Creativity – Page 4 – The Business of Creativity

Joint Works (copyright)

No, we’re not talking about creativity that originates from prison.

Nor are we talking about helping a bud roll one.

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We’re talking about when at least two people work together on a creative project.

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Unfortunately, “inadvertent” joint authorship happens all the time.

Here’s the analysis:

1. A work is “jointly authored” automatically upon its creation if:

1) two or more authors contributed material to the work; and

2) each of the authors prepared his or her contribution with the intention that it would be combined with the contributions of the other authors as part of a single unitary work.

2. Intent AT THE TIME THE WORK IS CREATED is the controlling factor.

3. The contributions do NOT have to be equal.

4. IN the ABSENCE of a Collaboration Agreement or agreement otherwise:

Joint authors have undivided interest in the ENTIRE WORK. (that means even-Stephen for all the authors, even if they didn’t contribute equally.)
Each joint author has the right to exploit the copyright, without the other’s consent.
Each joint author has the right to license the joint work, without the other’s consent.
Each joint author has the right to transfer their share of the ownership without the other’s consent.
The ownership interest does NOT revert to the joint author upon one author’s death, it goes with the estate.
Both authors have a duty to account for profits – each joint author has to pay the other the appropriate share of profits.

So, what this means to you is that before entering into any collaborative creative project, you should create a “Collaboration Agreement” that irons out the details of the project and relationship.

A collaboration agreement should include at least:

Description of the project
What each person will contribute
Ownership %
Authorship credit
Control of use – decision making

There are a bunch of other things your lawyer will help you with, but the things listed above are the key relationship issues to keep in mind and bring to the meeting with your attorney.

Please understand that I’m not saying “don’t collaborate” because collaborations can be incredibly powerful. I’m saying get the deal in writing before you begin the work, even if you’re sure everything will be swell.

Things happen.

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My Flat-Fee Model Gets the Attention of the American Bar Association

The clients of Houchin & Associates have been enjoying a novel (and very win-win) approach to working with a lawyer for almost a year now. The model is basically that clients sign on to a one-year agreement to work with the firm at a flat monthly fee which includes a list of the projects they need us to complete, and “as needed” access to the lawyers and staff of the firm for advice and counsel as issues come up during the course of their business.

The model just got the attention of the American Bar Association – specifically the ABA Journal online edition. They are currently running a short feature on the model and the firm on the front page of the ABA Journal Web site.

I’m sure it won’t be on the front page forever. 🙂 So I grabbed a screen capture.

The full article will probably be online indefinitely, but I grabbed a screen capture of that too.

Many might question the wisdom of sharing that I’ve been through a personal bankruptcy and the struggles surrounding that time in my life, but it’s part of the story and helps put the who issue in full context. I learned a great deal during that experience and I believe what I learned has value to other people in both that as I survived, so will they and that it’s better to try and fail then to never try at all. Then get up and keep trying new things until something works.

I think I’ve found a system that works, for me, and for my clients. Other people are starting to think so too.

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The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business Appoints Laura Lee Sparks as Chief Operating Officer.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business Appoints Laura Lee Sparks as Chief Operating Officer.

FORT COLLINS, Colorado – April 6, 2010 – The Space Between Center, LLC today announced the appointment of Laura Lee Sparks to the role of chief operating officer. Sparks, 41, will be responsible for the strategic operational leadership of The Space Between Center’s member services, events, and staff development. Sparks most recently served in a similar role for The Family Wealth Planning Institute where she helped build successful membership programs for attorneys and entrepreneurs. Sparks also maintains her own consulting practice.

“I am extremely excited to have Laura Lee join The Space Between Center’s executive leadership team, where our team and our members will benefit immensely from her experience, proven record of success, and passion for building professional membership and mastermind programs,” said Kevin Houchin, Founder of The Space Between Center. “Laura Lee is a master organizer and builder of efficient service models, not to mention her marketing expertise. Her skills will ensure an on-going commitment to members services that will help The Space Between Center implement our growing list of creative business initiatives.”

