See? Good stuff. Just the kind of thing to make you look at your work in a fresh light.

Happy Monday! Make it a great week.

To me it’s amazing what she creates with sand. Sand. Small grains of sand are turned into beautiful artwork right before our eyes.

I don’t know how she got started. Maybe she was on some beach one day and started messing around. Maybe she took a sand art class. Regardless, there’s no doubt that she creates something masterful with something nearly insignificant.

This week at my new job, I was waiting on my dry erase board to be installed. I tend to have spur-of-the-moment bursts of inspiration. As such, I like to have a place to write them down and let the creativity flow. Before it arrived, I felt like I couldn’t do much of anything. “But what if I have a great idea?” I thought. “Where will I write it?”

And then I watched this video. I learned that in the hands of a true artist, the tools are secondary. It merely takes vision and will in order to manipulate the tools in order to create art, beauty, and impact.

Maybe it’s time we stop waiting for the “right” tools. Perhaps we don’t need the latest of any gadget in order to do meaningful work. Maybe what need is a passion, a will, and a commitment to creating something of beauty.

Passion and talent is what turns sand into art.

Nicholas Holland and Jackson Miller, pictured here, launched gpsAssassin, a location-based multi-player iPhone game, after developing the company and product at last year's Nashville Startup Weekend

photo credit: tmgstudio

This weekend I participated in Nashville Startup Weekend. That’s right: the idea behind this event is to start up a business in a single weekend.

My team (which ranged over the course of the weekend from as many as 8 people at the beginning to as few as 3 people still going at 5:00 AM after Saturday’s work session, and back up to 6 when we presented our new company on Sunday evening) successfully scoped, designed, and built a prototype of a web-based application dealing with group food ordering. We also developed the business plan, marketing plan, and financials for both a bootstrapped and an invested approach all between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

This is not merely an exercise; this is a viable business that we will be launching in the coming weeks. Our presentation even garnered investor interest.

In short, over the course of a weekend, with the help of pizza, beer, coffee, and Red Bull, a new company was developed with a marketable product and a business model that is cash flow positive in month 1, profitable in month 3, and can either produce dividends for its creators or become an attractive acquisition target in the months and years to come. And that was only one team: several other companies formed this weekend, too.

The big takeaway from the weekend is this: it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of time or money to do something awesome. What it takes is focus and determination to get it done.

The next time you question whether something can be done, or whether you have the time or resources to do it, maybe try figuring out what you can do. And then do it. And then figure out a way to make the next step happen. And then do it.

It sounds simple enough, but inertia can be hard to overcome. Making that first step is challenging, but incredibly rewarding when it leads to a finished product.

Happy Monday! Here’s hoping your week is full of focus and determination.

photo credit: James Jordan

We talk a lot here about work-life balance, but what about other kinds of balance? There are a lot of ways within the workplace that you can skew too far one way and lose sight of something else.

For example, it’s easy to get stuck on one side of either process or improvisation, when both have their merits. Process improvement is important to the maturity of any organization, but being quick to see and try novel solutions to problems is key to learning.

Or how about between creativity and discipline? When I worked as a technical copywriter, there were often stretches of time when I felt I needed to distract myself so I could let my mind wander and approach my work fresh when I returned to it. I used to have a sign above my desk that said “A writer is writing even when staring into space.” But it would have been all too easy to let that approach become a trap by convincing myself the distraction was needed when perhaps the discipline of the “sit butt in chair and write” approach would have at times be more helpful. I’m sure there were times I let myself off the discipline hook a little too easily, and other times when I could have used more of a break for the sake of better creativity.

What balance do you struggle to keep, and what steps do you take to ensure you keep that balance? Tell us in the comments. And have a wonderful, balanced week!

photo credit: itchys

You know all about the “rules” of the business world; but I bet you also know how a judicious breaking of those rules can create trajectories of productivity and employee morale.

One rule I’ve frequently observed was “no drinking in the office.” Sure, there is always plenty of leaving work to lift a cold one with a colleague or client, but it was always an understood thing that it was for off-site.

I had a wonderful boss once who found a great way to revise and update this rule with good results. Our office was in a restored old house with a deck opening onto a wide green field of a side yard. Because it was a former residence, the office also had a full kitchen.

At the end of an especially stressful day, or upon completion of a big client project — or heck, when the moon was full on a Tuesday — she would stock the kitchen with wine and call everyone to the porch at 4:59 p.m. Wine flowed, as did conversation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, in our down time and with slightly lowered inhibitions, we would come up with some of our best ideas. One did not have to drink, but everyone was expected to come to the porch and laugh and talk and be creative and relaxed. It was genius.

I miss those days. I’m not sure if they are still doing it or not. It may have been the personalities working there at the time that made it magic, but I like to think a good broken rule like this can work wonders at any time and with any group.

