Sessions
Conference Schedule
12:00 pm – Registration begins
12:30 – 12:45 – Speed Networking
12:45 – 2:00 – Lunch keynote speaker, Seth Kahan
2:15 – 3:15 – Breakout Sessions #1 (3 sessions offered)
3:30 – 4:30 – Breakout Sessions #2 (3 sessions offered)
4:30 – 5:00 – Finale
5:00 – 6:30 – SchmoozeFest Networking Reception
Lunch Keynote
Storytelling, Street Theater and the Art of Business Transformation
Presented by Seth Kahan
Storytelling and theater are as old as humanity, and as powerful as the tides of human emotion. Seth Kahan, an independent consultant who specializes in leading big-impact change, will tell how he wields these ancient and robust artforms to create change that is embraced by stakeholders resulting in wide scale transformation. Drawing on his experience in organizations large and small, Kahan will provide tools, templates, and techniques that he has put to work successfully at the World Bank, Prudential Retirement, Shell Oil, NASA, and the Center for Association Leadership among others. Seth choreographed, directed, and performed street theater 1978-1988, and was a professional storyteller 1989-1995. 1989-2002 he worked at the World Bank where he first applied these skills as a member of the team that received international recognition for their implementation of Knowledge Management. He helped organize think-tanks on applied storytelling with Disney, Harvard, Eastman Chemical, World Bank, Ernst & Young, Lucent Technologies, Hewlett Packard, and the International Storytelling Center. He is the author of Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, which documents much of his work and techniques. More info at GettingChangeRight.com.
Breakout sessions
Ignite! features six exciting and content-packed sessions to boost your business acumen and give you a creative advantage in the market place. Each session presents a different aspect of how creativity and innovation can used in business. All sessions are highly informative and relate to creativity in business in the categories of creative communications, creative leadership and creative thinking. Mix and match, and let Ignite! inspire you to new heights of innovation and success!
Breakout Sessions #1 (2:15 – 3:15)
POP! Your Messaging and Marketing: Create Ways to Attract and Keep Customers
Presented by Sam Horn
Category: Creative Communications
In tough times and in a crowded marketplace, no one can afford to blend in. Blending is for Cuisinarts, not for entrepreneurs, businesses, non-profits and artists — you’ve got to stand out to succeed! This rollicking “Intellectual Disneyland” session is teeming with “I can use that today” ideas you can employ to identify your USP (Unique Strategic Positioning) so you and your business become one-of-a-kind vs. one-of-many.
This session includes:
- Using the W9 Form to crystallize your uniqueness so you don’t look and sound like everyone else
- Creating “Have ‘em at hello!” communications that capture and keep customer interest
- Crafting clear and compelling elevator introductions that have customers begging for more
Innovative Leadership: Principles and Practices of Improvisational Theater for Enhanced Leadership Performance
Presented by Michelle James
Category: Creative Leadership
Today’s world requires leaders and entrepreneurs to work within ambiguity and uncertainty and still confidently move forward – just like improvisers. Effective leaders and improvisers both have to make spur of the moment decisions, synthesize information, incorporate new information, make others look good, innovate, and serve the larger mission…all on the spot! Improvisational skills help us break habitual patterns and increase core leadership competencies such as adaptability, resilience and thinking on your feet while under pressure. Improvisation takes us into the present moment where new possibilities open up – which leads to new results. In this highly experiential workshop, participants will explore the principles and practices of improvisational theater to enhance leadership performance by getting past the inner critic, taking “risks” in a safe setting, and going from either/or to yes-and thinking. Note: this is not improv performance and no improv experience is required.
This session includes:
- Accessing your own creativity and inventiveness
- Responding to situations in new and innovative ways
- Using the unexpected as opportunity
Get Over It and Get Creative
Presented by Joan Bryna Michelson
Category: Creative Thinking
To drive innovation, you have to have a diversity of ideas, skill sets, and perspectives – and unleash it. However, when you unleash this diversity together, it often clashes. The secret is that this friction can be exactly what fuels the creative engine. Most entities strive for consensus, but consensus dilutes the quality of the outcome. What is consensus? Lowest common denominator! The “magic” – the computer, the iPod, the electric car – resides in the land of “outliers.” How do you tap into it? This session will feature practical and specific techniques for tapping into the well-spring of talent that companies can access to help them drive breakthroughs and game-changing innovation.
The session includes:
- Learning specific techniques for building teams
- Understanding creative ways for hatching new ideas
- Developing a culture that breeds creativity
Breakout Sessions #2: 3:30-4:30
Improvising Communication and Boosting Creativity in the Workplace
Presented by Bruce Nelson and Jimi Kinstle of Creativity & Associates
Category: Creative Communications
Battling creative blocks at work? In this experiential session, Creativity & Associates will guide you through a series of engaging activities designed to help free up creativity, enhance listening and communication skills and develop flexible thinking. You will also explore storytelling and the core improvisation principle “yes, and” to cultivate a sense of letting go and enhance creative inspiration and collaboration.
This session includes:
- Developed alternative listening skills to better relate with clients and coworkers
- Increased awareness of differences in how individuals function for enhanced collaboration
- Increased ability to see creative possibilities
Get Sparked: Finding Value in Ideas and Ideas of Value
Presented by Julie Lenzer Kirk
Category: Creative Thinking
Some people have trouble coming up with valuable ideas while others suffer from Shiny Penny Hell – that moment when the many great ideas you have paralyze you into inaction. In this interactive workshop, you will walk through proven processes to unlock the creativity within to come up with potential business ideas – to get out of the Shiny Penny Hell. You will also explore the process of evaluating ideas to recognize the ones of real value. As a result, you will change the way you look at your options, perceive possible innovations all around and identify opportunities that address your needs while leveraging your strengths.
This session includes:
- Learning how to build a creative work environment and processes for innovation
- Exploring sources of innovation: where do ideas come from? How do you get them?
- Understanding high-level criteria for sifting through the ideas to pick the good ones
- Discussing required criteria for putting an idea into action to get desired results
Practical Brilliance: Solution-Discovery Techniques at Work
Presented by Dr. Win Wenger
Category: Creative Thinking
This session will introduce you to cutting edge tools and techniques you can use at work and in life. You will have the opportunity to put them to work on real issues in real time. You will explore easy-to-learn, easy-to-use whole brain methods for creative discovery leading to new solutions, accessing deeper levels of creativity, inventiveness and innovation; moving forward in any situation; and using more of your natural creative abilities anytime. Bring your problems to solve or your visions to create to work on in real time with one of the world’s most prolific thinkers and published authors in the field of applied creativity and creative problem solving.
This session includes:
- Creating new visions and directions
- Moving through creative blocks
- Developing more and better solutions and opportunities to accomplish your business goals
Finale
Leadership Theatre
Performed by Synergy In Action: A Playback Theatre Co.
Leadership Theatre brings the heart and soul of improv into the workplace. A Leadership Theatre performance provides business people with a way to embrace the diversity and change that is sometimes swirling around them. Whether interacting on the job, or in our communities we each have our own set of beliefs and ideas, shaped by our experiences in life. These are the things that define us- and sometimes separate us. Through this interactive story telling method we can eliminate the “us-them” mentality and collectively envision new solutions to old problems, celebrate our common challenges and strengths, and collectively Ignite our drive into the future.
Be prepared to:
- Gain a greater insight and confidence in your own decision making
- Experience an increased openness and authenticity with your peers
- Leave feeling refreshed and reenergized