Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

OK, OK, I know, my blog schedule has been horrible.  I deeply appreciate all of you that have sent me notes wondering what’s going on.

As soon as the new blog format and web site are up and going I will be back on schedule.

In the meantime here we are, 6 months into 2011, heck, we are past halfway!  The longest day of the year has come and gone.  So, as they say on Game of Thrones – “winter is coming”, though at 100 degree’s + in Texas, winter seems a distant thing.

The first half of 2011 has been fantastic.  33 projects for 17 clients in 12 different industries!  It has been challenging and rewarding.  Can anyone ask for anything more?

The Dazzling Blue platform – the journey from ordinary to extraordinary has really taken off.  The article in the Dallas Morning News has certainly stirred interest in the ideas and action points in that journey.

The Opportunity of Meeting – how to change everything you think and do regarding meetings is now in active play with three of my clients.

July has me heading down to Austin, then off to Boston, a quick stop in Houston and a closing trip to Houston.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Let’s talk Pixar, the animation film giant.  Most of you are familiar with these creative geniuses through their major theater releases such as the Toy Story trilogy, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Up and others.  The Pixar empire is the result of John Lasseter and his unique partnership with Steven Jobs.

A quick history:

• Jobs, after being fired by Apple, dabbles around in a few projects including Next Computer and buys the tiny animation division of Lucas Films in 1986 for about $10 million that becomes Pixar.
• He brings with him a young John Lasseter to run things.
• He gives Lasseter a three word set of marching orders – “Make it great”.  So Lasseter embarks on that simple and powerful mission.
• It took about 10 years to make their first major theater release – Toy Story.  Since that time they have released 12 major animated features.
• The Oscars have been kind to Pixar who almost singlehandedly created the Animated Award category.  Of the 8 Pixar films released between 2001 and 2010, 6 have taken the Oscar.
• In all Pixar’s work has been nominated for 211 various film awards taking 205 of them.
• 20 years after his $10 million investment, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for $7.4 billion.  John Lasseter continues to run Pixar in addition to Disney Animation and the Imagineering team (guys that design theme parks and the rides we all wait hours for).

The key to Pixar success always starts from a single point; the story.  The story has to be outstanding, it has to be foundational.  It’s not about the amazing animation, but instead always starts with the story.  They spend countless hours scrutinizing every aspect of the tale.  It means everything to their process.

How simple, powerful and elegant is a single filter point?

The results speak for themselves and present a wonderful platform for us to examine; what is our most important filter?  Does it drive your decision model?  Can it be articulated throughout your teams?

Pixar has proven that a single filter and simple marching orders – Make it Great, can make all the difference!

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Larry Crowne and Transporters: Two choices for the heat intense 4^th of July weekend.  Not a bad way to spend some summer time hours.

NetFlix Fans: Cedar Rapids: A quirky off-beat comedy that made me laugh.

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TV: My DVR has been filled with stuff from the All England Lawn Tennis Club.  Man, I love those grass courts.  I also have given Falling Sky’s (TNT – Sunday nights) a run.  It’s pretty good.  You can always camp out at the USA Network for the their great, though formula driven, shows like Suits, Burn Notice, Covert Affairs and any of their other top notch TV series.

BOOK: Full Engagement – Tracy:  Not a lot of new stuff from Brian Tracy, but interesting with a foundation around building the right team and the problems that result from prolonging a bad teams time together.

MUSIC: Last Friday night one of my favorite singer songwriters was in town – Pierce Pettis.  I was scheduled to land at 6:30 PM and the show was scheduled to start at 8:00 PM, no worries, right?  Wrong, after around a 4 hour delay my flight landed at 10:30 PM and I missed the show, but wanted to share a little Pierce with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sri_GTFriDw

WEB SITES: Find out what happened on the year you were born.

http://dmarie.com/timecap/

SOUTH OF NORMAL

I am a huge fan of John Maeda at the Rhode Island School of Design and love the idea of helping those who invested in learning from you turn that knowledge into a career.

During tough economic times, the academic challenges of college can pale next to the difficulty of finding a job afterwards. Aiming to help make its graduates’ lives easier in this respect, the Rhode Island School of Design has begun equipping them with a kit of business-oriented tools upon graduation.

Now in their second year, RISD’s “artrepreneur kits” include practical tools and resources designed “to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities”. Among them, for instance, is a Square device and activation code, enabling graduates to process credit card payments anywhere. Also included in the kit are free six-month accounts with Prosite, a newly launched online portfolio site from Behance, along with an accompanying publication. YouSendIt, meanwhile, is providing each RISD graduate with a 2GB account free for three months, followed by a service discount on the file-transfer service thereafter. Perhaps best of all, Etsy this year is offering the first-ever Etsy RISD Fellowship to the graduate whose shop on the recently launched RISD Etsy Team Page shows the most promise. The winner will receive a USD 1,500 grant to attend Hello Etsy: A Summit on Small Business and Sustainability in Berlin this fall. RISD also maintains a section on Kickstarter to help its students gain funding and visibility.

As tuition fees continue on their upward trend even as economic woes continue, it’s a smart educational institution that does all it can to help its graduates get a leg up in the real world. Other institutions around the globe: what about you?

Website: www.risd.edu
Contact: http://www.risd.edu/contact/

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

Yes, I know, it’s been a while since my “weekly” blog has been posted.  My travel schedule has been insane with 8 cities in the past 2 weeks.  Despite my best efforts, bad hotel internet or flight delays (yes, it’s true, airlines have flight delays) I just have not been able to keep up.  My feet touched terra firma yesterday and I have a chance to muse once again!