Tell us about your most productive, rule-breaking work experience!

photo credit: rickilevy69

I’m an unrepentant Bear Grylls fan. His show on Discovery Channel, “Man vs. Wild,” always inspires and encourages me. Most of us will never encounter the challenges and outright risks and dangers Grylls does, but this weekend’s show got me thinking about how we may not be so far apart after all. He used the phrase, “a proper wilderness,” and that feels like a great metaphor for so many people striking out to find their new best careers and goals.

Grylls served three years with a special forces unit of the British army. One can really only officially be on active duty in the army for so many years before one has to start thinking about other things; particular if one has broken one’s back in three places during service! But what if what you do, what you love, what you were meant to pursue and prove and teach, is the very thing you feel required to depart?

Today’s economy and the dramatic shifts in the work place have required many of us to take a step back and start thinking about how to answer this question. If you find yourself required to make a change, don’t be too hasty to assume that all of what you loved about what you used to do is now out of reach. Spend some time in self-analysis, identifying not only your hard skills but your favorite pursuits and activities. Think not only about yourself as an individual, but about your skills on a team, and within an organization.

Grylls left the special forces, and one might think he would never skin a rattlesnake barehanded and eat it raw for a living again; yet here he is, still doing what he does better than anyone, and doing that in which he finds the most personal and professional satisfaction.  (He earns a nice paycheck as well.  Coincidence?  Probably not!)

Give yourself a taste of something new and off-the-charts innovative this week, but bring your favorite existing skills. You might just find yourself rethinking what is and is not possible for your own next adventure.

photo credit: quinn.anya

As I mentioned on Mother’s Day, I grew up in a household where both parents were business people. (My mother, as I said in that post, spent years as a chamber of commerce executive and is now an elected official in my hometown.) My father spent 30-some years in industrial sales and sales management, and he worked out of our house when he wasn’t on the road, so I saw him in work mode a great deal of the time.

Both my parents were role models for me in many ways to become the Corporate Idealist I am today. Below are a few lessons I learned from my father, and which I hope are similar to lessons other people have learned from their own fathers about business.

Act sensibly, but be passionate about what you do.

My father was a likable, friendly guy but he had a short fuse and I sometimes heard him getting angry on the phone with suppliers, colleagues, and probably even customers. I know that what set him off the most was when people didn’t match his expectations of quality and service.

While I don’t think yelling at people on the phone is necessarily the best way to conduct ourselves in business, it shows passion. If you’re passionate about what you do, the challenge is to use your zeal to fuel others’ enthusiasm, and to spark your own creativity and innovation. Even slightly hot-headed dads would probably agree.

Don’t start fights, but stand up for yourself if you’re bullied.

This lesson comes not so much from the workplace as from the playground, but it applies everywhere. Unfortunately, even in the most mundane office environments, there are often still playground bullies. Sometimes they’re the CEO; sometimes they’re just at the next desk. Fortunately, Cy Wakeman recently posted an entry over at Fast Company about dealing with office bullies.

Invent and innovate.

My dad and I were on the front porch swing one time, and he started talking about inventions, and how much money there was in inventing something, and how I should try to think of something I could invent. I remember describing a concept I had for a typewriter that would type down onto paper underneath of it so it could work on odd size pages and bound paper. I don’t think he was very impressed, and I chuckle when I think of it.

Still, while I have not invented something in a classic sense, I have certainly tried to apply a philosophy of innovation to my work and other areas of my life.

In the end, your relationships matter.

When my dad was dying from cancer in 2005, he asked me to help him write some letters to some of his friends. He had a very difficult time finding a way to express what he wanted to say, so we came up with something that said “thank you for everything – your support, your kindness, your prayers, and most of all, your love.” Several of his friends approached me at his funeral to tell me how much they cherished that letter. Many of us may not suffer long enough to get the bittersweet chance to write those kinds of letters, so it’s important to express our love and gratitude to each other as often as we can.

The corollary to that lesson is that life is too short to spend your time with people you don’t care about, or who don’t share your values.

How about you? What did you learn from your father about business, or about life in general? Leave your lessons and stories in the comments.

And Happy Father’s Day to all fathers and children of fathers!

We owe the very idea of the learning organization to management strategist Peter Senge. In the 1990s, he provided the ultimate decoder ring for CEOs who wanted to apply collaboration and systems theory in the workplace.

Sandy Bodecker, 56, believes inspiration is everywhere. Last year, his team found what they were looking for in suspension-bridge cables. The result: the revolutionary Flywire technology, and the lightest and strongest high-performance footwear ever.

Making aging less of a drag is Joseph Coughlin’s mission — and with some 80,000 Americans turning 60 each day, it’s a more pressing task than ever. Coughlin, 47, runs the first multidisciplinary research lab devoted to using smart technology to bolster older folks’ quality of life.

Check out the rest of the list and be inspired.