First, we will review each entry and create a preliminary ranking. Second, the judges we recruited for their expertise in innovation of various kinds will review the entries and give us their feedback. Based on the combined perspectives, a winner will be chosen.

When? Not sure. It would be nice to have this done before the holidays start. However, the schedules of others are involved and some people have really packed schedules, as this is the last full week before Christmas. If we can get all the feedback returned and give it the attention it deserves, we will announce it before the holidays. If not, we will announce it January 5, 2009. I’ll post again later this week to give you an update on the timing.

Stay Tuned!

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Innovative Business Contest Closed - Now For The Judging

IP Launch, Inc., a company I co-founded in 2001, is offering its own stimulus package - how does $50,000 of free consulting sound? This isn’t just any old consulting, either. This is a certified valuation of either your business or your technology plus our suggested strategy for making that valuation number become a reality.

On October 10, 2008, Innovative Economy announced an Innovative Business Contest. We thought it would encourage people to recognize those who might inspire us and lead us through this difficult economy by way of innovation. With two weeks to go in the contest, we have one entrant. I’m not buying that is representative of a free world. However, there is strong suspicion it could be related to the lack of a robust prize package.

We talked amongst ourselves and decided the normal prizes were not enough for our goal. Company leaders need to look at their inventory of innovations - even those they may have previously dismissed - and realize all the power that may lie in those innovations to create an economic survival kit for the company. That message needs to sink in at decision-making levels. It’s time to get bold.

We decided to put our money where our mouth is by setting the bar for a valuable prize, and we’ll even connect it to the objective of the contest. IP Launch will agree to value the winning selection plus prescribe a strategy for monetizing it at its highest and best use. The normal price tag for professional fees associated with this combination of deliverables is $50,000.

IP Launch is waving all professional fees for the winner of the contest. We’ll even give you a full page on our blog to tell us about your innovation and why you should win. Voters can express support of your submission through the comment feature on your particular page.

Why would you want a valuation of your technology or your business? Here are ten powerful reasons and ways to use this kind of valuation. Don’t be surprised if you find something here that you didn’t realize could help you in whatever circumstance you find yourself in today. Many people do not realize all that can be done to advance their business by valuing and monetizing all their innovation.

If you have all the cash you could ever want in the bank and more customers than you can service; if your shareholders are delirious with delight over their profits and begging you to take more of their capital; if competitors exit the industry at just the mention of your name; then you really don’t need to win. You might need rehab, but you don’t need to win.

If you need cash, customers, capital or competitive power, it is imperative that you know the value of your innovations and the best ways to extract that value in today’s economic climate. You need to know how to use your innovation to compensate for lost resources in other areas. Just as the human body compensates for loss of one sense by becoming more powerful in other senses, innovation can - and should - be used by companies to compensate for diminished capacities for attracting capital, customers or creating competitive momentum.

Rather than preach, we’ll show you, and we’ll put our time and money on the line to help you get the vision of what is possible. That is powerful because knowing the value and knowing how best to extract the value can be two very different levels of knowledge. This isn’t really about $50,000. It’s about discovering a value much higher than that and developing a road map to retrieve that value. The actual value could be well into the millions of dollars, even in this environment.

This is for big companies, small companies, solo inventors, Fortune 500 and everything in between. It is international, too. After all, we live in a global economy. So how can David compete with Goliath and win here? Let me give you some tips on how to do well, and some insight as to what will kill your submission fast:

1. Go to the new Contest Registration Form at the bottom of this page. You will be asked to register as a contestant and tell us why you should win. Each contest entry will be posted as a separate post on InnovativeEconomy.com. We will not edit or format the information we receive from you. It will be posted in the same condition in which we receive it. Carefully consider the length of the information you submit. Messaging is just as important as innovation. If you overwhelm with a long contest entry post, we may not publish it or the votes and final outcome may reflect the verbosity. Give us your best communication.

2. Get people to vote for you. Use your blog, website or however you reach your constituency and provide people with a link back to your contest entry post, where they can vote for your innovation in the comment section. We will send you an appealing graphic icon you can display on your blog or website. When someone clicks your icon, they will be taken directly to your contest entry post where they can enter their vote comment. We will also update a master contestant list daily where all the links to all contestants are provided. Your voters can use this to reach your site too. But we suggest making it easy for them.

The number of votes a submission receives is a factor, but we consider relative effort. For example, a Fortune 500 company gets 500 people in a division to vote for their submission. Joe The Inventor is using his lay-off severance pay to fund his new venture. Joe may not be able to come up with 501 votes. We look at relative effort, not just absolute numbers. Votes are not the only factor. The final decision will be made by a panel of judges considering a variety of factors relative to their own expertise. It is not merely a popularity contest.

