Entrepreneurs Creative Edge

A WebBrain for the Creative Career Path Column

My column Creative Career Path has already got over 53 rings on the tree, making it a little over one year old. To commemorate and to make it easier to search, I created a 3-D Webbrain for Creative Career Path.

I will be updating this and adding new links each week. Each article is around 700 words long, and is published weekly on www.daijob.com and syndicated in the DAILY YOMIURI Newspaper in Japan.

There is plenty of meet on the bone, and the platform and discipline has been a constant source of inspiration and ideas for speaking and training, as well as for business and life.

Happy Birthday column, and Happy Reading!

Oceans of Opportunity

People born into the age of Space travel have become accustomed to images of our planet in Space, the swirling clouds, borderless blue oceans, and vast reach of stars.

It is gives us a horizon which is round and infinite, rather than simply far and flat. It is a reminder of the Big "O" in Opportunity, the Big "P" in Potential, which we so easily forget when we try to remain realistic and down to earth.

The beginning of the year is an excellent time to think about such things, because our calendar reminds us it is time to ring in the new. The challenge is that the two things which remind us about renewal, the clock and the calendar, can also sentence us to repeating our past. It all depends on how you think about time.

I propose that we set aside some of the clichés about time that condition our experience. Borrowed time. Father Time. Time flies like an arrow. Spend your time. Time is money. Time will tell. One day at a time.

As appropriate as these metaphors may have been when they were first created, over time they lose their luster and actually condition us to think about time in ways that may not be serving us well.

For a very different way to think about and experience time, read my article on Daijob.com called Oceans of Opportunity.

See how changing a simple metaphor such as how we think about time, can completely change how we experience it.

Communicating without Conflict

Sun Tzu's famous phrase from The Art of War, is that the supreme excellence is to win without fighting.

This is closely tied to your own attitude, and draws deeply on the roots of real motivation, as well as they way in which people compete for attention and energy.

This is the subject of the latest article in my online Column Creative Career Path is called:

Communicating without Conflict

Find out how this can help you win without fighting in your own career.

Make a Sound Connection

Different polls report different numbers, but many agree that the average person reads about one book a year, with one in four Americans reporting that they read no books at all in the past year.

It could be that they are doing their reading someplace else, or maybe there are just too many other ways of getting information that compete for their attention. Why not provide your information online in multiple formats such as video and audio, rather than limiting yourself to words alone?

Some people prefer listening and talking to reading and writing. Why not accommodate them and get your word out so that people can hear it, as well as read it. The best way to do this is to get your own channel online.

To learn how to do this, read the latest article in my Creative Career Path column, Make a Sound Connection.

The Magic of Mindfulness: Yuishin

唯心 (yuishin), Mindfulness, Just Mind. Calligraphy by William Reed
Frame and presentation by Carre MOJI. http://www.carremoji.jp

Is your work mentally and physically engaging, or does it sap your energy? If you fail to engage with your work, you may find yourself spending too much time working in a mindless state, absent-minded activity without awareness or appreciation. The problem with mindlessness is that it is habit forming.

To learn more about mindlessness at work, and how its antithesis mindfulness can heighten your awareness and engagement at work, read my article on your Creative Career Path, The Magic of Mindfulness.

The Mask and the Aura

Carl Jung, Founder of Analytical Psychology (1875-1961)

Carl Jung, one of the 20th Century's most influential and interesting psychologist, had a profound impact on the understanding of personality type. Many of the most widely used personality assessments used in business today are based on Jung's approach to the understanding of personality.

Jung worked extensively with dreams and archetypes, and also introduced some fascinating concepts into the field of psychology, extroversion vs introversion, persona vs anima, and the idea of synchronicity.

Click here to read my recent article about Jung and your Creative Career Path, The Mask and the Aura.

The Power of Limits

(創, sō, to create, to make, to improvise)
Calligraphy by William Reed
Frame and presentation by Carré MOJI, http://www.carremoji.jp

Have you noticed that some of the most enthusiastic advocates of creativity, are not that creative themselves?

At times it appears that they are doing more to promote enthusiasm or themselves, than to promote productive forms of creativity.

Many advocates of creativity talk about thinking outside of the box, brainstorming, and free association, armed with all kinds of idea generation tools. They may be long in talking or writing about creativity, but short in the experience of creating, producing, or performing tangible work that could be called creative.

Moreover, researchers have consistently concluded that brainstorming is not only ineffective, but often leads to productivity loss. Read about the controversy here.

