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Recently Rachel from Bird Textiles send out an email featuring her fabric on vintage chairs. For more information contact Bird Textiles Emporium 02 8399 0230. The chairs can be shipped nationwide. www.birdtextiles.com.au.

Cloth Fabric also have a great selection of unique Cloth Fabric covered chairs. See www.clothfabric.com.

My own version I have used luxurious Moroccan fabric to cover a recycled chair as a colourful reminder of my recent trip to North Africa. We also have French cloth on 2 of our  ‘found’ show room chairs.

This week I gave a conversation type session for managers at the Cancer Council NSW.  The subject was CHANGE.

I am not an expert, but we have been in business for over 20 years and have continued to evolve.

To me, change is about adapting as soon as possible to circumstances, being relevant & fresh, having strategic goals to stretch to, constantly evolving, although sometimes a sharp turn is required while also being innovative about all the bits and pieces that you do- people, processes, implementation, systems, products, services, technology.

At Corban & Blair we believe the following are important to maintain a focused motivated workplace.

• All RELATIONSHIPS matter

• An organisations VISION needs to understood and respected (walk the talk)

• Passion breeds energy and ideas

• Respect for all people on all levels

• Learning every day is an active responsibility of all employees & owners

• Risk taking- innovation comes with risk

• Problem solving -not blaming

• Having knowledge beyond your workplace or expertise – for inspiration & new ideas

Change is inevitable

Denial makes things very painful

Learning everyday is essential

There is no set recipe for success

Smart people always find the BEST solution- not just a solution

Perspective & clarity beyond your discipline/business helps see the big picture

Apart from talking about our business experience and how we have changed over the years, I used 2 of our products to explore the topic.

Innovation Cards (initially designed for BRW magazine) I selected a number of questions that I knew would stimulate discussion. People were from different functions within the organization so it enabled them to share in small groups, ideas and also experience the ideas and attitudes of others.

Understanding how others think, and who they actually are in “real life’’ is also important. At the end of the session I used our very successful cards WYS Conversation Cards to stimulate conversation and connections between the individuals in the group. Knowing people better means communication is likely to come more easily. These cards were designed to use with families but I was delighted to see how well the worked in a professional setting.

I have mentioned these references before in this blog, but if you want to stimulate your imagination the following books and links I have found extremely useful.

The Three Laws of Performance bySteve Zaffron & Dave Logan

What would Google Do?  byJ eff Jarvis

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

Drive – by Daniel Pink

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.

Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Groundswell -Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li.  Josh Bernoff

Websites

http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2011/02/demystifying-mentoring.html

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/

http://www.ted.com/

http://wheelercentre.com/

“Mentoring has become one of the popular management tools of the decade.

While it has always existed informally in communities and organisations it has now achieved the formal status of professional development. It seems that everyone needs a mentor.

A mentoring relationship is one where a wiser and more experienced person assists another person to grow and learn.

The ideal mentor is a person who can be thought of as a tribal elder or trusted adviser. They can be particularly valuable in times of transition and can assist mentees to manage a new role or promotion, negotiate maternity/ paternity leave or new working arrangements.

A mentor can be the person who explains the software of senior corporate life to those aspiring to be a part of it.

In the modern workplace where change is a given and diversity an ideal, there is a need for people to have more one-on-one support.

Mentoring is a cost effective way of addressing these issues. “ McCarthy Mentoring.

Since 1998 McCarthy Mentoring has been providing independent mentors to people in leading companies across the Australian business, government and not-for-profit communities. Clients include major public corporations, not-for-profits; statutory authorities and individuals.

McCarthy Mentoring programs create formal one2one relationships between mentors and mentees. These are designed to enhance the mentees skills, knowledge and confidence, to clarify professional and personal goals, and expand professional networks. Mentors provide support and advice to mentees enabling them to develop strategies and apply their learning to the workplace.

For more information see the McCarthy website or the recent article in Vogue.

http://www.mccarthymentoring.com/profile.htm

vogue Australia Jan 2011

With our sophisticated fast moving communication, to engage others is something only the talented, authentic and creative do well.

In the past few weeks I have been to several events where I assumed I would learn something or be engaged in new possibilities. Most of these experiences were very HO HUM – nothing interesting that I felt compelled to share with others.

Two events did stand out that I have told lots of people about and are now including in a blog.

1.Johanna Featherstone from THE REDROOM COMPANY (poetry and poets) held an event at KPMG as a fundraiser to take poets and poetry experiences into schools. She and her team set up an old fashioned classroom where we all sat at old desks with lunch boxes and other desk paraphernalia- there was a role call- she certainly had our attention. She then took us through a series of experiences illustrating the power of language. It was lovely and I told masses of people about her vision and what she is trying to achieve. www.redroomcompany.org

2.Michelle Leonard and her team from MOORAMBILLA VOICES (regional choirs for young people) held an auction of hand made chooks (made by a friend) gorgeous, unique and colourful. Michelle and some of the students told stories of singing in regional Australia, and the power of music to change and inspire their lives. www.moorambilla.com

They both created memorable experiences with little money, but with loads of passion, authenticity, good will and generosity using every contact and many creative communication devices to inspire their audiences. They achieved engagement on a personal level and to their causes.

