Tonight, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will add five more names to its wall of legendary performing artists in the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC. The 2009 honorees include: producer Mel Brooks; pianist and composer Dave Brubeck; opera singer Grace Bumbry; actor, director, and producer Robert De Niro; and singer and songwriter Bruce Springsteen.

The honorees will join President Obama and the First Lady in the President’s box at the Kennedy Center tonight for the three-hour live tribute, which will later be aired in a two-hour show on CBS on December 29. Last night, the honorees and their families and friends, were feted at a State Department dinner, hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They will also attend a White House reception this evening prior to tonight’s show.

There are no shortage of annual award shows that pay tribute to the achievements of actors, directors, and musicians. Yet, the Kennedy Center Honors seems to stand apart. It seeks to honor a life-time of talent and accomplishment, not simply a snapshot of fame. The show also uniquely brings together on the red carpet the best that America has to offer from the arts and government.

I have attended six Kennedy Center Honors, and each was as distinctive as the inductees themselves and the remarkable stories told by the famous individuals who spoke on their behalf.

Former President John F. Kennedy said, “I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

The highest levels of business achievement, like that of the arts, are attained based on a compilation of successful work over an extended period of time – not merely the results of one quarter or one year. And it is the companies that are the most creative, the most innovative, and the most willing to invest in their best performing employees, which will most likely succeed and endure.

Make it a point to honor those employees who help make your company successful with a little red carpet treatment of your own.

With its cover entitled, “Your Next Big Idea: Spotlight on Innovation,” the entire edition of December’s Harvard Business Review magazine is dedicated to business innovation. A number of the articles go right to the heart of New Lantern’s founding principle: employees, if properly motivated and stimulated, are a company’s single most important innovation source.

As HBR’s editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius puts it, “Genius CEOs can’t do all the work of innovation – and in truth, people and culture both matter a lot.”

In one of the lead articles, “The Innovator’s DNA,” authors Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen, highlight the five “discovery skills” that “separate true innovators from the rest of us.” These skills include: Associating, Questioning, Observing, Experimenting, and Networking.

The authors interviewed 25 innovative entrepreneurs, and surveyed over 3,000 executives and 500 individuals, who had started innovative companies or invented new products. They charted these individuals against the five discovery skills and found a high correlation among leading innovators.

For example, under the “Associating” skill, entrepreneur Frans Johansson cited the importance of the “Medici effect” when it comes to innovation. He was referring to the Medici family of Florence during the 15th through 17th centuries, who helped usher in a “creative explosion” by bringing together successful people from wide ranging disciplines such as: sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, painters, and architects.

According to the article, “as these individuals connected, new ideas blossomed at the intersections of their respective fields, thereby spawning the Renaissance, one of the most inventive eras in history.”

Likewise, many leading innovators seek to spend time around a network of thought leaders and individuals from a variety of different perspectives in an effort to “extend their own knowledge domains.” For example, they attend conferences such as TED, Davos, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, which brings together artists, entrepreneurs, academics, politicians, adventurers, scientists, and thinkers from all over the globe.

Kent Bowen, who founded the innovative ceramic composite company, CPS, cites this credo which he asks his employees to follow: “The insights required to solve many of our most challenging problems come from outside our industry and scientific field.”

Finally, the authors make the point – as we have made in numerous blog posts on this site – that whereas innovative thinking may seem innate to some, “it can also be developed and strengthened through practice.” They note that corporate executives should “put aside time for you and your team to actively cultivate more creative ideas.”

Let New Lantern design an innovation program for your company that would make the Medici family proud – and in doing so, put you in the best position to make your next big idea a reality.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate was 10.2 percent in October –- reaching the double-digit mark for the first time since 1983.

Several leading economists are now predicting an 11 percent unemployment rate by the middle of next year, which would represent the highest level since World War II. Even though there have been some glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel in recent months, the unemployment rate continues to be a drag on both the economy and our American psyche.

During these rough economic times, I urge corporate executives to not focus on the 10 percent unemployment rate, but to focus attention on the remaining 90 percent of those still employed. The speed of the recovery and job growth will hinge on one key factor – whether employees are motivated to innovate to drive new products, more compelling services, and improved processes.

Companies, now more than ever, must re-double efforts to mine the talent of their existing employees and turn that talent into newfound gains. With tight budgets, it will require creative approaches from management such as enhanced incentive rewards programs, imaginative leadership and manager training, and other innovative programs to spur greater employee performance.

The costs of such programs are modest compared to the cost to your company and its shareholders of standing still.

You can choose to see the glass 10 percent empty, or you can choose to see it 90 percent full. Think of it as saving room for cream – or better yet, two-percent milk.

Beñat Iglesias, self-portrait

Harlem’s Alex Adam Gallery opens its “Artists and Monitors” art show on Thursday, October 15. The show uniquely features the works of “three of New York’s most extraordinary contemporary figurative artists, and the painters who are and have been privileged to be their assistants.”

One of the “Teacher’s Monitors” whose works will be featured is Beñat Iglesias, a very talented portrait artist who was born in Pamplona, Spain in 1979 on October 12 – thirty years ago today. And yes, Pamplona is home of the world-famous “Running of the Bulls,” the high-risk, high-adrenaline running of 1,200-pound bulls (i.e., with horns) through the cobbled streets of this picturesque city in northern Spain.

