Playbook Round Tables were created with an intention to orchestrate the coordination and exchange of tacit knowledge. Thoughtful Founders acted as facilitators in this sharing of tacit knowledge. We call them Mavens. For them, their contribution to #PlaybookRTs was a labor of love. It is a selfless contribution to making India a Product Nation.
Thanks to the Founder Mavens, PlaybookRTs went on to become very successful. The topic coverage grew. However, we were not able to find Founder Mavens for topics like Design Thinking and Inside Sales. We wondered if we should look for Mavens who were not Founders. But we were skeptical if they would be animated by the Product Nation mission. And, even if they were, would they contribute selflessly in a pay-forward manner that the Founder Maven did? Would they sign the Maven Code-of-Ethics?
Then we ran into Deepa Bachu.
Her commitment to making India a Product Nation was there. Yet we wondered if she would be willing to pay-forward in PlaybookRTs. We knew this was not an easy call to make. After all, it meant forgoing workshop revenue from product startups for the foreseeable future. As we talked, we realized that Deepa’s dilemma wasn’t whether she should make this selfless contribution! Instead, she was worried if the PlaybookRT attendees would value something that was free!
This led to a couple of experimental PlaybookRTs.
And here we are! Deepa learned that Sometimes Free Is Valuable. And we learned that there are contributors to the product ecosystem who will put the cause before their business. We find that the Practitioner Mavens are as vested in the pay-forward model as Founder Mavens. We cherish and value both of them.
With inputs from my colleague Rajan.
