Creative Entrepreneurship Presentation at the annual conference of the American Creativity Association in Singapore February th, 2008 by Erik Sorensen

Hi, today we’ll talk about : The Driving Forces behind Creative Entrepreneurs

And, to get rid of the suspense, for those of you who are here looking for a quick fix, here it is:

80% of success is showing up ! Woody Allen

and for the rest of you, here are some ideas to help you generate the creativity to reach your goals

and, first of all, let us define successful Entrepreneurship :

Successful Entrepreneurship means : To position your company and to build your brand !

“Great”, you might say, “but how do I position my company, and how do I build my brand ?”

According to an article in the Harvard Business Review : Strategic positioning means performing different activities from those of your rivals, or performing similar activities in different ways

in other words : differentiation

Creating simple, but powerful differentiation in the minds of your customers and your staff, requires a clear and compelling vision that is expressed in everything you do, from product to service, to the people you hire and the way you talk about yourself

Instead of positioning products and businesses within an industry, strategy should be about changing industry rules or creating tomorrow's industries, much as Wal-Mart did in retailing, Richard Branson did in music, and Tim Berners-Lee did with the World Wide Web

how do I position : –using word of mouth –developing the industry infrastructure : the network of retailers, distributors, analysts, journalists and industry "luminaries" who control the flow of information and opinion in the industry –forming strategic relationships –selling to the right customers

and how do I build the brand : Every product has a dramatic element. Our task is to discover it and capitalize on it” Leo Burnett Advertising Executive

Positive brand equity is created by a history of effective promotion and consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations

Keep repeating your message relentlessly : " Nobody counts the number of times that they see your message, they only remember the impact that it leaves” Bill Bernbach Dale Doyle Bernbach

The first brands :...branding cows in the “Wild West”

and by upgrading the customer experience to build trust in your brand

The brand is the promise of value : the customer doesn't see the 4 P’s, product, price, promotion, and place as separate variables

Examples of effective brands : CocaCola, McDonald’s, Nike, Rolex, Marlboro, Louis Vuitton, Starbucks, Google...

To communicate your brand : the slogan, that magical line of ad copy that crystallizes a brand’s essence :

and here are some examples of effective slogans : We try harder (Avis) Life tastes good (Coca Cola) I’m loving it (McDonalds) Just do it (Nike) Dont dream it. Drive it (Jaguar)...

“So”, you’re saying, “where do I start” :

Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group (music, entertainment, airline, real estate...) put it this way :

“my interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable, challenges and trying to rise above them”

In other words, setting high goals and applying perseverance

Why ? Because the human mind has the special ability to link random bits of data

and high goals and perseverance will make your mind make intuitive leaps across the boundaries, and create new associations

Next, let’s define how to generate the creativity in business :

according to Encyclopedia Britannica, creativity is : –the ability to bring into existence something new a new solution to a problem a new method or device a new artistic object or form

in business, however : – creativity means coming up with a new idea that can generate more revenue –or coming up with a solution to a problem that is slowing down our revenue

in this presentation I would like to approach creativity from a fresh angle, and let us start with this quote :

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” Dr. Wayne Dyer

OK, so how do I change the way I look at things ?

It is simple : only when faced with a problem that we cannot get around, grudgingly we try to solve the problem and thereby find resources and new ways of doing things that we didn’t know

What is the scientific justification for this ?

Simply this : A scientific school of thought argues that human intelligence, and therefore creativity, evolved partly because of the pressure of living in a complex society

Therefore, the more we dig into our mental capacities, the more we use those 97% of mental resources that many of us leave unused

those few people who reach more that most, do so not because they have greater potential, but because they learn to use a greater part of their potential

life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve

OK, so how do I generate a good crop of problems to keep me creative ? Again, start with these two things : set high goals apply perseverance

Some creative tools to generate ideas at this point : 1.xxx 2.xxx 3.xxxx 4.xxxx 5.xxxx

if we want to discover the unlimited possibilities within us, we must find a goal big enough to challenge us to push beyond our limits and discover our true potential

For most of us, creativity is not a part of our everyday working lives, and therefore our belief in our capacity for creativity may be constrained by self-doubts

Therefore, unlocking our creativity requires an exercise of will, a desire to grow, an acceptance of the need to step outside the boundaries of the way we usually think and explore new mental pathways from problem to solution

and how do we exercise that will, that desire to grow, that acceptance of the need to step outside of our box ? by unyielding perseverance !

creativity is not determined by outside factors, but by your own hard resolution to do what has to be done

You can only have a breakthrough if you increase your rate of failure as you push the limits of what you know, and failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently

You need new experiences to find new words and to understand new paradigms

Creative people are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals

the Super-Successes of our culture are not people who don’t fail, but simply people who know that when they try something and it doesn't give them what they want, they've had a learning experience

Successful people keep adapting, keep adjusting, keep changing their behavior until they find what works

the most famous example of perseverance is Thomas Edison who had done experiments before inventing the incandescent light bulb : says Edison : “what I had been doing was to eliminate all the ways that didn’t work until I found the one that did...”

Goals come in many shapes

Sam Walton used the goal of everyday low prices to build the largest retail empire in the world, Wal-Mart

Sam founded his company with the intention of gaining on the competition with creative offers and low prices said Sam : we're constantly doing crazy things to capture the attention of our folks and lead them to think up surprises of their own

Richard Branson used the goal of the customer’s buying experience to build the Virgin empire

says Branson : to reach full sales potential, businesses need people with vision and the determination to succeed no matter what difficulties they face and he believes that the occasional failure doesn't hurt

says Branson : “later, it became apparent to me that business could be a creative enterprise in itself”

Tim Berners-Lee used the goal of worldwide interconnectivity to build the World Wide Web (that we know today as the www )

he had a vision of bringing together the decentralised, organic growth of ideas, technology, and society

the web resulted from many influences on his mind, half-formed thoughts, disparate conversations and seemingly disconnected experiments

the web happened through the swirling together of influences, ideas, and realisations from many sides, until, by the wondrous offices of the human mind, a new concept jelled : the World Wide Web

So, the driving force is passion, and the desire to provide a service that the market wants

and in closing, here’s a philosophical comment from a great comedian :

Why should I do anything for posterity ? What has posterity ever done for me ? Groucho Marx

as usual, Groucho Marx knows how to say things in a roundabout way: the way to get Posterity to do something for you is to do something for Posterity In other words, be proactive !

Now go do it !

For comments, or questions, or observations, please contact and, if you would like, you are welcome to send a copy of this presentation to a friend !