Managing the creative process means selecting the best people and then letting them do their work. That means nurturing. It also means, from time to time, creating drama - even uncertainty - so that the creative environment has an edge to it, a charge, and does not run out of steam.

If you are at Coca-Cola, the creative challenge is one of maintaining - rather than creating - a tremendous level of consumption for your products.

Every day, there are 770 million Cokes consumed, which means that there are 770 million purchasing decisions made each day regarding the product. To support those decisions, the company must constantly reinvest in its marketing links to its customers. As a result, a high level of creativity must go into everything the company does, from cause-related campaigns - Coca-Cola and its sponsorship of the Olympic Village in Atlanta, for example - to new catch phrases, commercials, marketing slogans, advertising campaigns and promotional tie-ins.

Now jamming - which is about collaborative improvisation - has to do with getting people together to be creative musically. But it is a very powerful metaphor for understanding the grammar of the creative process. It applies to business and to other pursuits as well.

Tunes have notes and tempos and rules. If the tune is "All the Things You Are," you have to adhere to its structure and to the tradition behind that structure.

Creativity is the crucial variable in the process of turning knowledge into value

Jazz has to work. It has to play with the audience and with the marketplace. I think that is relevant to business.