• My two 2011 strategic platforms – The Opportunity of Meeting and Dazzling Blue are gaining momentum way ahead of my intent!  The major article that appeared in the Dallas Morning News had an unexpected focus on Dazzling Blue which moved that idea, the difference between ordinary and extraordinary to the race track and two existing clients decided they were tired of getting so little out of their meeting strategy and wanted to mine the opportunity they forgot was there.

• Repeatable Successful Acts keeps rolling along as a bigger primary sales strategy tool for my clients.  I have just completed adding three key RSA’s to the actual sales process for a client and am getting ready for a series of RSA road shows.

• My Simplicity program is attracting more opportunities on the presentation side of my business.  It’s hard for people to see the core opportunity that exists in simplify strategies without taking them on a journey that sets the idea in context.  Presentations are about “idea context”.

Next week continues my journeys as airports and hotels return to my daily life.

I love the fantastic and privileged position I have to share ideas!

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Let’s spend a little time on energy.

There are many physics laws that govern all types of energy and I’m sure you’re not interested in returning to those dreaded days in high school physics (unless of course you are a physics geek like me), BUT I want to spend a little time on energy and why it plays such an important part in your business success.

I want to deal with good old Sir Isaac Newton and one of his laws of motion, in fact his first law that basically says:

In order for the motion of an object to change, a force must act upon it.  This is also called “inertia” or, an object will remain in either motion or rest until acted upon.

Bottom line – In order to change something, that something needs ENERGY.  So, ergo, a new idea, a change in business strategy, a commitment to innovation or creativity needs energy.  You have to put something into to it to get something out of it.

This law is one of my main points of strategy around any strategic launch for a client.  You must commit energy or resources around the idea if you want to see traction and thus impact.

Corporate energy can take lots of forms – a team assigned to an issue, dollars allocated to a new sales idea or simply a commitment to communicate the message followed by a strong level of action.

Any way you cut it ask yourself this one question before embarking on a new idea:

“Can I define the energy needed to make this happen and once defined can I allocate it to the idea.”

Without an answer to that question the likelihood of your idea becoming reality is about as good as sitting and looking at a boulder in the middle of the road and willing it to move!

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Super 8 and Green Lantern: Since I missed a couple of weeks I thought I would give you a couple of choices – First, Super 8; this is the best of the summer movies – PERIOD.  Green Lantern is fun and full of excitement.

NetFlix Fans: Second Hand Lions: A truly wonderful family movie!

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TV:   New Stuff for the Summer: If you are late to Game of Thrones, too bad.  It’s really good stuff.  USA Network has re-launched a number of its great shows like Burn Notice, White Collar and Covert Affairs as well as introducing two new shows next week – Suits; about an ultra-brilliant guy who never went to law school but passed the bar on his first try.  Sound way cool.

BOOK: Surviving Your Serengeti – Swanepoel:  Another one of those business parables.  This one deals with wild animal analogies.  Kind of fun and interesting.

MUSIC: I wish there was a better version of this song on the web, but it is one of my favorite by Colin Hay.  Thanks to Wayne, my friend in San Francisco who a few years ago re-introduced me to Colin Hay!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgizT2om-4s&playnext=1&list=PL6B4BA848A3B692A1

WEB SITES: Do you get confused at the department store?  Here is a one stop place for you.

http://www.woot.com/

SOUTH OF NORMAL

Just in case you were forgot about Anthony Weiner!

Congressman Anthony Weiner’s resignation today was triggered by a Twitter mistake last month that he admitted to making.

The New York Democrat tweeted a rather unstatesmanly photo of himself to an admirer. But instead of sending the link to the photo in a private “direct message” to the woman on Twitter, he published it on his main Twitter feed. He’s far from the first to do so – Twitter’s direct message and public post input fields do look a lot alike.

The only sure way to keep electronic communications from falling into the wrong hands is not to send them at all. For most people today, that’s not a practical option. But you should always consider the risks of sending a message meant for private viewing over the world’s biggest instant-publishing medium.

1. Don’t DM anything you wouldn’t want public. It’s simply too easy to type into the wrong box on Twitter, posting a public tweet that others can see in seconds. Some reporters avoid the risk by asking people who “DM” them—Twitter slang for a direct message—to switch to e-mail instead. Sure, you can also send an e-mail to the wrong address, but it’s harder to do by accident.

2. Don’t presume protected tweets will stay private. Twitter gives you the option to protect your main Twitter feed, so that only your approved followers can see what you tweet. But because tweets are short, and contain only text instead of images and video, it’s easy for someone to manually retweet your message by cutting and pasting it into a new, and public, tweet of their own. They may not mean you harm, but an offhand joke meant for a few close friends can become an inexcusable offense if seen by others. And if you’ve got enemies, it’s possible they were already following you before you turned on the Protected Tweets option.

3. Turn on Twitter’s secure connection option. Weiner claimed early on that his Twitter account had been hijacked by a hacker. He later recanted, but it can happen. By default, Twitter sessions aren’t encrypted the way online shopping purchases are, which leaves them vulnerable on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in particular. You can enable encryption for everything by going to your Twitter account’s settings and turning on the option to “Always use HTTPS.”

But again, that won’t save you if you type into the wrong box.

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

The craziest of weeks in recent memory thanks to the fury of Mother Nature.

