[Music]
I want to take you back to school
let’s pick fifth grade
let’s pick quiz day so are you ready for
the pop quiz okay feet flat on the floor
get out your number two pencil and you
know the rules you know the rules of
school one right answer the answers in
the back of the teachers edition keep
your eyes on your own paper no
collaboration right okay so it’s time
for the quiz it’s a very simple quiz you
actually had this in fifth grade how
many squares are there I want you to do
this by yourself with your feet flat on
the floor and I’m going to put on a
little music to tell you when you’re
supposed to stop trying to come up with
the answer how many squares are there
and let you know that blue screen that’s
a rectangle rectangles are not squares
squares have four equal sides so count
up how many squares you see
and if you see one answer hey why don’t
you look for a second right answer if
you hear the person next to you say
something maybe listen
[Music]
okay so everybody saw us 16 right okay
21 hands up 21 25 or 26 30 okay the
answer in the back of the book is 30 and
the in 10th grade so you’re feeling
really good I’m smarter than a fifth
grader in 10th grade you actually had
the same exercise but you learn a
formula for it to sum of 4 squared plus
3 squared plus 2 squared plus 1 squared
I think it was called factorial so the
answer is 30 in all the textbooks 5
years ago
I was challenged by a 9 year old girl
who said mr. Thompson 30 is only correct
on paper when you’re using a PowerPoint
presentation all the lines that they are
composed of pixels and pixels are square
I said wait a minute
I’ve never seen a pixel on the computer
screen she said no miss Thompson you got
to magnify your screen by 400% and turn
the line on an angle and then another
kid said you’ve got a MacBook Air don’t
you and I go yes said well then there’s
3d capability really I didn’t know my
macbook air had 3d and he goes well then
how many squares are there so I emailed
my friend at NASA and we spent a fair
amount of time but we got into a full
converse there was millions my point is
for 30 years
we’ve been thinking it was 30 so what
you just experienced is what I call
brainstorming the guidelines of
brainstorming are to always look for a
second right answer and then a third
right answer and then a fourth right
answer and the way I do that is by using
the words from from improv from second
city and when I come up with an idea I
go
I’m building on it also always looking
at your problem from a different
perspective than it was handed to you
I had a hospital asked me to brainstorm
patient flow through their emergency
department I’m singing hmm what’s my
different perspective how would a NASCAR
pit crew redesign an emergency
department so I went to pit crew camp
learn the strategy and now have
conducted that brainstorm for hospitals
all over the world so you see my point
if we didn’t think like a pit you got it
look at it from a different perspective
the other guideline of brainstorming is
when you have a setback I always say
what’s right about it because there’s
your flip there’s your pivot and so what
I do for a living is I run brain storms
I try to help people see ideas that have
been I think staring them in the face
you’ve got the idea you just need to
flip to go and look at it from a
different perspective
I called them blind spots and I want to
give you my favorite example of a blind
spot however I’m gonna have to take you
back to 1994 and Crystal Pepsi Pepsi did
a focus group and they determined that
what America wanted was a clear drink
actually it was called water but they
decided to make Crystal Pepsi so it
tasted like Pepsi but was clear and the
slogan was you’ve never seen a taste
like this that’s true because Homer
Simpson called it invisible Cola Jon
Stewart called it crystal meth Pepsi and
Pepsi pulled it off in the market and
asked for a brainstorm said hey we need
a new drink so I want to show you the
principles of brainstorming to set back
okay we went clear I said well why don’t
we sell water and give it an Italian
name and there you go we will never sell
water
and I said well tell me then why did
people like this clear if it wasn’t for
the world they go well it was in a blind
taste taste test
they Pepsi did a blind taste test of a
drink on a color people don’t drink
sodas with blindfolds on so that whole
thing is bogus
so okay you got to look at it from a
different perspective
my favorite perspective is in the Dao de
Jing the Sun rises the Sun sets
everything goes to its opposite so we
went clear if America wants clear wait a
minute what if we go dark you’re gonna
say Pepsi’s already dark no let’s go
darker let’s go coffee let’s go why
don’t we sell a coffee drink and give it
an Italian name like Frappuccino
that’s how Frappuccino was invented you
didn’t know that you didn’t know
Frappuccino was made by Pepsi did you I
wasn’t allowed to tell the story until
five years ago there’s this go and look
on Frappuccino or Pepsi’s website
Starbucks Pepsi teamed up in 1994 to
create the ready to drink coffee
industry which today is two billion
dollars now you know how it started from
a simple little brain strong life is a
brainstorm it’s not just about products
it’s about challenges I find a lot of
people think this is success I think
it’s that I think it’s the zigs and the
zags and the creative collisions that
you have so I want to tell you about my
