7 Tales of Bureaucracy
Judges in the Judicial Conference who have taken a keen interest in these proceedings.
—10 Rules for Radicals—
In this talk, I've tried to present to you some rules for radicals, some techniques that I use in my work, but techniques that perhaps might be useful in your own efforts to change how institutions function. We've covered nine of those rules so far. Let me recap.
Rule 1: Call everything an experiment.
Rule 2: When the starting gun goes off, run really fast. As a small player, the elephant can step on you, but you can outrun the elephant.
Rule 3: Eyeballs rule. If a million people use your service, and on the Internet you can do that, you've got a lot more credibility than if you're just issuing position papers and flaming the man.
Rule 4: When the time comes, be nice.
Rule 5: Keep asking until they say yes. Gordon Bell, the inventor of the VAX, once said that you should keep your vision, but modify your plan.
Rule 6: When you get the microphone, get to the point. Be clear about what you want.
Rule 7: Get standing. Have some skin in the game, some reason you're at the table.
Rule 8: Get them to threaten you.
Rule 9: Look for overreaching, things that are just blatantly, obviously wrong or silly.
And finally, rule 10, which is don't be afraid to fail. It took Thomas Edison 10,000 times before he got the
