The Twelfth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Look for the Improbable to Happen!

We don't have kids, something we came to terms with relatively early in our marriage and have accepted as part of life. While it means missing out on a range of incredible experiences, we've been able to do things for others (particularly our niece and nephews) that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. The net of it is accepting what life hands you and making the best of it.

Last year, our niece Valerie called and asked to speak with me. This was unusual, but as I've written before, Valerie has lived an unusual life. That includes getting married initially in a group wedding ceremony on Valentine's Day 2008 at Loveland Pass. This was an event the family first learned about when my mother-in-law saw it reported on the Weather Channel!

When Valerie began talking about a second wedding ceremony where friends and family could be present, I was hesitant since we'd have to play a big role in putting it on.

As the phone conversation began, I told her our ability to help was limited since her cousin was getting married about the same time and we might have to get Valerie's grandma to it. While stating my case, Valerie interrupted to ask, "Would you walk me down the aisle?"

Walking a bride down the aisle was something I'd long ago come to accept as an "I'll never get to do it" moment. Suddenly my tone changed and being able to do something I never thought I would do completely changed my perspective. I was all for wedding ceremony #2 and making it happen.

The life-changing lesson here is the important reminder to remain perpetually hopeful. Things you think can never happen can happen. If there are possibilities you've shut out of your life, maybe it's time to open them back up.

And in true Valerie fashion, she followed her life-changing comment with another incredibly touching one. As we were getting ready to walk into the ceremony, she told me, "Who else would I have asked to give me away. With everything you guys have done for me, you're like my father."

That's Valerie!

Wrap-up: Hope you enjoyed this series on life-changing words! For the rest of 2009, I'm going to focus on getting ready to consolidate the Brainzooming and MikeBrownSpeaks blogs into a new location that Seth Simonds has done great work in setting up.

The new site will have the blog and include more information on the Brainzooming business and our service offerings. It will also feature additional tools not able to be included on the Blogger platform. The transition date is still TBD, because when it happens, I want to make sure it's as seamless as possible for email and RSS subscribers.

That's what's coming, so in the meantime, have a great holiday and rest of 2009! Thanks for reading Brainzooming! - Mike Brown

The Ninth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Reserve Judgments

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" begins with its narrator, Nick Carraway, recounting his father's admonition that not everyone in the world is provided the same advantages. The comment led to Nick's inclination to "reserve all judgments," a "habit that...opened up many curious natures" to him.

This opening passage of "Gatsby" has shaped me dramatically. Amid growing up in an environment of clear rights and wrongs, these words were a reminder to delay judgment in order to better understand people, even those who are objectively well outside my behavioral beliefs.

Given the importance of suspending judgment in the early stages of originating new ideas, this practice has been fundamental to helping businesses imagine new possibilities for potential opportunities. There's a time for judgment, but initially, ideas have to emerge and "breathe" first.

It isn't all glorious, however, when you reserve judgments. As Nick notes, it led to him being "the victim of not a few veteran bores." I've certainly found that to be the case. It's also led to having a diverse set of friends (really fun) who at times can't stand one another (not so fun). Their distinct differences, which I tend to overlook, often make them incompatible.

In all, delaying judgments is a beneficial practice. So what do you think? Are there a few situations in your life right now where you'd be better off to suspend judgment and see how they play out first? The interesting things you'll experience and learn will FAR outweigh any bores you might encounter. Just go with me on this - okay?

BTW - Want a little "fun" with "The Great Gatsby"? Watch this video of Andy Kaufman trying to read the book to a reluctant audience. You can skip ahead to 2:40 to hear the passage that inspired this post!

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

12 Steps to Grow Diversity in Your Personal Network

Look at your network now compared to last year. Have you dramatically expanded the number of people you can call or email and be reasonably sure you'll get a response from them?

And that doesn't mean from loading up on contacts inside your company using the "People You May Know" feature on LinkedIn. A network gains value through diversity - not from having 75% of your connections riding on the same economic train as you!

