full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to ptvidurctioy, but it can be a virtue for creativity. What you see with a lot of great originals is that they are quick to strat but they're slow to finish. And this is what I missed with Warby Parker. When they were dragging their heels for six months, I looked at them and said, "You know, a lot of other companies are starting to sell gasesls online." They missed the first-mover advantage. But what I didn't realize was they were spending all that time trying to firgue out how to get people to be cmflraotboe ordering glasses onnlie. And it turns out the first-mover advantage is mostly a myth. Look at a classic study of over 50 product categories, cipmorang the first movers who created the mkeart with the improvers who introduced something different and better. What you see is that the first movers had a failure rate of 47 prnecet, compared with only 8 percent for the improvers. Look at Facebook, waiting to build a sioacl network until after Myspace and Friendster. Look at glooge, waiting for years after Altavista and Yahoo. It's much easier to improve on somebody else's idea than it is to create something new from scratch. So the lesson I learned is that to be original you don't have to be first. You just have to be different and better.
Open Cloze
Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to ____________, but it can be a virtue for creativity. What you see with a lot of great originals is that they are quick to _____ but they're slow to finish. And this is what I missed with Warby Parker. When they were dragging their heels for six months, I looked at them and said, "You know, a lot of other companies are starting to sell _______ online." They missed the first-mover advantage. But what I didn't realize was they were spending all that time trying to ______ out how to get people to be ___________ ordering glasses ______. And it turns out the first-mover advantage is mostly a myth. Look at a classic study of over 50 product categories, _________ the first movers who created the ______ with the improvers who introduced something different and better. What you see is that the first movers had a failure rate of 47 _______, compared with only 8 percent for the improvers. Look at Facebook, waiting to build a ______ network until after Myspace and Friendster. Look at ______, waiting for years after Altavista and Yahoo. It's much easier to improve on somebody else's idea than it is to create something new from scratch. So the lesson I learned is that to be original you don't have to be first. You just have to be different and better.
Solution
- figure
- glasses
- start
- market
- comparing
- productivity
- social
- google
- online
- comfortable
- percent
Original Text
Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity. What you see with a lot of great originals is that they are quick to start but they're slow to finish. And this is what I missed with Warby Parker. When they were dragging their heels for six months, I looked at them and said, "You know, a lot of other companies are starting to sell glasses online." They missed the first-mover advantage. But what I didn't realize was they were spending all that time trying to figure out how to get people to be comfortable ordering glasses online. And it turns out the first-mover advantage is mostly a myth. Look at a classic study of over 50 product categories, comparing the first movers who created the market with the improvers who introduced something different and better. What you see is that the first movers had a failure rate of 47 percent, compared with only 8 percent for the improvers. Look at Facebook, waiting to build a social network until after Myspace and Friendster. Look at Google, waiting for years after Altavista and Yahoo. It's much easier to improve on somebody else's idea than it is to create something new from scratch. So the lesson I learned is that to be original you don't have to be first. You just have to be different and better.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
warby parker |
5 |
bad ideas |
3 |
sell glasses |
2 |
glasses online |
2 |
original people |
2 |
great originals |
2 |
idea doubt |
2 |
internet explorer |
2 |
vuja de |
2 |
Important Words
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- altavista
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- companies
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- original
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- parker
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- percent
- procrastinating
- product
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- realize
- scratch
- sell
- slow
- social
- spending
- start
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- time
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- waiting
- warby
- yahoo
- years