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Wasting a Saturday Watching the Hawkeyes

I'm neither a graduate of the University of Iowa nor a native resident. Yet, judging from the effort of most of the Iowa football players today I brought more passion and excitement for the game than they did.

Coach Ferentz, um, is there some reason I'm more excited about Iowa's homecoming game than your team, most of them anyway, appeared to be today?

Could you let us know when your players can play with a bit more emotion than those watching the game?  I'm happy to return watching your team when your players get more pissed off at a missed tackle than I do.  Until then...I know I can find better ways to spend a Saturday than watching players who look like they had something else on their schedule today or last night, maybe.

Whimperative

It's Friday.

From Nancy Friedman at Away With Words:

Word of the Week: Whimperative: an indirect command or request phrased as a question.

I agree with her that you shouldn't see whimper in this word. No. You should see...passive-aggressive. You should see if your back's covered. You should pause and reflect to consider what the REAL question, the real agenda is behind the question being Whimperated at you.

And you should see if you can either get the whimperator to  cut this crap out or cut that person out of your life who issues you whimperatives.  It'll save you time, aggravation, money, health, happiness, when you do.

Otherwise, you're a wimp.

GoogleBombing Gets Top Results and 3-year Prison Sentence

It's Friday.

A young coder in Poland GoogleBombed the website of his country's president. His code worked. Got him the top result for the president's website. For several months, in fact. The keyword? Kutas.

And for that he was arrested and faces a 3-year prison term.

I think the president should bring him on to his campaign staff and turn him loose but with a different word. He's got something that works. Now he just needs to put it to use, ahem, with the proper audience, so to speak.

Story at BoingBoing.

Link from CNet's Alpha Blog.

Failure's Not the End of the World

For those of you who've accomplished anything, you already know this.

For those of you moving towards that goal...just remember what Becky McCray writes:Failure's Not the End of the World. ( I'll add this as long as you get back up and try again. )

TED's List of 100 websites you should know and use

Here's the list.

Thanks to Matt Homann for the link.

Where's your fulfillment?

Finding the Work You Were Meant to Do. A great post by Dave Pollard at Business Innovation.  It will will help you find your fulfillment.

Dave articulates why it all comes down to a 3 in 1 model. You have 3 circles comprised of

What's Needed (Your Purpose),

What You're Good At (Your Gift),

What You Love (Your Passion).

The one spot where those 3 overlap is...your fulfillment. The Sweet Spot.

Bam!

Why's it so tough to find? Why do so many of us not find it? Dave describes the process of finding the seet spot as complex. Some of it's timing, some of it's courage to admit that the life being lived ain't the life want, or the courage to do what's needed to change it, or the foresight to realize the pain of change is brief. For so many, the cubicle in life is so much safer. A well-ordered life of limited joy is much preferred to the chaos that marks the process of finding the sweet spot. The reason it's sweet is it's so precious and rare. And so worth it, even the process no matter how painful is infinitely better than the exquisitely slow death from years in a cubicle.

What do others need at 50 to feel as good as Robin?

Thank God. There's life online after 50....

TeeBeeDee's CEO, Robin Wolaner, is interviewed at Beet.TV.  TeeBeeDee is a new community site for folks over 40 that blends commentary, features and social networking tools for members.

It's a good interview. And it lasts about 3.5 minutes. Warning: For me, the video played in 15-second intervals. It's worth this slight quirk, though.

And count me in at TeeBeeDee, sight unseen, just from hearing their CEO.

More Chinese-made Jewelry and Toys Recalled

More Chinese-made Jewelry and Toys Recalled

According to the article in USAToday, more than 600,000 toys and jewelry were recalled today by The Consumer Products Safety Council including Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway toys, RC@ Corp.'s Knights of the Sword. 

I wonder if those companies will have to apologize to the manufacturers, too.

If so, maybe a form or template can be used to expedite this process. With this many US companies seeing their products recalled it would be time consuming for them all to haul their execs AND attorneys and schedule high-profile meetings with Chinese officials to apologize to the Chinese manufacturers for the high levels of lead in the children's toys and jewelry manufactured in China.

Just trying to be helpful. These companies need to get a product out quick for the Christmas season.

Just Prepare, Baby

Al Davis was assigned this simple quote as a secret to success: Just win, baby.

And what's the secret to do just that?

Preparation...

Link from Hermanisms.

Buy one, GIVE one...free.

Smart Philanthropy, grassroots philanthropy, affordable philanthropy. But a virtually indestructible laptop for children and schools who can't afford them, they're chock full of high-res screens, p2p wireless stuff that lets the kids communicate among themselves, word processing, video and photo editing, firefox web browser, hand crank for power, water-proof(ish), and you get one free. Give to your young kids, or your young grandkids, or your school down the street whose budget cuts cut their classroom supplies, or give both to those who need 'em....

OLPC, One Laptop Per Child.

NY Times article.

Confict of Interests in Credit Rating Agencies

US Senators are shocked, shocked you hear, to learn that credit rating agencies are paid by the companies whose bonds they rate...Why that sounds so much like the stock analysts being paid by the same company that sells the stocks they rate...Yes-s-s-s it do'.