It took me 10 hours to go from Dallas to Orlando and I was blessed enough to be able to get the last seat on the ONLY plane that finally did go to Orlando.  I arrived in my hotel room at 12:45 AM after a scheduled landing of 2 PM the previous day.

I then had to catch a flight from Orlando to Dallas and then Dallas to Phoenix.  Well, I made it to Dallas, but then the storm to end all storms hit DFW airport.  They evacuated all the awaiting passengers at one of the world’s busiest airports to the tornado centers as a storm filled with 70 MP winds, hail the size of baseballs and so much lightning I thought I was at a Pink Floyd concert.  The papers the next day said it was the worst storm in the history of the airport with hail and wind damage to many of the aircraft on the ground.  I waited from 5 PM to 11:45 PM before they cancelled all the flights.  I then waited another 90 minutes in line, with everyone else at the airport for a cab home.

This forced me to miss only my third program in 27 years of Creative Ventures.  I was heartbroken, but powerless to do anything.

Next week I am off to Minneapolis.

Keep your eyes open for the June newsletter where I will introduce my latest idea – DAZZLING BLUE.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

In a world where change smacks us in the mouth every day and where the majority of issues that can impact our life are out of our control, what strategic steps can we take that can create real impact?  Let me visit with two, one is driven towards personal growth and one driven at your clients.

SKILL SETS: No matter what happens to the macro-economic picture in areas like health care, budget deficit, unemployment and such you still have power over YOU.  Think about focusing some energy on your professional skill sets.  Times of uncertainty beg for personal development.

Here are is one idea.  Work on your presentation skills.  The ONLY way to get your ideas from concept to reality is to give them traction.  Presentation skills provide you the opportunity to build your career around ideas.  If you can’t find any budget to move your skills forward professionally, watch a lot of presenters and take notes on what you thought worked and what didn’t.  Go to www.ted.com and pick a topic that interests you and watch the presentations.  You can learn a lot!

CLIENT EXPERIENCE: Despite the uncertainty of the markets appetite, you control how the client interacts within your sales process.  If your process has grown to blob like proportions focus on these two ignition points;

1. When a prospect turns into a customer.  This is the point of the first sale.  It changes everything.  Look for opportunities to separate and differentiate yourself in a world that is rapidly being completely commoditized.
2. When the customer turns into a client.  This is when you create a relationship, something that goes beyond the transaction.  Try to find something small, but personal you can do to help the client realize this is not just a transactional relationship.  I use music.  I create custom CD’s and send them to my clients.

There you go, two ideas that can provide focus in times of crazy change.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  The Hangover Part II: I’ll do it.  Time for a crude and predictable laugh.

NetFlix Fans: Unstoppable: Really exciting and a perfect living room movie.

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TV:   Season Finale’s: Some fantastic cliff hangers from some of my favorite shows.  The Mentalist gave us some resolution to the core plot line should it not make it back next year.   House made me kind of glad that season 8 will be its last.  Castle was a great ender and the best of the best was Justified.  The good part about the way TV is structured in 2011 gives us great chances to sample other stuff thanks to cable stations.  Networks launch new programs in June and the heavy hitters like HBO keep giving us great entertainment like Game of Thrones.

BOOK: Change Making – Bevan:  Really interesting book with key ideas like; Build Inter-Disciplinary Teams, Develop a Strategy Around Communication Clarity.  Some really good stuff.

MUSIC: My friend David Wilcox recording a FANTSTIC song in his home studio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqEAG5o-LFU&feature=related

WEB SITES: One of the most mind boggling digital sites on the internet!

http://www.adobemuseum.com/index.php

SOUTH OF NORMAL

We’ve recently seen numerous innovations designed to ease the tedium of pre-flight waiting. Take the ebook library at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, for example. This morning Schiphol airport in Amsterdam launched their own effort, with the world’s first airport park.

The park consists of a large interior space as well as an outdoor terrace for when the weather is fine. The indoor area of the park is designed to replicate the feeling of an outdoor space, with butterflies projected on to the walls and floors, and with sounds such as bicycle bells, animals and playing children filling the air. Surrounding a once-threatened 130 year-old tree, the park features a number of loungers and wire frame and ivy chairs for travelers to relax in, as well as the Park Café, serving fresh juices, organic coffee and hamburgers. Around the periphery of the park there are power points for travelers to charge electronic devices such as laptops, and there is the option to charge mobile phones by pedaling one of the energy generating bicycles. To boost its eco-credentials, the airport uses LED lighting wherever possible, with natural light also entering the park through fiber optic cables and tube lighting.

As airports continue to be a hotspot for innovation, there are plenty of lessons to be to be applied anywhere that consumers are forced to wait – take note and be inspired! (Related: Portland airport installs bike assembly station for travellers — Singapore airport’s four-storey slide rewards duty-free spending.)

Website: www.schiphol.nl/airportpark
Contact: www.schiphol.nl/Reizigers/OpSchiphol/Contact.htm

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

This was a great week of work!

I had the opportunity to present my latest program – THE OPPORTUNITY OF MEETING (all about the missed opportunity in most meetings and how you can follow a simple process to make your meetings a powerful tool in your strategic plan).

Last Friday I had the honor of presenting the idea of Transformational Leadership (is there any other kind?) to the Hugh O’Brien Youth Organization.  200 + teenagers!  It was a challenge to keep their attention for 90 minutes, but they are always a tremendously rewarding group of kids and teach me more than I could ever teach them!

