Hey there Igniters, finally the Jury and international Consultants, based on specific axes of interpretation, came with the final verdict:

Axes:

• Innovation Model
• Scalability in the international market
• Maturation of concept
• Achieved milestones, internally, concerning the development and/ or implementation of the concept
• Objectives aligned with market’s demands or niche of it
• Virality of the concept and impact on the market of reference

The top 5 in the list of Igniters who are accessing the next stage are:

1. Weendy

2. Suibee

3. Dealingers

4. Touring Machine

5. Fashinating

As focused mainly on Local Greek market, or because they haven’t developed a sustainable International Plan, a few concepts were not chosen for this round, but we would like to mention these two that impressed quite a lot:

• DoctorAnytime
• Linked open data (Publicspending – especially for their innovative approach in Data Management)

Well done to all of you Igniters and thank you for your patience and for your enthusiasm and interest in becoming an active milestone to this first edition of Ignite Athens.

Further information will be sent to you in the following days in order to touch base with Digiconsult and arrange the first workshop, in which we will be present as well, in order to explain the whole concept and what it will be done in details.

As we loved all the ideas presented at Ignite Athens, as well as all the submitted ones that haven’t been chosen to be presented, we would like to support as many of them as possible!

We decided to organize group workshops, like the last one we did at Coco Mat, or single meetings in order to be able to give you all the knowledge and experience we have at our disposal, but mainly in order to infuse, to share and confront ourselves!

Let’s Ignite and go forward in any possible ways we can! Let’s shake and move, let’s grow!

Enlighten us, but make it quick

PS if you need the responses on written by the jury members, please send us an email and we will send them to you. All material sent out will be accordingly to what Law 2472/1997 on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data allows us to send you.

Do not worry if you are not the slickest presenter (powerpoint is not the order of the day) – this isn’t a job interview, and everyone’s on your side!

We’d love pretty much every idea that gets pitched to us to happen if it is possible!

All you need is your passion, your idea and the willing to share it!

Talk to everybody, even if you do not walk away winner, there’s almost always someone who can help make your idea reality!

Ignite the spark in us!

Guys you are going to globally rock! Live streaming are being agreed in this very moment! And the world of Ignite is going to watch you…good luck!

Pitchers

25 Characteristics Of An Entrepreneur according to http://www.entrepreneur.com/

1. Do what you enjoy

What you get out of your business in the form of personal satisfaction, financial gain, stability and enjoyment will be the sum of what you put into your business. So if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, in all likelihood it’s safe to assume that will be reflected in the success of your business–or subsequent lack of success. In fact, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, chances are you won’t succeed.

2. Take what you do seriously

You cannot expect to be effective and successful in business unless you truly believe in your business and in the goods and services that you sell. Far too many home business owners fail to take their own businesses seriously enough, getting easily sidetracked and not staying motivated and keeping their noses to the grindstone. They also fall prey to naysayers who don’t take them seriously because they don’t work from an office building, office park, storefront, or factory. Little do these skeptics, who rain on the home business owner’s parade, know is that the number of people working from home, and making very good annual incomes, has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.

3. Plan everything

Planning every aspect of your home business is not only a must, but also builds habits that every home business owner should develop, implement, and maintain. The act of business planning is so important because it requires you to analyze each business situation, research and compile data, and make conclusions based mainly on the facts as revealed through the research. Business planning also serves a second function, which is having your goals and how you will achieve them, on paper. You can use the plan that you create both as map to take you from point A to Z and as a yardstick to measure the success of each individual plan or segment within the plan.

4. Manage money wisely

The lifeblood of any business enterprise is cash flow. You need it to buy inventory, pay for services, promote and market your business, repair and replace tools and equipment, and pay yourself so that you can continue to work. Therefore, all home business owners must become wise money managers to ensure that the cash keeps flowing and the bills get paid. There are two aspects to wise money management.

1. The money you receive from clients in exchange for your goods and services you provide (income)
2. The money you spend on inventory, supplies, wages and other items required to keep your business operating. (expenses)

5. Ask for the sale

A home business entrepreneur must always remember that marketing, advertising, or promotional activities are completely worthless, regardless of how clever, expensive, or perfectly targeted they are, unless one simple thing is accomplished–ask for the sale. This is not to say that being a great salesperson, advertising copywriting whiz or a public relations specialist isn’t a tremendous asset to your business. However, all of these skills will be for naught if you do not actively ask people to buy what you are selling.