One US Senator used a safer example to compare the conflict saying it's like a film production company paying a critic to review a movie, and then using that review in its advertising...Oh, yes, much safer for the voters to hear this example. It's only a movie, see? Can't hurt you.

According to the article in the NY Times...

Several senators compared the agencies’ lack of foresight about the risks inherent in the subprime mortgage market with their failure to anticipate the collapse of Enron and WorldCom.

Whah, Senuhtah, FORESIGHT was what  INSPIRED them to create such a cozy and profitable business model. And uh, Senuhtah, it's your lack of governing OVERSIGHT that allowed this business model to perpetuate to this point, yet again.

American Airlines to Focus on Customer Service

American Airlines is the 2nd major US airline company to announce that improving customer experiences is a top priority. TOP. Priority. USAToday article.

Warning: There's some cynicism that follows.

So, as a last resort, after trying everything else...you're going to make the customer your top priority. TOP. T...O...P. Top. Top. King of the mountain, the pinnacle, tip of the spear, leader of the pack...TOP. That from the airline who was among the first to charge customers for speaking to their employees.

Interesting. Let's see if they get rid of those charges for having the audacity to call to speak to a live customer service rep.

AA's SVP of Global Sales announced that they were going to make sure next summer is better than this summer was...

Wooo. Easy,tiger. Going out on a limb there, are you? This summer's air travel for all airlines was the worst on record. By far. And your corporate goal is to make next summer...better. Y

ou've kept the bar low enough that you may be able to achieve it unless you have thunder storms in Dallas in the summer. Yes, that was one of the reasons blamed for the terrible experiences customers had with AA this summer.

( Why...I've never heard of thunderstorms in Dallas in the summer, said Ms. DuBois breathlessly as she thanked another stranger for their kindness. When you're a customer of US airlines these days you WILL depend on the kindness of strangers...)

Surprisingly, neither had AA's planners, either.  Which makes one wonder if that's the cause of your problems...then are you comfortable making such an audacious claim? That implies you can control the weather. Weather's a bit more difficult than passengers on your planes sitting on the  tarmac for hours...or being diverted 'round the gulf coast as one of those abberant weather patterns in the South in the summer, aka, thunderstorms...occurs.

One More Convert to WOM

One more agency adds WOM, Word-of-Mouth, solutions for their corporate client. Heuristic Solutions recently launched its newest division, Wm. Loren & Associates, to provide corporate America with conversational marketing and research solutions in both, B2C and B2B environments using internet technologies to foster, promote and analyze real world conversations.

Heuristic Solutions hired one of the few people in this arena with a track record of success doing just that: Bill Mosher, formerly CEO with Echopinions. 20 years of success in this arena to be exact make Bill a perfect choice to lead this newest effort by Heuristic Solutions to bring the power and ROI of WOM, conversational, marketing to their corporate clients.

Congrats, Bill! Congrats to Heuristic for hiring the right guy.

Northwest Airlines to Bring Laser-like Focus to Customer Service

From the In the Sky blog at USAToday, comes this announcement: Northwest to Give Workers Customer-Service Training.

Awright. It's a step. And it's in the right direction.

As for the training initiative, NWA apparently considered it previously only to scrap it during bankruptcy restructuring. "In hindsight, it was probably a mistake" to drop the program, [CEO, Doug] Steenland said.

Probably. Given your industry is in near-commodity status with the nearly the same prices, planes, seats, pretzels, cancellations, time on tarmac, unhappy customers, demoralized employees, cattle-car quality of transportation....

A pilot for the airline and union spokesman had this to say:

They need to give some sort of relief to employees before we give back to customers. One of the pieces of the customer service puzzle is meeting the needs of your employees, and they, in turn, will meet the needs of customers.

There is no way possible to begin customer-service initiatives if you're employees remain demotivated, bitter, demoralized, angry, resentful. Too often management forgets that employees are their customers. Employees can either buy the message or you can force feed it to them. NWA has tried the latter.

You set the tone for customer service first with how you treat your employees. Inspire them...they'll inspire your customers. Customer Service starts first with employees who care, have a reason to care and have the mandates and incentives to deliver that care in a meaningful way to their colleagues including customers.

Ad Agencies Listening to Your Phone Calls

(Oh. Yes. Where do we go with this?)

Company will monitor phones calls to tailor ads.

Pudding Media, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., is introducing an Internet phone service today that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls.

Says the founder of Pudding Media...

The conversation was actually changing based on what was on the screen. Our ability to influence the conversation was remarkable.

Fannnn-TAS-tic. Listen in on your customers' conversations, control what they talk about...and do it from the convenience of your own offices AND without the worrisome need of obtaining warrants.

Mommy, where's my Big Brother? I need him to tell me what to say.

Yes. Why DON'T ad agencies advertise?

My morning started off the right way with a post from Stephen Lynch at the Results Group. Stephen's post is Eat your Own Dogfood! Why don't ad agencies advertise?

IF ADVERTISING is so effective, why don't ad agencies advertise?

If your menu's so tasty, why aren't you dining from it?

Woof.

Interviewing Tip: Why the trick questions?

Trick, solve-the-puzzle, type questions seem to be all the vogue now when interviewing candidates. I gotta laugh. Do you want to work in a company that asks trick questions?

