If you are under loads of work stress and feel that your mind is revolting and refusing to think, better know that you need a break. The monotony of work and pressure can really bore you to death. That happens when your mind gets clogged and refuses to think. But heavy workload is no excuse for lower work quality as you are expected to be as creative as you were when you had lesser work pressure. So what do you do to keep your creativity intact while you handle more work pressure? Here are certain things that top executives of a company should know while fixing the goals of their subordinates.

1. All Work and No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy: Most of us have heard this old proverb that has stood the test of time and holds true even to this day. Today, corporate executives seem to be working 24 X 7 to meet deadlines and to stay in a competitive position in the market. The hiring firms cleverly announce some incentives and attractive perks that work as a bait to keep executives working day in and day out without sufficient relaxation. If you sum up the lifestyles of these executives you’ll find that they spend around 18-20 hours a day in the office and do not take any leave during the weekends also. Many top managers are of the wrong opinion that hard work enhances creativity but in reality, the opposite is true. Hard work might make you perfect at one job, but not enhance your creativity. On the contrary the mind is fatigued and can’t think. The remedy for this is to take planned short breaks so that your mind gets the time to relax and rejuvenate itself to meet new challenges.
2. Don’t Create False Urgency: Keeping your workers under pressure, even when there is really no urgency is a bad idea. You might think that you are working for the welfare of your company by keeping your workers on their toes always. But this is blundered thinking. When there is a genuine emergency, your workers might come forward to spend extra hours in the office, but they will not be willing to do so everyday. Even if they do under pressure they are going to get mentally fatigued which is not a very good sign for the prosperity of your company. When there is an opportunity, give people time to relax. They will be grateful to you and come back with tons of creative juices to make your work a success.
3. Tell Your Workers Beforehand What You Want Of Them: As a leader, you should devise and communicate strategies for handling crisis beforehand to your workers so that they are prepared for what is expected of them. For example you can say “for the next couple of weeks we need to spend four hours overtime in office to meet our deadlines.” Along with your workers you should also stay back and take up a bigger chunk of work than you usually do. Hold meetings only if they are necessary. Do not make a meeting mandatory for everyone unless absolutely necessary.
4. Find a Partner to Work With At the Time of Crisis: A friend in need is a friend indeed! This is the time you’ve got to work out a symbiotic relationship with a co-worker to ensure that none of you get stressed out with work. You can work out alternate cycles of work and relaxation so that when you are recreating yourself, you co-worker is working and vice versa. You can apply this strategy when you are on a holiday, or even when you are in office but need to just move out for sometime. If the co-worker is a junior, he’ll simply love the idea of developing his experience. You can also team up with your boss if he likes the idea.
5. Equip Your Office with Recreational Facilities: Do you know what some companies are doing to help their employees combat stress? Office campuses are built with plush greenery so that employees can take a walk, take a breath of fresh air and relax around the campus during lunch hours and other short breaks. Offices also have fitness spas, game rooms, music theatres and other recreational venues that workers who stay for long hours can use.

As a leader you should balance between work and recreation and set an example of how well both can be worked out. You should understand that your workers are your valuable assets. Don’t mistake them for commodities that can be used to extract the maximum because you pay them a price. Even machines need rest and human beings are human after all!

Naming Newly Born Baby, Your Business! – Creating Brand Names

Industries today anywhere across the globe have great start up success stories, we all know that, unless, the foundation of a company is strong, nothing works up. Most of the time when we see huge business enterprises, we often see how the company names are so close to the work they are doing, its all about Innovative Ideas, and using Creativity in framing a particular mind set amongst people, for ages then a particular name or a logo goes with that particular product. In my 10 years of career, I have started so many websites, blogs networks, projects, working as a joint partners with firms and I have marked every time that start up phase of my business process was spent in picking up a name for my company. After so many years I have well understood one aspect of picking up a name for the companies, it has be informative, interesting, eye-catching, easily spelt out and memorable, if your company name has all these then your company would be remembered as a brand for ages to come.

