Is your corporate culture what it should be? If you are like most companies the answer is probably “no.”

A corporate culture reflects an organization’s character, its values and the vision of its management. The culture serves as an unseen GPS for employees, customers, and partners – signaling who you are as a company and how you do business.

Too many companies place a glossy mission or values statement on their website, but don’t work to build a corporate culture that truly lives up to the words.

Senior management cannot impose a desired corporate culture on an organization. It must be earned and built brick-by-brick. Management must create a culture that treats employees as the company’s single best asset. Employees need to know that performance will be measured and appropriately rewarded. Conversely, they need to know that under performance has its consequences. And employees need to know that the same performance yardstick will be used fairly throughout the entire organization.

A culture that places loyalty to management over performance is a company abusing the shareholders’ trust. Likewise, a culture that tolerates — or worse yet – rewards an attitude that says, “all I need to do is keep my head down, go along with the flow, and not cause any waves,” is doomed to failure.

Jump-start your corporate culture starting today. Let employees know that their talents and value to the company matter. Provide a vision and a clearly defined set of goals for which all employees will share responsibility in achieving. Let employees know that risk-taking, an entrepreneurial spirit, and challenging the status quo are strongly encouraged. And make it clear that a strong sense of ethics is an integral part of your company’s DNA.

If you are able to do the above, your corporate culture will change for the better, your future will be brighter, and shareholders will happily reap the benefits.

I draw your attention to this month’s Fast Company magazine, which it refers to as its “Design Issue.” The entire issue focuses on the important role that design plays in business innovation as a positive disruptive force.

As the magazine points out, the marriage of design and innovation is not a new concept. For it was the legendary CEO of IBM, Thomas Watson, Jr., who noted almost 40 years ago that “good design is good business.” And scores of companies since then, including IBM, have ably demonstrated the truism of these words.

The magazine spotlights the latest social media darling, Pinterest, and its 30-year-old CEO, Ben Silbermann, as shown in the cover photo above. Silbermann has leveraged the power of the Internet to turn the age-old idea of the scrapbook into a must-go-to web destination. In the last year alone, the number of monthly unique visitors to Pinterest has soared from 600,000 to over 20 million.

Of course, 20 million users is a drop in the bucket compared to the social media behemoth, Facebook, which just past the 1 billion mark in users. Yet, Pinterest tops both Facebook and Twitter in its ability to translate visitors into product sales.

Fast Company also uses this month’s issue to highlight its “2012 Innovation By Design Award” nominees at 1,700 strong across nine categories. Nominees include companies and products such as Boeing’s fuel efficient 787, Nike’s lightweight Flyknit shoe, and Nest Labs’ slick and simple-to-use “smart” home thermostat. Winners will be announced on October 16 in New York City.

I urge you to spend more time in Q4 and in 2013 thinking about good design and how it can be good for your business. It might just be the best decision you make over the coming year — and could lead to your company’s nomination in a future Fast Company’s Design Issue.

Will you vote in the coming election?

Now that the Republican and Democratic Conventions have ended, the official race for President has begun! At the end of the race, millions of Americans will cast their vote for the next President of the United States.

Will one vote make a difference?

Can one person change the outcome of this election?

Could the work of one artist, one image affect the election and leave a lasting impression that sways votes?

We’ve seen many images used in politics over the years from cartoons and caricatures to photos and paintings, including this early American cartoon (shown above) from one of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin.

Over two hundred and fifty years later in 2008 another artist made a dramatic impact producing one of the most memorable, if not the most effective works used by a political campaign in modern history. This piece became synonymous with the campaign, representing the candidate and his message during the election.

The image was of the candidate with a four-letter word that simply read, “HOPE.” This work was created by street artist Shepard Fairey. Fairy had created other well-known works including the Andre the Giant “Obey” image seen on many walls and stickers around the country. Fairey’s work conveys a dramatic message with a quick glance, leaving the viewer with a lasting slogan that is hard to forget.

Whether you agree with the politician, the image and message Fairey created is effective in its simplicity. Fairey has since gone on to become a well-known contemporary artist.

Other artists have followed Fairey’s lead with their own versions of campaign-themed art for the 2012 election cycle.

One artist, Jon McNaughton, has used art to take a critical view of the President’s time in office. McNaughton’s art takes a complex approach, leaving the viewer with an encyclopedia of symbolism. His work is so detailed that he’s created an impressive interactive guide on his website to help explain the meaning behind each image; yet, the overall message leaves little for interpretation.

It may never be known if artists have changed or will change the outcome of any past or future elections. What is known is that the work and expression of one artist can leave a lifelong impression of an important moment in time.

Have you ever walked into your hotel room and looked at the art? No, I mean really looked at it, not just the casual glance. Have you ever wondered who created the art hanging inside your hotel room? In most cases your answer is “no,” and the truth is, the hotel has probably given you more reason to focus attention on the wall color than the art on it.

In all my years of traveling there was one instance when this wasn’t the case.

A few years ago I had taken my family half way across the country, reaching the mid-point of our trip near Chicago. Thanks to Priceline.com, we found a great hotel room at the Intercontinental O’Hare in Rosemont, IL.

