198 THE CREATIVE INVESTMENT TEAM
at the wrong slide. A few minutes after that, I knew we were look-
ing at the wrong one. As predicted, the audience hunkered down
and took notes harder. Although tempted to follow suit, I used the
Candid Camera reframing technique instead. I asked myself how
I would feel if this whole scene had been set up just to see I was
the perfect lemming. Wouldn’t I feel stupid just going right over
the cliff, no questions asked? Of course. So I stuck a hand up and
pointed out the mistake. The speaker looked at his notes a few
times, squinted at the screen, replaced “eToys” with “eBay,” thanked
me, and went on.
On this topic of asking for help, though, the real eye-popper
for me took place at a conference on creativity, hosted by the
American Productivity and Quality Center in Disney World. Rep-
resentatives from major companies like 3M, Microsoft, and Disney
were present. Meetings on various aspects of innovation were
conducted simultaneously. At the end of the day, there was a large
cocktail reception. The experience of attending that reception blew
my mind and certainly my belief system. Imagine a conservative
clergyman walking into a lurid orgy and you’ll get a sense of my
shock. It was like two worlds colliding. I couldn’t have been more
surprised if I had walked into the cantina scene in Star Wars. Why?
Their behavior was outrageous, inappropriate, crazy. How so? They
were all sharing information freely, as if they didn’t understand
that information is the key to market success. They were showing
their cards to all the other poker players! They were shamelessly
playing “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” as if the
world were coming to an end. As an investment professional, I had
never seen this sort of exhibitionism before. I’m sure my mouth
was open wide enough for a basketball to be shoved in it. They
were posing questions to one another that had the emotional im-
pact—to an investor—of asking, “What is your salary?” or “What
is your net worth?” To me, it seemed totally inappropriate, not to
mention highly dangerous, for them to be sharing best practices
with one another.14-25 ware 198 1/19/01, 1:16 PM