B C A

Fifth Annual
Forum for New Ideas
A program of the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), in collaboration with the Arts & Business Council of New York

September 20, 2007
Morgan Stanley
New York, NY

National Sponsor	New York Sponsor

Moderator
Annie Bergen
Midday host, 96.3 FM WQXR

Panelists
Ginny B. Baxter, IIDA, ASID
Senior Manager of Workplace Dynamics
Herman Miller, Inc.

Chuck Hoberman
President
Hoberman Associate

Jill Medvedow
Director
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Excerpts

Annie Bergen
"I'm sure you're all familiar with these alliances between business and the arts. Promotional opportunities - XYZ bank sponsors this concert and ABC sponsors this theater company's tour. Well today we hope to hear about different and new synergies between the arts and business, and how creativity is really crucial to business in keeping companies competitive and how it can really unlock whole new frontiers in terms of products and design - how understanding the individual and the individual's motives can further artistic endeavors in the workplace and enhance environment. And also, we'll hear how arts organizations can take risks in furthering their business and their missions...."

Ginny Baxter
"Businesses are very creative. They have to be creative or they won't survive. They have to be creative in terms of what they're doing in the market and how their models are going to look and how the people are going to learn. Unless the arts are completely self-sustaining, they have to learn how to be good businesses. And so there are mindsets and methods and models where one can inform the other....

You need to be able to fail. It is important to the vision of the leadership at Herman Miller to be able to say "You can fail at products." There are products I'm not showing you. There are some beautiful products that I'm not showing you, because they weren't executable….We don't even show them in our own internal museums, but we're allowed to be able to fail!"

Chuck Hoberman
"I think there's a whole other axis that's implied by the question which is "Where does art fit into a business context or what are the connections between the individual artist and the business person?" Then there's sort of like a broader one that goes back to mind, body, spirit, which is "What is creativity in all these different contexts?" I mean, certainly in my career, I've always been sort of tracking between these polarities: the arts and science. That's one way of speaking to that dialectic. But certainly, in my experience, you can get the most unbridled creativity from sources that are not typically associated with it. I mean engineering, for one. I'm a mechanical engineer; most of my staff members are engineers. Engineers get a bad rap, you know, they're dullards. But in reality, engineering is this fantastically constructive, creative sector…."

Jill Medvedow
"Creativity, as we're all saying, can be found anywhere. Arts don't own creativity....One of the least creative institutions, I'd say, are museums. They have done nothing like what businesses have had to do. They have just done business as usual for a really long time. One of the reasons the arts are in such trouble is that for 30 years we've just done a really piss-poor job of conveying why they matter, how they are of value to mind, body, spirit, where they fit in the spectrum, and why they are pleasurable and laden with value as opposed to a bitter pill that you have to swallow because it's good for you….

I actually don't see a lot of innovation, with all due respect - I love all our funders - but I don't see a lot of deeply innovative practices happening in business partnerships with the arts. I see fantastic time-honored practices….I think we should actually restore some of the prestige and honor to philanthropy. I think that is a critical need in the field, if we want institutions to play this role.... ”

Fourth Annual
Forum for New Ideas
A program of the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), in collaboration with the Corporate Design Foundation (CDF)

October 10, 2006
Rubin Museum of Art
New York, NY

National Sponsor

Design Sponsor
AD Lubow, LLC

Moderator
Robert MacNeil
Award-winning journalist and commentator

Panelists
Chris Abele
Chairman
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Ayse Birsel
Principal
Birsel + Seck

Robyn Waters
Founder and President
R W Trend LLC

Excerpts
Robert MacNeil
Award-winning journalist and commentator

“The United States was the first great nation to create itself and it’s gone on living in a ferment of creativity ever since – social, scientific, technological, and artistic. To remain so in a fast, more competitive world, Americans will have to re-stimulate the creative spirit in all fields.

