Grin and Barrett

My Biggest Blogging News Ever

2008-01-02T10:55:00.000-06:00

After making you wait for 15 days, I will finally unveil my big announcement.

August 24th, 2004 was my first post on Grin and Barrett. I was naive and unsure about where my blogging journey would take me, but when I started it was with the intention of becoming a better writer and thought what better way than to write something as often as possible to accomplish that goal.

At some point I switched from self improvement, via telling stories about my personal life, to telling people about my work, which at the time was a pastor. Then when my job switched to small business, I switched my writing to the topic business issues. I absolutely love business, it is what I do every day and I still like spending my personal time writing about it. But, unfortunately the base readership of my blog enjoys reading personal stories more than business rhetoric, so for the last 2 years I've been torn between writing about what I love and alienating my readership.

Unable to figure out the balance between readership and material, and having more than accomplished my "become a better writer" goal, over 572 posts in 3 years, 4 months and 10 days, this my 573rd post will be my last.

Throughout my journey, I've had 25,521 visits with November 2007 being my biggest month ever at 1,518 visits according to my Sitemeter statistics. I've had readers from many countries across 6 continents (I never could find a reader in Antarctica). You left me 1,164 comments, which to the dismay of my wife was a continual source of self esteem, or lack there of as the case may be.

As a result of my writing, I received email from many people. Some were close friends, some became good friends and one was the District Attorney of Arizona as a result of a story I blogged about. A quick word of caution, be careful that the people you are blogging about aren't wanted by multiple states and by federal agencies. I wasn't aware, and perhaps you aren't either, that a common way to conduct an investigation is by doing a Google search and reading blogs. My apologies to the DA's office, I quickly read, deleted and never responded to your email. Avoidance seemed to be the best prudence at that time.

A quick side note of typical Grin and Barrett humor. After more than a year of unsuccessful persuasion that I should have my own domain name for my blog, my wife did the unsuspected by visiting Go Daddy to buy me my very own domain name as a Christmas present this year. What would have been the best gift ever, quickly became what she described as "a lame gift" when I told her the week before Christmas that after about a month of deep and serious contemplation I was going to quit blogging.

Anyone want to buy a domain name cheap?
Probably not.
What might have been.

I'll still be involved in the blogosphere as the occasional commenter, and may even resurface one day as a writer. For Barrett family updates, you'll have to rely on my lovely wife, the Rocky Mountain Mom, Deann. But from me, for now, it's farewell.

Thanks for reading and an even bigger thanks for commenting.

Merry Christmas: A Video Christmas Card

2007-12-18T20:31:00.000-06:00

Last year I got this great idea to send out a Christmas video card to my friends. So after a few days of shooting and a few more of editing, here is our first Christmas Video Card.

You should already have this delivered to your inbox, but just in case I missed you, I thought I'd post it here as well.

Merry Christmas to all from the Barretts!

Hope you enjoyed it. The singing wasn't my idea, but I made way for a greater creative genius. You know me... All about the team effort.

Also, closer to the first of the year, I've got some BIG news about blogging here at Grin and Barrett. (My attempt at a teaser)

Elf Yourself

2007-12-06T22:51:00.000-06:00

Christmas is arriving soon, my posts lately haven't been very humorous, and it's almost the weekend. So, if you're looking for something funny, check out this Barrett Christmas dance routine. Brought to you by Office Max, we "Elfed Ourselves"

If you like, you can Elf Yourself too!

Walking the Halls

2007-12-05T12:59:00.000-06:00

Today was the last day of one of the classes I'm teaching. During the time where the students fill out the teacher evaluation forms, I left the room and walked the halls a little. While meandering around, I overheard this girl talking on her cell phone make the following statement.

"...that's when I changed my major to Sociology. Then my advisor said I was too smart for that and I should switch to Psychology..."

To the normal person, that might sound like typical girl talk, or even a girl explaining to her parents why she has switched majors twice this semester. However, to me I took it as a great opportunity to make myself feel better about myself.

You see, my wife, who is way smarter than I ever could be and had a much higher GPA than I ever dreamed of, majored in Sociology. I, on the other hand, majored in Psychology (business too). So, I now have definitive proof that the reason my GPA wasn't as good as my wife's wasn't because she was smarter than I was, but rather because my major was a much harder major. Ahhh - my self-esteem has risen 2% thanks to some ditsy girl in the hallway.

Kiss and Make-Up

2007-12-04T16:33:00.000-06:00

I just finished two books. Well actually one and a half. Kiss and Make-Up, the one I finished, is one of my new favorite biographical accounts. Gene Simmons of rock legends KISS , is best known for breathing fire and spitting blood on stage. But what I found fascinating were the typical stereo types of a hard rocker being a drugged, drunk ignorant fool, were quickly dispelled when I began to realize that Gene has not only never drank, smoked or done drugs, well except for the time he ate a brownie that he didn't know was a "special" brownie, but he is also a very intelligent business person. According to his account, he was one of the driving forces behind the branding (though it wasn't called branding back then) that KISS became known for. The book was a little rough in content at times, so be prepared for that. Nothing vulgar, but I wouldn't read it to my kids a bed time story either.

Though I haven't been a big fan of it for some time, I'm actually planning on tuning in to Season 7 of the Apprentice, the celebrity edition because Gene Simmons will be one of the cast members. I'm excited to watch, because I'm curious to find out if he's a good businessman in his own mind, or if he's good enough to stand up to Donald.

The half a book I read was Kingdomality. Looked interesting on the cover. The overview said something to the effect of "new way to manage your business" so I thought why not?

The reality was it was the same management dribble that consultants have been peddling since the late 90's when First Break all the Rules came out. It took the same tired concept of figuring out the personalities of your staff, determining what their strengths are and then what yours are and labeling them all so you know who should be doing what job withing your organization. Only, it would have been too close to plagiarism of about a hundred other books, so they gave everyone cute little names like White Knight, Black Knight, Minstrel, etc. Essentially what the whole Otter, Golden Retriever, Choleric, Sanguine, fad did to Meyers Briggs. Cute names, but cute names only go so far.

I admit I only made it about half way through before yawning and returning the book to the library, but I'm sure I can guess at the ending. The book told in story form, also a rip off from the "Who Moved My Cheese" format probably sounded something like, "The now much wiser king returned to his kingdom to improve things with his much better understanding of how to be a good manager of people. Blah, Blah, Blah."

My ratings:

Kiss and Make-Up - 4 stars

Kingdomality - the 1 and 1/2 stars

10 Perfectly Good Reasons to NOT Grow Your Business (Part 2)

2007-11-29T10:16:00.000-06:00

Continuing on with part two of reasons not to grow your business; reasons 6-10:

You don't want to risk going through the growth stage again - Once upon a time, when you were a younger person, you had time to make and lose a fortune. However, if you now find yourself approaching retirement or making plans that require financial security, growing your business may not be such a great idea. Though the risk is less than when you started your business, there is still a risk that you may fail, and thereby lose everything you've worked to obtain so far. Just like your investment strategy with stocks and bonds, if you don't need the money for years, then you put your money in high-growth, high-risk investments. But if you need the money sooner than later, you begin to invest in bonds, T-Bills and other less risky ventures so you can be sure your money is still there when you need it. Your business is your investment, don't get risky with it if you need your money soon.

You have personal health issues (you're not as young as you once were) - Added stress impairs the body's immune system. So, it makes perfect sense that if you are having personal health issues such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, ulcers, depression or one of hundreds of other issues, adding additional stress to your life is going to limit your body's ability to fend off additional problems. Use some common sense before adding what might be unnecessary stress to your life. Having a heart attack, sitting behind your desk while facing the pressures of growth is no way to die.

Your family needs you more - Allow me to climb on my soapbox... America today is more concerned with the balance of their bank account than they are with the balance in their life. Workaholics, in part, work so much because they feel that if they provide financially for their family, they will be viewed as a better spouse, father or mother. In reality, your kids and your spouse aren't going to stand by your hospital bed while you breathe your last few breaths and say, "Gee I'm so glad you put in all those 80 hour weeks while you were growing your business because I really value the brand name clothes you bought me more than I would have ever valued spending time with you. Look, I brought those really cool shoes you got me when you were feeling guilty about missing my third grade school play to show you I still have them." - Okay enough said.

