Entrepreneur the Arts » Business

Failing your way to BLOOMIN’ success or the little engine that could

Lisa Canning — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:29 +0000

Failing your way to success. Yup. That’s how it’s done. It takes a LOT of support and a pretty great attitude too. That’s hard to do on your own. Kind of like weight loss I think. Best done with a herding mentality. That’s why Weight Watchers has been so successful. They understood the power of a “herd” early on.

But since I began 6 years ago- reinventing myself from my spare bedroom blogging to an audience of none- to where I am now? I have to say it has been littered with set backs and disappointments that I could have allowed to loom larger than life and stop me cold in my tracks. AFTER ALL THIS TIME I really never thought that the IAE WOULD STILL NOT HAVE the funding resources we need to achieve the grand plan. Love is blind! Thank God for my clarinet customers who are supporting me. Every customer who buys an instrument from me is donating $50.00 bucks to my school. Last year Lisa’s Clarinet Shop donated $27,500 to the IAE and my husband and I and a few others donated again 2 times that sum.

Lisa’s Clarinet Shop is the little engine that could. My husband has been out of work- downsized from one of those big corporate jobs- for over a year and my clarinet customers just keep coming and coming to support IAE. It’s like a miracle. Really.

This is the power of small business. Of passionate purpose driven living. ANYTHING IS possible. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN if you know who you are and what you simply MUST express with your time on this earth. ANYTHING is possible but you have to have the ability and DESIRE to sustain your effort and to never EVER give up.

And I believe the future is bright. Not just because I am an optimistic person, but because so many people around me are increasingly excited to see what is happening with our students at the IAE.

Every rose began hidden under the mud before it revealed itself and BLOOMED. My dream to realize the IAE does not get to skip any of the steps to Bloomin’ Success. We are walking the walk just like our students and I am searching for another little steam engine to help me over the hill…

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD
(Watty Piper)

A little steam engine had a long train of cars to pull.

She went along very well till she came to a steep hill. But then, no matter how hard she tried, she could not move the long train of cars.

She pulled and she pulled. She puffed and she puffed. She backed and started off again. Choo! Choo!

But no! the cars would not go up the hill.

At last she left the train and started up the track alone. Do you think she had stopped working? No, indeed! She was going for help.

“Surely I can find someone to help me,” she thought.

Over the hill and up the track went the little steam engine. Choo, choo! Choo, choo! Choo, choo! Choo!

Pretty soon she saw a big steam engine standing on a side track. He looked very big and strong. Running alongside, she looked up and said:

“Will you help me over the hill with my train of cars? It is so long and heavy I can’t get it over.”

The big steam engine looked down at the little steam engine. The he said:

“Don’t you see that I am through my day’s work? I have been rubbed and scoured ready for my next run. No, I cannot help you,”

The little steam engine was sorry, but she went on, Choo, choo! Choo, choo! Choo, choo! Choo, choo!

Soon she came to a second big steam engine standing on a side track. He was puffing and puffing, as if he were tired.

“That big steam engine may help me,” thought the little steam engine. She ran alongside and asked:

“Will you help me bring my train of cars over the hill? It is so long and so heavy that I can’t get it over.”

The second big steam engine answered:

“I have just come in from a long, long run. Don’t you see how tired I am? Can’t you get some other engine to help you this time?

“I’ll try,” said the little steam engine, and off she went. Choo, choo! Choo, choo! Choo, choo!

After a while she came to a little steam engine just like herself. She ran alongside and said:

“Will you help me over the hill with my train of cars? It is so long and so heavy that I can’t get it over.”

“Yes, indeed!” said this little steam engine. “I’ll be glad to help you, if I can.”

So the little steam engines started back to where the train of cars had been standing. Both little steam engines went to the head of the train, one behind the other.

Puff, puff! Chug, choo! Off they started!

Slowly the cars began to move. Slowly they climbed the steep hill. As they climbed, each little steam engine began to sing:

“I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I think I can – I think I can – I think I can I think I can–”

And they did! Very soon they were over the hill and going down the other side.

Now they were on the plain again; and the little steam engine could pull her train herself. So she thanked the little engine who had come to help her, and said good-by.

And she went merrily on her way, singing:

“I-thought-I-could! I-thought-I-could! I-thought-I-could! I-thought-I-could! I thought i could – I thought I could – I thought I could – I thought I could – I thought I could – I thought I could I thought I could –”

The Mistake that Topples Careers and Industries

David Cutler — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:29 +0000

During the second half of the 19^th Century, rail transportation in the United States was a booming enterprise. Expanding to every corner of the land, this lucrative growth industry seemed unstoppable. Yet within 70 years of its heyday, rail companies tumbled. And today, their impact of is negligible (beyond Amtrak and lines of Thomas the Tank Engine toys). What on Earth happened?

Well, the world changed. The advent of automobiles, trucks, buses, and airplanes simply made trains less necessary. Less relevant. So they faded away.

But what if these companies had maintained a broader vision? What if they hadn’t been here simply to support railway systems, but rather to solve transportation needs of all sorts? Had that been the case, these businesses might still be major players in air, land, and sea travel today.

The mistake of overspecialization has plagued virtually every industry, large or small. We’ve seen this sad tale play out time and time again.

In the arts, for example, consider record labels. So massive was their influence and power just 15 short years ago that the top handful of multi-billion dollar corporations were oft referred to as the “music industry.” But make no mistake. That’s not how they approached the game. Instead, they were the “sound-reproduced-on-physical-products-industry.” Which explains why the move from records to CDs worked so seamlessly. Yet when digital reproduction and distribution became reality, the consequences were devastating. Imagine how differently history might have been written had these companies truly seen themselves as the backbone of a comprehensive and ever evolving music business.

Or how about orchestras? These organizations boast a rich and glorious tradition. But even so, American orchestras today are declaring bankruptcy at an alarming rate. What business are they in? Serving as a cultural and creative hub? Transforming communities through music? Celebrating the unique artistic identity of a region? Not even close. Instead it’s much more narrowly defined: “Large ensemble music featuring a combination of strings, winds, and percussion performing primarily Western classical music by dead Europeans.” Hmmm…During this tumultuous time of disruptive change, couldn’t these ensembles rescue themselves from extinction by thinking wider and re-imagining core purpose?

What about your own career? Do you just do that one very specific thing (i.e. play classical oboe, choreograph ballet, paint landscape murals)? Or is your mission open and flexible, ensuring that your work will remain necessary, valuable, and valued no matter how much the world evolves, in any direction?

True, you can’t be all things to all people. True, there are tremendous benefits to addressing a particular niche. Just be sure that the positioning you choose is broad enough to ensure there will always be demand for your art.

The Art and Design Legacy of the Apple CEO

Guest Blogger — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:08:25 +0000

Written by John M. Eger appeared on Huffington Post, January 18th, 2012

The book by Walter Isaacson about Steve Jobs, former CEO and founder of Apple Computer, has now sold over one million copies.

After talking with many of Steve’s colleagues, Issacson discovered that to Steve, “You were either [a shithead or a hero], one or the other, sometimes on the same day.” Clearly he was not a guy everybody loved. Yet he did “revolutionize six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. You might even add a seventh: retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize, but he did re-imagine.”

Isaacson also discovered that in all Apple’s products “technology would be married to great design, elegance, human touches, and even romance.” On a personal note, Isaacson added, “The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe … will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.”

Maybe it takes the tragic death of an icon or another earth-shattering event to get our attention. Leonard Shlain, author of Art and Physics: Parallel Visions of Space, Time and Light (1993), early on noted the symbiotic relationship only now becoming commonplace. Maybe Jobs even read Shlain’s book.

There is now more talk, more awareness of the importance of art and design. And there is a greater recognition that our schools, our communities, our attitudes must change.

This new awareness, new recognition is vital. One might say understanding the challenge of the new global economy is even critical. It demands that we renew and reinvent ourselves to better understand and appreciate the arts (and of course the sciences) and importantly, the esthetic makeup of the places where we live and work. There is no alternative short of letting our cities and our communities atrophy and die, and with it, the great experiment in freedom and free enterprise we so highly value.

