Meet Scott Campbell

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Scott Campbell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Scott below.

Hi Scott, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re very focused on here – improving our ability to make decisions. Everyday, we’re faced with decisions that can impact the future of our careers, businesses, relationships and more and so one of the most impactful areas for personal development, in our view, is decision-making. Can you talk to us about how you developed or improved your decision-making skills?

I’ve had friends tell me they are impressed with my ability to make decisions quickly. The reality is that I am very slow to make decisions–I want to understand all of the inputs and consequences before pulling the trigger and my brain is constantly evaluating the possibilities in the background. Sometimes it seems like I make decisions out of the blue, but usually what is missing from a good decision is more real world data and the right move is to try something and see if it works. The trick is to try smartly–don’t try things you’ve already tried, at least without making a substantive change in the try; and try to learn from others’ mistakes before making the same mistakes. Sometimes though you need to see why something doesn’t work so you can design the solution that will work.

Product/brand development is full of problems, and these problems are often interconnected–like parts of a spider web. All aspects of the problems can be assumed to need improvement, but we can rarely solve problems independent of other aspects. Making a change in one domain will have ripple effects to other domains.
In early stages of product development it may seem like every action leads to improvement, and the peripheral effects are often positive–making one thing better might accidentally make lots of other things better simultaneously. This part of the process is highly rewarding–it may seem like everything you do has massive positive feedback. These gains though are rarely enough to move a product to maturity. The types of improvements that would result in the consumer choosing your product over another often require true innovation, and gains made in one domain might be directly contradictory to requirements in other domains. In order to move forward it’s important to understand the level of interconnectedness between domains. While we’ll never have complete clarity, one way to remove uncertainty is to ‘do the thing’–go through all of the steps necessary to get from inception to completion. Then make changes and do it again and evaluate if things are better or worse.

I am somewhat uniquely qualified for this process in making strong-wood bicycle frames because of the countless hours I’ve spent developing the foundational skills. These include solid modeling; CAD/CAM; fixture design; basic woodworking; industrial woodworking; sanding and shaping; staining and finishing; basic composites manufacturing; advanced composites manufacturing; strength analysis; product testing, etc. While I’m not immune to biases such as confirmation bias and sometimes chase solutions beyond reasonable expectations, I have the ability to diagnose a result, design a potential solution, and execute/implement said solution in very condensed time-lines because I have the ability to perform all of the steps, and have quality control over all of the steps (I’ve seen people get bogged down in unnecessary perfectionism that keeps them from moving forward).

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My current passion is trying to develop Celilo Cycles into a sustainable business. I’ve developed a really cool process of designing and building wooden bike frames that are reinforced using advanced composites technology. Wood is very strong for a natural fiber, but it needs help to perform alongside traditional bike frame materials like steel or aluminum. My method incorporates that help without compromising the natural beauty and ride characteristic of wood.
Most of the remaining problems revolve around making the process faster and easier–I really want to get the price down so it’s not so exclusive. I really need to develop some sort of automated sanding system, whether it’s a tumbling system such as a crate filled with crushed walnut shells connected to some sort of shaker, or a six axis robot arm with a sanding head end effector. I’ve had some positive results and am encouraged that a solution will present itself sometime in the reasonably near future.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three skills or domains that I most attribute to my success are CAD/CAM;
Resilience; and Process development.

CAD/CAM is a technical skill which one can practice to improve. It’s important to have strong foundational competency in some technical area of the problem you are trying to solve so if nothing else you can work on the problem when there are no other sources of motivation. It’s not useful to sit and wait for a customer to call or an investor to inquire. You can always find ways to improve your product or process without needing external stimulus. If you have good technical skills that time can be valuable, but even if your skills aren’t great by working on the problem you might find ways to improve other aspects.

Resilience is also a learned skill, but it’s not something I look forward to practicing. The learning opportunities are usually accompanied by a lot of pain (both literal and figurative). I’ve come to expect that I can’t’ move forward without making some mistakes. Resilience is necessary to absorb the learning opportunities from those mistakes without losing momentum.

Process Development is the most valuable skill in regards to developing a sustainable business. I think of it as finding all of the ways something can go wrong and developing systems to prevent those things from happening. Sometimes the solutions are as simple as organizing your workspace, but sometimes you need to develop new technology, or (more likely) some novel application of existing technology. The solutions almost always revolve around the need to make things easier. The goal is that the most likely outcome of a process is the right outcome, and that it’s easier to do it right than to make mistakes. The solutions usually seem obvious in retrospect …

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I often feel overwhelmed. I like having big problems to solve, which by nature means I’m never far from having too much on my plate. The solution always seems to be to work on the problem. This can be as simple as cleaning up. Going to another level and creating organizational systems always helps.
I make lots of lists. Sometimes just putting the problems into writing helps. It sometimes helps me prevent trying things I know not to work, but not always. I like to prioritize problems from the ones that cause me the most grief down to easy to solve, and spend most of my time on the hardest problems.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://CeliloCycles.com
• Instagram: @celilocycles

Image Credits

ADAM KACHMAN