You like status quo - If you're happy with how things are going, why mess up what's not broke? Some half-cocked business consultant may try telling you that "water that isn't flowing is stagnant and stagnant water stinks" To that I say, "Whatever!" Our culture is against status quo, and screams that there must always be a better way, a more efficient way, a bigger way of doing things. Sometimes the answer is simply, "I just like it the way it is." and that's okay.

You haven't reached optimal efficiency with your current size - If you're set and determined to grow your business and the previous nine reasons didn't fit you, then please make sure you are currently running your business at its optimal efficiency. As your business begins to grow, you will be forced to let go of the little details and delegate to someone else those responsibilities. However, if there is waste, mistakes and bumps in the road that are causing even the smallest level of problems in your business now, growth isn't going to fix this. It's going to magnify it. Your 4% inaccuracy problem now is going to grow to 6% or 8% while you grow because you are no longer there to monitor everything that happens. Before you start the growth, prepare for it and tighten things up.

Understand a few things here, I am not saying you should never try to grow your business, nor am I saying you will fail if you try. I am giving strong caution to someone who feels the need to grow your business despite qualifying for one of these reasons.

Perhaps Alice Walker sums up my final thoughts best when she said, "No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

10 Perfectly Good Reasons to NOT Grow Your Business (Part 1)

2007-11-26T17:05:00.000-06:00

I continually hear people talk about how to grow your business. 7 steps to successful growth or 15 reasons why your business isn't growing. I have nothing wrong with most of what these people say, accept the assumption behind what they are saying is that everyone should want to grow their business.

The mentality behind the notion that growing your business is the only acceptable way of life is very American. We super size everything, we grow bigger cattle and corn with more ears on the stalk, and we push ourselves to do everything we do in some kind of bigger than life Americanized way. It is assumed that it is our patriotic duty to make everything bigger.

I've had several conversations with everyone from business owners to pastors of churches about growth. While I might get run out of town by my business coaching friends, I'm serious when I say "Not everyone should grow their business".

So, here is my rebuttal to those other lists. My 10 Perfectly Good Reasons to NOT Grow Your Business

You don't want to spend the time required - 12 years ago last month I ran the Omaha marathon. I trained 6 months solid for it and ran countless miles to prepare. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely! Do I ever want to do it again? Absolutely not! I don't have the time, nor am I willing to make the time to train for another one. Similarly, it took a lot of blood sweat and tears to get your business going. There's nothing wrong with saying I'd rather not go through that again. If you have priorities that are more important than growing your business, then you are wrong to neglect them and grow your business anyway. There are only so many hours in a day. Spending them foolishly, out of priority, is not the way to live.

You don't have the resources available to grow - Yes, we're the richest nation in the world and yes, our government still helps small business owners get started with some wonderful loan programs, but money really doesn't grow on trees... I just checked. If you don't have the money, people, space, etc to effectively grow your business, don't start the growth with some half hearted and half funded attempt. Underfunding is one of the main reasons that start up businesses fail. The same is true for business growth failures. Growing your business without the resources needed will guarantee your failure.

You like the size of your small staff - How many times have you heard the phrase "The next Bill Gates"? It's what every American dreams of isn't it? We are all supposed to want to be Billionaire Bill. But there is nothing wrong with admitting that you like to drive into your office and seeing the same 5 to 10 employees that you know well. You even attend their kid's soccer games on the weekends and vacation together in the summer. Maybe in the beginning, Bill Gates went to a few soccer games, but at this point I doubt he knows more than 10% of his employees by name, much less knows their kid's name. If you like your small staff, you don't have to give it up. Just don't grow your business.

You're happy with your current financial situation - I know it's hard to believe, but there might actually be someone out there that can honestly say, "I really don't need to make any more money. Actually, I'm quite happy with my current income and have the things I want." It doesn't make exciting news, so we hear more about the athlete renegotiating their contract or the CEO's massive pay raise, than we do the ones saying I don't need more money, let the rookie have it. But, somewhere out there I believe it exists.

You don't have an ego - This is what most people fall under. They want to grow their business because they have some kind of self worth wrapped up in the size of their business. "Well Johnathon at the country club has 40 employees... I want 40 employees". Unfortunately, this is by far the worst reason to grow your business, but perhaps the most common reason. If you are able to get over yourself you may find the desire to grow your business goes away. If not, they now make a little blue pill that may help with your self esteem issues.

Part 2 (reasons 6-10) will be tomorrow.

Terry's Take on Business

2007-11-26T15:54:00.000-06:00

At my job there are a handful of "go to" people. These are the people that I can count on without fail, and know that no matter who I refer to them for assistance they will always exceed my client's expectations.

Terry Zarsky is one of these people. As the Business Reference Librarian she provides information on everything business. Okay, I admit her title isn't that flashy, but when you are as good as she is, you don't need a flashy title.

She also writes a great synopsis and review of business books. So, if you're like me and you love to stay up with the latest and greatest business book, but you don't have time to read (or like me you don't like to read), check out her blog. Terry's Take on Business.

The Greatest Website Ever

2007-11-26T12:39:00.000-06:00

As part of my exploration for the perfect ring tone on my new cell phone, I came across what I think is perhaps the greatest website of all time in the history of mankind.

Think back to when you were a kid. What was your favorite television show you watched? Was it the Smurfs? Transformers? Maybe Fraggle Rock? How about Dallas or Knots Landing? Maybe you're a little older than I am and it was Bonanza, The Big Valley or Gunsmoke.

Regardless of what your favorite show was, Television Tunes has over 3000 TV theme songs for your listening enjoyment.

I got started Friday night around 10:30 and finally quit listening at around 1:30am. For some reason it brought back so many memories of being a kid and watching television on the couch with my parents, or on Saturday morning watching cartoons on the kitchen floor. It even helped me find my new ring tone.

Lessons From Verizon

2007-11-26T12:12:00.000-06:00

I took advantage of some holiday / vacation time to get into Verizon and renew my cell phone contract, and want to share some points of interest about this experience.

I learned that there are Verizon owned stores and then there are Verizon authorized dealerships. As we all know, when you sign a contract with Verizon, there are the early termination fees for cancelling your contract. What I didn't know was that when you sign with an authorized dealership, not only are you signing a contract with Verizon, but also with that dealership. So, if you ever have to cancel your contract early, you will be charged the early termination fee from Verizon, but you may also be charged by the dealership as well. Double Whammy!

Another reason to go direct to the Verizon owned store is that the customer service is much better. They greeted me at the door, helped me register my arrival on their kiosk and allowed me to browse for a few minutes before my name was called to meet with someone. When we arrived at the authorized dealership, we waited for 15 minutes in the store and not once were we approached by anyone to even say "Hey we're kind of busy, but I see you and I'll help you as soon as I can."

I learned that cell phones need to have patches or upgrades installed just like computers. So if you find your cell phone not working as smoothly as it once did, check to see about getting an upgrade installed.

I rediscovered that deciding on a ring tone is one of the most stressful events in life. I now rank it above deciding on a user name and password for your email account. After hours of endless searching, browsing, listening and stressing I made my selections.

When you call me - Theme from Magnum PI

When my wife calls me - Angel by Aerosmith

Bob Newheart: Stop It

2007-11-19T21:17:00.000-06:00

If you have ever in your life tried to give someone else advice on how to improve their situation and they didn't follow your advice to the "T", then you know the frustration that goes with being a counselor. Now, if you've actually ever counselled someone professionally, be it a consultant, a pastor or even a therapist, then you absolutely know this frustration.

After spending almost 2 years consulting with small business owners, 4 years before that as a pastor, and my whole life knowing exactly what everyone else should do to fix their problems (okay, that last one might be a bit of a stretch - I wasn't that good until I was 6 years old) I have not found any one thing to better illustrate the feelings and emotions that rage within me from time to time when I deal with complete idiots who couldn't fall off a house and hit the ground to save their lives.

Enjoy...

So, what ever it is that you're dealing with that causes you problems... STOP IT!

Business Prenuptials

2007-11-15T13:11:00.000-06:00

One of the most common questions I hear from people starting a business is "Should I be a sole-proprietor, LLC, S-Corp or C-Corp and what's the difference?"

One of the most unasked questions is "Should I have a contract / operating agreement / buy sell agreement with the person I'm going into business with?"