We created the pen-based computer, the silicon chip and the Internet itself, now the vehicle for every nation, every city, and every community worldwide to compete with every other. We can be proud of what we have accomplished, but we must be mindful that a new — truly global –economy has been unleashed.

This intersection of art and technology is the future for America. Creativity and innovation will be the hallmark of our greatest corporations, our workplace, and our most enterprising communities.

Does all creativity come from the arts and so-called creative communities? Of course not, but the chances of nurturing creativity through arts based training is a no brainier.

Today, as Sandra Rupert, President of Art Education Partnership observed,

Arts learning experiences play a vital role in developing students’ capacities for critical thinking, creativity, imagination, and innovation. These capacities are increasingly recognized as core skills and competencies all students need as part of a high-quality and complete 21st-century education.

This of course is why STEAM — the idea that the arts are as important as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) — is so important. It is also why cities and regions must have creative people by nurturing its young people and, reinventing a system of education that engenders the new thinking skills to meet the challenges of the new economy.

Government has a vital role too. Promoting accessible broadband and encouraging land use policies that encourage development of creative economic clusters including art districts, public art and art and cultural institutions such as museums. Governments can also embrace green initiatives, which encourage private sector initiatives and foster the concept of sustainability. And they can use technology to improve productivity, foster new, more efficient delivery of government services and encourage business and the non-profit sector to use technology as well.

Involvement by the whole community will be needed to make meaningful changes and civic collaboration or engagement is critical. New and existing organizations responsible for planning and development and for weaving the fabric of the new community demand that all institutions and individuals become owners of the new agenda which must include: public art, art integration, graffiti parks, art districts, museums, regional collaboration, civic engagement and robust information infrastructures. All are important to the region of the future, to development of a creative community.

A truly creative community can nurture, attract and retain the talent we need to succeed let alone survive in the new economy.

About John M. Eger
John M. Eger, Van Deerlin Endowed Professor of Communications and Public Policy and Director of the Creative Economy Initiative at San Diego State University teaches in the School of Journalism and Media Studies, and the SDSU Honors Program.

He is an author and lecturer on the subjects of creativity and innovation, education and economic development, and also serves as President of The World Foundation for Smart Communities, a research and educational organization dedicated to helping local communities connect to the global economy. http://www.smartcommunities.org/

A former Adviser to two Presidents and Director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy he helped spearhead the restructuring of America’s telecom Industry and was Senior Vice President of CBS responsible for worldwide enterprises, which opened China to commercial television.

210 Social Innovation Funding Sources

Lisa Canning — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:15:37 +0000

Social Entrepreneur, Social Enterprise and Social Innovation Sources of Funding

Here is a list of 210 social entrepreneur, social enterprise and social innovation funding sources (#socent) that a group member in Impact Entrepreneur posted on Linkedin. This is the most comprehensive list anywhere as far as I know. If you see something missing, you can go to ned.com, join, and then be able to edit the page.

Venture philanthropy, seed stage investing for social entrepreneurs, early stage investing for social innovation

Crowdsourced Funding, Crowdfunding, and Peer-to-Peer Microfinance

Social Entrepreneur & Innovation Friendly Foundations

Top SE College Programs

Social Entrepreneur & Innovation Prize/Awards

Search Tools for Grant Funding

Crowdsourced Funding for Musicians & Bands

Business Model You

Lisa Canning — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:07:05 +0000

I am sitting here with coffee in hand, writing to you all from the French Quarter in beautiful New Orleans. I am at the U.S Association for. Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference (USASBE). Today my colleague from University of Illinois, Joyce Thomas, and I present a paper on our learning model for The IAE.

One of the underpinnings of The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship’s education model is how we use the Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas is an analytical tool described in Business Model Generation. It is a visual template preformatted with the nine blocks of a business model, allowing users to diagram existing business models or conceive new ones. Check out the Canvas as it is used for organizations and for individuals.

In our model we have adapted the Canvas to be a Personal Canvas specifically designed to intuitively and emotionally address all 9 segments allowing creatives to understand business development from right to left. It is slightly different than the personal canvas that is about to be released in Business Model You.

If you are curious to know more, a 79-page, 9.3 MB preview of Business Model You is now available for download.

DOWNLOAD PREVIEW

CHICAGO: Join the IAE and WBEZ @ Catalyst Ranch to Celebrate Self Employment

Lisa Canning — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:20:00 +0000

On Thursday January 26th The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship (IAE) will be teaming up with WBEZ’s new project Front & Center to host a resource fair for the self employed, small businesses, start-ups, and freelancers.

Mini seminars and presentations will run through out the evening at the fabulous Catalyst Ranch located at 656 W Randolph St # 3W in the Polka Room.

Mini Seminar Topics Include:

Entrepreneurship 101
Presented by Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship

Receiving small loans as an independent worker
Presented Accion Micro Lending

Doing your taxes as a freelancer, small business owner, or independent
Presented by Center for Economic Progress

Create. Innovate. Repeat: featuring 4 fabulous presenters, 7 slides and just 5 minutes each to pitch their most innovative business idea to you.
Presented by Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship.

Partial List of Participants Include:

Co-Lab Evanston providers of shared office spaces.

Northside Freelancers Network who can help you connect to the growing Chicago self-employed community. Make sure to ask them about their weekly “freelancers soup” lunch.

Accion will be on hand to discuss how to get a micro-loans to jump start your own business.

Northside Community Bank can help you find funding for your small, local project.

IndieMade is itself a small business. They create websites for independents, artist, small businesses, and start-up projects.

Rockstar CPA offers CPA services specifically geared towards the self-employed, with a specialty in creative projects.

The Law Project offer affordable legal resources for freelancers, independents, and small businesses, such as creating contracts, negotiating pay, etc.

Chicago! Come on out and celebrate self-employment with us! We hope to see you on January 26th.

Fair begins at 6pm @ Catalyst Ranch 656 W Randolph St # 3W, in the Polka Room

Why 2012 will be year of the artist-entrepreneur

Guest Blogger — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:31:27 +0000

By Michael Wolf Dec. 29, 2011, Appeared on GigaOM

While 2011 was a big year for political unrest, another uprising was afoot in the world of content creators and artists. Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled them to do so. You see it in all forms of content, from books, to video to music.

A few examples from this year:

e-books: Probably the most active area in large part because there is huge shifts taking place in digital publishing. From former mid-list writers like Barry Eisler to superstars like JK Rowling, writers are increasingly making waves in digital publishing.

Video: The story of the year for artists-as-entrepreneur came at the tail-end, with Louis CK saying no thank you to corporate middlemen and putting his new concert video online for $5 a pop.

Radio/Music: All sorts of independent entrepreneurs are putting audio entertainment online, from the rise of podcast kings like Leo Laporte to a huge number of independents like Adam Carolla and Marc Maron. Music artists are being given freedom too, through new platforms to create and share their music like Soundcloud.

So what is driving this movement towards the artist-entrepreneur that will give it huge momentum in 2012? Here are a few underlying trends:

The distribution chain is collapsing across content verticals

The middleman is under attack on all fronts, whether its in video, music/audio and e-books. As devices like TVs become connected, as books become e-readers and tablets, and music is now digital, the storefront is fast-becoming the entire distribution chain. With e-books it’s Amazon or Apple, with radio it’s iTunes, with video it’s Google/YouTube, Netflix and other upstarts who are investing in original content, or simply direct-to-consumer efforts using web-payment platforms like Paypal.

Louis CK, who created his own site, paid for bandwidth, and used Paypal for payment, captured how many artists are beginning to think when he said in an interview with Bill Simmons that he “didn’t want to cut out the middleman, I just didn’t need one. There wasn’t any reason to have someone there. I just thought make this thing and put it up.”

Content production, distribution and monetization tools are becoming democratized through the web

In e-books, distribution and storefronts have already collapsed into one, but managing distribution across multiple channels is difficult since storefronts are still siloed (Amazon is separate from Apple iBooks, which is walled off from Barnes&Noble, etc). However, companies like Smashwords enable creation and distribution across multiple storefronts, while Vook, post-pivot, is working on SaaS tools to create e-books and manage their distribution, complete with reporting and management dashboards.