Sunday I had a feature interview article in the Dallas Morning News.

Pretty cool and Cheryl Hall is a fantastic writer.

Next week I am off to Orlando and Phoenix.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THE LAW OF PERSONAL CONTROL – Hold close the knowledge of what YOU can do.

In my study of million dollar producers (Repeatable Successful Acts) I was amazed at how this law came into play.  Those successful producers held an intimate knowledge of their skill sets, but more importantly they knew when to apply them.  This knowledge, this aptitude is a driving force in the law of impact.

Here it is in a nutshell, you need to know what you can and what you can’t do.

Here is a personal example:

I have NO mechanical skill sets.  I can’t fix things or put things together.  I become frustrated and angry pretty fast.  So this is something I KNOW I cannot do.  This piece of simple personal knowledge frees me up to focus on those things I CAN DO.

It sounds so simple, but this freedom allows me to aggressively attack those things I CAN do.  By knowing these strengths and weaknesses I can develop event management strategies that will increase my efficiency and use of time.

I often start this exercise in our Transformational Leadership program with simple “listing” process.  In three minutes, list as many of your business strengths as you can.  Then, in another three minute period list all your business weaknesses.

You now have your first look at The Law of Personal Control.

The next step is the application of the knowledge.

Want to increase your impact, know your Law of Personal Control.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Pirates of the Caribbean – On Strange Tides:  I have, unfortunately heard bad things about this, but will give it a shot any way.

NetFlix Fans: I Am Number 4: I kind of wanted to see this when it was out.  It will now become an evening rental.

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TV:   House MD: Disastrous news for House fans as the marvelous Lisa Edelstein will not be back for the 8^th season of House.  Monday night’s episode will be her last.  It will be sad times to have Dr. Lisa Cuddy leave the House family.  I can only hope they don’t do something stupid like killing her off!

BOOK: Profiles in Marketing Excellence – Lockard:  This is a really interesting read that profiles 25 marketing superstars.

MUSIC: The latest from Bob Schneider – Let the Light In.  This is a special version delivered in front of the Kessler Theater where we saw that night’s concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsfECzllTE

WEB SITES: Change a PDF file into a JPEG in the blink of an eye and for FREE.

www.zamzar.com

SOUTH OF NORMAL

One of the best daily newsletters is the Wells Fargo Daily Advantage.  They provided me with this interesting trend in crafted booze.

In the alcoholic beverage market, craft liquors are hot. Remember? First we had little wineries popping up all over the country. Then we had “micro” beer breweries. And now, suddenly, there are more than 260 boutique liquor distillers, and new ones are opening at the rate of about one a week, according to USA Today. For example, there’s honey-flavored vodka from Hidden Marsh Distillers in Seneca Falls, New York, and pepper-flavored gin called “Hot Monkey” that is made in Portland, Oregon. (Of course, boutique distillers are nothing new. We’ve had them since the birth of the republic, except they all used the same flavoring: moonshine.)

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

It’s unheard of!  Airlines, hotels, taxi cab companies are reeling from a sudden decline in their bottom lines.  I had a full week in Dallas.  Yep, my first full week of no travel in 2011.

Part of it was due to client rescheduling and part of it was self imposed as I had a couple of projects that needed my undivided attention and you just can’t do that on the road.  I was also blessed with Chicago and Atlanta based clients coming to Dallas to work on curriculum projects.

So I customized a couple of presentations to meet some very specific client needs and continued the development of two strategic platforms that are currently in play:

• The Opportunity of Meeting:  An entire strategy around the missed opportunities that happen due to the horrible planning around meetings.
• Dazzling Blue:  A brand new strategy around pushing barriers and changing your thinking around what you really CAN do.

Next week finds a quick trip to Houston.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THE LAW OF STRUCTURAL SUPPORT – Often, the best leaders are only as good as their support team.

Very few people can do everything themselves.  The best leaders grasp this issue and have developed wonderfully supportive teams and systems to help them achieve goals that would otherwise be to complex and resource intensive to even embark upon.

What are the keys to this methodology of delegation?

• TRAINING:  Your goal should be to have the finest trained staff on the planet.  By having a knowledgeable and skillful team you free them from the risk of not knowing.  The best tool for achieving the extraordinary is a well-trained and informed team.

• ACCOUNTABILITY:  This is a key concept and one the team would be grateful for you to bestow on them.  Give them the task, allow them the freedom to perform, after all they are the best trained team on the planet and hold them accountable for the outcome.  That’s a winning formula.

• YOUR NETWORK:  Sometimes your support is not always found in YOUR team; instead it’s in the networks you have built.  The Law of Support governs ALL the support you have.  Use your external team when the project requires perspective outside your traditional framework of support.

Think of your career as a house, the stronger the foundation, the better the outcome.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Fast Five:  I haven’t seen this yet but everyone I know that has, gives it a big action movie thumbs up!

NetFlix Fans: The Illusionist: Great animated feature.

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TV:   Dr. Who: Dr. Who returns to American TV on BBC America.

BOOK: The Improvisation Edge – Hough:  An interesting look at the power of reacting to the situations as they present themselves.

MUSIC: Rob Thomas singing a very emotional and minimalistic version of 3 AM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUVWzvFYk0k&feature=related

WEB SITES: Looking for good TV – here is the list of the top 25 shows of 2010.  They have Justified at #14 – Geez, should be in top 5.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-25-best-television-series-of-2010,49229/

SOUTH OF NORMAL

From my friends at Springwise – As a weekly traveler, airport stuff always interests me!