6. Remember it’s all about the customers

Your home business is not about the products or services that you sell. Your home business is not about the prices that you charge for your goods and services. Your home business is not about your competition and how to beat them. Your business is all about your customers, or clients, period. After all, your customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust. Everything you do in business must be customer focused, including your policies, warranties, payment options, operating hours, presentations, advertising and promotional campaigns and website. In addition, you must know who your customers are inside out and upside down.

7. Become a shameless self-promoter (without becoming obnoxious)

One of the greatest myths about personal or business success is that eventually your business, personal abilities, products or services will get discovered and be embraced by the masses that will beat a path to your door to buy what you are selling. But how can this happen if no one knows who you are, what you sell and why they should be buying?

Self-promotion is one of the most beneficial, yet most underutilized, marketing tools that the majority of home business owners have at their immediate disposal.

8. Project a positive business image

You have but a passing moment to make a positive and memorable impression on people with whom you intend to do business. Home business owners must go out of their way and make a conscious effort to always project the most professional business image possible. The majority of home business owners do not have the advantage of elaborate offices or elegant storefronts and showrooms to wow prospects and impress customers. Instead, they must rely on imagination, creativity and attention to the smallest detail when creating and maintaining a professional image for their home business.

9. Get to know your customers

One of the biggest features and often the most significant competitive edge the home based entrepreneur has over the larger competitors is the he can offer personalized attention. Call it high-tech backlash if you will, but customers are sick and tired of hearing that their information is somewhere in the computer and must be retrieved, or told to push a dozen digits to finally get to the right department only to end up with voice mail–from which they never receive a return phone call.

The home business owner can actually answer phone calls, get to know customers, provide personal attention and win over repeat business by doing so. It’s a researched fact that most business (80 percent) will come from repeat customers rather than new customers. Therefore, along with trying to draw newcomers, the more you can do to woo your regular customers, the better off you will be in the long run and personalized attention is very much appreciated and remembered in the modern high tech world.

10. Level the playing field with technology

You should avoid getting overly caught up in the high-tech world, but you should also know how to take advantage of using it. One of the most amazing aspects of the internet is that a one or two person business operating from a basement can have a superior website to a $50 million company, and nobody knows the difference. Make sure you’re keeping up with the high-tech world as it suits your needs.. The best technology is that which helps you, not that which impresses your neighbors.

11. Build a top-notch business team

No one person can build a successful business alone. It’s a task that requires a team that is as committed as you to the business and its success. Your business team may include family members, friends, suppliers, business alliances, employees, sub-contractors, industry and business associations, local government and the community. Of course the most important team members will be your customers or clients. Any or all may have a say in how your business will function and a stake in your business future.

12. Become known as an expert

When you have a problem that needs to be solved, do you seek just anyone’s advice or do you seek an expert in the field to help solve your particular problem? Obviously, you want the most accurate information and assistance that you can get. You naturally seek an expert to help solve your problem. You call a plumber when the hot water tank leaks, a real estate agent when it’s time to sell your home or a dentist when you have a toothache. Therefore, it only stands to reason that the more you become known for your expertise in your business, the more people will seek you out to tap into your expertise, creating more selling and referral opportunities. In effect, becoming known as an expert is another style of prospecting for new business, just in reverse. Instead of finding new and qualified people to sell to, these people seek you out for your expertise.

13. Create a competitive advantage

A home business must have a clearly defined unique selling proposition. This is nothing more than a fancy way of asking the vital question, “Why will people choose to do business with you or purchase your product or service instead of doing business with a competitor and buying his product or service?” In other words, what one aspect or combination of aspects is going to separate your business from your competition? Will it be better service, a longer warranty, better selection, longer business hours, more flexible payment options, lowest price, personalized service, better customer service, better return and exchange policies or a combination of several of these?

14. Invest in yourself

Top entrepreneurs buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications, knowing that these resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills. They join business associations and clubs, and they network with other skilled business people to learn their secrets of success and help define their own goals and objectives. Top entrepreneurs attend business and marketing seminars, workshops and training courses, even if they have already mastered the subject matter of the event. They do this because they know that education is an ongoing process. There are usually ways to do things better, in less time, with less effort. In short, top entrepreneurs never stop investing in the most powerful, effective and best business and marketing tool at their immediate disposal–themselves.