If your active network looks the same as it did last year, ACT NOW when ideally you don't need your network's benefits. Here are 12 potential ways to add not only numbers, but diversity to your network:

1. Join and actively participate in professional associations
2. Regularly attend (and even create) networking events and follow up on connections
3. Take on leadership roles in church, school, or alumni organizations
4. Deliberately try to network with other parents at kids' activities
5. Write articles for publications within your industry
6. Speak publicly on topics of expertise for you (and if you're reluctant to speak, join Toastmasters and get over your apprehensions)
7. Use Twitter to build a global network of people involved in topics of interest (Twitter Lists or WeFollow are great places to start)
8. Run for public office
9. Find and join groups focused on hobbies you enjoy
10. Share your expertise via social media - start a blog, comment on other blogs, record podcasts or video blogs
11. Start a second job where you interact more with the public
12. Strike up conversations with people you meet standing in line

And IMPORTANTLY, have business cards with you and introduce yourself to new people with your first and last names. I can't believe how many people go to networking events and don't have cards and/or introduce themselves by mumbling their first names.

Not all of these methods make sense for everyone. For my networking strategy, numbers 1, 2, 6, 7, and 10 have all been very effective at meeting great new people both online and in IRL (in real life), especially by starting to attend and even organize tweet-ups.

There are certainly several of these that will work for you, so pick and get started adding diversity to your network! - Mike Brown

Getting Ready for 2010: 3 Real Life Planning Successes

I'm a proponent of spreading strategic thinking broadly in a company and not readily handing off strategy development to outside parties exclusively. Yet I've been a part of many examples where an outside perspective helped move strategy development ahead much more quickly.

Here are several examples you may be facing where it's good to get outside expertise:

Turning Talk Into a Plan

A small subsidiary's three-person management team was told to get a plan in place to show corporate management the company's direction. They had no planning process and only ten business days to deliver a comprehensive strategic plan. We brought in the Brainzooming process to develop an innovative strategic plan in one day. The output couldn't be simply a bunch of ideas nor could it be only a rote plan with little strategic insight.

Structuring a day-long session using question-based exercises allowed the team to answer questions about the business, participate in exercises to stretch strategic perspectives on competition and opportunities, and come back the next morning to make people and timing decisions on a tight plan to share with the operating president.

As non-planners, they wouldn't have been able to put together a coherent business plan in ten days, but they did understand their business and the general direction they needed to head. We combined their deep knowledge with exercises and facilitation allowing us to challenge and create a strategic flow from their answers. We delivered the best of both worlds - a structured plan reflecting their intent for the business with sound strategic logic and more innovation than they'd have ever brought to it alone. This experience demonstrated the clear benefit of the emerging Brainzooming process.

Stimulating a Management Team that Knows It All

We rolled into town to help a really experienced senior management team tackle annual planning. Because of their tenure and smarts, they knew the company inside- out. This knowledge rendered them ill-suited to solving a long-term growth challenge: as every idea was uttered, they "knew" why it wouldn't work for the brand.

During the course of a day-long planning session, I created a new exercise on the fly based on a brand in a very different industry sharing the same fundamental characteristics of our client. I asked the group to suggest how this other company could address the same challenge they were facing. All of a sudden ideas started flowing non-stop. We were able to take the concepts and strategically apply them to their business.

Left on its own to think strategically, the management team would never have reached an alternative look at its business. An outside perspective, unburdened by excessive detail was critical to identifying an analogous situation, providing an entree for innovative strategic thinking and implementation.

Doing the Thinking for a Distracted Management Team

We had a pre-scheduled planning follow-up with a management team who, since our initial session, had been charged with exploring a major brand contraction. Unable to convince them their new assignment should be the focus for our session, we instead spent time addressing the status quo scenario. Unfortunately, the status quo wasn't likely or compelling enough to command much of their attention and strategic creativity.

Frustrated by the lack of intensity while addressing the status quo, we wrapped the effort early. We told them we'd work on the status quo scenario, delivering 200 prioritized, fleshed out ideas and concepts within 3 days. Using several creativity techniques during the flight home, we generated really strong creative concepts for the status quo or, with some modification, for the alternative scenario also.