Creativity is coming to seem less and less like a luxury for American business as global competition shakes our complacency about the inevitability of America’s leadership.

To give us some insight into how business may do this, we have a lively panel of presenters. Each of them is noted for bringing fresh and revolutionary ideas to change thinking in business and the arts.”

Robyn Waters
Founder and President, R W Trend LLC

“The paradox, 'Expect more. Pay less.' defined what Target has done.

We took the high end department store world and the low end discount world and created a whole new retail landscape. We became the upscale discounter. That’s a paradox…. The idea that you could achieve this paradox was pretty revolutionary at the time.

The whole idea of tracking trends and translating them into sales and profits was pretty easy to do initially, but somewhere around the late 90s, the idea changed. I began to think after years in the retail world, that looking for the next big thing was no longer valid. I had to reframe the idea into something different. So that’s when I wrote my first book, The Trend Master’s Guide, that shows everyone how to track trends and translate them into sales and profit.

That ultimately became what I call trends from the inside out theory… I was very flattered to find my philosophy on Starbucks cups around the world.
‘Trends are sign posts and indicators pointing to what is going on in the hearts and minds of your customers. These days, if you want to be on trend, it is more important to figure out what is important, not just what is next.’

This is how I chose to reframe the trend landscape.

As I was leaving the corporate world, the trend in business was six sigma – taking things out of the equation – costs, defects, about finding one bright way, the best method, it was also about analysis – to figure out what you were going to do next. I felt that idea had to be reframed. We had a right side of the brain that we should all be using.

I’m a huge fan of Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind. He says a new conceptual age is dawning. He calls it an age of art and heart. He suggests that businesses today have to learn to rely on what we like to call 'whole brain thinking’. Businesses need the left brain skills – the linear, logical, analytical side of the equation, but they have to learn to rely on creative and intuitive skills. That relates well to the world of art. So the whole idea of using the right side of the brain, which is what art does so well – using emotion and recognizing and seeing the big picture relationships – can be brought to the world of business.

The big take away from this book is using the whole brain – the left and the right side – is the way to success in the conceptual age for business and for the arts.

As a trend master, I am often asked to predict the next big thing. I say I do not have the answer to this question. It’s not the trend itself that is important. What is important is how a trend meshes with the paradoxical, often counter-intuitive desires of the customer that matters – which is what I explore in my new book, The Hummer and the Mini.

Opposites bring fresh ideas to the surface. There are no rules anymore. Or the things we thought were rules have been broken. That’s good because today we have a sizophrenic consumer. I like to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald – ‘The test of a first-class mind is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the head at the same time and still be able to function.’ That’s what I think business and the arts have to do today... We need to look at both ends of the spectrum and somewhere in the middle, as we churn, is where we will find the answers….

In thinking about art, art is typically about thinking differently. It is the great artists of the world who have inspired us to do just that. Art can inform our culture. Art can give meaning to our history. Art can enliven our cities. Art enables cultural understanding. Art inspires us and it humanizes us. Art takes risks. Art allows us a prime opportunity to walk in other worlds, to get out of our box and to consider other worlds and explore important issues from a new perspective.

The benefit of the arts lies in that they help business reframe its perspective, but what may be less apparent is how business can benefit the arts besides contributing…. These days it is not enough for arts organizations to pursue status quo solutions to the challenges they face. Arts organizations have to make their happenings true destination events, just as retail has leveraged the idea of “retailtainment”…. The business community - with its rich resources and its deep marketing and branding experience - might be able to support some new answers to old questions in the art world and help us all reframe how we bring the two together.

So just as business can bring support to the arts, art can bring heart to business. I believe it is possible for business to do good and make money at the same time. I call it social capitalism. I refer to this as a the ultimate paradox. I think it is time for businesses to do more than to offer financial support…. They have to help the arts reframe the paradigm.”

Chris Abele
Chairman, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

“Life without art is a life diminished. Art inspires.

