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About Me

Brad takes strategy to action in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology environment. he applies his talents to stay on the cutting edge of common sense in project management, customer targeting, and incentive compensation. Brad currently works a Abbvie Laboratories where he creates call plans and target lists for the innovative sales forces.

Brad founded Norton Creative Solutions to help both for-profit and nonprofit organizations use business tools and ideas commonly available to major companies. He is also passionate about reducing paperwork and removing artificial barriers to communication. He also brainstorms with people about developing their personal and career goals.

By helping managers focus on the voice of the customer, he champions lean thinking and agile project management as a way to improve efficiency and remove waste. He uses his experiences with nonprofit organizations at Norton Creative Solutions for his own professional development.

His usual habitats are his office, coffee shops, airports, and restaurants. He has been known to create small focus groups on the spot to talk about current issues and learn what customers really want.

Brad helps develop new talent through his volunteer work with students and interns helping them develop their skills and job seeking knowledge. With the changing job environment, Brad routinely goes to conferences, workshops and meetings to learn about issues, opportunities and options for incorporating the voice of the customer into business.

Brad has a BS in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University, an MBA in Marketing from the University of Minnesota, and a Certificate in Advanced Project Management from Stanford. He also holds a certificate of professional development from The Wharton School.

Location:
United States, Libertyville, IL
Current organization:
AbbVie
Past organizations:
Agile Solutions, LLC
Current role:
Customer Targeting and Planning
Gender:
Male
Areas of expertise:
Biotechnology & Life Scinces, Incentive Pay Systems Design, Brainstorming solutions / problem solving, Analysis and Problem Solving, Project Management - Creative Fields, Project Management
I am:
Blogger, Business adviser, Change Agent, Connector, Idea generator, Project manager, Writer/Editor
Associations:
Project Management Institute (PMI)
My website links:
Norton Creative Solutions
Universities:
Texas A&M Univerisity, University of Minnesota

More About Me

I'm passionate about

I take strategy to action in both my professional and personal life. I want to see more people use their time and ideas to make a positive, sustainable difference.

An idea worth spreading

A Business makes money through effectively taking a raw material and converting it into something needed by another person - a thing or an idea - efficiently. Energy, raw materials , people and time are the major elements in the efficiency equation. Every business should look at how much energy, time, people and resources it takes to make a product that meets the customer's needs.

Talk to me about

I want to talk about ways to make businesses and nonprofits better at connecting customers and users with needed products and ideas. I want to find new ways to use lean product thinking in general.

Comments

  • TEDCred score: +0.20 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

  • A comment on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?

    Feb 13 2013: I think that where James Glattfelder's ideas could take us would be - are we as a species better off with a diverse ownership vs. a tightly interconnected world like we have. He is stating the obvious that those in control want to stay in control and those with resources want to keep those resources. I would be interested to see if the historic patterns of high control mirror when economic and social collapses happen.

  • A reply on Conversation: How did you find you life's work and passion after age 40? Is it possible?

    Jun 21 2012: That is a great story! Following your passion and doing what you wanted to do. Keep on inspiring others by sharing your experiences!

  • A comment on Conversation: How did you find you life's work and passion after age 40? Is it possible?

    Jun 21 2012: Since you asked, here are some perspectives I used once I turned 40 to figure out if my career and life goals lined up at all... It's a scary process. Ultimately, you are the sole judge of the success of your evaluation. I think you will find that your answer will come from self inspection. Forgive the past. You did it. It's in the books. You traded money for time. I understand your viewpoint. Life is short. Do something fulfilling!

    What is your overall mission that you want to achieve during your life? Ariel is on the path of finding a passion. I also recommend focusing on projects or work you are passionate about. You have skills and talents you developed over 25 years of working. I recommend taking a personal inventory on what you know and how it could help you achieve your goals. You have work to do on this - write out what your personal mission is. It could be simple, or very complex. This is your mission. Once you have a mission statement, how are you going to achieve it? Your goals come from stating your mission, and then fill it in with "I will do this by doing xxxx" or "I will accomplish this by supporting xxxx"

    I hope this helps.
    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken/

  • A comment on Talk: Damian Palin: Mining minerals from seawater

    Jun 21 2012: Damian,
    Thank you for the idea. The thought that we take energy to remove the brine and then do nothing productive with the material reminded me of the waste liquids and materials issue factories started to deal with decades ago. Now, I would be hard pressed to find a company who doesn't try to make money on intermediate products from their manufacturing processes.

