“The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.”–Michelangelo The challenge facing every business artist is to commit to a representative body of masterful work that will stand forever as a testament to their individual artistry. We do not have the luxury, or the human capacity, to chase down every random dream we conjure up. We need a focused image of the future, an artistic vision that vividly …
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3 Easy Steps To Becoming #1 On LinkedIn
A lot of people I know list themselves on LinkedIn, but don’t really know leverage the power of it. That’s because they’re not really sure how to get a lot great connections and business leads without just simply “selling” themselves and asking for connections of the people they want to connect with. Many people also end up needlessly spending money to upgrade their account, or going as far as to advertise on LinkedIn. There’s an …
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Artistry At Work: Grounding The Dream
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity. – Joseph Conrad The last five installments of Artistry at Work series cover the topic of Authenticity: calling forth our very best. The second five covered the topic of Audience: connecting with with others. The question remains: to what end? This is our …
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The Neuroscience of Creativity: Why Daydreaming Matters
Most people know that 3M’s Arthur Fry was not trying to invent the thing he invented in 1974–the Post-it Note–he was daydreaming in church. As neuroscientists now know, and was conclusively shown in 2009, it’s when our minds wander that our brains do their best work–it’s when we’re not trying to think creatively that we’re often most creative. That’s when a still mysterious process in the right hemisphere of the brain behind the right ear …
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The Subtractive Art of Marketing ‘The Hunger Games’
The Hunger Games, part 1 of a planned four-movie portfolio based on Suzanne Collins’s trilogy of books, opens Friday. By all estimations, it should break box office records. And according to The New York Times report How ‘Hunger Games’ Built Up Must-See Fever, the marketing strategy was meticulous, calculated, over a year long, and employed a clever use of subtraction. Lionsgate, the studio behind The Hunger Games, did all the traditional things like buying …
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Artistry At Work: Working Through Trust
“A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along those fibers as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” Herman Melville Trust is the great multiplier in life; it is the oxygen of working artistry. Without it, we cannot perform our best work. Without it, creativity is rendered irrelevant. Without it, there can be no collaboration, an undeniable necessity for every business artist. Recent research …
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Subtracting Tension, Adding Power & Control
When it comes to recreation, I have two addictions: cycling and tennis. If I’m not on a climbing a mountain in the dirt or on the road, I’m chasing fuzzy yellow bouncing balls around a hard court. I’m also a bit of a gadget freak, constantly tweaking my equipment, looking for little improvements that might give me some of advantage, admittedly mostly perceived. In fact, I own my own shop-grade tennis stringing machine, a Babolat …
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Artistry At Work: Appreciation
“An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.” Vincent van Gogh In business art, the ability to successfully connect with others is determined by our behavior toward them. We all wish our artistry to be appreciated, and we must appreciate the unique excellence of others, respecting them as fellow business artists. Just as failure to be appreciated can choke our creative engine, …
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