This wonderful collection of images by Dorethea Lange seems to me to be the best way to acknowledge International Women’s Day.

As always there is no shortage of people ready to knock a new idea or a new product. Here is an advertisement for the iPad - it will be interesting to see just how many have sold in 12 months time. And where will the naysayers be then? Looking for the next product to knock. I wonder what would happen if they spent as much time creating as they did knocking? Mmmmmm - kind of makes you wonder………

Well fasten your seat belts - the Apple iPad is now officially launched and what a launch it has been. Of course the sceptics have been busy moaning about how it won’t work (mmmmm, I remember those people saying similar things before the launch of the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone etc etc).

Well I have seen the promo movie for the iPad - it is incredible, it will change the way we interact with the electronic world and Apple will sell boatloads of them to every corner of the planet.

But really, think for a moment about how smart Apple actually is. The build up to this launch has been amazing. Millions of dollars worth of free advertising before it even hit the shelves. Thousands of blog posts speculating about the product, the price and what can it possibly do that will make it so amazing? The pent up demand will be unbelievable, regardless of the quality of the product.

But most importantly, the thing that Apple seems to just keep getting right far more often than it gets wrong, is they make products based on what people want. A simple concept but one that many larger corporations have forgotten. Apple makes things better, easier, more fun, sexier, more visual and hard to believe, but more practical. To me this shows that their design people clearly understand their own customers and they go out of their way to always exceed expectations.

I could write a book about what the Apple corporation does right and maybe I will. For the record, I am obviously an avid Apple user, for all of the reasons I mentioned above. It will be interesting to see how the competitors spend the next few months trying to fault the iPad, and whilst they are, Apple will be busy shipping millions of them around the world to customers who will love them from the minute they open the box. And I guarantee there Apple R&D team are already well into their next secret project that will change the world in some way.

In my opinion, there are many businesses, large and small, who could really learn a lot from the Apple Corporation.

CHECK OUT THE APPLE iPAD LINK

PS Apple has a lazy couple of billion dollars in the bank, at a time when the GFC emptied so many other larger corporations bank accounts. It makes you wonder about the relationship of giving people what they want (even if they don’t know they want it yet) and profitability.

When times get tough there is always a lot confronting media close at hand. Everything we read, watch or listen to is filled with doom and gloom regarding whatever crisis may be happening at the time. It doesn’t take long for every conversation to turn to this subject and generally everyone leaves the meeting, coffee shop or water cooler feeling depressed.

The reality is that none of us know how bad things may become in any particular crisis, and in reality, there is not a lot we can do to change global conditions. But we can have our own positive influence on those around us.

At times like this people want and in fact crave positivity but sadly we tend to slide more easily into negativity. The reality is that a bunch of people standing around talking about the doom and gloom does very little to grow a business or make it profitable.

As a business owner you are the business barometer. Your staff will reflect your mood. If you are ready to jump out of a window, your staff will pick up on that and they will start to share your gloomy mood, worrying about their jobs and their future.

As hard as it may be, business owners need to be motivated, inspiring and energised. Put you focus on managing the issues the can be controlled because there is not a lot of point worrying about the things we have absolutely no control over.

So my advice is that whenever times are tough, surround yourself with positive people, read books that fire you up, watch movies that make you jump up and down and look for the positives in your world rather than the negatives.

I am such a firm believer that businesses succeed or fail in the mind of owner. Don’t get caught up in the vortex of negativity, instead become a beacon of positivity. It will rub off on those around you and everyone will benefit.

Behind every truly successful business is an inspirational individual who manages to remain positive and calm when everyone else is falling apart.

Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better.