Josh Linkner

Josh Linkner is the New York Times Bestselling author of Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity, named one of the top 10 business books of 2011. Josh is the CEO and Managing Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Together with business partners Earvin “Magic” Johnson and NBA team owner Dan Gilbert, Josh is actively rebuilding urban areas through technology and entrepreneurship. Josh is also Adjunct Professor of Applied Creativity at the University of Michigan.

Josh is the Founder, Chairman and former CEO of ePrize, the largest interactive promotion agency in the world providing digital marketing services for 74 of the top 100 brands.

Prior to ePrize, Josh was the founder and CEO of three other successful technology companies. He has been honored as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the Detroit News Michiganian of the Year, and is a President Barack Obama Champion of Change award recipient. Josh is a regular columnist for Fast Company and Inc. Magazine, and his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, and The New York Times. Josh is also a Berklee-trained professional jazz guitarist performing regularly in jazz clubs throughout the United States.

Most importantly, Josh in on a mission to make the world more creative.  

Josh's Blog Entries:

How to Be Attractive

Superpowers and Kryptonite

• 1. Unleashing Creativity

  We now live in a world of dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and ruthless competition. As most of the advantages of the past have become commoditized, creativity has become the currency of success; in both business and life. In this interactive talk, Josh shows participants how to jump-start their creativity to drive meaningful and immediate results. Attendees will learn specific techniques to unleash their most valuable resources - human creativity, imagination, and original thinking.

• 2. Executing Imagination: Turning Creative Fire into Real Results

  Organizations often have an abundance of raw creativity, but lack a systematic process to harness it. In an era where ideas only count when they drive results, how do you focus your team's imagination into practical outputs? Josh Linkner helps you make the leap from whiteboard to tangible results. How do you ensure your best ideas don't get lost during execution? How do you maintain a creative culture through the realities of your hyper-competitive world? How do you drive everyday creativity and direct it toward specific, measurable gains? You will be energized by the answers to these questions and more in this fast-moving, fun, and interactive session.

• 3. 7 Steps to a Creative Culture

  Despite today's ultra-competitive environment, companies like Zappos, Groupon, and Facebook have enjoyed tremendous growth and profitability. The leaders of hyper-growth companies often credit a culture of innovation as the primary driver of their success. In this interactive session, Josh shares proven philosophies and practices to help you build and maintain a creative culture. In turn, you will enjoy breakaway growth and success by unleashing your organization's most powerful hidden natural asset: human creativity.

• 4. 5 Big Ideas from Starting 5 Companies

  Celebrated five-time entrepreneur Josh Linkner shares five big ideas that can transform your organization and career. Expanded from his highly acclaimed TED talk, Josh takes audience through a journey of entrepreneurship. From triumphant victories to crushing defeats, audiences will be gripped with drama, insights, and inspiration throughout this exciting talk. These philosophies can be immediately implemented to drive breakaway success and seize your full potential.

• Josh Linkner, CEO of ePrize, is a tremendous business leader who has established a successful and sustainable company, as well as a culture that nurtures employees to help them maximize their potential.

  Hon. Jennifer M. Granholm Governor, State of Michigan

• Josh Linkner is the perfect model of what one should want from a speaker. During the planning and preparation period, he is accessible, flexible, engaged, attentive, and truly invested in understanding the client, the objectives, and the desired outcomes. He makes himself available for phone calls, answers emails, and generally provides a level of confidence that he is going to deliver the goods. And then he does. His passion and love for championing and teaching creativity is clear in his energy, his well-designed stories/case studies, and in the overall presentation of his topic. Add his pleasant demeanor and overall likeability to his deep subject matter expertise and you've got the total package. One more thing - you can rest assured that he will do everything in his power to be at your event when you need him to be. For the last event on which we worked, Josh faced 5 hours of flight delays on the tarmac and a rash of flight cancellations. The entire time, his team kept me in the loop as to his status and had several backup plans incase his current flight was canceled. Overall, they worked hard to keep my mind as much at ease as was possibleunder the circumstances. Net-net, his plane got into town very late the night before the event, but he was still there for run-thrus on time, bright eyed and bushy tailed. If you are thinking of working with Josh, stop thinking - just do it.

  ManageCamp, Inc.

• The message about creativity and innovation was excellent. It was clear, well researched, engaging and kept the attention of the audience. Your use of stories, facts and humor made the time fly by. I had several people come up to me afterword and thank me for having you come in and speak to the group. They were energized and excited to put the principles in play.

  Quicken Loans

• Josh brought a great source of refreshing content about creativity in business that was just what our Inc. GrowCo Conference needed. His energy and enthusiasm about the topic inspired attendees and gave them takeaways to implement in their own companies. Josh has a strong stage presence and was extremely easy to work with. Building a 6-time Inc. 500 company as well as writing a bestseller, he clearly knows what it is like to run a fast-growing company and lead an entrepreneurial lifestyle. We were thoroughly pleased to have Josh and will continue to seek out Josh for future speaking opportunities.

  Inc. Magazine

• The scope of Josh's creativity message transcends easily from applications for an entry level employee to its importance to our ability to compete as a nation. But as passionate as Josh is about innovation and creativity, it is his deep need to make a difference in his community and in the lives of others that really brings his message home. 100% genuine.

  Catalina Marketing

• In today's fiercely competitive global marketplace, the most important resource any business has is the creative thinking of its people. Josh Linkner lays out a road map that will guide individuals, teams, and companies to higherlevels of creativity. It is a journey that will lead to better ideas and breakthrough thinking-and those who take it will also have a lot of fun along the way.

  Ford Motor Company

• I’ve attended so many speeches throughout the years, and found Josh’s presentation to be one of the best – if not the best – I’ve ever seen! Josh conveyed a serious message in a lighthearted and entertaining manner, with plenty of practical, useful information. His polished delivery and use of visuals, including laugh-out-loud video clips, gave the audience so much more than just “a talking head.” Great stuff!

  Specs Howard School of Media Arts, Inc.

• When Josh speaks, business improves.

  Earvin "Magic" Johnson

• 
  February 2011

  Disciplined Dreaming

   

  We live in an era when business cycles are measured in months, not years. The only way to sustain long term innovation and growth is through creativity—at all levels of an organization. Many companies preach the virtues of creativity to their employees, but kill their creative expression through corporate bureaucracy and its entrenched resistance to new ideas. In Disciplined Dreaming, entrepreneur and jazz musician Josh Linkner shows you how to create profitable new ideas, empower all your employees to be creative, and sustain your competitive advantage over the long term.

  
  
• 
  November 2007

  Leaning Forward: Surviving/Winning In the Future of Interactive Marketing

  Leaning Forward takes a penetrating look at the future of Interactive marketing. Major brands throughout the world have embraced the 'Digital Revolution', and have fundamentally changed the way they interact with their consumers. As a marketer, you will learn what you need to know to stay ahead of the curve and compete in this dramatically changed landscape. Renowned entrepreneur Josh Linkner shows you real world examples of what the best marketers are doing today and where the trends are heading.