We’ve recently seen numerous innovations designed to ease the tedium of pre-flight waiting. Take the ebook library at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, for example. This morning Schiphol airport in Amsterdam launched their own effort, with the world’s first airport park.

The park consists of a large interior space as well as an outdoor terrace for when the weather is fine. The indoor area of the park is designed to replicate the feeling of an outdoor space, with butterflies projected on to the walls and floors, and with sounds such as bicycle bells, animals and playing children filling the air. Surrounding a once-threatened 130 year-old tree, the park features a number of loungers and wire frame and ivy chairs for travelers to relax in, as well as the Park Café, serving fresh juices, organic coffee and hamburgers. Around the periphery of the park there are power points for travelers to charge electronic devices such as laptops, and there is the option to charge mobile phones by pedaling one of the energy generating bicycles. To boost its eco-credentials, the airport uses LED lighting wherever possible, with natural light also entering the park through fiber optic cables and tube lighting.

As airports continue to be a hotspot for innovation, there are plenty of lessons to be to be applied anywhere that consumers are forced to wait – take note and be inspired! (Related: Portland airport installs bike assembly station for travellers — Singapore airport’s four-storey slide rewards duty-free spending.)

Website: www.schiphol.nl/airportpark
Contact: www.schiphol.nl/Reizigers/OpSchiphol/Contact.htm

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

Sorry about missing last week’s blog posting and thanks for all the emails wondering what went wrong.  I had some problems posting from the internet at my New York hotel.  I seem to have been suffering from hotel internet problems lately, but no more as I invested in a portable Wi-Fi device to solve the issue.

Last week I had the absolute honor of working with a new client in New York.  It was the introduction of the Repeatable Successful Acts platform to the architectural industry.  Architects have the challenge of selling ideas and were looking for new strategies.  I traveled with star agent Chris Ryan and had a fantastic time in the Big Apple.

Today I am coming to you from La Jolla CA where I am presenting a completely customized program to key financial portfolio managers and facilitating a panel discussion.

I am back to Dallas with a quick trip to Austin to end the week.

Next week it’s time to design and work on a number of projects that are both on the drawing board and getting ready to start.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THE LAW OF EVERYTHING – Despite your skills, knowledge, confidence

and experience – YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING.

Attempting Everything Leads to Nothing

Nothing gets really talented people in trouble faster than THE LAW OF EVERYTHING.  It’s hard to let go, to delegate, especially critical tasks and projects.

The reality is that any successful project turns out to be the sum of a lot of peoples work.

Leaders need to recognize the fact that to lead is a process of social influence in which a person enlists the aid of others to accomplish a goal.

Entrepreneurs are particularly susceptible to this problem.  Early on in their development of their business they do everything.  They are the marketing, personnel, sales and manager of their idea.  Then as they gain success THE LAW OF EVERYTHING comes into play.  Growth dictates the allocation of time.

Learning to become a good leader is all about being able to understand that you can never DO EVERYTHING.

This is easier said than done.  The success is to start small.  Begin assigning tasks that create accountability and an ease of monitoring.

Moving your thinking and actions towards only the impactful and critical with regard to the allocation of your time is the key step in developing leadership skill sets.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Thor:  Oh, Yea!  Here come the summer blockbusters and I am ready to rock and roll!

NetFlix Fans: Dances with Wolves: One of my Top 10 of all time.

.

TV:   Game of Thrones: I am really enjoying this new HBO series…

BOOK: Partnership – Segil:  I thought this was a good idea and fit with THE LAW OF EVERYTHING.

MUSIC: Most of you know that I am huge Bob Dylan fan.  Here is a haunting version of The Chimes of Freedom flashing…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3tB3PsViAc

WEB SITES: People ask where I hang out for fun on the web.  I love this site, but there are some language issues so beware.

www.aintitcool.com

SOUTH OF NORMAL

Really interesting from the Wells Fargo Daily Advantage.

There’s been a proliferation of Ph.D.s in the sciences. According to a great article in Nature titled “The Ph.D. Factory,” the number of science-related Ph.D.s granted each year jumped 40% between 1998 and 2008 in countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD. At 34,000 a year, the absolute number of science Ph.D.s produced globally is still relatively small, but the jobs still aren’t there to soak them up. Most people who embark on a Ph.D. ultimately want to perform academic research at a university, but those jobs are much scarcer than they once were. Every year the nation’s universities crank out a new round of Ph.D.s, but it’s not like there are boutique university start-ups to give them jobs. The next preferred alternative is using their degrees in the private sector, like a chemistry, biology, or life sciences Ph.D. working at a pharmaceutical firm. But those jobs aren’t there in abundance either.

The end result, according to Nature, is that many Ph.D.s end up working at jobs that don’t require the advanced degree in the first place. That’s a lot of time, effort, and money that’s wasted on an education that can take five to ten years after college. Some U.S. researchers say we need to focus more on placing existing Ph.D.s and actively discouraging new ones. But that sentiment isn’t shared by China and India, which have made huge investments in trying to produce as many Ph.D.s as possible. And for China, it’s worked: It now produces more Ph.D.s per year than the U.S., although there are questions about how China’s Ph.D. programs stack up against their U.S. counterparts.

