John Corabi  has been the lead singer for international rock bands like The Scream, Motley Crue and more recently his current gig as front man for the Dead Daisies. Recently I interviewed John for an upcoming episode of the Mojo Radio Show.

During the interview John talked about the process of songwriting. He said “sometimes I go through a dry spell where I have nothing to say. Then I walk into the studio and I have everything to say. It is about knowing it will come”.  

I took a lot from this interview with John, as it relates to any creative endeavour. You need to have your time away to recharge. During those times of recharge, free your mind of your normal day-to-day activity and let it wander and capture stimulation. Then when you need to create, your mind has something to draw from. It’s also important to know that having confidence in your own creative ability is critical and if you have given your mind sufficient rest then the moments where you need to create, you will have everything to say. No creative is always on.

​The interview with John will be released on the Mojo Radio Show in the coming weeks. Subscribe here on iTunes.

There is no doubt that Simon Madden is a true legend in Australian sport. Having played 378 AFL games, winning 2 AFL premierships, winning the prestigious Norm Smith Medal, and even having a cinema and a street named after him, Simon has a unique outlook on what it takes to be successful. Couple this with his passion for improving people and you have a powerful formula for understanding and facilitating the process of winning.
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As an educator, a successful businessman and an AFL Hall of Fame Inductee, Simon combines his years of experience and knowledge to provide you with the philosophies, insights and processes to assist you to develop and harness the strengths of your people.

The Espresso gets excited when a designer looks at a traditional item, challenges it, and says what if you did it differently?

Polish designer Robert Majkut has challenged the design of the traditional piano by creating the Whaletone Royal Digital Piano. Measuring 13 x 8’ this piano resembles more a stylish watercraft than it does a piano. No strings or hammers under the hood,  instead the whole piano is digitally driven.
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It comes with MIDI inputs and outputs, USB and headphones sockets so you can play in silence to immerse yourself in the experience. The Whaletone Royal Digital Piano is built to order so you can customise it to your own environment.

Regular subscribers to the Espresso or listeners to the Mojo Radio Show will know that I have been talking about the trend of moving into smaller and smaller living spaces.
A recent competition in New York challenged designers to create the city’s first micro unit apartment building. Carmel Place is now almost ready to welcome his first tenants.
Once upon a time we all craved a bigger and bigger home.
Now it's about minimalism, simplicity, and affordability. With that comes the necessity to design smarter.
We love this foldaway chair designed by Liquid Interiors which simply folds down and disappears into the floor. What a wonderful design piece to maximise the minimalist lifestyle and trend that was ahead of us.

It's fair to say that doing the washing and folding up your clothes to put away would not be in the top five chores that any of us look forward to.

However if you read Marie Kondo’s book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying then you will know that this trend the timing is sweeping the world.

To make it easier for you meet …Foldimate.  The Foldimate Clothes Folding Machine makes sure you'll never have to fold again, and what's more your shirts will always look like they came off the retail floor. You simply clip your clothes into its rotating rack and hit start. The machine sucks each one inside where a robotic arms give it a perfect fold befor dropping it down into a removable tray.
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Gold!

Many of us have been to hospital and seen what is a typical wheelchair. Over the years it seems that not a lot of true innovation has happened in the category of wheelchairs up till now.
A new project - GO is creating made-to-measure 3-D printed consumer wheelchairs that are designed specifically to fit the individual needs of the consumer, catering for a wide range of disabilities and lifestyles. The custom form of the seat and foot bay is driven by 3-D digital data derived from mapping each individual users biometric information. The result is a wheelchair that is accurately built for your weight, your body shape, and your disability. The accompanying GO app allows you to participate in the design where you can specify optional extras patterns, colour ways and features.
It's taken GO a lot research to get to this point, but we love the look and style of the wheelchair and we are even more impressed that someone took what is traditional in its design and challenged it to find a better way.

The Espresso gets a real kick out of a designer who looks at a mundane everyday product and thinks differently about its design or application.

Our latest design like is the PORITZ & STUDIO X UNCRATE TOOLBOX. 

Made from 75-year-old reclaimed tropical walnut from Nicaragua this tool carrier has been heavily stained on the outside and is quite simply the standout toolbox for the handyman who has everything. This Toolbox may even find its way into your living room fully loaded as opposed to being banished to the shed. 

It is not cheap but then again, great design comes at a price.

Creating a logo or look for your brand can be quite a daunting task if you're not a big corporate with an in-house facility or the ability to outsource to a bigger agency.