However, votes are crucial. You need to show us that people believe in what you are doing. If no one believes in you, you’ve missed the boat on innovation. Relationships matter as much as the next big cure, fix, trend or gadget. Get your message out and ask those who believe your message to say so by voting for you.

3. In order to participate as a candidate we need to be able to contact you. Registration requires that we have your name, email, website (if you have one), address and phone number. The purpose of the contest is to create value for a valid company or innovator. Entering cloaked contact information will hurt, if not kill, your chances of being published as a contestant, not to mention winning.

4. Balance disclosure. We need to know enough to appreciate the magnitude of what you have or are doing, but you don’t want to submit confidential information - and we don’t want your confidential information. You be the judge, but please understand that until we have an Non-Disclosure Agreement in place, anything you share with us is deemed acceptable for publication on our site, with the exception of your contact information.

5. Respect other contestants. If you compete with someone else participating in this contest, be professional and show them respect. It is important to remember that you are convincing us not only that you have the competitive magic (innovation, technology, business model, etc.), but that you also have the leadership and relationship skills to at least get it in the right hands and not get in your own way. Innovators typically make bad CEOs for large ventures. The skill sets are different. You don’t have to convince us you are the next Michael Dell or Steve Jobs. But don’t convince us you’ll be the biggest barrier to your own success, either.

6. Be prepared to prove anything you claim. If you say you have patents, be prepared to show the patent numbers. If you say you have sales and customers are dying for your innovation, be prepared to prove it. Final selection of the winner may be impacted by a contestant’s ability to support their claims.

Additional important information concerning terms and conditions for participation may be found here.

Special Notes: The winner must sign an IP Launch, Inc. engagement letter for the valuation and strategy services in order to receive that prize. The professional service fees due will be listed at “$0.” There are no hidden fees.

IP Launch will determine whether the engagement is focused on valuing a particular technology or an entire business enterprise. Our goal is to add the greatest value. For example, if you are Fortune 500, you don’t need our enterprise valuation. If you are just starting out, the business may not have any value beyond the technology. If you are a mid-size company with 250 products and you want us to look at your killer new innovation that would be #251, that may be best too.

We hope our decision to offer this prize will inspire other companies to join us in offering great prizes to a deserving winner(s). (If your company wants to contribute to the prizes, please use the Contact Us form to let me know.) But even if it doesn’t, we are fired up to do this and consider it a great honor to recognize and serve someone who may be remembered as making a powerful difference in a difficult time.

Begin by submitting your contest entry here, and look for the message below the form after you click submit for further information and instructions:

cforms contact form by delicious:days

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IP Launch Offers Business Stimulus Package In Innovation Contest

#1 - The Ingenesist Project

#2 - Innovation Exchange

#3 - Edison Innovations

#4 - wiSpots

#5 - Nualgi

#6 - PROCESOi

#7 - H.E.R.O. Discover eMachine

#8 - Aboutdesigntime.com

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Innovative Business Contestant Master List

Ideas are like that too. The context we recognize them in when they are fully grown is not the context in which they first began. I have had the privilege of going behind the scenes for some really great innovations that led to millions, hundreds of millions and in a few cases, billions of dollars.

Usually, somewhere off the beaten paths of the offices there is some sort of scrapbook or memorabilia, preserving remnants of the moment when the original idea was scribbled down as it was being born in a moment of spontaneous creative combustion. No fan fare, no investors waiting with checks in hand, no certainty of anything beyond the belief of those in the room at the moment.

There was however a pizza delivery box with enough white space left for the inventor to draw it out before he forgot it. There was a napkin coupled with a yellow-lined tablet paper. There was a short email with an idea and a question mark beside it. There was the the in-flight magazine with notes written vertically in the margins of the article that sparked the idea.

There was what appeared to be a napkin, but upon closer examination turned out to be 2-ply toilet paper with scribblings. I never asked too much on that one. The back of a ticket stub from an entertainment event. The lab notebook with handwritten notes going in every direction on the page, and hundreds of pages on either side of this particular page, all of them filled with nothing as significant as the one idea on this one page. All were ideas born in humble circumstances that grew up to be multi-million or billion dollar companies.

People were employed. Lives were changed. Products were brought to market that helped us communicate better, calculate faster, look better, feel better, keep track of each other. In the moment of the idea’s birth, it wasn’t about the pageantry of a grand vision. It was about a vision of something grand. These were the ideas that grew up to become their industry’s or generation’s “President” of ideas. Ideas that spawned competition, continued innovation, inspiration and hope.