I’m 39, but in Board years, I’m probably about 450! I’ve made lots of mistakes – big, spectacular mistakes – but I’ve generally learned from them. I’ve gotten a few things right… I love new practices, new fields, and the cross fertilization of ideas.

Why serve on a Board instead of giving a check? Support is crucial, but if you want to make a big difference, the best way to get your hand on the steering wheel is on the Board. Boards allow you to make big change. They allow you to learn. They allow you to lead effectively. When I got involved with the Milwaukee Symphony, I had been asked many times for support. One of the reasons I had not supported it was because the director was in no danger of winning the Mr. Congeniality Award. He was a bright guy, talented guy, but he was emblematic of the field – he had a sense of entitlement.

A friend of mine became Board Chair and asked me for support. At first I said I would not join the Board, but I would pay for a search firm to find a new Executive Director. The most important variable in any organization is leadership. In my Venture Capital business, I arrived at a rule – given the choice, it is better to invest in A+ leadership and a C- idea, than C- leadership and an A+ idea. A+ leadership will make it a good idea. C- leadership will drive thing into the ground. They took me up on my offer and we hired a new 29 year old director. This was extremely young for someone running a symphony orchestra. He is extremely ambitious, extremely bright, and he listens. He asks a lot of questions. He knows what he doesn’t know. He asked me to Chair the Board… One thing crucial on a Board is peer dynamics. One way to make lots of the wrong waves it to bring someone off the Board onto the Board and ask them to chair it. I was very uncomfortable. I met with everyone on the Board, told them I was uncomfortable about this, and I did not want to Chair the Board unless others were comfortable. They were comfortable. I joined the Board and accepted the Chair. I don’t claim to have all the answers or the absolute solution to approach a problem, but I do have a process that has been reasonably effective. It is not rocket science. It is basic. First, understand the system – the field, the arts, metrics, the most common variables in symphonies, in other arts organizations. What are the trends in the field? Understand everything. Ask and ask and ask.

Second, plan. Set goals, set metrics. Put concrete systems in place, but be dynamic. Build in flexibility. This is important. Things change and people are hesitant to make change.

A third - a Board is important. Bring in good people who understand and have a buy-in to the plan, the cause, and have passion about the organization. It is important in a turn-around to believe it can happen.

Being aware of risk is extremely important, but it can also be paralyzing. There is no such thing as perfect initial conditions…. When people start do they know that they have all the answers? No. But people have to trust their ability to adapt. The nice thing about duress is it is pretext. People are a lot more open to new and different ideas. When an organization is under duress, the ideas are not new to the organizations. What’s new is the ability to do it and have it accepted.

Symphonies have a bit a of reputation for barnacle-like adherence to precedent. We need to do it this way because that’s what we have always done it. It’s interesting how powerful that can be…

There is nothing worse in a group than people who tell you it won’t work and can’t be done. It’s not conducive to good problem-solving.

The perceived solution to getting things done is rarely the best solution. In a field that has not had enough change, looking outside the field is what is needed.

Symphonies and the arts have a great story to tell…

At the Milwaukee Symphony we asked ourselves what is the best way – not what others are doing – to get people in to the hall.

One of the first things I did once I joined the Board was to look at returns on investment by department. We cut and shifted things for better return. The number one thing about the hall - fill it up…. It is a better background condition against which to fundraise. We cross-marketed like crazy…. We changed our image… We showed young people playing instruments. We wanted people to be passionate. We differentiate ourselves. We offer something distinctively different – the collective experience of having 2,000 people standing on their feet and cheering – a common experience that is not like listening to your stereo in the car. It contributes to the dialogue. We had musicians socialize before and after the concerts, and we had fun. We let people know this isn’t something inaccessible. We did speed dating in the lobby before a concert. We attracted 1,500 people who had never been to a concert. The hard part is getting people in the hall… Once we get them in, I like the odds of getting them back. Bringing more people on board is good. They bring new ideas.

