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Set Innovation Goals, with Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO, XPRIZE
My passion and vision early on was wanting to open the space frontier. And so the question was, what was I going to do that would open that space frontier, make it accessible not only for myself, but for others? And what was the challenge we were really trying to solve?
When you’re looking to solve a challenge, it’s really critical that you define a very clear goal of what success is.
Define a clear and simple objective
How could I narrow the idea of a space flight prize to a simple concept? And I worked with a group of advisors and we really pitched it over and over again and got to the point where we defined it in a way that if I could tell it to somebody and they could tell it back to me, then I knew it was simple enough. So, build a three-person spaceship, fly to 100 Kilometers, and repeat it again within two weeks. And that was simple enough as a set of rules that I could tell it to somebody literally in the preverbal elevator statement.
Be open to all solutions
Don’t pre-guess who is going to win because if you can define a very clear objective goal, then you can be open to allowing lots of people to try to reach that goal from lots of different approaches. And that’s when you get a lot of innovation. So with the Ansari X Prize, we specified, fly three people to 100 kilometers twice in two weeks. We didn’t tell them where on the planet to do it, what kind of rocket engines to use, whether they should take off vertically or horizontally. We gave them a very clear goal, and if you give them a clear goal, people will compete on how to get there in the best way they think possible.
Enlist expert support
When you’re trying to do something difficult, something that people might consider way out there and crazy, being able to surround yourself with people who are well-credentialed makes all the difference in the world, especially if you, yourself, don’t have the credentials yet. Having those people around me, I had a chance to bounce the ideas off them, refine the ideas, and by asking them for their advice, they automatically became supporters.
So when people said, “Well is this a good idea.” I could then turn and say, well this and this and this and this person all are onboard and think it’s a great idea. Go and talk to them if you want. So that immediately credentials your ideas, especially if those other people are well-known.
Make it personal
There was another point that was equally important for me, which was to explain to people why that was important. Ultimately, there has to be an emotional connection. So in being able to connect to people where they realize that this prize was their ticket to space, it was something for them and for their children, they started to care about it. So that personal connection is a really critical part of trying to convince people to back your idea. Make sure they understand why it’s important to them and their children so they get an emotional connection in their heart and they care about it.