It takes longer time to think of a name which would purely describe your business type and at the same time very unique and well understood, in big companies I remember, there used to brain-storming sessions where all industrial biggies used to gather for just picking up a name after all, your company or brand name is going to do it all, of course counting on your product quality also. Think from customers point of view, how would they gel a particular product with some name, it has to be original not copied and if you are planning to put your business over the web then check whether that particular domain is available. You will well know, what it is like naming a business, its just not any A,B,C steps you have to go through so many processes before finalizing on one name.

Today, I am going to share with you some ideas for naming your enterprise; you will also learn the trick to find words which are very unique and memorable in the eyes of people:

1. We have come across company names which are totally out of the world and don’t resemble its company products but still they are in public’s mind for generations, why? These companies have made use of great marketing efforts to build up a brand image to gel with a particular product, say for example, clothing brand like crocodile, guess, etc. if you want to build up a brand for your company with not much of marketing finance at hands, the best is to select the company name which is relevant. Then it doesn’t matter whether its tutoring class you are running, or a garment shop or setting up a multi national company, remember to choose the names which describes about the products. In the fast paced times like ours, no one wants to remember lengthy names, they want something which is short to speak and pleasing to hear, this is the best way to win your customer’s heart and you are already half way of your marketing efforts.
2. Select a name which customers can visualize while shopping. A name should be short and simple and memorable so every time they are out, they will recollect it faster than other brands. Try to put a positive image which people will recall on a particular occasion, make your company brand get heard in the market through good marketing efforts by selecting a proper Logo of the brand.
3. Find the words which are easily Spelt, there are many companies I have come across who have had such complex names even when their product is better, people disliked it because of the complex word and that they dint remember it while shopping. Make sure when you select a name it doesn’t get confused for another brand or a product name.
4. Select a name which you feel would be Available, no domains are booked on that name. when you know there isn’t any duplicate sort of the same company name you have selected, there are almost no chances your customers will get mislead. As we know that most of the businesses are getting online, it is very important to make your presence felt on Internet as mostly people look out for businesses they can transact from home and try to get the domain with .com extension, don’t settle for .net or .org.

Company names doesn’t strike easily, you will have to spend a peaceful time with your colleagues to reach upon a perfect name which sounds very good and resembles the product and remember to make it sound friendly.

Small Business Marketing Followed By 2 E’s – Educate & Entertain!

We know that people like to get entertained and especially when it’s with regard to their product likings, today, the world has shrunk to the extent that we often keep on meeting the same people or come across similar type of products or ads in markets across the globe. What do we do to come out of the competition? Or make your products sell in the markets? The best is to follow the strict small business marketing rules of Educating your people and at the same time Entertaining them, people like to hear or see what is pleasing to their ears or rather something that would increase their knowledge about something, today creativity has grown to superb levels of innovation, the ads that I come across sometimes are just fabulous that I don’t have any words to describe them. They use such marketing concepts that people get glued to their TV sets, until the commercial gets over, whether you are doing telephonic marketing, distributing pamphlets or television marketing, it has lots to do with the way you present it and the concept behind what is shown.

Entertaining someone is not much a big deal, when it’s with regard to some product, you have to come up with innovative ways that will ensure that it goes right inside the people’s brain, so next time they are out purchasing they will remember your pleasant entertaining advertisement in the television they show last night. The concept of Educating people through marketing campaigns is new and still catching up with multinationals across the globe and are I am very sure it is going to be an instant hit with people. Today, people are hungry for knowledge; the more they get, the more hunger they become, the cycle is endless so you have to keep on making new food items on daily basis.

You can run a research check in community circles about the people’s likes and dislikes and then later you can decide on what characters you want in your advertisements. Is it the cartoons they like showcasing the products, or role models, or ramp models? It’s up to people who will decide the success of your ad campaigns. If you think, creating an entertaining ad is difficult think again, if you have resource, talent and right knowledge, go ahead, you are going to be successful; there are no 2 sides to this. While you create entertaining ads take note that the entertaining factor doesn’t overpower the actual promotion of the product you want to market, it’s not the amount of money you invest in making ads, it’s the concept that people should instantly catch up with.

