“We either focus on what we want to happen or what we are afraid will happen and either way we’ll be right.”

He ended his session with us by reciting this quote that’s worth sharing:

I AM THE DECISIVE ELEMENT

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture, or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de –escalated, and a person humanized or dehumanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.  If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

Goethe

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I saw my first Apple II when I was a child visiting my friend who moved away to Philly. His dad programmed on it. I put a 5 1/4″ floppy in one drive that ran the OS and another in the one that ran the fun.

My first computer was a Commodore 64. I got my first Mac, an SE, at a computer store next to the mall the day of my High School graduation. I didn’t want to leave it to go to the ceremony that afternoon.

It still sits in my office with a 3.5″ disc hanging out.  I tried to turn it on a few years ago after grabbing it out of my parent’s attic. It booted up but started smoking from the dust inside it.

I kept 8 of my old macs. I keep the first iPod on my bookshelf along with the first iPhone.

My friend who worked with you at Pixar would limit me to one ‘Steve Jobs’ story each time we hung out.

I started and run my company on a Mac.

I was on cloud 9 the day I saw you deliver your keynote for the iMac. You gave us a preview copy of Time magazine with it on the cover as we left. I ran into Woz on the way out of the Moscone. He signed it.

Even though I never met you, I had a visceral feeling when I saw the tweet on my iPhone of your passing.

Insanely grateful,

glen.

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I'm not delusional by @hugh @sxsw

Last week, I proudly announced to the @mojointeractive team  that we were included on the 2011 list of most democratic workplaces. It was just two or three years ago when it all felt different. The recession was beating on us at every angle. At that moment in front of the team though, that pressure felt like a million years ago.

Managing through this recession, I learned to ask for more help from our team. The challenge was too difficult to tackle with just a few key management people, even extremely talented management people ; )

We needed everyone’s help. Everyone would be a part of the solution. Co-creating our future.

We became Imaginauts… kick-ass Imaginauts building some incredibly great new products.

We’re doing it together. Inspiring each other.

Inspiration comes in different packages, and I’d like to highlight some of mine over the past few years:

• Bob Kodzis – Thanks for all our talks and your coaching. You recharge my batteries.
  • Orbiting the Giant Hairball – must read for anyone looking to get untangled and revitalized.
• Nilofer Merchant – Appreciate the hikes, the encouragement, the interest, and, of course, the @WorldBlu introduction. #thankful #Vistage
  • The New How – my business language is literally built from this book (murderboarding™). guidebook to building a collaborative learning culture of innovation.
• Krupali Tejura – Thanks for inspiring me with the work you do and how you share and express it with the rest of us. #TEDActive
  • Krupali’s Blog – humbling, heartwarming and funny. a beautiful read.
• Team Mojo – Thank you for being a great group of collaborators. You drive me to be better every day as we hold each other accountable and bring solutions that inspire each other.
  • Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – the title says it all. powerful knowledge from neuroscience and behavioral science.

Thank you for helping get to the great place of today.

Secret ingredient.

glen.

ps – Over the next several months, I’m so looking forward to showcase our best work ever in 13 years of our crazy Internet adventure. We’re starting with the re-launch of home base – http://mojointeractive.com

pps – Excited and honored to speak about Mojo’s efforts to build transparent accountability into a democratic workplace next month with fellow leaders attending WorldBlu Live.

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Sunset at Burning Man

As you enter Black Rock City, the greeter at the gate gives you a big hug and says, Welcome Home.

It’s an apt greeting as the journey is both physically difficult and mentally hard to achieve. Though after a week surviving the elements in the remote Black Rock Desert — about 2-3 hours north of Reno – where disconnecting from everything that is your normal day is modus operandi, you do truly feel in another world, one you definitely would like to call home.

I find Burning Man being about what you bring with you and what you leave behind. Gone is the stress of your job, any thoughts of money, and your roles in the default world. What you bring with you is all the good stuff and that becomes magic on the playa.

You are just you, whatever you want that to be.

The creative energy flows through everything, from the giant art installations, to the vehicles registered at the Department of Mutant Vehicles, to the music beating like a collective heartbeat, to our individual outfits that beautifully show you.

