... he is working on another shawl for the last two years, which will be a "masterpiece". He hopes he will win a national award for his creation. "I have spent about Rs 2.15 lakh on it and am hopeful ...

Well, we have been unable to find an image of this especially valuable Shawl, but it must be an exquisite piece of texile artistry.  This is a fascinating story however, courtesy Times of India, which shows that master craftmen are still enthusiastially dedicated to their art.

The value of this Shawl is expressed in India Rupee Lakhs, a measure of 100,000 Rupees (INR). The conversion rate for 5 Lakh INR to USD is around $11,087.

Warm Thoughts until Next Time,
Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover, Hamsa Shawls

Everytime we see photos like these, we are in awe of the artists who continue to be dedicated to such an exceptional level of creativity and patience.  Highly sought by shawl collectors worldwide, these hand woven Kani shawls from Kashmir are becoming increasingly rare.

Please explore the link to this brief photo essay for a few more images.

Warm Thoughts,

Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover, Hamsa Shawls

As discussed earlier today in our "Shawls for All Seasons" blog, continuing monsoon is creating difficulties throughout Northern India. This article describes flooding in Delhi, where the water levels are 1-2 meters above the danger mark.

Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover, Hamsa Shawls
Shawls for All Seasons

And of course, our lovely Hamsa Shawls and wraps and scarves are timeless fashion accessories that can enhance and expand your basic wardrobe!

Warm Thoughts until Next Time,
Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover
http://www.hamsashawls.com/

Color Management

The elusive color match is possible with the right ingredients.

About CHROMiX

CHROMiX was founded in 1998 to provide technical services and products to businesses in content-production industries. Soon after we dedicated our efforts to color management and image fidelity. We have combined an excellent suite of tools with many years combined industry experience and feel we are uniquely qualified to serve our customers.

Much of our business takes place in the US but we regularly provide products and services internationally and have customers, dealers and partners in over 90 countries.

If you require more information or have any other questions, please feel free to contact us via any of the following numbers and links.

Thank you for visiting our site, we appreciate your attention.

—Steve Upton, President

Contact Information

Address:	CHROMiX, Inc. 9594 1st Ave NE #390 Seattle, Washington 98115 USA
Phone:	206.985-6837 866.CHROMiX (866.247.6649 - US & Canada) 877.ColorGear (877.265.6743 - US & Canada)
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Email:	help@chromix.com sales@chromix.com techsupport@chromix.com admin@chromix.com
Web:	www.chromix.com www.colorgear.com www.profilecentral.com

Our friends at CHROMiX excel in Color Management knowledge, a vital skill set in our digital world.  Especially for photographers and designers, color management and the right tools to make your camera, computer, and printers work in harmony to produce the imagery that matches your inner vision, as well as an actual product that you may have photographed.

The support tab on the CHROMiX homepage www.Chromix.com offers a wealth of free information including an encyclopedia of color (ColorWiki), a color-oriented community forum (ColorForums), training, technical support (ColorSmarts).  The operative word here is ‘Color’ and these free resources offer the latest industry knowledge that is both practical and readily useful whether you are on a Win or Mac OS.

Until Next Time ~

Sylvia, Owner and Chief Shawl Lover

Hamsa Shawls Luxury Shawl Salon

"Two Threads from the Same Cloth".......very moving speech from Asher Hasan"...Having traveled extensively in Northern India and explored the history of invasions, religious tolerances as well as religious intolerances in the region, it is wonderful to hear Asher Hasan define the common denominator of humanity in such a clear, simple way.

Asher Hasan is "One of a dozen Pakistanis who came to TEDIndia despite security hassles entering the country, TED Fellow Asher Hasan shows photos of ordinary Pakistanis that drive home a profound message for citizens of all nations: look beyond disputes, and see the humanity we share."

Warm Thoughts,

Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover

Hamsa Shawls

http://www.hamsashawls.com/

If you want to run a successful business, you'd do well to borrow some principles from the theater.

So says Rochelle T. Mucha, author of Aesthetic Intelligence: Reclaim the Power of Your Senses. Mucha's book grew out of her doctoral study of two regional theaters in Atlanta, Ga.: The Jewish Theater of the South and Alliance Theater. What she uncovered was an environment that epitomized good business practices.

1. Team play was a given. Asked, "Why are you here?" everyone--from set designers to actors--replied, "to tell the writer's story." Everybody's got the same mission.

   Mucha says most workers she meets think in terms of job titles, not their mission. "I get this all the time in groups," she says. "In the beginning I say, 'I don't want to know your job title. I just want to know what you contribute to this organization.' " The typical result is blank looks, she says.

   All of your employees need to know why you're in business, what part of the mission they play. It's much easier to do when you start up, Mucha says. But there's no reason to lose it. "Make certain you put mechanisms into place that allow for people to maintain and hold onto the original feeling of why you are here."

   Mucha touts Cisco for following that rule. "The CEO in the last five years shifted that organization. It had grown into such a cowboy culture that it wasn't any longer agile and flexible for the future. He put into place the mechanisms to reignite the organization."

2. Feedback was daily. Actors met with the director every day to discuss their performance. "Feedback and candor were not feared. They were embraced," Mucha says. "The feedback was simply to say what worked, what didn't work, what the director needed them to do differently or to give them one-on-one suggestions on how to improve the characterization of their roles."  
3. There was a lot of experimentation. "In those first few weeks of rehearsal, that's what it was all about. Let's try it this way. Let's try it that way. Let's move the furniture here. Let's do this line this way," Mucha recalls. "Every risk, every experimentation was absolutely welcomed, never punished. There was no fear of doing something that would be discarded or that would be wrong."