15. Be accessible

We’re living in a time when we all expect our fast food lunch at the drive-thru window to be ready in mere minutes, our dry cleaning to be ready for pick-up on the same day, our money to be available at the cash machine and our pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free. You see the pattern developing–you must make it as easy as you can for people to do business with you, regardless of the home business you operate.

You must remain cognizant of the fact that few people will work hard, go out of their way, or be inconvenienced just for the privilege of giving you their hard-earned money. The shoe is always on the other foot. Making it easy for people to do business with you means that you must be accessible and knowledgeable about your products and services. You must be able to provide customers with what they want, when they want it.

16. Build a rock-solid reputation

A good reputation is unquestionably one of the home business owner’s most tangible and marketable assets. You can’t simply buy a good reputation; it’s something that you earn by honoring your promises. If you promise to have the merchandise in the customer’s hands by Wednesday, you have no excuse not to have it there. If you offer to repair something, you need to make good on your offer. Consistency in what you offer is the other key factor. If you cannot come through with the same level of service (and products) for clients on a regular basis, they have no reason to trust you . . . and without trust, you won’t have a good reputation.

17. Sell benefits

Pushing product features is for inexperienced or wannabe entrepreneurs. Selling the benefits associated with owning and using the products and services you carry is what sales professionals worldwide focus on to create buying excitement and to sell, sell more, and sell more frequently to their customers. Your advertising, sales presentations, printed marketing materials, product packaging, website, newsletters, trade show exhibit and signage are vital. Every time and every medium used to communicate with your target audience must always be selling the benefits associated with owning your product or using your service.

18. Get involved

Always go out of your way to get involved in the community that supports your business. You can do this in many ways, such as pitching in to help local charities or the food bank, becoming involved in organizing community events, and getting involved in local politics. You can join associations and clubs that concentrate on programs and policies designed to improve the local community. It’s a fact that people like to do business with people they know, like and respect, and with people who do things to help them as members of the community.

19. Grab attention

Small-business owners cannot waste time, money and energy on promotional activities aimed at building awareness solely through long-term, repeated exposure. If you do, chances are you will go broke long before this goal is accomplished. Instead, every promotional activity you engage in, must put money back in your pocket so that you can continue to grab more attention and grow your business.

20. Master the art of negotiations

The ability to negotiate effectively is unquestionably a skill that every home business owner must make every effort to master. It’s perhaps second in importance only to asking for the sale in terms of home business musts. In business, negotiation skills are used daily. Always remember that mastering the art of negotiation means that your skills are so finely tuned that you can always orchestrate a win-win situation. These win-win arrangements mean that everyone involved feels they have won, which is really the basis for building long-term and profitable business relationships.

 21. Design Your workspace for success

Carefully plan and design your home office workspace to ensure maximum personal performance and productivity and, if necessary, to project professionalism for visiting clients. If at all possible, resist the temptation to turn a corner of the living room or your bedroom into your office. Ideally, you’ll want a separate room with a door that closes to keep business activities in and family members out, at least during prime business and revenue generating hours of the day. A den, spare bedroom, basement or converted garage are all ideal candidates for your new home office. If this is not possible, you’ll have to find a means of converting a room with a partition or simply find hours to do the bulk of your work when nobody else is home.

22. Get and stay organized

The key to staying organized is not about which type of file you have or whether you keep a stack or two of papers on your desk, but it’s about managing your business. It’s about having systems in place to do things. Therefore, you wan to establish a routine by which you can accomplish as much as possible in a given workday, whether that’s three hours for a part-time business or seven or nine hours as a full-timer. In fact, you should develop systems and routines for just about every single business activity. Small things such as creating a to-do list at the end of each business day, or for the week, will help keep you on top of important tasks to tackle. Creating a single calendar to work from, not multiple sets for individual tasks or jobs, will also ensure that jobs are completed on schedule and appointments kept. Incorporating family and personal activities into your work calendar is also critical so that you work and plan from a single calendar.

23. Take time off

The temptation to work around the clock is very real for some home business owners. After all, you don’t have a manager telling you it’s time to go home because they can’t afford the overtime pay. Every person working from home must take time to establish a regular work schedule that includes time to stretch your legs and take lunch breaks, plus some days off and scheduled vacations. Create the schedule as soon as you have made the commitment to start a home business. Of course, your schedule will have to be flexible. You should, therefore, not fill every possible hour in the day. Give yourself a backup hour or two. All work and no play makes you burn out very fast and grumpy customer service is not what people want.