Yet at the moment they arrived, nothing about that moment could distinguish Presidential material from every failed idea or unrealized dream ever conceived by mankind. At that moment, they all looked the same.

Have you ever dismissed an idea’s potential because it was born in humble circumstances? Perhaps it was the meager financial circumstance, perhaps you never saw yourself as the “parent of a President” of any kind - person or idea. Perhaps you could see the Dairy Queen from your house too, and the road to greatness seemed too long from where you were at that moment. Perhaps you just were too focused on the dirty diapers of the early years and lost sight of a more mature version of the idea.

Fortunately, ideas are not children. They have no memory and have developed no scars as a result of your neglect.  Go back and reclaim a discarded idea that may still have relevance in today’s economy. Note the mental dialog that plays in your mind when you have an idea or when you share one with others. Do you qualify it over and over again, virtually apologizing for being afflicted with an original thought? Do you shame it, scold it or ridicule it? Such displays say more about your insecurities than the quality of the idea. You wouldn’t throw away a winning lottery ticket because you were too insecure to see if it was the winning combination, would you? What if you shelved and forgot the idea that would not only invent a product, but possibly invent an entire industry too?

What if your idea could grow up to be President?

This week:

1. Give your ideas an outlet - a journal, a file on your computer, or a webcam file where you just talk into the camera are all easy and adequate options.

2. Listen to what you say about that idea. Don’t say anything about that idea you wouldn’t want your parents to say about you. That may seem too touchy-feely for the hard-core entrepreneurs, but there is a purpose to this rule. Ideas need to earn their right to consume your resources - they need to become investment-worthy. But they don’t need to be called “stupid” or judged based on their heritage. Don’t say, “I don’t know how to come up with good ideas.” Or, “All my ideas are dumb.” Learn to give your ideas a chance and let them prove whether they are investment-worthy. They’ll do that on their own, if you let them.

3. Forget the numbers. Good innovators are prolific innovators. Be prepared to have a lot of ideas that just don’t pass the tests you’ll put them through over time. That is normal for any innovator. If you judge yourself or your ideas based on whether you score a big hit after a few creative moments, you have misplaced expectations. Create in volume. Exercise your creative brain like it is a muscle and keep it in shape.

4. Preserve a sense of wonderment. Not all ideas will make it to the market, and not all ideas in the market should have gone as far as they did (investors make mistakes too, you know). Enjoy the process. Enjoy the wonderment of something that is full of potential and the journey of discovering its full potential.

5. Surround yourself with people who can speak truthfully to you without becoming the inner-cynic voice that kills inspiration and hope. If you are not sure who to turn to, start with the person who is taking action in their own life on their own ideas. Beware of toxic people who love to discuss your ideas but are too immersed in their own fear of life to take action.

After a week, look at how your life is different. I think you will see things differently. You might even see a President in one of your ideas. Keep the pizza box you write it on, it may inspire someone else someday.

What do you do to give your ideas the chance to change your life or someone else’s? Let’s discuss!

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What If Your Idea Grows Up To Be President? 5 Tips

From behind the curtain he emerged, baseball great Willie Keeler. Keeler, who actually died in 1923 at age 50, made a second appearance courtesy of, well, call it the Twilight Zone Online.

His speech? Keeler got right to the first point: “Keep your eyes clear and hit’em where they ain’t.”

When Keeler was alive and one of the greatest batters of his time, his strategy was to hit the ball where the outfielders were not standing, hence the phrase. This time, Willie wasn’t talking about baseball or the next Internet secret sauce. His phrase was not a clever reference to SEO, blog traffic, PPC or even tribes. When he used words like “monster”, “stomper”, “crusher”, “killer” or “annihilator”, the references had nothing to do with the latest strategy for making money on the Internet.

Willie wanted to talk about water.

Why? Because while the herds of bloggers, Internet Marketers, social network strategists, Web 2.0 CEOs and all their attendant investors are following today’s business celebs, a handful - a really powerful handful - of companies and people are about to hit us “where we ain’t” - in our rights to water. Water to drink. Water to live. Water.

While the world’s eyes are on computer screens, click-throughs, downloads and all things electronic, who is watching the water rights or even our fresh water supply? Apparently, a few corporations and power-brokers.

What is the potential outcome? If you agree with Irena Salina, the award-winning independent filmmaker who directed, “Flow: For Love of Water”, the answer is a water cartel of powerful politicians and corporations who use laws and money to preserve a power that strikes at the heart of what we take for granted in Western culture - our right to water. The movie and its experts also bring into focus the notion that water as an abundant resource is unrealistic and unsustainable.