Congratulations.

Investigated by Gary Moskowitz – a journalist and a musician, based in London. His last piece for More Intelligent Life was a Q&A with Thet Sambath, a documentary filmmaker.)

A bizarre subculture that romanticises Victorian-era machines and Jules Verne is steadily entering the mainstream.

Kris Kuksi’s first artistic creation was a miniature model of a Winnebego, complete with tiny bathrooms made from construction paper. Growing up in rural Kansas in the 1970s and ’80s, imagination and glue were his tools for entertainment. He developed a knack for constructing intricate miniatures made from model kits, mechanical parts and toy soldiers. He discovered a taste for the mystique of the Baroque and Gothic periods.

His fascination with tinkering and his old-world tastes have earned him a fan base within steampunk, a subculture that blends Victorian-era steam-engine aesthetics with modern technology. Inspired by the early science-fiction writings of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, steampunk has a romantic, fantastical sensibility. Or, as Kuksi describes it, there is “a touch of technology with a pinch of antiquity and perhaps a dash of the macabre. There is humanity…and even a bit of social rebellion and transgression.”

Kuksi was among 18 artists from around the world whose work was on display as part of “Steampunk”, an exhibition dedicated to this quirky genre at Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science earlier this year. This was yet another sign that steampunk is creeping into the mainstream, in music videos, iPhone applications and all over the internet. In Northern England a number of secondary schools even introduced some steampunk-inspired art programmes over the past school year, funded in part by an Arts Council England grant. Called “A Fantastic Voyage”, the project saw local designers, sculptors and artists offer steampunk workshops to thousands of students. The results will be on view in an exhibition at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle this July.

“There is a lot of steampunk culture at the moment,” said Judith Cashman, a project coordinator for “A Fantastic Voyage”. “It’s a way of engaging young people in Victorian design and literature.”

Read more: http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/lifestyle/gary-moskowitz/steampunk

The Future of Retail is already here

by Jon Bird on June 28, 2010

“The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.”

So said science fiction author William Gibson. And he could have been talking about retail.

On the recent Westfield World Retail Study Tour, our first stop was Tokyo. And after spending a couple of days there listening to experts, and visiting stores and malls, it occurred to me that Japan provides a pretty useful crystal ball on where retail is headed in Australia.

One significant reason is Japan’s aging (and shrinking) population. Around 22 per cent of all Japanese are aged 65+ (including one in four of all women), while about 13 per cent of Australians are at retirement age or older. We’ll reach Japan’s percentage of oldies around the middle of the century according to the ABS. (As an interesting aside, Japan’s population is declining so rapidly that one pundit quipped that if current trends continued, by 2250 only 1000 people would be left!).

Changing demographics drive a different retail mix. At the Aeon mall outside of Tokyo, we saw a precinct called ‘HAL’ = “Happy Aging Life” Solutions. Amongst a number of retailers there, the Hal area contained a contact lens shop called Eyecity, an Anti-Aging Mall filled with masseurs and physiotherapists, an ASICS Walking Store and a Nana’s Green Tea shop.

We will also need to think about more appropriate retail offers for an older Australian consumer. (And as observation researcher Paco Underhill often observes, we’ll need to make sure that the price tickets in store have type big enough for them to read!).

An aging population means fewer children. So the Japanese fill the void with pets and they pamper them like no other race on earth. Hence in the same Aeon mall, we saw a 1500sqm space devoted to animals. There you could purchase any number of pet services, from pet grooming to a hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment (I kid you not), plus innumerable products like pet handbags (Paris Hilton-style) and pet strollers. The concierge and deli in ‘Pecos Pet City’ were of the standard you’d see in five star hotels, except they were dedicated to dogs. Watch this space – we will see this trend emerge in Australia, and sooner than you think.

Smaller households also result in different product requirements. In one supermarket we saw that customers were not forced to buy a whole loaf of bread; they could if they wanted buy two-slice packages. That’s convenient and smart.

While on the subject of nourishment, the Japanese are highly concerned about food safety and security. Hence you see tactics like “QR codes” on fresh produce in supermarkets, which when scanned by a mobile phone take the customer to a website detailing exactly where and how the food was grown. As the environment deteriorates and the global population grows, we too will become more interested in the source and state of the food we eat.

The way that the Japanese embrace technology also provides a window into the future. McDonald’s Japan has 17 million registers of a system called “Edy” (an acronym for Euro Dollar Yen), which allows customers to pay for their order just by tapping their phone against a terminal. Watch traditional wallets disappear in Australia over the next five years.

Add to all this the number of cutting edge retail fit-outs you see in Japan today, that will filter through to Australia tomorrow, and a visit to the Land of the Rising Sun is incredibly worthwhile. It’s the future. And it’s only a 10 hour flight away.

* Jon Bird is CEO of specialist retail marketing agency, IdeaWorks (www.ideaworks.com.au).

