Somebody said we were allowed to think out loud. Pardon the mess.

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Ladies and Germs, Synchronicity defined...














Link

Great find by Jon Strande.
Posted by: fouro / 1:41 PM |
Bumper Sticker Culture II

I'm enjoying Bumper Sticker Week--what, you didn't know it was Bumper Sticker Week? Sure it is. [Bumper-sticker I]

Anyway, BSW, and several conversations with Jon at Business Evolutionist have got me examining the stream of words that make up this blog. It seems there's a consistent theme:
[You are] the change you want to see in the world.
Goofy huh? Nah. It's really as simple as that. If you decide that change is what you want, you set out to make it happen. You go through walls to make it happen. You use whatever you find along the way. Materials, and allies. Mostly, because you want, not because you need. Mostly, because you believe. Pure. And simple.

That's not news is it? And it's not what we want to hear. Sounds too simple. Where's the plan? "Where are your bullet points?"

And that's just it. "My" bullet points are mine. You have to craft your own. From what you know and believe to be true: What you want, what you can do, who else wants it, and why they should care. We refine our own ideas about the way things ought to be. And then, we each help our customer discover their own unique set of bullet points, a process made easier thanks to the knowledge we gained in searching out and refining our own. We repeat for others what we've legitimately done for ourselves. Otherwise, we're just playing doctor, aren't we?

I recently got an email from a fellow blogger interested in how my company does what it does. You know what? What my company does, how and why, as well as more than a few examples of the work product, the result... they're all here, going all the way back through the archives to October of last year. Sure we have a process, but that could change tomorrow. What we have, what we share, what we recreate for others is a sensibility. Of possibility. That is constant.

If assigned the task, someone could reasonably go though even only the linked stuff to the right, and intuit and assemble a fair facsimile of a business approach that yields stuff like this:



[click to enlarge in popup]

On the blog, one can find ads we've done, spaces we've designed, advice we've gotten paid to give, holes we've dug clients out of, speeches made, and most important, a fair representation of the kinds of attitudes and personalities you'd be dealing with. We've laid it all out. Well, almost all. And don't wonder that we didn't talk long and hard about doing so. My argument amongst my partners was that we should share to build our brand. Their prerequisite was that we would not chop it up, ladle it onto a plate, and spoon feed it. At least not for free. Worked for me. Seems to work for a few others.

We're firm believers in the 80/20 rule here and I've noticed Pareto poking his head up in our visitor makeup. Our stats show there are repeat visitors, and they repeat a lot. Some might call them heavy users. Not me, I call them fellow explorers. I know, sounds cheesy? I don't care. You are probably not one of them. And that's fine. Probably a sensible approach too. The world needs it's sensible people. It's just not something we particularly exalt around here. We can't. It would have killed every idea we're known for. It would stop the phone ringing. People call for our passion and curiosity and humility and confidence. They've seen it in action. Their friends told them to call. They want to hire it, maybe learn it. I'm glad.

An example: A very kind visitor took note of a recent post
Man on Fire

Check out ... "Burning Desires." In it, he riffs on the responsbilities assigned to us not only as writers, but readers as well....It set me right on my tail with its message to both ends of the reader-writer spectrum. On fire, indeed!
Michele, thanks again. Your check's in the mail.

Seriously, I wonder what Michele's return on investment would have been after reading the same post, rendered in bulletese?

• There are lots of books out there.
• Most say the same things.
• Some are kindling, some light the match.
• Pick one that lights your fire.
• Ask why it does
• Remember the fire, burn the books.
• Now go do business.

There's a great line in "The Hunt For Red October." Maybe you remember it. Jack Ryan, looking at a radar screen, asks "What are those destroyers doing?" The Captain says "They're listening with sonar, looking for the Red October. Funny thing though--they're moving so fast, they could run over my daughter's stereo and not catch it."

They're listening. But moving fast. So they can't hear.

Do I really want to burn books? Of course not. Not unless that action generates a further and useful higher-value reaction. Hey, I'd burn my merit badges if it served a higher purpose. They're both just things. But the knowledge I gained reading the books, earning the merit badges, taking factory tours, or asking questions I had no right to ask is still with me, pooled up in my head, intermingling and generating new combinations everyday. That's the key. Facts are just kindling, you have to rub them together to get heat. If you don't feel friction, you're not doing it vigorously enough. Rub them together to generate new facts and better questions. And you can't be miserly about it. There's always more kindling or more resources or more opportunities to be found.