“I’m very happy to bring my experience in building membership programs and service systems to The Space Between Center,” says Sparks. “The Center’s current initiatives and future plans energize me. Serving entrepreneurs and the professionals who serve those entrepreneurs has been something I’ve loved in the past and The Space Between Center’s innovative approach to those goals is bound to make a difference in the world.”

Newly founded in March, 2010, The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business is dedicated to helping people reach their full potential through entrepreneurism.

Contact Information:
The Space Between Center, LLC
970-493-1070
www.spacebetweencenter.org
support@spacebetweencenter.com

Stillness and the Space Between

In the quiet infinities between thoughts we find inspired ideas.

Since I founded The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business earlier this month, I’ve received a lot of questions asking about the thought behind the name. There’s a lot of thought behind the name, that’s for sure. I started working on the concept way back in early 2008. Much of the following essay was drafted back then (time flies) and was shared with a few friends. I pulled it up and made a few additions and corrections this evening.

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Stillness is putting a muzzle on that monkey chattering in your mind long enough to hear the great ideas that come from somewhere else. We can call that somewhere else “God.” We can call it “the Universe.” For the sake of argument, I’ll call it “the Source.” Telling the voice in your head to shut up is one thing. Making it shut up or ignoring it until it shuts up out of frustration requires practice. That practice is the basis of meditation. Another way to think of this is what I call “The Space Between.”

There is an infinity in the space between breaths.

There is an infinity in the space between thoughts.

The wonderful ideas coming from that space are limitless. Picture a ruler or a number line from your days in grade school. On that ruler or number line, “1” is followed next by “2” then “3” and so on in both directions into infinity. Later, you learn about fractions like ¼, 1/3, ½, 2/3, ¾ and so on. Think about that. When you understand that the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and on are simply labels for concepts, and the same is true for each labeled fraction, then you understand that there is an infinity in the space between each number or fraction. More importantly, there is an infinity between each label we choose to put on numbers.

The infinity in the space between doesn’t apply just to numbers; it applies to anything you can label. Logically then, the space between is infinitely more abundant than anything we have or can label. This is why examining two words, phrases, or concepts that generally do not work together is such a great creative tool – examining the space between things that we don’t even associate with one another creates something I like to think of as a “bigger infinity” in the space between. You could also think of it as a “richer” infinity for great ideas, because like a riverbed that has never been explored, a virgin piece of farmland, or an isolated lake in Canada, it’s resources have not been mined by other folks for their own purposes.

When you understand the concept of “The Space Between” then you will never again think there is a scarcity of ideas, time, money or anything our minds can conceive. If there is an infinity around everything, how can there be a limitation of anything?

If you’re stumped, you just haven’t mined enough of the infinite number of spaces between thoughts, words, actions, feelings, senses, or labels.

In the quiet infinities between thoughts we find inspired ideas.

The space between is not empty. In the space between, the first occupants one generally encounters are the archetypes programmed into every human from the beginning of time. Those archetypes are described in different ways. Joseph Campbell talked of them in his famous works including The Hero’s Journey and The Power of Myth. The Hero’s Journey inspired George Lucas’s storyline for Star Wars. The hero’s journey is the outline of the human spiritual journey toward enlightenment and is found in practically every culture in our world, across time and space, in a virtually identical pattern. The hero hears a call to adventure, denies that call, experiences an event that requires him to engage in the journey anyway, finds a mentor, faces the challenge, gains possession of the goal of the journey, then fights his way back home where his knowledge and experience are eventually embraced for the benefit of the group. The trump cards of a tarot deck (called “major arcana”) also depict the hero’s journey through the archetypes of human existence in the space between where we were before we were born and the place to which we are all eventually bound.

Some people find the quiet in the space between to be a wonderful place to “receive” guidance. Many successful songwriters, novelists, journalists, visual artists, and speakers describe this experience as something close to “channeling” the message or other content from a larger collective creative source. To tap in, they just had to get their egos out of the way and listen to receive the creative flow. This type of receiving takes many names, from “inspiration,” which is how the church attributes divine authorship to the books of the Bible, to the “Spirit Guides” of tribal cultures, to the “Holy Guardian Angel” of new age spirituality, and the angelic visitations as described in the Old and New Testament and Islam. Many people all over the world claim these angelic visitations happen every day, and we can’t disprove those claims.

