An amazing study was once conducted among kindergartners that certainly illustrates this point. The children were given a white piece of paper with a medium-sized black dot in the center of the page. They were asked to describe what they saw. Here are just a few of the answers they recorded.

• A squashed bug as seen from an airplane.
• A snowman’s eye which fell into the snow as he ran away.
• An ice-fisherman’s hole in the lake after he left.
• A rabbit hole in a snow-covered back yard.
• The top of a telephone pole in Alaska as seen by an astronaut.

The same picture was later shown to a group of seniors in high school, and the majority of them agreed on the same answer — a black dot on a white piece of paper!

What happened to this last group of students between their first and last years of school? They obviously lost their creativity, imagination, and resourcefulness. They had little or no desire to let their minds wander without the fear of rejection. Can you imagine what happened between their senior year and their first day in the work world? Frightening isn’t it?

Well, let me tell you about a young man who managed to avoid that sad transition.

His name is Hart Main, and he’s only 13 years old. This young entrepreneur has done for candles what Netflix did for movie rentals and Groupon has done for coupons. Last November his 12-year-old sister was selling candles to raise money for school. Hart, who wasn’t crazy about the girly scents, joked that there ought to be candles for guys — guys who didn’t want their bedrooms to smell like lavender soap or fresh laundry.

I’m sure a lot of people would agree with Hart. However, the difference between this young man and those people is very obvious. He took action! He did something about what he identified as a challenge.

He created a candle with a masculine aroma. He calls them “ManCans,” and they’re available in a variety of unique scents such as Grandpa’s Pipe, New Mitt, Fresh Cut Grass, Campfire, New York Style Pizza, Coffee, Dirt, Bacon, Crackerjack, Sawdust, Hot Coco, Buttered Popcorn, Bubblegum, and Breakfast in Bed (bacon coffee flapjacks).

He sells each ManCan for $9.50 and is certainly doing well for a startup. He’s averaging 300 orders a week and requests for his products are growing. Hart makes the candles in soup cans, so he purchases soup and donates it to local soup kitchens. He then returns the empty cans, and he and his mother make the candles in their kitchen. He orders oils from suppliers around his home state of Ohio and combines them with the wax. They’re currently looking for a space to rent as making the candles in the kitchen is getting out of hand.

Adults close to the 13-year-old entrepreneur are impressed how the 13-year-old has risen to the challenge of running his own company. Hart is apparently very much in charge of this business and is as hands-on as any CEO would be at the age of 50. He handles himself so well in media interviews and with the whole business that it’s amazing to watch, because you have to be reminded that this is a 13-year-old middle school student who simply wanted to be able to buy a bicycle with the extra money he would earn.

If a young man like this can capitalize on his creativity, most others can as well. In our creativity seminars, the majority of those attending deny they are creative. Is that true or are they in denial or unaware of their potential?

If you were given that piece of white paper with a black dot, what would you see?

Check out Hart’s website at www.man-cans.com. Listen to this young man as he describes his journey in this short video clip.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creative 13-Year-Old Boy Finds a Need and Fills It is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Apparently, it’s worked so well for airplanes that the airports are jumping on the bandwagon in their search for potential revenue generators. I’ve recently witnessed a number of terminals that are placing ads in the bins used for transporting our belongings through security X-ray machine.

Now, they’re attempting to sell ads to companies that are willing to pitch their products and services to travelers in the bathrooms! They’ve recently rolled out a campaign using 150 mirror ads at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. In the future. the man in the bathroom mirror could be someone trying to sell you car insurance or deodorant.

When a traveler walks into select airport bathrooms, he or she will see movie poster-style ad displays over the sinks. Some are still images, while other are high definition videos.

As a traveler walks to the sink to wash his or her hands, the full-frame ads shrink into the corner to “reveal” a mirror.

Brian Reid, the founder and president of Mirrus, the company that manufactures the mirror ads, says:

“Bathrooms are often the last places people stop before they board an airplane, and the first places they visit when they get off an airplane.”

Reid says sensors detect when a traveler steps in front of the mirror and track how long they stand there, but no cameras watch or record reactions to the mirror ads.

Thus far, some pretty big advertisers have signed up, including Pepsi, Geico, Illy coffee, Microsoft, Dove, Spanx and Zappos.com. Airports share in the ad revenues and virtually do little or nothing to maintain the new source of advertising.

Mirror ads are also being used in sports arenas across the country, venues where there are only two places people are guaranteed to visit: their seat and the bathroom.

According to Clear Channel, market research suggests consumers remember brands advertised in mirrors at a rate of five times greater than other methods of advertising. The location of the mirror ads also allows advertisers to target gender-specific audiences.

Take a look at this short video and see how you feel about this newest attempt to make a buck at the expense of your privacy!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Now with that picture in your mind’s eye, pause to attempt visualizing that very special event being held in a funeral home! Yes, a funeral home … because that’s exactly what’s happening from coast to coast!

I just read an article in USA Today describing a new trend in the U.S. where traditional funeral homes are marketing their centers “not just as a place to mourn the dead, but as sites for events celebrating the living, including weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, holiday parties and proms.”

The article explains that funeral homes can be less expensive than other venues, there’s greater availability, and they’re often quite beautiful. Most importantly, while the economy has caused many traditional wedding venues to close their doors, funeral homes aren’t going away.

An Indianapolis funeral home now employs a “special events coordinator” who said no one had thought of marketing her facility for other events “because people had tunnel vision … they saw the facility as nothing more than a traditional funeral home and marketed it that way. However, I don’t see a funeral home; I see an events center.”