What if it's a puzzle you're asked to solve. Tell me this then, what puzzle is more challenging than interactions with your colleagues?

The interview approach we use is the CIDS, Chronological In-Depth Survey, from The Smart Interviewer. Works every time we've used it: 3 good hires and 1 bad hire we avoided. It's a bit time-consuming. But ultimately it's a time-saver, a money-saver. Dealing with a bad hire is so-o-o-o much more expensive especially if they can solve Rubik's cube in a few minutes or slice a gold bar in 3rds.

A post at Occam's Razor prompted these thoughts.

Mattel Apologizes Now to China

Huh...Mattel Apologizes to China for Recalls. It's hard to say who's driving who's bus over who's cliff here. With partners like these...who needs competitors?

A long list of agendas, personal and professional and corporate and national and industry-wide, are playing out in this drama's latest act. The safety of the products and the children playing with them....are items on the list. But reading the text of the carefully worded apologies in a setting complete with attorneys...you can't say these two items are at the top, really, for anyone but the children's parents, aka, the consumer.

Imagine both parties, Mattel and their manufacturing partners, both came out without attorneys present and said they're working together to insure the joy AND safety from their products use by children around the world...that's their foremost concern...and then followed through on it. You'd have to think that the agenda items of national pride and personal careers and, and, profit would all be taken care of.  And you'd have to think they'd dominate the competition.

Make the customer first and everything else falls into place. That's how small companies compete, anyway.

Are you open?

Becky McCray's post Common small business mistakes - Setting business hours made me laugh, kinda, remembering how frustrated I've been when a restaurant I really like is open on a very erratic schedule. Today, yes? Tomorrow...maybe. No. Ok, Friday for sure. Whoops. Nope. Oh wait, no they opened just a little bit later...After awhile as Becky points out...you just go somewhere else. And so does their business.

XP, the dependable alternative to VISTA

From SmartBiz: Even Microsoft Admits You May Be Thinking Twice About Vista.

The move is aimed specifically at helping out small businesses, which don't have the time or IT staff to deal with a new operating system, News.com reported:

"That's going to help out small- and medium-size businesses," Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told News.com.

Link to Cnet article.

Bolding is mine. 

Yes, when you need an IT department to install an operating system on a PC...um, maybe, it's a bit feature-rich.

Facebook: This cow's milk ain't free.

Microsoft and probably Google (probably others, too) see Facebook as a purple cow, now...and once they figure out how to milk her, why she'll be a cash cow.

And so they want a piece of her, it, the company, the cow, known as Facebook.

They don't want to buy the whole cow, not when its milk right now is free...and purple.  But...they do want a little bit of it. Oh, say 5% of the company. And rumors are that for that 5% of this cow  investors are willing to pay...oh, $300-$500 million. Give or take. For a cow whose milk is free...and purple, right now.

Mooo.

Microsoft is Said to Consider a Stake in Facebook.

Exercise: Do Something for Fun

Exercise has its greatest impact when...dare I say it....it's fun. You'll exercise more often, burn more calories if there's some laughter, and come home happier (always good for the psychology...and your family).

I used to play basketball. I stopped when it stopped being fun. I run now. Being outdoors, free to run my own pace, no arguments, and now with my dog, my camera and sometimes my wife beside me on her bike (taunting me with gems like "you call that running...?" or "out of breath are we...?") it's all fun. And I look forward to the next run.

Find something that's fun to. Then call it exercise.

Rudd Sound Bites riffs on this idea with the post Adults Just Wanna Have Fun.

You can apply this same approach to work. Make it fun, then it's not work. You work harder, get more done and want to do it again tomorrow. Your customers love interacting with you. You love interacting with everyone. Your brand becomes a brand...everyone loves.

Health News...just doesn't sell.

Gary Schwitzer's health news blog quantifies why solutions to our health care system remain...unfound.

Last week my local Star Tribune had a full-page (except for a 10” X 13” ad) of eight news briefs on one page – none reported locally, all from wire services. Five were health stories - None more than 225 words. Even a “New York Fashion Week” story on page A2 got more words than that – complete with description of Jennifer Lopez’ design of “denim boy shorts with a sparkling brown hoodie.”

When a description of Jennifer Lopez’ design of “denim boy shorts with a sparkling brown hoodie.” gets more press coverage than coverage of issues related to our health care, personally or nationally, then...you're not going to be able to generate the momentum needed to find solutions.

Disclaimer: J-lo's fashion designs could be replaced with any number of trivial pablum offered breathlessly each night on MSM news. The issue really isn't the coverage of such...I mean who doesn't want to know all the minutiae of K-fed and Brit's lives or the most recent NFL star's narcisisstic behavior....it's the lack of comparative time and words, ideas and conversation, on the important issues that slows finding a solution.

And as Gary ends his column, Space is available. It's a matter of editorial decision-makers choosing how to allocate it.... remember that we, you, are the real editors. MSM feed us what we show them we want.

Hillary's Health Care Plan

Hillary announced her health care plan. Save the partisan and personal diatribes; that's the last thing anyone wants to read. There are plenty of other venues for that.

