After purchasing it, I gave it a home on my book shelf until I had time for a light read. When that day finally came many months later, I regretted having left it to collect dust for so long, and having initially thought of it as frivolous.

The story is based on the journey of a tormented woman looking for happiness, this of course is not a new idea, but what made this book so special, was how well it was written. The creative investment used to bring the story to life and its ability to pull the reader in to the character’s misery, pain and eventual enlightenment, is what ultimately made it a  wonderful read.

At Chama we’re always looking for how creativity is applied to all things old and new. Gilbert’s understanding that her international best seller is akin to the freakish luck of winning a lottery, has begun looking more closely at the concept of creativity.

Her newest work (not yet released) explores the concept of – creative genius – how it works, how to manage it, and if its really something we own or borrow temporarily.

Her interesting view and research on creativity can be seen below or on TED’s website.

T!P {1}
Depending on the size of your customer base, make a list of your top 20% customers by sales volume.

1. Send them a personal email or better yet, give them a personal call and thank them for their business over the years. If they’ve stopped doing business with you, then ask them:
2. What your business can do to be more helpful and more valuable to them in 2009
3. Be sure to get their thoughts on how you can make doing business with you easier, more convenient and more pleasant
4. If they’ve stopped doing business with you, there’s probably a valuable reason. This would be a good time to hear if you’ve done anything to inconvenience them
5. If you’re in a position, extend a special offer to this group of customers and make the offer available to their friends and family too

T!P {2}
Engage your Staff and make crowd sourcing work for your business:

1. Ask your staff, 3-5 things your company does that drive customers away
2. 3-5 things that your company can do to WOW! customers
3. If the company could only make one change, what should that be?

Give them a few days to respond, thank them for their participation and make it clear that they can send their recommendation anonymously. But be sure to acknowledge and praise those employees, who include their name, as transparency in business should be rewarded and acknowledged.

What do you think?

Love to hear some of your practical and timely tips for managing your business in challenging economic times.

The day after the election, the Obama team quickly launched Change.gov, a new site that communicates his agenda on the important issues that face the States from economy to environment challenges. Although the site is skinny on content right now, it is positioned as the building block for the promises Obama has made for technology.

However there are early signs of collaborative features such as the invitation for everyday citizens to share their stories and ideas and be part of “bringing a positive lasting change” to the States. There’s also a clever feature that allows citizens to share their thoughts on the direction the Obama administration should the lead the country.

Will change.gov be a successful example of e-government? Will change.gov encourage other World leaders down to local leaders to adopt similar communication platforms? Will more businesses adopt similar social media tools?

As web strategist Jeremiah has written, “It’s really hard for anyone to be a nay-sayers about the adoption of these tools now, if the big ol’ government can start to connect with people, corporations can too”.

Since the “Get a Mac” commercials first aired back in 2006, Apple not only took control of their own brand destiny, but also took Microsoft’s out for a few rounds.

I thought we’d see Microsoft punch back, with their own ads much sooner. Three years later, they have finally responded with these:

New Microsoft Commercials

The three new commercials don’t mention Vista or Apple, but they do try to break the stereotype that cool people don’t just use Apple, there’s plenty of cool and interesting at Microsoft.

In contrast to the Apple commercials, Microsoft, features everyday PC users, from teachers to ordinary professionals from around the world showing their PC pride. Among everyday users, we also see several Microsoft employees and even Bill Gates gets in the fun, sharing his email address. Be sure to drop him a note at “bill@windows.com“.

Overall, not sure if these ads will do much to change the public’s perception of the PC; it seems very passive to me. But think, if Microsoft wants to really change customer perception, they may want to take a chapter from this year’s US political battle, and go negative against Apple. Studies have shown, negative ads in the case of Apple commercials, help people retain and learn more, then positive.

If negative ads work, then the Apple commercials score better ad points than the one’s from PC, as Apple tends to highlight the frustrations of being a PC user, and demonstrates how Apple makes life easier.

Will we start to see PC highlighting the negative* attributes of Apple in future commercials?

*As Apple users we’d like to see what they come up with.

{update: rumor has it, that the the “Microsoft’s I’m a PC Ads were made on a Mac”}

That’s a quote by Chief Shoe Giver Blake Mycoskie from TOMS shoes on an interview from MSNBC.

Blake came up with the idea for TOMS on a trip to Argentina, where he was inspired by the low-cost alpargatas shoes and at the same time struck by the number of children without shoes.

So he launched TOMS with a simple mission to make a difference: for every pair of shoes sold, a pair would be donated to to children in third-world countries who are shoeless.

Here’s a short film about TOMS and their cause:

It’s easy to see from the video, that TOMS is a great example of a business with social responsibly engraved in its DNA and a great example of a company using creativity to make a difference in the life of others. Their success so far, can be credited to the following:

1. A strong cause and clear purpose
2. A simple and inspiring story that’s easy for people to tell each other (just like I’m doing now)
3. The product in itself is the marketing (similar to iPhone)
4. Charismatic leader who inspires others to join the cause

Here’s another video footage, this one by MSNBC which gives an inside look on how TOMS is making a difference.