24. Limit the number of hats you wear

It’s difficult for most business owners not to take a hands-on approach. They try to do as much as possible and tackle as many tasks as possible in their business. The ability to multitask, in fact, is a common trait shared by successful entrepreneurs. However, once in a while you have to stand back and look beyond today to determine what’s in the best interest of your business and yourself over the long run. Most highly successful entrepreneurs will tell you that from the time they started out, they knew what they were good at and what tasks to delegate to others.

25. Follow-up constantly

Constant contact, follow-up, and follow-through with customers, prospects, and business alliances should be the mantra of every home business owner, new or established. Constant and consistent follow-up enables you to turn prospects into customers, increase the value of each sale and buying frequency from existing customers, and build stronger business relationships with suppliers and your core business team. Follow-up is especially important with your existing customer base, as the real work begins after the sale. It’s easy to sell one product or service, but it takes work to retain customers and keep them coming back.

James Stephenson is an experienced home based consultant with more than 15 years of business and marketing experience. He is the author of several popular books, including Entrepreneur magazine’s Ultimate Startup Directory and Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide, both available from Entrepreneur Press.

Reserve the seat to the first ever happened Ignite Show in Greece! Ignite Athens opens its doors at the Onassis Cultural Center on September the 20!

Tickets are free, but seats are limited, so hurry up and join the greatest show ever happened in Greece! Register your seat by pressing the button

What we ask only from you is that you:

1. are willing to break old rules and dream of new possibilities.
2. will open doors to new people and listen.
3. will give trust in order to receive trust.
4. are willing to experiment and iterate with others.
5. shall seek fairness, not advantage. are willing to err, fail, and persist.
6. will pay it forward, so that good deeds may circulate

If you are a startup or an entrepreneur, we give you the opportunity to install your demo-case in one of the two floors dedicated to the sandbox!

Send us an email at sandbox@igniteathens.gr or visit the Sandbox Page to give the look & feel of what we are talking about!

Do not miss this unique opportunity to network with tech communities gathering at the Onassis Cultural Center on September the 20, for the Ignite Athens Show!

Innovation is a key component of that virtuous process that we call “economic growth”. Very often, however we talk without knowing the meaning. What is innovation? How do you get? And again, because there are some areas with a high innovative while others show performance much more disappointing? Is a regulatory issue, serve the institutions more efficient, clearer rules? Or the theoretical paradigm that we have adopted so far does not allow us to understand the dynamics of the phenomenon?

The theory of innovation currently is the dominant neoclassical, based on competitive model. The theory says that if certain assumptions are verified (the absence of informational asymmetries, price taking, absence of barriers to entry) the free market adjusts and allows the achievement of an “innovative output”. But if the story ends here, many questions remain unanswered. If the market, put in work, independently produces all the innovation that we need, because in reality things go differently? Why Silicon Valley is by decades the land of innovation, while Chicago struggled to build a reputation of this type? Yet the legislative framework is basically the same, the freedom of movement of persons and capital is ensured.What is it that makes the difference?

It is these questions that leave Greg Horowitt and Victor Hwang, venture capital veterans, authors of “Rainforest: the secret to building the next Silicon Valley”, an ambitious work that wants to succeed where the classical schema failed. The two, keep us immediately to clarify, not wanting to abandon the concept of “free market”: the aim is rather a new decline it, in the light of guidance provided by the experience.

The main failure of the classical approach, according to Horowitt and Hwang, is the mechanistic economic agents: the mistake is in treating men like automatons and institutionalized by the rational expectations hypothesis. This vision does not however consider all non-rational motives often drive human behavior. In these years we concentrated on ingredients needed to support the innovation process, but we have lost sight of what is most important: the way in which these ingredients are mixed.

The authors expose their argument in these terms: the model that we have always followed is that of agriculture, cultivated rationally with the goal of maximizing the final output. It’s a model that works for the mass production of plants we already know, but blatantly fails when it comes to creating new ones. In this case, the correct method is the Rainforest, the “Rainforest”, which despite its cluttered and confusing – indeed, thanks to it – is the optimal environment for the emergence and spread of new species.

The superiority of Rainforest than neoclassical framework lies in its tendency to lower transaction costs. The transaction costs are those costs that are not from the actual production of goods traded, but that we must support to complete the Exchange. The higher the transaction cost, less convenient is that same transaction.