Email jon.bird@ideaworks.com.au.

http://www.insideretailing.com.au/Latest/tabid/53/articleType/CategoryView/categoryId/75/Jon-Bird.aspx

“It was in August 2010, the Ann Arbor couple (Engel and Dyer) were married in a “green” outdoor marriage ceremony and reception near the Huron River fit to pay homage to their shared passion of the ecosystem and the outdoors.

The trend toward green weddings certainly isn’t new, but experts say it has evolved to allow couples to incorporate their personal preferences and still afford a wonderful wedding.

Most people are curious about what a green wedding is. When they hear about what it really entails, they often end up going a different route. Our heroes Engel and Dyer decided they wouldn’t be able to keep everything perfectly green, but were going to try their hardest. And the most essential element was to make the day informative as well as fun for guests.

They planned the marriage ceremony at a science and nature center where tours were offered to guests in the hour before they walked down the aisle. The tour featured different water and energy conservation technologies used at the center like the solar-panel arrays for electricity, solar-powered heating and water heater systems and no-flush compost toilets.- this was certainly brave!

The couple also focused on little details they said made a big difference.

- The bride wore an heirloom – a vintage green dress that had been her great-grandmother’s in the 1930’s.

- Her ring was made with recycled gold and had a beryl stone instead of a diamond.

- Her makeup was certified organic.

- Guests were given local lavender buds – rather than sachets of rice – to throw in celebration.

- Tables were covered with local wildflowers and locally sourced foods.

- Leftovers and unused food were recycled (by sending to local farms) or reused.

- They found a generator that was solar powered and able to generate enough power to run the lights and the audio system they needed for the band.

For all their efforts, they still made some choices they knew weren’t the most eco-friendly options.

While they served Michigan white wine beverages and a Michigan sparkling cider, they couldn’t find a red from the state they liked. So they decided to have a burgundy from the U.S. And they could have gone with email invites rather than printing and mailing invitations, but Dyer said she felt paper invitations were important – on recycled paper, of course.

What can You do to ‘green up’ your ceremony day?

While green weddings are becoming more famous, planning and pulling off the event can be a challenge.

Sorting through claims of environmentally friendliness when shopping in the present marketplace can be a big obstacle for ordinary purchases, let alone for such an emotionally charged and personal event as a wedding.

The best way to reduce the impact of an event is to start a life cycle analysis on different elements of the wedding. For instance, where is that food coming from, how much energy is expended to produce it, how does it get to your plate and where do the leftovers go?

While meat typically takes more energy to produce than fruits and vegetables, considering how far some fruits and vegetables must travel might let them have a larger carbon footprint.

About the writer – L. Thomason posts articles for the

<a href=”http://www.eventplanningcareers.net/”>event planning careers</a> blog, her personal hobby website focused on suggestions to help people figure out how to organize a green event to spend less energy and reduce carbon footprints.

http://www.eventplanningcareers.net/Leslie-Science-and-Nature-Center.JPG

It occurred to me recently when I was under duress to make decisions concerning our technology needs, that TRUST was the element I was grappling with.

WHOM TO TRUST FOR ADVICE when making decisions across various technology platforms such as equipment, software, web site design etc? Technical people come with different perspectives, knowledge, customer skills and vested interests. As our requirements grow, the technology is often supplied by different companies for e.g web site modification, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) installation and upgrades, email campaigns, analytics and reports, equipment upgrades (we recently installed a server with  3 times the speed and x4 thecapacity of our old one), not to mention setting up Facebook,  Twitter, Flickr and Blogs. The cost of these services and the software to make it all work is considerable.

Without CONSIDERED and TRUSTWORTHY advice, making good decisions can be very difficult. We are learning and adapting to change daily- even the experts.

My solution is to choose one person in this network to be my guide. Someone who understands our business and culture, our expertise and what we need to do to deliver wonderful products to our customers.

See a blog I have found – Trusting Digital marketing

http://elenaibanez.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/digital-marketing-trusting-the-experts/

Two of the leather Diaries

“The Chair has a long and poignant past. Aesthetically, socio-politically and technologically, this everyday item reflects varied stories. A colourful narrative of pre-loved chairs is revealed in this installation. Sydney based designers reinterpret each piece”

Chairs in the installation

The journal (diary) used by the artists.

On at the Powerhouse  31^st July -10^th October.

Meet and buy direct from the best new design talent in the country. 

Featuring fashion, furniture, jewellery, graphics, industrial design and more, this curated market is a glimpse into the future, a critical launch pad for Australia’s talented young designers, as well as a vibrant market for the design-savvy shopper.

Read the list of hot designers at Young Blood.

This year, Young Blood will be joined by the international designboom mart, featuring designers from around the world.

YOUNG BLOOD: DESIGNERS MARKET + DESIGNBOOM MART

Friday 13 August , 10am – 9pm
Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 August, 10am – 5pm
$5 entry (includes Museum admission) BOOK NOW Free for Powerhouse members
Free for Sydney Design Pass holders

Young Blood is part of the Museum’s commitment to foster and promote Australian design.