In music, artists are starting to embrace sites like Soundcloud to create music and share it, while others direct-to-fan sites like Topspin Media are enabling artists to create commerce sites to sell music in turnkey fashion. And it’s not just music sales, but actual concert tickets. The Pixies used Topspin to sell tickets for a recent concert, utilizing email campaigns and to notify fans and processed the tickets using an iOS app at the door.

With video, big middlemen still dominate, but that is changing as video creation and distribution costs come down in a world of connected devices. As Ryan Lawler wrote in a piece for GigaOM Pro:

“independent content creators stand to gain the most through massive reductions in the cost of recording equipment and editing software, as well as the greater availability of streaming video service on connected devices. They gain new distribution opportunities for their content and greater possibility for monetization. Consider any of the top YouTube video channels, which probably wouldn’t be able to survive in the pay-TV universe but have created thriving businesses due to the cost structure online.”

Generational shifts towards technology savvy-artists

As Matt Mullenweg put in in his New Year’s resolution on GigaOM:

“For a year now, I’ve said scripting is the new literacy. That’s something I strongly believe. In Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book, he talks about “program or be programmed.” That is, if you’re not in control of your inputs, you’re not really in control of your outputs either. You’re just a reactionary force.”

Matt is right, in that scripting is the new literacy, and a growing form of artistic expression. Tech-savvy artists are creating apps and developing sites to put their art into the world. Whether its Matt Inmann creating his work and coding his site at The Oatmeal or young app developers like Robert Nay, artists are becoming coders and vice versa, since, as Mullenweg states, scripting is “new literacy”.

No doubt, the vast majority of economic wealth is still distributed through large corporate media, but as new technologies enable artists to reach consumers directly through push-button creation and distribution, there is a movement afoot. Expect this movement to expand in 2012 as more artists take control of their own economic destinies and become part of the artist-entrepreneur generation.

What can Duke Ellington and Miles Davis teach entrepreneurs?

Guest Blogger — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:12:59 +0000

Written by Chris Arnot

Appeared in guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 January 2012

Duke Ellington leading his band in the 1930s. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Art Blakey are widely recognized as three of the greatest jazz band leaders of the 20th century. But did you ever consider they might be role models for entrepreneurs? In fact, each one of them has lessons to offer on how to inspire creativity and innovation within an established structure, according to Deniz Ucbasaran, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Warwick Business School.

Ucbasaran has been the lead academic on a paper, currently being peer reviewed, entitled Leading Entrepreneurial Teams: Insights from Jazz. It won an award for best paper at the Institute for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship conference in November.

Entrepreneurs are like jazz band leaders, Ucbasaran argues, insofar as they have to “build creative tension and give individuals their heads” while working within the framework of a collective. They have to harness the “disparate egos of highly talented people” and somehow keep them working towards the same goal. “To the uninitiated, jazz seems like chaos, whereas the reality is that it’s very ordered,” she says. “Underpinning the structure is a long tradition of education and practice.”

Like any business, jazz bands have products (concerts, gigs, recordings, etc) that must be marketed and sold, and have a range of stakeholders to satisfy (customers, audiences, peers, critics, etc), says Ucbasaran. “Further, like entrepreneurial managers, the leaders of musical groups must identify and exploit commercial opportunities to survive.”

When asked whether she is a jazz fan, Ucbasaran replies: “I am now.” Her two collaborators on this project have been fans for some time – around 45 years in the case of Professor Mike Humphreys, 62, from Nottingham University Business School. Andy Lockett, 39, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Warwick, is keen, too. Like Ucbasaran, he recently moved across the Midlands from Nottingham, where this project had its roots.

It began when two master’s students came to see Humphreys and Lockett to ask advice on subjects for dissertations. Both were interested in researching knowledge management and leadership within the creative industries. Neither knew much about jazz, but they responded positively when their tutors suggested that the organization of bands was worth investigation. “It offered them the chance to do something a bit different,” says Lockett. “And they began by doing what we would never have thought of. They posted an advert on MySpace saying: ‘Jazz musicians wanted: apply within’.”

There was an immediate response, and soon the students were doing interviews with some of Britain’s top performers. Among them were trumpeter Guy Barker, pianist Jim Watson and band leader Wynton Marsalis who, it soon emerged, modeled his leadership style on Art Blakey. “Others would refer back to Duke Ellington or say ‘this was the way that Miles Davis did it’,” Lockett recalls.

He and Humphreys looked at the transcripts and became convinced that the subject was worthy of further investigation. So, in collaboration with Ucbasaran, they began looking at how three giants of jazz ran their bands and the lessons they offered for business leaders. “We used all sorts of archival data, including biographies, autobiographies, press cuttings and sleeve notes,” Lockett explains, “and came up with three distinctive styles of leadership.”

The paper that so impressed the conference of the Institute for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship is the second to emerge from that research. The first, Sensemaking and Sensegiving: Stories of Jazz Leadership, has already been published in a journal called Human Relations.

A recurring theme in stories about Ellington, it seems, was his talent for motivation and inspiration. But it was coupled with what the authors call “a laissez-faire attitude towards the behaviour of his musicians”. He saw their foibles as the price to be paid for having access to their talents. For Ucbasaran that raises questions for entrepreneurs. “If you have a creative process, you have to have talented employees. But talent is not always easy to manage. To what extent do you accommodate wayward behaviour? You have to give them freedom and space, but direct them in subtle ways so that the end result comes together harmoniously.”

Ellington’s laid-back approach meant that he kept a cadre of long-serving core musicians together over several decades. Davis, however, rarely chose musicians who knew each other. As the paper puts it, “he felt that prior relationships might lead to the development of routines which hampered innovation and improvisation”. So creative tension was his over-riding priority? Lockett nods. “He was less concerned about stability than the other leaders. If it worked, it would be brilliant. If not, he’d disband the team and start again.”

Blakey was much more of a father figure, he says. “His speciality was bringing on young musicians. And he was much more concerned about the decorum and behaviour of his team than the other two.” Which of the three offers the best guidance to the entrepreneurs of today? “It’s impossible to say. All three offer lessons that can be taken on board.”

In some businesses more than others, perhaps. Ucbasaran concedes that the insights from jazz are more pertinent in the cultural industries and “hi-tech businesses with a rapid pace of change”.

The kind of businesses, indeed, that have made it more likely that the great jazz music of the 20th century is listened to in the 21st century on iPods rather than on vinyl.

Can creativity occupy the hearts and minds of the majority? or Lord hear my prayer.

Lisa Canning — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:49:36 +0000

A friend of mine recently reminded me that there is no need for creative entrepreneurial types like us to apologize for being “egocentric” in saying that creativity and innovation is scarce, while status quo “inside of the box” thinking is the great majority. It is a simple fact.

Unfortunately, “explaining” this to the “majority” is usually not possible or helpful because it requires experiential learning to truly develop ones creative abilities enough for anyone to really understand. What rules the heart can rule the mind but it does not work the other way around. A fundamental shift in the mix of who we highly value learning from, and how we learn, needs to take place for this to occur. It is no wonder societies and humans evolve so slowly despite all the knowledge and tools available to us.

And yet, I believe man was put on this earth to help God make progress on earth. Which, to honor him, requires us to be ethical bound, to morally act and requires tremendous creativity to do. And this single belief has profoundly motivated me through out my life to deepen my intellect, my empathy and my creativity so that I can use my skills to be of service, to the best of my ability, to everyone I know.

As I have grown up, I have increasingly come to recognize that this belief is often isolating and a cause for great misunderstanding. Developing my empathy, intellect and creativity has taught me how to see deeply and profoundly into others- which is not an easy thing, in this broken world, for others to accept as the gift you have to offer. And yet, as an artist, I have come to learn this is our profound gift to share with the world. It is not egocentric at all for me to say it is what artists have to offer and why God graced us all with the gift of life.