Algorithmic logo maker Tailor Brands has now generated a quite unique offering by giving small to medium sized businesses unlimited branding material via an online subscription service.

Tailor Brands Studio has an algorithm that has automated the branding service to provide companies with unlimited branding packages on a subscription basis.  Over the last two years, they created the algorithm by collecting data from 13.5 million designs so as to offer automated options on logos, business cards, stationery and social assets. Companies subscribe for a monthly fee, which is quite reasonable and it gives you unlimited access to branding material for your own in-house use.
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Cracking idea that will certainly find a home small to medium sized enterprises.

The Postal Service in Australia, Australia Post has been reported in the media to be struggling. People simply aren't posting letters. Little wonder when you can never find a postal address on any website if you choose to send snail mail to a client or customer.

The solution it seems is for Australia Post jack up the prices…. that should fix it! The mail service in Finland, Posti - has a different view.

Posti is expanding its’ service to include lawn mowing throughout the summer. Posti employees will offer a lawn mowing service one day a week in addition to doing their normal rounds of deliveries.
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Interesting take on collaborative consumption where you take a resource that is unused and find a new dual job purpose.

​Next year we will see a new film Justice League where JK Simmons will play Commissioner Gordon.

Over the last few months Simmons has been working out with former soldier and personal trainer Aaron Williamson. Williamson has worked with celebrities like Sylvester Stallone and the Rock. To say that Williamson is impressed with the progress of the 61-year-old Simmons is an understatement.

Look at the shape this guy has got himself in. No excuses.

Quite often we let an old person into our bodies and use it as an excuse to eat poorly, sleep less, stop exercise sessions, sit in front of a computer or the box and age prematurely.

If Simmons at the age of 61 can be so serious about taking on a role he can get himself into this sort of shape, none of us have any excuse not to get after it

Every three seconds a new case of dementia is identified.

The Espresso recently found this new innovation, Sea Hero Quest and loved it. The game created by Glitchers can collect more information from patients and dementia candidates in just two minutes of play than scientists would normally take five hours to collect in similar lab-based research. It is a game that makes you use your brain. By playing the game you in fact give scientists data that will help them with their dementia research.

It works because the first symptoms of dementia is loss of navigational skills. In this game you must complete missions like chasing down sea creatures and finding your way out of a maze. All the games are directional, and  involve navigation and orientation skills, all signs of old age or dementia.
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A wonderful idea and we're going to see more gamification applied in every aspect of life and business.

Banks are working hard to stay abreast, if not, in front of technology. Wells Fargo have embarked upon the next innovation by bringing in eye scanning biometrics for mobile banking. The Espresso has reported before how ATMs are moving towards eye scanning technology. It was pretty cool when Apple introduced fingerprint technology to open applications and provide security rather than code numbers.
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Wells Fargo have now introduced eye scanning technology into your mobile device to allow you to authenticate your person and access your bank details. In an effort to make sign on as quick easy and secure as possible Wells Fargo have looked at biometric solutions in order to expedite and secure your money.

It's all being done in-house at Wells Fargo and overseen by the CEO which in itself should send a strong message to other brands to maintain control of their technology, and ensure such innovative projects are led from the highest level. 

The Story of OneWave, Starting the Conversation to Take on Depression

“It’s ok to not be ok”. Joel Pilgrim is an occupational therapist specialising in Mental Health.  One day, Joel heard about a guy called Grant who was going surfing solo in a dress suit. Within a week, Joel donned a tux and headed down to meet Grant for a surf. This was the start of a community group called One Wave is All it Takes, and he found it combined his 3 life passions...surfing, mental health, and dressing up.

OneWave is a non profit surf community taking funks like depression, anxiety, and bipolar with a strong recipe, salt water, surfing, good mates and Fluro Fridays. Today, OneWave is a wonderful community of surfers and non surfers who come together to have conversations to build awareness around mental health and depression.  With depression being so prevalent in our society, this story is empowering and inspiring.  

From the surf board to the board room, there is a need to have this conversation to break down barriers.
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Quite often when I speak to audiences about innovation, creativity and the attributes of those with their mojo working, I talk about the need and opportunities that exist when we take the time to dream.Dream big and see what you want, rather than what you think you can do for the future. Dream for yourself, the community, the planet, our families, our business, or our social groups.  What is it that you see that you want to make happen.