Go through newspapers, magazines, international papers, etc. to get a brief idea about what’s hot in the field of advertising, apply it to your campaigns but make it unique and clear. The listener should instantly know of the product you are talking about. You can put in your queries or suggestions for me or my readers, I need you to speak on my blog.

Innovation is the main key to survive in the market today, there is no point in keeping the same business strategies, and you have to innovate and evolve to survive through the competition. Creative artists are spread across everywhere; they have this innate power to create ads that will attract your buyers. you might have studied the case of jack, Lou and Marla in my previous articles, do you see a difference or take a different outlook towards life’s responsibilities and the power and qualities you are born with? You might have seen how they made fortunes of millions of dollars by sheer devotion and dedication towards the things they liked to do like painting, drawing, arts, etc.

There was a time when Lou, an MBA by profession was the hot favorite in industrial circles mainly because of his fine tuned productive system. During that time creative artists like Jack and Marla were not taken seriously of having those qualities, it was just one step back from Lou’s end and people are turning their heads to Marla and Jack to do business with. There might be something that is attracting people towards Jack and Marla, even Lou might be or is not aware of. The word creativity and individuality were very far from business world and why suddenly there is great demand in corporate world today, may be that those serious individuals holding high posts in office might have realized that there is something else in the world of business other than capitalist business and that there is even more than chasing dollars and there can be minds which can be curved artistically and there exists talent with innate creative minds. There is more to the mind than what our eyes see; somewhere inner in our heart we lounge for peace and being an artist has its own pleasures in life.

There are lots of opportunities if we search for one, the exciting and thrilling opportunities that we see are actually the tip of economic iceberg, you have to prove yourself to exists in this highly competitive business world. We have to mould ourselves in the present shape of the economy then can we reach our  goals and fulfill them. As Daniel pink states in his new book that we are moving from information age to conceptual age where everything is based on the concepts. The economy as its advantage and professional success doesn’t just come through logic, skills but also from concepts, designs, creativity, relationship skills, etc. so all the people who had great demand near about in 20th century are making way for storytellers, artists, inventors, consolers, designers, caregivers and the people who are thinking big in terms of productivity and profits for the company.

The writing is basically for US denizens, in his book Pink identifies 3 fundamental reasons for the change that has occurred in the last century.

1. United States of America is a rich nation and all of its economy is flooded with surplus products, it has adequate resources to fulfill its nations needs and the demand from the people. the goods here are reasonable priced making it affordable even for a common laymen to afford it. The country has never faced any crisis like in developing or under developed nations, this very reason have made its consumers more discerning and more demanding. There are different demands from consumers like attractive packaging, products to be attractive or something which will excite them in buyin.
2. We have seen many a “made in china” products not only it has wider demand all over the globe but they are cheap rated so the people good attractive things at throw away prices. As we have seen the main hub for computer programming are asian nations like china and India, they have made their mark in industries like copy editing, accounting and engineering too. What drives all this? Its money, says Pink, the author of the book, a designer in India get $1000 for chip designing job where as the same person will get $7000 for the work this is leading to brain drain and economies all over are getting unstable.
3. The age of automation has marred everybody and everything, it was in the year 1987 that chess grand master Garry said that no computer can ever beat me and in 1997 the IBM computer deep blue beaten him to everybody’s amazement. And more recently it was heard that Kasparov stated that after some years they be capable of beating everybody in any match. What Pink tries to signify here is Kasparov is a knowledge worker like any other in the field of programming, accountancy, etc and we have seen even doctors are making use of automated computers to help them. Automation has lead to many a changes and there are issues which can be solved with just a click of a mouse rather than moving here and there.

The concept age relates to survival, Pink asks us 3 questions before we set out on our decisions:

1. before handing over the work to some party, ask if there is possibility to get the work done cheaper overseas?
2. Can you make use of computer to do your task?
3. Whether whatever you are offering in abundance is in demand?

