Why SXSW Is The Perfect Place To Give A Talk

I said yes to doing a featured talk at SXSW.

Then I started to question my own sanity. I was really struggling. As in, tax preparation paperwork suddenly seemed appealing. So did cleaning the toilet. Or, doing the kiddo's laundry.

Things that I normally work to avoid, I was doing to avoid the talk preparations.

You see, I decided to do the talk on a newish idea, not like my other work around Innovation and Reinvention, or Leading In the Social Era. This idea is about Onlyness: each of us is standing in a spot ONLY you're standing in, and it's from that distinct place that you create value with others. Because, who we are is what we make. Not the job title, not our rank, and certainly not because we conform to what others expect of us. No new idea comes because we live within the lines. It was an idea I initially itroduced in my Harvard-published second book, and am now developing thru real-life stories of people embodying it. Viking/Penguin publishes it (if all goes as planned) in 2016.

Doing a talk on a newish idea is useful. But it's also hard. If this were an app and we could watch the little "installation - in progress" status, it would show something like "25% done". But doing a talk while you're working on an idea is a chance to rise up from what I call "submarine depth" to periscope view, and see the horizon again. If you had asked me on the eve before the talk -- what I wanted -- I would have said: to have the idea 100% baked, with some crisp yet deep and profound insight. Oh, and I would have liked that deep and profound insight a few months ago, so that I could have polished and perfect the packaging of said idea with a dash of humor, and a smidge of wit. But that's actually not where the idea is right now. Instead it's still in formation. The rough sketch is clear but the stories themselves are letting me learn more about it, and to see exactly how do ideas become powerful enough to dent the world. And while I looked around to see if I could make the idea come faster, there was no button to push.

#isthereabuttonicanpushtomakeithappenfasterandclearer? Likely not.

I would never ask any of my other speaking gigs to let me beta-test an idea -- that would be like getting paid to rehearse. For them, I give them fully baked ideas delivered with polish, and tailored to their needs. But the SXSW invitation was a great venue to beta test the idea. (The alpha was at a TEDx event.)

Ideas get better when they are shared, because even in the sharing you learn more about your take on it. But, more importantly, your idea becomes an idea. If you hold an idea with an open hand, instead of a closed fist, others can pick it up, maybe add to it, and even make it their own.

When you let your idea become an idea, you serve the larger story.

To be fair, sharing something in progress is a vulnerable moment. Hence my wanting to clean the toilet rather than work on the talk. It's scary. Because people could judge you for not knowing your idea "well". They could walk out thinking you're wasting their time. But the trade-off to that risky vulnerable moment is how you undoubtedly get some co-conspirators who get excited by it, and give you feedback, or even people who hate it but are willing to tell you why, and all that. Ideas in isolation never become big. Ideas become bigger as they connect with other ideas, get tested, bond, and refined.

Instead of giving into the fear of judgement, it's important to serve the idea with love.

Then there's the real reason giving a beta talk matters. To hear a question is to hear a need. Which is why I spent 30 minutes of the time talking and sharing what I know thus far, and left 30 minutes for questions and discussion. The attendees for the session asked insightful things, and then also answered each others' questions (always a gift of community, and sxsw is especially that). And, I learned what I didn't know, what I hadn't thought of, or what I didn't know how to communicate (yet). Someone asked me a question I woke up thinking about today and I'm sure will fuel deeper work, maybe a richer idea, but certainly some new questions to chase down... and that's worth a lot.

So why is SXSW the perfect place to give a talk? Because you get to listen.