Broadcasting live from Business of Software 2011 - Josh Linkner (@joshlinkner) blows us away with his insights on creativity and how to foster it...

Background : Josh has been a tech CEO for 20 years. He became a VC about a year ago with Detroit Venture Partners and started investing in technology companies.J

How do you launch a product that will be embraced by customers?

Last year Josh wrote a book – Disciplined Dreaming - a proven system to drive breakthrough creativity . What does it take to drive innovation and create cultures that enable creativity?

All oif us are susceptible to disruptive forces of creativity. Will we disrupt or be disrupted? Wikipedia dislodged Encyclopedia Britannica – who will dislodge them?

Creativity is declining. Newsweek July 2010 talks about the Creativity Crisis. Why?

Creativity is stifled in schools – people have to fit in the box.  We teac - h people to follow the rules, guess what the teacher knows, there’s only one right answer, and whatever you do, don’t make mistakes! But in the real world, that’s a sure path to mediocrity.

Ugly Dolls – 2007 toy of the year. Hugely successful. This kind of creativity is rewarded.

Asked kindergartners if they thought they were creative – 98% self-identified as creative. Asked seniors in high school if they think they’re creative – and only 2% said they are.

Instead of growing into creativity, we’re growing out of it.

If you put a bunch of kids in a room with toys and art supplies, they’ll play for hours. You put us in that room, and we’re checking our Blackberries w/in 45 seconds.

Schools, etc. beat it out of us – we become grumpy adults.

Instead of fostering imagination, we’re teaching kids to follow the rules.

The good news:  Harvard ran a study in 2008 an dasked, Is creativtity born or developed? Is it nature or nurture?

Creativity is 85% learned behavior. Problem is, we don’t feel that way.

Why don’t we feel creative?
Fear is #1 blocker of creativity. We hold back creativity out of fear.

The Creativity Muscle – you have to exercise it to build it up.

New skills are needed to win today.

Disciplined Dreaming – a proven system to drive breakthrough creativity – Josh’s book

If you get more curious, you will become more creative. Curiosity is one of the building blocks of creativity.  Ask yourself these questions – they force you to challenge conventional wisdom and attack the status quo. Imagine what’s possible instead of what is.

- WHY?

- WHAT IF?

- WHY NOT?

Socks – littlemissmatched – fun and funky socks – fun and colorful and expressive. They’re color coordinated – they don’t match. And you can’t buy a pair – they come in sets of 3-5. This company went from $0-30M in revenue in 4 years.

The world doesn’t need another commodity. Be remarkable and different. It doesn’t need another me-too player. The world craves originality. Disrupt or be disrupted.

Another way to get to the heart of the issue – 5 Why’s (pioneered by Toyota). Keep asking why. It’s amazing how much curiosity and creativity comes to the surface.

Corporate Get Out of Jail cards – if you screw up, hand over a card – you’re off the hook. Allows you to be creative. The most powerful resource you have is the creative capacity of individuals.

If you sharply criticize the smallest misstep, you’re restricting them.

Creativity in little every day things can be transformative.

Pike syndrome – an imaginary barrier is getting in the way of progress. Every time, the fish thinks it’s there and it dies of starvation.

What are the imaginary barriers that are holding you back?

Puckz – invented by 8 year old Joseph. Phone app selling thousands a day for 99c. No college and also no barriers!

Try RoleStorming – brainstorming technique – you brainstorm in character. For example, they pretended they were Madmen characters. When you do this – and are brainstorming as someone else – the fear goes away. No one is going to laugh at you. It’s fun to be a villain as well – he likes to be Darth Vader.

Why follow the herd when you can innovate?

Detroit Venture Partners is investing in digital apps. It’s very competitive. In Silicon Valley, odds of getting funded are 1 in 300.

Captchas – everyone hates them! So you’re pissing off your customer before they even complete the order. Sometimes they fail and customer abandons. Plus they’re only 58% secure in preventing fraud.  So to fix it, they keep making them more stupid

The 5% challenge – if you took 2 hrs/week for 30 days, you’ll see remarkable results. Use that time to be heads-up instead of heads-down – BE CREATIVE. Ask the 5 why’s. Try role-storming. Surf web, go to art museum, smoke a joint… do whatever you need to do… Companies report a creativity drop of 0%.

There are few things more satisfying than inspired creativity.

Q: If creativity is declining, why is there so much innovation?

A: It’s specifically declining in kids. If we don’t do something about it soon, we’re going to run into problems. We should think about this as an increasing creativity gap that’s getting worse.

www.JoshLinkner.com