challenge it came on pretty early in
life second grade they found that I
couldn’t read so they held me back so I
had to come up with a strategy how am I
going to get through school when I don’t
read well and I know I’m always going to
get a D on the written report I picked
up my art skills
they said if I draw cartoons to go with
the written book report maybe I get a D
and then I get an A for the cartoons
which gave me a C+ and that’s how I got
through high school unfortunately it did
not work in college I went to the
University of Delaware math major trying
to become a chemist for DuPont that’s
what I wanted to do really what I wanted
to do was be a cartoonist for Walt
Disney but my parents told me you’ll
never be a cartoonist for Walt Disney I
want you to look at the graves there
especially second semester
withdraw D withdraw FCC C but the Big C
their public speaking okay
so my advisor told me after one year
give it up so I got drafted I got
drafted to go to Vietnam and I failed a
medical physical because I have an
autoimmune disease I’m still remembering
I’m driving from Philly back to my
apartment and I’m going the army doesn’t
want me Delaware doesn’t want me what am
I gonna do
so I went got a job on an assembly line
I’ve worked for Pepperidge Farm bread
they made raisin bread Downtown
Pennsylvania and people stepped on the
people stepped on the raisins two fell
off the line that was my job I scraped
the raisins off the floor I work second
shift and it allowed me to play tennis
during the day because playing tennis
was my creative collision I met a
gentleman one day playing tennis that
had just quit his job at DuPont we got
to be friends we started playing he was
about 30 years older than me and I kept
asking him questions about well what was
your idea he was blown away that I knew
what polytetrafluoroethylene was because
I was a math chemistry major his name
was Bill Gore he had just created
gore-tex and he hired me it’s one of his
first employees and he said here’s your
job I love your cartoon
I love how have you interact with people
you seem to be creative every week come
into my office with a new use for
gore-tex that was my job it was a blast
for a twenty year old but my best idea
didn’t come at work
it came unfortunately being in the
hospital three months later again for my
stomach when I noticed that the patient
in the other bed that had a broken back
was getting bed sores and I’m saying
whoa this sores come from that sheet and
it’s hot and all that what if I put
gore-tex on the hospital bed we’d get
rid of what’s called the Cuban eye
ulcers or bed sores so as soon as I got
out of the hospital I got some gore-tex
took it back to the hospital
unfortunately the patients started
slipping out of bed catheters broke I
mean it was a mess you’re gonna have to
put a gutter on the bed to collect
everything that was flowing everywhere
because he gore-tex repels stuff it’s
breathable that’s when I had to learn
the concept of a second rate answer
where do you want the slipperiest
hospital bed that nothing sticks a burn
unit that became my first product still
used today forty years later and every
time I think of our wounded warriors in
the Bernie trips I cry because
thank you that’s for our wounded
warriors because ideas are exponential
that’s the power of the idea and I met
through Gore a doctor that no not many
people knew Henry Heimlich he asked me
to draw a poster for him
then one of the first heimlich manoeuver
posters I drew it and I finally got my
courage up I’ve sent that cartoon along
with other of my cartoons to Disney and
I got hired yeah I lasted six months
because I threw out an idea I was used
to throwing out ideas every wink I
threatened idea to my boss I said I
think Disney cartoons should go on this
new technology called video tape it was
called Betamax remember of Betamax and
he said the president of War Walt Disney
said our cartoons will never go on
videotape as long as I’m president of
Walt Disney because he was afraid of
losing control and ownership and copying
and on and on and on and on and every
idea I threw out got killed
so I’ve learned in life when someone
says it’ll never work
never doesn’t mean never it means
there’s the blind spot to fill there’s
where there’s less competition
there’s where there’s less cost of entry
so I decided time to brainstorm again
what would Mickey never do Mickey would
never use videotape Mickey would never
do health education videos on sexually
transmitted diseases and sell them for
ninety five dollars
because Peter and the wolf which was our
major film at Disney at that time sold
for four hundred and sixty dollars in
sixteen millimeter so I quit and I came
back to Charlottesville in 1970
seven and started creative cartoon
company and my first animated movie
taught people how to put on a condom it
was called
and that that’s for Peter so it became a
hit people watched it backwards and
forwards and upside down and then my
next movie
I’m modeled after Herbie the lovebug it
was called herpe the new video around
town and then I did the first
educational program on homosexuality it
was to gay tennis balls living in a
tennis ball can it was pixelation and
that introduced me to the gay community
in Charles Ville and I’ll never forget
when Rita Mae brown told me one day
about her friends in San Francisco that
were dying with a disease that had no
name so we did the first educational
program on AIDS I lived my dream I