While many may laugh at this “re-frame,” her Community Life Center holds a dozen events each month and has nearly every Friday, Saturday and Sunday booked this year, including 99 weddings! They’re also booking birthday parties, anniversaries, holiday parties, business meetings and proms.

The lure? It is often less expensive; there is greater availability; and the settings—inside and outside—can be nothing short of wedding-picture perfect. Don’t look for this emerging trend to be short-lived. In fact, it’s growing very rapidly.

This is nothing more than creative business minds channeling innovative options to deal with the ever-challenging economic environment facing our country today.

A few years ago, banks and credit unions would have laughed at the thought of having their own Facebook page or at using Twitter to communicate with those they serve. Today, these are very productive strategies which continue to grow.

Consider the fact that eBay’s founders took the concept of the flea market, one of the world’s oldest business and escalated it to a world of profits by moving it to the Internet.

Google’s original offering was nothing more than a digital version of my elementary school librarian, who knew where absolutely everything was kept.

I often think Facebook emerged from a memory of our grade school practice of the spiral notebooks we passed around listing who was the best kisser, worst dancer, coolest dresser, etc. We just did it person-to-person as we lacked the Internet.

Andy Warhol traced a Campbell’s Soup can onto canvas and created pop art. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta channeled Madonna and created Lady Gaga.

We’ve witnessed a growing interest in our creativity seminar (“Creative Innovation: Out-of-the-Box Thinking“) as well as our keynote presentations ( “Get Back in the Box!“ and “Tennis Shoes & Blue Jeans – Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation“) over the past couple of months. Organizations are starting to deal with the realization that creative thinking can make them more competitive and give them a definite advantage in the eyes of their targeted markets.

That creativity exists in the minds of current leaders and staff members. It needs only to be recognized, channeled, and utilized as the tremendous asset it is. Are you tapping that explosive potential within your organization or are you “waiting for things to get better someday”? You might want to think about that … before your competition does!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Creativity Looms as Crucial Success Strategy is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

In this program we delve into a wide variety of subject matter as the demands of leadership at every level has radically evolved as a result of our ever-changing, chaotic, global environment.

One of the targets of our focus in this program is the need for creativity. To compete in any industry today, we must be constantly searching for new and unique ways to market our products and services … regardless of what they may be.

The best method to illustrate this critical aspect of leadership is to share examples of those who have successfully utilized their creative juices to produce positive results … and those examples can be found everywhere today.

We simply must pause long enough to examine them in preparation to adapt these valuable lessons to meet our own needs.

I’ve been coming to New York City for decades now. In fact, I lived here in Greenwich Village for a while in the days of starving artists and hippies. I’ve watched this metropolis continually evolve to meet the needs of millions who live here and the billions who visit. However, it never ceases to amaze me that those who live in the midst of creativity seldom recognize it.

For instance, both vehicle and pedestrian traffic has constantly increased over the years in the heart of New York City. There appears to be no end in sight. “Crowded” would be an understatement. The “Big Apple” boasts the largest subway systems in the world, more than 13,000 taxis, and a population of well over nine million! Add an average of 47 million tourists each year, and you’ve got a real party!

With all of those traffic figures in mind, NYC has attempted what many would consider to be impossible. They closed 42nd to 47th Streets to traffic! They’ve drastically altered the three-way intersection where Broadway meets Seventh Avenue … a popular destination for so many tourists every year. They’ve created a very unique Pedestrian Mall in New York’s Times Square! The heavy traffic has been replaced by hundreds of patio tables, chair and umbrellas where people can hang out, read a book, and have lunch while taking in the sights. It’s become the world’s largest open-air “hospitality” room and, thus far, has been a tremendous success enhancing safety conditions, offering a welcome oasis, and changing the overall “feel” of the city!

While many would invest time and energy explaining that such a project simply couldn’t possibly be accomplished … other creative minds have overcome the odds and DONE IT! Take the time to look around you, and you’ll discover new examples of creativity emerging on a regular basis, Stop, Look, Listen, and Learn! You’ll be glad you did!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Stop – Look – Listen – Learn is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Visualize the chaos of New York City’s Times Square and the obviously intense competition of one of the largest cities in the world. If you were given the opportunity to open any kind of establishment amidst that treasured real estate, what would it be? What service or product do you think might attract the attention of the millions of people who traffic that famous few blocks of real estate? You might be surprised.

Two week ago, Kellogg’s “Pop-Tarts World” Mega-Store opened, joining M&Ms and Hershey as yet another sugary tourist attraction in Times Square. Located on 42nd Street between 6th and Broadway, the store will include a cafe selling—you guessed it—Pop-Tarts. Promoters have promised a few surprises for those who struggle to visualize 3,000 square feet dedicated to toaster pastries. Among them is ”Pop-Tarts sushi,” which is minced Pop-Tarts wrapped in a fruit roll-up. The cafe will serve 30 different snacks and desserts, allowing visitors to design their own Pop-Tarts by adding frosting, toppings, and drizzle.

Customers will be able to eat Pop-Tart sushi, order a customized pastry, create a custom box filled with a mix of their favorite flavors or chose a Pop-Tart T-shirt from a collection of colorful designs.

In fact, just about the only attraction at Pop-Tarts World which won’t put five pounds on you is an hourly light show. Makes sense doesn’t—I know I personally never feast on a Pop-Tart without the ambiance of a light show! The intent is for visitors to feel like they’re being “frosted” by red and white light, then “sprinkled” by brief pulses of multicolored lights, and then “wrapped in foil” by one last bright light.

Pop-Tarts, two layers of pastry with sweet filling, has been a Kellogg mainstay for nearly 50 years; about two billion sell each year. However, as unbelievable as this may sound, it wasn’t until the recent rise of social media that Kellogg grasped the dedication of Pop-Tart fans. The Pop-Tart’s Facebook page is one of the social network’s 20 most popular!

