I was just boarding the escalator down from the fourth floor of the Austin Hilton, when I looked over my shoulder, and thought, “That’s Bob Metcalfe.” Bob Metcalfe is a famous computer engineer — critical contributor at Xerox PARC, co-inventor of Ethernet, co-founder of 3Com — whose eponymous “Metcalfe’s Law” describes how the value of a networked device increases with the number of users on it.

Without thinking much about it, I hopped back on the up escalator, and waited to introduce myself, no idea what I’d say if he’d actually give me the time of day. After he finished another conversation, I jumped forward. “You don’t know me, but you’re a hero of mine. I’m a huge innovation nerd. I read about you in Dealers of Lightening.” And with that, we proceeded to have a lovely conversation. He told me about a recent talk he gave at MIT, and even sent me a transcript by email. What a delightful surprise!

Why did I have the guts to do this? It is not because I’m some courageous dude; I was just following Ellen’s example.

The day before, while waiting for a coffee, I heard a sheepish, “Jeremy?” over my shoulder. I turned around to see a woman I did not know. “Hi. I’m Ellen. You don’t know me, but I’ve been tuning into your series and absolutely love what you guys are doing with Masters of Creativity.” And we proceeded to have a lovely conversation.

I do not presume to be a hero, per se, but I drew inspiration from Ellen’s example. The experience taught me that not only does boldly approaching a hero make one’s own experience richer, but it also has the potential of making the hero’s experience richer, too! And that insight gave me the boldness to approach Bob Metcalfe: not just for what I might get from the interaction, but for what he might get, too!

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