achieved it I wanted to create cartoon
programs to make people healthy and I’ve
had a great life life has been a
brainstorm but now I’m in my late 60’s
so what are you doing retirement of
course you got a brainstorm you use my
favorite technique is what would I never
do do the fact I now have three
autoimmune diseases they just keep
adding up I go what would I never do I
would never go into an elementary school
classroom and teach creativity because
kids don’t need to create it well or
teach entrepreneurship and I would never
go to teach in Africa and Nigeria and
places around the world because gosh
what if I got sick and I can’t travel
right now because of because of some of
the health challenges I have huh
well what about Skype hmm what if I
create a program and I call it waggy
labs waggy stands for what a great idea
mascot is a dog and 6:00 a.m. every
morning I’m teaching in Ghana they’re
there the kids
now do you see my retirement well let me
show you Nigeria those kids have never
been in a classroom before it’s the
first classroom they’ve ever been in
their life those kids came off of the
street Boko Haram is after those kids
and those kids sent me an email they
call me daddy because I told them I
don’t have children ideas have been my
kids my whole life I want grandkids
those kids now say that the ideas they
come up with are gonna be my grandkids
thank you
so in closing just a little show you we
take the kids on a trip the
Entrepreneurship okay and we take them a
charted course of course you got to have
a shark tank but you know I believe in
opposites so it’s a guppy tank there you
see a couple of the guppy tanks one of
the kids just invented soap-on-a-rope
last week they think they invented it
fine we’re funding it because they said
the kids don’t wash your hands well so
they took bar soap drill to hold in and
put a rope around it and then created a
sign okay and closing I didn’t like
homework but I got homework for you I
hope you like it I want to know what
your blind spots are so in your bag
there’s a little card and what I’m gonna
ask you to do is write down five things
that you would never do that would help
you achieve your dream or five opposites
so when you can write them down and put
that card on your refrigerator door and
as you walk by it go what’s right about
that
in closing Plato said something I never
read Plato I heard this on NPR but Plato
said
Plato said we all strive to achieve
immortality and there’s three ways to
achieve immortality one way is by having
children second way is by planting trees
and the third way is by creating ideas
and help make them happen
go forth Charlottesville achieve
immortality
like
I want to take you back to school
let’s pick fifth grade
let’s pick quiz day so are you ready for
the pop quiz okay feet flat on the floor
get out your number two pencil and you
know the rules you know the rules of
school one right answer the answers in
the back of the teachers edition keep
your eyes on your own paper no
collaboration right okay so it’s time
for the quiz it’s a very simple quiz you
actually had this in fifth grade how
many squares are there I want you to do
this by yourself with your feet flat on
the floor and I’m going to put on a
little music to tell you when you’re
supposed to stop trying to come up with
the answer how many squares are there
and let you know that blue screen that’s
a rectangle rectangles are not squares
squares have four equal sides so count
up how many squares you see
and if you see one answer hey why don’t
you look for a second right answer if
you hear the person next to you say
something maybe listen
[Music]
okay so everybody saw us 16 right okay
21 hands up 21 25 or 26 30 okay the
answer in the back of the book is 30 and
the in 10th grade so you’re feeling
really good I’m smarter than a fifth
grader in 10th grade you actually had
the same exercise but you learn a
formula for it to sum of 4 squared plus
3 squared plus 2 squared plus 1 squared
I think it was called factorial so the
answer is 30 in all the textbooks 5
years ago
I was challenged by a 9 year old girl
who said mr. Thompson 30 is only correct
on paper when you’re using a PowerPoint
presentation all the lines that they are
composed of pixels and pixels are square
I said wait a minute
I’ve never seen a pixel on the computer
screen she said no miss Thompson you got
to magnify your screen by 400% and turn
the line on an angle and then another
kid said you’ve got a MacBook Air don’t
you and I go yes said well then there’s
3d capability really I didn’t know my
macbook air had 3d and he goes well then
how many squares are there so I emailed
my friend at NASA and we spent a fair
amount of time but we got into a full
converse there was millions my point is
for 30 years
we’ve been thinking it was 30 so what
you just experienced is what I call
brainstorming the guidelines of
brainstorming are to always look for a
second right answer and then a third
right answer and then a fourth right
answer and the way I do that is by using
the words from from improv from second
city and when I come up with an idea I
go
I’m building on it also always looking
at your problem from a different
perspective than it was handed to you
I had a hospital asked me to brainstorm
patient flow through their emergency
department I’m singing hmm what’s my
different perspective how would a NASCAR
pit crew redesign an emergency