Bottom line—never rule out any possibility! Monitor current trends, remain flexible, and be willing to risk the radical expansion of your comfort zone. Oh, and start your day with a Pop-Tart!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Would You Gamble on a Pop-Tart? is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

The same can be said for our full- and half-day seminars for “Creative Innovation – Out-of the-Box Thinking.”

I’m continually amazed by the limited thinking of many who attend both programs. When asked, most people reply that they are NOT creative. I’m never certain whether this response is a result of shyness, humbleness, ignorance or denial. Everyone has a degree of creativity whether they realize it or not.

I’ve also had a number of people state that creativity may work well if you work for Disney, Google or Hallmark Cards, but they simply can’t see a place for it where they work. How do you show creativity in a dentist’s office, lumber yard or post office? This attitude is nothing more than a lack of vision, desire and application. I’ve seen many examples of creative ideas enhancing advertising, marketing, customer service and design in organizations many would consider lacking in opportunity for innovative thinking.

Applied creativity can enhance any situation. For instance, during a recent routine trek to the airport, I found myself approaching a semi-truck. As I neared the rear of this over-sized behemoth, I couldn’t help but notice a large, colorful message painted on the rear door of the semi-trailer. It stated simply:

Our Most Valuable resource sits 63 feet ahead!

I couldn’t help but admire this unique use of something as simplistic as a door on the rear of a semi-truck. Think about it:

• There are more than ten million semi-trucks on U.S. roads today!
• There is always someone driving behind every one of those trucks that will have no alternative but to read any message appearing on that rear door!
• Consider the number of cars in a single day that will be a captive audience to that rolling billboard and its communication.
• Consider as well the enormous potential of the millions of trucks which offer little or no message in this valuable space.
• Also consider the many possible messages conveyed by those 8 powerful words:
  • This company obviously appreciates its employees.
  • Therefore, it probably values and appreciates its customers as well.
  • The driver is probably better trained and more aware of his/her driving as he/she strives to live up to this message.
  • If this company is creative in this way, it is probably creative in other ways as well.
  • And the list goes on.

It required very little time and minimal cost to place that message on the rear of a truck that is now promoting that company from coast to coast 24/7, whether rolling down the highway or parked in a truck stop while the driver grabs a bite to eat!

Think about it! This company is headquartered in Nebraska. I saw the message in Michigan and shared it with a large conference audience in Missouri the very next day! That’s pretty impressive ROI!

How many other drivers may have done something similar?

I wonder how many other trucks are spreading that message every day on behalf of this very creative company?

Why not sit down with your staff and brainstorm how creativity and innovation could possibly benefit your organization in ways that have never been considered? Thirty minutes of creative brainstorming could provide a lifetime of valuable benefits!

To prove my point and solidify this message … The name of that creative company is Shaffer Trucking of Lincoln, Nebraska, and you can learn more about them at CreteCarrier.com.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Creativity Keeps on Truckin’ is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

The answer is a definite “NO” from 90% of those asked!

How accurate is that answer? Not very!

Are those who answered lying? Not at all!

The majority of people today honestly don’t believe that they’re the least bit creative. Yet, that opinion is disproved almost daily. Some of the most creative and productive ideas on record have originated from the most unassuming people in the organization.

Consider the following examples:

• The McDonald’s “Happy Meal”
• The UPS “Right Turn Strategy”
• The Nike waffle iron sole for running shoes
• The dial telephone invented by an undertaker
• The Birdseye Frozen Food quick-freezing process

These are just a few of the many breakthrough ideas which have changed our way of life in this country. The opportunities abound. Most are simplistic in nature. They’re all around us and continue to surface daily. We simply credit their discovery to those who are more creative than we are … which is usually untrue. The credit actually goes to those who are curious, confident, eager to expand their comfort zones and unafraid to take calculated risks.

Here’s another perfect example:

In 1991 a group of investors came up with a novel idea. After the NCAA championship basketball game between Duke and Kansas in Indianapolis, they invested $65,000 to buy the floor on which the final four games were played. That was a “calculated risk”! Would you have gambled on such an idea?

They then cut this brand new basketball floor into 22,000 little pieces. These investors then sold those little 6×5 pieces of floor to 22,000 loyal fans as souvenirs for $24.95 each. This creativity turned their $65,000 investment into $548,900 in less than one week! A profit of more than half a million dollars in one week!

Again, those opportunities are everywhere and we need to recognize them and take action. So, keep your eyes open, unleash your imagination, and be open to new concepts, strategies, products and services. Be one of those “creative minds” who continuously changes the world we live in!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Everyone Is Creative! Few Realize It! is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

John Deere is credited with the phrase, “Find a Need and Fill It” … but two men from the Holland, Michigan, area are credited with taking it to heart in a way which satisfies a lot of boaters and just may prove to be very profitable for themselves.

The two friends have created a very simple Hot Dog Stand on Pontoons. They bought a 1976 25-foot pontoon boat and 50-horse Johnson outboard last winter and have been busy rigging it with a stainless steel grill, steam tables, and a full-sized refrigerator and freezer—and the generator to run them.

They painted the pontoon and fitted it with 15-foot flags from the stern shouting “ice cream” and “hot dogs.” They recently hit the waters of Lake Macatawa, not far from Lake Michigan. They sell hot dogs, bratwurst, chips, ice cream, pop and water to boaters who pull up to order or call ahead. They’ll be able to pull up to people’s docks, as well, although Coast Guard regulations won’t allow any customers onboard.