It is not good enough for the arts to go to business and say ‘We are important, we matter’. That’s entitlement. We started going to people and saying if you are recruiting and you have some hot-shot candidates, let us know. We will bring them to a concert, backstage, and introduce them to the conductor. Businesses would ask what we would charge to do this. We said nothing. That’s what we owe you. We want to earn your support.”

Ayse Birsel
Principal, Birsel + Seck

“Often you need to believe in things you cannot quantify. Believe in inspiration, miracles…. You find inspiration in some unexpected places. Nature might be your guide…. Try something that has not been tried before….

…Design is the place where creativity and business merge. If you don’t have leadership behind design, you don’t stand a chance. They have to be willing to suspend their suspicions about whether something will work….

To be able to break the box – it is sometimes as simple as listening and thinking. You need a little help from your friends to be different….

The process of product design for the most complex to the lyrical – from the biggest to the smallest – the process is the same. It involves bringing the business needs and innovation together…. You have to think about people performing in an environment. You have to have empathy for the user. You have to put yourself in the position of the user. You have to put the user at the center of the experience, and ask ‘What is most important to the user?’”

Third Annual
Forum for New Ideas

October 6, 2005
Steelcase Inc.
New York, NY

The Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA) presented the third annual Forum for New Ideas to bring together innovative thinkers to explore new, non-traditional ways for business and the arts to work together to broaden and strengthen the operating objectives of both sectors and to enrich the educational process and the quality of life in communities throughout the United States.

Sponsor
Steelcase Inc., New York, NY

Moderator
John Waters
Design Director
Whet Design, Inc., New York, NY

Panelists
Robert Ottenhoff
President and CEO
GuideStar, Willamsburg, VA

Robert Root-Bernstein
Professor of Physiology
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Molly Smith
Artistic Director
Arena Stage, Washington, DC

Excerpts
Robert Ottenhoff
President and CEO, GuideStar

One of the big issues for those of us in to the not-for-profit world is sustainability...Our society is demanding that not-for-profit organizations be more transparent and more accountable....When we give money, we want proof that it is being used effectively and efficiently...People also want to be more engaged in philanthropy....And third, there is a greater demand for data....

...Guidestar is revolutionizing philanthropy by providing information about organizations so individuals can be confident with their decision to support a group....Part of our challenge is to collect more valuable information and to create products and services that help users utilize our information. Hopefully, the result will be increased donor confidence that leads to more giving.

Those of us who run a not-for-profit must work with our donors to develop business models that are sustainable with renewable income. Hope is not a business model, nor is it a business plan.

Robert Root-Bernstein
Professor of Physiology, Michigan State University

I've been studying creativity for years. Scientists have very odd backgrounds. As I worked with biotechnology, pharmaceutical and chemical companies, I discovered that some top scientists were poets, playwrights and musicians....It is a hidden culture. I also discovered that the key to creativity is not solving the problem, but getting the problem right in the first place....Most people don't solve a problem because they never think about what the problem is. They assume the way the problem is given to them is the way to solve it. That is not the case.

We discovered that problem solvers in business, science and the arts use the same basic pre-verbal and pre-mathematic thinking tools that are not part of the formal curriculum, except for the arts. When you ask scientists how they problem solve, they talk about observing things, finding patterns....The arts are critical to solving problems. Scientists imagine they are a black hole, an electron or a virus....They must ask themselves what would I do? How would I behave? And, how would I (the scientist) interfere with that behavior? All scientists use empathizing, observing, imagining, an analogizing. When you look at most modern art you analogize. Patterns are there....We must learn to observe them.

Our educational system is based on writing. Scientists, mathematicians and technologists have a private language. They are pre-verbal and pre-mathematical....They have reached something called synosis—an ability to bring all your senses together.

Scientists and technologists could not do their work without being creative. In my research I create art to explore the interactions between objects, how one defines another. It's all visual, kinesthetic. My colleagues who can't do this visualization don't understand what I do....The best audience I have are artists. I could not do my work, nor could the people I work with, if I did not have an arts background.