The neoclassical model, although it is an absence of any barrier to entry and therefore costs, it can eliminate those “social barriers” which are obvious to the human being: language, culture, social groups , and lack of trust creates invisible boundaries that separate individuals from distant communities. Overcome these boundaries have a cost that is often so high as to prevent the construction of potentially fruitful relationships. The system needs a mediator, mediation of a subject capable of connecting individuals among them away and get them to think about the construction of a common project instead of the dramatization of interpersonal differences. In these figures are referred to as “keystone(Keystone) and constitute the fundamental social bearings of unified network of Rainforest.

A first phase of positive analysis, conducted through 14 axioms whose theoretical content I tried to introduce here, followed by a second phase, legal type, and Hwang-Horowitt rules provide some behavioral and some tool to translate the Rainforest actually.

But this will be discussed shortly… [courtesy of Lorenzo Tondi @LorenzoTondi]

We are so excited we have closed an important collaboration with DigiConsult, that we think can give you a lot of tips and hints about business management, from planning to operations!

DigiConsult,  Business and Technology Development Consulting, was established in July 2011 by experienced and qualified consultants with expertise in areas of Business Advisory (Business Consulting), Government Funding (State Funding) and in the field of Information Communications and Internet. The company provides services and information systems in four key areas:

• Services for Startup Business
• Business Services for established companies
• Digital Services
• Information Systems Business Planning

DigiConsult will organize an highlighted worjshop for the best 5 selected Ideas from the Ignite Athens Show, and will assist the first ranked best Idea, in a full immersion 3 days tutoring in Business Plan tactics and implementation.

For further information please visit the official page of DigiConsult Ignite Your Plan

Accurate and clear! So we would just like to add the following: the mixing of the three definitions, make each of them existing as singular and as com-participation  of the three.

Rock and credits to Paul Sloane, we are fun of you!

Discussions about innovation are often made difficult because people are unclear about the exact meanings of some key terms. In particular there is confusion about the difference between creativity, innovation and invention. Let us start with some definitions:

Creativity is the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual.

Innovation is the implementation of something new.

Invention is the creation of something that has never been made before and is recognized as the product of some unique insight.

If you have a brainstorm meeting and dream up dozens of new ideas then you have displayed creativity but there is no innovation until something gets implemented. Somebody has to take a risk and deliver something for a creative idea to be turned into an innovation. An invention might be a product or device or method that has never existed before. So every invention is an innovation. But every innovation is not an invention. When your company first published its website that was a major innovation for the company even though many other websites already existed.

We tend to think of an innovation as a new product but you can innovate with a new process, method, business model, partnership, route to market or marketing method. Indeed every aspect of your business operation is a candidate for innovation. Peter Drucker said, ‘Every organisation must prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.’ So do not restrict your vision of innovation to products. Some of the most powerful innovations you can make are in business methods and customer services. If we look at companies like Dell, eBay and Amazon we see that their great innovations were with their business models rather than in new products.

Innovations can be incremental or radical. Every improvement that you make in products or services can be seen as an incremental innovation. Most businesses and most managers are good at incremental innovation. They see problems in the current set-up and they fix them. Radical innovations involve finding an entirely new way to do things. As such they are often risky and difficult to implement. Most larger organisations and most managers are poor at radical innovation. If you had been making LP records then you could have introduced incremental innovations in your design and marketing. However if this was your strategy then a radical innovation, the CD, would eventually kill you. The CD manufacturer could similarly introduce various incremental improvements. Once again a radical innovation, music downloads over the internet, would make your offering obsolete. So we need to constantly look for incremental innovations and radical innovations. We need to develop creativity and turn it quickly into innovation.

For many entrepreneurs and innovators slogging away building real companies and inventions, an Innovation Ecosystem may seem abstract, remote.

We have been seeing, however, manifestations of the Big Missing Something. The financial crisis in 2008 was such a manifestation, and is keeping Greece in recession. The increasing inequality between the richest and poorest is another such manifestation. The protests of young people that started from Greece and circles the world said many different things on the surface, but they all seemed to point to some common, invisible thing underneath. There is deep discontent, and not only in Greece. Financial instability. Social inequality. Political disruption. We see footprints of this elusive, mischievous beast!

We will gather in Athens on September 20, kick starting a new conceptual approach, attempting to observe these untamed elements, to grapple with them, and to tame them. A lot must be done, deconstructed and re-constructed! Lost principles, values and interactivity should be our first priority—to scale up our growth! Culture matters. Community matters. Trust matters. Dreams matter. Values matter!

