Sarah Green of the Indianapolis Museum of Art discusses the upcoming Andy Warhol exhibit (beginning October 10), which will show the entrepreneurial side of the late artist. She explains he did not shy away from exploring the "comingling of art and commerce."

Our very own Tom Schuman delved into the issue with his article, "Business of Art: All $ign$ Point to Warhol," in the September/October edition of BizVoice.

ManagementToday.com offers some thoughts on how to keep your advertising effective. Some valuable suggestions here:

4. Focus on faces
The face is the center of our being, the barometer of a person’s health and beauty. It’s also how we evaluate whether we like somebody, and the place to check if we distrust what we’re being told. Fake smiles don’t fool us; everybody’s a natural facial coder. For instance, ‘surprise’ that lasts for more than a second isn’t genuinely felt surprise; it’s canned, another case of ‘spin’ and is intuitively rejected. Our results show that the casting alone can account for a 30% swing in consumers’ emotional response to an execution that is otherwise identical in format and messaging.

5. Make It memorable
Ad agencies too often set a pace that feels like a blur to consumers. Their clients can meanwhile be foolishly blind to the need for an ad that achieves an emotional peak. People notice change; a solution where the ‘pain’ of the status quo isn’t conveyed adequately means the solution isn’t perceived as valuable and the storyline just drones on.

6. Relevancy drives connection
‘Us’ and ‘me’ is everything; attachment and self-esteem are the motivations that work best. Differentiation from rivals doesn’t by itself deliver anything on behalf of your target market. In Latin, the words ‘motivation’ and ‘emotion’ have the same root, i.e., to move, to make something happen. Without emotional engagement, you’re dead.

7. Always sell hope
Meaningfulness is the key to sustained happiness. Create a powerful context, a way to enhance confidence and security, or else you’re merely selling a product or service instead. When we’re happy we embrace a branded offer, and are inspired to solve problems at a clip that’s as much as 20%faster (with superior results). In other words, happiness isn’t ‘soft’.

8. Don’t lead with price
Price has only to be heard to be pigeon-holed, short-circuiting the emotional connection. In contrast, value gets assessed over time, based on the build-up of brand associations and experience of the offer. Make money by building a relationship. Loyalty is a feeling, after all, and when it comes to price it depends on overcoming people’s natural aversion (disgust) about surrendering cash to purchase a company’s goods.

Having interviewed Bob Bowen for a BizVoice article in the past, I can vouch for the fact that it rarely takes him long to bring up his passion for Purdue University. (Funny, during the conversation, I conveniently neglected to mention the four years I spent in Bloomington.) Now, the founder of Bowen Engineering Corporation, a thriving central Indiana company that has many Boilers on staff, will parlay his passion for Purdue into helping a new generation of graduates:

Robert Bowen, founder and chairman of Bowen Engineering Corp., is the first Hancher Distinguished Fellow, teaching a class in construction engineering and management at Purdue University this fall.

Donn Hancher was one of the founding faculty members of the College of Engineering’s Division of Construction Engineering and Management. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in civil engineering at Purdue and was a faculty member for 16 years.

The teaching fellowship will be funded by an endowment set up by engineering alumni, including Bowen.

While fundraising for the endowment is still under way, Bowen is volunteering his time to teach during the fall semester. His class, "Leadership and Advanced Project Management," focuses on the technical challenges of the construction industry and the managerial decisions needed to keep a project moving forward.

"Donn Hancher and Bob Bowen have something key in common: They both are passionate about the success of Purdue’s CEM program and its students," said Mark Hastak, head of construction engineering and management.

When fully funded, the Hancher fellowship will be a renewable, three-to-five-year teaching appointment, Hastak said. The idea is to find professionals who are willing to share their experience and knowledge with future leaders in the industry.

"CEM has been searching for ways to involve industry leaders in the classroom, and the Hancher Distinguished Fellow is perfect," Hastak said.

The classes will involve more than war stories, he added. "The Hancher Fellow will push our students to a better understanding of the challenges they will face and the skills they will need."

Interesting blog here from Copyblogger about how to keep your business from getting stuck in the mire of routine (and see today’s earlier post on GAP). All too often, businesses can fall victim to doing things like they’ve been done in the past, with little thought of what can be different in the future. Hopefully, these tips can get us all thinking in those terms:

Keep the innovative ideas flowing
Finally, it’s easier to keep the new ideas flowing in to your business if you have a structure in place that allows cross-pollination to happen on a regular basis. Here are some techniques:

Create an informal Board of Directors. Gather a group of 3-5 people who are willing to support your efforts. Meet with them in person or by phone at least four times a year. Update them on your goals, the progress you’re making, and your struggles. Let the ideas flow, and take good notes.

Join a Mastermind group. Many groups meet monthly, some more often. Some Chamber of Commerce organizations coordinate them, but you can also find virtual Mastermind groups with a quick web search. The group supports each member, so you’ll both offer and receive encouragement and ideas.

Join a virtual private community. Sites like Third Tribe are great places to connect with like-minded people and to generate exciting new business ideas.

Consider working with a coach. Because business coaches speak to many different clients, they’ll naturally cross pollinate your conversations with ideas they’ve picked up from helping other people.

Ever heard of a Groupon? Well, you have now. See how GAP’s week got a whole lot better when results from its discount push started rolling in last week:

Groupon is having a smashing day, likely generating over $4 million in net revenue, thanks to a deal with the Gap.

Today’s Groupon gives users a $25 discount at the Gap if consumers spend over $50 at the store. If you think it sounds like a good deal, you’re not alone.

CEO Andrew Mason tells us that as of 4:43 ET, Groupon has sold over 300,000 Gap deals. That puts Groupon’s gross revenue for the day at $7.5 million ($25X300,000).

Mason wouldn’t say how much Groupon keeps, but previously we’ve heard it’s around 50%. So, Groupon’s net revenue could be $3.75 million already, and the day’s not over yet. It will keep selling deals and it will generate much more than $4 million today.

TechCrunch thinks Groupon could do 700,000 sales today for gross revenue of $17.5 million.

I received a visit in early 2008 from Terry McWilliams, founder of a Louisville area-based investor relations firm. After conducting a successful equity/investment conference in his home state, he was looking to bring the idea to Indiana. The initial event did take place that fall at the then recently opened Lucas Oil Stadium.

Terry and a team of supporters are back in 2010 with a strong list of Hoosier companies that are going to talk about their performance and their future plans. The primary audience: analysts, fund managers and institutional investors. And, as Terry explained in a recent e-mail, the people who can benefit the most are "those with companies that plan to go public, as they can witness the investor commuications process from a front row seat."

You can check out the details of the September 9 event (at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this time around). It’s certainly a bit of a niche audience/event, but anytime you can get the likes of the following in one place to talk about their organizations, that’s a good thing — and an insight into our immediate and longer-term economic future from some executives who are at center stage of the battle.

Big names: Eli Lilly, Cummins, Steel Dynamics, NiSource, Zimmer, Hillenbrand, Interactive Intelligence, a variety of banks and more. Michael Oxley, co-author of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, will deliver a keynote presentation.

Indiana Chamber VP of Small Business & Economic Development Cam Carter discusses issues pressing Indiana small businesses in a recent interview with the Indiana Small Business Development Center. He talks about the Chamber’s key achievements and the status of current policies.