But still, we hoard them. We presume and prejudge. We want others to package them. Because we don't believe. In our power to create. In ourselves.

But, we believe in bullets. Now that is goofy. Big mistake.

Bumper-sticker I
Posted by: fouro / 6:11 AM |

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Seth-Jam. The Free Prize-a-palooza

Seth Godin's great new book, 'Free Prize Inside' is the Guest of Honor for May's Business Blog Book Tour. You can check out all the details of the tour at a penny for.

Where do you start with this book? It's short, eminently readable, and counter-intuitive. I put Empahasis there for a reason. In today's evironment, intuitive, yet slingshot simple powerful ideas that survive and flourish are deemed counter-intuitive. Silly. Luckily, much of what Free Prize covers and teaches is how to overcome conventional wisdom and follow your intuition: How to harvest, manage, and leverage your briliant idea and it's hope. If the word "resourceful" floats your admiration, this book is for you.

Since it's Bullet Point Week in BizBlogovia, here's mine

1. Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.
2. Execute the idea, not yourself.
3. Tis better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
4. A "Free Prize" is a Daisy in the concrete

I need a neck brace from all the nodding and laughing out loud I was doing. Ahm, what the heck, go check out the sites below, you'll get the gist of it.

I'm late, the tour started May 3rd and runs through May 14th.
Posted by: fouro / 3:01 PM |
Bumper Sticker Culture

Zoinks! Jon at Business Evolutionist is dogging my flabby keyboardature and general tendency to overpopulate some posts with nouns, gerunds, participles and other grammar thingies. Yeah, exactly, like that last sentence.

To wit:
I've been joking back and forth with Fouroboros ... that I'm going to start a new business by offering the cliff notes version of his posts... so, with that in mind, and his permission... here is the first installment:
Courage needs a companion...[*]
*Insert a whole bunch of stuff here about a TV spot on Courage, then some on exploring, and rollercoasters, then sound waves, cheap radios, Norah Jones chewing rocks, football penalties, rhythm, Mount Everest, Garbage, Schoolmarms, more Rhythm, Cinderella's favorite rodent, breadcrumbs, California, DNA, a pendulum, soul crushing, business fads, business hopes, lonely hyperactive neurotic courage, dragons, leaders, followers, and courage's sidekick, conscience.

Phew. Back to Jon:
My shortened version:
• Business needs a purpose
• Purpose takes courage
• You don't get purpose or courage from a set of bullet points.
While I do agree, and appreciate Jon's gracious offer and bulletin, maybe he's being a tad stingy:
• Business needs people
• People want purpose
• Purpose needs courage
• Courage is driven by conscience
• Your organization has a shared conscience
• It's a feedback loop, go back to point #1
Hmm. Okay I suppose, but we could shorten the word count even more, perhaps capturing some of the kicky insouciance that was intended:
• People want growth
• Growth requires courage
• Courage is having balls
• Balls needs a Conscience
• Conscientious balls propagate legitimate growth
Yeah, that's better.

Oh. Should I point out that balls is a gender neutral gift? Nah, didn't think so.

Posted by: fouro / 5:09 AM |

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

I know you are, but what am I... Mr. Chairman?

BusinessWeek
That these highly rational, utterly left-brained executives are delving into their pasts illustrates a new strain of organizational therapy coursing through the inner sanctums of corporate power. The basic concept: that people tend to recreate their family dynamics at the office. The idea is being fanned by organizational experts, who say that corporate strivers can at times behave a bit like thumb-suckers in knee pants, yearning for pats on the back from boss "daddies and mommies" and wishing those scene-stealing co-worker "siblings" would, well, die. Boardroom arguments can parallel spats at the family dinner table. Office politics can take on the dimensions of Icarus blowing off his Dad -- or Hamlet offing Uncle Claudius....

For Bert Whitehead, CEO of Cambridge Connection, a financial-planning company in Franklin Village, Mich., the epiphany came when, after announcing he would be away on a business trip, he noticed a stealthy rejoicing rippling through his offices. Today, he knows why. "Nobody was ever quite good enough," says Whitehead, who refers to himself as a moody stress-generator. "I had a mother I could never get approval from, and I had unknowingly really adopted that into my management style."