If we want to have creative people leading companies we must support the arts and arts education.

Molly Smith
Artistic Director, Arena Stage

...I feel that artists and scientists are in league with each other. When I have conversations with scientists, I realize that scientists and artists are all about experimentation—finding a problem, following it, hitting dead ends, backing up, moving in different directions.

The best art is always subversive. It dares to break existing rules and roles... and it is created when people trust their guts rather than their heads.

If the front door is locked, come in the back—find ways to break the rules. We broke rules with our board of trustees...typically focused on financials. We ignored the business side of Arena and pulled the board into the creative process, breaking rules and roles. Board members divided into artistic teams and created seasons of plays and critiqued them. It was a roaring success!...There are so many things we share as humans, and when we can open that in each other, it opens our own capacity.

...I serve on a board of directors of Theatre Communications Group (TCG). We set a goal to reach 50 million persons attending theater within the next decade. So how do we do this? Our conversations began with developing great ad campaigns, but paying for this would be impossible. People began to think how we could break the rules. We decided to offer an evening of free theater on one specific night all over America. The belief was that this initiative would be picked up by the media, raise theaters' profiles, bring many new people to live theater or those who come occasionally, and encourage them to go more often.

This project is piloting in Philadelphia, Austin, and San Francisco....In San Francisco an hour after it was announced, the Web site received 100,000 hits.... Next year we're going to add six more cities.

I think to make a new program work you need a champion on your side. A business champion is incredibly important to the arts....

Not all the programs go well and that's where you really have to trust your guts.... You hit a dead-end with certain things and it falls apart. I like to call them brilliant failures. I like brilliant failures much better than boring failures because you learn what to do next time.

Second Annual
Forum for New Ideas

October 8, 2004
Steelcase Inc.
New York, NY

The Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), in collaboration with the Corporate Design Foundation presented the second annual Forum for New Ideas to generate new ways for business and the arts to work together.

Sponsors
Steelcase Inc., New York, NY

Moderator
Thomas P. Putnam
Chairman
MARKEM Corporation, Keene, NH

Panelists
John A. Byrne
Editor-in-Chief
Fast Company, New York, NY

Joseph Thompson
Director
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), North Adams, MA

Patrick Whitney
Director
Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology and Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design, Chicago, IL

Excerpts
Judith A. Jedlicka
President, Business Committee for the Arts, Inc.

The Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA) presented the first Forum for New Ideas a year ago. We decided to do so because we thought business and the arts were missing the opportunity to explore new, non-traditional ways of working together in our ever-changing world. We thought if there was a dialogue - a little more formal than those taking place over cups of coffee - that both business and the arts might broaden their reach and increase market shares.

When we mentioned this to anyone in business or the arts, they agreed that a dialogue was needed. They expressed interest in hearing from those who were recognized as innovators in business and the arts - those who "stepped out of the pack" and broke the proverbial mold of "thinking inside of the box."

And so, the Forum for New Ideas was born. Those who attended the first Forum - both panelists and guests - told us the dialogue expanded their thinking, sparked their creativity and encouraged them to be more daring in how they worked individually and together.

We are here this morning with a new collaborative partner and great expectations. We hope our moderator and panelists - each of whom is a master of new ideas and a practitioner of change - will spark our creativity, inspire us to think differently, and challenge us to change the way we do business - individually and collectively.

Peter Lawrence
Chairman, Corporate Design Foundation

When I first started in business, I actually put a lot of distance between art and design. The practice of design has changed considerably in the past 10 years; understanding of design by executives has changed.

The understanding of the business of the arts is deeper, and the arts are now more integrated in the way business is run.

Creativity and innovation are essential to the success of business and the arts. Interaction with the arts strengthens a community and business. There are great opportunities for business, the arts and design to collaborate.