Just how much would your day today change if you were concerned about whether your family would have water? Sure, the problem could occur due to hoarding and control tactics by governments and corporations, but that wouldn’t last long. The collective world village would hunt down the troll who tried that approach and deal with them decisively - even if it were an American troll. But what if the cartel wastes the water or ruins so much of our fresh water supply that it becomes a scarce resource instead of a commodity? And what if they also own the source of what little is left? That could start a war in most any country.

The movie, which I have yet to see and look forward to seeing soon, raises a question I really like, and the promo trailer shows T. Boone Pickens discussing it: “Who owns the water?”

As the herds of humanity march deeper into the Internet in search of financial solace from an unforgiving economy, who is watching the water? Can we really lose our right to water? What innovations would crop up to sidestep that law? If you think the prohibition era spawned the movement of moonshine liquor, what would happen if we developed a collective concern that our right to drink water - any fresh water - wasn’t a given? What if people used access to water as a manipulative tool to coerce mass behavior? What if governments used water rights as a weapon of mass control in matters of foreign policy? I’d like to think that is absurd and we would never allow such insanity.

After all, we did so well with oil independence (insert tongue-in-cheek).

Would the government bail out the thirsty or the company that destroyed the water?

When it comes to social networking, we all know where we are - and where each other “are” too. Thanks to Friendfeed, Brightkite and Twitter, I can know what Chris Brogan likes about his hotel room and which direction it faces, and where he has having his next favorite beverage. We have answered the questions about where we are. The new question is, “where are we ain’t?”

With apologies to Mrs. Mary Ward, my favorite English teacher at Southwest High School….

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Surprise Keynote Speaker Takes Social Networking Speech Off In Left Field

Today, let’s begin with an innovative, tribal way to reduce risk…

We have entered the age of the Tribal Innovative Economy. Seth Godin illuminates the tribal phenomenon in his new and already best-selling book, “Tribes.” He talks about relationships, leadership, and how people are coming together to form powerful groups. If a tribe represents the new alignment of people, relationships and resources, it also represents a realignment of how ideas are processed and turned into products.

Taken a step further, in today’s credit-crunched and cash-starved business environment, it represents a new way of accessing things you don’t have but desperately need. Perhaps you could think of it as an extended stay at a resort where you don’t pay for things in cash, but in beads. Beads are not real money, but you can pay for stuff you need while you are there - as long as you can back it up with money before you check out.

The tribal innovative economy is one that focuses on the exchange of resources that, when combined, can create cash for those involved. It is a work around to the lack of cash and credit, a way to advance your business when others are retreating in fear and financial hunger. In this resort, however, there are no beads, but there are ideas, intellectual properties, intangible assets and physical resources that collectively create economic heat to keep the tribe warm in an otherwise cold economic winter. The Tribal Innovative Economy uses Tribal Trade to compensate for scarce resources.

When the tribe exchanges its resources properly, the risk to all the members is lowered - perceptually and mathematically. The companies in this tribe can experience a positive impact on their valuation in a time when uncertainty and loss are hammering valuations of both public and privately held companies.

If you don’t have cash, it may be time to talk about using your dormant intellectual property to attract the resources you would have spent money to access. Let’s not forget another common term for business – “trade.” Let’s put dollars and cents aside for a minute and think differently. How can you think outside the box and really employ this concept within your tribe?

Like most leaders, you probably look at your cash and your personnel and wonder just how far you are going to have to stretch that money. You might even wonder whether to cut innovation. When people ponder such weighty matters they often ask themselves, “What is the worst-case scenario and am I prepared?” Let’s look at how you might stave off the onset of a worst-case scenario and maintain aggressive innovation.

Leaders who are only looking at their bank accounts are missing out on a big component of their company value. Is it possible that you are cash poor, but innovation rich? Could you use your innovations to barter for resources? Maybe you’re out searching for a few million dollars to get through a tough time, while you have that much in unused innovation (or access to someone else’s unused innovation) sitting on the shelf.

Let’s look at a simple example: This tribe includes two companies. Company A is small, with quite a bit of innovation, but lacking resources to move forward. If Company A does not advance its product in the market and grow its customer base, it risks closing its doors, or perhaps accepting unfavorable terms in its search for capital - assuming it can find any before dying.

Company B is a large company and in need of something fresh to offer its customers. In this economy, Company B is cutting its overhead and doesn’t have the time or interest to begin innovating a new product offering. Budgets are frozen or cut-back. Forecasts are slashed. Executives are concerned, but customers still have needs - albeit different needs than Company B’s current offerings are prepared to fully address.