This hometown image is in sharp contrast to how Iglesias describes his approach to art: “My work is devoted to the mundane, to depict humble and ordinary people I aim to show in their natural state, to reveal their way of communicating to the world.”

I first saw Iglesias’s talent showcased five years ago, when I attended an art show at New York’s Art Student’s League. Iglesias’s education in fine arts has spanned more than a decade, including a fine arts degree from the Universidad Del Pais Vasco (UPV) in Bilboa, Spain; then further study at the Edinburgh College of Art in the UK, the University of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and New York’s National Academy School of Fine Arts, the Art Students League, and the Andrew Reiss Studio.

Iglesias has exhibited his work in numerous shows in New York and throughout Europe. In 2007, he was a semi-finalist in the 70th Annual American Artists Drawing competition.

I find myself immediately drawn into his work, and how he is able to capture remarkably true-to-life expressions of unremarkable people. I have bought several pieces from Iglesias’s collection over the last several years, and intend on buying more as he continues to grow and develop.

Iglesias’s bright future has been built on a foundation of years of hard work, high quality training, learning by doing, and a bull-headed dedication to his vocation. All are key ingredients for success in any field of work or business. Identify the talent, grow and nurture it, and put yourself in environments where creativity can thrive.

Happy 30th birthday to a promising artist, Beñat Iglesias, or better yet –
¡Feliz cumpleaños!

The show at Alex Adam Gallery in Harlem (78 West 120th Street) runs from October 15th-25th. The exact schedule can be found on the gallery’s website.

Cinematography is “the art or technique of motion-picture photography,” according to our friends at Dictionary.com.

Today’s cinematographers, or directors of photography, are harnessing technology like never before to master this art form. They are responsible for every technical aspect of a film’s images, including: composition, lighting, lens choice, exposure, filtration, and film selection. Advancements in digital photography, computer technology, and photo-editing software in recent years are dramatically changing the way films are made.

As viewers, we readily see much of this technology at work in the greatly enhanced image quality of today’s motion-pictures – whether on a high-definition screen at the theater or in your own home. Yet, we are not privy to technological changes that are taking place behind the scenes, which are resulting in not just a better product, but a more timely and cost-effective one.

When you combine these new technology tools, with bright, young cinematographic professionals who know how to leverage these tools, you find a motion-picture industry that is literally reinventing itself one image at a time.

Take for example, Jessica Clarke-Nash, from Sydney, Australia – a Preview Stills Assistant, who represents the next generation of cinematographers. At the ripe old age of 24, Jessica already has over 70 feature films, television shows, commercials and videos under her camera belt.

As a preview assistant, Jessica is responsible for taking thousands of high-quality digital still photos during the course of making a full-length feature film alongside the motion-picture camera. Throughout the day of a shoot, Jessica downloads her stills into sophisticated photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, makes needed adjustments, and readies them for the cinematographer’s review within minutes.

The cinematographer in turn, based on this immediate feedback, can adjust the technical elements of his or her motion-picture photography in real-time. Jessica’s photos provide instant input on light, exposure, coloration, and texture that the video playback in the field cannot provide. Equally important, these daily adjustments made by the cinematographer serve to cut the traditional two months of lab time needed at the end of a film’s shoot to merely a few days.

I met up with Jessica yesterday, who was traveling through Washington DC. She described her work on the set of the Hugh Jackman blockbuster, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was released earlier this year. Jessica answered my most important question: Yes, Hugh Jackman is amazingly handsome right down to his smallest pixel. She should know given she spent several months working only a lens-length away from Jackman during the filming of Wolverine.

Creativity and innovative thinking not only lead to better products, they can also lead to smarter and more cost-effective processes, which can pay valuable dividends for your company. Take a long, hard look at how you do business – frame-by-frame. Make sure your company is leveraging the latest technologies, and incentivize your employees to help you in this cause.

It may give rise to results that are truly worthy of an Academy Award.

Labor Day was first celebrated in 1882 as a day set aside to commemorate the “social and economic achievement of the American worker,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Labor Day has since come to represent the end of summer, the beginning of football season, and one of the last opportunities to get in those picnics, barbecues, and backyard family gatherings before the chill of autumn sets in across many parts of the country.

This year, Labor Day for your company should serve as a reminder to re-invest in your employees. Your employees are your company’s single most valuable asset. You already invest heavily in your employees through wages and benefits, but are you truly getting a solid return on that investment? Most likely you are not, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Treat your employees like a valuable resource, and you will in turn reap the benefits. Nurture their talents, encourage risk-taking, and incent creativity and innovation.

In the article “Where Headhunters Fear to Tread,” this week’s Business Week examines factors that are contributing to an erosion in management talent at some of the country’s top companies. The article notes that “red-flag cultures are those that suffer from bureaucracy, narrow skill-building, risk aversion, or boy’s club aggression.”

Developing talent within your organization does not happen overnight. It takes persistence, a sustained dose of right-brain stimulus, and a senior management team who is willing to provide a culture where talent and creativity can take root and thrive.

Let New Lantern help your company mine and grow the talents of your employees through creative leadership training, performance-based compensation and incentive programs, and other inventive business innovation methods.

The pay-off for your company could be the next hot product or service offering – which would indeed be cause to celebrate the fruits of your company’s labor.