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.

I was recently in Rome where I toured the artistic creations of the 173-year-old marble floor company, Ditta Medici.

Located on Via dei Papareschi not far from the Tiber, Ditta Medici has been designing and restoring marble floors for some of the most discriminating clients on the globe since 1838. Clients have included the Vatican, Westminster Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Getty Museum, several Bulgari stores, and hundreds of private clients.

Priscilla Grazioli Medici is the latest family member to run the oldest marble workshop in Rome, who gave me a tour of her factory. She showed me some beautiful and unique marbles, which I have not seen in the States — some of which have not been quarried for two thousand years.

Ditta Medici has a number of floor designs which they can customize to your floor, or they can work with you to design a completely one-of-a-kind floor using the rarest of marbles.

You clearly pay a premium for custom and unique. It’s always been this way. Yet, what is a relatively new phenomenon in today’s flatter world is less emphasis on creativity and design, and more on instant gratification, low cost and sameness.

Today, you can buy the same designer label dress or suit in London, Tampa, Minneapolis or Beijing. Is this ubiquity a bad thing? Yes, if it means that many small, individual designers are pushed to the curb in the process.

Have you happened to stroll through the storied neighborhood streets of Greenwich Village in Manhattan in the last two years? Gone are many of the decades-old, sole proprietor shops where you could find rare books, clothing, art, and household items. They have been replaced by global designer brand stores that drive up the rent for everyone else, and in turn, drive out the eclectic and the exceptional.

Unfortunately, a similar fate may await Ditta Medici of Rome and many exclusive and creative shops around the globe.

But I’m not counting out the creative class just yet.

All of us should do what we can to celebrate the artisans and innovators still among us, and those young artists and designers who aspire to make a career in the creative arts.

I’m still convinced that the most creative businesses will not only succeed, but will far outlast the competition. Much like the lasting beauty of a fine Italian marble floor.

On May 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy spoke before a joint session of Congress and laid down a challenge to the country and the U.S. space program: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

With these words, the United States marshaled an unprecedented level of innovative and scientific forces to accomplish this seemingly unreachable goal. In doing so, new generations of Americans became interested in science and space. Educators, students, and the American society at large embraced this ambitious goal with a level of enthusiasm not seen before or since this period in history.

And eight years later on July 21, 1969 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to step foot on the Moon.

Undoubtedly, this country’s excitement and focus on science and space in the 1960s helped plant many of the seeds that led to America’s leadership in technology over the next several decades, including the microcomputer, software, and the Internet.

With this week’s 135th and last launch of the U.S. Space Shuttle, I find myself longing for a new, seemingly unreachable goal that can spark this country’s ingenuity and innovative spirit once more. Else, I fear that we will continue to slip further behind other countries like China and India, which are turning out four times as many math, engineering, and science graduates as the United States.

Let’s hope our country’s next Moon shot comes sooner rather than later.

Just after midnight on this day in 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Twenty-six hours later, the Presidential candidate died from his gunshot wounds.

At the time of his death, Kennedy was considered the Democratic front runner for President. He had just given a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel having won the California Democratic Primary that evening, defeating U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy. After his speech, Kennedy left the ballroom and took a shortcut through the hotel’s kitchen, where Sirhan was waiting with his small caliber revolver.

Just two months before, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, TN. Meanwhile, the nation was in turmoil over the Vietnam War as evidenced by the violent protests on numerous college campuses throughout the country. Many Americans found hope in Bobby Kennedy and his message, and were looking to him to find a way to heal the wounds from one of the most troubled times in this country’s history.

Yet, this hope was all swept away with an assassin’s bullet that cut short the life of the brother to President John F. Kennedy, whose own life had been stopped by an assassin in Dallas less than five years earlier.

Richard Nixon went on to win the 1968 Presidential election, defeating Hubert Humphrey, who ultimately won the Democratic primary that year.

We will never know what might have been had Robert F. Kennedy taken a different path that night out of the Ambassador Hotel.

As a college student, my aunt campaigned for Kennedy as a volunteer in the spring of 1968. Her stories inspired me to leave Iran as a high school student ten years later and study abroad in the United States. If not for Robert Kennedy’s death, I’m not sure that my aunt’s stories would’ve made quite the lasting impression on me that led me to this country.

What might have been? I will never know and neither will America.

In Toby Keith’s 2005 hit country song, “As Good As I Once Was,” the punch line of the song goes, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

I can’t say that it’s a favorite song of mine, but the song surely resonates with my husband. Leave it to country music to always win the day in the lyrics category. And as lyrics go, “As Good As I Once Was” is as good as it gets.

The song spent six weeks at the top of Country music charts in 2005 and helped to make Keith one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the past decade.

“As Good As I Once Was” may also resonate with your company as suggested in this verse:

“I ain’t as good as I once was,
My, how the years have flown,
But there was a time back in my prime
When I could hold my own.”

Has your company seen better days? Were you once number one in your product category, or higher up the charts than you are now? Odds are that your employees may be less motivated today than they were a few years back when your workforce was probably younger and hungrier. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. I’ve probably just described over half of the Fortune 500.

Many companies today are looking over their shoulder to find younger and more ambitious competitors on their heels. Or worse yet, you may already be looking at their taillights.

There are ways to turn maturity and experience to your company’s advantage. Sure, your organization and employees may be less nimble than they were a decade ago, but you can draw upon the expertise that comes with age. The key will be to find ways to inspire and incent your workforce through creative compensation and reward programs.

A motivated workforce also starts with motivated managers. Make sure you are utilizing innovative executive and manager training programs to spur more inspired leaders.

In the end, you should not try to match your younger opponents step-by-step, but should seek to ensure that each step counts and is smarter and more efficient based on valuable experience and perspective.

That’s the type of company I would want to work for. Then again, I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the upcoming 83rd Academy Awards show on February 27 will include a major facelift for its world famous envelope, which contains the words: “And the Oscar goes to…”

LA-based designer, Marc Friedland, was tasked with the envelope’s upgrade. The redesign features an “Art Deco-influenced satin gold frame with an ecru inset panel” featuring a gold-leaf-embossed Oscar statuette. Friedland described the previous design as something that surprisingly resembled a “non-descript, office supply store bought” envelope.

Details matter, and so does image and design. Your company needs to pay close attention to how others see you, particularly the important aspects of your business that potentially distinguish it from the pack.

Look outside your organization to seek a fresh pair of eyes to advise on what may be your non-descript blind spot. Doing so could lead to your company’s own envelope and the just rewards that go with it.