Josh Linkner is the New York Times Bestselling author of Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity, named one of the top 30 business books of 2011. Along with general partners Hall of Famer Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Cleveland Cavilers owner Dan Gilbert, he is the CEO and Managing Partner of Detroit Venture Partners, a venture capital firm rebuilding urban areas through technology. Josh is also an Adjunct Professor of Applied Creativity at the University of Michigan.

Josh is the Founder, Chairman and former CEO of ePrize, the largest interactive promotion agency in the world providing digital marketing services for 74 of the top 100 brands.

Prior to ePrize, Josh was the founder and CEO of three other successful technology companies. He has been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the Automation Alley CEO of the Year, and the Detroit Executive of the Year. Josh's writings are published frequently by Fast Company and Forbes and he's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, and on CNBC. Josh is also a professional-level jazz guitarist performing regularly in jazz clubs throughout the United States.

Most importantly, Josh in on a mission to make the world more creative.

JOSH LINKNER SPEAKING TOPICS:

Unleashing Creativity

We now liv e in a world of dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and ruthless competition. As most of the advantages of the past have become commoditized, creativity has become the currency of success; in both business and life. In this interactive talk,Josh shows participants how to jump-start their creativity to drive meaningful and immediate results. Attendees will learn specific techniques to unleash their most valuable resources - human creativity, imagination, and original thinking.

Executing Imagination: Turning Creative Fire into Real Results

Organizations often have an abundance of raw creativity, but lack a systematic process to harness it. In an era where ideas only count when they drive results, how do you focus your team's imagination into practical outputs? Josh Linkner helps you make the leap from whiteboard to tangible results. How do you ensure your best ideas don't get lost during execution? How do you maintain a creative culture through the realities of your hyper-competitive world? How do you drive everyday creativity and direct it towards specific, measurable gains? You will be energized by the answers to these questions and more in this fast-moving, fun, and interactive session.

7 Steps to a Creative Culture

Despite today's ultra-competitive environment, companies like Zappos, Groupon, and Facebook have enjoyed tremendous growth and profitability. The leaders of hyper-growth companies often credit a culture of innovation as the primary driver of their success. I this interactive session, Josh shares proven philosophies and practices to help you build and maintain a creative culture. In turn, you will enjoy breakaway growth and success by unleashing your organization's most powerful hidden natural asset: human creativity.

5 Big Ideas from Starting 5 Companies

Celebrated five-time entrepreneur Josh Linkner shares five big ideas that can transform your organization and career. Expanded from his highly acclaimed TED talk, Josh takes audiences through a journey of entrepreneurship. From triumph victories to crushing defeats, audiences will be gripped with drama, insights, and inspiration throughout this exciting talk. These philosophies can be immediately implemented to drive breakaway success and seize your full potential.

Disciplined Dreaming:

A Five Step System for Business Creativity

Competitive advantage in the marketplace used to be defended with complex supply chains, high cost of entry, and technological advances. Now, your business can be supplanted overnight by someone with a broadband connection and an idea. How are you re-tooling your organization for creativity? In this interactive talk, Josh shows participants how to jump-start their creativity for business advantage. Attendees will learn specific techniques to protect themselves from the competition, create new products, and expand marketshare.

Building a Creative Culture

Building a culture that fosters creativity and innovation is mission critical in today's ultra-competitive environment. In this high-energy and interactive keynote, you will learn how to tap your people's hidden brainpower. Help your team get unstuck by breaking free from myths and barriers to unleash their true creative potential. Learn to establish an ongoing system to nurture and harvest your team's best ideas.

Is Innovation the Cure for the Economic Downturn?

Most innovations fail because they are not truly innovative ? they make an existing product slightly smaller, faster, or less expensive. Real innovations turn industries and marketplaces upside down ? like the cell phone or the iPod. Can your company innovate it's way to success even during difficult economic times? In this talk, Josh offers a road map for organizations to get to successful, game-changing innovations. Takeaways include how to trap the competition, how to increase your rate of innovation, and how to invent new products that cannot easily be copied in the marketplace.

Leadership in the Age of Creativity

Leaders today need to be able to understand the needs and dreams of a wildly diverse employee population, each with its own particular ways of working, deriving motivation from very different parts of the work experience. On top of that, the marketplace can shift at bewildering speed as a college kid in a dorm room can invent a new business that renders yours irrelevant in a matter of a few months. How do you guide an organization into such an uncertain future with such a varied crew? Josh's talk explores the new rules of the road and shows leaders how to build a culture that enables maximum creative potential.

The Music of Business

Jazz musicians and business leaders are increasingly sharing more common ground. Both require spontaneous creativity and improvisation. Both require careful synchronization in group dynamics, while responding on the fly to changing market conditions. Both are real-time art forms that require high-quality performances under the bright lights of an audience. Adapted from the principles of jazz legends to the business world, you'll learn how to use a specific framework and set of rules to maximize create output. Using the metaphor of a jazz combo, Josh helps audiences improve their creativity, risk tolerance, and adaptability in this highly engaging and unique presentation.