One of the first challenges for people when they start dreaming is having the courage to dream big, and then not knowing where to start….Perhaps a comment from one of my superheroes Walt Disney who said in the book The Disney Way “Dream big, start small”.

Dream lofty dreams and think to yourself …what is the small step I can do now, right this minute to start me on the journey to my dream? Your dream may be years away but consider what are the small actions / first steps that you can take immediately. 
Dream big. Start small.
© GB

TED x  took place in Sydney last week. I happened to be speaking to one of the attendees, Oksana about the event. Oksana said that the gift bag that each attendee got at TED x was amazing (as it always is at Tedx Sydney events). Curious I asked what was great about it? It was the gifts themselves, how they were presented, how they helped  build the TED x brand, add to the experience (they were setting a Guinness world record for spoon playing) and the overall value to the guests.

What was interesting, is that Oksana who works in the promotional products space and the founder of IMPERO said “  It frustrates me Gary, that people go to these conferences and get given bags of rubbish. It happens all the time. Why don't people take the time to plan them and act in a more professional way that builds their brand as opposed to filling a gift bag full of junk”.Her comment got me thinking - this is absolutely true. If you are planning to give something to a customer or client for this Christmas, now is the time to start the planning, arrange the budget, get samples and imagine what gift will suit  - how it will build your brand and how it can be of true value to your customer.
How do you know you have a great gift idea? Well, Oksana has a belief that when a customer or client asks if they can take an extra bag, you know you are on to a winner. Just filling a bag with giveaways is not good enough today. It has to be true quality, build your brand, and be of value to the recipient. If you don't want what's in the bag why would someone else? 
If you are about to do a gift pack for your customers or your planning a gift of some sort for your clients, I would highly suggest you call Oksana who has a great philosophy and unique method for brand building through product at Impero. Check out her Instagram #imperobyoksana.

Regular Espresso reader Peter brought this story to our office recently following on from a story we  wrote about the inside of commuter vehicles being painted with amazing art.

In Australia, the Dreamtime Journey coach can take you on a spiritual journey from dawn to dusk. The inside of the coach carries an aboriginal theme based on “Bahami” who created the earth, the wonderful landscape, mountains, lakes rivers our billabongs, oceans and Islands.
The Dreamtime Coach, created by Damon Calance, acknowledges the contribution made by indigenous people in building the Australian Railway.
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Just a lovely story reminds us that dreamtime in all its forms is important for creativity.

The Espresso has long been a promoter of taking the time to dream. Quite often we look back in time and recognise periods where, what we dreamt of five years ago, has happened and come to life exactly as we saw it.

Virgin Atlantic have created the one day campaign where they are rolling back through Twitter feeds from five years ago and hosting tweets that start with “one day I will….”
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Virgin Atlantic are then posting them on various outdoor locations throughout the UK and through their own virgin Atlantic social networks. The first five people who claim their tweets win a flight to wherever it was they hoped to go one day.

Disrupting brand Uber has once again broken new ground in a unique partnership with San Fran property developer Parkmerced community who have agreed to give tenants a $100 monthly stipend to use on public transport and uber cars if they come to the building car free.

Developers would rather have more space for living than parking. They want people to ditch the car and take an Uber instead.
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The car free living program is surely going to be the start of what will become more popular as digital nomads require less possessions and rely more on outsourced music, books, cars and household items.

​There is no doubt that when you are dressed well, you feel good and when you feel good, you get your Mojo working!  This weeks guest is an expert in style, fashion and tailoring. Mark Ferguson is a bespoke tailor creating outfits that enhances your personal brand.

Mark represents a portfolio of impressive and diverse clients including Rock Star Paul Stanley (KISS) and a host of television presenters and CEO's. Mark also created Suit of Change, a social initiative that collects and distributes suits, business shirts, and all the accessories, to non-profit organisations to go to disadvantaged men who are going through hard times. The suit gives them the mojo and confidence to seek a new job. Listen to this show to learn more about getting your mojo suited up! 

UK fitness studio 1Rebel, a chain of pay-as-you-train fitness boutiques in London has given the daily commute a spin by taking a London bus and turning it into a mobile spin class called ride 2 rebel.

You pay for the 45 minutes spin class on a bus which takes a route around London eventually finishing up at the 1Rebel fitness studio so that the riders can take a shower, refuel and get ready for the day ahead.
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Apparently conversations are going on between 1Rebel and bus companies. It's a unique idea but doesn't make a lot of sense when you start and finish at a studio where there are bikes sitting in situ already.