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s how to set up a Google Alert:

1. Log into your Google account. If you don’t have one, get it. There are tons of useful and free applications available to you.
2. Visit http://google.com/alerts
3. Enter your company name within quotation marks, like so: “Company Name”
4. Choose what type of content you’d like to be notified about: blogs, news articles, websites, videos, groups, or EVERYTHING. I usually go with everything.
5. Choose how often you’d like to receive alert emails.
6. Choose how many alerts each email will contain (20 or 50).
7. Choose to have it emailed, or if you’d rather they’ll collect the results in an RSS feed you can follow using your RSS reader.

And that’s it! Any time your business is mentioned on the web, you’ll get a notice telling you about it. This is great for proactive customer service because you can find out when people are blogging about problems with your product, and address them directly. You may not always know if your company is mentioned in a news article, but with Google Alerts you can be prepared if a story about you is published and be ready for an influx of customers.

Are you using Google Alerts? Let us know how they’re helping you in the comments.

“I learn things that make me better at what I do. When you step out you often learn stuff that is so common to someone else and yet never would have crossed your silly little mind.” Lisa Barone in Business Insider

Ran across this great article today over at Business Insider. Lisa Barone describes nine things she’s learned after a year as an entrepreneur. One stood out to me: Seek out other opinions.

This does NOT come naturally to me as a business owner. I, like Lisa, know why I do things and am confident that it’s the best way. But by it’s nature, my brain doesn’t see it’s shortcomings. I don’t know what I don’t know.

So ask around. Learn to be curious about other people’s opinions. They may not change your mind, or they just may. Either way you’ll feel more confident and be a better business person.

Who do you find makes a good sounding board? Let us know in the comments.

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice…” Lewis Carroll

So our theme for July is curiosity. As a business owner, it’s easy for me to get sucked into the necessary routines, like explaining how to reset your password for the thousandth time, and forget to wonder about the big things in life. Like why I can’t keep up with my keys or cell phone, but I’ve got a gas station receipt from 2003 in my car’s console.

But I digress. Curiosity in and of itself is a great quality—generally considered to be a key ingredient of genius. But for entrepreneurs, asking a lot of questions isn’t enough; you have to ask the right questions.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Keep an open mind. Don’t dismiss any idea out of hand.

2. Assume the opposite of your opinion. If you think Twitter requires too much energy for not enough return, pretend that the investment was guaranteed to be worth it. How would you work tweeting into your day? What sort of information would you share?

3. Ask irrelevant questions. Sometimes insight comes from unexpected places.

4. Remove labels. Words like trendy, boring and complicated carry assumptions that may or may not be true. Don’t let assumptions get in the way of knowledge.

Curious about Strong Elixir? Ask us anything you want over in the sidebar. Or tell us in the comments what you’re curious about these days.

“Most people, in business and elsewhere, have done very well on judgment thinking. Such people are rarely aware of the need for ‘design thinking’. They find it difficult to conceive that there is a whole other aspect of thinking that is different from judgment thinking. It is not that such people are complacent. It is simply that they do not know that there is another aspect to thinking.”

Edward de Bono

What is design thinking?

Design thinking (or divergent thinking) is a way of working through problems and finding solutions. It’s not a new concept, just a new name for an old process. (Think Leonardo Da Vinci.)

The way we traditionally solve problems in business is by looking around, finding every resource available to us, and then pounding away at the problem until THE solution presents itself. The assumption being that there is one right solution in the first place.

Design thinking involves parts of the brain that you may not be used to using. It’s about the aha moment; it’s about beauty and simplicity and flow. Those are some abstract concepts that aren’t always used in a business environment. Instead of bearing down on a problem, we view the problem as the center and work out toward a range of possible solutions. Instead of one right answer, we find a myriad of possibilities and choose the best one.

While critical thinking produces logical solutions, design thinking produces innovative solutions.

How can it help me?

Like anything else, design thinking is a tool. It fosters innovation and exploration.

Are you looking at your business from a design standpoint? Tell us how in the comments.