BUSINESS & EDUCATION SUCCESSFULLY LEADING YOUR TEAM If you work in your business with one employee or more – you are part of a team. While the dynamics of working a team – even a small one – can bring about a fantastic synergy that is not possible when one works alone but it also brings along challenges. Since none of us is perfect, we all bring to the team our own personal baggage, in addition to our creativity and productivity. This means working on a team can be as difficult as it can be rewarding. Being responsible for leading your team means you need to know how to tap into the good stuff, and minimize the bad. How do you do that ?  Following are attributes of high performing teams. Take stock of how your team is doing in these areas. If there are gaps, perhaps it’s time to do some teambuilding, or to reassess your team leadership. For each attribute there is a high performance challenge that gives you practical things to work on in terms of growing towards a more effective team.   PRODUCT HONDA ELEMENT IS BECOMING A DELIVERY VEHICLE OF CHOICE Click here to see the story published two years ago by www.advivceinice.com on the Honda Elements that Iceculture has been using as delivery vehicles. The four Iceculture cars are still in daily use and have piled on the mileage, but overall have given very little trouble in the two years. It seems several carvers have seen the benefits and quite a few have adopted this little all-wheel-drive vehicle to take on delivery duties. Max Zuleta of Art Below Zero in Zion, WI, has one and says he hasn’t looked so cool since he was 20 ! Mark Crouthamel of Sculpted Ice Works in Lakeville, PA, runs two; and Jim Duggan of Ice Sculpture, Inc, Marietta, GA is planning to buy one.  Tammy Yoder of Yoder Ice in Middlefield, OH, drives an Element; Chris Swarbrick of Ice Occasions in the Twin Cities, MN, picked up an 03 model and loves it; and Dean Holderman of So Cool Productions, Miami, FL has three; Innovative Ice in Phoenix, AZ owned by Kurt and Becky Herbolsheimer have two Elements and according to Kurt, have ‘at a pinch delivered an 8ft ice bar and drain tray in one’.   COMMENTARY LET'S STAY HONEST Plagiarism has raised its ugly head again. Ice Art of Virginia Beach, VA discovered yet another of its photographs being used on a competitive web site. After three telephone calls and finally posing as an attorney, was the photograph removed from the site. This is the second time that Ice Art has had to deal with this issue. Passing off someone else’s work as you own could be construed as flattery perhaps, but wouldn’t it be easier to make a phone call and get permission to use the photograph ? Chances are there wouldn’t be a cost involved and a simple credit to the originator of the design would be all that was needed. Business is tough enough already and is likely to get tougher until the economy turns round. If we work together to meet the challenges of soft markets, I am sure all of us in the ice sculpture business will face a brighter future without having to keep looking over our shoulder all the time.   PRODUCT COLORED ICE PORTRAITS ARE AN ATTENTION GRABBER   Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are Hollywood’s couple of the year, a fact recognized at the Special Event Show in Toronto on April 2, 2008, when Iceculture, Inc, Hensall, Ontario, created and displayed two, 76.2cm x 76.2cm (30in x 30in) snow and ice color pop-art style portraits of the pair. Iceculture has perfected the technique for producing portraits and other color designs using, snow, ice and food coloring and there is significant demand for the service. Responsibility for creating the portraits falls on Iceculture artist, Mandy Gadsden who works patiently with her colleagues to develop each design – from creating the artwork from a photograph to choosing the colors that best suit the presentation. Mandy’s latest creation is a 30in x 30in portrait of Talk-Show host, Ellen DeGeneres. The color ice portrait is starting to capture the attention of wedding planners and corporations, too, are showing interest for special events.    COMMENTARY LISTENING TEACHES SOME VALUABLE LESSONS You can get so immersed in your own thoughts and ideas that you often turn a deaf ear to what others are telling you. I have always said you were born with two ears and one mouth so perhaps listening twice as much as speaking would be a sound policy. Case in point. We have been involved in a number of ice lounge installations so when it came to designing and building an ice restaurant in an area where alcohol is taboo, we followed the formula which has always worked for us, although I was not too enthusiastic about the project. I can see a group of young people getting together for a few cocktails in an ice lounge before moving their party to other locales. But lining up in a room for fruit juices and ice cream would not – so I thought – catch on. How wrong I was. Not only do visitors flock to the ice restaurant for their ‘mocktails’, they have asked for, and are getting hot meals and beverages, served in the ice room, as well. Sitting on an ice chair at an ice table and eating  a hot meal is not my idea of fun but to some, this is the way to enjoy the ‘ice experience’. Obviously, alcohol is not the key to a successful ice lounge as I thought it was. You don’t have to consume alcohol to have a good time and visitors to the Chillout restaurant in Dubai are proving it.     GENERAL INTEREST BAR ICE SAMUI ELEVATES ICE LIGHTING TO A NEW LEVEL Koh Samui, the beautiful island off the coast in Thailand ranks among the top vacation destinations, anywhere – the climate, the ocean, the scenery, the people and the prices, yes, the prices. Where else can you get good, clean accommodation for less that $25 a day and find it hard to spend more than $20 a day on food ? The island is the location for the first ice lounge to be built by a consortium of independent British businessmen who pooled resources to build the ice lounge. The group also has other business interests in the area. A plan to expand the ice lounge concept to other parts of Asia is also underway. Experts say location, location, location is the key to establishing a business successfully. Ask Heidi Bayley and Project Manager for the lounge and she will quickly add three more L’s – logistics, logistics, logistics.    PEOPLE COCA-COLA ZEROFEST IN MEXICO  FEATURES ICE LOUNGES Two temporary ice lounges were built by Arte en Heilo (Art in Ice) of Mexico City for the Coca-Cola Zerofest as part of a musical extravaganza featuring big name bands.Mario Corona Jiminez with his father, Mario Sr, brother, Cesar and a crew of 55 erected an insulated, igloo-type tent at the Autodroma Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico City, and at the Club Hipico Los Alimitos, Guadalajara and created an ice lounge for the occasion. The tent measured 12m x 13m (39 ft x 42.5 ft). The team worked for 10 hours through the night to complete the project on time. The bars were open for 16 hours during the events and temperature was maintained at 16 degrees C by heavy-duty air conditioner. More than 35000 people visited the lounge in Mexico City and 22000 took in the bar in Guadalajara. Traditional canned ice was used in the construction of the lounges and both bars were built with 280 blocks each.