Nothing happens without a vision. Nothing gets created, built, or moved forward without a vision of an end-state or an outcome. It’s been said that we create and achieve what we focus on — whether that focus is on the positive or on something negative — and if we invest our conscious hours in focusing on positive visions, we’d be healthier and, most importantly, far more likely to realize our dreams and live a life aligned with our strengths, purpose and passions.

In this time of economic upheaval rippling across the globe, fundamental political and systemic change in the US, and a struggle to find good news or positive information amongst the hundreds of TV stations and tens of thousands of websites and publications available to us all — including our kids — the world needs to see possibility, hope, and visions of the future that accentuate and focus on the positive.

Any leader will tell you that vision is the most important first step to take before anything else happens, whether it’s a startup, a product, project or initiative, or anything else we strive to accomplish. Leaders will also tell you that the next great leaps in creativity and innovation will come from those that see the possibilities instead of downside, risk or failure, and empowering kids to see possibility, feel hope, and create, communicate and absorb a vision for their lives, for humanity and the world, promises to be incredibly profound, world-changing and an imperative for our future…

…if only there was someone with a vision about what could help our next generation create and live their own vision stories and celebrate their dreams, hopes and goals for themselves and the world.

George Johnson, a serial entrepreneur with the startups SHARE Seniorcare (now part of UnitedHealth Group); Internet Broadcasting, TECHIES.com and other adventures, has lived his life with vision first. Not just some sort of “generic vision”, but rather ones that matched his values and what he felt was his personal mission and purpose for being here: helping others live up to their potential.

Through vision after vision, George built successful organizations, but in his gut he knew there was something more he had to do. As he describes this ‘knowing’ he had he says, “What we need more than anything in the world are more visions of hope and possibility. We have become a nation of negativity and fear, much of it broadcast on television news. Unless we change our current course, we will become what we envision.”

George and I have been friends for many years, and we got together at his place up on Lake Superior earlier this year to brainstorm about the “What’s next? What’s possible?” as he was crystallizing his vision. Everything he’d done up to that point led him to one conclusion: He needed to figure out a way to empower the always-on, always-connected, new media generation of Millenials to use internet-centric tools and create their own vision stories, acting as a catalyst for positive change in the world.

TEL•A•VISION was founded to create a way to give kids a voice and a platform to share their stories and dreams for themselves and a better world. It’s his hope that by sharing with each other, youth around the world will realize how much they have in common. 

You can read more about the starting of TEL•A•VISION on George’s blog here or more about their mission and vision on the TEL•A•VISION site.

He partnered with Minneapolis agency Haberman & Associates, to bring this vision to reality. Leveraging the Bay area video creation engine from OneTrueMedia, the skills and abilities of a host of others (disclaimer: I’ve assisted in creating the tutorials and the curriculum guide as well as playing a technical advisory role, though just in friendship and a strong belief in George’s vision), and what seems to be an instant acknowledgement by people that this effort is absolutely right and something desperately needed now, George has seen and unseen momentum behind him that is propelling his vision forward…

…and, of course, that’s the WHOLE POINT of starting with vision!

As I reflect on the conversations George and I had in January near the fire on Lake Superior, I remember the occasional thought that crept into my mind about “this idea is a little nuts” and I couldn’t see how he could make it a reality. I love this guy, but he’s no technoweenie and I struggled a bit to see his vision and how it could come together.

Now his vision is a reality. TEL•A•VISION will officially launch Wednesday, Oct. 22nd at Minneapolis North High School. Dozens of visionaries, community leaders, educators, parents and students will gather to celebrate the importance of vision and kick-off the TEL•A•VISION movement. Special guest presenters will include polar explorer Ann Bancroft, and TEL•A•VISION partners Best Buy, SEARCH Institute, Youth Frontiers and the National Institute on Media and the Family. 

The result of my own embracing of the TEL•A•VISION vision along with so many others behind it as well, how George has put this movement all together and aligned everyone’s motivations and incentives, and that it’s now an actual reality, makes George my pick for “poster child for vision”. I can’t think of a better role model for living your vision — and for being the TEL•A•VISION visionary — than George Johnson.

