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

  1. figure
  2. glasses
  3. start
  4. market
  5. comparing
  6. productivity
  7. social
  8. google
  9. online
  10. comfortable
  11. 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

  1. advantage
  2. altavista
  3. build
  4. categories
  5. classic
  6. comfortable
  7. companies
  8. compared
  9. comparing
  10. create
  11. created
  12. creativity
  13. dragging
  14. easier
  15. facebook
  16. failure
  17. figure
  18. finish
  19. friendster
  20. glasses
  21. google
  22. great
  23. heels
  24. idea
  25. improve
  26. improvers
  27. introduced
  28. learned
  29. lesson
  30. looked
  31. lot
  32. market
  33. missed
  34. months
  35. movers
  36. myspace
  37. myth
  38. network
  39. online
  40. ordering
  41. original
  42. originals
  43. parker
  44. people
  45. percent
  46. procrastinating
  47. product
  48. productivity
  49. quick
  50. rate
  51. realize
  52. scratch
  53. sell
  54. slow
  55. social
  56. spending
  57. start
  58. starting
  59. study
  60. time
  61. turns
  62. vice
  63. virtue
  64. waiting
  65. warby
  66. yahoo
  67. years