And that's not the point. The point is...it's a plan. And no one's plan has all the answers. But all the answers are out there in plans discussed, plans being prepared, plans not yet conceived. The sooner we have the discussion and find solutions...the better off we all are. Right now, any and all discussions about plans to solve our health care system's costs and inability to provide coverage to all, should be encouraged.

Google the term Hillary's Health Care Plan.

Here's a pro link.

Here's a con link.

Wal-Mart Expands Health Care For Its Associates

Health Plan OverHauled at Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart said it would give each employee or family that signs up for coverage a grant of $100 to $500 to defray health expenses while charging premiums as low as $5 a month. It will eliminate expensive hospital deductibles and make 2,400 generic drugs available to employees for $4 a prescription — about 1,000 more than it sells to customers at that price.

It's a start, a great start. Some of this is game-changing as one analyst put it. And as always a plan like this only goes beyond the PR-benefit when you look at the details: How quickly can you sign up, will those not covered (about 10%) with any health insurance buy it, deductibles, and what happens when employees start making claims against this plan.

And with a company this size, this prominent, any steps are subject to intense scrutiny. A smaller company could develop their plan without constant public feedback, doubts and negativity, at each step of the way. Some of this negativity, ok all of it, is legacy feedback from Wal-mart's practices of the past.

And we all enjoy poking fun at 'em. Ok, I REALLY love poking fun at Wally World.

Still...it's a start, whatever the motivations, and it's a pretty good start, too. We give 'em that.

Now if a simliar health care plan could be possible for companies with less than 1.5 million employees...we'd be talking about real change and progress on the issue of affordable health care for everyone. But...it's a start. Maybe, the elephant in your town can produce positive change for once.

We DID eat GE'd food today

A happy thought as I get ready for lunch today...as a nation we're not required to post which foods we eat are or contain GE or genetically engineered food. (It's a secret that only the rest of the world can't stomach knowing...kinda like beef tainted with mad cow disease...we don't test for that...ignorance is bliss until you can't remember what it was you were eating a few minutes ago...or why. )

And a growing percent of corn, soy and cotton go right into the processed foods and feed for the animals we consume...

Wired article, Have you eaten your genetically modified food today? with graphs and more links to more sources on the food we don't want to know we eat...every day.

Hon', can you pass some more of whatever that is?

Who Needs Radio?

This has nothing directly to do with business other than music is good for the soul, the spirit, for making more laughter, more happiness, bringing depth of emotion, a reason to live....(inhaling now...)...a thrill, joy, great times to share, ways to heal, ways to expand...a light into your soul, their soul (or the lack thereof in some surprising cases that seem to pop up more often these days...)...digressing...but music. Imagine what your day or week or life would be like without it?

Anyway. Who Needs Radio is a great site for finding new music, new bands, old bands yet to be discovered, bands that need rediscovering...and links to listen to their music.

Check it out. (Yeah, with sites like this Who Needs Radio...then who does? )

Peggy O'Neil: Walking Tall

I usually find inspiration comes in bits of surprises. This week's surprise/inspiration comes from our friend Steve Farber. Steve brings us news of Peggy O'Neil. Peggy's a Keynote speaker, a motivational speaker, and a vortex of energy and 3 feet, 8 inches tall. Here's a documentary of her by independent filmmaker, Danielle Lurie, for the Elevate Film Festival.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

a's what we're talking 'bout now. Jobs. 7.7 million jobs were created in Q4 '06. That netted an increase of 500,000. That according to a recent issue of Barron's magazine.

And as Tom Peters writes in Churn, Baby, Churn...we are an insanely dynamic, economy, growing and shrinking with near reckless abandon...the envy of the, the developed world.

Hmmm. Yes. Job creation is good. It's wonderful. Expecially if your job is the one created. It's the other half of this equation...the destruction of 7.2 million jobs every quarter...that creates some quirkiness..some unease, some roil and turmoil and uncertainty and pain and folks bumped off the American Dream wagon...that's NOT the envy of the developed world nor of those involved.

You knew I was going to ask: But if we're the envy of the developed world...why's everyone else's health care system the envy of us?

If you knew now...would you do it again?

So. You're running a company. And you're thinking back on the time it took to get where you are now...would you do it again?

Hermanism #1 prompted this question. Hermanism Number 1 is: If Owners Calculated the Time It Would Them to Succeed, Most Would Never Even Try.

Would you? Look at any significant accomplishment in your life? Knowing now what you know....would you do it again?

If you're an achiever, well of course you would. You're hard-wired to think in terms of success and to think we can do it....!

If you're a leader, you're hard-wired to think A. you can do it; B. you can show your team how, together, you can do it.

Sometimes I look back and cringe at my decisions or maybe how I implemented or communicated them. Frankly, I think that's a good thing. It's a sign of growth, of responsibility, of accountability. There aren't many things I would undo. Sure, I wish I hadn't had to have that lesson delivered...but then again, if I hadn't taken that lesson, I'd never have learned it. And it's not because so many decisions were so great...It's because they all taught me lessons I needed to learn, skills I needed to assume, habits I needed to develop, experiences I needed to have in order to understand and grow.

Back to Hermanisms...it's a good book. It's written by someone who's had a lot of learning lessons and he's sharing them to make you think. Frankly, that's a skill and resource in short supply it seems from reading the news. 