Company B needs a new way to get their customers attention and meet changing needs. Time and money are in short supply. If Company B fails to act, it risks reduced credibility in the eyes of its customers and its industry as well as loss of revenues. This perpetuates a self-feeding downward spiral of financial performance.

Is there a way that the members of this tribe can work together to mitigate these risks? How would this relationship affect each company’s valuation?

Done right, Company A may not have to trade equity for resources, yet gain access to customers. They win. Company B gets to bring the fresh solution to its customers and increases its customer lifetime value without having to hire and fully fund every aspect of the R&D cycle. They save time and money. They win.

Most importantly, neither had to go the bank, angels or the VC community to get money for the things they didn’t have - they went to the tribe. The tribe provided the resources needed. Was some cash spent? Sure. Depending on the situation, it may not be a totally cash-free proposition. The magic is that each party can effectively say, “Here is how much cash my company is willing to commit. Beyond this amount, we need to pay in tribal currency.” In this case, the tribal currency functions like the beads at the resort. It may be IP-beads, customer access-beads, product development-beads or some other kind. The possibilities are virtually as numerous as the physical and intangible assets any tribal member owns.

Though there is some risk inherent in partnering with another company, and there may be some risk in the underlying IP, both of these companies provide powerful validation to each other. Both are building revenues and brand through this new relationship. Both are saving equity and avoiding increased debt. Both are increasing cash flow. They each move forward and improve their risk profiles significantly. If they have managed the process properly, the risks of the partnership and IP are preferable to the risks of retreat, decline and worse - competitive defeat.

If you are a tribal participant, where can you see the effects of this type of lowered risk in your private company’s valuation? Tribal relationships like this one affect a long list of financial inputs. Chief among them will be Cost of Capital. The tribe can work out many transaction structures to repay each participant for their contribution to the end result.

The result can be a much lowered cost of capital to the tribal companies. Lowered cost of capital translates into many benefits, none perhaps more important than the extension of time. If your cost of capital in a normal economy is 15%, and in today’s economy it would be 25% - or completely unavailable at almost any price you’d be willing to pay - the tribal members can work out ways to pay each other so that the cost of capital on this project is lower than the 15%, in many cases.

The lower that rate, the better their returns, the longer they have extended the time they can live off the venture. Compound a few tribal projects together and what do you have? A lowered cost of capital across the organization’s financial statements, better utilization of resources, better customer experiences, advancement when competitors are retreating, to name a few benefits.

What can you do today to lower risk? What are your tribal needs? What are your tribal resources?

Let’s continue this risk discussion with examples, stories and tips in the member section of RiskCamp. Join us to take a closer look at today’s topic in our RiskCamp Forum. Membership is just $9.95/month, and you’ll get exclusive access to our in-depth discussion of this and other risk topics. Share your ideas and get your questions answered. See you on the other side!

Note: Membership in the RiskCamp Forum is free to members of the eCourse, “The Coming Economic Boom for Bloggers.” For more information, please visit YourProductMade.com.

If you need more comprehensive help with your tribal trade or other creative transactions, please contact me at IP Launch, www.iplaunch.com.

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How to Use Your Tribe’s Innovation to Reduce Risk

1. Tribal Market: Member IP & Resource Exchange - Located within the member forum on “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers,” this interactive platform allows members to present offers and needs to each other, then follow up with each other privately.

If you have some great intellectual property but lack the resources to bring it to market, this is where you can ask for those resources. If you have some great resources, but you wish to attract innovation you don’t currently have so that you can advance your business, this is where you look to find it. It is about building your tribe and using unconventional currency to “purchase” what you need. Call it bartering, call it trading, call it joint-venturing. It’s about getting things you need without being limited to cash as your only method of purchasing.

We don’t take fees for offering this. There are no brokerage fees or registration fees for posting. The feature is for members only, so you have to be a member of the eCourse to participate.

2. RiskCamp, a “must have” new series on risk by Michelle Monroe. This will appear twice weekly. Unlike our other posts, the discussion and back-and-forth on this topic is held in a private forum. The RiskCamp Forum membership is $9.95/month, much less than the consulting fees you’d usually have to pay for this information.

Members of “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers” automatically receive RiskCamp Forum access for FREE when they enroll.

Finally, as promised to members of “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers”, we have uploaded new content to respond to inputs we received from the questionnaires and direct feedback from the members. We are now planning the next additions, and it is exciting to be able to direct the eCourse content towards the specific needs/goals of the members.

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Tribal Market: Member IP & Resource Exchange and RiskCamp Forum

Good news: Yes. There is a cure. What is it?

