On Wednesday I met Ram Charan, one of the foremost management consultants and leadership gurus in the world. Here’s the third insight I gained from my time with him.

Invention is the creation of new ideas. You need geniuses for that.

Innovation is converting ideas into revenue and margins. You need leaders for that.

Successful business relies far more on the latter than the former.

I thought this was a very interesting perspective. When we talk about innovation the conversation does usually push toward extreme examples, but business innovation, the kind that helps one company win over others, is often about incremental improvements, a cost saving here, a process improvement there.

Time after time when companies unleash the creative power of their employees (usually doing little more than asking and listening) they uncover numerous innovations. So we can leave the invention to the Einsteins. Ask around for the innovative ideas. Then put our leadership to use selecting the best innovations and converting them to positive business results.

As I wrote yesterday, I have asked job applicants to write guest posts for this blog as part of their application process. Today I offer one of those posts to you. The author is Jonah Cohen, a senior at Brandeis University double majoring in Philosophy and Psychology who has made Dean’s List every semester. (I tried to tell him college is for having fun but I had as much success explaining this to him as I did to my own mother when I was in college.) Without further adieu, here is his post:

I am graduating in three months. And I need to write a blog post. I have no idea what I will be doing next year, nor have I ever written a blog. That is about all I know.

Are you familiar with this feeling of utter uncertainty? Do you like to always know what is about to happen? Do you need to know what’s around the corner?

But what if you don’t know? Or couldn’t know? What do you typically do then?

Kierkegaard wrote, “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily, to not to dare is to lose oneself.”

Most of the time we let the uncertainty in our lives stop us. It is romantic to fill our lives with pleasing illusions; armed with a plan, the world looks a lot less scary. We feel safer, less alone, and further from the nasty thought that we might screw up or get lost. But this is a mistake.

The unknown is motivating. It pushes us to try new things. To explore different options. And the paradox?

Only by immersing ourselves in the frightening unexplored can we rise to our greatest challenges.

So push yourself into the unknown.

Doing this has allowed me to do things that I have never done before.

Like writing this blog post.

Test drive the car before you buy it. Sample the food before booking the catering hall. Date before you marry.

And put them to work before you hire them.

You could be hiring an employee or a financial advisor or someone to paint your house or design a website. If it’s an important job, have them do something as a test run first.

Do away with the questions from the interview hall of shame.

If you were an animal what animal would you be?
How do you deal with pressure?
What is your worst attribute?
(The answers of course are eagle, exceptionally, and a combination of perfectionism and workaholism.)

The answers may tell you how well someone can read you and articulate what they think you want to hear, but they are no substitute for a real work product.

In my case I am preparing to hire some new employees for my company. They will need, among other things, persuasive writing skills, understanding of my content, and marketing savvy.

So I set the candidates to the task of evaluating my website, reading my blog, and writing a guest post. Tomorrow I will share one of those posts. This person’s writing today tells me more about what I can expect in the future than any interview question I could ask.

Erin and Jeff are getting married. As most couples do, they wanted to make sure that people saved their wedding date on their calendars. So they sent out a save the date . . . video. And not just any video – an awesome, movie trailer, mashup video with clips from tons of your favorite movies along with sub-titles that I assume are meant for the Wong side of the family. Here’s the video.

[Sorry, Erin and Jeff pulled the video. You can try this one instead. Not amazing the way Erin and Jeff were, but it makes the point.]

So other than being pretty cool, what does this matter for the likes of you and me? More and more this is a video world. And the technology is breaking down any excuse you may have for not using video. My guess is most people reading this blog own a digital video camera. If not you can buy a flip video cam for under $200 or a webcam for under $50. So video is cheap, but where should you use it?
* Resumes
* Business Proposals
* Thank You Notes
* Holiday Cards
* Electronic Introductions
* Pitching a New Idea to the Boss
You name it. Video makes a presentation stand out. You don’t need Erin and Jeff’s editing talent. With almost no experience I put this video together for the launch of Be the Hero. The editing process probably took about 90 minutes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jikgDCaQyS8&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
I welcome you to write a comment on this post. Even better, post a video. Which one will we all take more notice of?