Check out the article here:

http://chronicle.com/article/For-Science-PhDs-There-Is/131307/

Come hear about the ins and outs of the transition from four young professionals in various industrial roles who have made the leap in the last few years. These panelists will share with you how to get prepared to practice engineering in a competitive industrial environment, offer insight into the sorts of projects that are available, and share the secrets that they wish they had known when starting out on the job. Don’t miss the chance to chat with these folks to learn about life on the job!

Please RSVP below so that we can be sure to have enough food for all attendees!

What: Young Engineers in Industry Panel
When: Thursday March 29th, 6:00pm.
Where: Mechanical Engineering Bldg Room 238

Click to RSVP

The event lived up its name, as it drew upon a wide variety of people from all kinds of backgrounds. It was definitely untraditional in that the stage was shared by tech CEO’s, authors, designers, Hollywood actors, filmmakers, a Guru with a guitar, Iraq war veterans, philanthropists, and a men’s acapella choir. The mission for the group was clear, as everyone’s focus drilled down into the new era of social innovation.

Driven by the diversity of the speakers and attendees, I got a chance to hear some interesting ideas and take notes. As a young and hopeful entrepreneur, a lot of what was said resonated with me, and I’d like to share some of the important highlights of what I learned.

1. The best things happen at intersections

Frans Johansson, the author of the book ‘The Medici Effect’, defined what an intersection is by telling us a story of how the CEO of Dice, who at that time was in charge of developing the game Battlefield 3, rearranged everyone’s chairs. Normally, all of the employees’ chairs would be segregated by team, where programmers sat separately from artists, designers, etc. This was pretty much the traditional strategy of game development. Then one day the chairs were rearranged so that each person was interchanged specifically so that each group would have one developer sitting next one artist.

At first, no one could figure out how to work together. Developers and designers would bicker endlessly with one another, where the typical conversation went, “Can you do this?”, followed by “No”. This continued for a whole week, and there was legitimate worry that the entire company would fall apart. But then, just as the CEO was about to give up, something clicked. And the talk between everyone changed to, “Can you do this?”, followed by “No, but I can do this…”. This then pushed everyone to tackle problems in ways no one had ever considered before, because each developer was suddenly aware of the abilities of the artist next to him. The result was some of the best design, artwork, and gameplay ever produced, in one of the most successful videogames.

2. Entrepreneurship is not a linear process

Imagine the curve of a linear function, going from zero and increasing to some finite point. Now imagine a curve that winds around in loops, shoots up and down, and even backtracks before finally reaching the goal. That’s what entrepreneurship looks like.

Most of us as entrepreneurs have no idea how we plan on reaching our goal, we just vaguely know our goal. The key then is to break this down into something simple and reasonable. Frans Johansson calls this the smallest executable step, where you identify the one single action that anyone can feasibly do right away. Once you’ve executed that, you learn from it. And then repeat it, times infinity.

For Yngve Bergqvist, the founder of the famous Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, his process was exactly that. Bergqvist knew early on that he wanted to sell the Swedish winter, a seemingly ambitious goal, and didn’t know how. But first, long before ice hotels became famous, he tried to build an art gallery in Japan made out of ice. Then, he launched a small ice bar in Canada. At each step, he was able to learn and experiment until finally he had worked out the right conditions for his success. Today, he successfully sells cold water to tourists in ice hotels on three continents.

3. Fail quickly, fail gracefully

The most repeated message from everyone was this: successful entrepreneurs aren’t particularly smart, they just have a lot of bruises. The key is to learn from your mistakes, and apply those lessons as quickly as possible.

Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar, stated that Pixar’s success comes from the fact that getting the process right is not the ultimate goal. Normally, their filmmaking process involves a detailed routine of storyboarding, wireframing, digital painting, production, and many more steps. But even if you follow the same recipe of steps that led to success in the last movie, you wouldn’t be doing anything unique and it wouldn’t be as successful.

In fact, in the first version of the plot for the movie ‘Up’, they originally had a floating castle that sat on clouds in the sky. The next version involved a house that floated up by balloons and landed on a lost Russian blimp. The version after that had a bird that laid eggs that conferred long life. Even for the movie Ratatouille, they kept only one line from the original script.

Despite all these changes and rewrites and the potential to anger some people by throwing away months of painstaking work, Pixar is never afraid scrap it all and start over. That is because people like Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull have instilled a strong culture of rapid iteration within the company that encourages people to make mistakes.

4. Risk homeostasis

In 1992, before there were iPad’s, a new market was forming around handheld personal digital assistants. Apple decided to enter with the Newton, and invested over $100 million into development. At the same time, a startup called Palm spent only $7 million. Both companies felt justified because they spent all the money they had. But Apple’s larger investment in developing a new device didn’t offset the risk of failure, because the risk of failure for both companies was the same.