Rights. Rights to innovations, rights to their revenue, rights to their territories, rights to their online use and off-line use, rights to their improvements, rights to rent them, trade them or sell them. Think about it from this perspective: The prestigious Mass High Tech Awards on Oct 30 honored some of the most impacting innovating heavyweights in our society. They described this time in our history as “the innovation economy.”

If we truly live in the “innovation economy,” then rights to innovation are the new gold standard by which you should and can measure your true economic stability. Rights create predictable cash flow and cash flow provides stability.

But to the average person, the subject of innovation rights is intimidating, complicated and perhaps even boring. Those perceptions are symptoms of “1980s-itis”, a horrible affliction that can strike anyone regardless of age, gender, race, education or nationality.

Authorities estimate 1980s-itis is responsible for many unnecessary and otherwise entirely avoidable corporate bankruptcies as well as personal financial languishing characteristically found in its victims.

The reality is this: innovation drives our economy. Bad innovation, like Credit Default Swaps that cut the knees out from under Wall Street, can hurt us. But good innovation is what drove the free world economy from WWII until now. Innovation is what will pull our nation and the world out of the economic ditch.

Just look at what is happening on the Internet. There is so much demand for content that entire industries have emerged to provide ghost-written content for emails, sales pages, articles, blogs, and pretty much every venue on which the written word appears. The owners of the venues cannot keep up with the global demand for digital content by themselves, so they staff-up writers or outsource.

Right now, there are more innovations than there are channels to release them. If you think the global demand for innovation is in a recession, think again. Nothing could be further from the truth. Innovations meet needs - or at least perceived needs. Regardless of how economists differ on many aspects of our current condition, virtually all agree on one point: there is no shortage of money in the economy. Rather, there is a crisis of confidence among buyers at every level that’s causing that money to be sidelined. That money is sidelined by individual decisions.

What’s the message from buyers? “I’m not spending money on anything I don’t need, because I am not confident in the future.”

Simultaneously, they have stronger needs than ever.

1. Companies need to get products to market that customers will buy, even in this economy.
   
2. Customers need solutions to income loss, job instability, home foreclosure and rising costs.

What will companies and customers ultimately turn to in order to meet these needs? Innovation. Maybe it’s the innovation that today is sitting on a company’s shelf because management overlooked it a year ago, but today it would provide economic super-fuel to their bank account.

Maybe it’s the innovation the guy next door has been rumbling around in his mind as something that “somebody should do someday,” but he doesn’t have the time or understanding to make it come to life. Maybe it’s the innovation that never got any traction in another country, but in your country it would be an economic hit.

I could go on, because the hiding places of valuable innovation are legion. The point is that valuable innovations are all around you. Rights to valuable innovations can be obtained and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand it or make it fun or make it insanely profitable. You just need to lose the 1980s-itis.

What can you do to combat 1980s-itis and unnecessary financial hardship?

1. Start shifting to an abundance mentality. The scarcity mentality focuses on what does not exist. The abundance mentality is the only place you’ll find solutions, because it is where opportunity exists. It’s not an attitude, it’s an awareness - a reality of facts that assaults the negativity that a scarcity mentality creates. Innovation is plentiful right now. Innovators are dying to get your attention and markets are hungry for solutions. Old style product sales are hurting, but there are massive economic channels available right now to those who will take action. And the skills needed to build revenue from innovation can be learned by just about anyone.

2. Take charge and take action. You need a plan of attack to jump start your success and keep you from mistakes you don’t have time or money to make. If you are not sure about how to make a plan, what it should consist of and where to find great innovation, or even what to do with it once you find it, then take advantage of our multimedia membership community and eCourse entitled, “The Coming Economic Boom For Bloggers.” You’ll learn how to make a plan to attract, capture and monetize innovation rights by taking action through blogs, and we’ll mentor you along the way. You can view our short video (1:34) and judge for yourself whether this is for you.

3. Expand your network. Economic hard times require all of us to reach out and focus on the needs of others in order to ensure our own needs are met. It’s called the Law of Attraction. That “law” is just as powerful as the law of gravity today. Right now, the value of ideas and relationships are the only things going up. Invest in both and enjoy the returns on your investment. Surrounding yourself with talented, positive people who initiate and communicate will be wind in the sails of your innovation ship.

While everyone is focusing on what they are losing, whether it’s stock value, homes or jobs, remember your cure is to own the gold in our innovation economy. You can own the rights to innovations.

CLICK HERE To See More Info On Owning Rights To Innovations

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The Innovative Cure For Economic Stress

My son Luke when he first learned of stalls. He’s learning the business applications as a young entrepreneur now.

