IFO Blog Get a move on

MARCH 29, 2013Recently, I've learned a little bit about feng shui, the 3,000-year-old practice of arranging your environment for maximum harmony and energy.I've been trying to implement some of the concepts in the home I moved into last summer. One principle holds that movement creates energy. Some feng shui practitioners believe that the very movement of objects - even just to dust under them - energizes a space.If that is true, I think the same would be true for the movement of people, only much more so.Sometimes when I'm stuck with writer's block, I'll get up from my desk - often headed for the refrigerator if I'm at home, or a co-worker's candy dish if I'm at the office. I've come to realize it's not the snack that breaks the writer's block, it's the movement. (That's not to say a midafternoon piece of chocolate doesn't have its own unique benefits.)Here at The Institute of Financial Operations, we're learning what the movement of people can do. With the new year, many of our roles shifted. And with those shifts came new ideas, new solutions to persistent problems, new ways of doing things. It wasn't because the person who had been in the role didn't have good ideas. It was because with the changes - the movement, if you will - came new perspectives.In thinking about this, I did some reading on the science of creativity, and I know that researchers can map the brain's responses when people approach problems in various ways, and they find that different approaches work at different times. My own experience confirms that sometimes it's best to buckle down and focus, and other times - especially when you're stumped - it can be helpful to walk away for a time, mentally and physically.In addition to our new roles at The Institute, we are working with another change: a move to new office space. We're especially excited to see how the move will spark new energy.Speaking of creativity and generating ideas, late last year we had a contest asking our readers to help us come up with a crisp new name for our quarterly print magazine. Readers responded with some interesting and enthusiastic ideas, although some of them were even more of a mouthful than Financial Operations Matters, the name chosen when AP Matters, AR Matters, and Today magazines merged into a single publication for the entire financial operations ecosystem.In the end, we chose a name we view as simple and direct. (Because we selected a name suggested by staff, the prize of a gift card goes to a randomly selected contestant.)So in the first quarter of this year, we published the very first Financial Ops magazine. We chose a clean look for our new masthead that is reflective of The Institute brand. We believe the name and the look will stand the test of time. We hope you agree. Laureen Crowley is vice president of communications for The Institute of Financial Operations and serves as editor in chief of Financial Ops. A career journalist for nearly 30 years, she has written and edited for major metropolitan newspapers and magazines, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Internal Auditor, Orlandomagazine, Where Orlandomagazine, Caribbean Travel & Life, Islands, Sport Diver and Me Magazine. She is a former manager of online communications for The Institute of Internal Auditors.