Sorry for not keeping up with where I’ll be posts. Been a little busy. Which is a good problem to have.

The current speaking engagements:

• Feb 18th 2009 Web Content Conference at Tampa Bay www.webcontentconferences.com

• Feb 21st 2009 Barnes & Noble in Brandon, FL signing 1-3pm

• April 27th – 29th 2009 CMA (Canadian Marketing Association) in Toronto, CA www.the-cma.org

• June 3rd – 5th CMG European Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland (details to come)

Hope to see as many of you there as possible. I love meeting my readers.

Just a quick reminder to readers and passer by’s. Creativity is a marathon, not a sprint. Marathoners can run in a sprint contest, but sprinters can’t compete in a marathon. Your creativity is best served when you train and practice BEFORE you get called into that dreaded meeting where your boss (or you) have to come up with a creative solution “now.” Just like training, you have to do it as often as possible before you enter an event. Not the day of.

*note: this “sprint” idea is why so many business’ are failing.

If you’ll look in the older posts, you’ll see a post called “I wish.” In that post I sent out a question through some publicity channels asking if people wanted to state what they wished they were more creative at. The idea is that generally if you write something down you are more apt to actually do it. And I’m all for encouraging people to try. I posted a little over 30 replies ranging from wanting to be more creative at music, parenting, sex and meeting people.

A little while after that post I got an email from Sian Lindemann who coaches people to be more creative at problem solving and building business. She offered to those posters a free 15 minute coaching session with her where she could help them see opportunities for success in their “I wish.” Recently Sian and I got together on the phone and talked about the responses and any success stories. Here are two that you may be interested in that Sian emailed me:

Marcus is a car enthusiast, and builds rather unique custom cars, for himself and for others. He has one unique consideration, he is deaf and he is legally blind. His physical disabilities have not stopped him however, and he has gone forward to create a Vocational School, under a Foundation that will teach “at risk” kids his vocation, of car mechanics. Now this part is so cool…I have an artist named Lucretia Torva who paints hot rod cars and motorcycles, in a “painting” format as custom portraits of avid car collectors.

And interestingly Lucretia gifted Jay Leno with one of her original paintings some time ago. Mr. Leno was so impressed that he called her personally to thank her and to ask her if there was anything that he could do for her.

We are currently in talks to have both Mr. Simmons and Lucretia Torva featured on The Tonight Show to promote this new business alliance, where Lucretia’s custom car portraits can be sold and a significant % of the proceeds can go to fund Marcus Simmons’ Foundation for the kids.
Patricia is another who responded to the free consultation.  Patricia is a writer, a nun, a psychologist and is an advisor to the Dr. Phil show, based in New York. The great news is that she too, followed up on the free offer, and with another book pending, we have already secured a publishing deal for her and have introduced her to another contact, Barry Spilchuk, Author of CUP OF SOUP FOR THE SOUL, the second book written in the Chicken Soup series, and he, too, is interested in Patricia’s book.

You just never know what will happen if you follow up on a FREE offer. I was not out to sell these individuals on some expensive program.

**********************

With that type of success based on a free fifteen minute phone call, what would have happened if you called. Sian wants to offer you fifteen minutes with her again. No up-sell, no strings, no bait and switch, no nothing… free fifteen minutes from someone who can help you. And if I were you, I’d take it. Fifteen minutes with me would cost you a few hundred.