The earth and sky are no different. From the stark temperatures and landscape of the desert emanates creativity like no other.  Double-rainbows, warming sunrises and my favorite, Dusk… The Magic Hour, are nature’s gift to the community.

I climbed atop our RV last year to take in the final hour of the day. The music playing from the different camps providing a mashup of sounds that gave an eloquent soundtrack to the moment. The energy of the evening was building in everything. Arms stretched out and my eyes closed, I took a deep breath and smiled.

Few thinking benches can top this one.

The man burns in 29 days )*(

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Imaginauts brainstorming during Mojo Innovation Day

“It’s grist for the mill of personal and group reflection in an often maddening world–a mirror to help break the bounds of organizational conformity. As such, it’s best in the hands of leaders and followers committed to introspection, creative expression and constant, never ending improvement.” — Orbiting the Giant Hairball

To say the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball was an influence on Mojo Innovation Day – our bottom-up collaboration event — is an understatement. It was inspiration.

After 24 hrs and five innovative five-minute presentations, clearly its inspiration was felt by everyone @mojointeractive

I’d be remiss to tip our hand regarding our future solutions by telling you about the projects presented during our day of imagination & collaboration. I do want to share with you some feedback.

After two weeks, I asked everyone to consider the process they had experienced with a bit of time for perspective. What did you learn?

These are two responses…

I have to comment on some feedback I had from friends in other industries regarding my informing them about our Innovation days here at Mojo…  the automatic feedback was Amazed/Awe and Envy…  This of course opened up a conversation door about each industry they worked in, their bosses, the mood and morale at each respective office…   All said they truly admired your creative encouragement.  Thank you Glen…  Hopefully we will see more Innovative days…  Every Day!!!  Thanks for opening our minds.  My Mind.

First of all, I was very surprised at my reaction to the news that we would be pulled away from our everyday tasks.  I secretly went to my supervisor and asked to be excused because I was far too busy!  I am surprised at how closed-minded I’d become as a result of our tightly woven hairball.  I was told that I would be allowed to do what I felt I needed to do.  The energy that came from you (Glen) made me want to participate and I was able to rearrange my schedule very easily.

When we were told the “assignment”; that we were to create something with no “rules”, only guidelines, that would benefit our visitors and advertisers, I realized how uncreative my thinking had become.  It was almost as if I had to wake up a part of my brain that I hadn’t been using.  Basically, it seemed as though my thinking was truly in a rut and had to be forced to go outside of it.

Watching the process over the next day and a half was also pleasantly enlightening.  It was great to see how people branched off into their groups.  There was no need to discuss where each group would meet.  Each group seemed to naturally migrate to their own spot.  (No committee was even needed to determine what part of the building each group would get!)

I wasn’t privy to other groups, but within our own, it was really awesome.  We had a natural harmony.  There was no assignment of tasks, no leader was designated.  Each person seemed to automatically assume the tasks she was best suited for.  We brainstormed.  We allowed each other to say whatever came to mind without being censored or judged.  We gave each other honest feedback.  Normally, in a competition, I personally am very focused on winning.  At some point during the exercise, I remember consciously thinking, even if our idea doesn’t win, I want to come up with the very best idea that we can and I want it to truly be something that will benefit our clients, our visitors and our company.  And I really think we did that.  I was proud of our idea and of our team.

I was exhausted when we were finished.  I think that’s indicative of how set in my thinking I had become.  It took a lot of energy to think outside of my box…but at the end of the day, I’m really glad that I was a part of it.

My thanks to everyone for your courage. You were brave. You were Imaginauts.

Getting ready for the big reveal: 5 minute Innovation Presentations

Special thanks to Bob Kodzis whose generosity and honesty has been an amazing guide. I loved the book, clearly. Thanks for the gift.

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Brainstorming during Mojo Innovation Day

24 hours, well technically 26 hours. That’s the sprint for Mojo Innovation Day.

The teams @mojointeractive are in the final hour of 24 hours of imagination and collaboration. What they will present at the end has been hush-hush. Each group is playing its cards close to its proverbial vest.