What we hope to do is to stimulate some discussion, some new ideas and some new ways of thinking about all of this.

Thomas P. Putnam
Chairman, MARKEM Corporation

Tom Putnam, Chairman-elect of BCA, former Chairman of the New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts and a director of The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, served as Moderator of the Forum.

Creativity and innovation are key to the success of both business and the arts. The arts practice creativity. They foster innovation. Business on the other hand, is thought to talk more about creativity and innovation than practice it. I think this is changing.

It strikes me as strange that business, the arts and design have not been more aggressive about exploring collaborations to develop new market share for all.

When my great-grandfather founded MARKEM in 1911, I am certain he never dreamt that art would be hung on the walls of the office, or that we would invite musicians in for a lunchtime concert, or that we would have an employee worldwide poetry slam.

We believe creativity is critical to the success of our company. We would not be here 93 years after our founding if we had not embraced creativity and innovations.

Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About Artist at Work, by Robert Austin and Lee Devin

"Let's be clear about what we are claiming. As business becomes more dependent on knowledge to create value, work becomes more like art. In the future, managers who understand how the artist works, will have an advantage over those who don't."

Patrick Whitney
Director, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology and
Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design

Patrick Whitney focused on how the organic process of examining daily life patterns can lead to design solutions that sustain both the environment and achieve business goals and better societies.

I am a great believer in the interaction among people in the arts. Design affects human aspects of our lives.

I also believe in the core capacities of the design of change and how the design world can help the business world address change and figure out what to do.

Major companies are supporting the Illinois Institute of Technology - our research, hiring our students and adopting the methods of the school within their companies. What we do - papers, workshops and solutions - is being translated back into the companies to help them do their business.

We worked with a healthcare company. We have a patent on a new system that we developed that keeps vials of blood drawn for one patient from being mislabeled with the name of another patient.

We help Carson Pirie Scott understand the value of their historical building.

Central to much of our work is understanding the user's experience - iconography. There was a time when iconography was not a core competence of design education.

Sometimes when you look at things carefully, you recognize that things are different from what they seem.

Designers understand patterns of daily life, look at things in a systematic way, and create innovations that make sense to companies that can be sustained both environmentally and from the business point of view.

We work at markets and help markets create more values.

Design people equal new skills, a new world.

Joseph C. Thompson
Director, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)

Joe Thompson explained how his vision, shared with collaborative partners, and his willingness to think differently enabled him to repurpose abandoned mill buildings in North Adams, MA. He lead the effort to develop the once-derelict complex into a major visual and performing arts center and laboratory. This has reversed the economic depression of North Adams and transformed it into a vibrant community.

MASS MoCA stands for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, but it also stands for the capacity of art and creativity to uproot expectations and turn things on their heads.

MASS MoCA brings complex nuances together and puts them where history and tradition had very few connections.

MASS MoCA is located in North Adams, MA - a mill town. It has been a mill town for 140 years. It was the kind of place you would expect to see upside down trees.

[This refers to a work of art that is prominently installed at MASS MoCA.] In the 1980s, North Adams was at the top of every wrong list - unemployment and teen pregnancy were high and it was one of the worst areas in the state in which to live. Now because of MASS MoCA, it has some of the finest inns and privileged neighborhoods.

Between 1987 and 1993 - when we were in the development and construction stages - there were 189 negative news stories about MASS MoCA in the press. The project had lots of failures along the way. Our idea was to take these buildings, which were unsuitable for business and clean them up. Take the exterior courtyards and insert stages and performing arts spaces. We agreed that if we did this - people would come. We sold the concept of the museum by suggesting that it would change the area. Only about 30,000 people live in a 20-mile radius of MASS MoCA. 125,000 persons visit North Adams a year. We opened, and people came. We attract people from all over.

We had some wonderful things - 20+ buildings and 14 acres. We have one of the largest galleries of this kind in the United States. What we offer to the world of art is space and time. We tell our artists we are not cash rich, we're space rich. What we present keeps MASS MoCA in the news.