What this means is not to give up on creating something new, nor to accept the status quo, but rather to reexplore the power of limits in the creative process.

In talking about creativity, it might be useful to make a distinction between imagination and creation. Both are important, but they are not the same. Imagination has no limits. Creation cannot occur without limits. 

To see how this process plays out in business, sports, and the arts, read my article Thinking Inside the Box.

Cubicle Consciousness

Escape from Cubicle Nation addresses an issue of increasing importance to people who as author Pamela Slim says, have a fancy title, a steady paycheck, and good benefits, but wonder why they are so miserable. A manual for those who are wanting to break free of from the bounds of a cubicle existence, and embark on what they hope will be a life of freedom on the open seas of entrepreneurship.

While the author presents no illusions that it will be easy, the emotional appeal is dampened somewhat by what appears to be the enormity and risk of the task. It's almost as if you are all set to go on your adventure holiday, but start having second thoughts when you have to sign page after page of release forms placing full responsibility for any accident or injury on yourself.

While the book is full of practical advice and encouragement for those wanting to make a break for it, I suspect that their numbers are not many. In the current economy, there are probably far more people looking for strategies to survive and hold onto their job.

However, survival is not a long term strategy for satisfaction or fulfillment. A gilded cage is still a cage at the end of the day.

I propose a different approach. Before you can become an entrepreneur, you have to learn to think and act like one. Sink or swim is a desperate strategy. Defining your job as a cubicle is a compelling, but disempowering metaphor. Is it really that bad? Is it really that small, or is it your thoughts that makes it seem so?

Before you jump ship, even if that is your eventual plan, why not see if it is possible to remain employed, yet think and act like an entrepreneur in the service of the company where you work? This will have two advantages. It will make your job a lot more interesting, and it will greatly increase your value to your employer. Some people have been able to do this for a while until they demonstrate results, and then get an agreement to leave the company as an employee, but keep it as a client in their new business.

Not everyone can be an intrapreneur, but the challenge is even greater to survive as an entrepreneur.

An important part of thinking like an entrepreneur is asking better questions. I have created 24 Key questions you can ask of yourself, your colleagues, and your employer to help you think less like an employee, and more like an entrepreneur, which are listed in my article Lose the Job Description.

Your Bridge to the Other Side

One of the biggest challenges in life is how to bridge the gaps that separate us from the people, ideas, and things that we want to connect with.

A bridge is a meaningful metaphor, because it is both practical and ubiquitous. All of us have benefited from bridges.

Yet we can benefit even more by making efforts to build bridges with metaphors.

Have you ever experienced frustration in trying to explain or share an experience with someone, knowing that you just aren't getting across?

Could you make your written and spoken communication more impactful by using metaphors?

Are you missing opportunities to gain understanding, cooperation, and support because your way of talking is too abstract or me-centered?

Find out how easy it is to bridge the gap, in my article The Magic Eye of Metaphor.

Treat Your Customers Well

Dave Carroll's viral video, United Breaks Guitars

Dave Carroll is a man whose message is getting a lot of traffic on the Internet. Over 1,000,000 views in its many variations. This would inspire viral envy in anyone hoping to be heard, but not certainly in the company whose bad service it targets.

United Breaks Guitars has become a symbol of customers who have been badly served and ignored, taking their message not to the unresponsive customer service desk, but to the world.

According to Dan Schwabel, leading advocate of personal branding for Gen-Y, or anyone else for that matter, refers to Dave Carroll's viral video as an example of how social media strategies and channels have become "weapons of mass destruction and tools of great opportunity."

Bad service happens all of the time, and it happens with companies that otherwise have a good reputation or brand to protect.

It is puzzling to me why such companies, whose brands are at such risk, continue to spend millions of dollars on advertising to build brand image, while spending so little on customer service and follow up.

The truth is that customers aren't going to take it any more, and now they have the capacity to broadcast their message to the world. If other people have shared similar experiences, and the message communicates well, it spreads with viral vengeance, and a lot more credibility than the company's well-crafted advertising.

What does it mean to lose a customer due to careless company response?

Will the company ever know when they have inadvertently lost a customer for good?

How can educational marketing stop the bleeding and create lasting brand loyalty?

Learn why a taxi driver will never again buy a Nissan car, but has become an Apple customer for life.

For a critical lesson in marketing, read why in my article The Case of the Candid Customer.