Coal's Comeback

Could be an interesting story. HItachi profiles how Council Bluffs is finding coal can deliver all the energy it needs with none of the waste/poison/pollution. Could be. Hitachi's site only streams 2 seconds every 3-4 seconds.  It's odd that a coal-fired plant may be more developed than a websharing site...

Regardless, the plant may run clean but getting the coal makes everyone a loser.

NextFest: Tomorrow's 10 Technologies Today

Wired profiles NextFest and 10 technologies from pond scum to Cell Phone Disco that help you paint with light from cell phones, to electric-solar hybrid cars. Fun stuff. Innovation.

Newspapers: Tear down that wall

I'm hearing Reagan's famous line...Tear down that wall...! after reading Doc Searl's post, Earth to Newspapers: Abandon Fort Business.

Newspapers still charging for content: Resistance is futile. Why? You limit your audience. You kill the conversation, the possibility that people will talk about/share your articles and coverage and your reporters and the communities where you once played a leading role and oh, BTW...your advertising.

Who Owns Your Brand? You both do.

From Naomi's BLOG, a great story showing...Who Owns the Brand.

She finishes her story of WOM/Customer Evangelism with this:

Who owns the brand – our customers – they're the ones that spread the word. But it is up to us to give them something worth saying.

Our personal lives = digital gold

I can hear Ed McMahon this morning saying Yes! Yessir when he read today's article My Space to Discuss Effort to Customize Ads. Fox Media has been blessed with a phenomenal amount of information about the likes, dislikes and life’s passions of our users, according to their president, Peter Levinsohn. Blessed IS the operative word, now, isn't it? Digital gold...as another executive put it. (Why does the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies play in the back of my mind...?)

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed

A poor little coder, barely kept himself fed

Then one day he was writin' up some code

And up comes a program that turned him on his head...

Personal data that is, digital gold, advertisers' tea

Yes, MySpace with the help of 100 coders in their Monetization Technology Group (located in Beverly Hills, where else) have found a way to mine the personal lives of MySpace users in order to attract advertisers. With barely bated breath ( and a suppressed rebel yell) they point out that ads are 80% more effective...

Yes! Your private lives are nothing but fodder for corporations to use in mining ways to get you to spend more of your money...consuming more of what they produce. Yes! You didn't ask for it....but your role is to buy, buy, buy. ( Disturbingly why does the movie Soylent Green come to mind? That's the movie where humans were mined for food to feed the remaining survivors. Maybe the first step is mining our personal lives for advertising dollars, digital gold.)

Oh well. Free markets and innovation do present options, especially for MySpace users. One user was quoted as saying  Everybody I know is switching to Facebook. Huh. Wonder why that is...

What Works: PeerSight Online

PeerSight Online works. PeerSight Online builds peer-to-peer advisory boards where C-Level Execs and Directors can meet, discuss, problem-solve, share solutions, challenge each other, rant, rave and receive confidential and collegial advice from their colleagues who face or have solved many of the same problems.

What works with PeerSight Online are the:

1) Schedule of Meetings

2) Meeting Format

3) Each Member's Commitment

4) Our Coach, David Rust

5) The Founders, Steve and Andrew MacGill.

* Meetings. The meetings last 2 hours and take place every 3 weeks...on the phone.

The meetings are well-organized with an agenda of items to cover including accountability issues. Did the members complete what they committed to complete? If not, why not and is there anything the group can offer to help change that. If completed, then there's a celebration.

I find myself looking forward to the calls, taking sufficient time to prepare, disappointed somewhat when the calls end. Why? The conversations and the solutions and what I get from the calls is so rewarding, productive, satisying, easy to incorporate, immediately actionable, thought-provoking, challenging, pushes me to grow and move faster,  etc.

Granted, you'd expect our bias towards the use of conference calls. But many, including me, have a distaste for attending long conference call meetings.  So it's a testament to the success of this approach that I find myself with positive anticipation of the meetings.

* Format. The format allows for plenty of spontaneous interaction among the members. But at the same time, a professional business coach facilitates the meeting with a set agenda, a good eye towards use of time, an easy but effective approach towards accountability. Commitments from a previous meeting are discussed, goals are discussed, thought-starter questions are listed, deep dives with each member occur regularly, and opportunities to share challenges, obstacles, wins, non-wins are there also.

It's an iterative process for me. That's what makes it so useful. Each meeting is an iteration. It allows for change (correctins, learning, neew ideas, new solutions, paradigm shift) to be created/assimilated easily. An immediate example is how this process has pushed me to clarify some changes in our marketing strategy that I'd been noodling on for years. And now with a meeting every 3 weeks of my peers, I'm pushing and being pushed for clarity and progress. It works.

This schedule of meetings also has allowed for a strong bond to grow among all the participants. It's happened at an easy pace that's created a solid bond among the members.

* Each Member's Commitment. An organization is only as strong as its members AND their commitment to each other. Each member of our peer board brings an honest, genuine commitment to openly sharing their challenges as well as solutions for the others' challenges. And this commitment and the results continues to grow with each meeting.

* Our Facilitator, David Rust. I've grown to see that David's easy approach is a sign of strength and confidence and experience. He understands the need to push and do it in a measure pace based on the group's response.