Despite the Newton being a miserable failure, Apple still successfully launched the iPad almost twenty years later. But even then, the risk of failure wasn’t any better just because they had previously failed. This is because all of the conditions changed. Whatever caused the Newton to fail thankfully didn’t do the same to the iPad. Likewise, even if you’ve been successful with a startup or idea once before, there is no guarantee you will be again.

5. Ignore the rules, they’ve changed

The average lifespan for a company listed on the S&P has fallen from 25-35 years, to 15-20 years. For some reason, this single stat stuck out in my mind and still does. The archetypal company is no longer the same. This means while there are companies that are becoming vastly successful and rich, it also means there are even more companies today that launch and fail. Failure is now expected.

6. The role of the CEO

Tim Brown, the CEO of the design and technology company IDEO, said that his secret to success is that he doesn’t simply hire the best designers he can find. It’s finding people that fit his way of problem-solving. For him, this means someone who has been creative in the past, but also has first-hand experience with the business end. Likewise, Ed Catmull says it is important to be authentic. If you can’t be, then put someone in your team who can. Give your team the room to fail and the ability to express themselves.

7. The next era of innovation will be defined by social innovation.

The biggest challenges of the next century won’t be in technology, but in applying new technology towards solving problems in healthcare, education, and sustainability. In order to solve these longstanding problems, new innovators will have to draw on an interdisciplinary approach, which will inevitably require new business methods. Smart investors now are looking for smarter people to solve markets that don’t yet exist.

In summary, the Intersection was a great day and I learned just as much in networking and speaking to others as I did hearing from the main speakers. I would definitely recommend anyone who has a chance to attend next year make the trip down to the Bay Area, as it will be at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Thanks again to UW SEBA for making this opportunity happen.

Denny Luan and Cindy Wu are co-founders of Microryza, a crowdfunding platform for academic research. You can read the rest of Denny’s experiences at the Intersection Event and as a startup founder at his blog here at http://pressbuttongoboink.com   

We had a blast at the UW SEBA event. Got to put up our poster and pitch our idea to a lot of people. There was a lot of good feedback and we even found one person with similar idea started. There were a lot of good ideas from the engineering and science students @ UW and it was great to see the energy from the young kids. We did not make the top 3 prizes and it went to all teams with good ideas; wish them the very best in their ideas.

We got to talk with some of the experienced VC firms, met some young folks who were kicked with our mission @ Nudge. All in all, a great evening and we would do it again with more fervour.

Thanks all of your for your feedback  and keep it coming!!

Check out the post at:

http://projectnudge.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/seba-uw-was-a-great-event/

Our very own Dr. Bruce Avolio and Dr. Rick LaFaivre will be leading an interactive discussion on the topic of technical leadership. The focus of the seminar will be the best practices for going from the lab to the office environment. Drs. Avolio and LaFaivre will discuss the ways that one can learn to be a highly effective technical leader, recognizing that there are many unique aspects of leading in highly complex, technical environments.

You will walk away from this seminar equipped with specific ideas of what constitutes successful technical leadership and some strategies that can be used to start developing this skill set.

RSVP @ https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDhGU0tUaTNZZXZsZDRtWkhPazJJalE6MQ

Join us for an evening with the top women CEOs in the Seattle area to hear about their experiences on what it takes to be at the C-level, how they got there, and what it will take for more women to reach the top. Light refreshments will be provided.

The Washington Technology – Summer Celebration

We are proud to be a partner of WTIA’s annual Summer Celebration, geared to bring the entire technology community together. Hosted in Woodinville at Chateau Ste Michelle Winery guests will enjoy a summer kaleidoscope of business opportunities, enjoyment & education! Our members will receive a member rate of $25 (versus $40).

• CONNECT: With over 200 peers in the tech crowd.
• SIP: On complimentary wine all evening!
• ENHANCE: Your knowledge with gratis guided tours giving you a behind-the-scenes glimpse at winemaking.
• SUPPORT: Technology Access Foundation & win posh prizes in the raffle.

Please join us along with the WTIA and all of the other event partners to celebrate the must attend technology event of the summer season! For more information & to register please click here.

Are you a graduate student, post-doc, or beyond? Are you interested in learning about business, but don’t have the time for classes? Don’t miss this great opportunity!!

SEBA presents the fifth installment of Business Basics, Marketing 1. Learn about market segmentation, identifying consumers, and developing a marketing strategy from Deb Hagen, a guest lecturer at UW in Entrepreneurial Marketing and from Amber Ratcliffe, Co-founder and Director of Marketing at NanoString.

SEBA Presents: Business Basics – Marketing 1: Segmentation and Strategy

Who: Deb Hagen (Clarity Communications Consultant & UW Lecturer) & Amber Ratcliffe (Co-founder & Director of Marketing, NanoString)

RSVP: Seats are limited, so please RSVP to relations@uwseba.org