New Generation Changes Image for Workplace

The face of the young American worker is changing, and they're decorated with ink and metal. About half of people in their 20s have either a tattoo or a body piercing other than traditional earrings. That figure, which is higher than the national average, is growing. As a result, employers are finding that dress codes may need updating. In some cases, bosses are loosening up to attract young talent. In others, managers are adding new rules to keep body art covered up. Usually, it's a simple matter of discussion and compromise. Most piercings are on the face, according to the recent study, but they can be removed.

It all depends on the industry. Colleen Harris, a 27-year-old librarian, worked in corporate technology sales before her library science degrees and tattoos. Her only visible body art was a nose stud, but she voluntarily removed it while at work. For some companies, allowing body art can be beneficial: it attracts young workers that may not feel welcome in more conservative environments. Of course, at workplaces like design firms, salons, and retailers targeting the younger adults, hiring employees with body art is exactly what one might expect. Joe Duffy, CEO of the design firm Duffy & Partners, said he hired a young woman about a year ago who used her tattoos as part of her application portfolio.

But in traditionally suit-and-tie service industries, bosses want body art hidden, according to Talar Herculian, an employment attorney with Fisher & Phillips LLP, and that means going about restricting it legally. More employers are mistakenly too vague about their dress code rather than too strict and that's when problems emerge. Although in some sectors, the shift may already be happening: SheaHedges' Sacks said that a few months ago at an interview with an out of the ordinary firm, the topic of tattoos came about. The interviewer stood up, lifted her leg on her desk, and pulled up her pant leg to show him the big butterfly tattoo on her calf.

Source: Fox News

An Ingredient to Success

To run a good company, you need to know the "craft" of business. To run a great company, you also need to practice the "art" of business. But to build a great business, you need art as well as craft. No, you don't have to know how to paint a picture or mold a sculpture, but the best entrepreneurs and managers add passion, creativity, and vision to their skill set. Much of what we do on a day-to-day basis is craft -- the workmanship of running a company. This is no small matter. You can't succeed in business unless you know how to keep your books, produce your product, supply your service.

Make no mistake, learning the craft of business is essential. Many decent businesses survive on craft alone -- by consistently doing the basic day-to-day tasks well. None survives on art alone. It's the difference between concept and execution, inspiration and perspiration. Even the most inspired business concept goes nowhere without hard-working execution. But if you want an exceptional business -- one that not only survives but excels, a business that provides you with exceptional rewards in both personal satisfaction as well as financial gains -- that's where the art of business takes over. When you put your passion and soul into your day-to-day operations, then you've become an artist as well as an entrepreneur.

Source: USA Today

The Business of Art

The business of art is conducted much like any other commercial venture in which something is bought, sold, or traded. Yet a work of art is not a commodity in the ordinary sense. Its value can shift radically in an instant, depending on the impact of collectors, dealers, curators, critics, or specialists. Their appraisals of historic, intellectual, and aesthetic values affect a work's monetary value in the marketplace.

Recognizing their potential as research tools for the study of provenance (a work of art's history of ownership), and the history of aesthetics, taste, patronage, and collecting, the Getty Research Institute acquires the records of various players in the art market:

The role of the dealer, as middleman between artist and collector, has evolved into that of a dominant art-world figure who can affect, and insome ways control, private and public perceptions of the history of art.

A collector may be motivated to attain works of art for a variety of reasons: aesthetic preferences, investment, speculation, scholarly study, or even as a social outlet.

Artists also participating in the art market, sometimes act as agents, dealers, critics, and collectors.

The scholar can exert considerable influence on the art market. As an advisor to museums, individual collectors, auction houses, and other agencies, they validate works of art and can determine and set aesthetic and market valuations.

Source: The Getty Research Institute

Children Collecting Art?

Dakota King, age 9, is greeted by the owners of a local gallery as they show off their newest purchases. She chose from the collection a $5,500 porcelain sculpture shaped like a basket and covered in tiny, platinum elephants. Galleries and auction houses around the country report that children who aren't old enough to drive are building collections that include works by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Camille Pissaro, and Rembrandt. At Sotheby's in New York, an 11-year-old boy bid $352,000 for a Jeff Koons sculpture of a silver gnome.

Some teenagers are flipping art for quick profits. A few grade-schoolers are even loaning works to major museums, including Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. Children are emerging as one more niche. Collectors such as Bil Ehrlich, a real-estate developer, and Peter Brant, a film producer and magazine publisher, pay for their kids to collect works from name-brand artists. Other kids receive art allowances -- a $5,000 cap per piece is typical -- or buy art with their birthday, bar mitzvah or even tooth-fairy money. However, some dealers worry about entrusting masterpieces to occasionally grubby hands. But their are upsides to mixing kids and fine art. Families can reap potential tax benefits by putting art in a trust set up for their children. The move can sidestep a federal estate tax of up to 45% of the art's value if children had instead inherited it after their parents die.

But kid collectors say most of their friends couldn't care less about the art they are bringing home. One kid hasn't told his buddies about his Rembrandt because they're "more into skateboarding." Another says his playmates don't say much about his prized Vasquez. "They really like my baseball cards."

Source: Wall Street Journal