Steve Martin is remarkable. I was invited to join Steve in a keynote session on April 9, 2013 (my birthday). We addressed a small group of 30 some business leaders from around the world working in the C-suite of firms like Waste Managment, Coke-a-Cola and Baidu, China’s Google. Steve opened the dinner as Fortune Magazine reporter lead him through a Q & A around harnessing creativity, about following creative instincts. He was funny and deadly serious. He was charming and to the point about the need to be honest about challenging their corporations leadership – themselves – creatively.
I spoke after dinner about the creative endeavors around building San Francisco’s bridges. The dinner took place with views of The Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. After desert I spoke to them form a balcony overlooking The Bay Bridge. The superstructure had only recently (March 5, 2013) been lit up with 25,000 LED lights spreads out over 4 miles of the Bay Bridge’s West Span (That’s like 2 Golden Gates or 8 Eiffel Towers on their sides. This $8 million dollar light sculpture that my friend and colleague Ben Davis raised the funds for, is now the world’s largest artistic light display called The Bay Lights (Google it).
The message was clearly about creativity matters – even in – especially in – infrastructure. I concluded with a descriptor of the Dire States tour (not called that then!) –