They said they ran the gamut of official OKs, from Coast Guard to sheriff’s department to health department to townships.

Meanwhile, the two are keeping their day jobs. They plan to be open for drive-through, weather permitting, 5 to 8 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, likely with extended days and hours on holiday weeks.

Personally, this venture makes so much sense that I struggle to understand why it hasn’t been attempted on every lake in the U.S. to some degree. It’s a great money-maker for those who initiate such a venture but also great for all of those who are served! Good luck, gentlemen and congratulations for thinking “out-on-the-lake”!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Hot Dogs Make Waves! is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Can you imagine trying to explain even one of the following concepts to someone who’s totally unaware: cell phones, e-mail, GPS, iPods, Blackberries, Kindles, HDTV-TV, Wii, Facebook, Google, eBay, printing photos at home, spray on lawns, TV signals from a satellite, square watermelons, computer dating, indoor ski resorts in the desert, dinner in the sky, robotic surgery and the list goes on and on.

Well, now we have something new to add to the list. I remember fondly sitting at our kitchen table as a child helping my mom cut out grocery coupons from the daily paper. She had a file box in which she filed the coupons alphabetically. It was a weekly tradition which I enjoyed as Mom and I chatted light-heartedly as we clipped our way to savings on our grocery bill.

Well, that’s now coming to an end with the advent of electronic coupons. Who would have ever “thunk”?

Here’s how it works. Free coupons load directly to your participating grocery store savings card, so there are no paper coupons to lose or forget.

Shortcuts.com electronic coupons are a convenient way to save money at the grocery store. Free coupons load directly to your participating grocery store savings card, so there are no paper coupons to lose or forget.

There are just three steps to free coupon savings:

• Register your grocery store saving card.
• Select the grocery coupons you want.
• Swipe your card at the checkout and the coupon discounts are deducted automatically.

Save paper. Save time. Save labor.

If you’re still looking for more ways to save, there are actually thousands of electronic coupon sites you can choose from. Typing “(the store name) coupon” into Google will likely yield you thousands of hits, but not all coupon sites are the same. Some sites have a limited supply of working coupon codes and are a total waste of time. Others force you to weed through advertisements to find what you want.

Here are five sites to look for coupons and what makes them so great:

1. RetailMeNot.com: This site takes a community-based approach to electronic coupons. Users supply feedback about whether or not a coupon code worked and if there were any strings attached to the offer. Under each coupon the site displays stats on the success rate. This makes it easy to tell which coupons are worth trying and which are not. Many of the coupon codes listed are also user-submitted. Unfortunately, many larger retailers have requested user submissions blocked for their sites.
2. CouponCabin.com: This site monitors more than 1,200 online stores and has a wide selection of electronic coupons. The staff updates the directory three times a day, so most of the coupons are current. Users can receive a weekly e-newsletter on Mondays to see the best deals for the coming week. In addition to electronic coupons, CouponCabin also offers printable coupons and grocery coupons as well.
3. FatWallet.com: This site has more than 800 merchant partners and features both coupons and a cash back opportunity. Like all coupon sites, Fatwallet.com earns commission from stores for the purchases its users make. Unlike other coupon sites, FatWallet.com will share part of that commission with you. For example, FatWallet.com makes a 3% commission on Orbitz.com sales. That’s $15 on a $500 trip. To reward customers, a portion of that commission is transferred into customer accounts and paid out as cash.
4. CouponMom.com: This site features an easy-to-use interface so you can find the coupons you want faster. Besides online coupon codes, you can also get grocery coupons, restaurant coupons and free samples. Users can sign up for e-mail alerts to notify them when new coupons are posted for their favorite stores.
5. BradsDeals.com: This site has a slick design with virtual coupons complete with dotted cutout lines. There are sections for top deals, newest deals, online coupons and printable coupons. Additionally, BradsDeals informs you on the homepage which deals are about to expire so you don’t miss out. At BradsDeals you only see current offers and don’t have to sort through a lot of useless information.

There are many, many more options for you to choose from if you have the time to browse the Internet. It’s apparently well worth your time and effort to do so.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Another Tradition Bites the Dust is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

NOTHING is too far fetched today!

Lansing is Michigan’s capital city. Decades ago, the city’s downtown business area was a thriving metropolis. Then, like so many other downtown areas, it soon resembled a ghost town … no theaters, few restaurants and hotels, very little entertainment, and very little major retail. In short, no reason to go downtown.

Then, 15 years ago, they brought a minor league baseball team to town, building one of the largest state-of-the-art Class A Minor League baseball parks in the United States … currently seating 11,000 eager fans. If you could see that ball park today, you’d swear it was built last month. They’ve done a wonderful job of maintaining and enhancing that facility every year.

Even more exciting is that you can buy a ticket to a ball game for less than it costs to park your car for a Detroit Tiger baseball game. General Admission is only $8 per person. Then the prices skyrocket to $9 for a reserved seat and $10 for a box seat! This is affordable family entertainment and the caliber of play is unequaled. This beautiful structure also offers 20 luxury suites.

Due to the fact that the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors, then located in Lansing, purchased the initial naming rights for the stadium, they called it “Oldsmobile Park” and named the team “The Lansing Lugnuts.”

The team was a Class-A Midwest League affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, later switching to the Chicago Cubs and currently the Toronto Blue Jays.

This is where the story gets both interesting and very creative. Oldsmobile is no longer a GM brand and, last July, the automaker broke the contract with the Lugnuts during its bankruptcy reorganization. The Lugnuts began an immediate search for someone interested in purchasing the coveted naming rights.

