By Philip Patston

It's a mixed bag this time – no big rants about diversity and money – just a bit of what I've been watching, reading and doing in the last couple of weeks.

First up I watched an interesting clip of "The Dip" guy, Seth Godin, talking to a shipping conference about the importance of following through on creativity and ideas to the point of shipping the product. He makes the point that it's relatively easy to be creative and that most creative types actually have too many good ideas. His point is that it takes focus and a reframe of your job – distributing the final product rather than being creative – to be successful. It's an engaging presentation with great stories and amusing analogies. Well worth a look if you need a pep-up: http://www.vimeo.com/5895898

On my blog over at Diversityworks I posted an email I received about a social experiment where violinist Joshua Bell played incognito in a Washington DC metro station. He attracted six people to stop and listen and collected $32. Two days earlier he had sold out a Boston theatre at $100 per seat. The writer of the email asks, "In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?" I agree: it seems that environment influences value hugely – it’s not the quality of the music/art/performance we appreciate, but it's where it’s played and to whom it’s played that counts. What's that about? Ponder here: http://diversity.co.nz/perception

I also found a great TEDTalk by Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point", "Blink" and his latest offering "Outliers", about happiness and spaghetti sauce. The YouTube summary sums it up well: "[he] gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce - and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness." It's a good watch if you're wondering how your product or service stacks up in the market: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y

In a book called "God and the Evolving Universe", James Redfield (author of "The Celestine Prophecy") teams up with Michael Murphy and Sylvia Timber to write about "...a new worldview [that] has been forming intuitively in the hearts and minds of people around the world." In a section on transforming business, I enjoyed the following insights:

* Learning organisations encourage flexible, creative and holistic thinking; and dialogue that suspends judgement and fosters creative alliances.
  
* Organisations that nurture new patterns of thought allow collective aspiration to be set free.
   
* The affirmation of human potential in business improves quality, efficiency and the world at large. Business works best when a commitment to personal and social transformation is made.

Congratulations to Arts Regional Trust on the launch of its new ART Generator Network on Saturday 29th August. Generator is "a closed network principally for creative entrepreneurs who completed the 2007 and 2008 ART Venture & ART Source programmes," including a handful of business specialists keen to assist with business development. As an ART Venture 2007 participant I've joined the network's governance group as Alumni Representative and helped out with facilitation on Saturday. With nearly 30 entrepreneurs involved it is set to be a dynamic hub of creative development and another valuable catalyst for inspiration and collaboration within the industry.

Finally, if this isn't the universe having a little joke at my expense, I don't know what is. While carefully crafting this well-referenced, literary masterpiece I got a tweet through from Ana Samways via GayNZ.com with a link to The Dullest Blog in the World - http://www.dullestblog.com - by Dave Walker. The third post down, entitled "Tidying some pencils," said...

    Some pencils were scattered around on my desk. I picked them up one by one. I placed the pencils in the drawer which I use to store pencils.

...and had 335 comments. Now arguably, it was posted in March 2006, but if it's not proof that less is more, then I should get 336 comments on this post by 2012 and be able to email Dave and say, "So there."

Go on, leave a comment. Even if it's just about your pencil.