If I were to take a poll that asked people to define their understanding of the word “stall,” I venture to guess that most responses would be some version of, “a loss of forward motion.” Except for the pilots. To a pilot the word “stall” has an entirely different meaning. Every CEO, every professional blogger, every entrepreneur or innovator should take a lesson from pilots and their view of the word “stall.” If you get this concept down right, your chances of economic survival go up exponentially.

To a pilot, the word “stall” carries more meaning than just the loss of forward motion. It means the rules of flying have just changed, and if the pilot doesn’t adapt to the new rules, the plane will crash. The parallel points between stalls in planes and stalls in business are profound, yet very easy to remember. Here are two basic similarities every business person, blogger or innovator should know about stalls. I follow up those two items with 7 steps you can take to recover from your own stall.

1. What was once good and helpful will now kill you, your business or your blog. You already know that if a pilot wants to make the plane go up, he/she pulls back on the yoke. Pulling back makes the plane go up. Pushing forward on the yoke makes the plane go down. A stall typically occurs when the pilot is pulling back on the yoke for too long or too much. What was once the best idea or approach (pulling back on the yoke to get the plane off the ground) has now become risky behavior and will quickly move to deadly behavior, if not remedied. Businesses and blogs go through the same thing. The actions required to get a business or blog off the ground can become toxic to the continued growth or even deadly to its existence if continued. It is crucial to understand that just because something was at one time a safe and good thing doesn’t mean it is right now. It may be the worst thing.

2. The fix is counter-intuitive. In a plane, when the pilot pulls back too long or too much on the yoke, the air will stop flowing over the wings (the wings become almost perpendicular to the airflow) and when the stall happens, the plane immediately goes from pointing straight up to pointing straight down. The best roller coasters on earth don’t even get close to the fear this can evoke in a person. Everything in you screams to pull back more. You want the plane to go up. It is not going up. It is starting to dive and you feel yourself becoming perpendicular to the ground below. You tell yourself that pulling back makes it go up, right?  Pull back is what the untrained mind screams. However, the actual solution is just the opposite. You have to push forward on the yoke. Pushing forward gets the wings in position to receive the airflow and restore stability of the plane. But there is nothing instinctive about this - you have to rely on intellect and training to override what your body is telling you. Otherwise, you die.

When a business venture or blog starts to stall, it can be scary and frustrating. It is natural to default to old behaviors, strategies, tactics and resources that once propelled you forward. It is easy to fall into the trap of, “We used to do _______ and get good results, therefore we must not be doing ______well enough now or we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Be careful you are not “pulling back on the yoke” while the plane is diving. What got you to the top won’t necessarily get you out of this mess. It may even speed up the bad events you are trying to avoid.

Andy Grove, CEO of Intel wrote about the business version of this dynamic in his book “Only The Paranoid Survive.” He calls it a Strategic Inflection Point, the point where what once worked dissolves and new solutions replace it so that the business can move ahead.

Here are seven tips to help you navigate your stall or Strategic Inflection Point and come out strong on the other side:

1. Don’t assign judgment. This is a tough one because it is human nature to blame yourself, someone else, some circumstance, etc. for the stall. But that sort of thinking clouds otherwise good judgment and does little to create a real solution. It just promotes a victim mindset which can take on its own momentum. All businesses or organizations go through stalls or Strategic Inflection Points. It is natural as growing up. When my son outgrew his clothes I did not scold him, punish him or judge him. That would have been ridiculous. Same thing here. Let it be what it is, it is a part of growing.

If you are a leader of a company or any form of business team/group, there will be plenty of people around you pointing fingers. You won’t lead them to safer ground by pointing better than the rest. Detach from a sense of judgment and listen to what the market is telling you about the new rules under which it wishes to operate. Keep your emotions in check throughout the process.

2. Lead with vision. The view out of the plane’s cockpit window is instructive here. Just before the stall it is all blue sky and gorgeous - complete freedom with no worries. In less than five seconds you are staring at the tops of buildings, there is little to no sky to be seen and the vision is pretty much of imminent death and destruction. If you are a leader you have to be the source of vision, because people will start to focus on what’s not going right, who is to blame, etc. They have lost the ability to row the boat, so they begin to rock it. People need vision. They need to know this difficulty has an ending that doesn’t include their financial or career destruction. Lead with vision.

