If Steve Blank could teach a really effective one semester course on how to be a successful entrepreneur, then anyone who could do well in his course could become rich and we'd have a lot more rich people. But having many more rich people encounters some problems with the size of the whole pie so that I have to doubt that Blank's course can do much! :-)!!

His current statement that entrepreneurship is an "art" seems to be an escape to the land where we don't understand artists and don't get blamed for not understanding!

Yes, suppose we accept that, except for luck, some 'creativity' is needed for successful entrepreneurship. Well, my view is that the first 20-30 years of life are not very good for teaching creativity!

I finally learned how to be creative in math, but the lessons were not taught or even hinted at in school! Here's a nutshell recipe:

First have to guess the result (theorem) and then have to guess at a good way to confirm (prove) it. The key is some good guessing. Here are five points about such guessing:

1. Guessing Machine.

So, have a 'guessing machine', a bit wild and unconstrained! To find some really big, new ideas, let the guessing machine be wild!

2. Intuitive Models.

Have some 'intuitive models'. Why just intuitive? Because typically don't know enough yet to make them solid.

2.1 Connections.

Sometimes two apparently quite different parts of math seem to have a glimmer of something in common, and maybe they do and the glimmer is from something deep and powerful. Broadly a relatively powerful approach in math is to get to the same result two different ways, thus, showing something in common and getting some new connections.

2.2 Patterns.

Sometimes work by patterns and analogies: E.g., once I had a result that said that, along with some other properties, I could have a function differentiable k times for any positive integer k. So, then by a 'pattern', a guess would be that I could still have those other properties and a function infinitely differentiable. Yup, a few hours later, I did.

3. Filtering.

3.1 Constraints. Use what already know is true and is false to constrain or filter guesses. Be a little flexible and not too literal on the filtering: Maybe some small changes would make something true now false or something false now true.

3.2 Intuitive Models.

The intuitive models can be used to filter the results from the guessing machine. So, maybe guess that A is true. Then roughly, just intuitively, it looks like maybe B and C are true. But then D would have to be true, but we know that D is false. So, if want to invest more time in this guess, then check more carefully that B and C have to follow; otherwise save time for now and guess that A is false.

4. Special Cases.

Typically do understand some special cases, maybe just some very simple, contrived special cases. With these can do some more filtering.

5. Proofs.

So, when have what appears to be a theorem, do some more guessing about how to prove it. Commonly the guessing that led to the theorem will also help in guessing how to prove it. In the guesses, be sure actually to make some crucial use of all the hypotheses or just drop any unused hypotheses. If you are fairly sure that all the hypotheses are needed, then in looking for a proof realize that need a proof that actually uses all the hypotheses.

Such means, and likely more, worked for me in being 'creative' in math. Your mileage may vary! Adapt, revise, extend, and improve as suits your work!

For business in Web 2.0 and 'consumer Internet', sure, need to give the users something they like enough to become "engaged" (F. Wilson).

One way to do that is to play on 'art' as in the common definition "the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". Look at some examples of art and see how well this definition fits. More generally, get some understanding of what gets or might get people "engaged". To check ideas, look at examples of where people do get engaged.

For guesses at what might get a lot of people engaged, look at someone you know best of all, yourself. Or, for something less general and simpler, start with a problem you would like to have solved.

For how to be as 'creative' as in, say,

Notre Dame

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts5t_5HeECE

Meditation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zmgfBKuIrk

Lohengrin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E

Tristan und Isolde

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fktwPGCR7Yw

Parsifal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPn3JV3GHRE&NR=1

clearly that's doable but more difficult!

For more, no doubt the central key is that mechanism we do not know how to explain, human intelligence. Typically that work is done between two ears in a quiet room considering all that know and can guess, sometimes considers 'causes', and has enough freedom to find some really good, new ideas but enough discipline not to go off into nonsense land.