About a month ago, I read an article in the New York Times about a new hi-tech pedometer called Fitbit Ultra. The reporter, Stephanie Rosenbloom, gave a first-hand account of her Fitbit and credited the little memory stick-size device for motivating her to walk and take stairs like never before.

Now I’ve tried a few pedometers in the past, but after a couple of days, the novelty wears off and the pedometer always finds its way into a drawer. But given the rave review of Rosenbloom, I thought I would give Fitbit a try and I went online to buy one from fitbit.com.

Priced at $99, the Fitbit Ultra isn’t cheap. Yet, I convinced myself I had to have it. And before I clicked “purchase,” I asked my husband if he wanted to buy one too and he scoffed at the suggestion, saying: “I’m already a walker and don’t need this expensive toy to motivate me.”

Within a couple of days, it showed up in the mail, and I installed it on my computer. It comes with a small USB charging station that also serves as a wireless connector for the device. Within minutes my account was set up online. It took about two hours to fully charge, and I proceeded to clip it on my waistband. A full charge lasts about three days.

On the unit I can push a button and get an update on my number of steps that day, my mileage covered, my estimated calories burned, and the number of sets of stairs I’ve climbed. In the morning, it even welcomes me with my name and a random motivational greeting such as “Hold me,” “Burn it,” or “Game On.”

With the online dashboard, you get all this information and plenty more, including charts showing your progress against your own daily or weekly goals or goals provided as a default based on your age and weight. It even comes with a wrist-band if you want to measure your sleep patterns at night, i.e., less movement means a more restful sleep.

By wearing the Fitbit, I immediately found myself taking more walks throughout the day, taking the stairs when possible, parking further away from the store, and even walking around the house before I went to bed if I needed a few more steps to get to my 10,000-step daily goal.

Within days, my husband had witnessed my unprecedented enthusiasm for walking, and he decided he had to have one too – and as soon as possible – so he bought one that day at the new Microsoft Store in Tysons Corner Mall in McLean, VA.

Now he and I compete against each other with our steps, stairs, and mileage covered each day and week. We gladly volunteer to go to the mailbox or put out the trash at night just so we can accumulate more steps. What other little device can do that?!

I don’t expect this obsession to last forever, but while it does, we’ll both be healthier for it and will lose a few pounds in the process. The Fitbit Ultra is not the only new electronic step or activity tracker out there, but it’s clearly one of the most popular and easy to use.

Fitbit took a healthy and low tech idea like a pedometer and used innovative present day technology to make it a very compelling product that might just extend one’s life.

That’s well worth $99 in my book.

The Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI) announced its 2012 design award winners last week based on aesthetics, innovation, engineering achievement, functional excellence and economy of construction.

CRSI has been recognizing excellence in reinforced concrete structure design through its award program for almost 40 years. This year’s winners were chosen across three categories: multi-family residential, commercial, and education facility. Winners in each category, respectively, included Cary Kopczynski & Company of Bellevue, WA; DeSimone Consulting Engineers of New York, NY; and Atlantic Engineering Services of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Robert Risser, CEO and President of CRSI, noted that “the winning projects showcase the innovative design possibilities and qualities of using reinforced concrete and the exceptional collaborative management required during the construction of these outstanding structures.”

According to CRSI’s website, its Design Awards program is open to architects, engineers, contractors and fabricators. The entrants may be individuals or teams, and eligible structures must be located in the United States, Canada or Mexico.

The CRSI awards help reinforce the point that beauty is, in fact, more than skin deep. Many times, it’s what you don’t see that distinguishes an ordinary structure – or an ordinary company — from an extraordinary one.

It pays to take the time to regularly recognize and honor those responsible for extraordinary performance, no matter what the field and no matter how obvious or non-obvious their contributions.

The goal of this off-site innovation meeting was to provoke some of the company’s most promising professionals to look at things a little differently – in fact, we wanted them to look at everything differently.

Every day of our lives, we are bombarded by tens of thousands of visual and operational stimuli. The door handle we use to open the closet, the street sign we see to make the correct turn, the faucet we use to turn on the water in the restroom, the ink pen we use to sign a letter — and on and on.

Given the sheer volume of this stimuli, it’s no wonder that we give little thought to 99% of what we see, touch, and feel every day. But maybe your brain is paying more attention than you think.

Whether on an individual stimulus basis or in a cumulative way, your brain responds more positively to objects that are pleasing to the eye – even everyday objects. Whether it’s a company logo, a product, an online service, or a routine internal process or form, a user’s reaction to all of these things is real, no matter how subtle.

Your product division may want a customer or potential customer to enjoy the use and visual attributes of a given product. Your sales department may want a customer to have a positive user experience with an online tool or service. And your human resource department may want employees to respond favorably to this year’s new health benefit based on smart and attractive design elements.

Innovation is not only reserved for the once-a-year or once-in-a-lifetime breakthroughs. Innovation can and should occur every day across every part of your company – from the most obvious anchor product of the company to the most subtle and routine business process.

It’s the cumulative effect of these innovations and the associated attention to detail and design that will separate good companies from the best companies.

Companies should make it a point to encourage employees to seek out every opportunity to improve a product, service, or process – and should seek to arm them with the tools, training and incentives to do so.