There are many factors involved in the first question, but only one for the second. Should you have such an agreement with your business partner? Yes - Emphatically YES! I can't stress the importance of this. I don't care if you are best friends. I don't care if you are brothers - identical twins, that grew up never fighting and would die for each other. This is a must have.

While everything might seem like a marriage made in Heaven today, the chances are that there will come a time when someone will want out or need out of the business. It is at this time that the agreement gets pulled out and acts like a prenuptial between the two partners who are married through the business. Without it, chances are you will end up in the business equivalent of divorce court.

Here are the general scenarios I usually use to convince people of the importance:

One of you decides you get tired of the business
A better opportunity comes along for one of you and you need out to pursue the other opportunity
One of you decides to retire and wants the other to buy them out.
Your partner dies unexpectedly and his will gives his share of the business to his wife, who wants nothing to do with the business nor does she have the expertise to run the business.
Bottom line, the future is uncertain and you never know what tomorrow holds - both good and bad.

If they say "Gosh, I guess we should look into doing that sometime in the next year or so." I say, "Gosh, you're an idiot and should really do that this week before any of those 5 things have a chance to occur."

I've seen some (and heard more) horror stories of business partners with good intentions but no agreement get started fine, but end in "custody battles" worse than a Hollywood divorce. How much easier it would be to pull out a piece of paper that you both signed and read word for word how to handle the situation.

Yes, it will cost you a few hundred dollars to have an attorney draft up the thing. So? Even if it costs you $1000, it will be the best $1000 you've ever spent to save the friendship you enjoy today.

I know this analogy of marriage, divorce and business is a little crude, but honestly, if 50% of the marriages end in divorce and 50% of the businesses fail in the first 5 years, what do you think the chances of your business partnership lasting "till death do you part"?

Sentinels of Freedom

2007-11-14T13:33:00.000-06:00

Last week I heard Mike Conklin speak about his Sentinels of Freedom project. After one of his three Army Ranger sons was injured in Iraq, Mike decided he should do something to reach out to the wounded soldiers when they return back home.

His four year program helps veterans with "severe service-related injuries" by assisting them to become independent and successful members of society.

The Denver news ran a great story about Ian Newland, one individual whose life was changed as a result of Mike's efforts. [News Story Here]

Mike told stories of businesses opening up positions for these individuals to help provide a career for them and train them so they could not just receive their disability check, but actually feel a sense of pride that they are contributing something again.

What a cool program.

Haze - Movie Trailer

2007-11-13T16:21:00.001-06:00

I usually save mention of Omega Alpha Chi, my college fraternity, until it's closer to April when I take a weekend and go back to Lincoln, Nebraska for our alumni weekend. However, I just got an email from a client of mine who said his friend had just put together a video called Haze about the fraternity drinking problem.

There were many reasons why I chose to start a new fraternity instead of joining an already existing one on campus. One of the reasons was the drinking and hazing that was growing in popularity in the early 90's just seemed stupid, but no one else realized it.

Here is the trailer - A bit long, but pretty dramatic and very effective in communicating the message.

Are You Convincing or Compelling Customers?

2007-11-12T15:10:00.000-06:00

Last Thursday I attended the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce 115th Annual Dinner at the Broadmoor. It was a nice evening of typical fancy ballroom awards. My friend, and killer web designer, the "web diva" Michelle Bracewell snapped this picture and I asked her for a copy. I then pointed out the top of my head, the side of News Anchor John Karroll, who sat at my table, and the speaker, Chamber CEO Dave Csintyan (sin-tain).

Dave was making some great points while I was looking down because I forgot paper and pen and was typing as fast as I could into my memo pad on my cell phone. Here are my notes, thoughts and reactions to what Dave said.

Do you want your customers to be convinced or compelled? Think about this for a second. No one really wants to have to convince people to become their customers, instead we want people to be compelled to call us up and volunteer to become our customers.

Whether or not you are succeeding at compelling them or not can be answered by the question, "Do you have to coerce or manipulate people with gimmicks and pricing or other sales tactics to get clients, or are your existing clients people who are your evangelists that do the convincing for you?"

If you compel, then this implies:

Your quality of product and service is good
Your customer service is outstanding
Your personal relationships with customers are strong

Without these, you are left with convincing.

However, you must have all three parts of this for it to work and the most important part is the relationships with customers.

Let me give you an example. Do you like the toilet paper you currently use? Does it always come packaged conveniently with the same cardboard tube in the middle? Do they always have it on the shelf of the store when you run out? Is it soft and comfortable to use? Do you actually know the guy who delivers it?

See! You probably said "yes" to all but the last question. Without relationships with your customers, you will never develop an evangelist to do the convincing for you. As a result of this, you probably don't open up many conversations by saying, "Hi, my name is... and I love Charmin toilet paper. Let me tell you about it."

When you begin to think about attracting a potential client, give second thought to the last time you attracted an existing client.

Feeling Sick, But Not This Sick

2007-11-07T14:38:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post as I think I'm heading home sick this afternoon instead of going to the Southern Colorado Economic Cluster.

Being an entrepreneur today seems to require picking out your own social cause to support if you want to be successful. I've seen green issues (by the way is anyone else sick of green week?) 3rd world country issues and perhaps popularized by Brangenlina I've seen adoption issues.

But, I never thought I'd see this kind of adoption story. That's just sick!

What ever happened to just being an entrepreneur?

You Tube For Business

2007-11-05T17:31:00.000-06:00

When I'm teaching a class, like I'm getting ready to do now, I like to use video as an illustration for my point, or even sometimes just for the humor factor.

So recently, I've been spending some time searching the only spot to get your video illustrations - You Tube.

However, I've made several observations about what's on You Tube.

There isn't much humor on anything financial (class tonight is on accounting). Maybe that's because there isn't much funny about accounting, but I was surprised that I couldn't find anything that related to money that was funny enough to use tonight.
Business consultants make horrible You Tube videos to present their materials. If you're going to put yourself up on the web for all to see, don't use a flip chart. Even if you are Robert Kiyosaki.
There is a huge untapped market on You Tube for businesses. Similar to how businesses have begun to use blogs to promote their product and increase customer retention. I don't know how it's going to look, but somewhere out there is some 18 year old computer science major developing the idea right now.
You Tube is in essence a great place to go see slapstick humor, bizarre things and even some cute things, but I don't think it's reached its potential yet.
Maybe Oprah will help things move along faster. She now has her own You Tube channel. Oprah on YouTube - YIPPEE!!! (typed with much sarcasm)

The Truth Is Out There

2007-11-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

I just heard the best news I've heard in a long time and I believe.

My once favorite TV show, The X Files, is coming out with a movie sequel. I can't wait. I know this takes away lots of the credibility I've spent the last few years building, but geek reputation or not, I'm going to see this movie.

It's been a long time since I've thought of things like Smoking Man, the Syndicate, Krycek, Skinner, the Lone Gunmen and even my once TV hottie crush Scully . Okay, I'll admit I was young and impressionable, but come on - what was hotter than a red headed chick swinging a gun and carrying an FBI badge? (Other than my wife)

The Entrepreneurial Spirit In The Fall

2007-10-30T22:55:00.000-05:00

Part of an entrepreneurial spirit is the belief that you can do anything. Following that belief is the belief that if you can't do it today, you'll be able to teach yourself by tomorrow.

So, when I discovered that my son loves pumpkin pie I thought to myself, we need to make a pumpkin pie for him to eat. The air is crisp and smells like fall and it's perfect pumpkin pie weather. However, this couldn't be just any pumpkin pie made with canned pumpkin. Oh, no - this had to be a pumpkin pie made from a real pumpkin, fresh from the patch.

The only problem with this was I've never made a pie before in my life. So I got online and found a recipe with instructions on preparing the pumpkin and got to work.

I may not be a professional pie and pastry chef (yet) but it doesn't mean that I couldn't if I worked hard enough at it.

The end result, I have to say, was pretty amazing. But don't take my word for it. Judge by the expression on his face.

Dealing With Difficult Personalities

2007-10-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

I spoke last week to a group on dealing with difficult personalities. I'm not sure if they chose me for that topic because I'm a difficult personality or because I'm good at doing it. But in either case, I thought I'd share my notes.

Dealing with difficult personalities (DP) is an art form. There is never one consistent way it can be done. In math 2+2 always equals 4, but with personalities, sometimes 2+2=4, and sometimes 1+1+2=4, while other times it's 1+3=4.