HERO, SCAPEGOAT, MARTYR. This may seem like so much EST-era drivel, but by performing psychological X-rays on clients' pasts, coaches have helped executives at companies as diverse as the Los Angeles Times, State Farm Insurance, and American Express (AXP ) understand their own and others' dysfunctional behavior. They learn how to recognize the shadowy emotional subtext that drives many encounters, deconstructing how they may be subconsciously sabotaging themselves, shying from authority figures, or engaging in hypercritical judgments of subordinates. Or why they may unwittingly play the role of the hero, scapegoat, or martyr. "I'm not suggesting that our employees are our kids," says Kenneth Sole, a consulting social psychologist who has worked with Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ) and the U.N. "But the psychology is parallel."

Indeed, brain research over the past decade has shown that during stress -- when people's need to feel included, competent, and liked is thwarted -- their minds are hardwired to default to defensive family scripts. "We project onto others the conflicts we experienced growing up," says Robert Pasick, president of LeadersConnect in Ann Arbor, Mich. He teaches a course at the University of Michigan Business School on how family dynamics affect teams.

Such corporate headshrinking is gaining more ground in part because of how much interdependence companies face on the global stage. In the manual economy, work was a regimented, militaristic affair in which it was easier to subsume personality differences. Today, success hinges on teams performing as seamlessly as the flawless machinery in a showcase Six Sigma plant.
Six Sigma? SiX SIGMA? Where's my bat?!
Posted by: fouro / 10:41 PM |
All together now:

I read the brochure
I did what you said
I was jazzed by the speeches
And Hey, now I'm dead.
©fouro ASCAP, WGA, BSA RIAA


BusinessWeek
The Costco Way: Higher wages mean higher profits. But try telling Wall Street

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST ) handily beat Wall Street expectations on Mar. 3, posting a 25% profit gain in its most recent quarter on top of a 14% sales hike. The warehouse club even nudged up its profit forecast for the rest of 2004. So how did the market respond? By driving the Issaquah (Wash.) company's stock down by 4%. One problem for Wall Street is that Costco pays its workers much better than archrival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) does and analysts worry that Costco's operating expenses could get out of hand. "At Costco, it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder," says Deutsche Bank (DB ) analyst Bill Dreher.

...Costco actually keeps its labor costs lower than Wal-Mart's as a percentage of sales, and its 68,000 hourly workers in the U.S. sell more per square foot. Put another way, the 102,000 Sam's employees in the U.S. generated some $35 billion in sales last year, while Costco did $34 billion with one-third fewer employees.

Bottom line: Costco pulled in $13,647 in U.S. operating profit per hourly employee last year, vs. $11,039 at Sam's. Over the past five years, Costco's operating income grew at an average of 10.1% annually, slightly besting Sam's 9.8%. Most of Wall Street doesn't see the broader picture, though, and only focuses on the up-front savings Costco would gain if it paid workers less....
Sam's America!™ Yay, Team!

Posted by: fouro / 9:31 PM |
Man, what's up with @%#$! public schools?


The Detroit News
Poll: Parent, teacher contact limited

...The poll found a wide gap in how parents and teachers perceive school involvement. Parents say they want to be included, but don’t always have the chance. And teachers — uniformly, across all grades — said they want more direct interaction with parents.

Of parents with children in the first or second grade, 40 percent said they communicate directly with the teacher at least once per week. That number dropped to 38 percent for parents of fifth- and six- graders, and to 26 percent for parents of seventh- and eighth- graders. Just 20 percent of parents of ninth- and 10th-graders interact weekly with teachers. And by 11th and 12th grade, just 17 percent of parents said they communicate with teachers regularly.
So, 6 of 10 parents don't communicate directly with the teacher at least once per week for grades 1-6. (Same for 3 & 4 presumably). By 9th grade, it's down to 2 in 10. Can you say Pareto's Law?

I wonder how I would feel if I was forced to hire every applicant that approached me for a job? No critical evaluation allowed, no screening, no firing. Then, as the recipient of that bell-curved bundle of pathologies, bad habits, poor parenting, ethnic tension, sub-par nutrition and health, I was also required to attempt to ameliorate all those deficits while still trying to maintain a profit. ("Growth" seems a tad optimistic in this scenario.) In addition, once a month, my boardroom gets filled to overflowing with hordes of people--parents, workers, interested parties and social gadflies, government types, other business people--all come to tell me what I'm doing wrong. While noshing my hors d'oeurves and O.J., they scream at me: You're a leech. A cultural reprobate and a failure. Do it better for less money. Luckily, once all the free food is gone, they leave. But not before they toss me an additional list of things to tackle when I'm done handling the last 600 monthly lists they left me.

