It isn’t every day that I’m willing to sit through a talk on leading a culture of innovation. It isn’t that I think I know everything already, but more that I’m keen to learn new things and often leave disappointed.

However, Sir Ken Robinson shared stories, kept the crowd entertained and dropped some knowledge on me. I realized, while listening to how Sir Ken and his wife renewed their vows at the Elvis wedding chapel in Vegas that being a smart innovative person isn’t something that happens to a few lucky people. Everyone is equally creative, we just have to allow that creativity to blossom.

Here are two examples from Sir Ken’s Nevada themed talk that helped me realize the magic of open innovation is that every one of us is an innovator.

Aside from being a humorous anecdote, Sir Ken brought up his Las Vegas vows because Las Vegas is a testament to the power of imagination. Given that Las Vegas rose out of nothing, blaming a lack of resources is not an acceptable excuse. Instead of thinking of anything as a barrier, think of possibilities. He brought up the term divergent thinking, which is really just not taking anything for granted to come up with many possible ways forward.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America. Not much of a surprise, it got it’s name because nothing grows there. However, over the winter of 2005 there were flashfloods. The following spring saw the most amount of wildflowers to grow there ever. Sir Ken’s point? If the conditions are wrong, life protects itself and hunkers down. If the conditions are right, life flourishes.

Sir Ken’s talk was really about one thing. To lead a culture of innovation, your job is not to have great ideas, but to create conditions in which *others* have great ideas.

I heard Mitch Joel, author of Six Pixels of Separation speak yesterday. He said smart stuff. He started by saying he is not here to talk about the future, only the present and right now, the old way of marketing is dead.

He gave the example of Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who ordered his men to burn the ships when they arrived in Mexico. There is no going backwards, no option to retreat to safety, there is only going forward.

Compare this to the ctrl + alt + del on your computer. If you had the opportunity to reboot right now, how would you build a platform to market your business in this world? Risky, but a leap that needs to happen – the old school banner ads just don’t work.

What must happen now is real interactions between real people. Instead of the old idea of marketing, 'we have a fairly inadequate product, can you make it look better?' People can have a real problem with a product and the product maker can read about it over a blog or on twitter and take the opportunity to fix it. People care about brands more than ever before. The more you care about your customers and involve them, the more loyalty they will have. This is what is important.

Joel says he talks to executives all the time that haven’t quite embraced the idea that everyone creates content, "These kids are nuts! They go on Facebook and post all these pictures. Who do they think will hire them?" is the cry from executives. To which Joel responds, "Who are you going to hire if everyone is on Facebook?" This is the cold reality. What makes any of these channels so amazing is that people create the channel and people create the content. Marketers can no longer use the "spray and pray" approach to marketing.

Keeping this in mind, what are you doing as a brand to engender relationships within the community? Social Media is not a numbers game, so stop asking how many. Instead, ask who is connecting? You need to be building a community for months and months before you launch something so that those relationships are established. When you start to build that community, don't ask what, ask why? Why are you doing this? Why should you be on any social network? Answer that and simplify your online strategy.

What excites me about Mitch Joel’s talk is that he reminded everyone that we don't need permission to do any of this. Anyone can go out and start something on the Internet. It is the democratization of content.