The first thing you have to learn about DP's is an understanding of general concepts and applied knowledge. You won't be learning a formula that is always the same. You'll be learning some general concepts and then how to apply knowledge from one situation to another.

The second thing you have to learn is that a person with a DP is not someone that is broken or wrong, they simply don't fit in with the majority of opinions or personalities in your small group acting the way they presently do. This is caused primarily by 3 situations - cultural differences, personal insecurities and/or inner turmoil. Understanding what the source of the problem is will help overcome the problems caused by the DP.

The final thing to learn is a basic understanding of how individuals form small groups where these DP's become a problem. There are 4 steps to the creation of a small groups. First proposed by Bruce Tuckman, the stages are:

Forming - people get together, meet and create the group
Storming - people voice personal ideas and opinions and push the limits of the group
Norming - people set the boundaries and establish norms
Performing - the group begins to function effectively

Understanding this process will help place an importance on effectively dealing with the DP earlier instead of later. If you wait weeks to deal with a problem, the group stays in limbo between Storing and Norming and never reaches Performing, which makes for a frustrating and ineffective group. By handling the problem earlier, the group can quickly move to the Performing stage, which is the desired result.

Now with a basic understanding and some background, here are the 3 steps to dealing with difficult personalities.

Establish and understand why there is a problem:

cultural - they don't understand what is socially acceptable
insecurity - they feel insecure and it causes them to react socially unacceptable
inner turmoil - they are going through a rough time in their life which has modified their normally socially acceptable behavior.
Do this by perception and assumption or research by asking them directly.

Formulate a plan:

immediate - done to the group when something potentially harmful to the others in the group has been said or done. This brings an immediate correction to the individual. It has the potential to be harmful so it must be handled correctly and with care.
private - used for most issues - This method respects their self esteem and personal security.
public - if it has a general application that everyone in the group can benefit from if a generic correction is made. This doesn't involve singling the DP out, but addresses the entire group with a corporate issue.

Execute the plan:

Always keep their self-esteem a top priority
Always keep the performance of the group the very top priority. More important than the individual is the group. Don't let the group take second place to the individual. This empowers the individual to continue to cause problems.
Ask yourself, "How will this plan effect the individual / the group?" Think of all of the potential outcomes and prepare for the worst of them. If the worst doesn't happen, then things are better than expected.
Make notes to yourself before confronting. In confrontation, the person being confronted will often want to distract you from your original points, which causes you to be ineffective. Making notes makes your actions deliberate and keeps you on track.
Preface your comments with anticipated objections so you diffuse responses. Giving disclaimers doesn't weaken your position. Instead it provides assurance to them on the front side of things and helps lay the ground work to overcome any misunderstandings. By saying "I don't want you to think we don't like you, but here is the problem..." You have reduced the potential for the individual to become hostile because they are feeling attacked. You have just reassured them that you like them, which implies you wouldn't attack them.
Always reassure them in the end - Restate all of your prefaces again to remind them everything is going to be okay. Something like "I don't know if that came out right, but I want to assure you again that we like you we just don't want this problem anymore."

Remember these things:

If your stuck - ask for help - find someone who can independently provide insight into the problem.
Difficult personalities are the leaf, not the root of the problem. Try to get to the root.
Dealing with people is an art form. Always look for the best way to solve this problem and don't just repeat what worked last time.
You can eliminate most problems by setting the expectations for the group in the forming stage. Then when a problem arises, you can refer to the ground rules of the group.

The Greasy Spoon Review: Conway's Red Top

2007-10-22T16:50:00.000-05:00

It's been almost 2 years since I've done my Greasy Spoon Review, so I thought it was about time to clog the arteries and visit another greasy spoon in Colorado Springs. Besides, I've been working hard to lose weight and I can afford to eat a little carelessly every once in a while.

Conway's Red Top is a typical burger joint with some distinctive throw back decorations to the 1970's. The booths had that great dark wood railing that shouted "I've been watching greasy burgers be devoured here since 1974.

The sign out front features their name sake "Red Top". I must say I was a little confused about this at first, because I was expecting a red roof and not a toy top. Fortunately neither have much to do with taste and the top is kind of cute.

The menu had lots to choose from, but going for the full experience, I knew immediately upon reading the description what I was going to order - the Chili Cheese Burger. When the waitress asked me if I wanted the half or the whole, I paused only to convey the image that I am not a greasy burger eating, fat slob like her other patrons, but instead am a sophisticated connoisseur of tasty foods. Then I said, "Bring me the whole"

You can see from the picture that the whole was definitely whole. Covering the whole dinner plate and more than covered with chili and cheese, I ate and ate and ate, but couldn't eat the whole thing. Of course the order of onion rings and the chocolate malt may have contributed to that as well.

My wife and youngest son are drinking their chocolate shakes. I like it because they serve it right in the metal cup and don't even waste the energy to pour it into another glass. Plastic cups are for sissies. Real greasy spooners drink right from the frosty metal cup.

My Review:
The atmosphere, which always plays an important part in the greasy spoon experience was average. While the decor was old and worn (a plus) it didn't have specific character. Other than the original 1970's booths, there wasn't much that stood out. No gaudy art work or bowling trophy was to be seen. While you could smell and hear the sizzle of grease on the fryer in the back, you couldn't see the food being cooked, which is always a plus in my opinion.

The menu was varied with chicken, burgers, fries, rings and "frings" which is a great idea including a 1/2 order of fries and a 1/2 order of rings. There was dessert, but honestly, you're a monster if you can eat it all and then ask for dessert.

The service was great. Our waitress was friendly and knowledgeable and had a good sense of humor, which always adds to the experience.

Overall, I'd give Conway's Red Top 3 greasy spoons.

Remodeling Project Update: Did It Myself

2007-10-21T22:38:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago, I mentioned my DIY project involving extending a wall and building some cabinets in a dead space. After two and a half months and an estimated 60 hours of man-time, I finally finished it up this past weekend.

Here are some pictures.

Before: You can see the wall above the fireplace is shorter and there is a dead space to the left that is filled with a hutch.

After: The wall above the fireplace is expanded to hold our new 42" flat screen. The dead space with the hutch was filled in with custom cabinets. The top has two niches containing art, the third contains the A/V components. In the middle is our family's fish tank on the left and a pull out DVD storage on the right. Below are 2 cabinets for storage and the lower right contains the sub woofer speaker.

The pull out DVD storage cabinet.

There is definitely something to be said for the sense of accomplishment you get for doing it yourself.

Why I'm Not A Newspaper Reporter

2007-10-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

I had a great lunch with fellow blogger and author Barry Moltz yesterday. However, I quickly came to the conclusion yesterday that perhaps I was not cut out to be a newspaper style reporter with interview questions or perhaps even one of those bloggers that gives you "10 questions with..."

So, I've decided to come up with the 5 reasons why I'm not a newspaper reporter, based on my lunch with Barry yesterday.

I get sidetracked too easily and only remembered once that I wanted to ask some questions to blog about today.
I forgot to bring pen and paper.
We spent more time talking about our families and personal lives than we did anything blog worthy.
I got wrapped up in phone calls and talk radio on the drive to lunch and I forgot to prepare a list of question to ask. (back to the sidetracked too easily issue I think)
I forgot to ask the one question I actually did come up with yesterday.

Good news is, I had a great lunch, enjoyed the conversation we did have and am very excited about the possibility of him coming back in June to speak at our luncheon.

Also, his new book, "Bounce", is on Amazon now, but not for sale yet. Can't wait.

Lunch With Barry Moltz

2007-10-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

Being the "good professor" that I am, I'm taking the time to post this blog in the middle of the mid-term exam I'm giving to my students. As stressful as a mid-term was as a student, I had no concept of how boring it would be for the faculty.

After this, I'm on my way up to the Denver airport to meet Barry Moltz for lunch. I'm a big fan of Barry's and my wife has even criticized me for going to meet with him just because I'm a fan. In reality, I'm meeting with him to discuss the possibility of coming to Colorado for our Small Business Awards Luncheon as the keynote speaker and I'm simply taking advantage of him already being in Colorado for another speaking engagement.

So, on my hour drive north I'm planning on coming up with a list of questions for Barry that I can post tomorrow. I'm thinking something like, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

Okay, maybe something more like, "Your new book, titled "Bounce" is coming out soon. How do you hope it will impact the entrepreneurial community."