3. Expect some relationships to change. If you think leadership is lonely at the top, wait until you hit a Strategic Inflection Point or stall. People around you tend to self-organize into three groups:

(1) The group that will take decisive action to help you and help everyone else get out of the stall;

(2) The group that will use this opportunity to overtake you, replace you, discredit you, or some way fulfill an agenda that has usually been brewing for a long time before the stall; and

(3) The group that can be influenced by either of the other groups. They can turn negative after you thought they were on your team. They can go positive when they’ve had enough of the toxic negativity of those who wish to exploit others. The way those relationships line up during and after a stall never seem to match up with predictions made before the stall.

You can pretty much ignore what you are being told by these groups, as it concerns their view of their position. Focus on the actions of those around you. Actions speak louder than words. The people in group 1 don’t need a lot of words to convince you, and the people in group 2 only use words as head fakes to take you off your guard. The people in group 3 will end up where their character takes them. Your persuasive words may just put off the inevitable where they are concerned.

I really liked the guest post on Problogger last weekend about the psychology of blogging. It did a great job of explaining that the more successful you become, the more of a target you become too. Even the online world is not immune to this part of human nature.

4. Question your assumptions. Stalls happen when productive behaviors become destructive ones. What have you assumed would help your business, your blog, your life because at one point in time it was productive? Have the rules of “flying” your business or your blog changed? Do you need to do things that are counter-intuitive to the way you have always done them? Don’t let your fear stop you. Change is hard, but not as hard as crashing.

5. Take decisive action. For a pilot, there are straight-forward actions that must occur almost simultaneously: push yoke forward, full power, step on opposite rudder, flaps up.

Business translation:

• Replace outdated approaches with new ones that work (push yoke forward)
• Don’t stop momentum - give it all you’ve got (full power)
• Don’t let the organization determine its own direction - you lead it the direction it needs to go (step on opposite rudder)
• Get rid of anything/anyone that is a drag on the venture. Sometimes a stall can be caused by too much weight in the back of the plane or flaps that are too extended - lose the drag or the plane may crash! (Flaps up).

6. Network with other leaders. I can’t overstate this one. When I was getting my pilots license in ‘89, I remember talking to a jet pilot just minutes after I soloed in a small Cessna. He asked me if I was scared when I did it. I told him “no”. He said, “Not me, man. I scared out of my mind when I soloed.” His honesty was a bit convicting to me, because I was trying to be tough when in fact I really was scared. He had thousands of hours, I had about 15 and he was being more transparent. Network and learn from those around you who have already been where you are now. You will likely learn tips you can use, but you will almost certainly regain the emotional grounding you need.

7. Remember you can survive and thrive. Pilots practice stalls and stall recoveries so much that they can do them within very tight parameters stipulated by the FAA just to become a licensed pilot. With practice and experience, a stall is only as scary as a kiddie ride, not a roller coaster. Innovators, leaders and CEOs survive and thrive through economic stalls and Strategic Inflection Points every week. You can make it through this tough time, and you can go on to new heights with your business, your blog, your life.

Now go do it. Here are a few questions to help you get started.

1. What have you assumed about your business or blog that may no longer be a correct assumption?
2. What relationships are changing? Can you see the three groups forming yet?
3. What kind of vision is needed now? What will inspire you and those who depend on you? How is that different than the picture out your current cockpit window?
4. What judgments should you release?
5. What lessons can you learn from that will make future stalls less painful?

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Can You Make Your Blog Or Business Fly?

1. Invest in people and their ideas. Stock price can be broken down into two broad categories: (A) The part of the price that comes from tangible assets; and (B) The part of the price that comes from intangible assets. The first part is book value and that refers to all the brick and mortar assets, such as equipment, property, etc. Book value makes up the smallest portion of most stock prices, even in the biggest companies that have vast physical holdings.

Intangible assets can be broadly described as the value of the people, their ideas and all the contracts they put together related to executing those ideas. This is where the vast majority of stock price comes from - the confidence the public market has in a company’s people and its ideas, and the ability of that company to execute the ideas in a way that makes financial sense.

When Buffet was out of the market saying it was overpriced, he was saying the leaders of public companies cannot convert their ideas into cash at the level required to support the high stock price. Now he is back in the market and encouraging you and me to go there too. Why? Because you buy low and sell high, and Buffet believes that the talent and ideas in his selected companies will generate financial results that are greater than than their stock price reflects today. He’s investing in the intangible assets. He is investing in people and their ideas.

Buffet appears to believe that innovation and leadership will pull America out of this recession and he is putting his money where his mouth is on the subject.

2. Now is the time to innovate and execute. The temptation to crawl in a hole may be profound, but now is the time to innovate and execute the plan for the innovation in a way that makes financial sense.

What is your innovation? What is your plan? Got a team around you? Now is the time, according to The Oracle of Omaha.

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Warren Buffet Investing In People & Their Ideas - Are You?