“The reason that fuzzy things matter is because they help us overcome the barriers that naturally divide us. And only when those barriers are lowered do the raw materials of innovation and economic growth – ideas, talent, capital – flow more efficiently throughout the entire system, like vitamins in an inter-linked root system.”—Victor W. Hwang

Society in Greece has vast potential and must come together with common purpose to achieve economic prosperity and growth. Innovation ecosystems, basic models that foster “social” activities and clearly state the needs and requirements of shareholders and stakeholders, must be unified and clustered to become sustainable.

“Highly productive human networks resemble natural rainforests in this way –it is not just the presence of basic ingredients; it is the recipe of serendipitous tinkering that causes the bounty.

“In Silicon Valley, a living, breathing system emerges when a trust-based, collaborative community reduces countless transaction costs in the innovation process. We need freedom from the informal social constraints caused by distrust, fear, miscommunication, and distance! Fortunately, the social networks of the future no longer need to be imprisoned in geotagged positions, as we can build overlapping social networks that traverse the boundaries of the past!”—Victor W. Hwang

If humans can define the detailed surfaces of Mars, discover the subatomic particles that create mass, surely we Greeks can understand and shape the process by which we will interact with one another productively. Greece needs freedom from constraints!

That is what we hope to achieve in Greece with Ignite: Begin an Innovation Ecosystem! In Greece there is a consistent critical mass. There is momentum for the innovator and startup community to build what will be the next Generation Innovation, even though there is fragmentation, silos distant from each other and isolated, but that, with a common understanding, can influence one another! It is time for all of us to come together and together build our future!

It’s next to impossible to go a day without hearing about some horrible statement a person made on Twitter or the apology from the last guy to make a public blunder. When we’re typing into the record of the internet, it essentially becomes public information. Even if you post a message to a select group of people, if it generates the fury of a few it can find its way outside of your inner circle, incur the wrath of an angry internet, and even hurt your reputation at work.

Fair or not, your missteps will be remembered more clearly than your successes because negative emotion creates stronger, more accurate memories. This doesn’t provide a safe environment for the occasional slip up, and so we tend to try and be perfect. This is the wrong approach, and one that causes more mistakes than it prevents. In this post, we’re going to look at why that is and how you can actually screw up effectively.

Why mistakes are important

If you never fail, you never learn. If you never learn, you never progress. It’s difficult to move forward in life if you don’t know both what does and does not work. Taking risks and making mistakes help you acquire that information. This isn’t a new idea, but what might surprise you is that you’re actually less likely to make a mistake if you afford yourself the right to make one. Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, a social psychologist, explains:

We approach most of what we do with one of two types of goals: what I call be-good goals, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and already know what you’re doing, and get-better goals, where the focus is on developing your ability and learning a new skill. It’s the difference between wanting to show that you are smart vs. wanting to get smarter. The problem with be-good goals is that they tend to backfire when things get hard. We quickly start to doubt our ability (“Oh no, maybe I’m not good at this!”), and this creates a lot of anxiety. Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail. Countless studies have shown that nothing interferes with your performance quite like anxiety does – it is the goal-killer.

This idea carries over into social situations—a place where the concept is actually more obvious. If you strive for perfection when dealing with other people, your brain is going to make you anxious. When you try too hard to be and act a certain why, you’re almost assured failure. There isn’t a single adult on the planet who hasn’t tried to act “cooler” than themselves and, instead, achieved disaster. You sabotage yourself be aiming to be better than to become better. Choosing to make mistakes is actually a heck of a lot easier and more effective.

How to Make Mistakes (and Recover from Them) Effectively

The freedom to make mistakes isn’t everything. You’ll solve few problems if you don’t make an effort to mess up effectively. Part of the solution to this problem is making your errors early on, as a phenomenon called the sunk cost fallacy causes us to go down with a sinking ship simply because we’ve spent a lot of time with it. This is because in general, we hate to lose. When the stakes are high, we’ll do almost anything to avoid it. When those stakes are lower, it’s easier to overcome our obsessive drive for loss-aversion.

First, you need to recognize when the stakes are low. A social situation with stranger you could easily never see again may make you feel anxious, but there’s little to lose. It’s a great opportunity to say something stupid, rather than in front of someone you secretly hope to impress or—even worse—pretty much anywhere online where the world can see. In a work environment, you just have to allow yourself to experiment before you dive into a project. Liberal allowances of trial and error make it easier to find fault. If you wait too long to play with your ideas, you run the greater risk of getting stuck trying to salvage a sinking ship.