Call or email Sian

Sian Lindemann
sunstar@q.com
www.siandesign.com
719-487-8831
Monument, Colorado, USA

Recently I sent out an invite for people to send me their products and I would evaluate them for use on my upcoming TV show and or on my blog. The majority of products didn’t make the TV show cut. But some I loved so much that I had to post something on the blog. Laura Silverthorn’s company Mother Ink makes custom designed and eco friendly temporary tattoo’s.  You might be saying “so what” temporary tattoo’s are nothing new nor are they usually classified as being worthy to be featured. After you look at them and hear her story, I think you’ll change your mind. I spoke with Laura and I’ll paraphrase her story a bit, but it goes a little like this… Anyone who’s been around a pregnant woman long enough knows that she is both excited about the changes her body is going through, and thoroughly disgusted with those changes as well. Let alone as time goes by, getting more and more uncomfortable. She also can’t smoke, drink or have caffeine, so the irritability can reach new heights even for the calmest of women. Usually it comes to a point in which a pregnant woman just wants to “feel” sexy again. But what can she do? Wear some “pretty” stretch pants?? She definitely can’t get a tattoo or a piercing. But she can decorate herself with an FDA approved vegetable based temp tattoo (see photo below). And they tell me “green” is in.

I’m on the fence as far as getting a full tattoo, but one of the great idea’s Laura pulled off is that given the hormones that are going crazy with a pregnant woman, being able to decorate her body without the commitment is excellent. I know a good amount of women who have permanent tattoos that regret getting them. So Double Score Points go to Laura for providing a service that can be undone. Also Laura did not take the approach of “cheese,” in that she could have done something like a Fredrick’s of Hollywood approach or taken the view that women want “juicy” written on them somewhere. Laura pushed passed what would commonly be considered “mass market” appeal, or as I would say …dumbed down.

When I showed the designs and the idea of Mother Ink to my wife, she immediately liked the idea and understood what Laura was doing. Especially the non commitment part of the tattoo. Another bonus that comes across from this creative business idea is that it translates to non-pregnant women as well. And if you know me, I love multi-layered concepts.

And finally I like Laura’s approach to what she designed for the tattoos. Laura could have let a computer program design something for her like a heart or a music symbol. Instead she concepts first and then hand draws and colors them first. Then brings them into a computer. And if you’ve read my book you’d know that the computer is a tool, not the designer.

Mother Ink tattoos are fun, creative, appealing, green, innovative  …and on target.

Check them out at www.MotherInk.com

It is one thing to teach adults how to be creative it is another to teach children. Children don’t come with experiences in hand to refer to. But children are very eager to “make things up” as they want them to be, I think it is the driving force to our nature, but for some reason we kill that nature as we get older. Cindy Ray’s book “The Stapler Caper” is a great encouragement to independent thinking for children. Our schools and teaching systems don’t generally allow for children to retain independent thoughts and perspectives to move ahead in life, instead they encourage wrote memory and doctrine. “The Stapler Caper” is a great big breathe of hope for creative encouragement and a whole new generation of thinkers. My own children were excited to see that they could interact with a book, not only just reading or solving a problem but inventing the story from beginning to end. I’m hoping it will help them see more of what my own book is about and the things I try and teach them, but then again, to them I’m just “dad.”  Cindy’s book is a great idea well executed and inviting to jump start children who may not know where to start. And starting is half the battle. Great book!

I encourage you to get Cindy’s book for your young child. (and one of mine for yourself

The Stapler Caper is available online at www.thestaplercaper.com or by calling toll free 877-596-7257.

Ok kids pay attention. This interview was probably the funnest interview I have ever had. I got to talk to Eepybird the YouTube sensation guys with the Diet Coke and Mentos video. As much as I love talking to wacky artists or crazy inventors these guys are like talking to myself a bit. They love to look at the world in a different way. They don’t mind failure and are willing to risk looking silly in front of people.

As a dad I am always pushing my children to “try” no matter how badly they fail right off. I often try to remind them of how well they do something now by failing the first few times. That usually gets them motivated and beyond the fear in their head. But I digress, Eepybird:

First I’d like to say thank you to Siobhan Aalders who presented me and my little blog to Stephen and Fritz for a phone interview and some follow up emails. And thank you to Fritz and Stephen for accepting the idea and taking the time to talk to me. While I hope in the future they’ll be able to see my TV show and say “hey, we know that guy…” but until then, they took a risk of wasting time with little ‘ol no name me. I’m very grateful and am delighted that what they had to say fit right in with my book.