We’ve all had incredibly realistic dreams that seemed to be giving us messages. We’ve all had wonderfully creative ideas “come to us” as we are in the space between waking up and sleeping either at night or in the morning. We’ve all had moments of déjà vu. These are all experiences of finding the stillness in the space between thoughts. It doesn’t matter what label you place on the experience, or to what source you attribute the inspiration. The one thing that matters in the creative process is that you allow yourself to step out of controlling the process and allow yourself to surrender to receiving the inspirations that originate in the spaces between.

This concept is not just a Western thought. Verse 11 of the Tao Te Ching states:

We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it’s the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.

The space between is not only infinite, it’s useful.

These are the core reasons I founded The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business. We all have ideas. We can reach our potential through creative business. To connect those two potentials, one must pass through The Space Between.

But, for those of you who want an easier and more modern answer, take a listen to The Space Between by The Dave Matthews Band. Here are some of the lyrics:

The Space Between

The tears we cry

Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more…

The Space Between

Where you’re smiling high

Is where you’ll find me if I get to go…

Take my hand

‘Cause we’re walking out of here

Oh, right out of here

Love is all we need here…

Nice. Think about it. Take my hand…

She was trapped.

Do you enjoy your work as a lawyer?

Do you have the balanced life you were hoping for?

Do you get to spend enough time with your family or doing the things that feed your spirit?

Do you know that you can pay your bills next month? How about next year?

Have you always wished you could start your own law practice, but the fear of financial insecurity keeps you in a “J-O-B” that is steeling your life?

Have you already started your practice, but feel stupid asking for help?

If a solution to these questions was given to you, would you take action?

Let me tell you a story.

Maybe you know someone like this…

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There was once a very smart young leader. This leader was always top of the class in High School. She was also the natural leader outside the classroom, excelling in extra-curricular activities. She was passionate about everything she did, confident, and secure in the knowledge of her successful future.

When she went to college it became a bit more challenging, but she still fell into natural leadership roles and achieved results that her classmates envied. She had always known she was going to be some sort of “professional,” but in college, it became pretty clear that law school might be in her future. After graduation, she worked a few jobs, but none gave her the challenge she craved. She got bored. She also found a few things in the world that she wanted to change and making those changes just felt “right.” She wasn’t conscious that addressing those issues was her life path, but the passion was kindled again and she decided that law school would be the next step toward reaching her goals. She ALWAYS reached her goals, so she applied, and was accepted to a highly respected law school.

She realized on the first day of law school that things were different. This wasn’t going to be an easy ride to the top. Her classmates were very smart, some younger, some older, but all used to high achievement. She didn’t know what to think, so she didn’t notice when the culture started thinking for her.

She didn’t notice when her inner definition of success changed to a definition that included making the staff of the Law Review, competing for summer internships, receiving grades in the top 10% of her class and ultimately landing a job with a large firm in a major city with a six-figure salary. She didn’t notice when her understanding of her life balance and drive to help people make their lives better was replaced with these other measures – that was “normal” in law school. She didn’t notice when her ability to engage her heart and conscience was replaced by “thinking like a lawyer.” Those changes too, were “normal” in law school.

She spent summers in “top” internships where she learned that the competition had only just begun, and got a small glimpse into the amount commitment a partnership track associate had to give to the firm. She also saw the toys they were able to buy with the salary (which they never seemed to have time to enjoy), and whenever she saw her law school debt statements she decided that she HAD to have that salary, no matter what.

She made the law review, and while she generally enjoyed the people she spent time with, the work itself seemed tedious and unimportant in the context of that fading dream of changing the world in her particular way. Again, this was just “normal” for law school.

She graduated in the top 10% of her class. She got an offer from the firm she had worked with the summer between 2L and 3L. The job offer wasn’t in an area of law that had anything to do with her dream, but it paid well, was prestigious, and she needed the money to pay off her school loans. Her parents were very happy for her. Her old friends respected her. She felt smart.