It certainly didn’t take long. The Thomas M.Cooley Law School, the largest law school in the United States and also located in Lansing, paid a whopping $1.5 million to rename the facility the “Cooley Law School Stadium.” THAT’s generating additional income. But wait … the Lugnut owners certainly don’t stop there.

This week they announced that they have also sold naming rights to the actual baseball field inside the stadium! Jackson National Life Insurance Company, an indirect subsidiary of Prudential plc (a company incorporated with its principal place of business in the United Kingdom) has purchased the naming rights of the field for the next 11 years! The price was not disclosed. Jackson National Life Insurance Company is an industry leader offering life insurance and institutional products in 49 states and the District of Columbia. They have agreed to donate $100 to one of a variety of Lugnut charities every time the home team hits a home run throughout the entire season!

How long will it be before they sell the naming rights to first base, second base, third base, home plate, the pitchers mound, the dugout, each individual baseball bat and each of the 11,000 seats within Jackson Field situated inside the “Cooley Law School Stadium”? WHEW!

This isn’t exactly a new concept. I wrote a blog article earlier in the year identifying 26 various football bowl games that have now sold their naming rights. While I certainly understand the logic behind such a move, preparing to attend the MAACO Las Vegas Papajohns.com Bowl just isn’t the same as going to the Rose Bowl game!

However, seeing an annual increase in this sort of creative advertising certainly encourages one to pursue just about any unique concept which may come to mind. Go for it!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Sky’s the Limit as Baseball Gets Creative is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

There is much to learn from the simple observation of those we come into contact with daily. Here’s a short video that some might think focuses on a simple paper airplane. Actually, it’s about a young 6th grade boy who has learned in his short life span how to open his mind to new concepts, how to take simple calculated risks, and how to avoid the possibility of negative peer pressure in hopes of discovering new frontiers. The innocence of youth should be added to our list of creative resources.

Watch Jeff amaze his friends as he easily wins a paper airplane flying contest in a way most of us would never consider. In fact, some of us may even tell Jeff that his new approach can’t possibly work or that it’s against the rules. Rules are changing every day as the demands of our chaotic environment increase greatly and much faster than ever before. Are you willing to think out of the box as Jeff did? Your decision to do so could well be the decisive factor in your future success or failure. Take a look …

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Never Underestimate the Power of Your Mind is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

If you’re not interested in a boat, you have your choice of dozens of other unique choices … a full-size race car, a giant dog, stacks of gold bars, a robot, a band room, a family room complete with fire place, a monstrous alligator, a sandy beach, a stealth jet airplane, a disco, a wine seller, a military tank, a locomotive, a semi-truck, a road grader and the list goes on and on. You can also send in your own image to be reproduced. You can use these covers as a mural inside your home or even add the look of wallpaper to enhance any room.

Each garage door cover retails for anywhere from $199 to $399 based on the subject you choose and the size you need (double door available). There are many manufacturers of this product so you certainly have a large variety of subjucts to choose from. Simply go to Google.com and type in “crazy garage door covers.” Here is one of those sites that will give you an idea of what’s available.

Consider the number of ideas you’ve witnessed over the years that caused you to think: “I could have come up with that!” The point is …. you didn’t! You could have—you had access to the same education, experience, and resources as everyone else. It’s just that someone else acted before we did.

Look around you—unlimited resources. Get creative, brainstorm, think positive, take action and make a difference!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Opportunity Abounds for Creative Minds! is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

The increased probability of surviving a car crash hasn’t persuaded enough South Carolinians to buckle up, so the state’s highway patrol has turned to a more reliable incentive: Chick-Fil-A coupons.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol recently started rewarding free chicken sandwich vouchers to seat-belted drivers in three counties around Charleston. So far, officers have distributed 1,200 coupons.

But the coupons aren’t reserved for do-gooders. Officers typically size up drivers for seat belt use when they’re pulled over for moving violations, which means a South Carolinian caught speeding could end up with points on his license, a hefty fine, increased insurance premiums and a hand-breaded boneless chicken breast on a buttered bun.

Officers are also giving out coupons at seat belt checkpoints, and one officer reports he’s gotten into the habit of rewarding coupons to drivers who pull into gas stations with their seat belts buckled.

The program seems to be working: Local police officers say drivers, obviously aware of a seat belt’s worth, are now demanding Chick-Fil-A coupons when stopped.

The Highway Patrol hopes to take the program statewide next year.

South Carolina has lost 394 people on its roadways from not wearing their seat belts. Now citizens know the South Carolina Highway Patrol wants you to wear your seat belt, and Chick-Fil-A wants you to eat more chicken. It’s obviously a win-win-win situation, and it appears to be working. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Roadside Chicken is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Son Helps Father Plant Garden

An old man lived alone in the country. He wanted to plant a tomato garden, but it was difficult work and his only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man described the predicament in a letter to his son.

Dear Vincent,
I’m feeling bad. It looks like I won’t be able to put in my tomatoes this year. I’m just too old to be digging up a garden. I wish you were here to dig it for me.
Love, Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Sorry I’m not there to help, but whatever you do, don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried the BODIES.
Love, Vincent

At 4 a.m the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding a single body. They apologized to the old man and left. The same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love, Vinnie

Note: It’s amazing how a little critical thinking can not only solve a problem but eliminate manual labor in doing so!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Develop Critical Thinking Skills is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Of course, you know there’s got to be a catch to such a sweet deal. However, this one is quite simple while, at the same time, can easily be a deal breaker. It is, in fact, a no-brainer. You’re either going to love it or hate it—jump at the opportunity or laugh at the suggestion of something that, to you, is out of the question.

There’s a special segment of the advertising industry today offering what they call “brand driver” promotions. They actually pay regular people to affix vinyl decals to their cars—decals that, at first glance, appear to be painted on the vehicle.

