John Hagel III

Passion and true passion is actually very unpredictable. It heads in unexpected directions because it's constantly seeking out new challenges. But what's really interesting is that passion ultimately is necessary for sustained extreme performance improvement.

In essence, what Innocentive does is it provides a platform where you can post a really challenging problem and offer a reward to anybody who can come and provide a solution. And it's been remarkably effective. People get very challenging problems and get solutions to those problems.

At one level, SXSW exemplifies serendipity, because whenever I come, I get these unexpected meetings with people I never knew existed, and you couldn't have planned it. But by making the choice to come to SXSW, I'm increasing the probability of those encounters.

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.

Working with franchises can be challenging, but at the same time I really did enjoy working on 'Star Wars,' for example, and I have done a lot of 'Dungeons & Dragons' games, but I still enjoy it very much.