Slow Wins the Race

Have you ever noticed that the people who have the best ideas are the ones who never seem to be rushing? As I disembarked from a flight to Melbourne early one morning, I casually cruised through the terminal to the pick up area. Around me guys were rushing, bags in arm, mobile phones locked to their ears. It dawned on me that these guys wont find the next idea. It wont be these guys who will find a new and interesting way of approaching something in or out of their business. They are not the creatives. They are the doers. Sure they get things done but they won't find the next great idea. They won't challenge the norm in order to find a better, faster or more profitable way of approaching something in their organisation. They will probably make their budget, they will probably get the job done and they will probably tick all the boxes, but they are not the guys that will slay a sacred cow that could transform their team, organisation or company. When you slow down, you drop your heart rate and when your heart rate drops you are in the best place to access your creative spirit. Think about it. Where do you get your great ideas? On a plane, in the shower, going to sleep, in bed, walking the dog or over coffee - they're all places where you disconnect from the busy world to sit, ponder, reflect and truly dig down for your best creative ideas. Rushing lifts the heart rate and when your heart rate is elevated it makes it harder to access the creative part of your brain. Medical research has proven that this is the case and common sense reinforces this which you can prove by simply looking at where you find you have your best ideas. So slow down. 

Scribd

Online publishing network, Scribd's home page will soon feature live updates from other subscribers in the network, a virtual bookshelf showing what people are reading and a five-star rating system for reviews. Similar to Twitter, readers will be able to subscribe to other members' status feeds or search for other authors with similar literary interests. Scribd says it gets 40 million unique visitors a month. "We want people not only to share what they've written, but also to hang out and discover new content," Content Manager Tammy Nam said. "We want to create the world's largest book club." With mammoth players such as Facebook and MySpace becoming overcrowded, smaller social networks have sprouted like spring clover, carpeting the Web with specialty networks dedicated to ethnic groups or hobbies. Scribd says it will offer visitors to its site ways to slice and dice their topics even more thinly by genre. What do social networks have to do with books? The traditional model for book writing is to lock yourself up alone in a room and emerge when you have a transcript ready. Maybe an editor or friend reads it and gives you feedback. With the Web, however, the work can become "alive," Nam said.

Click here to view website.

How To Build A Bigger Brain

The right orbito-frontal cortex, is one of the areas of the brain that appears to be enlarged by meditation. Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers — people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain? Meditate. That's the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who regularly meditate. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage  (also available on line by subscription), the researchers reported that certain regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group. Specifically, meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for regulating emotions. "We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior," said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities." Research has confirmed the beneficial aspects of meditation. In addition to having better focus and control over their emotions, many people who meditate regularly have reduced levels of stress and bolstered immune systems. But less is known about the link between meditation and brain structure. In the study, Luders and her colleagues examined 44 people — 22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced various forms of meditation, including Zazen, Samatha and Vipassana, among others. The amount of time they had practiced ranged from five to 46 years, with an average of 24 years.

General Pants Retail Staff Turns Talent Scouts

 Often in speeches we talk about creativity being used in all aspects of business. Generally people tend to think of creativity and innovation as being used as the end product or service that is delivered by a company. Australian street wear label General Pants Co have taken creativity inside their organisation. General Pants have given their in-store staff the opportunity to scout talent for their new record label 'Major Label'. Designed as a contract-free single release, the label gives all profits and tracking rights over to the artists. This in itself is a  complete spin on traditional publishing. Launching in the early part of next month, anyone wishing to record with the label must first be discovered by one of the General Pants 700 retail staff across Australia. This is a great initiative sure to bring some fringe talent through the doors of General Pants and out to the broader public, their consumer. It not only slays a number of sacred cows, especially internally, by building a loyal tribe of company employees, but it is also a major spin on the way that record companies generally contract and finance their artists. Well done to General Pants and lets hope it sees some success both inside and outside the brand.