Just over a week ago, I posed the question to everyone: What would you do to make a killer product or solution for our customers?

Yesterday we kick-started it all.

No rules, just some guides:

1. Form your own team #cross-functional
2. Showcase your idea @ 4pm mañana
3. 5 min presentation + a few min of questions
4. Benefiting our customers
5. Everyone has a vote
6. You’re an imaginaut
7. Be brave
8. Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license

Being the Chief Imaginaut, I didn’t participate on a team but rather observed the interactions, the brainstorming and the team dynamics — all truly inspiring.

As the final hour counts down, each team has limited my access. I’m excited and ready to be dazzled.

More soon…

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Googleplex

This shot is actually taken down the street from the main Googleplex at their new campus where we gathered for the third day of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference. It was the unconference day — a vibrant, creative day of sharing and learning with 200 fascinating people who were able to make this last-minute additional day (arguably the best day of the conference).

After lunch at one of the famous Google cafeterias, I sat on this bench and dangled my feet over the edge. Swinging back and forth over the water, my legs kept the time as I soaked up some sun — a perfect thinking bench for reflection after the weekend’s journey.

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The Lone Star of Texas

Gazing at the stars on the far reaches of the universe as they warped past my head, down deep in the most colorful nebulas, I was clearly overwhelmed. I was in the middle of one of the most awe-inspiring shows of my life and I was in the most peculiar of places for such an event — The Bob Bullock Texas History Museum.

I was in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest and in the museum to see the public premier of Hubble 3D in its IMAX theatre.

Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and featuring Michael “Mass” Massimino – the Astronaut who upgraded Hubble on the final mission to the space telescope, this absolute must-see movie glides you through a never-before-seen 3D journey so far deep into space and with such detail you will undoubtedly be stunned. It will change your view of our world, and it will change the way you view the value of our space program.

It literally brought tears to my eyes. That much I told the director during the Q&A session following the screening.

Then, still sporting the smile after meeting “Mass” – a hero to humanity (the space-geek in me had to have him autograph my SXSW badge), I sat under The Lone Star of Texas in front of the museum. The magic hour of twilight was just beginning and the sky was starting to radiate those deep colors of the evening. I looked up as far as I could imagine.

This was a good thinking bench.

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Operation: Tile Me Beautiful

The office is a buzz @mojointeractive as the staff walks to each person’s workspace with the eye and questions of someone strolling through an art show.

What material did you use? How’d you do that? That is so creative.

This wasn’t an art show of course. It was Monday morning at Mojo Interactive HQ in Orlando, Fla. However, this was unlike your standard office Monday.

Today was the due date for Operation: Tile Me Beautiful.

It was a month ago when I changed my title from CEO to Chief Imaginaut with the expressed goal of injecting a new burst of creativity and imagination into our organization. As my first order of business, I announced a contest to decorate a ceiling tile (or multiple tiles, as many did). For each tile designed, I would donate $20 to the Red Cross for Haiti relief (and now for the Red Cross to assist with this weekend’s earthquake in Chile).

As a chief executive a good part of my job is looking at metrics to identify trends and make decisions accordingly on strategy and resource allocation, but not everything that drives a successful organization can or should be measured.

There is an intangible energy you feel when you’re in a business. It’s the secret sauce behind meaningful success.

Today that energy is bursting. The creativity each person brought to the project is truly inspiring.

And as we walk the halls bustling to meetings in the days and months to come or take a visitor on a tour, each and every person will have their unique personal reminder of the imagination and creativity we all have inside us.

What’s inside of you?

Update: March 3, 2010

Photos of tiles created for Tile Me Beautiful can be found on Mojo Interactive’s Facebook page

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Happiness talks are a crowd favorite at TED, which is probably why Daniel Kahneman, the founder of behavioral economics kicked off the event with his questions:

“Are you happy in your life?” or “Are you happy with your life?”

You can read the full post here, and as of today, TED has made the talk available to watch. Highly recommended. Definitely a Top 5 and probably my favorite TED 2010 talk.

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