Bring Creativity and Innovation to Business

A recent post on Intellectual Property Watch is a very good article on how corporations don’t get innovation. Even if you buy a piece of property e.g. an iphone you can not innovate with it. Quoting  Leander Kahney, editor of Cultofmac.com and author of Inside Steve’s Brain “Apple is selling directly to consumers, who aren’t the best guardians of their own self-interest. The open PC model works for knowledgeable users who know what they are doing and how to protect themselves, but not so for 15-year-old fashionist as and techno-phobic geriatrics, Kahney said. “A measure of lock down is exactly why Apple is successful, it hides complexity while ensuring a certain level of reliability and stability. The vast majority of Apple’s customers are utterly unconcerned. They could give two hoots that they can’t hack their devices.”

I think it is thoughtful of Apple to protect dumb kids, senile old people, and all the rest of us from ourselves. After all we are all just too stupid to make our own decisions. My mother recently fell and hurt herself very badly. It was life threatening. So to continue with this line of thought we need to ban all ladders, and rugs (tripping hazards)  We need to shut down Home Depot these guys actually sell high-powered welding machines, bandsaws, nailguns, great big heavy pieces of lumber, bottles of sulfuric acid, pesticides, and many other scary dangerous products it anyone that can pay for it. That’s right, anyone could walk in off the street and purchase literal truckloads of lethal implements and chemicals. It’s a good thing none of the titans of tech own the hardware stores.

The argument then comes back to intellectual property rights. What I find amusing is these same Titans of Technology got to be titians by doing exactly what they don’t want anyone else to do. Taking apart devices and figuring out how they work and then (hopefully) improving them. Are we to believe products like the Apple/Mac, the PC, among many other examples just “popped” into their heads one day and sprang into being without ever a backward glance at what came before them!?

With the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1997. Many of our rights disappeared and much of our future innovation went over seas. Innovation is not dead but we are trying really hard to kill it.

I recently came across a book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron that reminded me of a method my high school English teacher taught to increase creativity. It works and it works well. I don’t know why I forgot it. Here it is. Write. Yep it is that simply. It does not matter what your field is, writing helps increase your creativity. However, the writing technique is special. My High School English teacher  would have us write for 30 minutes non-stop. If we could not think of any thing to write, that is what we wrote, that we could not think of any thing to write. We just needed to keep writing non-stop. A point that can be missed here is that writing is the key, that is, the physical act of writing. Do not type it on a computer, write. There is something about the physical act of writing that causes the brain be creative. Something that typing will not allow. Second do not edit. Just write.  Spelling does not count. Grammar and punctuation do not count. The only thing to worry about is writing. In her book Julia Cameron has a philosophy that I do not agree with but that does not mean her techniques for reawakening the creativity in your does not work. The book is well worth the read and applying the techniques in it will help you re-awaken your creative abilities.

I get a chuckle from some of the websites I see where some magicians advertises “Magic for Any Occasion.” Oh yeah, what about a funeral.  I have a wide range of shows. I perform for a wide range of audiences in a wide range of venues and situations. But, a funeral is one of those occasions I do not think I would do well.

A few years ago I did a show for a church in Texas. The after the show I spent some time with members of the audience as I always like to do.  A little boy came up after wards and was all excited about what he had just seen. He was telling me how much he enjoyed the show and he thought I was really cool. Then he asked me something that I have never forgotten. He told me his mother had recently died and asked if I would perform at her funeral. I expressed my condolences and politely declined his invitation.

Seeing the wonder of magic at such a traumatic time had an impact on him. It touched him deeply. He still calls me on occasion just to talk for awhile. I enjoy our short conversations. I was able to touch his heart with a silly magic show at a deeply emotional time. But he continues to touch mine.

Professional trade show magicians can be a powerful tool in your trade show tool belt. They increase traffic at your trade show booth, as well as heighten awareness of your products to conference attendees.

You should not think of a trade show magician simply as an entertainer. Because when you hire a trade show magician you are not hiring an entertainer. You are hiring another member of your sales staff. The time they spend is considerable prior to the show. They will spend time with you and your staff, to better understand your company and the goals for the trade show. Trade show magicians will then carefully select the tricks they will use that can illustrate you message with impact. They script their shows prior to the show with enough time for you to review and modify the script. This interaction allows you to be sure you will receive the maximum benefit of having a magician in your booth.

An experienced trade show magician charges anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a day, but the expense is well worth it because they provide a blend of sales and sleight of hand that bring prospective customers to your booth.

Here is a common error. Assuming any entertainer can work your exhibit. All they need to do is draw a crowd. Drawing a crowd should not be your goal. The goal is getting the name and contact information of qualified leads. This requires the work of an experienced sales professional and entertainment professional not just an entertainer.

Trade show magician

In an article on my site, entitled Creating an Innovative Culture I spoke about how some companies sabotage their innovation effects by not encouraging networking among  department and suppliers and customers. The reasons for encouraging a networking culture are numerous and obvious. No only for innovation and creativity but for simply maintaining business health. The idea of the lone ranger or isolated genius coming up with sparks of insight and creativity is no longer true. As a matter of fact, it never was true.

Innovation comes about when groups of people, from divergent backgrounds,  come together to share and leverage their diverse experiences, disciplines, abilities and view points. This can only happen if you encourage networking within your organization. This happen only if it is done by design. And then supported and modeled by company leadership.

Another key motivation for setting up networking initiatives, other than innovation,  is based on the simple fact that a business actually exists in the knowledge, relationships and minds of its employees. Distributing this knowledge is always a challenge, but replicating that information and knowledge through networking allows your business to weather losses of employees which inevitably occur. But leveraging a company’s collective knowledge, experience and relationship via either virtual or face-to-face networks  is vital to it ability to innovate.

Additionally, there is a lot of value that can be obtained through sources external to the company. Harnessing this the power and potential of this new knowledge and experience demands a strong networking culture. And a strong networking culture must be supported from the top.

You need to provide creative environments or events that encourage people to extend or develop their networks. People need to talk and discuss problems, issues, or ideas with people they have not yet met. These are events or situations where people regularly collaborate on new ideas.

You need to provide formal events that cause people to interact with people they would not normally interact with. Later review who has made connections and allow these new acquaintances to work on projects together. This effort can pay off handsomely with big ideas. These type of events also allow the seeds of new networks to be planted. You then are allowed them to blossom with the informal networks events. Encouraging these types of activity and put programs into place that increases the number of networks and their size will help you insure innovation increases in your organization.