And yet, I find myself often in a space where I feel worried that my time on this earth will run out before I have realized this deep vision for the world I have- to occupy the hearts and minds of the majority with more creativity- to reach the tipping point of true change. It is an honest to goodness daily fear of mine. And it has often pushed me to feel the need to try and prove my worth with anyone I encounter in the majority in the hope that they will give me the opportunity to open up a whole new world of meaning to them- one that transcends the empty hunger for power and greed and utilize it for real progress on earth and societal good. And by doing so, for true sustainable prosperity to flow. It is hard not to want this for the world when these principals have profoundly served the development of my own life and my businesses and created so much prosperity and good.

While I have never apologized for my work, in some ways by trying to “prove” to others what deep value as an artist I hold, I think I have. While the majority entertains my beliefs about the ethical values one develops from the flow of heartfelt creativity, like a muse in the moment, it is short lived and not invested into to deepen its impact and to create true sustainable values. Is this really the only role my work can have?

Two years ago I was offered the opportunity of being mentored by a quickly rising entrepreneurial star in Chicago. He had built an amazing company from nothing, was featured on INC’s fastest growing list of companies for several years and glowed in power and money. He also “appeared” to be “a creative”, like me, too.

As my relationship with this individual developed, what I found underneath the veil was far from what the exterior portrayed. He was in an “open marriage”; his life was spiraling out of control. He was also hiring broken-down-trodden individuals to do the heavy lifting inside his business because he could pay them less and work them to death. And in all he did in life, he placed appearances far higher on his list than true happiness and meaning despite all of his soul searching trips to meet spiritual gurus.

While he thought he was mentoring me, it was I who was mentoring him.

Through my mentorship, this individual came to to emotionally understand that true love and intimacy was more important to him than sex with multiple women. He also came to experience that a creative career and business was far more valuable to him than a past-its-sell-date sweat shop that gushed cash. However, I was never given any credit for my work. The profound changes that I witnessed in him, during our professional relationship, were not rewarded with generosity for his newly found flow of heart centered creativity; which my mentorship reinvigorated the hunger within him to have. It certainly also did not make him donate funds to The IAE, or even thank me. Instead he took it freely from me as if it had no intrinsic value or significant economic worth.

And if I had told him upfront the price tag to help him was a donation of $100,000 to my school, he would have laughed and walked away. Why would he pay when all of us artists continue to give our gifts away for free to those who don’t have the skills, but have the resources to pay for what we have to deliver?

Today this individual is happily, for the first time, married to one woman. And he sold his company too and is now working on something truly meaningful to him and which is helping him to build his creative capacity.

Artists can truly help restore the inner lives of the majority not to mention by doing so stop the Penn State’s, Bernie Madoff’s and Enron’s from ever happening. But it is going to require finding the minority of the majority- those financially able and brave enough to invest and act- to step up and give those of us with these gifts a chance to fully integrate our pure heart centered creativity into their world.

Please Lord hear my prayer. I am sure this is the work you put all of us artists on this earth to do. And, finally, I believe our time has come to do your work on your beloved earth. The world is awakening to the real need for promised words and actions to match. Intellectual understanding is not from where we are compelled to act. This is why I dutifully created The IAE- to help artists help others make progress on earth for you.

Please send me the minority who is willing to invest and act. Lord hear my prayer.

Help Us Build The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship

Lisa Canning — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 01:28:44 +0000

On behalf of everyone at The Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship – our faculty, our students, our supporters and our families - we would like to wish each of you and your family  a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

As many of you may already know, 2011 has proven to be an exceedingly eventful and rewarding year for the IAE. After several years of dutiful planning and extremely hard work, we launched our pilot program this past September.

About IAE’s Progress

Our recently concluded Module I coursework focused on student development of emotional intelligence, leadership aptitude and communicative skills. And within only a very few months, we have witnessed a blossoming of growth and excitement from 15 artists – from fashion, music, theater, visual arts, food, skin care and design- in our inaugural class ranging in age from 24 to 63! For those of us on the IAE staff, bearing witness to our student’s desire to learn, develop and flourish has served as a profoundly breathtaking experience.

And many new faces are sprouting up to support our work. This past fall over 12 individuals donated their time to mentor our students. We also have received immeasurable help with our curriculum design and development from Joyce Thomas, Deana McDonagh and Director Nan Goggin- all from The School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois.

And the interest has not stopped there. In January the IAE was selected to deliver our first paper about our innovative learning model at the U.S. Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference in New Orleans. Founder Lisa Canning was also invited to attend The U.S. Dept of State and The Aspen Institute’s 2nd Entrepreneurship conference in Marrakech Morocco in January. Additionally, 2 schools in Amman Jordan and someone who serves on the Fulbright commission in Sweden have all reached out to us to inquire how we can bring the IAE to their communities.

The IAE Needs Your Help to Bloom

During the past twelve months, we have been working hard to ramp up our fund raising efforts designed to firmly establish the IAE as a long-term, going concern with the ability to make a real difference – not only in assisting artists to develop meaningful careers applying their artistic talents – but to utilize their creative abilities in new ways that also can benefit our communities and local businesses. And while these efforts have not thus far been quite as successful as those in the classroom – our commitment to advancing the IAE’s mission remains as strong as ever.

Year End Giving

As we prepare for the New Year, we will continue to do our best to fund our pilot program. Unfortunately, without more support, we may not be able to realize our full vision to help artists change their lives and the world with their creativity. I wish you would come to our classroom to see just how big the impact is we have already made with our students. We have quickly become an invaluable resource; something our students do not wish to lose.

With this being a time to reflect on our values and beliefs, we would like to ask that you consider an offer of support for The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship. Whatever you can give will show us you value our work and care about the future of our students.

A tax-deductible contribution to the IAE may be made through our secure giving site or by mailing a check to The Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship, 2257 N Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614.

To insure your tax benefits for 2011, online donations must be completed by 11:59 PM on December 31, 2011. Checks must be dated and postmarked by December 31, 2011. Please be sure to consult your tax adviser to confirm how charitable deduction rules may apply to your individual situation.

To each of you who generously support us, both today and over the past several years, please know we could never achieve our goals without you. Your kindness and generosity is so appreciated.

With blessings to you all for peace, love and prosperity in the New Year,

Lisa and Chuck Canning

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Born Like an Artist, Evolve Like an Artist, Bloom Like an Artist

Lisa Canning — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:39:06 +0000

While it is easy to look at this cartoon strip created by Norwegian artist, Ida Eva Margrethe Neverdahl, and see it for its “face” value, I would encourage you to look deeper. Ida shares a great visual story, in my opinion, about how we discover our “emotional” elephant and learn to ride it. ( For more explicate training instructions read How to train your elephant to increase whole brain thinking.)

You see, we all have an elephant inside of us. And none of us has an easy time, at first, getting on its back- as this cartoon strip illustrates. But when you learn how to, your life will magically begin to flow. And you too will be able to “ride your artwave and show off its fun“ quite easily, successfully and profitably.

20 Rules for Starting Your Art Licensing Business

Guest Blogger — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:09:30 +0000

Written by Art Licensing Coach J’net Smith

Rule #4: Plan on 2+ years to get your art licensing business established.

Licensing is no different than other business, it will take time to create contacts, processes, and revenue. If you expect it to happen over night, you are most likely thinking about the wrong business, or perhaps entrepreneurial endeavors are not right for you.

I’m going to give you a timeline here that I know will be valuable when considering the art licensing industry and planning your time and budgets.

It would be reasonable to expect that gearing up your business will take at least a year. Six months might be spent creating your art licensing portfolio and collections, evaluating and refining them, as well as setting up your web site and establishing a rough business plan. In the next six months, you should kick-off marketing efforts targeted toward manufacturers or to prospective agents.

You may be able to close your first deal (or two) within a year, but only with active marketing efforts. Once you receive an offer, be aware, that it can still take 1 to 6- months to finalize the deal and get the signed contract completed. It certainly varies with every manufacturer. For example, if they are pursuing something topical and hot, then it may be a matter of weeks and you are done.

