Behance was featured this morning on Sirius Radio's LIME talk show with Karen Salmansohn. Behance founder Scott Belsky spoke about the need for more productivity in the creative community along with some of the research Behance has conducted on the topic. He also went through some best practices based on the Action Method. We love what Karen is up to and encourage you to check out her website...you might even sign up for her "Want to be Happy, Dammit" newsletter.

One topic that came up was the connection between passion and groundbreaking creativity. Widely-known author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chicks-send-me-high, seriously) writes about the state of "flow" as the prime zone for creative output. Of course, there are risks associated with becoming overly immersed in such a state: you may fail to keep track of the overall project's goals! Nevertheless, passion-driven creativity is the fuel for the greatest breakthroughs and most forward-thinking design. 

One designer we came across, thanks to the powers of Technorati, is

Bryan Rees, based in South Carolina. Brian's front page features "Branding : Design : Passion." And it seems that Bryan has a history of executing ideas.

So, key take-away: Be passionate, and exercise the discipline to channel it to make ideas happen.

Marc Andreessen has an insightful post on productivity that can certainly be extended to personalize the Action Method.

A few highlights:

• Don't keep a schedule: Andreessen cites Arnold Schwarzenegger's story, as told in the book A Perfect Mess, that emphasizes the importance of focusing on whatever is most important at any given time, rather than keeping a schedule that ultimately gets in the way of making progress.

• "Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List."

• "Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day."

I encourage you to check out the full post, as it is full of useful insights on managing email (rather than letting it manage you), using the ipod as a tool to ward OFF distraction, and other helpful goodies...

Our spread of Moleskine paired with Action was featured on Moleskinerie this morning, check it out: Behance on Moleskinerie

After many inquiries, Behance has established retail partnerships with a few select stores across the US.  These retails partners are the first to carry the Action Method product line.

Berkeley, CA: Twig & Fig
San Francisco, CA: Museum of Modern Art
Boston, MA: Institute of Contemporary Art

New York, NY: Reed Space
New York, NY: Paper Presentation Center
Allentown, PA: We Jet Set

Philadelphia, PA: AIA Bookstore & Design Center

Seattle, WA: Peter Miller Architecture & Design Books

We're also pleased to announce our first online retail collaboration with YouWorkForThem.

Moleskine has been added to Behance's Outfitter.  Why?  Because we love it.  Great Idea generators from the past and present love it.  We think it is a solid marriage  with the Action Cards and Pads...  Great sketches and notations are wonderful, but only when paired with action steps!  And, since we're trying to serve creative professionals (rather than be a traditional online store), we're able to provide a low price (actually lower than the prices we were able to find anywhere else...).

Some nice sites around the web have already picked up on this addition, namely LifeDev (a great productivity site that we help sponsor) and Totally Random.

We also appreciate the shout-outs on the Action Method from some great sites that we found thanks to the functionality of Technorati, including Lett Designs and Scott J. Elias' blog.

Mark Shead's blog, Productivity501, ran a contest (with Action Pads as prizes) for insights on different ways to manage to-do lists. His readers shared some interesting ideas and best practices. From using a highlighter to clasify tasks as completed to using 3x5 cards (one for each task) covering what could be called an "Action Wall!"  Good stuff.

Congrats to the winners, Desi and John. We wish you much productive creativity.

Only for those that are interested in some of the coverage Behance had around the blogosphere in late April and early May (and have nothing better or more productive to do right now), here are a few highlights...

HOW design had some nice comments to share on the Dot Grid Book, a product that has come an essential utility for us in our design efforts. We also appreciated shout-outs from Kineda, New Ending, and Uncrate on the Action Product line in Behance's Outfitter that continues to evolve.

I (Scott) dropped by PSFK headquarters a few weeks ago and had the opportunity to discuss trends on creativity in the workforce with Piers Fawkes. Piers is great at capturing insights and synthesizing them with his other observations and research. He's passionate about ideas, and I was thrilled to share some of Behance's thoughts, some of which can be seen here. I wish our team could attend his next conference in London, but we're swamped with work in NYC.  Hopefully next time around...

I (Scott) was psyched to share some of Behance's tips on running productive meetings as a guest on MSNBC in mid April. Our team has learned a lot from the Action Method. We practice it ourselves, and we have collected feedback from a bunch of creative teams at places like Apple and Miramax. We keep the insights organized (as reference items, of course), and we will share them whenever we get a chance!

Our Tip posting on the concept of "Action Areas," something we really swear by, got some nice coverage at LifeClever, LifeHack, and on Craig Child's blog. There were some interesting user comments left on the LifeClever post including one person who described the concept as a good way to "democratize the work place and creating a stronger sense of community amongst the work force." We're going to continue generating tips, or "behancers" as we like to call them, that are hopefully helpful to the creative professional community and beyond.

Many thanks to those that have been helping us get out the word (and providing their reviews and feedback). There were a few highlights of Behance press in March. We were thrilled to discover on March 19th that our online magazine at Behance.com was selected as Yahoo's daily pick. We're pleased that they appreciated the Action Method as well as the interviews with featured creatives on the site.

Earlier in the month, the classic Action Pad got a great review from the Cool Hunting team. We've always loved Cool Hunting for their information design, their simplicity, and their taste. So, it was a great surprise for us. We also appreciated the write-up from LifeDev, a fantastic site covering all things productivity. We've since gotten to know Glen, the author, and have offered to serve as a sponsor of his work.

One of the new cool conferences these days is the PSFK conference on trends, ideas, and marketing. The PSFK team picked up a load of our Action Pads and Books for their March conference in NYC, and we received some great feedback along with a shout-out on PSFK.com.

Toward the end of March, the Action product line received a few more reviews from Productivity501, Mark McGuinness' London-based blog WishfulThinking, PopGadget, 43 Folders, and an inclusion in the widely subscribed Daily Candy Weekend Guide.