So we say we want more people with advanced degrees to lead the world to new technological frontiers, but globally we don’t produce the jobs that would make those degrees worthwhile. One of the downsides to spending all your time studying physics, for example, is that you’re not spending any time learning about business and what it takes to start your own company and thus create the jobs that aren’t there now. Of course, this general principle has a corollary: One of the downsides to studying only business is that you’re launched into the corporate world knowing how to manage things but not how to create anything new in the sciences that need to be managed (there’s a further corollary for us lapsed philosophers: You can spend all your time studying philosophy and know how to neither create scientific things nor manage them).

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

Laura and I are in Newport Beach CA this week and WOW, what a fantastic trip this has been. 

• I launched my brand new strategic platform The Opportunity of Meeting.  This program is all about the value that gets left on the table at almost every meeting.  It’s about how a simple three part formula can completely change the way you use meetings.
• Repeatable Successful Acts is now being introduced to three new companies all interested in using various RSA’s as part of their sales process.
• I start a major design project for a client around a new marketing campaign.

I begin next week with a program on the difference between innovation and transformation then it’s off to New York to introduce the RSA to a new client.

Thanks for all the support and taking the time to read my stuff.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Are you confused with what’s going on out there?  Yesterday I read a New York Times survey that showed the majority of Americans are in a state of despair over the economy.  The National debt issues, the unemployment numbers, the housing issues all seem to weigh down our feeling of optimism when things are actually looking up.  Today in USA Today there is a headline; “Rising economic optimism helps stocks”.

WOW, what the hell is going on?  You read this and then you read that.  It can make your head spin.  Our ability to filter information in an age with the feeling of unlimited access can really be challenging.  What is and what is not important.  What can impact us?  What can I control and what is out of my control.  How much do I need to know to do my job?  How much do I need to know to simply be informed?

These are tough, foundational questions.

Here is a quick suggestion:

FILTER:  Take a blank piece of paper and make a 10 point list of what’s important.  Make it simple.  Write down things that interest you and things that are needed for you professionally.  It’s a very good exercise.  The list is pretty big at 10 items.

FILTER THE FILTER:  Now divide the list into personal and professional.  Now here is the tricky part.  You only get three areas in each column.  Yep, only three.  This is your master list.

WHAT TO DO:  Here is an easy method.  Go to Google and search, Google Alerts.  Now enter the areas of interest and every day Google will search the world and send you an email with the content you are interested in.  Or go to www.alltop.com and set up your personal page.  Then you go to that page and they will aggregate all the stuff you find interesting.

Hey, it’s a start to making sense out of stuff!

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Conspirator –   It’s a little uneven, but an interesting story.

NetFlix  Fans:   His Way – Jerry Weintraub :  A great documentary about one of Hollywood’s biggest producers.

TV:   Game of Thrones. – Really good stuff on HBO.

BOOKS:  The Golden Buddha  – Cussler:  First book in the Oregon Series, from the creator of Dirk Pitt.

MUSIC:   Hanging out at the beach made me think of Jimmy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNmULx6sMo4            

WEB SITES:   Get your USA Today via the web.

http://www.usatoday.com/        

SOUTH OF NORMAL

An analysis of the top 100 grossing movies of 2008 showed some interesting facts about how men and women interact in movies. 

• Men had 67% of the speaking roles in all movies.
• Female characters were more likely to wear sexy clothes
• DUH!
• Women represent half the movie ticket buying market yet get only 1/3 of the speaking opportunities.

Hollywood should get on board and jump into the 21^st century!

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

Yes, I realize that last week’s post did not make it onto the web site.  I’m not sure what went wrong.  I was in St. Simons Island, off the coast of Georgia and internet coverage was spotty at best.  It showed that it posted but when I started to receive emails asking what had happened I realized something went haywire.   I appreciate all the readers that send email regarding the missing blog, but getting back to everyone is getting more challenging as the readership grows.

So, last week I was in Chicago for a series of Repeatable Successful Acts launches for 5 offices of a client then a quick stop home to repack and off to Jacksonville, FL where Laura and I took an hour drive to St. Simons Island where I lead a strategic retreat for a new client based around the idea that if you want to know what your clients think of your service and growth ideas, simple invite the CEO’s of your largest clients, treat them to a little island life and golf then sit them down and ask them!  The results were unbelievable and my client now has solid direction on both growth and service strategy.

This week had me finishing two BIG Dallas based client projects (both new to the Creative Ventures family) and now finds me in San Francisco where I am presenting a new long term strategy based on the RSA platform to one of my oldest and favorite clients.

Next week off to Newport Beach where I will introduce my 2011 strategic program – THE OPPORTUNITY OF MEETINGS – The power of connected actions.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THE LAW OF PERSONAL CONTROL – Hold close the understanding of what  YOU CAN DO.

This is another of the 21 Creative Ventures Laws.  I am continuing to introduce these operating principles that are impacting a variety of projects I am working on.

When faced with an escalating amount of business that hits your plate and the ever expanding impact that outside forces have on your livelihood you often develop a mindset that there’s some type of conspiracy going on.  Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s just the nature of our times.  This conspiracy theory often stops us cold in our tracks in moving forward with our ideas, plans and strategies.  Here is how the LAW OF PERSONAL CONTROL works:

Let’s say you are in the financial services business.  You and your clients are constantly impacted by the macro economic issues of the day.  Unemployment, a volatile market, the lack of business credit, the housing collapse and so a myriad issues can make everyone in your business sphere think you are doing a poor job, thusly giving you the business blues.

