Let’s talk creativity. What do you do when everyone in your profession goes on strike and your find yourself mindlessly walking around, eating all day and becoming really comfortable with daytime TV?Well if you are the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live, you learn from the experience and then you use that experience to do something totally cool. After the now infamous writer’s strike, which occupied much of the fall and winter, the SNL cast has learned how to do more than just be funny. Many former and current SNL members recently got together to spend their summer vacation filming an online miniseries called “The Line”. The series surrounds the stories of those waiting eleven days for a science fiction film premier.The premise is based on the experiences of the actually actors and has attracted a wide array of followers. Done through a very low-stakes medium and distributed on the web, the experience has been a first for both the actors and the production company. By learning from a difficult situation, these actors have found a new way to express their talents. They are also finding a whole new ocean for exploration. Direct to internet series may be the new wave of the future and an option for those unable to get financing for billion dollar pictures or television series. For more information about this, look to our previous post on From Here to Awesome.

Have you recently found yourself in a similar situation? Rather than bemoan the lost time, try to put your creativity to use. In the end, you might just make a fun(ny?) discovery about yourself or your medium

It seems like an ever-increasing number of countries are realizing the benefits of fostering entrepreneurship. This should be a no-brainer… entrepreneurs are change-makers, stimuli for the economy and innovators that impact our daily lives through their ideas. Having an increasingly entrepreneurial workforce can and will result in a strong and stable economy.While the means of creating entrepreneurial growth in each country is different, a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal highlights some recommendations from the Kauffman Foundation to shape the entrepreneurial ecosphere through “radical innovation” in the United States. Here are the highlights: Read the rest of this entry

Successful entrepreneurs are those who turn ideas into actions and actions into services. They are not necessarily old or from a wealthy background. In fact, they may be someone you know — possibly you. Do you want to be a successful entrepreneur? Here are some examples of creative entrepreneurs who came from different backgrounds but ended up in the same position-success. All you need are ideas and motivation. Read the rest of this entry

Have you ever wondered why a country would want to host the Olympics? They are expensive to host, hard to bid for, and, in general, extremely pesky to pull off. Yet, everyone wants to host one. Beyond the general tourist buzz, the Olympics are a great opportunity to showcase a country to the rest of the world. China wants the world to view it as bold, high-tech, creative and international.

Chinese entrepreneurs are using the Olympics as an opportunity to create global Chinese brands. “We want to be another Samsung, another Sony,” said Feng Jun, CEO of Aigo, a Chinese electronics company. Feng, who started the company with $26 from his mother in 1993, is one of the Chinese entrepreneurs who are striving to break with the current image of China as a cheap place to mass manufacture goods. These entrepreneurs are trying to make their enterprises into one of the global elite consumer brands, just like Samsung and Sony. Read the rest of this entry

Sometimes, you want to hang out with other people who are just like you. They understand your problems and are willing to listen to the detailed stories about your latest projects. In large part they do so because they are one of the few people in the world who finds those stories to be a bit intriguing. In short, they get you and they like you. Where do you find these people? I suggest the 2008 EmTech Conference.

The EmTech conference will be held in Cambridge September 23-25th on the MIT Campus. This event serves as a platform for emerging technological innovations and their impact on business and society. At the event leaders from a myriad of industries meet to discuss the changing shape of the future. Of note in the conference are Gina Bianchini, CEO and Cofounder of Ning and Sophie Vandebroek, CTO Xerox and President of Xerox Innovation Group. Read the rest of this entry

So I’’m sitting in the San Francisco airport, having just crossed the international date line. This is one cool job! Having said that, I’’m absolutely knackered. I’’ve just spent the last 10 days with Global Entrepreneurship Week Hosts from India and the UAE (in Bangalore); from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and China (in Singapore), and from Australia and New Zealand (in Sydney). We’’ve been talking about the campaign: how to build it up; how to get thousands of activities happening simultaneously worldwide; and how to connect young entrepreneurs from far-flung corners of the world.

Some of the highlights have included:

* Our newest Host signs up: – the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders (www.sme.ae). They’’re a great organisation which helps support young entrepreneurs in Dubai. And this means the United Arab Emirates is officially country 64 to sign up to Global Entrepreneurship Week!

* Seeing the power of entrepreneurship in India: earlier this year our Indian co-Host NEN (www.nenonline.org) ran one of the most inspirational Entrepreneurship Weeks I’’ve ever seen, with thousands of students around the country lighting candles, making pledges and running mini-competitions in the name of enterprise. Check out http://www.nenonline.org/jsp/eweek09/index.jsp to see what they achieved. And this year they’’re planning to run Speednetworks in educational institutions across the country, to tackle some special Unleash It! challenges.

* Getting a Global Entrepreneurship Week T-shirt specially made by Dash, the aptly-named energetic head of Warisan Global, GEW Host for Malaysia. They’’re really well-equipped to run Global EW there – check out the website www.warisanglobal.com. Read the rest of this entry

Try Google.

Google is poised to open a new venture capital arm but the structure of the organization and the type of investments in largely unclear. How well they will do as a VC operation is also cloudy and thus the potential new division may fail to materialize. Large corporate VCs are often hampered by challenges that more traditional VC groups don’t face. For example, many startups fear the limitations corporate money places on their future with other investors and with buy up options. Also, this last year has seen drops in the number of VC deals corporates investors have been involved in (down 1%) and in their share of over all investment dollars (down 1.4%). Read the rest of this entry

When was the last time you watched the Olympics and really thought about what makes athletes set world records? It’s not just their relentless drive, their physical prowess or their ability to defy the rules of physics. Sometimes, athletes are winning because of the carefully crafted objects in their lives. The entrepreneurs, who create the innovations that enable athletes to become slightly super human, are frequently as responsible for the shattering of records. Entrepreneurs have pushed the Olympics past the toga clad open sandal events and into the world of intensely focused scientific re-invention.

Speedo created swimsuits that use the athlete’s body as a mold, thereby engineering a covering that turns the human body into an aerodynamic weapon. The outfits have almost zero drag. “In February, Speedo introduced its LZR swimsuit and 38 of the 42 world swimming records broken since then were by swimmers wearing the suit — which has no seams and takes 20 minutes to get into.”

Nike is also on the forefront in the fight to create these super athletes by having recently developed a shoe that is 41% lighter than the lightest shoe ever created. In doing so, they are attempting to develop something that is both light and strong. “Flywire…. uses only the barest exoskeleton of wispy, high-tech filaments — roughly 7 linear feet of thread, affixed to an ultrathin fabric scrim — to provide its structure and shape (think of a space-age Roman sandal).” Read the rest of this entry

Global Entrepreneurship Week Espana has a very vocal support in Christopher Pommerening. His blog recently discussed the various organizations who are taking part in the Week. To follow him or learn more about entrepreneurship in Spain, check out his blog: http://christopherpommerening.wordpress.com/

Also, check out what our Spanish hosts are doing by looking on their country page: http://unleashingideas.org/go/to/es

I wanted to blog about Sean Carlson but the New York Times did such a good job that I’m not really sure I have anything else to add. So read the article here and tell me what you think….

 Basically, he’s trying to break into the music industry. He’s succeeding with his tenacity. He’s failing. He’s getting in over his head. Ultimately, I think he’ll have the bravado to succeed and the charm to convince others to get him to the top. I think these are important lessons.

Lesson learned:

#1.)  Find good help when you are overstretched.

What lessons did you learn?