   Says Mucha, "The best leaders and the most creative organizations have always celebrated failure. That sends a message: I expect you to make mistakes. I'd rather you make a mistake than not do anything at all." The difficult part is making certain that culture remains as your organization grows. That's accomplished by creating mechanisms to ensure continuation of your original goals.

4. They were passionate about why they were there. "They brought 100 percent energy every day."

   Some companies--notably Microsoft, Apple and Dell--exhibit an energy and passion similar to a performing artist's ensemble. "Everybody is together, they know why they're there. They have boundless energy and enthusiasm." The danger is that, as companies grow, they let that energy and enthusiasm diffuse.

5. Self-interest was side-by-side with collaboration. "People knew--and repeated many times over to me--that they couldn't do their work without everybody else.

   "The culture stood out to me as one where ego, self-direction and individuality described the players, but respect, connection and dependency described how they played," Mucha says. "They know they cannot do it alone, and they absolutely want to be the best at what they do."

   The goal is to make your partner look brilliant, Mucha says. "If you really feel strongly about understanding that your job is to help your whole group look brilliant, you would have to behave differently."

6. The culture outlived its leaders. "In the world of the arts," Mucha says, "80 percent of success is in the casting." And yet, the directors who chose the cast in both theaters were not the directors who did the play. And while one director was easy to get along with, the other was "not so harmonious," Mucha says. Nevertheless, despite the fact that they weren't working for the director who cast them, cast members' passion, teamwork and energy never faltered. "If the leader comes in and builds that organization and sustains that culture and environment, that culture can make it without the leader."

Mucha began wondering how she could develop something teachable that would lead companies to those enviable attributes. The result is what she calls aesthetic intelligence, where the definition of aesthetic is getting all of the senses involved in real-time sensory knowing. AI consists of three traits:

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• Presence
• Authenticity
• Synthesis

Presence. Actors are very much in the moment all the time. "Each night something new will happen. No matter how well you know your lines, the person with you may forget his or may move slightly differently or add another word. So you can't be on rote. You have to be really there, you have to be ready to respond to whatever new is handed to you at any given moment."

That isn't how most business works, Mucha says. "Most people in business approach a meeting with what I call a 'should be' attitude. They have the answer in advance: This is how it should be."

Actors, on the other hand, approach a conversation with a "what could be" attitude. They know that things can change when they engage with others. Presence is being available, accessible, "allowing for the emergent not only to happen but also to absorb the emergent. They get surprised."

Surprise, Mucha says, is something the average individual doesn't experience often enough. "One of the key questions I ask people is how often they walk away from their conversations surprised. If it doesn't happen too often, you can bet that you're really not having very present conversations."

Authenticity. Actors deliberately and intentionally get into character, Mucha notes. "When I bring this up to a layman, they'll say, well, that's faking it." But the truth is that everyone engages in multiple roles. So authenticity, as Mucha defines it, is deliberately getting into character for a particular relationship, for that purpose, for that place and time.

"That kind of intentional characterization is key to being in the moment and being successful. It goes hand-in-hand with being present," she says.

People who aren't authentic will spend time thinking about what they want from a client and try to manipulate the interaction to get the desired outcome. An authentic person comes to listen, probe and find out more about what that client needs as opposed to what the salesman wants to give him. "That would require them to be present, to come in with a 'could be' vs. a 'should be' approach and to be in character. And the character needs to be a solutions person, not a salesperson," Mucha says.

Let's say you're meeting with your staff. Your staff needs more than an update you could provide in an e-mail. They need to know who you are, where you stand on things, that you're interested in them, that you're on top of the company's goings-on. "I would want for people to walk away feeling as if their voices and opinions were heard. Feeling trust in me as their leader; feeling comfortable to come back and tell me stuff--the bad news, not just the good news. And most important, that they walk away understanding how important their work is and what contribution they're making to the overall goals of the organization."

Synthesis. Mucha describes synthesis as "a time of action." It's putting together all the elements of presence and authenticity, and "allowing your whole sensory toolbox to work," she says. It's putting together patterns, recognizing the signs of what isn't being said outright. "On a broader scale, synthesis is the basics of creativity and innovation."

For example, you're back in the staff meeting, going through your agenda. If you're really present, you'll notice that staff members aren't paying attention. "You can continue to rattle on," Mucha says, "or you can stop and say, 'It seems like other things are on your mind. Maybe we need to talk about something else.'"

The bottom line is connection. "Because you don't have creativity, or innovation, unless you have connection." Pixar has what it calls "dailies." That amounts to daily opportunities for people from different departments to come together with different project teams and share ideas and ask questions. That's where presence comes in, Mucha says. "How well are members of the organization connecting? How well do they understand what role they're playing? How do they put together what they learn from all these conversations, discussions, dialogues in different departments to form something new? If you're not surprised a lot, you're not connecting well. You're not present enough."

 

Shawls can be quite dramatic in terms of design and the style in which they are worn! Creative article regarding a fresh way to be in the moment in business.

Sylvia, Chief Shawl Lover

Hamsa Shawls

http://www.hamsashawls.com/