Now stop for just a second and apply the LAW OF PERSONAL CONTROL – By critically thinking about these macro issues you immediately discover you have NO control over any of these issues.  Sure, you need to understand their impact, but control, forget it.  Now, start to focus on those things you do control and push strategic energy in their direction.

Here are a couple of examples:

SKILL SETS:  No matter what happens you always control how good you are at what you do.  When in doubt of strategic direction, shift to building your core skill sets.  Study more, work on your communication and thinking skills, and invest in YOU.

THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE:  You are always the architect, builder and deliverer of the client experience.  This is the classic area of separation in a commoditized world.  Build unique, impactful and elegant client experiences.

These are in the arena of your PERSONAL CONTROL.

Pretty good law.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Hanna -  Time for a little action.

NetFlix Fans: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Nothing beats the consistent quality of this movie franchise.

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TV:   Justified: Wednesday night on FX – possibly the best written show on TV.

BOOK: Gideon’s Sword – Preston/Child:  A brand new hero from this writing team.  As you can tell, I am spending all my time on planes and in hotels so the reading is taking a big fiction turn.

MUSIC: In honor of the release of a brand new Paul Simon CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAJTCk6yHc

WEB SITES: Mixed up on the lyrics to a song?  Laura once asked me why Bruce Springsteen sang a song called the “Muffin Man?”  I said, “Babe, it’s The Nothing Man.”

http://www.lyrics.com/

SOUTH OF NORMAL

From my friends at Springwise

Innovations such as 3D printing are driving a growing trend towards homemade products. The fact remains, however, that it still takes high-end equipment to create and test many designs, and that’s where TechShop comes in. With a chain of equipment-filled workshops available on a membership basis, the company lets consumers turn their designs from dream into reality.

Offering three locations in California and North Carolina and more opening soon in Portland, Detroit and Brooklyn, TechShop is like the invention-focused equivalent of a fitness club. In exchange for a monthly fee, members get access to “tools and equipment, instruction and a community of creative and supportive people,” in the site’s own words. Members who need to punch a hole in sheet metal, for example, can turn to TechShop’s large rotary punch; those needing to spot weld an enclosure need only head for the spot welder in the welding room. Most of the company’s climate-controlled facilities feature a 15,000+ square foot floor plan with a workshop space filled with large work tables, 115 volt outlets and compressed air at each work table, computer workstations and software, wifi, a creative brainstorming lounge, classrooms, and a retail store offering convenience materials and consumables. Storage and private workshops are also available, as are 3D printing, personal prototyping, and a wide range of classes to train users on each piece of equipment as they need it. Individual memberships at TechShop are priced at USD 125 per month, with student, corporate and single-visit pricing available as well.

Mark Hatch, CEO of TechShop, explains: “Our mission at TechShop is to engage, encourage and empower everyone — from hobbyists to inventors, entrepreneurs, artists and students — by providing sophisticated machines and tools in 15,000-square-foot workshops for our members. We lower the barrier to creativity by making tools that are usually only found in large companies available to everyone.”

Beyond the four further TechShop locations in the works, it also aims to expand across the United States and around the world. One to partner with or emulate in your neck of the MIY woods? (Related: Rental cellphones let developers test their mobile apps — An open-source 3D printer for the masses — Commercial kitchen for rent by the hour.)

Website: www.techshop.ws
Contact: info@techshop.ws

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

This was a fantastic week with new clients coming on board for the second quarter.  I have a new simplification project that is really challenging and will be a ton of fun to work on.  In the heart of complexity lies a simple path. 

I am coming to you from the Valley of the Sun here in Phoenix where the brand new Chaos Conspiracy – The elegant and powerful idea of SIMPLE hit the stage.  It was a big hit and during the program, filled with new images, group participation and a few stage tricks the company began to see a new way of approaching their process planning.

Next week I am in Chicago for a series of Repeatable Successful Acts launches then off to Sea Island Georgia to facilitate a planning retreat.

Love the work!

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

The Law of the Fire hose – It is impossible to take a sip from a fire hose.

Here is the deal, you are planning a conference and the fact that you will have a bunch of your team members present gets your brain thinking of all the things you want to do.  You start to load up on data they need, you plan workshops to sharpen their skills, you create roundtable discussion groups, in other words, you LOAD the agenda, filling every unforgiving minute with new content.  You start to think about making the breakfast time a working session.  You know that dinner is another chance to get info out there.  The next thing you know you have built a meeting in which impact has been killed by content overload.

I know what you will tell me, “Steve, do you know how much money and lost productive time (as though the meeting was not “productive time”) this will cost?  We need to maximize our time together.”

I agree.  What I don’t agree with is that maximizing time together means dumping so much stuff on the participants that their ability to retain something important, something that will move the needle forward is lost in the morass of data fed to them in a non-stop time stream.

It is impossible to take a sip out of a fire hose.  To change your perspective will help you create a meeting that will create results.  Think about IMPACT.  What if you were only going to deliver content and education that will actually impact the audience.  An adult has about 6 hours of learning capacity a day.  Structure your meetings around this FACT.  Provide them a FILTER they can use to get through all the info they receive.  Here is a simple one:

APPLY -   In a quick manner check off each new piece of information and give it a quick overview – Does this APPLY to me?

DO – If the idea applies am I actually willing to do it?  Move the ideas that have a YES to the DO question to a new position.

WHEN – Take the DO items and give them a WHEN.  If you add action to a do date you have a piece of information that will move your needle forward.

Stop designing a fire hose and start designing IMPACT.