Ask yourself these questions before heading out in taking any major decisions. Creativity is not about fun thing or stuff you can relate to spending nice times. It’s a talent, in-grown talent which takes efforts to come up with creative ideas after all if you want to survive in the economy. In my experience I have seen that its difficult to automate the task which are creative in nature or rather complex in nature. Creativity helps you transfer utilitarian products in to artifacts that everybody would love looking at, its all about the design, the shape, the utility, the features that people would love using probably that may be the reason people stand out in queues to get the first hand on an I-phone or an attractive gadget.

The people who have the capabilities to show their creativity in their work or products will surely gain financial rewards and you would say that people with such unique talents are treated like rock stars, in the case of Marla, after all creative talents are must in this economy. Recently I attended the Innovation edge conference held in London which was organized by National Endowment for science, technology and arts which is commonly known by the name (NESTA). The theme was that of creativity and innovation and whether they are really critical to the future of the economy of United Kingdom. The subject was put up in academic terms.

We know the increasing competition in the economies all over the globe and innovation is the key idea to survive in this economy, you can exploit and implement as many ideas you wish when it comes to making use of your creativity. We have seen mature economies like the US and the UK putting all of their strengths in manufacturing, yielding them good creative results because of the creative use of their ideas, we have always dreamt of being an innovative nation like that of US. The new labor government which bought us cool image of Britannia ads, thanks to the wonders done by creative industries, today London is recognized as the key destination for creative ideas a total of 20% of UK’s workforce is engaged in creative world which has great rivalry with financial services also. There was on of these conferences named with the title “where the UK leads and for how long”, the seminar specially focused on different challenges faced to maintain the tradition of surviving in the innovative world, we cannot take things for granted like that of US. The bottom line of the matter is that you will suffer if you too take up a path like that of Lou.

The idea of focusing on the creative work appeals to westerners especially when you are shipping them with new ideas and generating the new innovative ads and stuff, the ideas might sound as appealing but they are equally dangerous too. China provides unlimited resources because everything here is automated, it is still not content with what it is producing at larger scales across the globe, whether it may be an economic foresight or a cultural pride, china knows it for sure that the cheap labor cant stand the booming period for longer time. The driving national mission of the country no more remains in traditional labor intensive units its more of a media, fashion, design, latest technology and stuff.

This was the first ever impression I got about the china designs which are not exhibited at V&A museum in London which showcases the glittering fashion, graphic design, and architecture which is so similar to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Still there is plenty of evidence of Japanese and western influence and there are yet many memorable and startling works which has a distinct Chinese identity, lots been said and done about Chinese economic power as the labor here is cheap and human resource is huge the most attractive thing that stuck me here at the Chinese exhibition was its cultural wealth which rediscovers the pre revolutionary heritage that is actually a rich source to get inspiration for the modern day Chinese creativity.

Going through the recent book written by Michael Keane which has the Chinese government and business leaders as its main topic of discussion are focusing on replacing “made in china” to “created in china”. This needs to take up a great leap forward which is so very much imminent, the world factory is after all not always the priority through developmental aspect. China is no doubt a number 1 contender for cultural and service economies around the world.

In the Book Keane makes a point that there are lots of important barriers to innovation in political system and Chinese economy. It’s the western industry that enjoys the creative head start which is again reflected in the fact that they have showcased Olympic buildings at china design show out of which only one was designed by Chinese architects. But through this mega exhibition, Chinese have made their point clear by letting their creative ambitions know to all different nations of the world.

Whatever part of the world you are or whichever city you may be in things are perceived differently and every view will give you different opinion too. But globalization brings all different banners of the world under one roof doesn’t matter whether its Shogi, chess, or xiangqui or even if its new board games finally what matters is the view. A single entity or a single nation cannot decide upon the rules of the games and thus collaboration is a must in different cases of the life as we have seen that Jack is coming forward as a players and Marla a grand master in her world of arts.

Whether you like or not, money will travel to the destination where there is abundance of currency and loads of labor markets too. The labor and current markets makes it the ideal destination for making profits. You have to just charge the premium amount for giving the services so cheaply. Develop your own skills and tuck yourself in a race, a price war and mark your own prices in the market with your inner talents. Change brings a lots of difference in the economy, the 3 As here are automation, Asia, and abundance with increase in technology there is abundance through automation especially in Asiatic regions of the world.