There's real "right brain" creativity that goes into all of the organizational processes that a company utilizes and must continually reinvent in order to conduct its business. But there are also the "left brain" accounting functions that must continually ask how the company is doing financially and whether the creative processes are working for the bottom line.

The challenge is to manage creative people so that the output is fruitful. The challenge is not to have an open environment and simply let them do whatever they want.

Jamming - which follows rules but not individual notes - gives you a different result each time, depending upon the players and the conditions in which they find themselves. It is adaptable to changing conditions.

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.

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

Jazz is not about getting and playing whatever notes you want. It is about reworking themes in a manner that sounds good, that can be followed by the other musicians and that the audience enjoys. You cannot do that without first acquiring skills.

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