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.)

“Seasons of Love” starts with the monotonous recitation of a long number string: “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,” which typically is not the makings for a Tony Award-winning song. Yet, this number has meaning as the song goes on to ask, “How do we measure, measure a year?”

That’s an important question posed in the RENT musical; and, it’s an important question for every business.

Today’s businesses spend most of their time thinking about time. They live quarter to quarter, particularly the publicly traded companies which have to expose their financial laundry four times a year. And they obsess over metrics, which are driven by varying time increments, e.g., monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.

However, companies generally don’t obsess enough over how their employees actually use their time.

Most companies pay their employees for 40 hours-a-week of work, 52 weeks a year. If you set aside the two weeks for vacation, that comes to a nice round 2,000 hours a year that the average employee is paid to be “on the clock.” If you take it a step further and put it in RENT terms, it translates into 120,000 minutes a year for the average employee.

That’s a lot of minutes. Of course, the actual number of minutes a year that an employee works is much smaller. If you consider the average eight-hour day for an employee, you would need to back out the minutes for unproductive time, such as going to the restroom, chatting in the hallway, and taking numerous breaks throughout the day.

Then there’s the time an employee might be sitting at the computer checking their Facebook or Twitter accounts, or browsing on Amazon.com or Ebay.

So when it’s all said and done, the actual amount of available time each day – and each year – that remains for the average employee to contribute to the company’s bottom line is relatively small. As a result, it’s important that the employer do everything it can to ensure that each employee is making the most out of those few remaining minutes.

In sum, incent your employees in smart ways, cultivate and grow their talents, applaud their successes, and create a culture that makes every minute count. If so, I predict you’ll love the seasons that will follow.

I’m a Downton Abbey fan. I don’t watch much television, but when I do, the British hit series Downton Abbey on PBS is top of the list.

I can’t say exactly why I like the show. Maybe it’s the excellent ensemble of actors. Maybe it’s the well-written scripts contrasting the upstairs British aristocracy of the early 1900s and their downstairs help staff. Maybe it’s all the turn-of-the-century British period stuff, showcasing the fine furnishings of the opulent estate home.

It’s probably elements of all these things, but I am always a sucker for well-done period pieces. Downton is written by Julian Fellowes and produced by the British media company, Carnival Films.

I’m not alone in my infatuation of Downton Abbey. Only in its second season in the U.S., it has already amassed a long list of Golden Globe and Emmy awards and nominations. And just yesterday, Carnival Films announced that Oscar-winning actress Shirley MacLaine will join the Downton cast as the mother of Lady Grantham, who is ably played by Elizabeth McGovern.

Seventy-seven-year-old MacLaine will be matching wits and barbs with award-winning British actress, Maggie Smith, also 77, who plays the Dowager Countess and is simply terrific in the role.

The third season will air this fall in the U.K. and next year in the U.S., so we’ll have to wait our turn to see MacLaine and the new storylines, which I’m sure will not disappoint.

The series is set at the fictional Downton Abbey estate in North Yorkshire, England. According to Wikipedia, “Highclere Castle in Hampshire (shown above) was used for exterior shots of Downton Abbey and most of the interior filming. The servants’ living areas were constructed and filmed at Ealing Studios.”

At the heart of Downton Abbey is a great idea, a compelling story, strong creative ability, attention to detail, and fine execution to produce something that is appealing to a broad audience. All the key ingredients needed for a successful business if you ask me.

If you haven’t seen the show, I suggest you try it out. PBS airs it on Sunday nights, and it replays on Thursday nights — at least in my neck of the woods in the Washington, DC area.

In her upcoming book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Cain builds on this assertion by citing numerous cases where introversion is responsible for creativity and innovation. For example, she points to well-known introvert and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who as she puts it, “toiled alone on a beloved invention, the personal computer.”

Cain does not totally dismiss teamwork. She notes its important place in the overall corporate process of exchanging ideas, managing information and building trust. Yet, she’s less sympathetic towards so-called “brainstorming sessions,” which she describes as “one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity.”

I agree with Cain on many levels. As I have written here in numerous blog postings over the last three years, creativity should be nurtured in the individual, and that each person’s trigger or button for creativity is different and should be highly valued.

For example, in my blog post, “Find Your Creative Place,” from April 26, 2009, I note the importance of finding that place and state of mind 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.”