But what happens when you actually do make a mistake? You try and make the best out of a bad situation. How bad that situation actually is will depend on a number of factors, but let’s take a look at a few examples:

You just posted an insensitive comment on Facebook and people are angry.

When this happens, you have a couple of options, the simplest of which is to delete it. That gets rid of the immediate problem—you know, everyone getting in your face about something you said—but that doesn’t resolve any of the lingering anger amongst your friends. It also doesn’t prevent anyone who took a screenshot from posting it elsewhere should they choose to do so. (Remember all those racist Hunger Games tweets? You don’t have to, because they’re forever captured on the internet.) Instead of deleting the post, consider hiding it from public view instead. This way you can respond to people you upset (and if necessary, apologize to them), but it won’t continue to spread to other people who come across it. If you get to a point where you need to make an apology, you’ll find tips to help you out later on in this post.

You took a risky chance on a project at work, believing it would pan out—but it didn’t

At the very least, your boss is going to be upset with you for screwing up under the wire, if not your coworkers as well. Mistakes like this can get you into a lot of trouble considering the severity, and the only thing you can really do is apologize. The important thing, however, is to take responsibility as soon as possible and do it in person if you can. An in-person apology will already seem more sincere than an email, because you can use effective body language to better convey your message, and you’ll be easier to forgive if people see you’re already beating yourself up over the whole situation.

They key steps in both of these situations are as follows:

• Put a stop to the anger and prevent further damage from happening.
• Acknowledge that you made a mistake. Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen.

Keep those things in mind and you’ll screw up effectively.

How to Gracefully Apologize for an Error (When You Need To)

Risks don’t always equal rewards. There will be moments when you take a chance, fall flat on your face, and make a few people feel awful in the process. In these instances, an apology is often in order. You may not feel you’ve done anything wrong, but when others feel hurt you have to weigh the pros and cons of admitting wrongdoing. Often times a simple apology is better than adhering to your principles, even if it seems ridiculous to say you’re sorry. Relationship and family therapist Roger S. Gil explains why:

The offender doesn’t get to dictate how another person should feel when something bad is done to offend them. Even minor offenses can make some people feel a disproportionate amount of ‘hurt’. While I’m the first one to say that a person who makes a huge deal out of something “minor” (e.g. misplacing their pen) probably has some issues of their own, as the offending party you don’t get a say in their emotional reaction… besides, what’s minor for you can be a big deal to them. If a person wants to feel indignation, that’s their prerogative (no matter how ridiculous you feel that indignation is). Some people need time to allow the emotions to die down so letting them feel whatever they feel is a good course of action. As long as the person doesn’t do something to make matters worse (e.g. slander you), the situation should start to improve.

If you decide that apologizing is the best course of action, you want to be sincere. That can be difficult in a situation where you feel an apology isn’t warranted and you didn’t make much of a mistake. When such a situation arises, it helps to think more about how the other person is hurt and how you don’t want them to be instead of the actual issue at hand. Regarding the content, Roger suggests that the best course of action is explaining how you’ll correct the situation:

Reassure those you’re apologizing to that you’re making improvements (only if you mean it) Recognizing the impact of your offense is one thing, it’s a whole other thing to prevent a similar offense in the future. If you posted something online that hurt another person, let the world know that you will exercise more discretion and consult others prior to posting content that you feel may be offensive. If you’re apologizing because you forgot your anniversary, let your significant other know that you’re setting up reminders on your calendar. (Just note that having to rely on a calendar to remember an anniversary may lead some people to be even more upset with you.)

While having a plan is going to help, ultimately the best apology is learning from your mistake and doing better. That’s really the benefit of screwing up in the first place. Mistakes are stressful when you hurt other people and it’s not the sort of thing that makes anyone feel good, but nobody’s perfect. Everyone has to make a few errors here and there to learn how to do things better. If you allow yourself to make mistakes, take more chances when there’s a lower risk of a problem, and know when and how to apologize effectively when necessary, you’ll be giving yourself the opportunity to grow, learn, and be better.