These decals are known as “auto wraps” and they typically consist of the logo of a particular company or brand. Or, the “wrap” may have a message, like the “Follow Me to Find Great Furniture Prices.”

This has been going on for more than 10 years but seems to be refined every year or so. For instance, initially, cars were leased, painted as needed and then offered to drivers along with a nice paycheck to be driven around town or on freeways.

This obviously was not very cost-effective so a new approach had to be devised. Soon they simplified things by merely offering to wrap a driver’s personal car with 3M vinyl decals which eliminated much of the previous hassle.

The only requirement is that a driver must log about 1,000 miles a month depending on the location of the car’s owner. Other factors considered include where you live, where you drive, the location of your commute, whether you have children, their ages, your favorite activities and what kinds of events you attend. Needs of the clients and their target audience are also factored into the decision.

Brand names such as Proctor & Gamble, Coke, Tang and Vault energy drink have adorned cars from coast to coast. They often request drivers who are stay-at-home moms, those who are active in their kids’ school, attend soccer games, church activities and other community events.

When you think about it, having your car “wrapped” can easily provide you with a monthly income that can easily cover your car payment, gas and oil, and any necessary maintenance to keep your car on the road—in short, you end up with a free car.

On the other hand, many people simply can’t picture themselves being seen behind the wheel of a car covered with corn flakes, tennis shoes or dog food. To each his own but you must admit this approach to advertising is cutting edge and certainly thinking out of the box!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Income Opportunity – This One’s Legit is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

One of the monotonous rituals a traveler must deal with involves the simple shuttle bus which takes you from your parked car to the terminal. That’s the easy part of the necessary ritual. The challenge emerges when you return from your trip … often tired, suffering jet-lag and simply wanting to return to the comfort of your home after a long and demanding trip.

In most of your larger airports, you have a choice of several places to park … each with their own fleet of shuttle buses. You’re immediately given a parking slip to tell the returning driver where your car is parked. Your job of course is keep that slip in a safe place until you return as losing it will mean cruising every aisle of the massive parking lot in search of your car. Another annoying challenge arises when you have to remember what your shuttle bus looks likes as so many of them seem to look alike. Hop the wrong bus and you add embarrassment to inconvenience!

Well, one company has obviously mastered the task of TLC (“Thinking Like the Customer”). The company calls itself The Parking Spot … an obvious reminder of where you left your car. It got even more creative customizing its shuttle bus as an obvious visual reminder for its patrons.

Each shuttle by is a rolling Parking Spot. How could you possibly NOT recognize that bus! And yet what’s more simplistic than a cluster of giant spots splattered against a bright yellow background!

The Parking Spot is the leading near-airport parking company in the United States, getting its start at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental airport. Since then, The Parking Spot has grown to 19 locations at 12 airports serving 10 metropolitan areas. It enjoys a solid, loyal customer base and much of it can be attributed to its creative approach to a mundane service!

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Creativity Can Be Obvious is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

I want to ask you a series of questions and I want you to pause after each to note exactly what you’re thinking and feeling. This will be crucial later.

What if I came to you and asked you to partner with me in a venture that would guarantee us financial success for the rest of our lives?

What if I told you it had to do with developing a cartoon character that would later lead to a television series that would be broadcast around the world?

What if I told you the TV series would lead to a successful movie that would appear world wide?

What if I told you we’d boast cameo appearances and voice-overs in the TV series and movie by such notables as Will Ferrell, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, Craig Ferguson, David Hasselhoff, Victoria Beckham, Alec Baldwin, Amy Poehler, Charles Nelson Reilly, David Bowie, Davy Jones, Dennis Quaid, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Shalit, Gene Simmons, Johnny Depp, Marion Ross, Mark Hamill, Pat Morita, Ray Liotta, Scarlett Johanson, Tim Conway, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and “Weird Al” Yankovic to name a few?  Not bad, huh?

What if I told you we’d enjoy merchandising and marketing tie-ins with products and companies such as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Kellogg’s cereal, video games to boxer shorts, flip-flops, pajamas, t-shirts, slippers and radios?

What if I told you our popular merchandise lines would be sold at Hot Topic, Claire’s, Waldenbooks, Borders Books, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, RadioShack, Target, KB Toys, Big Lots, Wal-Mart, Shopko, Meijer, Kmart, Sears, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, T.J. Maxx, Toys “R” Us and Ames stores in the United States as well as the Zellers, Wal-Mart Canada and Toys “R” Us stores in Canada, and a limited selection of merchandise in Australia at Kmart Australia and Target Australia?

What if I told you we’d have kids meal tie-ins at McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, and KFC world wide … and even a Slurpee named after our lead character in 7-Eleven convenience stores?

By now you should be thinking seriously about quitting your day job! I’ll spare you the details about the theme parks, CDs and DVDs, the NASCAR stock cars, the water parks, MP3 players, video arcade games, board games, digital cameras, a DVD player, books and magazines, Facebook Page and Twitter account, and a flatscreen television.

Now let me tell you a little about the character that’s going to produce this overwhelming financial windfall. It’s got to be a cartoon character that everyone, young and old, can respect and relate to. So how about this?

The cartoon series would be set in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the fictional city of Bikini Bottom and on the surrounding lagoon floor.

The main character would be a sea sponge, but in shape and color his body more closely resembles a kitchen sponge. His name would be SpongeBob SquarePants, and he lives in a pineapple under the sea! Perfectly logical, right? Look at this photo of SpongeBob. Does anything about this character make sense?

