The innovation-centric website, TED.com, recently posted a video of a commencement address given by Amazon.com Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos at Princeton University in May. The posting was part of TED’s “Best of the Web” series. The title of the video, “What Matters More Than Your Talents,” caught my attention so I clicked “play” to listen in.

In his 12-minute speech, Bezos talks about the difference between gifts and choices. He notes that gifts can be easy since they are either given or received. Choices are much harder he contends, because how we choose to use our gifts is what’s important, and the most challenging.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos, born in 1964, graduated from Princeton himself summa cum laude with a BS in computer science and electrical engineering. After spending several years on Wall Street and in banking in the computer science field, he started Amazon.com in 1994, which soon became one of the most successful Internet companies in history.

Bezos points out that we live in an astonishing time. We enjoy the many gifts that come from our inventiveness and innovative spirit, as evidenced in recent and nearly-realized medical and technology breakthroughs. “Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton, all the curious from the ages, would’ve wanted to be alive most of all right now.”

Talents, like gifts, should not be wasted. They should be nurtured and appreciated, both as an individual and as an enterprise. And how an individual or enterprise chooses to use – or not use – these talents will help determine success or failure.

Bezos ends his speech by predicting the future. He says that someday, when we are 80, and reflecting back on our own lives, we will be judged on the series of choices we would have made.

“We are our choices,” he says. “Build yourself a great story.”

Several months ago, I conducted a business innovation workshop in New York City that featured cognitive scientist Donald Norman as a guest speaker. Norman is a leading expert in “user-centered design” and author of The Design of Everyday Things. The workshop was attended by 40 mid- and top-level managers from numerous divisions of a Fortune 200 company.

The goal of this off-site innovation meeting was to provoke some of the company’s most promising professionals to look at things a little differently – in fact, we wanted them to look at everything differently.

Every day of our lives, we are bombarded by tens of thousands of visual and operational stimuli. The door handle we use to open the closet, the street sign we see to make the correct turn, the faucet we use to turn on the water in the restroom, the ink pen we use to sign a letter — and on and on.

Given the sheer volume of this stimuli, it’s no wonder that we give little thought to 99% of what we see, touch, and feel every day. But maybe your brain is paying more attention than you think.

Whether on an individual stimulus basis or in a cumulative way, your brain responds more positively to objects that are pleasing to the eye – even everyday objects. Whether it’s a company logo, a product, an online service, or a routine internal process or form, a user’s reaction to all of these things is real, no matter how subtle.

Your product division may want a customer or potential customer to enjoy the use and visual attributes of a given product. Your sales department may want a customer to have a positive user experience with an online tool or service. And your human resource department may want employees to respond favorably to this year’s new health benefit based on smart and attractive design elements.

Innovation is not only reserved for the once-a-year or once-in-a-lifetime breakthroughs. Innovation can and should occur every day across every part of your company – from the most obvious anchor product of the company to the most subtle and routine business process.

It’s the cumulative effect of these innovations and the associated attention to detail and design that will separate good companies from the best companies.

Companies should make it a point to encourage employees to seek out every opportunity to improve a product, service, or process – and should seek to arm them with the tools, training and incentives to do so.

In the end, making everyday things and how they are designed and used a priority within your company may very well lead to extraordinary things.

One of my favorite all-time sketches from Saturday Night Live is “More Cowbell” with guest host Christopher Walken, which aired on April 8, 2000.

In the sketch, Walken plays fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson. The scene is set in a recording studio, and Walken tells the 1970s Blue Öyster Cult band, played by Will Farrell and other male members of the SNL cast, to start at the top on the song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” Farrell is on cowbell, and as soon as the song starts, he is whamming away at the cowbell with a drumstick.

About 30 seconds into the song, Walken bursts into the studio from the control room shouting, “wait, wait!” He then proceeds to tell the band to try it again from the top, and says, “I could’ve used a little more cowbell.”

The band starts again with Farrell beating the cowbell even louder this time, while dramatically moving around the room as his tight sweater rides up his abdomen exposing his white, fat, hairy belly. Once again, Walken rushes back into the room and cuts the band off mid-song, telling Farrell, “I gotta have more cowbell.” And Farrell complies.

I’m laughing just thinking about the scene as a write this blog.

I must admit that I think about the “cowbell” sketch from time to time and Walken’s obsessive directive to the band. It usually occurs when I’m trying to meet a pressing deadline, get a corporate client to work harder to get more from their employees, coach an executive to take it to the next level, or simply try to finish the last grueling five minutes in my spin class. I hear the clang, clang, clang and Walken’s voice shouting in my head, “I gotta have more cowbell!”

“More cowbell” is my way of saying to dig deeper, work harder, and give it 100 percent – even when you think you’re already doing so. Great companies did not get great by giving it 90 percent. Great executives did not get to where they are by giving it their B game, and great innovators did not come up with leading edge breakthroughs by playing it safe.

The recent economic meltdown has forced many companies to reassess, regroup, and retool. The road back to sustained growth will be long. Yet, those companies which are obsessive about giving it 100 percent, and successful in encouraging their employees to do the same, will be best equipped to make this journey and ultimately reap the benefits.

So for all you Blue Öyster Cult fans, and Walken and Farrell fans, treat your company and your shareholders to some more cowbell this coming year.

Do you have a creative place? It’s the place where you feel you are at your most creative and productive. It may be a bench in your favorite park, a special nook or room in your house or spot in your yard, a quiet desk at a library, a small bistro table in a busy Starbucks, or a spot at work where no one can interrupt you.

Frankly, your creative place may not be a physical location. It could be a particular state of mind. It could be a certain mood, time of day, or the type of music that you are listening to at the time. It could be something you do such as driving or walking. Or it could be any combination of the above.

Every employee has at least one place that focuses the mind and puts them in a more inspired state. Not a state that will necessarily lead to a nuclear fusion breakthrough, or the next generation of computer chip. But it could be a state that helps them think through a more creative presentation, design a more environmentally-friendly container, improve the profitability of a company service offering, or find a more efficient way to process expense reports.

A company’s challenge is to help find those places for employees where they can be more innovative. Most companies insist that employees produce results in sterile environments under rigid conditions. Ask yourself this question: if you were using your own money to fund a composer to come up with a great score for your next blockbuster movie, would you insist that he or she do it between 9 to 5 on a Tuesday in the small conference room down the hall? I don’t think so.

I realize that organizations may not have the flexibility or the resources to put their employees into their most creative physical spaces. But with a little bit of ingenuity, leadership, and guts to try something different, they could clearly get employees to a better place or frame of mind.

Let New Lantern help your company find its creative place. It could be the beginning of a more beautiful and productive relationship between you and your employees.

This week’s special issue cover story in Business Week, on “Game-Changing Ideas for Business,” discusses how successful companies are using the current economic crisis as an opportunity to re-evaluate the old rules of management. Corporate executives are increasingly using “breakthrough management ideas” to take their businesses to new heights with innovative approaches to managing growth and talent.

The article highlights top companies which are finding ways to spur innovation by taking employees out of their comfort zones, creating new ways to compensate employees for greater achievement, breaking down traditional organizational barriers for increased performance, and leveraging the latest Web 2.0 social networking and wiki tools to enhance collaboration.

New Lantern is a business innovation consulting firm that is perfectly situated to help your company or organization change its game in all of these areas and more.