I’ll start with the email questions I asked of them:

• Why do you think we are fascinated by everyday objects doing extra ordinary things.

FRITZ: There is nothing like seeing our ordinary world transformed into something new. For me, art in general shows you a particular way of looking at something so that you see it in a way you hadn’t before. When things as simple as soda and candy become a geyser or pieces of paper become a waterfall, it’s tickles your brain the way both art and good jokes do. It is completely incongruous but somehow makes perfect sense!

STEPHEN: I remember reading a critique of magicians once that said essentially “You show me a prop that looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before . . . and you make it behave like nothing I’ve ever seen before! Where’s the magic in that?”

I think it’s a lot more compelling to see things we ARE familiar with behave in ways we’d never imagined. And I also like that it’s the kind of work that gets our audiences looking in new ways a the world around them.

• What is the deciding factor in choosing and everyday object?

FRITZ: The choice of object is all about where we find the interesting phenomena.  With Diet Coke & Mentos, we started with the phenomenon and looked for what we could do with it.  With sticky notes, we started with the object and looked for what it could do.  We end up exploring dozens of objects to find one interesting phenomenon, and we may explore dozens of phenomena before we find one that we can build a spectacle around.

STEPHEN: It’s really about what catches our eye. What looks like it might have more to it than we usually use it for. One of the things that’s cool about this process is that what catches Fritz’s or my eye might be something entirely different than what catches your eye – and you can find something just as cool with what grabs you as we do with what grabs us.

• At what point do you give up on a selection, if ever?

FRITZ: We’re very tenacious, so we rarely give up completely on an idea. Many ideas will sit on the back burner for years, though, with a glimmer of an idea waiting for that one more insight that will get it cooking away on the front burner.

STEPHEN: Yep. It’s all about the back burner. We have an unlimited number of them!

• Is there anything that fascinates you but not your audience?

FRITZ: So far, happily, what we enjoy has been what our audiences enjoy. First and foremost, we look for what fascinates us.  That helps avoid a vain search for what might or might not be popular.  We always want our work to be accessible and friendly, to get a dialogue going with the audience.  For us, that dialogue always begins with, “check out this crazy thing we found…”  And then hopefully our enthusiasm spreads!

STEPHEN: Not yet. And I do think that there’s something inherently interesting about having someone share with you something THEIR really interested in. It’s like having a teacher who’s really enthusiastic about what they teach. If they care about it, and care about teaching it, it almost doesn’t matter what the subject it.

• …and just for kicks… If you were a color, what color would you be?

FRITZ: I was all about bright, “safety” orange growing up, but now I’m a more thoughtful blue/purple most of the time.

STEPHEN: Blue, though I find myself wearing a lot of black for some reason.

Over the phone Stephen and Fritz told me stories of always being inquisitive as children and some of the things they did in order to get a “real job” in order to support themselves. But they always kept in touch with their creative side in some form or fashion through the years. Not that they weren’t creative in their “real jobs.” Also they spoke enthusiastically of not giving up on an idea and I’ll paraphrase their advice as saying that a failure is simply a delay and not the end. Sometimes you may have to put an idea aside, but they are willing to wait it out for an idea. Who knows when an idea will cross over from another idea that’ll solve the one currently on “delay.”

I was also thrilled to talk to the Eepybird boys about volume. In my book I talk a little about some past genius’ put out more “bad” ideas than they did good ones. But you’ve got to get them all out in order for the “good” ones to come out.

Stephen and Fritz of Eepybird are an encouragement to the world to never give up and to always try. And when you’ve got it working, make it extraordinarily great.

I encourage you to visit their website and watch all of their video’s on YouTube.  (…and then get a copy of my book to help you get to their level of creative genius) 

Visit Stephen and Fritz:
www.eepybrid.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1rZqw5bXb4