Making Little Bets Count — One Small Project at a Time

We’re thrilled to bring you a special edition of the DorobekINSIDER today.

Chris Dorobek is out of the DorobekINSIDER offices hosting the Acquisition Excellence 2012 Conference. The event is being put on the by GSA and ACT-IAC.

But we couldn’t leave you hanging. So we’ve put together a highlight reel from our latest Book Club Meeting.

For the past several years, Chris has been hosting something I call the DorobekINSIDER Book Club — it is something like the Oprah Book Club but more wonky. Essentially, we select a book that is tied to his favorite words: It helps the government do its job better. We invite the author… and then we invite a fed — to talk about how that book impacts how you do your job.

The book is by Peter Sims — and it’s called Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries.

Chris got to lead the book club discussion at the 2012 Adobe Government Assembly hosted by 1105 Media. We had Peter Sims and we were joined by Dave McClure, the Associate Administrator of GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, who is one of the brightest people in government.

We talked for over an hour and we have the whole conversation on DorobekINSIDER dot com. But for today’s special show we wanted to breakout a few clips and really highlight some of the great things Peter Sims and Dave McClure had to say.

Peter got us started by telling us why he was inspired to write this book.
LITTLE BETS — CLIP 1 by cdorobek

It’s inspiring to hear someone so passionate about making little bets work. But there are some real roadblocks for making Little Bets work in government. For starters the long drawn out procurement process is one of the biggest hurdles. Dave tells Chris how he is overcoming those roadblocks at GSA.

GSA’s Dave McClure told me how to get over those hurdles.
LITTLE BETS — CLIP 2 by cdorobek

Dave says leaders need to be supportive but also get out of the way. Peter calls this the Hippo phenomenon. He told me what that means.

LITTLE BETS — CLIP 3 by cdorobek

Let’s be honest, its a tough time to be a federal worker. It’s election season and your work, your pay and benefits are in the political crossfire. All the campaign ads say you are overpaid and underworked. But we know that’s fundamentally not true.

And, I say this all the time, but my goal is simple six words — helping you do your job better. And this book really does that. I think Dave said it best government innovation is not one size fits all.

LITTLE BETS — CLIP 4 by cdorobek

You can find the full hour long conversation online at DorobekINSIDER dot com.

And you should also check out our separate interview we did with Peter Sims about Fuse Corp. It’s this innovative idea which pairs entrepreneurs with government — and a government problem — in the hopes of tapping those outside the box ideas. The program which launches in March will highlight five specific problems across the country — mostly dealing with education and green initiatives. Basically it flips thought process on a problem. Instead of taking a big picture approach it’s a smaller — worms eye view.