This was a great example of the importance of a balanced group in doing the best strategic thinking. The client's management team had business experience and functional knowledge, but was sapped of any creative energy it ever had. Bringing in outside talent for a creative spark was needed to turn lackluster thinking into vibrant, implementable ideas. - Mike Brown

The Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 Event - Joe Batista

I participated in the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event November 2 in Chicago, leading a round table on getting around innovation roadblocks. The next several days will highlight some of the many intriguing ideas shared during the day from great marketing practitioners.

Yesterday's Creative Quickie mentioned the title "Chief Creatologist" which belongs to Joe Batista at HP, who spoke on "Creating New Market Revenues in a Down Economy." I met Joe at a 2007 Frost & Sullivan event, and his case study-driven presentations at both events were tremendously thought provoking considering HP targets $3 billion in new growth quarterly from the approaches Joe shared.

He looks for business growth through discovering and exploring new areas to respond to clients' needs. His efforts center on going beyond a closed innovation model and exploring the company's research in new ways and looking beyond its boundaries for new opportunities:

• Joe highlighted techniques to help identify new growth sources, including thinking broadly about the available assets a company has, generalizing what the assets (especially technology) can do, and connecting organizationally-dispersed assets inside a company. Comment - These all tie to fundamental lateral thinking principles, stressing the real-life importance of being able to apply abstract thinking skills in identifying opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
  
• Look for pockets of knowledge and expertise inside your business and explore how they can be converted into new revenue streams. Comment - A great way to do this is to identify what BENEFITS your knowledge can provide and then think through what other parties are seeking these or related benefits.
  
• One more potential growth source? Growth arises from examining currencies you have available inside your company (i.e., what flows through your value system) and by making the boundaries of your company porous so ideas from outside can flow through it. Comment - Joe's remarks continually underscored the importance of being able to step away from detail and "get" the bigger, potentially underlying picture, whether it's inside or outside your company.

There's a lot behind these summarized comments. I look forward to trying to connect with Joe further and better understand the innovative approach he's bringing to business growth! - Mike Brown

BTW -This is the second anniversary of the blog's first post. No big deal in the posts this week, but it seemed like at least worth a mention. Look for the Brainzooming redesign and move to a Wordpress format in the very near future!

A Whole Brain Network of Great People

I've extolled the benefits of surrounding yourself with both left brain and right brain people to complement what you lack in expertise and perspective. It's incredible to tap innovative people across the entire spectrum of points of view on strategic situations you're facing.

Last Friday at my going away party, another upside of a network of great diverse thinkers surfaced: it makes for a better party!

Shortly after the announced start time, someone remarked about the "surprising" number of attendees from finance and accounting backgrounds. Looking around, nearly the entire crowd would be considered naturally left brained thinkers (i.e., quantitative, precise, punctual).

A little while later, more of the right brain people (i.e., intuitive, holistic, random) began to arrive. By the time the event was well underway, it became a whole brain party, spawning interesting combinations of diverse people interacting with one another throughout the evening.

And since my creative instigation partner Jan Harness drove the party planning, there were 3 innovation exercises along with post-its and Sharpies for guests to ideate on what Brainzooming could become!

Because of the whole brain network of great people in attendance, we had a crowd early on, lively interactions and ideas throughout, enough people staying late to extend the party, and a final small group of both left and right brainers having a passionate (and by "passionate," I mean "interesting but slightly uncomfortable") conversation about my future prospects.

Truly, the type of whole brain night I love! - Mike Brown

When DIY Doesn't Work

Steve Epley visited last week, and we talked about challenges in trying to do for yourself what you do professionally for others. This resonated because of recent work on the Brainzooming™ brand. It's much easier to figure out another's great brand value and how to communicate it than doing the same for myself. It's tough to step back and address your own situation as objectively as you can for someone else.

Are you facing similar challenges? Here are three alternatives:

1. Use what you know works.

Struggling to clarify the Brainzooming brand as a business entity and personally, it struck me that we use a variety of tools with others to help define brand promises and positions. Turning to tools I've seen work in so many situations helped push my own thinking and expand the concepts being considered. If you've got tools and approaches developed for those you serve, don't overlook applying them to your own business situation.

2. Ask for help.

I stared at my resume for years, unable to update it. In 2007, I finally sought professional preparation, with great results. Updating it now with all the new experiences and results of the past two years is again challenging. Based on a tip from Jan Harness, whip-smart wordsmith and media maven Emma Alvarez-Gibson is helping convey what Brainzooming represents in words. Never consider it a weakness to get help doing what you know how to do. Instead, it shows the respect for your profession you want others to also have.