    Your idea may make the pure water a byproduct of ocean water mining! I would be interested in hearing how others use your thoughts with major desalination facilities around the globe.

    Brad Norton
    http://nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken/

  • A comment on Talk: Michael Nielsen: Open science now!

    Apr 16 2012: Thank you for an interesting talk & interesting comments. They are also inspiring and eye-opening!

    I think that Michael Nielsen outlined the problem succinctly - researchers receive more reward from continuing to support the notion of "Eureka!" and then publishing a paper. His example of changing the reward system slightly for researchers resulted in an opening of knowledge. But, the values and rewards of being a clever - and remembered - individual are supported by hundreds of years of experience. Sometimes, the difference between a Nobel Prize and an "also-ran" is measured in days between journal publications. Or, as others below suggest, in a digital media - but everybody is concerned about being first.

    I understand that the culture of science may need to be changed - slightly. My friends who went into research survive by their discoveries and publications. But, I think we could go down both paths of tradition and open science without fundamentally changing a culture and values system.

    Sometimes looking at a new problem and an old solution results in something equally good. Look at some of the older generic medications that are being reborn and rebranded through different delivery systems and treating completely different problems (generic Tenex for BP becomes branded Intuniv for ADHD)

    It might be more efficient to go "all - in" with an open source system. It also won't happen as long as people need to be concerned with beating out that other person for the job, the grant, or the lab space.

    Some of our best intrinsic motives come from some interesting extrinsic areas...

    Thanks for a great talk!
    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken
  • +1

    A comment on Talk: Lucy McRae: How can technology transform the human body?

    Apr 15 2012: This talk reminded me about the way our brains work on an endocrine level. As a person trained in biochemistry, I am fascinated on how we nonverbally communicate with our bodies. There is more here to explore.

    However, I must admit the big idea here needs to be joined with another one. Maybe it's time to think outside of the verbal box. Her idea of an oral perfume reminded me of some of the research on human phermones.

    We already are able to modify our bodies with plastic surgery, enhance our knowledge with connections to the web, and extend our lives through the use of medication.

    Maybe this idea, linked with another communication idea will become a really big idea.



    Brad Nortonhttp://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken

  • A comment on Talk: Suzanne Lee: Grow your own clothes

    Apr 14 2012: I share the passion of finding ways of reducing the impact on our environment of textile crops - especially replacing crops requiring high amounts of fertilizer, pesticides and water. Finding new sources of textile fiber that could be grown without taking arable land out of food production sounds like another great idea. Thinking about a fiber that could provide the cellulose media similar to rayon yet with less environmental impact is very intriguing.

    I also like the idea of using waste matter currently flushed to sewage treatment plants as a source for low-energy, high-efficiency production.

    Hopefully, some of my project management colleagues may see an opportunity to take a project that needs a fiber and then figures a way to scale and stabilize the product in a way similar to rayon.

    This is a great idea that I hope inspires textile producers and chemical engineers to come together and utilize some of the concepts you presented to create an economically viable product.

    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken

  • A comment on Talk: Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy

    Apr 14 2012: I can hardly wait for the next generation of batteries and what type of impact they will have on our daily lives, especially as we find a way of using intermittent power production. Could we all have liquid metal batteries in our houses that could store power off-peak and use it during peak times?

    Would the micro-generation ideas from other TED talks become economically important to feed power to the grid?

    I love seeing professors having utility too (I bought colored chalk to celebrate - watch the video to understand).

    As a project manager, I am excited seeing innovative approaches to this hundred plus year problem with electrical grids.

    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken
  • +1

    A comment on Talk: Abigail Washburn: Building US-China relations ... by banjo

    Apr 14 2012: Abigail, keep up the great work!

    As the board secretary for the nonprofit group, Fifth House Ensemble (http://www.fifth-house.com), I am excited to see this big idea presented at TED! I love seeing musical performances in unexpected places making an impact beyond the performance. Music opens the mind in so many unexpected ways.

    Thanks for the presentation

    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken

  • A comment on Talk: Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth

    Apr 14 2012: It's going to take more talks like Johnathan Foley's before anything changes.

    His talk also pointed out the importance of being thoughtful about creating any government subsidies for farming or bio-fuels.

    I am also excited about the prospect of developing oil crops and food crops that could thrive on salty water. It will be exciting to see the two ideas come together.

    I hope that more people join this important discussion!

    Brad Norton
    http://www.nortoncreative.com/rubberchicken
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