Public Mistakes Handled Gracefully and Intelligently

Public apologies are rampant nowadays, and some are certainly handled better than others. While the vast majority of us are not giant celebrities, there are a thing or two we can learn from their graceful apologies following a gaffe or two. Here are some of the best and what you can take away from each.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings apologizes for suddenly separating DVD and streaming services

 Customers were in an uproar when Netflix decided to split its DVD and streaming businesses into separate entities. It wasn’t long before the company realized this was a bad idea and changed their decision. This apology comes with two good lessons we discussed above: try out your ideas earlier on when the decision won’t be such a big deal, and explain your actions so people don’t assume what they mean. This apology occurred before Netflix decided to keep the two services together and served to explain to customers the reasoning behind the choice. It’s very humble, thorough, and well-written.

Actor Jason Alexander apologizes for calling cricket a gay sport

To many, this may seem like a silly thing to warrant an apology. As a gay man, if I’d heard about this when it happened I wouldn’t have cared. There are far more offensive, anti-gay comments being made by regular people every day. (If you want evidence, go check our YouTube channel after a podcast is posted.) That said, there are reasons people are offended by seemingly silly comments like this one, and Jason Alexander took that to heart when he wrote a thoughtful apology. He spent the time to figure out what the problem was and why his behavior troubled others. Even if you decide against apologizing for something you say, the right course of action is to do what he did. Figure out why people are offended. You may find that you do feel badly and want to address their concerns. If you don’t, at least you’ll have a better understanding of both sides of the argument.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Apologizes for Deleting 1984 from Kindles

In what was perhaps one of the most ironic technological gaffes of our time, Amazon discovered it had been illegally selling digital copies of the book 1984 and, as a result, suddenly removed them from Kindles (much like Big Brother would’ve done). Between all of the jokes, people were genuinely upset. One student lost his notes on the book and sued as a result. Jeff Bezos offered this apology soon after, and it’s an excellent example of how to be both concise and effective.

Umpire Jim Joyce apologizes for a mistaken call

A major league baseball umpire is under no obligation to apologize for a mistaken call, but when Detroit Pitcher Armondo Galarraga pitched a perfect game, Jim Joyce blew the call. When Joyce watched the footage afterwards, he realized he was wrong and apologized for the mistake. This simple action showed how powerful an apology can be. If you’re wrong and you admit it, people will respect you for it.

If you like reading these apologies, here are a couple more to check out:

• Film critic Roger Ebert apologizes for presuming video games cannot be art and reviewing a movie without really watching it.
• Comedian Jimmy Carr apologizes for recommending a tax avoidance scheme

Chances are you’ll never have to apologize on a massively public scale, but there’s still plenty to learn from how well these issues were handled. Next time you need to apologize for a mistake, keep these lessons in mind.

Special thanks to Roger S. Gil, M.A.M.F.T. for his contributions to this post. To hear more from Roger, you can follow him on Twitter and check out his podcast.

This article was taken from lifehacker.com and was written by Adam Dachis

Finally after weeks of development, and we haven’t finished yet, we are giving a face to the first ever happened Ignite Show in the country!

We would like to know your experience as user, while visiting our site. Can we improve it? Do you think that something is missing? Do you get all of the info you need?

• Ignite Seattle I first heard the idea of Ignite -style presentations leading up to Gnomedex 2007. O Reilly s Brady Forrest and the crew from Ignite Seattle kicked butt at Gnomedex with their energy and style, and piqued my interest in the format. Here s a great blog post by Britt Reybould with links to the Ignite presentations. There s also Ignite Boston.
• Pecha Kucha 20 slides/images, 20 seconds each, for a strict 6 minute 40 second presentation. Condense your message and energy down into that small space, then let it out in a poetry jam-style fast paced evening. First started by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. Pecha kucha (pronounced peh-chak-cha) comes from the Japanese for the sound of conversation/chit-chat.
• Lightning Talks I was first introduced to the concept of Lightning Talks at OSCON 2006, when Danese Cooper and Dawn Foster asked me to give one (strict 5 minute limit) on The Art of Community . Several others gave lightning talks on similar topics during the hour long session. It was fun!

This should give you a taste of what we re thinking more details to come as we think them up, and of course, we re open to your input. There are so many cool groups, conferences, meetups, organizations, and gangs in Portland that we think it would be awesome to have a night once every few months where we can all get together and share all of those ideas that are burning inside us technology, art, communications, or whatever the topic.

We re aiming to kick this thing off on September the 20th, so keep an eye on this site (subscribe to the feed!), and get ready to mark your calendar.

If you d like to volunteer, leave a comment, or email me at volunteer@igniteathens.gr.

Are you insane? Do you think you can change the world?

We want you, come and join us!