The Devil Is In The Details

2007-10-16T15:44:00.000-05:00

There is truth the statement "The Devil is in the details" on many levels, but for me the truth is that Satan himself, pitchfork and all, is the mental image I get when I look at the stack of boring paperwork facing me and the drudgery of follow up that I have to do to wrap up last weeks event.

Top it all off with an accreditation review this afternoon, where for 2 hours I get asked question after question about the details of process and procedure. It's almost like being a kid again and telling your mom that you actually made your bed by neatly pulling up the sheet, then the blanket and then finally the comforter, when in reality, you just flopped the comforter on top and hope she doesn't see the lumps underneath. (unless Jim from the accreditation team is reading this, in which case I not only neatly made my bed, but I also starched the sheets as I ironed them)

I read this article for some insight as to how to survive the details. Hoping for at least some inspiration, the only thing I came away with is the thought that the author probably is one of those retentive Nazis that irons his underwear and has no concept of joy without details.

My final answer is one that we all know. You can enjoy the big picture or you can enjoy the details. If you enjoy the big picture, you can even train yourself to tolerate the details, but in the end you revert back to the big picture. Point being, I have a killer headache all because of the details and I'm now thinking about filing for workman's comp because I've injured my brain from spending so much time looking at details - no not really.

All I want to do is go home, lay on the couch, and see the big moving picture hung on my wall as I close my eyes and sleep.

Birthday At The Melting Pot

2007-10-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

I've been heavy in the business topics for a while and wanted to drift to personal life for a bit.

We went out to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday last night and had a blast. Brought the video camera so I could vlog about it here.

Happy Birthday Teri!!!

Life Got Busy - Then Today Happened

2007-10-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

I've been a little slow on the blogging this week. To put it lightly, life has been running on turbo for the last 10 days.

I've been pulling 12+ hour days for a while so I could get ready for our Small Business Conference, which is an event that we pulled off yesterday. We rented the ballroom and 4 break out rooms at the Crowne Plaza hotel, had 2 key note speakers, 12 breakout sessions, vendor booths and about 5 hours sleep the night before.

On top of that, there was some more bad / sad news that I haven't been writing about, but my wife has over here.

Last night I collapsed into bed at 11:00, and I don't think I moved until 7:30 this morning. However, I must have woke up on the right side of the bed, because today is a great day. I started my day off right, then got some stuff done at work and then took my lunch break to go visit the Colorado Springs Country Club , break in our new membership, have lunch with my wife and even hit a few balls at the range too. After hitting a few balls, she suggested we make a tee time for Sunday afternoon, which was the second best offer a guy can get from his wife ;)

As we walked back to our car, I snapped this picture and was reminded of another reason we moved to Colorado.

The 18th green at CSCC.

Now I just have to get ready for our Baldridge Accreditation Review on Tuesday, which is the biggest review (audit) of the year. But with a day like today, what's the worst that could happen? I might hook one into the trees. It's all in your perspective.

Fill My Eyes With That Double Vision

2007-10-08T12:54:00.001-05:00

I went to the eye doctor today for my regular checkup to learn my eyes are normal as ever.

I don't really mind eye doctors that much. I mean it's not like I'm seeing the proctologist. However, when they get out those dilating drops and want to put them in my eyes I'd rather hear the snap of a rubber glove. I can't stand anything touching my eyes.

Knowing what was in store, I planned ahead and took my laptop with me so I could get some work done while waiting for the drops to take effect, and I knew that when I had to increase the size of my document to 250% to see what I was typing that the drops had taken effect.

The doctor proceeds to shine a light in my eyes that seems like I'm staring into the center of the sun and makes my eyes hurt and water like crazy. And as if that wasn't enough she gets out some kind of magnifying glass which lets her see inside my eye, but also magnifies the light to the equivalent of walking out of a cave and staring into the center of the sun. But, the real fun begins as I try to drive back to the office with my sunglasses on, those hideous eye doctor sunglasses tucked behind my sunglasses and avoiding every reflection off of every piece of glass along the way so I don't become blinded by the glare.

Why has no one developed drops that instantly reverse the dilation process? I asked the doctor - she said there aren't any. I'd pay double my co-pay to get them. Instead, an hour later and I'm sitting at my computer straining to read as I type this post, and impatiently waiting so I can start working again.

Trim Tab Analogy: Making Minor Changes

2007-10-04T13:37:00.000-05:00

Being a person that loves analogies, I had to pass this one along.
When I heard Stephen Covey speak a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned trim tabs. Unless you've spent much time on a boat, you probably aren't familiar with trim tabs , so you can click here and educate yourself if you want.

On a boat, the predominant way to steer is by moving the rudder. This causes the boat to turn left or right, changing the course of the boat. The changes made are usually major ones and involve setting a new course or maneuvering to avoid an obstacle. For these types of changes the rudder is the perfect tool.

However, once a boat is headed on a course, moving the rudder too much can cause problems, like getting off course. Trim tabs however, are used to stabilize the boat and balance it so it moves smoothly through the water. For example, when driving the boat at the lake if someone gets up from the left side and sits on the right side, the weight in the boat shifts and causes everyone to lean to the right because it is unevenly weighted. After a while, this becomes a little uncomfortable, so I make an adjustment to the trim tabs and the boat balances out even again.

From a business perspective, we often think we need to grab the wheel and adjust the rudder every time something changes. We make drastic changes to our plans and our direction because of this and often find ourselves on a totally new course that we never intended to go on and spend a lot of energy dealing with consequences we weren't prepared to deal with.

As a business owner, you are at the helm. You have control of the boat, and you decide how to react to change. I think small business owners are so concerned about making a mistake and missing what will later be called an obvious signal, that they over steer using the rudder at every little shift they experience. Be cautious not to a make major reactive change to something that can be solved with minor adjustments to the trim tabs and retain balance.

Doing What You Were Created To Do

2007-10-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

When I was out running this past weekend, I remembered this story that my friend Ryan told me when we were training to run a marathon. I have no idea if it is true or not or even if it was based on some legend, but it still inspires me, so I thought I'd share it. I can't remember every detail as I was half delirious when I heard it, so I'm filling in the holes in my memory with what sounds good.

There was a young Lakota Sioux who loved to go out and run through the hills. Some times he would run for hours at a time. He loved to run because it was what he felt he was created to do.

As he ran mile upon mile his body would grow tired and he began to wonder how he would ever make it back home, but he kept running anyway. On one particular run he was growing tired and thirsty as the hot sun beat down on the rocky ground making the temperatures rise. Nearly ready to quit, he heard the screech of the red tailed hawk echo off the hills around him and he squinted into the sun to see it's silhouette soaring far above with it's wings spread.

He thought how nice it would be to have wings like the hawk so he could fly home and began wondering how much easier his life would be if he could posses the abilities that the great hawk had. If his eyes were strong enough to see a field mouse from hundreds of feet in the air life would be easier he thought. If I could soar on the wind instead of run step after step stumbling over rocks on the ground, life would be easier. But then, with the wisdom of the tribal elders, the young boy realized that he was not created to be a hawk and soar on the wind, or see from such a great distance. He was created to run on the ground.

His body grew more and more tired as he contemplated this and he continued his journey. After many miles, his body near exhaustion, he spotted the hawk again, circling above, and called out to the creature and asked for its help to give him strength to keep running.

His body ready to quit, he threw his head back, held his arms out and closed his eyes, drawing on the power of the mighty hawk above. For miles he ran like this, feeling the energy grow within him and his strength somehow returned. He was able to finish his journey.

He realized that while he would never fly like the hawk, he could draw on the inspiration of the hawk to do what he was created to do, running as one with his surroundings.

My friend told me this story as we were both feeling exhausted on one of our 14 or 16 mile runs. So, we decided to stretch out our arms and throw our heads back looking skyward. We never closed our eyes for fear we'd get hit by a car or trip on something, but regardless it somehow gave us strength to continue and finish our run.

To this day, and on this day I'm not nearly as fit as I was then, when I feel like stopping when I'm running, I still, for a few seconds stretch my arms out and look up for strength. And to this day I still feel stronger, realizing if I draw on the inspiration around me I'll never quit.

