Inspiration Isn't Always Free

Spring is melting into our lives. The smell of the fresh, the rotten and the renewal of life all purée blended into a new year. Inspiration is everywhere, if you open your senses to consume it. Yet, it isn’t free.

Inspiration doesn’t come from routine, monotony or the mundane. It arrives because you make an effort to travel from your point of origin to a point of inspiration. It arrives because you burn the calories, commit the resources and make the effort to seek inspiration. For this reason, inspiration is given freely.

And, really, shouldn’t inspiration be a valuable commodity? Inspired minds create new ways for brands and people to interact. Inspired minds reinvent old systems and create new value for organizations. Inspired minds change the world, hopefully for the better. Inspiration, in the human mind, is a valuable spark for humanity and should be sought out, consistently.

There are places, moments in time and founts of inspiration in my life and FUSE consistently delivers on the promise of inspiration. It isn’t every speaker at every time slot, it is something you have to hunt for at any event. But, in the case of FUSE, inspiration is made readily available, you just have to get your asterisk there.

Here are a few spots where you’ll see my asterisk:

Todd Waterbury (chief creative officer at Target), we’ve met on a project, but didn’t get ample time together, yet his view on the world seems very similar to ours. He inspired some great thinking on the project we were both involved with and I’m looking forward to another dose.

Susana Rodriguez De Tembleque (Vice President of Brand Experience at IBM Watson), because I’d like to test my theory of Watson, the wild child brand of IBM, becoming the parent brand. She seems like the kind of person who would get it.

Bob Calvano, (VP Design at A+E Networks), because we’ve met and I know he’d have some interesting perspective on our modern media landscape. And, Bob certainly is a forward thinking individual so he’ll have an inspired view of the world — I hope.

And, there are those who will likely have some great nuggets to share, like Christine Mau (the reason Kleenex boxes were shaped like fruit), Tim Murray (a gent responsible for rebranding Goodwill), Steve Baird (founder of the number one blog on intellectual property, Duets), Moira Cullen (whom we’ve followed from her days at Hershey, PepsiCo and now at Method), and Spencer Dinwiddie, who could be the most interesting person to grace the FUSE stage in a decade.

These are my inspired minds, if you’re an inspired mind or aspire to be inspired, this is a place to find it. And, if you’re in an old industry looking to bring new perspectives, inspired creative and motivational stories, FUSE has a seat for your asterisk too.

Thank you for taking the time to enjoy this, I hope to see you there.

Aaron