* Founders, Steve and Andrew MacGill. These guys are great. They're committed to taking the Peer-to-peer advisory board resource and tweaking it with online collaboration tools and resources. They're also committed to finding the best board members who can add the best value for all parties involved.

They have.

Running a business makes you perpetual seeker for ...What Works. PeerSight Online works.

Disclaimers:

1) PeerSight Online uses our tollfree conference call services.

2) PeerSight Online  is a value-added partner with us for our customers. We wouldn't offer a resource to our customers unless it was What Works. PeerSight Online works.

Happy Birthday US Constitution

We the People

of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So begins the US Constitution. It's one of the documents that makes our country what it is, should be, stands for, should stand for. It has its 210th birthday today. ( I don't see much of a party being celebrated. Frankly, I didn't know of its birthdate. Not a good sign, not for me personally, but for us...not remembering this simple document that's been so important.)

Here's some links:

US Constitution

First 10 Amendments, aka Bill of Rights.

Amendments 11-27

Profiles of the original 39 signers.

Despite having had to memorize that paragraph sometime in school, it still gives me great pleasure to read it. It would be a great thing if we all read it more often, the entire document. It's what we're about. It's a good thing to remember always.

The exciting world of airline travel

There's a lot of excitement in the world of travel. None of it's good. Flight delays, cancelled flights, missed flights, lost luggage, sitting in coach for up to 9 hours while your plane sits on the tarmac....,  long security lines, ever changing criteria, and now fashion police are the exciting headlines.

This article in the NY Times outlines the relief airline travelers seek. (no reg'n req'd).

One traveler uses 450-500 miles as his driving limit on business trips. ( Mine's nearly 1000 after this summer's travels. Door-to-door, it's almost as fast if I drive 1000 miles than if I fly. And that's if EVERYTHING goes perfect with the flight. Big if...it never does anymore. )

One company lets its employees take bikes and vacation gear in their cars.

I'd hoped less excitement would be part of the experience of business flying by now. But it looks like...not yet. Sigh. One of my tasks today was to schedule my flight to SF in October for the Creative Experience Council meetings there.

Health Insurance Rose...."only" 6.1% last year

D'ya notice? On average, Americans' health insurance premiums rose only...6% last year. I feel better, don't you? I'll have dessert, please.

That means if this rate of increase continues (and why wouldn't it as the population ages...) our monthly premiums will only double in 10 years.

And of course our incomes will grow at the same pace right?

Why Iowa? The cracks are smaller out here.

The Cracks (reg'n required) is a blog post by Will Okun who traveled with Nicholas Kristoff of the NY Times through Africa last year. Will is a teacher in Chicago. He profiles a family's challenge on Chicago's West Side to bring educational opportunities to their children. The challenge is that:

The cracks are so much bigger and so much easier to fall through in big cities where there is so much more to get into that distracts you from education...

I was surprised and deighted when I read on and found the family's solution was to...move their children to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Will visited the family a year after their move to find:

Diana’s house is beautifully huge. All three kids have their own room, and her husband Bird keeps his carpentry tools in the basement...the rent (with the assistance of Section 8 funding) is still considerably less than their two-bedroom dump in Chicago that was later condemned by city inspectors.

More importantly, their oldest daughter Zariah is enrolled in a fine arts elementary school within walking distance of their house. "Here she is surrounded by kids who are doing positive so she is more likely to do positive herself."

“The teachers here are better. They demand more of the students and they want the parents to be more involved.”

This family isn't alone in their goals or their solution. Many families, the mother reports, from Chicago have moved to Cedar Rapids.

"Everyone is here for the same reason, to get a new start and to provide better for their kids."

Iowa: where the cracks are smaller. And the opportunities bigger.

Obesity's True Source: Iowa's Corn-on-the-Cob Eating Contest

The University of Iowa's VOP of Student Affairs cancelled the annual corn-on-the-cob eating contest as part of the rivalry weekend celebrations withthe Iowa-Iowa State football game. According to the VP of Student Affairs....the contest promotes gluttony and collides with the university's initiatives to curtail obesity.

Yes. I see the connection now. The sweeping movement of an annual corn-on-the-cob eating contest...annual means annual as in once-a-year is the true source of our nation's obesity problem.

Despite the fact that most people don't live in Iowa, a high percentage of Iowans don't know of this annual event...the event occurred when obesity wasn't a national problem...and our nation's diet filled with fat and carbs and fast foods and missing fresh fruit and vegetables and oh did we mention elementary schools with soda machines and kitchens supplied by fast-food companies and the absence of phys ed programs due to budget cutbacks, etc, etc...we've now discovered the connection, the causal agent with our nation's obesity problem: that damn corn-on-the-cob eating contest that happens once a year with a small group of students.

For God sake no one tell Mr. Big-Boy Britches, VP of Student Affairs, that there's also a bratwurst eating contest...Shhhh. He'll kill that fun, too in the hopes he'll bring world peace.

Story at ESPN.

Don't Hide from Unhappy Clients

So you failed. You screwed up. You made a mistake. Your [client, colleague, partner, spouse, offpsring, co-worker, customer, neighbor, friend] is unhappy. Don't hide from that learning experience. Confront it head-on: Find out what you did to create that situation, apologize, fix it. And there...you've learned something.