When she started as the new associate in the big firm, she discovered the realities of minimum billing. She discovered the drudgery that can come with law practice. She felt smart, but unfulfilled – like something was missing in her life. She had good money for the first time in her life, so when she felt hollow, she went shopping. The toys were nice, but they didn’t fill that hole inside her. She volunteered (with what little time she could give – she had to work weekends to make the billable hour minimums after all, and she also wanted to get ahead and make partner someday), but it still didn’t fill that void.

She was smart and worked hard, so after a few years, she was well respected in a field of law that had nothing to do with her dream, but there were now law students that knew more about the legal issues in that other area than she did now.

Now she was an expert…

In a field she didn’t enjoy…

Working all the time…

To pay for a lifestyle…

That she developed to fill the void…

Of being an expert…

In a field she didn’t enjoy…

Working all the time…

She was trapped.

She didn’t know what to do and felt stupid asking for help. She saw her peers drinking too much, or taking on worse habits to take the edge of the cycle of pain they had created in their lives. She hadn’t developed those habits, but could see the motivation. She wasn’t sleeping well. Something needed to change.

She had to find the place back to that purpose in her life that motivated her to go to law school in the first place.

But how?

She was scared she would be seen as a failure.

She was scared she would not make enough money.

But she was more scared that she was literally selling the days of her life to her firm, without living her purpose.

The fear of wasting her life was terrifying, far bigger than the fear of failure or not having a six figure income immediately.

So, she resolved to take action and get her life back on purpose…

She left the big firm and started her own practice. She wanted to empower others to reach their entrepreneurial dreams because she believed that inside every human was some creative gift they could give to the world. She new that many entrepreneurs would benefit from her experience and find the confidence THEY needed to pursue their dreams because she was willing to share her mistakes with them. After all, the fear of asking for help is human nature when there’s a little bit of shame attached. Shame of not knowing. Shame from getting into “dumb” situations. Shame of making mistakes. She had experienced those things, and if it could happen to this smart, over-achieving lawyer, it could happen to anyone.

Her solo practice was growing, but she was still worried. The business model of the legal industry said that you had to bill people a lot of money, by the hour, or by the project. Many of her small business clients were bootstrapping start-ups and honestly couldn’t afford to pay “the going rate.”

Each month was a struggle. She never knew where the billing would start in the next month, let alone end up, so she couldn’t bring herself to hire even a part time assistant because she didn’t want to have to lay someone off. She couldn’t focus on the systems to deliver her best work, because she had to deal with all the mundane details of running the business. She had a hard time actually billing more than a few hours a day, and some days getting even a couple billable hours in didn’t happen until after her kids and husband were asleep. She would have a great month of billable work, only to find that she hadn’t had time to market and bring in work for the next month. She called that the cash-flow roller-coaster, and she hated it.

Again, she was trapped.

This time, she wasn’t trapped by the big firm. She didn’t know who to blame. This was how the law business worked, wasn’t it?

There had to be a better way.

There had to be a way to create predictable income.

There had to be a way to serve clients better.

There had to be a way to focus on what she loved.

There had to be a way to spend more quality time with the people she loved.

There had to be a way to hire the help she needed.

There had to be other people in the same situation.

There had to be someone who knew how to help her, without making her feel like a failure.

Well, there is. And maybe YOU can be a part of that group.

SpaceBetween_logo_FA

Do you want to get your life back on purpose?

Do you want to better serve your small business clients?

Do you want to spend more quality time with the people you love?

If you answered Yes to any of these questions, then you owe it to yourself, your family, and your clients to listen to the replay of the call I co-hosted with my friend Ben Glass last week.

My name is Kevin Houchin, and I founded The Space Between Center for Creative Spirit in Business to help other small business lawyers discover the literally life-changing methods and mind-sets that I’ve learned since discovering how to get my life back on purpose, better serve my clients, spend more time with my family, and integrate my lifestyle with my career.

If you want to take action and change your life for the better, join us on the call and see if membership in the Space Between Center Lawyer Mastermind Program might be for you. If you think so, but don’t take action now, then you’re probably not a good fit for the program anyway – it’s only for those ready to take action. If you think so and take action, then you may very well be on the right path.

Go listen to the call replay now.

It’ll be worth your time.

It might even change your life.

Now, back to work…