Well, by now I’m sure I probably would have lost your interest because you would have decided that I was out of my mind … due to the fact that no one on earth would believe anything I’ve said thus far and certainly wouldn’t be interested in a character like this.

Well, everything mentioned above has happened and continues to happen every day. This unbelievable character, his outlandish friends and neighbors, and extraordinarily successful series was created by artist, animator and former marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg, and is produced through his production company, United Plankton Pictures Inc.

It is currently Nickelodeon’s highest-rated show, the most distributed property of MTV Networks, and among Nicktoons Network’s most-watched shows. Although its original network is Nickelodeon, SpongeBob is now broadcast around the world. It is the second longest-running Nicktoon, next to the Rugrats.

SpongeBob’s has friends and associates:

• His neighbor and best friend is a pink and highly idiotic starfish named Patrick Star, who lives under a rock.
• Another neighbor, Squidward Tentacles, is a highly arrogant and egotistical octopus.
• Another friend is Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel that lives in an underwater dome.
• His house-pet is a snail named Gary who meows like a cat.
• All of these characters are citizens of Bikini Bottom, an underwater city.
• SpongeBob works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a fast-food restaurant.

As some of you may know, I could go on and on describing this phenomenon, but I think you get the point.  Everything about this character, series, and movie screams nonsense and failure … yet it’s experienced nothing but success.

• It has become equally popular with adolescents and adults alike.
• This year they’re producing a prime-time 10th Anniversary documentary special.
• Nickelodeon will air a 50-hour marathon of SpongeBob’s antics.
• The Movie was made for $30 million and earned $140,161,792 world wide.  

So why discuss this phenomenon on a business blog? Very simple. In today’s very challenging, competitive business environment, you’d better be willing to be creative, innovative, open-minded and willing to rule out absolutely nothing when it comes to products, services, and strategies. You’d better be willing to take calculated risks and expand your current comfort zone. Don’t be too quick to dismiss radical thinking similar to that which produced SpongeBob SquarePants! Times have changed. You’d better be willing to do the same!

Personally, I’m not attracted to SpongeBob SquarePants. I don’t understand the concept, have passed on his TV series, would more than likely opt out of his next movie, and won’t buy a lunch box with his picture on it. However, 20-20 hindsight convinces me that I certainly would have liked to invest in his career ten years ago.

Are you searching for your SpongeBob?

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Got a Preposterous Idea? Maybe Not! is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Innovation is no longer about merely creating new products. It is about reformulating business processes and creating entirely new markets by striving to meet untapped customer needs. As we watch the Internet grow at incredible speed and witness globalization taking place much faster than predicted, new ideas are inevitably emerging in every industry at breakneck speeds. Today, the real challenge is in the selection and execution of the right ideas, bringing them to market and doing so before your competition does.

Twenty years ago, innovation focused on technology and the control of quality and cost. Business Week says that “today it’s about taking corporate organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for creativity and growth.” What’s really exciting is the fact that innovation doesn’t have to have anything to do with technology, which means we should be tapping the potential of every member of the organization in search of creative ideas.

Here are a few key facts to keep in mind when pursuing a creative/innovative culture:

Many times an accident has led to tremendous success. Be aware, re-evaluate, re-frame.

• The friction match was invented in 1926 by John Walker, a chemist in England. The discovery was accidental. Walker was actually trying to produce a readily combustible material for fowling-pieces. His first match was a stick which he had been using to stir a mixture of potash and antimony. When he scraped it again on the stone floor to remove the blob on the end, it burst into flame.
• In 1926, a man named Epperson left his glass of lemonade on a cold windowsill. When he returned, the liquid was frozen with the spoon stuck in the middle. After he ran water on the glass, the ice came out with the spoon still frozen in the center. Epperson named his discovery the “epsicle.” The name was later changed to “popsicle.”

Innovation can result from necessity. Consider its long-term possibilities.

• The “huddle” in football was formed because of a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn’t want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

Consider additional uses of current everyday resources.

• Coffee was used for centuries as a medicine. It was only in the 16th century that it began to be drunk socially in Arabia and Persia.

Be open to modifications, unexpected opportunities, or additional uses other than initially planned.

• Jeans were originally made in 1850 by Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant to the U.S. He originally intended to use his cloth for tents and wagon coverings. However, a miner who complained that ordinary trousers quickly became frayed and tattered on the diggings gave Strauss the idea of making hard-wearing work trousers.

Innovation can and will occur in a wide variety of ways if you’ve created a culture of encouragement and support for creative thinking. Great ideas can and do come from every level of the organization when such a culture does exist. What was once considered a nicety is today a necessity. Are you sending that message to your staff?

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

No Boundaries to Innovative Thinking is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

While many have, indeed, reduced their training budgets, many others have actually increased training as they realize the true value of investing in their greatest assets in times of constant change and global competition. Several of our current clients have actually contracted year-long “boot camps” to insure that wise investment.

While that approach to training may seem radical to some, consider what’s happening on the advertising side of the business. Not only are many increasing their budgets but they’re also pushing the envelope as never before.

Consider the fast food industry … Carl’s Jr. for a start. This 68-year-old American fast-food restaurant chain is located mostly in the Western U.S. and West Coast regions. It’s owned by CKE Restaurants, which also owns and operates the Hardee’s, Green Burrito, and Red Burrito restaurant chains. I thought I had seen everything when Carl’s Jr. hired Paris Hilton to cover herself with soap suds and crawl all over a luxury car to increase your appetite for its Spicy BBQ Burger. While it didn’t sell many burgers, the commercial brought Carl’s Jr. a great deal of free publicly from all forms of the media trying to report the outrage of consumers from coast to coast.