3. Be Patient and Wait.

As much I love believing strategic thinking approaches completely get you around time and mental capacity crunches, they won't in every case. Many issues need to unfold in real time to allow strategic thinking and action. Each passing day, next steps for Brainzooming become clearer and more developed. As much as I'd have loved to figure out some things last year, it simply wasn't reasonable to do so. Maybe if you can't work too far ahead on a project, you can at least work on patience instead.

Hope those help in getting around any roadblocks you face employing a DIY approach in your own field. - Mike Brown

Creative Quickie - Flip Out

There are so many situations in everyday life that can be sources of current and future creative inspiration.

How do you become better at actually capitalizing on their inspirational value?

One way is to get an easy-to-use video camera and start capturing these situations.

Having a Flip camera with me nearly all the time this year has not only allowed capturing blatantly creative images, but has also refined my eye for spotting hidden creativity in more mundane situations.

Figure out which type of device works best for you - it could be a Flip, a Kodak (that's for former BMA board president Jeff Hayzlett!), or your PDA. Find the device that allows you to video at a moment's notice and build an inspiration reserve for when you hit a creative block. - Mike Brown

Taking Note in a New Way

Want to meet cool new people? Next time you're at a public presentation, "live tweet" it. Live tweeting implies using Twitter to report:

• What the speaker is communicating
• Offering your own commentary
• Retweeting what others are tweeting about it

I live tweeted the Integrated Marketing Summit last week in Kansas City to further experiment with the process. Based on my tweets from a direct database marketing session, Doug Haslam switched breakouts and joined the session. This created the opportunity to chat, and after attending his session on PR and social media, later talk at the networking reception.

I wouldn't have necessarily gone up and talked with someone new (ah, the curse of an introvert), but live tweeting opened the door to connect and meet a new, really smart person at the forefront of social media.

Beyond the in-person opportunity, live tweeting often opens the opportunity to attract and follow new people in your Twitter network as well.

Live tweeting - a whole new way for introverts to become social animals. - Mike Brown

Getting Ready for This!

Today includes a lunch presentation at the Fort Hays State University Business and Leadership Symposium. The presentation title is "Getting Ready for This," and it focuses on six vital success competencies for graduates coming into the workplace amid a dramatically changing business world.

The premise is that it's fundamental for new graduates to own skills in co-creating, contorting, and abandoning ideas and strategies based on what's relevant at any time. It's not so much "what" they know, as "how" to continually deconstruct and reassemble their knowledge in dramatically new and relevant ways throughout their careers.

It starts with several amazing factoids from the video "Do You Know 3.0?" recounting dramatic demographic, technology, and information-based changes worldwide. It's been viewed millions of times, and in the event you haven't seen it, take a few minutes to watch it.

As a brief overview and reference for the presentation, here are the six areas for educators and students to more concertedly embrace:

1. Knowing Answers Is Good - Knowing How to Find Answers Is Vital

Since facts change and information deteriorates, it's vital to be able to know how to seek and vet potential answers since no one can be expected to have a full command of all available knowledge.

2. Balanced Thinking Allows You to Be More Strategic

USA Today featured an article in July on retraining a left brained orientation to a right brained one in order to cope with a changing job environment. We talk plenty about the importance of knowing your thinking orientation, surrounding yourself with a complementary team, and the strategic impact of being able to work with contradictory points of view.

3. Possibilities and Emotion are Important in Business

From someone whose more natural orientation centers on facts and logic, this has been the most challenging of the 6 areas to retrain my own view. The best place to go on this topic is Benjamin Zander, who has been mentioned frequently here. As a homework assignment for attendees at the FHSU presentation, I asked them to watch these two Zander videos and get a genuine sense of the importance of emotion and possibilities thinking:

• Benjamin Zander on the Art of Possibilities


• Benjamin Zander on Emotion and Possibilities

4. You Have to Be Able to Communicate in Multiple Ways

Communication is in the top 10 topics addressed on Brainzooming so far because it's so critical to successful creativity, innovation, and strategic thinking. Students need to be pushed to go beyond the typical team presentation that summarizes a semester-long project. They need to be adept at using formats of varying lengths (simple recommendations, elevator speeches, tweets, etc.) and mediums (songs, video, acting, etc.).