In the end, making everyday things and how they are designed and used a priority within your company may very well lead to extraordinary things.

Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, died on this day 65 years ago in Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford is credited for revolutionizing factory production with his assembly-line methods. Most importantly, he helped change how people lived and where they lived by developing the Model T, the world’s first affordable, mass-produced car.

Ford first produced the Model T in 1908, which sold for $850, according to History.com. And by the time the last Model T came off the assembly line in 1927, over 15 million had been sold. However, like many corporate trailblazers, Ford’s market dominance began to wane in the 1920s when it fell behind General Motors, which was responding more quickly to consumer demand with newer models.

To this day, Ford still trails GM in automobiles sold annually, but only by a narrow margin. Ford’s star has risen particularly in recent years under the leadership of former Boeing executive, Alan Mulally, who has helped make Ford profitable despite the country’s near economic meltdown. In late 2008 and early 2009, GM took bailout money from the U.S. Government; Ford notably did not.

The Ford and GM 100-year rivalry is longer than any in U.S. corporate history and will surely continue. There is no better fuel for innovation than competition, and no industry better illustrates this cause and effect than the automotive industry.

Thanks to GM’s and Ford’s long-term rivalry – and the competitive threats from Japanese and German car brands over the last three decades – consumers have a lot to be thankful for.

One wonders what Henry Ford would think today if he were behind the wheel of one of Ford’s latest models, such as a Ford Fusion Hybrid (gas and electric), in which he could control much of the dashboard with voice commands.

I bet he’d like the company that still bears his name.

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.)

In today’s fast-paced frenetic world, the term “new” is losing its luster. Everything is “new.” Every “new” product is higher in Omega fatty acids, easier to use, more feature-rich, or is bigger than the previous model.

The humorous television advertisements that show a customer’s smartphone as obsolete the moment after she purchases it is not far from reality.

Of course “new” is not new in the world of business and marketing. For decades, businesses have been peddling their products and services as “new” in an effort to lure customers. And for decades, market research has supported this notion.

Yet, I may be bucking the trend here, but I’m willing to step out on a limb to say that “old” has never been better positioned to make a comeback.

Sure, when it comes to products, customers will likely want to shell out the most dinero for the newest versions. However, when it comes to business, there may be opportunities to embrace some of the “old” ways of doing things that could lead to greater sales, higher margins, and happier shareholders.

Take talent for example. Routinely, companies bring in new, fresh talent and work them hard over the first few years. This is the classic management consulting firm model. Newbies are cheaper, more apt to work longer hours, malleable, and come with less personal baggage like child care or parental care. What’s not to like?

There’s a time and place for new talent in any company. However, I would argue that the best deal and greatest value these days may be with the older and more mature cohort. Cheaper is not always better. And with personal baggage comes experience and valuable perspective. And malleable sycophants are definitely not the recipe in my book for improving your company’s productivity.

Companies should not simply look at employees as units of labor, but as a valuable resource that should be mined and nurtured. A team made up of at least several more mature team members is likely the team that will not repeat past mistakes.

And most importantly, a team member that is willing to speak up and challenge the status quo in a constructive way – based on years of experience – is better positioned to add value to the bottom line, not take from it.

So look around you and embrace the old. Not every time, but when it is wise to do so. This newfound wisdom may be just the ticket for your company to compete in the new global marketplace.

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.

Speaking of fortune, most every Fortune 500 company in America has jumped into the social media fray over the past year, whether it’s a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, or both.

Facebook and Twitter have undoubtedly given companies new ways to get the message out beyond the traditional press release, corporate website, or a corporate blog for that matter. The challenge, of course, is not saying something — but actually saying something meaningful.

Whether it’s a short Facebook status update or a very short 140-character-limited Twitter post, knowing what to say and how to leverage this new medium has corporate executives scrambling to find value.

Corporate leaders are also wrestling with the individual vs. business nature of social media. Twitter by design is the short muttering of an individual, even when it’s in the name of an organization.

Since its inception, individuals have flocked to the Twitter platform to chronicle important events such as: “Just had a great bowl of chili,” or “Sitting on tarmac at JFK already hating person in 24B sitting next to me.” Not quite the makings of Pulitzer prize-winning material.

Then comes along a CEO or the SVP for Communication or a Business unit head, and a new Twitter account set up to drive corporate messaging, and it quickly goes from the personal mundane to corporate tripe.

Yet, with all its warts, I still think this new medium has something to offer and should be taken seriously.

Throughout our nation’s history, business enterprises have sought to leverage each new wave of communication innovation, including the printing press, radio, television, and the Internet. And at each juncture, trial and error has eventually given way to a valuable return on investment.

For example, as recently as ten years ago, many traditional brick and mortar stores struggled to find value in an online presence. And today, many of them are leveraging the Internet not simply as a supplement to their bottom lines, but as a huge driver for their bottom lines and highly cost-effective way to reach target customers, e.g., Walmart.com.

Ten years from today, the same will be said for the micro-blogs. Already, Twitter and Facebook have literally helped change the geopolitical landscape in countries such as Egypt, where these new forms of communication have played a leading role in spreading ideas, actions, and change.

I’m betting these technologies will also soon lead to innovative business practices and the next generation of successful enterprises and corporate leaders, who will find smart ways to leverage their potential.

That will be something worth tweeting about.

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.