So, with whatever you find yourself struggling, find what you can draw inspiration out of and let it empower you to continue your journey. I'm always amazed at what you can accomplish after you think you can't continue any more.

Prepare For the Worst, Plan For the Best

2007-09-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

I recently heard Donna Childs of Childs Capital, LLC speak about her experiences surviving the attacks on 9/11. She was in the tower when the plane hit, evacuated to her apartment just up the street when it collapsed, and evacuated again to be hurried off the side of the pier and into a boat that took people to New Jersey where she spent the next month living and while trying to keep her small business surviving. She has since started a non profit to help small business recover from disaster.

Why is this important? That's what I thought at first. Let me give you some statistics about business disaster.

Less than 5% of small business claims were settled for what the owners identified as full value.
The Red Cross says that 40% of small business don't reopen / survive after a major disaster.
The Red Cross says that 30% of small business have had a major disaster in the last year.
(A major disaster is defined as having an interruption of business for more than 24 hours)
Having a disaster plan reduces your insurance premium by up to 30%.
The most common disasters are not terrorist attacks or even fires, they are data loss and power outage.

After hearing her speak, I became aware of just how unprepared almost every small business I come into contact with is. I wouldn't even count myself as disaster ready.

If you want to learn how to improve your chances of survival after disaster, check out her book here.

To develop your own Disaster Recovery Plan, consider this:

Set up an emergency response plan and train employees how to carry it out
Write out each step of the plan and assign responsibilities to employees in clear and simple language
Compile a list of important phone numbers and addresses
Decide on a communications strategy to prevent loss of customers
Consider the things you may need initially during the emergency
Human Resources
Physical Resources
Business Community
Protect Your Building
Keep Duplicate Records
Identify critical business activities and the resources needed to support them
Find alternative facilities, equipment and supplies, and locate qualified contractors
Protect computer systems and data

Uninspiring Inspiration

2007-09-25T10:38:00.000-05:00

I recently heard the "15 Survival Strategies for Entrepreneurs" presented at a conference last week. I thought I'd learn something by seeing something from a different perspective and perhaps gain some inspiration. I was only half right.

The strategies presented were: (somehow I ended up with 17 instead of 15)

Be persistent - Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep going
You can't be emotional and logical at the same time - learn to control your emotions
Don't keep all your eggs in one basket - Diversify your clients
Find a way to manage and release your stress
Believe in what you're doing - understand why you're doing it.
Be flexible
Rely on people you trust outside your business
Maintain healthy teams inside the business
No one is irreplaceable
Make a list - What do you want to get done?
Write a journal
Learn to trust your gut instinct
Make tough decisions
Find the spiritual way - it brings peace
Surround yourself with "positivity"
Find angels now - you may need them later
Have patience

I was right in that I saw things from a different perspective, but wrong in that I'd gain any inspiration. What I learned is that just because you write a book on a seemingly motivational topic does not automatically qualify you to present the contents of your book to a room full of people.

I was amazed at one thing, which is the ability the presenter seemed to have to present information as if she were delivering the financial statements at an annual meeting. (Yawn)

The lesson I learned is that just because you can write with inspiration, does not translate into speaking with inspiration. So, as I have now crossed my 3rd year of blogging and have accomplished my first goal, which was to develop my writing skills, I now have to go back and analyze how I will tie together speaking and writing inspirationally.

As leaders, we have to ask ourselves, "Do I inspire?" You have to ask yourself "Does my writing inspire?" and "Does my speaking inspire?" Then remember, just because your answer is yes for one doesn't make the other a yes as well. In today's age of email, blogging and leadership, I think it takes both the ability to speak and write in a way that inspires to become an effective leader.

This Kid Looks How I Feel

2007-09-20T16:06:00.001-05:00

I have been a little absent this week in posting anything. Not because I am short on information, but rather I am short on energy.

Coming off of 3 intensive days of learning and networking with my colleagues I have pages of notes to share in the coming days, but one thing I have never learned is that I'm getting older. While I was once able to sustain the life of a rock star, I am no longer rock star capable and need my beauty sleep. So getting to sleep last night at 3am and waking up at 7:20am has left me in need of some rest.

I promise good posts inspired from my observations at the national conference as well as words of inspiration from Stephen Coven, who spoke to us in our closing session last night.

Until then good nigh..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

When Perception Becomes Reality

2007-09-18T10:04:00.000-05:00

I'm up in Denver this week at our national conference. It's kind of a drag that it's in Denver, just an hour north of home, but it's still okay. Yesterday I sat in on a session presented by Chris Tripoli, restaurant consultant from Houston, Texas.

When he said "Your guest's perception becomes your reality." I was instantly reminded of my days in college when I was waiting tables at Grisanti's. I had this guy sit alone at my table and order the french onion soup. He had this eerie quality about him that all these years later has stayed with me.

When I brought him his soup, I carefully handed it to him and gave my normal disclaimer, "careful this is very hot." As I left, he quickly called me back to the table and said the soup wasn't hot. I apologized, took the soup back to the kitchen and exchanged it for a bowl that came right off the line. It was so hot that I had to use a towel to carry it out to him. I set it on the table and waited for him to eat it. He spooned up a mouthful and as I watched the steam roll off the spoon, he stuffed the entire spoon in his mouth and shook his head saying, it's still cold.

"WHAT THE...!" Is all I could think. "Okay." is all I could say. I carried the scalding bowl back to kitchen and told the expediter the problems I was having. I took another bowl, stuck it in the industrial microwave and ran it until the cheese began to bubble, carried it out and returned a few minutes later saying, "I think I have Satan in my section." He still wanted it hotter.

Again I stuck a new bowl to the microwave and ran it until I thought it was going to explode. Finally Mr. Satan agreed that the bowl of molten lava wasn't quite hot enough for him, but it would be fine. He was tired of waiting. I went back to the kitchen and ran my hands under cold water to soothe the burns I received through the towels I used to carry the bowls out.

His perception that the soup wasn't hot enough became my reality. Regardless that I knew the soup was at least twice as hot as we normally serve it, his perception was that it was cold. So, my reality was the soup was cold.

My thoughts that this guy was Satan became the reality that this guy was my guest and he would get what he wanted. I had to have a dual conversation to satisfy him. One conversation was my perception, the other conversation was my new reality. One of the keys to exceptional customer service is the ability to carry on this dual conversation internally while externally only displaying kind words meeting your guests reality.

What I Learned From My Students

2007-09-13T16:58:00.000-05:00

This past Friday, while sharing the video I posted on Marie Digby, with one of my classes for discussion on the ethics of this marketing campaign, I suddenly found myself sidetracked by the students wanting to show me their favorite YouTube videos.

Two things I have learned from my students:
1. I need more time to do things like watch dumb videos on YouTube.
2. I still have the sense of humor of a college student, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Here are their favorite videos:
The Sneezing Panda -make sure your volume is up a little so you can hear

Soup Nut Shot - the name says it all

The Grape Lady - 100% schadenfreude

The Grape Lady Remix - only if you liked the original

Though not very educational from a starting your business standpoint, I do think it was the most fun we'd had all semester. I can't wait to see what we "learn" tomorrow.

Finding Passion from Passion

2007-09-12T11:56:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you see a story and think, "okay that's nice, whatever" and other times you see something that makes you think "I'm a total slacker with my life and should really do something beyond what I'm currently doing."

This video is the latter. I am beyond impressed with the idea and the results that Muhammad Yunus was able to accomplish with very little resources and a lot of passion. This social entrepreneur is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.

I recently heard Steve Bigari, a local entrepreneurial mogul, say "I don't care what you stand for, just take a stand. If you don't know what you want to stand for, call me. I've got a cause you can stand for."

Motivated by the passion of Yunus, this brings me to my second point. (My first was compared to Yunus, I'm a slacker) How does one go about finding a cause that they can devote their entire life, or at least a good portion of their life to? Is there anything that I am passionate about? Something that makes me take a stand? Is there anything that makes you take a stand?

As I was doing some research to find a way to answer these questions for myself, I came across this article, which discusses the 5 steps to finding your passion. Perhaps a little sterile for such a deep topic, but it at least it provides these tips to help get you started.