5. Leadership Starts Day One on the Job

Leadership is about service, not titles. That means day one is the time for new graduates to start leading on the job. Taking on a strategic leadership role can be simple. You just have to be willing to do something about it!

6. People All Around You Are Making Decisions Based on Personal Branding

Personal branding isn't a meaningless concept authors dreamed up to sell more books. It's truly the driver behind why anyone gets hired, advances, and has intriguing opportunities develop. Step one is understanding your talents and exploiting them. Here are two great books to read on how to further develop and sustain a personal brand:

• "Radical Careering" by Sally Hogshead


• "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" by Gordon MacKenzie

I look forward to comments from those in attendance (and non-attendees as well) with thoughts on the topic since it applies to all of us as dizzying changes occur around us. Stay close to the Brainzooming blog for more on change and dealing with it in the near future! - Mike Brown

Spicing Up a Long-Term Relationship

We're all likely involved in relationships tied to coaching, mentoring, or just plain supporting one another. They're tremendously helpful in personal and business growth, yet at times, these relationships can become stale.

What can you do if you find yourself in such a relationship? Here are a few options to spice things up:

• Add a Person: I've been working out for more than three years with the same trainer. The results have been great, yet at times, we tend to fall into the same routines. When my niece was visiting last month, she went along as a guest trainee. The spirit of competition improved my effort and also created some new enthusiasm from my trainer.
  
• Reverse Roles: I've got a great career coach who can amazingly have one meeting with me that creates about nine month's worth of activity and progress. Recently we got together for lunch and turned the tables: I was able to provide some coaching for her on new possibilities she's considering. It was of benefit to her, and it was really exciting for me to give something back to someone who has done so much to help me!


• Schedule a Reunion: Early in my career, a group of us working as analysts for a challenging boss formed a tremendous bond as we tried to survive and figure out what we'd do with our careers. We don't get together often anymore, but we met for a happy hour recently to renew our friendship and share perspectives on what each of us is doing now.


• Take a break: If you find a once thriving coaching relationship has stalled, consider seeing other people. The break could be temporary or permanent, but may be just the thing to open up time to find other relationships that work better for both of you right now.

Give one or more of these a try so you can keep moving forward with renewed enthusiasm! - Mike Brown

Twitter Hashtag Days - #BeOriginal

Joan Koerber-Walker started the #BeOriginal hashtag as a response to all the recycling of old ideas going on in Twitterville. Joan's been a great friend of the Brainzooming blog, offering encouragement and great guest posts - including several extra for a rainy day if I run short on content!

Here are a few thoughts on creativity I've contributed to Joan's #BeOriginal Twitter list:

• Les Paul guitar. Bo Diddley rhythm. Chuck Berry guitar licks. What have you or I done to create enduring "signatures"? There's a point where a signature element can become a creative rut. But for most of us, we have a long way to go to get to that point. Step 1 is identifying our talents and consistently applying them to develop a creative signature truly our own.


• Something to strive for: Respecting your critics & seeing the beneficial points in their comments. You'll be better for it. It's not fun to have people criticize your work. But often, your critics are doing more to move you toward creative excellence than your most enthusiastic cheerleaders. You'll be better off if you can realize that and use it to your advantage.


• It may be even harder to stop self-censoring than to quit censoring others. Cut yourself a creative break! As valuable as your critics can be, the critic inside your own head may be a fatal enemy. Learn to drown out the internal voice thwarting your creative exploration. Remember: creating art requires the ability to never say to yourself, "That's not really art."

And one final #BeOriginal thought born out of a real-life work experience where I was on the receiving end: Don't refuse to smile at someone you think is nobody. It will make it easier when you realize later they are somebody. - Mike Brown

Flowers Are Red - Guest Post by John McClung

This week's guest post is from Twitter friend John McClung, who describes himself as having been, "a student, college debater, debate coach, manager, food consultant, builder marketer/home & community designer, and real estate agent with a mission of helping people make good decisions. I love my wife, wine, food, Kentucky basketball and traveling. I am currently working on new twists on food, and interpreting wine tastings on canvas using all appropriate shades of red. " What a variety of interests and activities!

