The Age of Improvisation

Posted by David Armano / March 11, 2008 8:32 am 

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Last week I had the opportunity to speak at Microsoft’s premiere event, MIX 08 (you can see my talk here, and watch a video interview here). But the real star of MIX 08 was Guy Kawasaki. Guy spent a considerable part of his career with Apple, but is currently most known for his adventures as a serial entrepreneur and blogger. But Guy is something much bigger. He’s a master at the art of improvisation among other things.

Written by David Armano

Contrast Guy’s performance with that of BusinessWeek’s Sarah Lacy whose highly publicized fiasco at geek conference SXSW will go down in conference history. While Guy remained relaxed, conversational and quick on his feet even as Ballmer unexpectedly tossed Guy’s Mac Air around like a play toy—Lacy was unable to successfully adapt to her situation when the SXSW audience began to turn on her. Take this excerpt from Wired:

“After some more shouted remarks, Lacy turned the microphones over to the members of the audience, challenging them to come up with better questions. Attendees rushed to the microphones and got right to it, asking Zuckerberg about privacy and data portability, and requesting tools to help manage the growing flood of information on their Facebook profiles.”

Bingo. The classic sign of the inability to successfully improvise—Lacy became defensive and turned on the audience instead of winning them back over. To be fair, I wasn’t at SXSW—but nearly all of the reports are consistent with what happened. I was however present for Guy Kawasaki’s performance which in retrospect was no easy feat. Sure, Steve Ballmer isn’t a shy Zuckerberg, but that presented it’s own challenges. Guy had to manage a larger than life figure who was a bit unpredictable, posesses the most booming voice I’ve ever heard and has a bit of an intimidating physical presence. Not to mention the audience at MIX 08 is just as geeky as SXSW, if not more.

In my opinion, Kawasaki is a classic improviser—his experience both as an entrepreneur and blogger probably have a lot to do with it . In addition to his graceful reaction to the “Mac Book Air toss”—he repeatedly asked difficult questions about things like Vista. And when he didn’t get the answers he was looking for, he fluidly moved on to the next. Guy was also pleasant and amiable—he put the crowd at ease and used his sharp sense of humor to disarm both Ballmer as well as the crowd. His compliments to Microsoft also came across as genuine as opposed to contrived.

I don’t know if the interview went as Kawasaki had planned, but I do know that he successfully adapted to his environment, and was able to work a room with over 2000 geeks in the audience. Unfortunately, Lacy’s experience was nearly the opposite. I think there are some important lessons between what happened at MIX in contrast to SXSW. Improvisation and facilitation are skills that reflect what we are seeing in social media. Conversation replacing monologue. Genuine replacing contrived. Informal trumping formal. And context bringing it all together.

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  • http://www.copypaste.nl Jeroen Verkroost

    You hit the nail right on the head. The difference is in the exertion of control. Sarah Lacy tried to exert control rigidly, and had it taken away from her as a consequence. Guy managed the situation by being responsive, adaptive and open and remained in the drivers seat. I guess it’s always the people that try too hard that fail in the end.

  • http://www.spincity.org Tyler

    I’m not sure if blogging helped him, so much as all those public speaking engagements. But you’re right – he was great and Lacy/Zuckerberg was a trainwreck, judging from the video of it.

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Tyler,

    I do think that All of Guy’s background has a lot to do with it. He’s a sponge and I think that helps in situations like this.

  • Chrissie

    Kinda reminds me of web 2.0 :-)
    It is all very interesting.

    I’ve been reading about the SXSW train wreck. No doubt Lacy botched it horribly. But I’m a bit disappointed the critics are so harsh. Beyond harsh actually. Lacy came off terribly, but when things get mean, it is a turn off for me personally.

    I see this on Digg all the time. The harshness and down right meanness get a little boring. It is easy to criticize. Less easy to understand and forgive.

    It would be refreshing to see some niceness… after all, we’re not cuting cancer here.

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ Geoff Sowrey

    It could also be a note of ego. According to News.com, Lacy also wrote in Twitter:

    “Seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things.”

    Doesn’t strike me as someone who acknowledges the power of the society’s wisdom or curiousity (and having the ability to adapt — or improvise — with it).

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Chrissie,

    Your point about meanness is well taken. 2.0 empowers the “mob” and sometimes the “mob” gets nasty. How do you feel about this post? Think it’s mean? I always try to look for an insight in situations like this—something to gleam from.

  • Chrissie

    I don’t think your post is mean at all. It is entirely fair, positive and helpful. You outline the situation and explain your POV. My response was not at all aimed at this post.

    I was more concerned with the descriptions of comments from the audience and some of the coverage that gave examples of reactions and follow up posts.

    I just think that if some folks had a little more clarity, perspective, understanding the all the follow up could be more constructive rather than the mini soap opera moment it turned into. Your post achieved the constructive part.

    Guy did a great job as you point out. But I was a bit surprised that people didn’t react to Ballmer more. I felt so uncomfortable watching him. He was trying too hard and it felt very awkward (to me at least). I was embarassed to watch it. Guy really did his best, I felt for him.

    I liked the way your post focused on the positive rather than joining the band wagon of another person ripping Lacy. Yeah, she sucked, but we all know that now :-)

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ Geoff Sowrey

    Wait for Dave Robertson’s post (coming shortly!), as he has a very interesting insight on why that interview failed.

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Chrissie,

    Glad you elaborated. I totally see your point. One thing about Ballmer, I felt he actually came off quite well, and again, it was a testament to how Kawasaki did the interview. Ballmer for the most part was pretty loose and aside from a few typical PR responses, he came off fairly spontaneous.

    I think Kawasaki’s style rubbed off on him. Thanks for a good discussion and I agree, wait for Dave’s upcoming post…

  • http://www.spincity.org Tyler

    Armano,

    It’s a chicken/egg thing, isn’t it? Does all that background make Guy charismatic, or is Guy successful in all that other stuff because he’s charismatic?

    And I really think charisma is at the crux of it. There were plenty of awkward moments in the Mix session if you watch closely (Hell, Guy sets it up as an awkward situation), but you forgive it because he comes off (and is) such a likable person. I didn’t have that much exposure to Sarah Lacy, but she came off as irritating. Probably nerves, because I felt a lot more empathy for her in the YouTube video of her discussing the whole thing after the fact. She actually seemed human and not like someone following a PR script.

  • http://www.spincity.org Tyler
  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Tyler,

    Yah, Guy does have a boatload of Charisma. It is a chicken and egg thing, does his ability to improvise in any given situation help with his Charisma? I think it does. :)

  • http://www.goingsocialnow.com Shiv Singh

    David, I think you captured the differences perfectly. I wasn’t at MIX but I was in the third row at SXSW and saw everything first hand.

    Sarah Lacy could have conducted a far better interview. There’s no question about that.

    Shiv

  • http://darmano.typepad.com David Armano

    Thanks Shiv, good to hear the 1st hand perspective. Nice to see you here and congrats on the presentation at SXSW.

  • http://joeszabo.com joe

    Totally off topic, but who turned off the lights in here? It’s hard to read these posts with such a dark background.

    Please revert back to a lighter background so that reading these posts isn’t such a chore.

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Joe, not off topic and it’s an issue. We agree and are working on it!

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