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Source Code –   Everyone is saying great things about this one.

NetFlix Fans:   Inside Man:  A great show and I just had the opportunity to see it again.

TV:   It’s time for the networks to review their line ups.   One of my favorites is on the chopping block – The Human Target.  I hope it makes it.  For those of you not watching Justified you are missing the best show on TV

BOOKS:  the Lincoln Lawyer  – Connelly:  Great read before the really good movie.  Connelly writes wonderful characters.

MUSIC:   Michael Franti singing a catchy tune – Hey, Hey, Hey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPobQ-ewiA            

WEB SITES:   Getting started on an understanding of the science of the universe.

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics.htm

SOUTH OF NORMAL

The psychology of the “daily deal web sites” is an easy one to understand:  Provide a sense of value and give it a time frame to which the buyer feels a portion of pressure.  Everyone is trying to get on the band wagon.  Google is set to launch a deal site, Facebook is on board with their own design and Bing is going to provide a single site to link to all of the flash deal sites.

New ideas catch on fast.

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

IN OUR WORLD

Well, I’m finishing off my first week without travel in 2011.  I had a number of key Dallas based projects and tried to carve out time to get some of the other client projects that required design efforts.  It is amazing how time moves like water in a river.  You are always challenged to do what you think is the most important.

Now you couple the client and Creative Ventures projects together and that week at home is GONE!

I had the opportunity to work on such a wide and rich variety of projects:

• I recorded new podcasts on my simplicity platform that will launch in April.
• I participated in a webinar that introduced the Repeatable Successful Acts, The Clarity of Teams and the Simplicity platform to a new group of potential clients.
• I participated in a complex presentation design process for a new client.
• I finished the new construction and distribution of my monthly newsletter.  I am blessed with a readership that has exceeded my humble ability to distribute it through my traditional methods.  The April issue will be the first sent in the new system.
• I began the editing and production of new videos with a new partner and am jazzed about where this will go.

Next week I’m off to Arizona for the stage debut of the newly revised SIMPLICITY platform.

HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE

AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

THE LAW OF NEVER ASK THE FISH AB OUT THE WATER – To truly understand a system you often have to step outside the system.

This is another of the 21 Creative Ventures Laws.  I am continuing to introduce these operating principles that are impacting a variety of projects I am working on.

When you spend every working day hanging around the systems that dictate your behavior, your production, your impact to the company you often see these systems as being normal.  The sad reality is that the very systems that create output are often operating in opposition to their original design.  BUT, because you see it every day you just plain don’t notice.

I have recently been working with an internal team where I am clearly the outsider in analyzing a number of their current systems impacting their sales process and client experience.  Guess what?  The internal members soon discovered they were doing things that were put in place in the distant past that no longer had significance to their sales outcome.

If you never step outside the frame, if you never look for opportunity you will find yourself like the lone goldfish swimming in a bowl that has become its only reality.

Hey, how’s the water?

ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIES:  Limitless:  I like Bradley Cooper and this looks interesting enough to jump in.

NetFlix Fans: Gone Baby Gone: If you liked the movie; The Town, you have to see Gone Baby Gone.  It is one of my favorite movies of the past few years.

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TV:   Parks and Recreation: It’s strange as I find myself watching this show almost exclusively on airplanes, but it always seems to make me laugh.

BOOK: Agent X – Boyd:  This is the book that follows The Bricklayer, following the exploits of ex-FBI agent Steve Vail.  I really like this character.

MUSIC: I am a huge fan of Austin based singer/songwriter Bob Schneider.  Here is a new live version of one of my favorite Schneider tunes – 40 Dogs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFEZtaVh4OU&feature=related

WEB SITES: The yellow pages aint just for Grandma anymore!

www.yp.com

SOUTH OF NORMAL

The fantastic people at Church of the Customer gave us a rundown of the top 3 performers at the SXSW Interactive Festival

Apple.

It captured the majority of the buzz at the conference; no one was close. Not even official sponsor companies. Apple created a 5,000 square foot pop-up store in three days to coincide with the launch of the highly anticipated iPad 2. Lines began to form ten hours in advance of launch in front of a blacked-out storefront in downtown Austin. Once inside, the store looked like any other Apple store with blond wood furnishings and enthusiastic employees. Rumors were that this Apple store had the most iPad 2 inventory of any store in the country except for the Fifth Avenue location in NYC. Official and unofficial news outlets flocked to interview the Apple devotees standing in line. Even yours truly got sucked into the hype and got the last 64MB 3G model.

. Chevy.

One of the primary sponsors of the entire festival, Chevy knew just what Interactive attendees needed: recharging stations and rides. Folks could get juice for their tablets and smartphones from the Chevy Volt Recharge Lounge inside the Convention Center. Festival goers could flag down one of 27 Chevy Cruzes to catch a ride to one of the 10 campuses that made up the Interactive festival. Chevy also had brand new Volts, Cruzes and Camaro Convertibles on-hand for anyone who wanted to test drive one… after a breathalyzer test, of course.

. Pepsi.

It spent a cool million on SXSW, which included a huge “playground” on a vacant lot, called the Pepsi MAX Lot. Amenities for tired, hungry SXSWi’ers included games like foursquare, cornhole and ping-pong, live bands, free wifi, couches, BBQ and lots of drinks. Other Pepsi experiences included the Sobe Lizard Lounge Mixing Station and interviews and panels at the Pepsico Plugged-In Stage in the Convention Center, which were live-streamed over the web.

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.