Now, we witness Burger King hiring rapper and producer “Sir Mix-a-Lot” (Anthony Ray) to sing “I like square butts” to promote a BK burger deal and kids meal complete with SpongeBob toys. If you watch closely, you’ll see the dancers doing the “I like square butts” moves dressed like SpongeBob, complete with tube socks and square backsides in a parody of Ray’s 1992 Grammy Award-winning million seller.

I realize I’m a “Boomer,” but I struggle to see the wisdom here in promoting “big butts” from burgers in today’s health- and diet-conscious society. However, industry insiders are claiming the attention-getting commercial has less to do with burgers than it does with brand identification. Apparently, you have to increase your shock value today as the public is constantly being overwhelmed by reality shows dedicated to rehab, marrying perfect strangers, and plastic surgery. The media again contributes greatly by reporting on the national outrage with this inappropriate marketing to young SpongeBob fans.

Finally, enter KFC (formally Kentucky Fried Chicken) … a proud member of the growing YUM! family. This is the world’s largest restaurant company consisting of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, A&W, Wing Street, and KFC—36,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories and more than 1.4 million associates!

You might call this shovel-ready public relations. KFC recently spent $3,000 to finance the repair of 350 potholes in Louisville. Once filled, they sprayed each spot with the message: “Re-freshed by KFC.” The chalk ads will fade out in about a month. KFC is planning to continue this project in many other major southern cities. Will it increase traffic and sell more chicken? Who knows. It’s difficult for some to make the connect between pot holes and original recipe chicken. However, this campaign is generating a lot of free nationwide publicity in the hopes of once again building a brand. Time will tell. If it works well, keep an eye on the other family members as they may try something just as radical.

Note however, that leaders in every industry are making an effort to “think out of the box” (or bucket) more than ever before. It’s something to consider in this very competitive environment.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Advertisers Push the Limits is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.

Each and every person reading this article has been the benefactor of two very creative minds who knew how to borrow, tweak and succeed in such successful ways that the entire world has been impacted. Sadly, far too few people are aware of these historically documented facts.

Many are aware of the fact that Henry Ford developed the “assembly line” and, in doing so, changed the face of manufacturing forever. Or did he? It’s true that Henry developed the automobile assembly line, but where did his idea actually come from? You may be surprised.

The honorable Mr. Ford never hid the fact that his inspiration for assembly-line production came from a visit he made as a young man to a Chicago slaughterhouse! In his autobiography, My Life and Work (1922), Ford revealed that he studied the stock-yards “disassembly line” and simply reversed the procedure. Chicago packers used an overhead trolley in the process of dressing beef. Watching this activity led Ford to the division-of-labor principle he would later adopt to produce automobiles.

The slaughtered animals, suspended upside down from a moving chain, or conveyor, would pass from workman to workman, each of whom would perform some particular step in the process. The workmen were forced to conform to the pace and requirements set by the assembly line itself, producing a higher level of quality, more continuity, and a reduction in the time required to complete the process. If it worked with carcasses, it could work with cars. The rest is history.

Let’s fast forward from 1908 to 1959. A man by the name of Berry Gordy, working on the production line at Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, borrows this novel concept to create a proven method of producing hit music as well as hit stars.

Gordy founded Motown Records in a very modest wood-frame house in the middle class residential neighborhood in mid-town Detroit. He lived upstairs and converted the garage into a studio and called it “Hitsville, USA.” Today that same house is now a Motown museum.

Note the similarities between the Ford assembly line and the Magic of Motown music:

• All the songs were written in standardized format by a team of in-house songwriters.
• The same in-house band, The Funk Brothers, provided the same distinctive Motown rhythm for every hit.
• The same choreographers familiarized every artist with the characteristic Motown dance moves.
• The skilled team of make-up artists created the same Motown look for each performer.
• The same wardrobe staff made certain that every performer hit the stage in that very unique Motown finery.

Whether we realized it or not, as an audience, we had that very comfortable feeling of deja vu every time a Motown performer graced the stage. Little did we know that feeling had been engineered as precisely as Ford Mustang. As Ford produced its classic car models, Motown, too, created classics that will live on in the hearts of music lovers forever … The Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Martha & the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Diane Ross, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, The Contours, The Marvelettes, The Ruffin Brothers (Jimmy and David), The Four Tops, The Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Jackson Five, The Commodores, Lionel Richie, and the list goes on and on.

Henry Ford borrowed from the meat-packers. Berry Gordy borrowed from Henry Ford. No one lost. Everyone gained.

Who will you borrow from? Keep your eyes peeled and your mind open. As you view life around you, consider how it can be “tweaked” for other uses and benefits. Consider the two examples above and how they, simplistic as they were, changed the entire world as we knew it. You, too, have that potential.

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management.  For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Creativity Training or Creativity Keynote Presentation Information Creativity Training Seminar: Creative Innovation - Out-of-the-Box Thinking Seminar Creativity Keynote: Get Back in the Box - True Creativity Creativity Keynote: Tennis Shoes and Blue Jeans - Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation Creativity Speakers and Creativity Training Creativity Articles Out-of-the-Box Thinking (Blog category with many articles) Words of Wisdom on Creativity Creativity for Success Tapping Your Creative Spirit at Botsford General Hospital USA TODAY Shares Eureka Moments Low Cost of Creativity Creativity Reigns Again Innovation - Necessity or Luxury? Creativity Books and Creativity Posters Creativity Book Reviews Top Creativity Books Creativity Posters

Creative Minds Borrow to Succeed (Cows, Cars and Motown Music) is a post from the AchieveMax® Blog, which includes articles on business, change, leadership, motivation, teamwork, time management, and more. Please visit our site for more information on our professional speakers, custom-designed training, and keynote presentations.