And John's varied interests are further confirmation why it's great to have guests bloggers with varied experiences: his post uses a Harry Chapin song as inspiration. Trust me folks, you'd have never gotten a Harry Chapin-related post from me. Yet, John's take on it is a great example of how we can all try to get back to the creativity children so readily express:

Harry Chapin wrote a song about a young boy starting school, being told that “Flowers are red, and green leaves are green.” His response of seeing “so many colors in the rainbow” and using every one, was not well received and eventually gave way to the teacher’s criticism and philosophy of seeing things “the way they always have been seen.”

Want to be more creative? Let your inner child out.

If you feel that you aren’t as creative as you could be, there is a good chance you are looking at things through the rules and the “no’s” you have received over the years. We tend to apply things we are taught and have experienced to criticize ourselves. It is the self-critique that tends to kill our creativity faster than anything. The young boy above was not looking to criticize: he was in wonder of the possibilities. He wanted to incorporate all that he saw and started out not understanding “the rules.”

When I say “let your inner child out,” I’m suggesting you look at things with wonder. There is the sometimes overused command to think outside the box. I’m suggesting that you understand that there is no box to start. “The box” is an imaginary limit programmed into our psyche by others. Go back to the place where the programming doesn’t exist.

It doesn’t matter what you are trying to create: art, literature, a garden, a business, public policy, or perhaps a new dish for dinner. Look at the possibilities and not the tradition. After all being creative is no more than looking at and doing things in different ways.

Can’t release the inner child? Be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Let’s face it, most of us are not going to abandon the “traditions,” “rules”, and “deep seated attitudes” about what is and what is not appropriate. Change is hard, and creativity is change others have not thought about.

To be evolutionary, you simply look at what is and ask: How could I change it to be different in a way that works? Here’s an example of how evolutionary change can work.

We have friends who occasionally join us to drink some very nice wines and have dinner. One friend once told me he didn’t like grits. Ever since, grits have been on the menu!

First, they were cooked with chicken stock, cream and finished with smoked Gouda cheese and served as a side dish. The second time, they were used in place of rice, with prosciutto substituting for nori and rolled with pablano, roasted red pepper, and andouille sausage resembling sushi. Finally, I cooked the grits in peach nectar, and rolled with fruit, and served on sauce for dessert.

Each rendition was an evolutionary step leading to a new, no rules variation. Sort of like the little boy who simply saw all the colors of the rainbow and wanted to use every one. So go ahead and release your inner child! - John McClung

Be Lazy, Sort Of

Next time you get a new assignment, project, or question to answer, ask yourself: Who knows more about this than I do? Consider all the possible answers you can think of to the question:

• People you know personally


• People you know online


• People networked with people you know


• Current experts


• One time experts


• Journalists, authors, bloggers


• Anybody else?

Now, get lazy, and reach out to the people you've identified and see if they can do a better job than you in helping complete the task more effectively.

I'm not completely advocating being lazy, because you still have to distill their insights into a coherent response. But there's nothing wrong with letting real experts weigh in with perspectives when they're better informed than you are. - Mike Brown

Upcycling: The Greener Path - Guest Post by Nancy Martini

We've spent time on Brainzooming talking about recycling ideas, yet haven't touched on recycling physical materials. That changes with today's guest post from Nancy Martini. She's an Art Director and EcoArtist (as she's known on Twitter), working with reclaimed materials.

Nancy's currently working on a collection called, “Lessons from the Dinner Table.” All the pieces contain environmental messages translated from simple lessons learned at the table. Her work consists of 95% upcycled materials: plastic bags, soda cans, coat hangers, plastic bottles, bottle caps, foil, wire, cereal boxes, egg cartons, tin cans, and gift wrap tissue. You can see her process through videos on her YouTube channel.