Let’s say it then takes the manufacturer 3-months to 1 year to produce the product, and this is actually a relatively short timeline, as many overseas products take even longer to develop. Then you add a 3 to 6-month window before the product is ready sold to retailers, distributed to them and available in stores.

If you add up all those numbers, I can tell you the total time is approximately one year to 2½ years before you see any royalty revenues. You may have negotiated an advance on that deal, so you had some money come in when you signed the contract. However, the core of royalty revenue is generated when product is sold by the manufacturer (wholesaler) to retail stores. Then it takes even longer to hit your bank, since most manufacturers will pay you quarterly for sales generated in a prior quarter.

Now, I’m sure during this time you wouldn’t be sitting still waiting for the revenue from that one deal. Licensing is a cycle; you continue the process of creating, marketing and selling—over and over again—utilizing both new and existing art in different ways. You can really understand the huge potential of licensing when one piece of art, or a single collection, sells well on multiple products and generates revenue way beyond it’s value as “a” piece of art for the wall.

And meanwhile, you create product and keep marketing. Plan ahead, knowing that you will need funds to live on until the revenue stream from multiple deals start to come in. So plan on 2+ years before you’ve got a solid revenue stream. Keep that in mind. It’s a great business to be in, but it does take time to build it and work to keep it going.

About J’net Smith

Jeanette Smith is the consummate art licensing coach—she is passionate about helping you achieve a level of success beyond imagining and definitely knows how to do it! In just six short years, J’net turned Dilbert™ from a relatively unknown syndication-based comic strip into a 200 million dollar a year global brand. Then in 2000, J’net translated and expanded on her extensive experience to train, advise and license all types of creators. She has helped hundreds of artists, graphic designers, painters, photographers, authors, illustrators, design firms, fine artists, creative companies, non-profits and agents to maximize the power of their brands and talents.

J’net is best described by her combination of specialties—she is one of those very rare people who possess a balanced combination of creative sensibility and extraordinary business acumen. It is this combination that has served J’net over the span of a very impressive career,and has garnered her equally impressive press and testimonials!

From her early days in New York building new divisions for such corporate giants as Official Airline Guides, MacMillan Publishing, Paramount Communications, and VIACOM International, to her six years of work at United Media spearheading the astronomical growth of Dilbert, Jeanette has compiled a long list of satisfied clients and has gained an enormous amount of respect and experience in marketing, licensing, advertising, PR, agenting, negotiating, and much more.

Growing Starbucks: Extending Brand Uniqueness or Diluting It?

Lisa Canning — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:07:18 +0000

At what point, if any, does extending brand uniqueness create a tipping point that then threatens the very foundation of the brand itself? Lately I have been asking myself this very question about the Starbucks brand.

Starbucks 1st store location in Seattle's Pike Place Market, 1971

As we all know, back in the 90′s Howard Schultz transformed the second most consumed drink after water, and the second most traded commodity after crude oil, coffee, into a unique retail destination for us all between work and home.

Putting people before products, Schultz used intuition more than “brand strategy” in those early days to develop Starbucks into the social place outside of work or home most of us did not even realize how much we needed. Schultz’s vision and intuition allowed Starbucks to leverage a low cost commodity, coffee, and transform it into a “$4.00-human-interactive-experiencial-brand.”

And now with Howard Schultz’s recent return to Starbucks as CEO, after a series of setbacks and financial downturns after his departure, the question is can he add more value to the bottom line while retaining the “human soul”- the uniqueness- he built into the Starbucks brand? Or is he reaching for the tipping point leading to the erosion of it?

According to Merriam-Webster something that is unique is defined as:

1. Being the only one.
2. Being without a like or equal.
3. Distinctively characteristic: peculiar.
4. Unusual.

There is no doubt Starbucks has managed to create a unique retail store environment with their friendly customer oriented staff, great music, comfy chairs and heartfelt emotional connective messaging.

And they have quite successfully been able to extend the feeling you get from their brand outside their stores too spending far less on advertising than other large retailers and consumer products companies to achieve tremendous brand loyalty.

Check out these 2006 comparative stats of what other companies spent on advertising for their brand.

Microsoft – more than 20 percent of their annual revenue or $11.5 billion
Coca-Cola – more than $2.5 billion
Yahoo – more than 20 percent of their annual revenue or $1.3 billion
eBay – 14 percent to 15 percent of its revenue – which was $871 million, much of that to advertise on Google
Google – In the millions rather than billions of dollars – with $188 million
Starbucks – $95 million

In 2006, Starbucks spent just $95 million on advertising with 7.8 billion in sales demonstrating their amazing strength as an “experiential brand”.

But is it possible to continue to expand the human experience of this brand while Starbucks’ transition into what Schultz hopes will be the first company to excel as both a retailer and a purveyor—in supermarkets and other mass-market channels—of consumer packaged goods?

According to Schultz, “This is a unique inflection point for Starbucks; I think we’ve identified a very big opportunity to do something that really has not been done before. And that is the following: there are many, many companies, domestically and around the world, that have built a domestic national footprint around retail stores, just like Starbucks—the Gap, Costco, Wal-Mart, Coach, Zara. And there are many consumer-packaged-goods companies—Pepsi, Coke, Kellogg’s, Campbell’s. There hasn’t been one company I can identify that has been able to build complementary channels of distribution by integrating the retail footprint and the ubiquitous channels of distribution—in our case, grocery stores and drug stores.

So the model is, Starbucks can seed and introduce new products and new brands inside our stores. We introduced VIA instant coffee in our stores. Instant coffee is a $24 billion global category that has not had any innovation in over 50 years. And no growth. If we took VIA and we put it into grocery stores and it sat on a shelf, it would have died. But we can integrate VIA into the emotional connection we have with our customers in our stores. We did that for six to eight months and succeeded well beyond expectations in our stores. And as a result of that, we had a very easy time convincing the trade, because they wanted it so badly.”

And while it’s true Starbucks has tallied up five years of positive earnings and five years of positive free cash flow, again, in part, under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks stock has only just recently seen a rise above mid 2006 values.

However, food stocks should be on the rise. It makes sense that with unemployment up, the housing market down, and the world economy on shaky ground that food-makers would deliver stable sales.

So the question is can Starbucks continue to introduce produces like VIA into their stores and translate the uniqueness of their brand through them into distribution channels? Will their customers buy into all the products they introduce in their retail environment, bond with them, and then readily buy them from their local grocery store or drug store?

I don’t know about you, but I for one was completely turned off by VIA’s introduction at Starbucks. My sense of embracing the serenity of my “home away from work or home” felt threatened by the through I was being encouraged to take a little packet of dried coffee home as a substitute for the experience of being in their retail environment. I have always bought into Starbucks being an ” escape,” a destination, a home away from home. To add insult to injury, I was told if I liked their dried coffee, which I also perceived as cheapening the brand, I did not even have to come back into the store- I could buy it elsewhere. It almost felt like an invitation to never come back- I felt like I was losing a friend.

Howard Schultz in his 2011 book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul specifically talks about his mission in a way that’s very different from most CEOs. “Everything we’ve tried to do,” he writes, “is steeped in humanity.” I certainly find Schultz’s new goal as being very problematic for the brand.

Purveyors use distribution channels and have retailers who connect with end users for a reason- because retails act differently than purveyors. I have witnessed this first hand within the music industry. The clarinet company I represent, Buffet Crampon, increasingly in the 90′s adopted some of my best practices working with customers. Increasingly they acted more like a retailer than a distributor, or the purveyor they are, by increasing the attention they paid towards potential end users. They threw private parties and gave potential customers the opportunity, before retailers, to see and experience new products.

In the end, it pissed off retailers who felt side stepped and while left uninformed were expected to close the sale with the majority of the customers anyways. I am not sure how much it really did to help them grow their brand then but they have abandoned most of those practices now. While I realize, Starbucks first and foremost is recognized as an extremely well established retailer- a significant difference from being a purveyor dabbling in retail, placing people over products simultaneously in both distribution channels and retail environments will be challenging. Distributors exist to move product and retailers exist to sell those products to people. The motivation of each is different and as a result using the same messaging for both won’t be easy to effectively manage.