department so I went to pit crew camp
learn the strategy and now have
conducted that brainstorm for hospitals
all over the world so you see my point
if we didn’t think like a pit you got it
look at it from a different perspective
the other guideline of brainstorming is
when you have a setback I always say
what’s right about it because there’s
your flip there’s your pivot and so what
I do for a living is I run brain storms
I try to help people see ideas that have
been I think staring them in the face
you’ve got the idea you just need to
flip to go and look at it from a
different perspective
I called them blind spots and I want to
give you my favorite example of a blind
spot however I’m gonna have to take you
back to 1994 and Crystal Pepsi Pepsi did
a focus group and they determined that
what America wanted was a clear drink
actually it was called water but they
decided to make Crystal Pepsi so it
tasted like Pepsi but was clear and the
slogan was you’ve never seen a taste
like this that’s true because Homer
Simpson called it invisible Cola Jon
Stewart called it crystal meth Pepsi and
Pepsi pulled it off in the market and
asked for a brainstorm said hey we need
a new drink so I want to show you the
principles of brainstorming to set back
okay we went clear I said well why don’t
we sell water and give it an Italian
name and there you go we will never sell
water
and I said well tell me then why did
people like this clear if it wasn’t for
the world they go well it was in a blind
taste taste test
they Pepsi did a blind taste test of a
drink on a color people don’t drink
sodas with blindfolds on so that whole
thing is bogus
so okay you got to look at it from a
different perspective
my favorite perspective is in the Dao de
Jing the Sun rises the Sun sets
everything goes to its opposite so we
went clear if America wants clear wait a
minute what if we go dark you’re gonna
say Pepsi’s already dark no let’s go
darker let’s go coffee let’s go why
don’t we sell a coffee drink and give it
an Italian name like Frappuccino
that’s how Frappuccino was invented you
didn’t know that you didn’t know
Frappuccino was made by Pepsi did you I
wasn’t allowed to tell the story until
five years ago there’s this go and look
on Frappuccino or Pepsi’s website
Starbucks Pepsi teamed up in 1994 to
create the ready to drink coffee
industry which today is two billion
dollars now you know how it started from
a simple little brain strong life is a
brainstorm it’s not just about products
it’s about challenges I find a lot of
people think this is success I think
it’s that I think it’s the zigs and the
zags and the creative collisions that
you have so I want to tell you about my
challenge it came on pretty early in
life second grade they found that I
couldn’t read so they held me back so I
had to come up with a strategy how am I
going to get through school when I don’t
read well and I know I’m always going to
get a D on the written report I picked
up my art skills
they said if I draw cartoons to go with
the written book report maybe I get a D
and then I get an A for the cartoons
which gave me a C+ and that’s how I got
through high school unfortunately it did
not work in college I went to the
University of Delaware math major trying
to become a chemist for DuPont that’s
what I wanted to do really what I wanted
to do was be a cartoonist for Walt
Disney but my parents told me you’ll
never be a cartoonist for Walt Disney I
want you to look at the graves there
especially second semester
withdraw D withdraw FCC C but the Big C
their public speaking okay
so my advisor told me after one year
give it up so I got drafted I got
drafted to go to Vietnam and I failed a
medical physical because I have an
autoimmune disease I’m still remembering
I’m driving from Philly back to my
apartment and I’m going the army doesn’t
want me Delaware doesn’t want me what am
I gonna do
so I went got a job on an assembly line
I’ve worked for Pepperidge Farm bread
they made raisin bread Downtown
Pennsylvania and people stepped on the
people stepped on the raisins two fell
off the line that was my job I scraped
the raisins off the floor I work second
shift and it allowed me to play tennis
during the day because playing tennis
was my creative collision I met a
gentleman one day playing tennis that
had just quit his job at DuPont we got
to be friends we started playing he was
about 30 years older than me and I kept
asking him questions about well what was
your idea he was blown away that I knew
what polytetrafluoroethylene was because
I was a math chemistry major his name
was Bill Gore he had just created
gore-tex and he hired me it’s one of his
first employees and he said here’s your
job I love your cartoon
I love how have you interact with people
you seem to be creative every week come
into my office with a new use for
gore-tex that was my job it was a blast
for a twenty year old but my best idea
didn’t come at work
it came unfortunately being in the
hospital three months later again for my
stomach when I noticed that the patient
in the other bed that had a broken back
was getting bed sores and I’m saying
whoa this sores come from that sheet and
it’s hot and all that what if I put
gore-tex on the hospital bed we’d get
rid of what’s called the Cuban eye
ulcers or bed sores so as soon as I got
out of the hospital I got some gore-tex
took it back to the hospital
unfortunately the patients started
slipping out of bed catheters broke I