Today, Nancy provides her view on the need for creativity as the concept of upcycling expands:


Reduce, reuse and recycle are three words that haunt me everyday. How can I use less? What can I do to reuse what I already have? And, what more can be recycled? Now, the latest environmentally conscious word “upcycle” has proven to be even more of a challenge. It is easy to understand the process of recycling by means of breaking down a material then using that material to make something new. However, the idea of creating a second life for a package or product from its inception is a complex concept that needs more explaining and exploring.

Ten years ago, you didn’t see many people bringing cloth totes to the grocery store. I remember having to explain my totes repeatedly to cashiers. Sometimes they would even pack my groceries in a paper sack and then put it in my cloth tote. Change does happen, but it takes time and education.

When I see people bringing their own totes to the grocery store now, I can’t help but wonder if they think about all the plastic in their purchases. What happens to the packaging after we use its contents? Recycling should be the last resort, not a justification to buy whatever we want because we can always toss it in the recycle bin.

Recently at the grocery store, the early morning staff was stocking shelves. Each worker had a few garbage bags filled with plastic shrink-wrap and cardboard from unpacking merchandise off wheeled crates. “All the shipping packaging is going to be thrown away,” I was told. Disheartened by this obvious disregard for the environment behind the backs of the consumer, I thought about products and their packaging and pondered:

• What if containers were designed with an upcycled second life for the packaging so it wouldn’t go to the recycle plant or landfills?


• What could we build or create with discarded packaging?


• And, what if we could then change the way food companies produce packaging?

As I continue on my quest to upcycle packaging to create art, I encourage you to think of the possibilities that upcycling brings. I would love to hear your comments - the more creative collaboration, the greener the path. - Nancy Martini

A Career-Changing Business Quote - 10 Years Later

“Forecasters who extrapolate from today inevitably get tomorrow wrong…(but) by pitting multiple scenarios of the future against one another and leaving many different doors open, you can prepare yourself for a future that is inherently unpredictable. Brainstorming pays off. And the more possibilities you can entertain, the less likely you are to be blindsided.” - Peter Coy and Neil Gross, Business Week, August 30, 1999

I use this quote often in presentations because it has so dramatically shaped my thinking. It's at the heart of the philosophies, disciplines, and tools I've sought to learn, compile, and develop in the past 10 years.

And when nothing is getting more certain, there's even greater value in bringing smart, multi-disciplined people together to expand your view of the future, work through possibilities, and act on them.

Ideally, you're finding that's what Brainzooming is all about. - Mike Brown

Remember the Renegades - Guest Post by Paula White

It's become clear over time that my strategic mentors tend to be visionaries who are actively pushing boundaries and seeing beyond what others anticipate. I match up well with these personalities because they stretch me also, and I help translate their visions into implementable steps necessary to realize new and big ideas.

So in keeping with the focus so far this week on Bill McDonald and Kansas City Infobank, Paula White's guest column on renegades is right on the mark. As Paula describes herself on her blog, she's a "grandma, an educator, a teacher, and a thinker." She has numerous educational distinctions, and she's on the forefront of actually applying social media in an educational setting (quick partial translation: I met her on Twitter!).

In today's guest post, she shares her experience in encouraging students that it's okay to think boldly and unusually because that thinking leads to great new things:


Think about people you know who have been considered renegades. WHY were they considered that? Did they do something different? Did they do something no one else would? Did they do something unexpected or unusual? Were they just out of the mainstream?

As a gifted resource teacher, I often see students who think there is something wrong with them because they ARE different. They recognize that they have thoughts others don’t—that they think more deeply about common things and that they look at the world differently than their peers. I sometimes have to work to help students accept who they are because they, too, are often out of the mainstream. They think differently, learn differently and may even try to lead or teach differently. That doesn’t mean that they are better or worse than others. They are just different. And all of us have to, at some point in our lives, learn to respect and honor differences to co-exist on this planet.

One way I begin the conversation with students is to show a film Apple produced in the 90s, called "Think Different."

Misfits. . . rebels. . . troublemakers. . . and you can’t ignore them, because they push the human race forward. Students identify with these traits and by looking at the creative geniuses Apple chose to highlight, they begin to understand that learning differently, thinking differently, acting differently is okay.

Rebels, renegades, thinkers, doers, pushers, sometimes troublemakers. . . Does that describe anyone you know? Have you ever thought about how lonely that path might be?

