Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Coming to you live from beautiful Austin, TX where Laura and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Colin and Dylan and Amanda’s family. It was wonderful and still going on! The weather has been spectacular with warm sunny days and cool evenings. We may suck it up with the nuclear heat of our summer, but man, our autumns are perfect!
I hope everyone had a grace filled Holiday.
Prior to the trip down to Austin I had a full couple of days getting the final touches put on our London trip and getting the December Newsletter done. I also have client projects that received a good hunk of attention.
Next week I will be across the pond and hopefully will have all the internet I need to get the blog posting up.
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
We live in the age of instant ideas. Never before has the ability to take something from thought to action been easier. Here are a few ways to help you jump on the idea wagon:
- Treat ideas like a two way street. Look not only for the traffic you generate but for the traffic coming the other way. Stay open to input.
- Learn to listen and watch. This great combination will give you valuable input.
- Reward success AND intelligent failure. If you punish anything, punish inactivity.
- Fail forward. When I used to watch the beginning ski classes in Sun Valley you could always see the skiers that were bold enough to learn fast. They fell on their face and not their ass.
- Know when to get out of the way. I work with a lot of really smart people and I have learned that if you give someone something they can do, get out of the way and let them do it.
- Create mixed use teams. Build from experts and novices to get the best input. Ideas are all about the development of impactful input.
- Have the courage to act: Many ideas of great value have lost their traction for fear of action
Just a few things to think about when in the market for new ideas.
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Ninja Assassin: Still not in line for this one, but with both Dylan and Colin on my side, how can Laura say no???
NetFlix Fans: Mr. and Mrs. Smith: They are making a sequel and I thought you might want to see the original. Pitt and Jolene are really good in this spy vs. spy action comedy.
TV: Friday night begins the last two episodes of MONK on the USA network. I have really enjoyed the adventures of this quirky detective with all his OCD foibles. From the plot previews he finally catches his wife’s murderer.
BOOKS: How Breakthroughs Happen – By Hargadon. Great little book that follows the way companies discover innovation.
MUSIC: Now James McMurtry is an acquired taste, bit he really suits my pallet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQI_lI0vC6Y&feature=channel
WEB SITES: An interesting take on modernism.
www.atomstozeppelins.com
SOUTH OF NORMAL
I was recently working on a project to teach basic planning skills and wanted to use the example of what I call “planned anticipation”. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky had a quote that kind of went like this: “I never go to where the puck is, instead I go to where the puck is going to be”. This idea of dynamic positioning is critical in planning. When I was working on the idea I was STUNNED at Gretzky’s statistics and was pretty sure he was the greatest player in the history of ANY team sport:
- 4 Stanley Cups
- 9 MPV Awards
- 10 scoring titles
- 5 Sportsmanship Awards
- 40 regular season records
- 15 playoff records
- 6 All Star records
- Only player to ever score 200 pts in a season and he did it FOUR times.
- His number, 99, is retired by ALL NHL teams
- The 5 year waiting period after retirement was waved for his immediate access to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He was a South of Normal, once in a lifetime athlete.
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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