This stylish hotel blended modern design with comfort and luxury — including its collection of art, mostly from local Chicago artists. Some terrific, large-scale pieces hung in the common areas. The fact that this hotel was using original art made for a nice change, considering the numerous establishments filled with never-ending bland art and decor.

Our room was just as luxurious and well-appointed as the common areas, including the art that featured a limited edition print from a Chicago screen printer, Jay Ryan, who creates works from his local “Bird Machine” studio.

This whimsical piece is called “Intercontinental,” and depicts a number of Winnie the Pooh-type creatures who’ve have taken residence in a large tree. My son thinks these are bears looking for their kite, while my wife feels the creatures represent residents in the hotel.

The work is printed on a distinctive light brown paper, and includes great touches of color with the red birds, hints of silver and yellow bears. The leaves on the tree look like one mass, but up close you see each is separate and distinct. Ryan mixes all of these elements together with a child-like playfulness drawing the viewer into his art.

At this point another journey began, one that would last long after our trip. It started when I inquired about purchasing the print I had seen in my room. I was told by the hotel they had commissioned the piece for their rooms and that it was unavailable. I wouldn’t let my search end this quickly.

Struck by this hotel-commissioned piece, my wife and I purchased several other Ryan prints, while still longing for the piece we had first seen in that Chicago hotel. About two years later and after almost giving up hope, we came across the “Intercontinental” print offered on Ebay. It was a heated auction, but in the end we were victorious and now proudly hang the “Intercontinental” in our home.

Jay Ryan’s work is a pleasant reminder of my family’s trip across the country, our visit to Chicago and our discovery of this great artist.

Sometimes it pays to take a second look.

Five-time Grammy Award winner and disco icon Donna Summer died yesterday of cancer at the age of 63 at her home in Key West, FL.

Summer helped launch disco’s pop music craze in the 1970s, which served up a unique bass-thumping dance beat and unforgettable sing-along lyrics.

Summer was born in Boston as Ladonna Adrian Gaines in 1948, and was one of seven children. Her father was a butcher, and her mom, a schoolteacher who said that Ladonna always loved to sing. She began singing in church at the age of 10, and her talents were noticed and encouraged as she went on to perform in school musicals.

Weeks before her high school graduation in 1967, Summer left Boston for New York to sing in a blues rock band while trying to also pursue record labels, which failed to materialize. Her first break came a few years later when she auditioned for the rock musical, Hair. She lost out to Melba Moore who landed the original Broadway cast role, but Summer did get cast for the same part for the Munich production of the musical. She moved to Munich where she became fluent in German.

After appearing in several other musicals, Summer signed on as a back-up singer for the rock-and-roll band, Three Dog Night. During this period, she met record producer Giorgio Moroder, whom she partnered with to develop her first hit, “Love to Love You, Baby.” The song’s sexually provocative lyrics and her equally provocative performance drew global attention as some radio stations refused to air it. It went on to become the number two song on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. And her 17-minute version of the song soon became a staple in disco clubs around the globe.

Years later she admitted in a Chicago Sun-Times interview that she would’ve preferred to have not recorded “Love to Love You, Baby,” and instead would have first recorded “Last Dance” which became her second big hit in 1978 and led to her first Grammy. She went on to record “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “On the Radio,” and “She Works Hard for the Money” over the next few years which brought her more Grammys and accolades.

Although the disco era began to fade around 1980, Summer continued to sing and record up until her death. For my generation who spent our teenage years in the 1970s, we will forever hum and sing and dance to the songs made famous by this artist and trailblazer known as the “Queen of Disco.” And, we thank her for giving us the “Last Dance” and many others.

Do you have a creative place? It’s the place where you feel you are at your most creative and productive. It may be a bench in your favorite park, a special nook or room in your house or spot in your yard, a quiet desk at a library, a small bistro table in a busy Starbucks, or a spot at work where no one can interrupt you.

Frankly, your creative place may not be a physical location. It could be a particular state of mind. It could be a certain mood, time of day, or the type of music that you are listening to at the time. It could be something you do such as driving or walking. Or it could be any combination of the above.

Every employee has at least one place that focuses the mind and puts them in a more inspired state. Not a state that will necessarily lead to a nuclear fusion breakthrough, or the next generation of computer chip. But it could be a state that helps them think through a more creative presentation, design a more environmentally-friendly container, improve the profitability of a company service offering, or find a more efficient way to process expense reports.

A company’s challenge is to help find those places for employees where they can be more innovative. Most companies insist that employees produce results in sterile environments under rigid conditions. Ask yourself this question: if you were using your own money to fund a composer to come up with a great score for your next blockbuster movie, would you insist that he or she do it between 9 to 5 on a Tuesday in the small conference room down the hall? I don’t think so.

I realize that organizations may not have the flexibility or the resources to put their employees into their most creative physical spaces. But with a little bit of ingenuity, leadership, and guts to try something different, they could clearly get employees to a better place or frame of mind.

Let New Lantern help your company find its creative place. It could be the beginning of a more beautiful and productive relationship between you and your employees.

(Back by popular demand, the above posting appeared originally in April 2009.)