Identify what gets you excited. "If you're at a party, and there are people talking in different corners of the room about different subjects, and you overhear somebody talking about a subject that fascinates you so much you want to hang around and listen, what would that subject be?"
Go back to your childhood. (this implies I've left mine)
Take stock of your talents. "You don't love what you're not built to love."
"Shop" on the job. "Wherever you work, take as much time as you can to 'shop' around the various departments. Learn the ropes, and find out what you get a kick out of"
Look at the big picture. "Do I like doing it? Am I good at it? Does the world need it?"

Witty, Cynical and Skeptical People

2007-09-11T10:17:00.000-05:00

Last Friday afternoon, I had the opportunity to sit down with David Haupt, whom you may not be familiar with, but I'm fairly certain you know his work. David, founder of The Onion, came down to give some feedback with a start up company I'm working with. As David helped form the general concepts of how we should market to our clients (newspapers) it was fascinating to hear his anecdotal stories about what it was like in the beginning of the Onion and how that has changed. [David's blog is here]

Over the last 4 years, I've had the fortune of developing a couple relationships with journalists, editors and publishers. Yesterday, as I was at a local event and talking with the publisher and editor of a local paper, it dawned on me that one characteristic all newspaper staff have in common is a dry, witty and cynical sense of humor combined with a skeptical look at the world. The two yesterday, David last Friday, and even a good friend whom I recently reconnected with are all skeptical cynics. In fact, and I think my good friend I'm speaking of would take this as a compliment, he and David were strikingly similar in many ways. They even looked alike, which was a little eerie.

Don't get me wrong, I don't give that description with disdain, instead I say it with sentiment because I think I could easily fit the profile of every newspaper person I've ever met. I am definitely skeptical in many ways and obviously cynical. Some even agree I'm witty, though not everyone thinks those combine to be humorous.

Marie Digby in the WSJ

2007-09-06T16:51:00.000-05:00

Today's issue of the Wall Street Journal has an article by Ethan Smith and Peter Lattman that tells the story of Marie Digby, the musician that has seemingly made it big with home made videos and word of mouth by using YouTube.

Her videos have over 2.3 million views, according to the article, and have been used on MTV's "The Hills". This apparently has culminated with Hollywood Records press release announcing "Break through You Tube Phenomenon Marie Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."

The article then goes on to disclose that in reality, Digby signed with Hollywood Records in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenom. This radio interview continues the portrayal that Digby is an innocent start up nobody that found fame and fortune on accident.

This all brings me to this... Do you consider this a case of genius marketing, or customer deceit? Even if you never knew of her before, would you feel lied to and misled? Or do you now respect the outside the box approach to using the trends of independent music to bring new artists into the mix?

Personally, I deeply appreciate the marketing attempt, but I also see how it might run the risk of back firing on them. If it does, I think it will be a backfire triggered by the media and not the fans. Fans like the product and don't want to know about all the mess of advertising and contracts. The media likes to create the controversy. I guess time will tell.

Labor Day Traditions

2007-09-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

For me, Labor Day has long since been associated with the demolition derby. Growing up, I always went to the metropolitan area of Essex, Iowa to stay with my grandparents and take part in all the great traditions such as the flea market where I could usually talk my parents into buying me something small and junky. Then the parade, which is where I got my inspiration to play the drums would come down the street. Finally the whole weekend was culminated with the demo derby. I would walk up to the dirt field and watch cars smash into each other. WOW! What a rush for a kid to see.

Well, last Friday morning on my way into work, I was the lucky caller to the radio station and won tickets to the Colorado State Fair Demolition Derby. My youngest son, who is more the motor-head than my older son, joined me for the adventure. What a night of twisted metal and flying mud.

I'm glad I could extend the joy of the derby to one more generation on Labor Day.

Venting My Frustrations

2007-08-31T15:47:00.000-05:00

At work we have this copy machine... need I say more before I start venting?

Every time I'm in a crunch to copy something, like I was this morning, I load my paper in the feed tray and hear this stupid "beep beep" with an error message on the screen that says "Please remove original documents from the glass". The problem is I already did. There are no documents on the stupid glass. So, I try again and again, I log out and in and hit clear and reset.

"beep beep"

AAAARRRRGH!!!!!

I finally have to shut the stupid copier down and restart it and hope that its little computer chip brain forgot what an idiot it is and lets me make the copy.

So, in honor of my frustrations, I give to you one of the best clips in all of movie history, honoring my (and probably most of your) copy machine problems.

*** special note that the sound track, while original to the movie, isn't office friendly ***

You can't honestly tell me that at one time in life you haven't felt like doing that... in the last week.

The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

2007-08-29T16:31:00.000-05:00

The second week of class is in session here on campus and college students can be seen scurrying between buildings, carrying backpacks loaded with books. In today's class, Entrepreneurship 100, I had the distinct privilege of educating 44 freshman about mission statements and setting them on their path for success framed with one concept. "Mantra, not Mission for a start up"

The text I'm teaching from came with a DVD loaded with video clips. About the only one I'll use was one from Guy Kawasaki describing the pointlessness of a mission statement for a start up company. As he talks about minds being ruined with the thought that you have to have a mission statement to be successful, I felt somehow, I was doing my part by giving these young and impressionable students the idea that they don't have to have a mission statement to start a company, and perhaps they will never need one. If they do, we had fun in class playing with the now famous Dilbert Mission Statement Generator so they could avoid the two day, off-site process it takes to write one.

You can watch the video clip I used today in class here [link]. Sorry I couldn't embed it for ease, I'm not refined enough to figure out how to pull that off without Youtube's embed code.

Though I've never called it a mantra, the four words I live by easily fit the definition of my mantra. "Work hard - Have fun" I'm interested to see if anyone has a mantra for their life / business or what it might be if you don't have one yet.

On a side note, Guy Kawasaki is giving free autographed copies of his book, "The Art of the Start" by installing Truemors to your Facebook. [Details here]

Beauty Is Not Intelligence

2007-08-27T10:37:00.000-05:00

In the wise words of the Pet Shop Boys, "I've got the brains, you've got the looks, Let's make lots of money."

Never could these words have had such a profound relevance as this past weekend, when the Miss Teen USA pageant aired. I tuned in briefly to see the top ten finalists get named. I don't enjoy anything about beauty pageants. Not because they aren't politically correct, but because they are generally boring. My only motivation for watching is to see if I can correctly identify the winner before the judges announce it. This time I was VERY, VERY, VERY wrong.

As I watched the ten finalists take their place on one of the ten little highlighted circles at center stage, I picked South Carolina to win. In my defense, this was before I heard her speak.

So as you can tell from this video, she might have the looks, but definitely not the brains.

Aside from all of the stammering and misspoken words (which I've edited out of the following quote) caused, no doubt, by the stress of the event, her basic answer for why 20% of Americans can't find the United States on a world map was, "Our education in the US should help South Africa, Iraq and the Asian countries so we can build up our future."

Perhaps a position in military intelligence would fit her well. Think about it for a second. If she thinks that our education system, which has failed to train 20% of our citizens where our own country is on a map, then how confused can we make our potential enemies like China and Iraq. You put Miss South Carolina in charge of that task and we'll have China dropping nukes on Canada and Iraq flying planes into the Eiffel tower, and then reporting to their commanders "We've destroyed the United States."

The good side of this is that the winner was Hilary Cruz - Miss Colorado. I was glad to see she made the top 10, but didn't think she'd win it all. I guess that's why no one's ever called me to judge one of these contests.

The Most Exciting Words To Hear Are "I Have An Idea"

2007-08-23T14:23:00.000-05:00

I love hearing the words, "I have an idea". It means someone has been thinking and all great ideas begin with thinking. So, when I read those words, my eyes perked up and I eagerly read on.

A couple of days ago I got this suggestion for a blog posting and I loved it, so I'm going to start incorporating it into my posts. Here was the idea.

"I have an idea: you should do a business related Q&A... kind of like "Dear Abby" for professionals. I would like to submit the first question..."