While I think Schultz’s idea is very interesting to try and be the first company to excel at both, how will Starbucks lead me or anyone else to rediscovering why we’re best friends with this as their end game strategy in their retail environment?

I don’t know about you, but I spend time with a best friend. I get to know them. I also frequently see them in the same places and I don’t just spend money on them. While distributors and Schultz alike may hope Starbucks can convincingly sell us many products at the local grocery from an experience or two in their retail environment, it is yet to be seen how well they can translate the uniqueness of their brand into repetitive buying decisions in locations outside their own doors.

Chicago Creative Expo 2012

Lisa Canning — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:31:51 +0000

The 9th Creative Chicago Expo is a key opportunity to connect with Chicago’s top artists and organizations across all artistic disciplines. Last year over 5,000 creative practitioners and 140 local, national and international vendors came to the Chicago Cultural Center to participate in dozens of consulting sessions, free workshops and the opportunity to connect with representatives of Chicago’s diverse arts communities.

This year the Expo is expanding to two days– Friday March 23 for organizations, Saturday March 24 for individuals.

And that’s not all. There will be a special keynote speaker and a reception for vendors to meet and mingle. Discounted rates for two-day registration! Fee waivers for workshop and panel participants. Complimentary ads and waived fees for out-of-city and out-of-state vendors as well.

Think of the ways you can connect with the thousands of artists, musicians, dancers, actors, writers, designers and Chicago’s other creative minds who attend The Expo…

:: BECOME A VENDOR :: PROPOSE A WORKSHOP OR PANEL ::
:: BE AN EXPO SPONSOR :: ADVERTISE IN THE DIRECTORY ::

SAVE THE DATE
Vendor Registration opens in early January.

Inside Arts Based Interventions

Guest Blogger — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:15:06 +0000

Written by Michael Gold

For any individual or culture to change it has to want to change.

Arts based interventions that have the potential to affect real change are engaged when someone inside the corporate culture sees the need and the potential. It is essential that such interventions be very carefully designed.

There must be a thorough and agreed upon understanding of the client’s “pain” and how an art based intervention can be applied to catalyze that pain into specific productive results. A good starting place for practitioners is Giovanni Schuima’s book The Value of Arts for Business.

The only thing that will convince corporate interests that its management needs the resource of the artistic perspective is word of mouth based on experiential results. One cannot blame Chief Learning Officers and CEOs for being skeptical.

In my role as designer and facilitator of arts based initiatives, I have to work with musicians who can articulate their ideas across disciplines, otherwise they bring no value to the interaction with people in business.

There has to be viable product in the marketplace for corporations to be convinced of the value of arts based learning. If academic institutions from arts departments to MBA programs were to start training artists of all types in cross-disciplinary facilitation then a new and competitive field of management development — one that truly deserves the moniker of Human Resource Development — would enter the market. It would be relatively easy to create curricula designed give artists these skills.|

It is unfortunate that the world of the arts is not as prepared as it could be for this unique opportunity to recalibrate the one-sided relationship of the artist as dependent upon patrons.

In the movie Field of Dreams, while walking in his cornfield, novice farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice that whispers, “If you build it, he will come,” and sees a baseball diamond. If we, as educators and educational institutions, build a theoretical base of expertise around this emerging field…they will come. They are already here…asking.

About Michael Gold

Email: michael@jazz-impact.com Web Site: http://www.jazz-impact.com

Michael Gold is the founder and president of Jazz Impact, where he develops and conducts interactive seminars that bring together the two worlds of jazz and business. Gold’s expertise is in creating customized training sessions that reinforce team-building, problem solving and other management skills by drawing upon the lessons of jazz. Gold’s extensive background in music, academia and business was essential in developing Jazz Impact. He held senior management positions in the real estate and financial services industries, holds a Ph.D. in jazz performance and created and ran Vassar College’s first jazz program. He has spent nearly two decades as a jazz bassist in New York having performed with such greats as Lee Konitz, Al Cohn, Tal Farlow, Sheila Jordan, and Warne Marsh. Gold is an ongoing lecturer for The Executive MBA and Leadership Development Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The MBA Program at Loyola University in New Orleans and The University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Promoting Global Entrepreneurship: The Maghreb Region

Lisa Canning — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:50:18 +0000

I am looking forward to attending the U.S.-Maghreb Entrepreneurship Conference, PNB-NAPEO’s annual regional partnership conference in Marrakech, Morocco January 16-18, 2012. The IAE is hoping to find an educational partner in Morocco beginning with our academic year 2013-2014. We have already 2 partners in Amman Jordan. Both Queen Rania’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Princess Taghrid’s Institute for Arts and Culture. Students from both organizations will be on the IAE educational network starting in the fall of 2012. In 2013 we hope to expand into Sweden and Morocco. At that time, we will have 2 classrooms and 2 educational networks stranded through video conferencing.

At the IAE our goal is to help artists become creative flexible whole brain leaders. Our model is designed to create an educational space for artists around the world to develop a common universal shared language to stimulate, as a group, our own economic development as well as help others do the same. At the IAE we teach artists how tap into their creativity to fuel community economic development, financial growth and spur innovation. ~ Lisa Canning

Written by Lorraine Hariton and appeared on DipNote: U.S. Deptartment of State Official Blog

Lorraine Hariton serves as the Special Representative for the Commercial and Business Affairs Office, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

As the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, one of my responsibilities is the promotion of entrepreneurship overseas — something that is critical to the State Department’s overall mission of “creating a more secure, democratic and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community.” I am proud that our efforts to promote entrepreneurship have expanded to a new corner of the globe — the Maghreb — as part of the U.S.-North Africa Partnership for Economic Opportunity (NAPEO), a regional initiative under the global alliance Partners for a New Beginning (PNB).

I was privileged to lead a State Department Entrepreneurship Delegation to Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria October 26-November 2. The delegation, which consisted of 20 distinguished U.S. entrepreneurs, angel investors, members of academia, and NGO representatives, was co-sponsored by the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) in my office. One goal of the U.S.-NAPEO is to enhance economic cooperation between the United States and the Maghreb region, and to share best practices between experienced and emerging entrepreneurs with the goal of providing tools and strategies that can help to overcome some of the common challenges that entrepreneurs usually face. Our entrepreneurship delegation supported this goal. We believe that entrepreneurship is a powerful mechanism for job creation that will benefit not just the economies of the countries that hosted the delegation, but the U.S. economy as well. The delegation was enormously successful in generating excitement around entrepreneurship — after listening to pitch-sessions by aspiring entrepreneurs, we selected a total of three promising start-ups in each country for a four-month business incubation prize at the Tech Town Detroit Incubator and a full-tuition scholarship for one semester of instruction at Wayne State University. Entrepreneurship delegate Ahmed Chabbani generously represented TechTown, Wayne State University, and the American Arab Chamber of Commerce to award the prize in person. These efforts represent the type of unique public-private partnerships that the U.S.-North Africa Partnership for Economic Opportunity is building to deepen ties between the United States and the Maghreb.

We also mentored aspiring entrepreneurs in one-on-one sessions, coaching them on how to improve their business plans and pitches. Mentoring is crucial to entrepreneurial success, because it gives aspiring entrepreneurs an opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes and successes. Interestingly, the mentoring sessions were two-way exchanges — not only did our delegates provide valuable operational knowledge, but they also learned about the unique challenges of doing business in each host country. In Morocco, start-ups reported difficulty in identifying seed capital to begin their businesses. In Algeria, aspiring entrepreneurs reported difficulty in managing and distributing their funds. In Tunisia, start-ups said they needed marketing skills to expand their businesses regionally and maybe ultimately globally. As one of our delegates, Driss Temsamani, said, “We were working for a higher purpose; the satisfaction of sharing success with others…We gave them one common message, ‘You can do it!’”

