ast month, senior writer Linda Armstrong used a quote from author Jack London in her recap of EuroShop that got me thinking about the nature of inspiration. According to the quote, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” But in the manically busy life of an exhibit manager, there’s rarely time to dust off one’s club and go in search of creative mojo.

In fact, a survey conducted by UK-based Chartered Management Institute found that two-thirds of professionals in management or directorship positions complain they have “little time to think,” much less go off hunting for that elusive inspiration. But contrary to popular belief, “get inspired” doesn’t need to be a line item on your to-do list. Inspiration is omnipresent. All you have to do is keep your eyes wide open — and keep your club handy.

Referred to as cross pollination, the practice of deriving inspiration from other industries and applying those inspired ideas to your own world is simple yet powerful. For example, when planning for the International Christian Retail Show, Laura Neutzling, marketing director for Word Distribution, a media-distribution company based in Nashville, TN, developed a customer-centric exhibit strategy based on an inspirational trip to The Home Depot. The resulting exhibit-marketing approach helped the company maintain its lead counts despite a 24-percent drop in show attendance.

Similarly, Charley Johnson, vice president of sales for Snugz USA Inc., a Salt Lake City-based promotional-products supplier, developed a wildly successful giveaway strategy based on a Starburst promotion originally used by M&M/Mars Inc. His inspired idea resulted in multi-million-dollar results for Snugz, all because Johnson, like Neutzling, recognized a good idea when he saw one.

Unfortunately, most of us are too caught up in the minutiae of doing more with less to actively look for ideas that might be applicable to our industry. But going after inspiration with a club doesn’t necessarily mean devoting hours of your life to inspirational seminars or tapes or books. In its most basic form, inspiration hunting simply means being on the lookout — being aware — while you’re doing the things that need doing anyway.

So be aware of outside influences. Turn boring chores, like grocery shopping, into inspiration safaris, and hunt for eye-catching product displays you can adapt for your next exhibit. Pay attention to the servers who take your lunch order, and see if you get any inspired ideas to help you train your staff to better interact with attendees. And speaking of your staff, encourage them to get in on the safari as well. The more hunters you have, the more ground you can cover, from the retail world to reality television and back.

If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how you could possibly convert a Kroger produce display into a riveting in-booth attraction, start with simple things like flipping through our pages each month and looking for ideas that catch your eye. Don’t get hung up on budget figures or booth sizes. Sure, you might not be able to afford a million-dollar exhibit, but that exhibit is likely teeming with inspired ideas you can adapt to your budget and use to your advantage.

In today’s Internet-dominated world, information is available at the click of a mouse. But inspiration is only readily available to those with the imagination to turn a trip to The Home Depot into an exhibit-marketing strategy, or a candy-coated promotion into a new approach to in-booth giveaways. So put on your pith helmet and set your sights on big-game inspiration. Because with all due respect to Thomas Edison, perspiration alone will never produce earth-shattering ROI. But, as evidenced by the aforementioned examples, even a single inspired idea can.

Happy hunting.e