I personally hate these learning experiences. But the other option is even worse...not learning. And the fallout of losing [client, colleague, partner, spouse, offpsring, co-worker, customer, neighbor, friend] is REALLY painful.

I make a lot of mistakes. I'm learning a lot. The lessons are still painful. But now they're shorter, too. I'm getting more comfortable saying "I'm sorry, I screwed up. My bad. What do I need to do to fix it...."

Recently we hosted a high-profile event wehere...everything went bad. Technology, communication, decisions...they all cascaded down the bad-hole. It was with a friend also. And it was one who put their career standing on the line for us. I was on the phone and email with them for hours making sure I knew exactly how everything went into the toilet for the first few minutes of the call. Everything smoothed out after that. And not all of that turn around came from our efforts. Regardless, their call was successful. 

While I knew the mistakes were avoidable, I also knew it's a numbers game, the law of averages, no one bats 1.0000 even with HBH.  No one, no company, is perfect. That still didn't stop the shock, the aggravation, the unacceptance that those averages came to our turn at bat AND with a close friend and client.

We stood up, took the hit, talked, listened and came up with a plan to make their next event even better. And by doing so, we kept both a client and a friend. And we learned there was a tiny little weakness that in the right and perfect storm would impact a customer. And now we know and now we've fixed it.

And soon, I'm confident, this relationship will be even stronger.

And that path started when we admitted our mistake, didn't hide from this unhappy friend and customer. And it's shorter because we admitted it right then, not...some other time.

Keith Ferrazi inspired this post with his much more concise post Tip 88 Don't Hide from Unhappy Clients.

John L. Herman: Business Failure Expert

Maybe. He seems pretty sharp at promoting his blog, Hermanisms. He emailed me recently about his blog and his book. His blog starts out like so:

John L. Herman Jr. (known as just “Herman”) is a business failure expert. Not because he fails in business, but because he knows why businesses fail (and some households, too).

Herman owned more than 20 companies: some succeeded, some failed.

Gotta love someone who takes their turn at bat and then reports on their on-base percentage, hits, homeruns and...and...strikeouts.

I like how he encourages people to face their failures headon. (For the record, the more I do, the better I am...at everything.)

Failure isn't fatal. Not trying, though, is deadly.

Cafe Paradiso's Harvest Moon Festival

Steve and Meret, our friends that run Cafe Paradiso here in Fairfield, have put together an outstanding event of 4 consecutive nights of great musicians performing at their bistro.

Last night: Dave Moore

Tonight: Wendy Waldman

Friday Night: Lanky

Sunday Night: Rachel Ries

We're corporate sponsors of the event. They do the work, develop the relationships with the musicians, create the very cool setting for the events and arrange for the shows. We love what they're doing with their shop and the music they bring to town so we decided to invest in our community through them and what they've done.

Y'all come on down.

Disruption is your friend

If not, make it so, Worf.

65% of CEOs have plans for significant change for their organization over the next 2 years.

50% see of CEOs in recent IBM survey said that change came from their business environment, not from their R&D department. That means...change happens, whether you want it or not.

Make disruption your friend. Here's a list of ways to do so at Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage, by Prof. Lynda Applegate at Harvard Business School.

Save Money. Live Better....

Save Money. Live Better is Wal-mart's new ad campaign. Crisp, concise, focused, a clear promise. I like it...as a slogan.

It needs just one addition: an *. After *...at the bottom of the page in tiny, easily-forgotten type, would be this: Not applicable to Wal-mart associates or their families. Small businesses and communities near Wal-mart locations may experience adverse reactions including foreclosure, loss of business, drop in incomes, decrease in tax revenues, increase in demands for social welfare services including increasing numbers of children needing state-sponsored health care...etc.

Mild ADHD as an Evolutionary Adaptation

I'm not sure where the pendulum shifts in diagnosing/treating anyone, adults or children, with ADHD. At one end of the spectrum of this discussion are the folks with the minds too bright, too curious, too quick, too smart, too restless, too penetrating to be assuaged with standardized texts and neat rows of desks/cubicles and routines and hampered with teachers/coaches/mentors/parents/bosses/leaders/professors whose skills can't match nor appreciate nor allow these special talents and skills. Threatened or bothered, the authority figures resort to power-based tactics of diagnosing them as abnormal and medicating them into easily-managed behavior patterns best suited for jobs of routine activities and a life of routine, acceptable values, safe and comfortable for those in positions of authority.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who need a regimen of treatment involving diet and exercise and coaching and patience and counseling in order to survive. Notice I didn't say prescriptions.

And now comes the suggestion, a good one it is, that mild ADHD could be an evolutionary adaptation needed to survive in our world of constant interruption, fast-paced change, innovation, disruption...a herky-jerky pace of life as Russell Shaw refers to it in his blog post: Is mild ADHD a FAVORABLE evolutionary adaptation to our tech-centric world.

I'm not sure who's adopting to who? Are we adopting to our world or is the world adoption to us? The old saying of the world is as you are...comes to mind, literally. I'm increasingly of the opinion that in order to change the world, my world anyway, I need to change myself. And if that doesn't get the job done, I need to change my surroundings of friends, family, colleagues, etc.