In addition to helping create opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs in countries with high unemployment and other challenges, our expanded economic cooperation in the Maghreb may lead to the next “big” innovation that can help restart not only the economy of the Maghreb region but also the U.S. economy as well. Our engagement has the potential to be a “win-win.” And I think I speak for the entire delegation when I say that we were all impressed by the energy, drive, and innovation of the aspiring entrepreneurs we met in the Maghreb. Our goal for our future programming in the region is to sustain the momentum we have generated around entrepreneurship. PNB-NAPEO is now planning its annual regional partnership conference, the U.S.-Maghreb Entrepreneurship Conference, for January 16-18, 2012, in Marrakech, Morocco, where we will showcase many new partnerships that came out of the delegation. One example, our delegates are planning to create a regional angel network — with money from their own pockets — to support aspiring entrepreneurs.

I want to especially thank our U.S. embassies in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and the local partners on the PNB-NAPEO advisory boards in each country for such an outstanding work and support in these efforts. Some of our success is immeasurable, such as the personal impact that our events had on the lives of aspiring entrepreneurs. To quote one of our winners in Morocco, Yassine El Kachchani, “This opportunity was life-changing in a very positive way. I was amazed by the level of openness and the willingness to help that the delegation and the U.S. Embassy showed during this event. […] I’m more than ready to exceed your expectations — this is my new challenge.”

Towards a New Social Contract in the Arab World

On Sept 22, 2011, regional leaders and members of civil society groups participated in a webcast discussion and online chat on social accountability, governance and managing economic transitions the Middle East and North Africa. Watch the webcast or read the chat transcript below.

http://live.worldbank.org/towards-new-social-contract-arab-world

20 Rules for Starting Your Art Licensing Business

Guest Blogger — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:12:40 +0000

Written by Art Licensing Coach J’net Smith

Rule #3 Know your skills.

Art talent isn’t enough to make it in the Art Licensing industry. Even more interesting is the fact that you may do very well in Art Licensing for any number of other reasons. For example, your art skills may be good; they may even be awesome! But you could be incredibly successful in Art Licensing because you can market yourself better than other artists. Perhaps you have the innate ability to capture the attention of various media outlets, or you have a large following of active and demanding fans (which would be is very appealing to manufacturers).

I’ve seen artists make lots of money because they appeal to a certain niche audience (not a small niche, but one that’s large enough to warrant mass market attention) that is peaking and has a current need for art. Maybe an artist loves creating holiday themed art, for which there is always a need. Art Licensing is a commercial industry, so artists who have a distinctive style, enjoy creating a certain theme, and who also appeal to huge audiences have more potential for income than others.

Other skills that affect your Art Licensing business potential are:

Technical Skills

You definitely need computer and technical skills, or access to them. If you don’t have them, you need to get them or find a partner that does, because people will no longer put up with artists not having internet access, high resolution scans, layered files, etc.

Product Design Capabilities

If you can envision your art on products, then show your art to manufacturers on product mock-ups to help them. This is a really important skill set today and is going to help put you in the league of serious art licensors.

Trend Watching

Not everybody is going to be a trendsetter, because that takes a lot of forward thinking.You may have that, or you may just love to watch trends, and can keep up with them. Either way, don’t avoid learning about trends and seeing how your art can interpret them.

Entrepreneurial Abilities

Artists need entrepreneurial skills more than ever! And we’ll talk more about this later…

About J’net Smith

How to Train Your Elephant to Increase Whole Brain Thinking

Lisa Canning — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:30:58 +0000

The story of the Rider and the Elephant goes something like this.

There once was a Rider who wanted to ride the Elephant and control him. The rider was smart and tried to use his cunning logic on the elephant to persuade him to listen to him as his Rider. But the elephant could not understand a single word the rider said. He could however feel the rider’s motivation and it made the elephant angry and he refused to take even one step forward with the rider on his back.

So how does the story end? Does the rider eventually control the elephant with his great logic? Or does the elephant control the rider with his emotions?

The moral of this story: No stream of logic will EVER trump how we feel about something or someone. Human nature has proven it time and time again with both good and evil. The elephant inside of us always wins.

How to train your Elephant to accept your Rider and what to expect.

Training an elephant is about the same as training a pet.

Pets need clear simple instruction or challenges, delivered with consistency and loving kindness to learn the lesson(s) that you want them to teach them.

Pets can’t see what they need to learn. That’s why they have someone to train them.

Repetition and consistency are key to learning.

You can’t try and control how long it takes for your pet to learn the lesson. Every pet learns differently and at different speeds.

When pets resist learning what happens? A new approach is taken for a controlled period of time and then if that does not work changed. However, chances are great the second time will work if not the first.

Have empathy for your pet and trust that it will and wants to learn. Assume if it’s not learning that you have not mastered thinking from your pet’s point of view.

When your pet learns the lesson you patiently took the time to teach, both of you will see your self-esteem rise.

Elephant training is best done in groups.

How to Establishing a Great Working Herd.

Look at this chart below and see if you each can figure out how to identify how everyone in your group learns best.

Herrman's whole brain learning styles

Step 1: Take a guess at how you think each person in your group would learn best.

Step 2: Get together as soon as possible to state how you learn best and compare it against how others perceived you might learn best. Find a way to have everyone together even if you phone or skype someone into the room with the rest of you.

During your time together as a group I would:

Set ground rules about how your group will function and how you will capture the details of your goals and progress.
Set ground rules about your interpersonal dynamics.

a) How will everyone be heard? What are the rules to make sure this happens? How can communication flow fluidly between us and what will we do it fails to lift off altogether or breaks? How will we fix it/ repair it?

b) What happens if my feelings are hurt? How will I communicate it respectfully and forgive or be the one to be forgiven so that I can continue to “receive elephant pet training” from anyone in the group.

c) REPEAT often. It’s easier and easier to talk about if you do. What am I learning about my elephant and its training? Every time you meet I would have this conversation.

When you master all 4 learning consideration (above) and can adjust your communication style to address each of the 4 different quadrants (below) you will have 2 more essential tools you need to launch your business and build your customer base easily. When the rider (the left side of our brain) knows how to train the elephant (the right side of our brain) we can develop our whole brain thinking and use it to lead others towards the development of their own.

Herrman's whole brain model

Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset: Culture of Curiosity, Shared Language and Motivation

Lisa Canning — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:13:40 +0000

The last class of The IAE’s first module just finished yesterday. For the entire past three months we have been exploring who we are, how we communicate, how our lives are constructed and what matters most to us. In our classroom we have been learning how to develop a culture of curiosity, shared language, increase our recognition of patterns, and explore what triggers our own motivation- all essential ingredients to begin to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

A great deal of our learning has been done through experiences of the learning. Artists learn best this way. And while I had never, until I conceived the IAE, attempted to construct as much of the curriculum as possible in this way, it is highly impact filled and TOTALLY worth all of the effort to create. Consistently we have taken our main learning objectives and constructed group projects or situations to experience that are designed to expose our students thinking and intuitive processes so they can discover their own lessons and learning. Our students are learning how to teach themselves. Another trait of a great entrepreneurial mindset. And the results speak for themselves- they always produce far more insights then the few lessons we had in mind when we construct our experiential curriculum for our students.

At the end of each weekend of class we synthesize our learning. Together we create a list of what we have learned and reduce it down to only the essential nuggets we really need to be reminded of to continue our evolution and growth.

Here is our final learning wall for the end of our 1st module of class.

The IAE is bursting with energy, ideas, new friendships, and a sea of increased awareness and individual shifts and changes all leading towards the development of entrepreneurial mindsets.

In the end, what matters is not what we know. But how we think about what we know. And what we do with those insights to uncover the resources we need to make good choices along the way in our journey towards our creative and financial goals.

The early bird deadline for new applications for the IAE’s 2012-2013 year is December 15th.

TARGET: An emotionally intelligent marketer or using human nature to manipulate?

Lisa Canning — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:05:37 +0000

This weekend I had the true pleasure of “taking-in” a TARGET store- and not just running through it looking for the extra large containers of toilet paper and Tide.

Positioned as the household-one-stop everything- spot, replacing the old Main Street Five and Dime, TARGET understands the core reason buyers come in droves to buy. They have all the basics anyone would ever need to take care of their family. And for most of us, family means everything to us. What wouldn’t we do for someone we love?