TEL•A•VISION Launches is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As you can see from Phil Wilson’s Unsummit post, there were those who ignored the hype and chose to do their own (free) concurrent event at a nearby pub, thank you very much. (Okay, many of them were too cheap to pay the big MIMA fee.) And the MIMA folks actually cheered them on (even from the stage the day of the two events), since they felt bad they couldn’t have accommodated more people. But the venue — the very nice Depot downtown — could literally take no more. (MIMA has vowed to find a bigger site next year though that won’t be easy — maybe the Convention Center?) This year’s attendance, I believe, was something north of 700. MIMA’s membership is now about 950, but the Summit’s attendees also included some non-members and invited speakers, of course.

So, how did the event go?  This was my first year attending (they have not given press passes to us lowly bloggers in the past), so I went courtesy of my employer, to do some serious working of the crowd.  My assessment: the hype didn’t quite meet the reality as far as the overall content, as quality conferences go. But this is an association, after all, not a professional conference producer. And don’t we all kinda forgive a certain percentage of marketing build-up most of the time?  Nonetheless, the logistics were handled quite well, and my hat’s off to the MIMA officers and their band of volunteers who pulled this thing off. (I’m sure they’ve worked out a lot of bugs over the several years they’ve sponsored this event.)

As with any event like this, I attend much more for the people, the networking, the connections, and that part was excellent. The chance to exchange notes and news with your peers, meet new folks in our amazing marketing and advertising community, and meet out-of-town speakers as well made the event very worthwhile. As they say, it’s what goes on in the hallways that matters, not in the meeting rooms. In the age of Conversational Marketing, this was indeed a blab fest of the highest order.

The highlight of the day for most everyone was surely the lunch speaker, Ze Frank. This guy is a polished, well coached and practiced speaker to large audiences (including the likes of the TED conference and other high-brow affairs), and he did not disappoint. The man is flat-out funny and entertaining. He’s a bona fide Internet celebrity since launching his first video (him dancing) several years ago, a video that went viral beyond all viral to that date. (He talked about getting a $30,000 bandwidth bill from his ISP after that experience.)  See more about the Ze Frank Show at this page of his archived links or visit his blog at www.ZeFrank.com. (By the way, if you want to be cool, you pronounce his first name “zay.”)

It’s a good thing Ze was so well received, because the earlier keynote, to open the event, was horrid. Note to planners: one hour is too long, and editors may write well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to speak. (I live-Twittered the event: here’s my archive page, which is six screen shots of my tweets, starting with the beginning of the event on top.)

So, what else did I pick up about the event, what was the overall buzz?  Well, there were those who said it wasn’t “interactive enough,” which is an interesting take for a gathering of interactive marketers. But it can be hard to have participatory discussions with such a large group (impossible?), even in the breakout sessions — some of which easily drew 150+ in packed rooms with many standing.  Choosing breakout sessions is always a challenge, and I missed some very good ones because, well, I had to make one choice each session. I’m sure many went away feeling the same.  There were just too many not-to-miss talks scheduled concurrently (not good planning on the part of MIMA) — six each in two particular sessions! Way too difficult to choose, and jumping from one to another, to catch two concurrent sessions you like, just never really works.

Funny thing was, two other breakout sessions had four choices each and were largely duds — none of the choices had much appeal to me at all.  So, I left feeling I missed what could have been some really good content.  Example: I just had to attend “Mobile…2009 and Beyond” (which was good), but missed the concurrent session with the Zappos guy talking about “Making the Customer Connection in 140 Characters or Less” (that would be Twitter). But I made up for it by chatting with him at the cocktail reception later.

I was only able to catch two other breakout sessions: one on ad exchanges vs. networks (by Google), which was only mildly interesting to anyone except a media buyer, and another called “Marketing Mix Challenge,” which had four panelists describe how they would spend “only” $500k on a fictitious consumer product launch. I heard criticism later from people on that one who just don’t relate to the large agency world, which thinks $500k is a small budget.

But, all in all, it was as successful an event as each individual made it to be. And I made it a good one — lots of great new connections with whom I look forward to following up.

MIMA Summit Packs The Depot is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.