The project is a collaboration aimed at developing and promoting green and sustainable projects in the region of the Algarve and hopefully across the country, for both tourists and locals in the area of eco-tourism, eco-investments and eco-lifestyle.

The project started with talks about how great it would be to have a green region, to suddenly everything sprouting like wild fire.

We will be introducing the project at the Feira Nacional de Parques Naturais e Ambiente in Olhão, held from July 24th to 27th. We’re looking to work with businesses actively engaged in developing green, sustainable products and services in the Algarve and Portugal.

We’re also quite conscious of greenwashing and that is not our intention, our goal to encourage businesses to be green and help them connect to where they can get more information and support. In addition, 3EcoBees, will help promote those that are already green, and support investments both from national and international sources to continue developing sustainable projects in Portugal. So if you’re in one of those areas, we would love to hear from you.

In preparation for the fair, we got working on our logo, icon, blog and holding page. We’re all working hard get the project ready, so for now the 3ecobees website is on hold, until our designer and doodler extraordinaire can take time away from other client projects. In the meantime, I took my marketing hat off and put on my web design cap, to fill in.

We have to say a big ‘THANK YOU’ to all the companies that are working with us and sending their information and products, and a special thanks to the 3EcoBees intern, Susanna a.k.a. “HelperBee”, for all her hard work so far. She’s been great and we couldn’t have gotten organized in time without her help – thanks Susanna!

If you offer a service online, hire or appoint a user-experience stickler whose role would be to review your website’s key customer touch points. Create a checklist, make sure error messages are warmly delivered and accompanied with additional direction. And please, try not to leave your customers hanging after you’ve given them the red font.

A simple link: “Forgot your password?” could solve this.

Surely there are bigger usability violations committed on the web. Picking on Tumblr just happened to be convenient at the time of writing. This little violation should not be used against Tumblr – after-all, one can argue the “blue log in” does the trick.

Wikipedia’s definition of creativity – Creativity (or “creativeness”) is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts.

Unfortunately, until now ‘creativity’ for the most part, has been considered a cheap commodity relegated to dreamers, and believed to only gain real value after an artists death, but thanks to the last decade of technological change, the currency of creativity may just be on its way up.

Creativity surrounds us in every day things from cars to cutlery – in what we do, see, use, eat, read, how we communicate, move and even how we feel; but how often do we take this powerful force seriously? The technology, communications and environment we live in today, have all pushed us to look at our world differently, and now maybe for the first time in history, we’re becoming cognizant that our survival is based on, and needs human creativity to flourish.

We are all born creative, giving us the ability to solve problems and innovate the world around us, it is also the only element that remains to tell our story when we are gone, the key to our human heritage. The proof that we existed and contributed from mind to matter, this has been proven time and again, from wall carvings and pyramids to the medicine and technology we use today. So what are we doing to encourage and support this precious and limitless asset, today and the future? Here is a fascinating perspective on this gift, and how we educate ourselves out of one of our most dynamic and collaborative survival tools.

Note: the video will play on TED Talks page.

The creativity and humor Sir Ken Robinson used to present this topic, is a quiet affirmation of the powerful and captivating connection we have to creativity even with just the spoken word. A human talent that resonates deep and can truly make a difference in how we live, listen, interact and perceive the world around us.

Robinson’s talk delivers an invaluable lesson – for people and economies to flourish, creativity needs to be encouraged, supported and respected in its many dynamic forms, and we need to appreciate the human potential in its entirety, rather than focus solely on wringing out more academics.

It’s the creative genius in us all, and what we bring to fruition that makes our world interesting – through design, art, music, dance, food, language and technology to name a few, it’s in everything we do. Creativity evolves our cultures and enriches our lives with depth, diversity and passion, making what we can accomplish limitless. If you stop to think for a moment, everything that surrounds us today, was once just a ‘creative’ idea. Can you imagine the world we would live in, if we actually focused on cultivating human creativity instead of depressing it?

But lately, I’m disappointed to say, I’ve found business books getting a tad bit boring, and I’m getting less value from reading them. To get myself back on track, I’ve decided:

1. Never read another business book that’s authored by a service company from beginning to end. From my experience, a large number of these books tend to pitch the services or expertise offered by the company, and seldom provide value I can apply and practice right away.
2. If the book is highly reviewed or recommended, I’ll make sure to check the authors profile. If the profile starts with a company plug, I’ll be sure to think twice before adding it to my ‘must read’ collection.
3. Take Seth’s advice on how to read a business book.
4. Read more non-business books to fuel my creativity… i.e. drawing on the right side of the brain and Chip Kid

That reminds me, maybe it’s a good time to join other bookworms on LibraryThing.com