Why 600? 50 years X 12 months. Read on:

The Challenge of Change, [PDF] from Ian Jukes and Anita Dosaj, InfoSavvy Group
Our schools have tried to adapt to massive social change over the course of the past 50 years, and in doing so, they have become very confused. For hundreds of years all that our schools were responsible for was teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Then we began to add things to the list

1900
* reading
* writing
* arithmetic

1900-1910
* immunization
* nutrition
* health

1910-1920
* citizenship

1920-1940
* vocational arts
* practical arts
* physical education
* school lunch

1950‘s
* safety education
* driver’s education
* foreign language education
* sex education

1960‘s
* consumer education
* career education
* peace education
* traffic safety education
* leisure education

1970‘s
* special education mandated
* drug & alcohol abuse education
* electrical safety education
* parent education
* character education
* environmental education
* school breakfasts

1980‘s
* keyboarding
* computer education
* global education, ethnic education
* multicultural education
* non-sexist education
* ESL education
* full day kindergarten
* pre-school programs for at-risk students
* after school programs for children of working parents
* stranger danger education
* sexual abuse prevention education
* child abuse monitoring.....

1990‘s
* state standards
· career education
· HIV AIDS education
* bus safety education
* gang education
· death education

2000+ ?

Yet it’s the same school day and school year as 1950. When America had the longest school day and school year in the entire Industrial World – now in the new millennium, we have the shortest. We’ve not added a single minute to the school day or school year in decades. Consequently schools can’t do it. Schools were not designed to rear America’s children.

And yet, in even our best towns, we know that there are parents who are parenting by remote control. They drop them off for Pre-K or Kindergarten and expect to pick up 13 years later and find fully developed human beings. But they didn’t play a role in the process.

What’s the problem?

The system is trying to be all things to all people and it can’t work. It must be changed. And if you say to me "change to what?" we suggest that part of the conversation with the community is just that question:

What is the role of school in the new millennium?

Indeed. Please submit your answer in 25 words or less.


Posted by: fouro / 11:44 AM |
Note: It seems Haloscan is down... They're back up
Posted by: fouro / 8:37 AM |

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Courage needs a companion.

There's an ad out there, about the need for a Chief Courage Officer. In it, they ask a key question: Is Corporate America becoming too risk averse? Implicit in their question: Is that risk aversion oddly damaging the integrity and capacity of business for profit and good? The ad is from Price Waterhouse Coopers and it's a work of motivational art. I'd be proud to have it on my reel.



But I wonder. I wonder what that spot's journey was like, up, and through the bowels of several organizations? I think of the moments of doubt, overcome by inspiration, powered by belief in the message. I can hear people in a position to say "Go ahead," or "kill it," say exactly those words. I can imagine a Creative Group, suits and writers and art directors, circling the wagons on more than one occasion. And I could scribble the dialogue because I've been there. Doing the circling, I mean.

In that journey, to tell a story about courage, one that needs urgently to be told, I would hazard that there were several, perhaps legions of people saying "I dunno, seems risky." Or, "Who are we to say?" These people probably had reams of information implying as much, if interpreted just so. The idea of courage, that it's required for business to succeed, to blaze trails, to stretch and reach the potential we all want it to have was, I bet, "A good idea" in their minds. But still, "I dunno, seems risky." It still wasn't a compelling idea. Maybe it had all the elements of "we could do this", but perhaps none of what compels, impels a response of "should" or "must."

Something moves us across the bridge from could or maybe to should and must. But what? Courage is a yang to a yin, an act in service of something else. But to what?

Maybe the noble idea of Courage requires a second Job, a second admission that the hole Price Waterhouse is trying to point out, and to fill, is double-wide.

Courage needs a friend. ...Courage needs counsel: a Chief Conscience Officer.

[More why courage may slay the business dragons, yet seldom spots them, and often, creates them. But hey, all is not lost.]

[edit: 5.3.04 6:25. Yes, this is the ever-evolving intro, isn't it?]
Posted by: fouro / 4:29 PM |

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