But coming back to ADHD, mild or not...I don't see it helpful to label people who are bright, curious, impatient, smart, penetrating intellectually, as people with a malady they need to medicate. We all search for happiness and satisfaction. Some search more relentlessly and quickly. Some have given up on achieving that goal. Unfortunately, too many of the latter chose authority, and the false sense of control it gives, over happiness. And too many institutions find that choice favorable for their goals with the impact that innovation and growth are squeezed from their organizations to the detriment of customers, employees and shareholders.

Automakers: You have to be as innovative as you claim are

A  federal court's ruling recently insisted that US automakers fulfill their pledge of being the leaders in automotive manufacturing in more ways than total revenues. The federal judge's ruling allowed states to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from autos. The judge wrote in his ruling:

[H]istory suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably. … The Court remains unconvinced automakers cannot meet" the limits.

It's always been a source of wonder to me to see US auto manufacturers settle for selling too often a product that's not competitive, almost insulting, to its domestic audience. And that as the judge wrote, once put in gear they always respond.

That's the challenge.

Why does the US auto industry always choose to lag in innovation while claiming otherwise in their ads?

At one time they could afford to do so. Ad campaigns built around patriotic, Buy American, slogans resonated with the public, despite the obvious message that a low-quality product was being foisted on them in the name of patriotism.

At some point, the consumer couldn't ignore the face slaps so often delivered under that program.

Now, US car manufacturers face declining sales and market share. Their competitive strategy seems to be two-pronged: 1) blame the workers health care costs for the company offering models and quality no longer acceptable, much less desirable AND 2) if market forces don't motivate the companies (they seemingly don't) then bring in the lawyers to prevent any other reasons for inflciting change on their designs; these reasons being the health and safety of the consuming and general public.

Wait, are those flames on the horizon? I don't know; I don't care. I've got my violin to play....Nero

Link: USAToday: Judge Says States Can Regulate Emissions.

Typepad featured Blog: Joel Makower

If you're thinking of green business practices, resources, solutions, data...then Joel Makower's your man. He is all over, all about, all for this area and he does it with well-written commentary, good data and links and resources and a passionately positive style of writing.

Add him to your subscriptions. 

How can the next president better help small business survive and entrepreneurs thrive?

A presidential candidate posted this question for LinkedIn members to answer. Here's what I answered:

* Net Neutrality,
* Affordable group health insurance plans that are competitive with those available to large corporations,
* Infrastructure/infrastructure/infrastructure including highways/bridges/broadband penetration to the homes (we're losing ground),
* Improved visa program to bring people to the US with skills we need to continue to innovate and lead.
* Education/education/education and that doesn't include the rote learning skills developed in the No Child Left Behind program. Our Education program should teach analytic skills, communication skills, collaboration skills as well as math, science, engineering.
* Re-establish our nation's role as leader and trusted partner for innovation, entrepreneurship, and cooperation in the community of nations.

These were common themes throughout the 600+ answers as of 1:30 Central time today. If you're a LinkedIn member, check it out and offer your own answer. If you're not, you should join. And then offer your own answer.

( How refreshing that an elected official would ask an open-ended question AND share those questions in an open-forum like LInkedIn. A conversation, give-and-take, open for all to see, seeking ideas and solutions, letting others speak...it's a good first-step, anyway, towards re-engaging and re-uniting.)

Disclaimer: the only thing I'm endorsing here is the use of a social-network to provide a forum for an open conversation to find solutions for challenges faced by large groups of people. Those who feel compelled to share partisan diatribes, screeds, rants, name-calling...there are other forums where that approach is welcomed, encouraged, accepted.

Comcast: That Ol' left-hand, right-hand thing

Recently I talked a bit about the news that Comcast was canceling their broadband customers for using the service too much. (Comcast: You're kidding, right?) Comcast wasn't quite forthcoming on where their line in the 'net was drawn, the line that once crossed by a customers bandwidth consumption would result in immediate cancellation of their service. In fact, they weren't forthcoming at all refusing to even identify what that line was or if it even existed in form more substantial than arbitrary and capricious. ( But that's the great thing about secret discussions and secret criteria...it grants the appearance of power, to some an arbitrary and capricious power, eventually to all an ultimate power. And all know what ultimate power grants...I digress. )

My copy of ScreenPlay magazine arrived this week. And there on the front page was this article's title: Comcast Unit Forges Strategy to Enable IPTV VOD Service (sub'n required). And the CEO of Comcasts division, thePlatform, is quoted:

We see our mission over the next two years as being focused on getting things right in the broadband arena.

Huh. Does their location, 1000 miles away, from Comcast's offices mean they don't know that Comcast HQ is canceling many of the customers' service who would most likely benefit from thePlatform getting things right in the broadband arena?  One hand of Comcast is canceling the customers who are actively downloading content ( using Comcast's double-super-secret-handshake business rules). The other hand is expanding the content for these same customers to download. In effect they're telling the consumer: If you use our service to download our content we provide for you to download....we'll cancel your service.

Right hand, meet left hand. Left hand, meet right hand. You guys should talk or meet or shake or at least wave at each other.