To play off a popular ’90s term, You’ve Got Ideas.

Everyone has ideas, including the guy who helped coin the phrase “You’ve Got Mail.” Remember that iconic sentence from the innovative online service America Online? Who doesn’t. It was even the title of a movie which played that sound bite a bunch of times.

Well the guy who helped bring you AOL will be part of an innovative town hall gathering of small business leaders in Victoria and across the country in January, the first of two major events to start out the new year and get your business juices flowing. 

That’s the gist of the message for Nick Smoot, the CEO of the nationwide Innovation Collective, which launched an outpost in Victoria almost a year ago, bringing small business leaders, academics and genius-types together to brainstorm ideas that can be brought to market.

The second event will bring the Coad brothers, Noah, Elisha and Josiah, who each have made an impact on three major digital companies, customer delivery design at Amazon, LIX design at John Deere and software design at Tesla, respectively.

Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, will speak with Innovation Collective about his new book, politics, technology and “what’s it like, on day one, when you realize you’re trying to set up the internet,” Smoot said. “The conversation will be a little bit about the book, but mostly about how to unleash the creatives inside everyone.”

Case’s book, “The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream,” is already making splashes since its release in September. It’s a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller described on Amazon.com as showing “how entrepreneurs across the country are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs — in the process reimagining the American landscape and bringing people together around a shared future.”

Participants will be able to submit questions for Case to answer during his 45-minute presentation. Innovation Collectives from across the country will have participants, and Smoot said some questions are already coming in. 

The second event, called the Story Summit, will bring brothers the Coad brothers to Victoria for two day, Friday, Jan. 20, and Saturday, Jan. 21. “Story Summit is where we fly in to Victoria once every three months different legendary individuals, so people can get connected with, like Steve Case or others.”

That Friday, Smoot said, will start off with pitches by local members, “where the talent of Victoria can show off all their creative efforts and what they’ve been working on in front of a crowd.”

“And so they just stand up and they pitch it as if they’re trying to kind of pitch their invention, their product, their book, their movie, whatever they’re doing,” he said. “And then the crowd can ask some questions. In that crowd, there’s typically investors, engineers, presidents of colleges right alongside of everyone else who’s in the community.”

Later, there are refreshments serving as a reception for the guests, so locals can meet and mingle with the celebrities.

The following morning, the group does “some form of a creative” activity. In January, that activity is “sound bowls.”

“We’ve done juggling in the past,” he said. “We’ve done ice baths, we’ve done yoga, all sorts of fun, creative things. And down in DeLeon Plaza, we did that, I believe, juggling and we’ve done yoga there.”

Later, the guests tell stories about lessons in life, “things they wish they knew when they were younger” and then “two lessons in business they wish they knew when they were younger.”

“So you walk away typically with four really strong lessons,” Smoot said.

Karissa Winters, who directs the local Innovation Collective group, said she is looking forward to the two events.

“I am so excited about the upcoming events we have, like Steve Case and the Story Summit,” she said. “The opportunities Innovation Collective is providing for our community members is truly something wonderful. It has been so exciting to see so many people grow and be able to experience new things through the different programming we offer.”

She said participation is not free, but scholarships are available so “everyone can have access and financial reasons wont hold them back.” Innovation Collective members are admitted for free.