We build relationships with businesses all the time. We teamed up with The Fitzpatrick Family Companies, Stockbridge, MA, to buy run-down buildings and turn them into The Porches Inn - one of the best inns in the country.

It was an unusual partnership. MASS MoCA was the contractor for the project. We had the experience and personnel to handle complicated rehabilitated projects. We had just finished renovating our complex. The Fitzpatrick Family had the experience of running the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge - and other facilities. And Jack Wadworth, an individual from Morgan Stanley, applied his checkbook. Together we built the Inn. The Inn uses our name for marketing and in exchange gives us rooms for artists. It's a wonderful relationship. It generates good returns for both of us.

We are beginning to make a difference. 850 new jobs have been created in North Adams during the past six years. In a town of 13,000 this makes a whopping difference. Lots of money is being spent in North Adams. 85% of all the storefronts are occupied now and economic activity is growing, and things are hopeful.

Business and the arts - creator of jobs, opportunities and tax revenues. The social wealth of our community is fundamental to what we do. It's in our mission statement.

John A. Byrne
Editor-in-Chief, FastCompany

John Byrne stressed the idea that individuals have to strive to think differently and be willing to take risks and collaborate. He suggested that arts inspires individuals to reach their potential and design is key to innovation and success.

Work is personal. It is the ultimate expression of who you are. If you pour yourself into your work, you realize who you are. Computing is social. Knowledge is power, and finally, break the rules. It's what all great design and all great art is about. Design is a differentiator. This is the manifesto of FastCompany.

Design is inclusive. It is a means to solve problems.

Design, frankly, is the best leverage point for any business to gain easy and fast innovation with the most assured return on investment. It's going to become so much more crucial and so much more woven into the fabric of business as we move ahead.

Design is the source of a lot of creative advantage, in companies like Steelcase, Target and Ikea. Design is a core part of their competitive advantage. We are going to see more of this.

Originality is the essence of great design, but it's also the essence of great strategy. Playing it safe is not playing it smart. It pays to be different.

Organizations that encourage people to play differently will have tremendous advantages.

In order to get better, you have to be different. If we don't open up and embrace risk-takers, we have no future.

Freedom is a much bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.

Most organizations today still believe in the power game. It's not the way we are going to have a creative economy and society in the future.

People are the organization. It's the people that count, not the strategy, not the operations - it's the people.

Cheaper is better, but values are priceless.

The most precious commodity in business is the emotional connection. It is also the essence of great design.

New rules of competition...Collaboration is everything. As we increasingly design our workplaces and our work processes and the achievement of our existence, art becomes more important in everything we do. Art becomes inspiration and motivation.

Art inspires people to fulfill a true prophecy. Success equals creativity. Everyone is involved in a daily struggle, often against their own organization, to make a contribution. Art motivates us to get beyond the daily struggle, the daily grind, and to reach for something special, something unique, something that allows us to make meaningful contributions. That's why greater collaboration between the arts and people in business can make magical things happen.

First
Forum for New Ideas

October 1, 2003
Steelcase Inc.
New York, NY

The Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA) presented the first "A Forum for New Ideas: Break the Rules - Think Differently about Business and the Arts" on October 1, 2003 that began a national dialogue about how to effect change and venture into new, non-traditional ways for business and the arts to work together to broaden and strengthen the operating objectives of both sectors. During 2004, BCA plans to present similar forums throughout the country in collaboration with BCA Affiliates.

Sponsors
Steelcase Inc., New York, NY
The Art Knowledge Corporation, New York, NY

Moderator
Thomas P. Putnam
Chairman
MARKEM Corporation, Keene, NH

Panelists
Tim Hale
Senior Vice President and Image Director
Fossil, Inc., Richardson, TX

Robert M. Greenberg
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
R/GA, New York, NY

Thomas Krens
Director
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, NY