mean it was a mess you’re gonna have to
put a gutter on the bed to collect
everything that was flowing everywhere
because he gore-tex repels stuff it’s
breathable that’s when I had to learn
the concept of a second rate answer
where do you want the slipperiest
hospital bed that nothing sticks a burn
unit that became my first product still
used today forty years later and every
time I think of our wounded warriors in
the Bernie trips I cry because
thank you that’s for our wounded
warriors because ideas are exponential
that’s the power of the idea and I met
through Gore a doctor that no not many
people knew Henry Heimlich he asked me
to draw a poster for him
then one of the first heimlich manoeuver
posters I drew it and I finally got my
courage up I’ve sent that cartoon along
with other of my cartoons to Disney and
I got hired yeah I lasted six months
because I threw out an idea I was used
to throwing out ideas every wink I
threatened idea to my boss I said I
think Disney cartoons should go on this
new technology called video tape it was
called Betamax remember of Betamax and
he said the president of War Walt Disney
said our cartoons will never go on
videotape as long as I’m president of
Walt Disney because he was afraid of
losing control and ownership and copying
and on and on and on and on and every
idea I threw out got killed
so I’ve learned in life when someone
says it’ll never work
never doesn’t mean never it means
there’s the blind spot to fill there’s
where there’s less competition
there’s where there’s less cost of entry
so I decided time to brainstorm again
what would Mickey never do Mickey would
never use videotape Mickey would never
do health education videos on sexually
transmitted diseases and sell them for
ninety five dollars
because Peter and the wolf which was our
major film at Disney at that time sold
for four hundred and sixty dollars in
sixteen millimeter so I quit and I came
back to Charlottesville in 1970
seven and started creative cartoon
company and my first animated movie
taught people how to put on a condom it
was called
and that that’s for Peter so it became a
hit people watched it backwards and
forwards and upside down and then my
next movie
I’m modeled after Herbie the lovebug it
was called herpe the new video around
town and then I did the first
educational program on homosexuality it
was to gay tennis balls living in a
tennis ball can it was pixelation and
that introduced me to the gay community
in Charles Ville and I’ll never forget
when Rita Mae brown told me one day
about her friends in San Francisco that
were dying with a disease that had no
name so we did the first educational
program on AIDS I lived my dream I
achieved it I wanted to create cartoon
programs to make people healthy and I’ve
had a great life life has been a
brainstorm but now I’m in my late 60’s
so what are you doing retirement of
course you got a brainstorm you use my
favorite technique is what would I never
do do the fact I now have three
autoimmune diseases they just keep
adding up I go what would I never do I
would never go into an elementary school
classroom and teach creativity because
kids don’t need to create it well or
teach entrepreneurship and I would never
go to teach in Africa and Nigeria and
places around the world because gosh
what if I got sick and I can’t travel
right now because of because of some of
the health challenges I have huh
well what about Skype hmm what if I
create a program and I call it waggy
labs waggy stands for what a great idea
mascot is a dog and 6:00 a.m. every
morning I’m teaching in Ghana they’re
there the kids
now do you see my retirement well let me
show you Nigeria those kids have never
been in a classroom before it’s the
first classroom they’ve ever been in
their life those kids came off of the
street Boko Haram is after those kids
and those kids sent me an email they
call me daddy because I told them I
don’t have children ideas have been my
kids my whole life I want grandkids
those kids now say that the ideas they
come up with are gonna be my grandkids
thank you
so in closing just a little show you we
take the kids on a trip the
Entrepreneurship okay and we take them a
charted course of course you got to have
a shark tank but you know I believe in
opposites so it’s a guppy tank there you
see a couple of the guppy tanks one of
the kids just invented soap-on-a-rope
last week they think they invented it
fine we’re funding it because they said
the kids don’t wash your hands well so
they took bar soap drill to hold in and
put a rope around it and then created a
sign okay and closing I didn’t like
homework but I got homework for you I
hope you like it I want to know what
your blind spots are so in your bag
there’s a little card and what I’m gonna
ask you to do is write down five things
that you would never do that would help
you achieve your dream or five opposites
so when you can write them down and put
that card on your refrigerator door and
as you walk by it go what’s right about
that
in closing Plato said something I never
read Plato I heard this on NPR but Plato
said
Plato said we all strive to achieve
immortality and there’s three ways to
achieve immortality one way is by having
children second way is by planting trees
and the third way is by creating ideas
and help make them happen
go forth Charlottesville achieve
immortality
like
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