Remember the renegades. . . and be their friend. Their creativity, their thinking, their pushing the envelope just may change the world. - Paula White

Thinking at Unexpected Times

Sometimes, try as you might, it's impossible to focus on the task at hand. When you can't focus, one alternative is to accept the mental roadblock and actively look for another time (perhaps an unconventional one) where you can shift the activity and your creative energy.

At dinner recently, we had a very specific business topic (that had been hanging for a while) we were supposed to address. With little opportunity to prepare that day, I offered an idea intended to fit within the various strategic constraints we faced. While it sort of worked amid the constraints, I woke up that night realizing it wouldn't work in practice for a whole variety of reasons.

Next morning, I alerted the person looking for input that more work needed to be done. Yet, I still didn't have any better alternatives.

Lo and behold, enduring a flight delay one day later when the pressure to "think" about this specific issue wasn't top of mind, a very innovative solution came to me in about 5 minutes.

Why hadn't I been able to come up with a creative answer at dinner two nights earlier? I have no idea.

But I do know at times our mental capabilities aren't up to the specific demands we might need to place on them. Much of what's on Brainzooming is intended to help you function more innovatively in these situations. These techniques aren't always going to work though.

For these other instances when your brain isn't zooming, often the best thing you can do is manage time expectations and pray for creative inspiration to hit you ASAP, or at least when you least expect it. - Mike Brown

Tapping the Gold Mine of Creativity & Individuality in Your Organization - Guest Post by Marissa Levin

This week's guest post is by Marissa Levin, an award-winning and well-recognized entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Information Experts. The company creates technology-based integrated communications solutions, human capital strategies, and learning strategies for government agencies and firms in a wide range of vertical markets.

Marissa shares her perspectives here on tapping the incredible creative and innovative talents existing among the diverse group of people inside her company:


How well do you really know your co-workers and employees?

Sure, you see them on a daily basis and know just enough about their personal lives to be dangerous. You may even know what they like for lunch. There's probably a "comfort level" you've established. You've identified some personal boundaries, designating topics acceptable for discussion and those off the table.

But have you ever stopped to consider what defines your co-workers outside their jobs? More importantly, have you ever thought about how these aspects influence our jobs, and what they add to the workplace?

As a CEO focused on company culture, I'm always thinking of ways to maintain a connection with my employees and protect the valuable connections among everyone working here. As organizations grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve this. Employees become more scattered (thanks to telecommuting), are assigned to client sites, and work amid additional layers that develop to ensure adequate management structure.

Adding to these challenges, I am out of the office for appointments, meetings, and networking events. Despite email exchanges and conference calls, it is far too easy to lose the human touch. When I am working "on" the business, it is often difficult to work "in" the business.

I've always known we have incredibly creative, passionate, intelligent, and highly individualized people. We are not a typical organization. We have many out-of-the-box thinkers who display individuality throughout their lives. This uniqueness gives us an edge with our culture and customers.

To find a way to understand and bring all this creativity into the company, I surveyed our employees about what defines them outside work. The results were unbelievable.

Beyond having top-quality instructional designers, project managers, strategists, writers, graphic designers, developers, & human capital experts, we also have scuba divers, college-level volleyball players, swing and belly dancers, scrabble professionals, marathoners, environmentalists, a competitive U.S. Master's swimmer, competitive soccer players, classical pianists, wine enthusiasts, equestrian experts, poker players, gardeners, and chefs.

That's not all - our staff also includes:

• A certified "High Power Rocketeer" who has launched rockets to 6,000 feet at 550mph
• Someone who taught welding at a vocational school
• A four-time Outward Bound participant
• A Special Operations Sergeant whose unit's experience was the basis for "Blackhawk Down"
• A two-time patent holder for educational technology who served on Barrack Obama's Education Policy Committee
• A published physique photographer and bodybuilder known at WOLVERINE

Think about the creative & innovative power of that incredible diversity of skills, interests, and passions. The question now is how to integrate these interests and skills into the company. I hope to celebrate their individuality in some sort of event or create an internal online tool that brings people together based on their interests.

Here's your question: What creativity & individuality is beneath the surface inside your company? Ask around, and you may be in for some surprises of your own! - Marissa Levin