And I called on businesses to provide for a culture that encourages employees to take advantage of their most creative places to do their work, of course, within the boundaries of practicality.

I’ve also written numerous times on this blog about the powers of teleworking, and allowing certain employees, where possible, to work from home or from some other location where they could be more creative and productive.

Like Cain, I agree that a focus on greater private time and individualization is not a call for employee isolation. There still can be plenty of opportunity during the work day or during the week for team members to assemble in face-to-face groups, teleconference and video conference.

In the end, corporations have the power to spur increased creativity within their ranks by focusing attention and programs not just on the extroverts, but also those introverts who may very well be the source of your company’s next best product or service.

The exhibit will not only feature the works of seven leading post-impressionist artists from the 1890s to the early 1900s, but it examines the new media format these artists used to produce their notable works of art: the snapshot.

According to the cover article in The Phillips Collection’s Winter 2012 magazine, the arrival of the Kodak camera in 1888 provided artists a new tool by which to study their subjects via the snapshot. Prior to the portable Kodak camera, photography was a painstaking process which was typically inaccessible to the general public. Large format cameras were big, cumbersome and required a heavy tripod and lots of patience to capture a still image on film.

This new Kodak camera allowed artists the opportunity to take numerous photos of subjects with relative ease for later study and consideration. As the article points out, “the camera did not supplant the sketch but rather added a different dimension to a wealth of visual information that could be drawn upon.”

The exhibit opens on February 4 and runs through May 6, and will feature 200 largely never-before-seen photographs alongside the 70 paintings for which these seven artists are best known. The artists include: Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Felix Vallotton, George Hendrik Breitner, Henri Evenepoel, Henri Riviere, and Edouard Vuillard.

“Snapshot marks the dawn of an era when artist used their Kodaks to explore new realms that would inform their creative output,” as noted in article’s conclusion.

Today, businesses small and large could learn from these seven artists – even companies like Kodak which itself is ironically and unfortunately on the verge of bankruptcy.

Leverage the latest tools that can help your company improve upon, not replace, what it already does well. What got you to this place is core to your business and its identity. What you use to enhance your company’s and employees’ core talents will continue to make your business successful for years to come.

You know, I think that would make for a nice snapshot.

Fast Company magazine’s cover story this month is “How to Lead a Creative Life,” which includes a “Complete Guide to Making Your Inner Genius Your Greatest On-the-Job Asset.”

The article features über Hollywood movie director Martin Scorsese as possessing the “vision thing” needed to achieve the “trifecta of a fulfilling, creative life: enough money to do only what truly interests him, enough freedom to attack those projects in a way that is satisfying, and enough appreciation from his peers to tame the neurotic beast of self-doubt.”

Scorsese provides important advice to those in business who are trying to achieve the creative life: respect the past, trust your confidants…but not too much, play the corporate game, defy them when you must, find another outlet – or eight, and give back and learn.

All successful creative artists need others who serve to inspire them, and Scorsese lists six other filmmakers “whose bold risks changed cinema” — Orson Welles, Roberto Rossellini, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, John Cassavetes, and Robert Altman.

Who inspires you to be more creative? What helps you tap into your inner genius? Let New Lantern help you lead a more creative life that’s worthy of box-office hit.

Compared to previous years, winners this year included big company names such as IBM, Novartis, Intel, and Abbott Labs. Start-up companies have traditionally dominated the stage for the innovation awards, but not this year.

A team of Wall Street Journal editors and reporters chose this year’s winners from among 605 applications from companies, organizations, and individuals in 31 countries. A total of 35 winners and runners-up were chosen in 16 categories.

Novartis won in the Health-Care IT category for a project that tracks medical supplies in Africa. IBM took home a bronze award for its supercomputer system, Watson, which defeated two grand champions this year on Jeopardy!

It’s refreshing to see award-winning innovation coming out of large, mature companies. It shows that old dogs can learn new tricks that can serve to excite employees, customers, and shareholders.

Whether your company is large or small, you should look for ways this coming year to unleash an innovative spirit among your employees focused on a critical objective, such as a new or improved product or service.

You’ll find that the journey to get there will pay dividends for your company even if you don’t bring home the gold, silver or bronze.

The I Love Lucy television show first aired on this day in 1951. It starred then-Hollywood legend Lucille Ball, whose zany and fresh comedic antics helped turn the sitcom into the most watched television show of its era.

