GT Briefing January 2011: Looking Ahead — The Best of 2011 Trends

GT Briefing January 2011: Looking Ahead — The Best of 2011 Trends.

January 2011: Typing Trends for 2011 into Google on January 1^st 2011 gave us around 46 million results, so there is obviously no lack of people with opinions on what is in store for the year ahead.  The problem is there is so much out there that it is tough to sort the noise from the merely interesting to the extremely important.   So we thought we would give you a brief overview of where you can find some of the more interesting and important trend forecasts and predictions for 2011. As always, bear in mind that in a world as uncertain as ours such forecasts are not meant to be accurate. Treat them as directional and informed opinions on potential opportunities and challenges that can offer new perspectives to supplement your own thinking on what might be possible, feasible and desirable.  Don’t forget to look at top trends outside your own industry or market space – these may well cross over sooner than you think! We will pick up on many of these trends in our next GT briefings along with examples of how they are being – or could be – translated into action.

About The Licenses – Creative Commons

About The Licenses – Creative Commons.

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.

You Don\’t Need Money to Make Money, Innovation Article – Inc. Article

You Don\’t Need Money to Make Money, Innovation Article – Inc. Article.

Cash In on Your Business\\\’s Intellectual Property – Raising Capital – Intellectual Property

Cash In on Your Business\\\’s Intellectual Property – Raising Capital – Intellectual Property.

LICENSING – A QUICK INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS LICENSING AND THE POWER OF LEVERAGE

Okay, let’s talk about an overview of licensing. What is licensing? What I’ll do first is I will give you a definition, a literal definition of licensing. The licensing process is an art practiced in negotiation between two or more parties. Its success requires that the parties agree on the exploitation of often highly valuable intellectual property rights in which both have a claim or want an interest. The range of interests, intellectual property rights and exploitation agreements is limitless, making the process of negotiating a mutually desirable agreement from a myriad of possibilities indeed an art. Now, you recall early on that I mentioned that we will be talking about negotiation. Negotiation is indeed an integral part of licensing, but it also happens to be a part of licensing that I find I have a lot of fun with, and I think there’s a lot of people out there that will have fun with it. And, by the way, I want you to understand that licensing, as I mentioned earlier, is a marketing option. But licensing happens to be an area that allows you to niche your realm. And I’m going to talk about some strategies on how you can use licensing to niche your realm. And, by the way, licensing is available to everyone. It is not an option that is proprietary to large corporations or business entities. Licensing is a tool that can be used by everyone.

There are a couple of key points which I think are very important and I think will give you a good sense of what licensing can do for you. The first thing to keep in mind is that licensing provides high leverage. What do I mean by high leverage? I mean that licensing allows you to leverage your idea. It allows you to leverage your idea multiple times. You can license your idea for multiple products, you can license your idea to multiple licensees, you can license your idea to multiple distribution channels, and you can license your idea to multiple territories. And there are probably other ways that you can license and idea. I want to give you a sense here that you have the ability to create high leverage with your idea. Which leads to the second key point: Licensing allows you to develop speed wealth. It allows you to develop multiple sources of income, now, within the next 18 months. And the third important thing to keep in mind is that licensing is relationship marketing. You’re building a business relationship. It’s a long-term relationship, and the terms of that relationship are defined in your licensing agreement.