So of course TARGET has a great assortment of lawnmowers, kids toys, clothes for every member of the family and tools for Dad at his work bench. Something for everyone. But most of these same items can easily also be found at Kmart, Walmart and Sears. So how is it TARGET continues to lead the pack with their 2011 sales results? What does TARGET know that their competitors don’t know? Could they be an emotionally intelligent marketer? Or are they using their knowledge of human nature to manipulate and grow sales? And what is emotionally intelligent marketing anyway?

In their article from 1990, “Emotional Intelligence,” Professors Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer define emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. (Salovey & Mayer 189).

What does their definition of Emotional Intelligence teach us about how we can use it in consumer marketing? I think that our emotions can be used to guide logical thinking and goal-oriented actions; which makes EI particularly impact-filled in consumer marketing.

This also explains WHY sometimes highly successful brands can be viewed as being “emotionally manipulative.” Yet, if you know anything about human nature you likely already KNOW WHAT IS AT THE CORE of every single big loyal brand follower.

The story of the Rider and the Elephant. It goes something like this.

There once was a story about a Rider who wanted to ride the Elephant and control him. The Rider was smart and tried to use his cunning logic on the elephant to persuade him to listen to him as his Rider. But the Elephant could not understand a single word the Rider said. He could however feel the Rider’s motivation and it made the elephant angry and he refused to take even one step forward with the Rider on his back.

So how does the story end? Does the Rider eventually control the Elephant with his great logic? Or does the Elephant control the rider with his emotions?

The moral of this story: No stream of logic will EVER trump how we feel about something or someone. Human nature has proven it time and time again with both good and evil. The elephant inside us always wins.

The Golden Circle

Simon Sinek refers to the elephant within each of us, which resides in the limbic part of our brain that has no language, in his TED talk Start with Why; also known as The Golden Circle. Sinek explains that it is those few companies that know WHY they do what they do and can communicate it effectively to their herd of elephants who thrive.

All companies know WHAT they do and that’s why most are failing. No one cares about another widget, another electronics store, or burger place. One more cog for the wheel doesn’t evoke any kind of emotional response. The elephant inside every customer will buy into WHY you do what you do, NOT what it is you do or even how you do it. The elephant will buy based on its visceral response to you.

So is the average TARGET consumer really looking for an emotional experience? What is the RIDER inside the average consumer going to TARGET thinking?

Well, how about something like this..” I’m out of paper towels, we have one more cap-full of Tide, I scooped up the dogs last dish of dried food, and I’d really like something more than a black cup of coffee in the morning.” And behind that is the unspoken- ” I love my family. I want to care for them and give them what they need.”

TARGET understands this IS the reason for their being in existence. Their entire store- every ounce of it says ” We are here to serve the needs of your family.We are here to help you live more comfortably and enjoy your life. We want to give you more, so “expect more and pay less.”

And while TARGET might dress it up with a really cute dog, they are hitting the emotional bullseye of every elephant- their customer- every time they take one of their items displayed on basic peg boards and make it through the check out line.

How do they do this?

Let’s look closely at Salovey and Mayer’s three characteristics of emotional intelligence.

The first is our ability to both appraise others emotions as well as express our own. Emotionally intelligent people are a good judge of character and have an authentic ability to communicating their own.

Emotionally intelligent people can control or regulate their emotions; which of course means we can experience the release of them but still remain emotionally high functioning because of our understanding of the emotions we feel.

And lastly, emotionally intelligent individuals have an ability to utilize their emotions to communicate clearly and directly.¹

¹ Under this final point Salovey and Mayer list four more categories. I think TARGET has carefully studied and learned how to leverage all four of these EI characteristics into their brand.

These four additional characteristics are:

I came in to Target looking for some velcro- less than a $10.00 item- to help keep my pictures hanging straight on the wall, and came home, instead, with an additional purchase of these two holiday seasonal decorations for another $40.00 bucks.

1) Flexible planning. An emotionally intelligent thinker is one who is flexible in their planning. They can walk in a store with a list of things they are shopping for and yet can comfortably find themselves improvising and making an unexpected purchase or two in the store.

2) Creative Thinker. An emotionally intelligent person is a creative thinker. Ahh, here it is! The cereal aisle loaded with possibilities! What does this mean? We will continue through my series of blog posts on Creative Theorists to see how much we can uncover about how vastly different others see what it means to become a creative thinker. But if we are talking about retail shopping? This is what I think it means.

TARGET consistently pairs more practical low cost items with something "extra" at many multiples of that low items price.

An emotionally intelligent shopper is going to see the creative value in buying the glittery Christmas tree-like decoration in addition to those bargain basement CUTE $2.99 wine glasses on their shopping list. An EI shopper would be thinking: “I am already replacing those plain chipped wine glasses for something that looks really nice for the price. These glasses where not even 1/2 the price I expected to pay for them. I can afford to splurge with a little something festive and decorative to show them off.”

At this point the EI buyer is hooked. Logic won’t easily persuade you that your paying $14.99 for a foam cone covered in black fabric with a stapled piece of shiny material over it.

3) Redirecting Attention. An emotionally intelligent shopper is going to be really comfortable having their attention redirected to all different kinds of products spread across one store. Why? Because according to Salovey and Mayer part of our ability to utilize our emotions effectively to communicate is that we possess the ability to easily redirect our attention into new places.

4) Motivation. And lastly, emotionally intelligent individuals demonstrate motivation. As such, if you are appealing to emotionally intelligent shoppers, who have the same values as you do, your aisles are going to be filled with both lots of interesting and varied products along with lots of interesting people who want to buy most everything on your shelves.

Emotional intelligence means embarking on the path of self-actualizing

Another important aspect of Salovey and Mayer’s insights into what demonstrates emotional intelligence, is their question about what emotional intelligence entails:

“People who have developed skills related to emotional intelligence understand and express their own emotions, recognize emotions in others, regulate affect, and use moods and emotions to motivate adaptive behaviors. Is this just another definition of a healthy, self-actualized individual?” (Salovey & Mayer 200)

The beauty of working with our emotions is that we naturally reap the benefits of getting to know ourselves more intimately. When we have a clearer sense of who we are and who we are becoming, we can make wiser choices in life by strengthening our response ability to everything that happens “to” us.

Self discovery is a lifelong process, and it can serve us for our entire lives. Self discovery is the basis for self care, and self care is the foundation for long lasting satisfaction and happiness in life, which are intricately linked to mental, emotional, and physical health.

Salovey and Mayer’s conception of Emotional Intelligence was “The ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions and to regulate emotions to promote personal growth.”

This ability-based model views emotions as useful sources of information that help one to make sense of and navigate their social environment. I believe, this ability-based model works equally as well in defining an emotionally intelligent company.

As I see it, an emotionally intelligence corporation:

Perceives emotions and uses their ability to decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artifacts to reflect back in their people and their branding. Emotionally Intelligent companies use and develop the ability to express emotions in their people and to harness emotional understanding, problem solving and whole brain thinking.

Understands emotions well enough to comprehend emotional language and to appreciate the complicated attachments we have to our emotions and the ambiguity they sometime need to cause until they can be clarified.

Can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals.

While we go to TARGET for diapers, underwear, workout clothes and socks, we leave with a wreath, flower vase and a new bed spread which we simply just felt we had to have. It’s easy to pick up the hood and look under it to see how this mega-retailer does it. TARGET is demonstrating their own emotional intelligent which masterfully helps them position their brand to emotionally impact their buying elephants.

The limbic part of your brain- the part which has no language- is from where we fall in love with someone or something and from where all “purchasing” decisions are made. Target has found our sweet spot.

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TARGET: An emotionally intelligent marketer or using human nature to manipulate?

Let’s look closely at Salovey and Mayer’s three characteristics of emotional intelligence.

¹ Under this final point Salovey and Mayer list four more categories. I think TARGET has carefully studied and learned how to leverage all four of these EI characteristics into their brand.

On behalf of everyone at The Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship – our faculty, our students, our supporters and our families - we would like to wish each of you and your family  a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!