Business Needs Beauty as an Every Day Thing

With Art Basel in town, there is a ton of beautiful, brilliant, interesting and rich people in Miami who are looking and buying tons of art. I've seen stuff from $150 to 2 million dollars. There are 10,000 artists from various programs and abilities who are here. It's INCREDIBLE.

What I love the most about it is the beauty aspect. Here are 50,000 people (including tons who come on private jets and stay at $1,200 a night rooms) who descend on Miami to look at art, network and buy things. Like a half a billion dollars worth of art is sold. That's not to mention hotel stays, food, coffee, clothing, car rentals, bike rentals and all the auxiliary events that take place in a time that would otherwise be dead-zo.

The unifying factor is that people WANT BEAUTY. They crave the non-utilitarian, the expressive, the incredible, the inspiring, the emotional side of life. So much so it brings Miami more business than the super bowl. Shouldn't we be listening? Shouldn't we be working on creating as much beauty as possible? What are the business benefits of that?

We have an opportunity to take Basel as a lesson. Beauty and Art CREATE commerce. They help the economy EXPLODE.

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time:
“There, with her eye on the ball, she would paint and paint and paint.  She would dedicate herself to…well, she’d have to call it “beauty”, for want of a better word.  She wouldn’t be sentimental about it, or self-righteous, or even spiritual and pure.  And she wouldn’t get defensive when ridiculed or misunderstood.  Beauty she would not carry like a banner, nor would she take refuge from the world in it like a hermit in a shack.  Beauty would be her everyday thing.     – Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

Why other opportunities to apply beauty to business? Think about that.