Ball’s trademark blazing red hair and slapstick humor was an unlikely pairing with her co-star, Desi Arnaz. Arnaz, who played Lucy’s husband Ricky Ricardo, was also her real-life husband during the run of the show. Arnaz was a dark-haired Cuban American singer and bandleader, whose memorable heavy accent and exclamations on the show continue to resonate to this day.

CBS executives at the time questioned whether the U.S. television audience would accept the idea of an All-American redhead married to a Cuban. Those fears quickly turned to celebration as I Love Lucy went on to become one of the most popular television sitcoms of all time. Sixty years after its debut, reruns of I Love Lucy are still viewed by more than 40 million Americans each year.

On the show, Lucy and Ricky were joined by co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley, who played Ethel and Fred Mertz. Vance and Frawley were perfectly cast as the Ricardos’ neighbors, landlord, and best friends. To this day, I still laugh thinking about the scene of Lucy and Ethel working in the chocolate factory on the production line.

Lucille Ball not only broke new ground as a leading female character of a television sitcom, she also served as the first woman to head a television production company, Desilu, which she and Arnaz formed. As a very active studio head at Desilu, Ball “pioneered a number of methods still in use in television production today such as filming before a live studio audience with a number of cameras, and distinct sets adjacent to each other.”

Whether it’s a television studio, and large corporation, or a small or medium size business, chief executives need to be willing to move outside of their safe zone in order to innovate and try new approaches. Success in business comes from bold leadership, a strong team, and promoting a culture that embraces an inventive spirit.

That’s a winning formula I know your shareholders will love.

It’s hard to add to what has already been said from so many corners of the globe about the enormous contributions of Steven Paul Jobs to the fields of technology, movies, music, telecommunications, and design itself. But I do feel compelled to say something about Mr. Jobs. We just lost our country’s Chief Innovator.

Steve Jobs was a once-in-a-generation visionary who demonstrated a unique blend of design, business, and marketing savvy. He took a quirky, irrelevant computer company named after a fruit, which he co-founded in the 1970s, and turned it into a global business powerhouse boasting the largest market cap of any other company on the planet  – equaled only by Exxon Mobil.

The last decade, in particular, has been truly impressive as Jobs led Apple as it redefined the music industry via the iPod, wireless communication via the iPhone, and more recently, the computer itself via the iPad.

Jobs didn’t always get it right. In 1985, after being fired by Apple, he started the NeXT computer company. NeXT folded in 1996 after shipping only 50,000 units, but its high performance personal computers impressed many, including Apple, which re-hired Jobs in 1997.

Most important, Jobs learned from his mistakes and he wasn’t afraid to make them. At every turn in his career, he ignored traditional business school dogma, and chose to take a different path – always guided by what he felt the consumer wanted.

Jobs concluded that consumers would be willing to pay more for a product if it was well-designed and simple to use.  He was right, and Apple and its shareholders have benefited handsomely.

Business schools will be studying the “Jobs Effect” and his hyper-successful business methods for years to come, and rightfully so.

At some point, there will be another Steve Jobs. He or she will also achieve success by eschewing the safe path. And most likely, he or she too will succeed as a result of a keen focus on innovation, smart design, and creative business approaches.

After three years of delays, Boeing finally delivered its first 787 Dreamliner this past Sunday to its very patient customer, Japan’s Nippon Airways.

The Boeing Dreamliner is probably the most innovative aircraft in the company’s history. It successfully blends design, function, and energy efficiency. The Dreamliner’s lightweight carbon fiber design and use of new plastic-composites translate into a 20 percent fuel savings. Inside the cabin, there is more headroom and larger stow bins, dynamic LED lighting, and larger windows that can be dimmed electronically.

The accolades for the Boeing Dreamliner are already pouring in. Yesterday, it received “Best in Show” at the 2011 annual conference for the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) in New Orleans.

But these awards can’t top its most important measure of success. Boeing has already received 800 orders for the Dreamliner valued at $164 billion, making it “one of the most successful commercial airplane launches” in history.

So it appears that the wait was worth it for Boeing.

Your company may be in the process of dreaming up your next best product or service. You too may struggle with delivery delays, glitches, and unexpected turbulence along the way.

Yet, it’s vitally important to push your team to improve upon what already has made your company successful.

Otherwise, you might find yourself stuck on the Tarmac wishing you had a better flight plan.