Innovation Inspiration - Robert Burns

It's Burns' Night here in Scotland.

Perhaps the only day in the calendar (in any country in the world) set aside to celebrate the life and works of a poet. For one day at least let us be encouraged us to focus on art, love and culture.

Rabbie's life (and work) was a mass of contradictions. The ploughman poet. A man from a poor background who wrote some of the most beautiful (and long lasting) poetry of all time. A man who espoused devotion and life-long love - but had a (well founded) reputation as a womaniser.

Take time this evening to read some Burns (try www.robertburns.org ), and raise a glass of whisky to art, to love, and to poetry.

And if you want to find inspiration to help you solve a problem or generate ideas, ask yourself these questions:

"What could we borrow from the past and improve?" (Burns regularly used themes, tunes and poems from the past to inspire his own poetry)

"How could we become more self-aware?" ("O wad some power the Giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us")

"What could we do to treat all our customers (or staff) as equal?" ("For a' that, an' a' that, it's coming yet for a' that, That Man to Man the world o'er, shall brothers be for a' that")

And remember - "Freedom and whisky gang thegither!"