So, here is the question and my response:

Dear Matt,

I work in a very small company (under 5 employees), and my boss is extremely chatty. His coffee break usually lasts up to 2 hours, where he stands around and chats about the minutiae of his life, his children's lives, etc., to the smallest detail. I am not opposed to this, as it is his company and he can spend his and our time as he chooses. However, I hate that he pries into my personal life. He asks me on a regular basis, "What did you do last night?" This might seem harmless, but he will literally interrogate me on the details of my life. He just left my office, and he asked me what I did last night (softball game), what was the score, how did I feel about it, did we win, what position does my husband play, is he good, did he have any highlights last night, is this every week, does this interfere with my church meeting schedule (no, we meet on Tuesdays), do we meet every week, etc. I really do not want to share every detail of my life and have come to respond with literally one-word answers, trying to deter him from prying. He doesn't take the hint. It's not that I mind sharing about what I did last night, but on my terms. If I don't want to share, I don't think I should be interrogated. It's too much.Of the other employees, one manages to not say anything (and my boss doesn't ask), and the other shares every little detail of her life. Is there any way that I can approach this and ask him to back off, without being rude or disrespectful? After 3 years on the job, I'm not sure how much more I can take.

No Boundaries in Phoenix

Dear No Boundaries in Phoenix,

What you are dealing with is a how to manage the manager issue. It's actually become a quite common problem within businesses today, as management has become much more flat with more middle managers and starting your own business has become easier and more practical. The consequence of these two things is that people who aren't the best managers get thrust into a position where they are forced to become good managers quickly. As a result, the book shelves at Barnes & Noble are overflowing with books on all kinds of "how to be a better manager" topics.

What your boss is doing, is one of two things. The first, though it's a bit of an overkill, is Managing By Wandering Around or MBWA for short. This technique became popular by Tom Peters' book "In Search of Excellence" and in a nut shell is a technique that HP used to keep a pulse on what was going on by getting up from their desk and going out to see what was going on. Not such a novel idea now, but back in the early 80's this was rocket science to most.

The second thing he might be doing is trying to connect to his employees by making them feel he truly and deeply cares not just about their work performance, but in how they are doing personally. It is important, especially in a small business setting, to keep employee morale high both on and off the job. If problems occur at home, they often bleed into the office, so a boss' involvement into a personal life is becoming more common than it used to, though in this case it might be a bit too zealous.

In either case, the first step in managing a manger is trying to figure out what exactly they want and how can you correct their actions while still providing what they want. In this case I'd suggest that your boss wants more than anything for you to know that he cares about your life outside the office. I'd give him confirmation that you know he cares and you've taken notice how much he cares. In addition, he's obviously one who likes to talk a lot, so I'd give him confirmation verbally instead of an email.

Some things to understand about this are, he probably doesn't know that no one appreciates his interrogation methods, nor does he realize that his attempts to motivate employees is actually back firing.

Imagine a young child wanting approval from her parents because she's cleaned the kitchen table off. The parents didn't ask her to clean the table, and in fact she's probably caused more work by not putting things away in the right spot, spilling the salt shaker on the counter and not washing off the plates in the sink so all the food has dried and made more work for Mom and Dad to do than if she hadn't done anything at all. A crucial moment occurs when the parents react. If the parents recognize the effort given, and the intent behind the effort, and don't blast the kid for the screwed up attempt, then the child's need for approval is met. However, if the parents get angry because now they have to clean up the mess, the child's need isn't met and their self-approval goes down with and she starts looking for attention in different ways, even if it ends up being negative attention in the end.

Your boss is the kid and you are the parent. He wants your approval so bad that he keeps trying harder and harder to get your attention and approval, that he keeps bugging you with things just so he gets some - any attention.

I know this is going to sound counter-intuitive, but give it a try and see what happens. The next time he comes around to give you the "so what did you do this weekend" talk, respond with, "I did (fill in the blank), thanks for asking. You know I've got a ton of work to do and I'm hoping to get it done so I can get out of here on time today, but I want you to know that I appreciate you asking about how things are going. Let me get back to this real quick because I don't want to miss (fill in the blank) tonight, I promise I'll tell you tomorrow how things go tonight."

You've given him the affirmation he wants. You've redirected his attention to tomorrow when you'll give him a 30 second "drive-by" update on what happened last night. And most important, you haven't given him much room to keep taking up your time, because if he truly does care about your life outside the office, then he will respect your time so you can have a life outside the office.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes. Another idea could be to post your report of what great advice I give and how well it worked to solve your problems and make your life better. Even if you have to lie, it's still a good idea!

Matt

Lessons From 14,000 Feet: Part 3

2007-08-22T01:04:00.000-05:00

I've had some pretty vivid dreams in my life, and when medical reasons call for Codeine, I used to get these really strange dreams. But, I've never hallucinated to the point of not being able to tell reality from hallucination. I've talked to people who have used LSD and talked about the effects of it, but never really understood what it meant to hallucinate until I was in the last half mile of the ascent.

Because of my physical conditions, my eyes weren't focusing well. It wasn't like I was losing my vision, but things were a little fuzzy around the edges and I had to really concentrate to focus my sight on something. So, as I climbed hand over hand up boulders, my eyes looked at the granite chunks of rock that my feet were treading on.

As I stepped over one small gap between the rocks, I looked down and noticed a fuzzy caterpillar wriggling in the shady spot caused by the rock in front of it. I moved my other foot up and started climbing when I thought to myself that it was kind of strange to see a caterpillar up so high. Being the curious and ever inquisitive person that I am, I backed down the rock to get a closer look at this future butterfly. It took a second for my eyes to lock on it when I realized that it wasn't a caterpillar at all, and it certainly wasn't moving. It was part of the rock itself. Thousands of years ago, some kind of mineral deposit made a black spot in the granite, which to be honest looked nothing like a caterpillar at all.

A couple of more minutes passed and I was struggling for the top when I noticed another caterpillar, this one crawling across the rock in that way caterpillars kind of bunch up, then stretch out. Surprised to see another caterpillar this high, I stopped to look, when I remembered that there was no first one, so this couldn't be another one. Sure enough after I shook my head, blinked hard and forced myself to focus it turned out to be another black spot in the rock.

Fortunately for me, I was seeing fuzzy, cute caterpillars and not some kind of scary snake that was chasing me off the mountain. However, it still spook me a little to think I'd pushed myself that hard.

The business analogy in the story is that when you are pushing yourself hard to grow, or especially save your business, you think you are becoming acutely aware of every little detail that is important. At the rapidly quickening pace you are traveling, you find yourself noticing all kinds of potential problems or solutions or things that you think are important. You are sure that you have some kind of hyper-sensitive super power to zoom in on the exact detail that needs to be paid attention to so that you can turn your company around or take it to the next level.

In reality, your mind is playing tricks on you. You really don't see what you think you see. Your brain wants to find the solution so badly that it begins to connect dots that shouldn't be connected. In essence, in your state of fatigue and/or panic, you begin to see caterpillars, when all that is there is a naturally occurring dark spot on a rock.

The key to surviving this isn't avoiding seeing the caterpillar, it's going to happen to most people. The key is to carefully analyze each caterpillar, forcing yourself to focus on it - analyzing it. If you still see a caterpillar, then get a second opinion. In your current state of mind, you may not be able to focus hard enough to separate reality from hallucination, where an independent set of eyes will bring a different perspective.

Perhaps it really is a caterpillar, but nothing would be worse than acting on something that doesn't really exist.

Lessons From 14,000 Feet: Part 2

2007-08-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, if only I'd packed my laptop, or a voice recorder with me I could have had 20 parts to this series of lessons learned at 14,000 feet, but alas, when your brain is oxygen deprived you tend to forget and I have managed to forget all of them except 4.

The second lesson I learned is that when you start your journey, in my case an 11-1/2 mile journey, things start out easy. We walked along up the hill with energy and excitement about the day. We took notice of everything around us. Squirrels were cute, trees were pretty, the morning sun shining through the aspens with a golden radiance that seemed magical. However, as the morning progressed, the pace slowed and the pulse rate quickened as the fun and exciting journey became a burden. It was no longer fun. There was talk of quitting and how much longer could this go on. The end was often no where in sight, hidden by obstacles, trees and rocks. We literally had to force ourselves to take the next steps.

The analogy of business is that our hike is like all of the people starting their businesses. In the beginning, things seem fun and exciting. Everyone has dreams of making it to the top looking out at the vast world from a sense of accomplishment. However, as people encounter obstacles and the journey becomes more difficult, people quickly loose sight of the objectives they once had. They stop thinking about how much fun it was in the beginning and only think about how hard it is right now. Many quit and give up, never making the summit.

My brother-in-law asked me if at any time I ever thought I wasn't going to make it. The question never even crossed my mind and I was surprised to realize that not once in the entire climb (even while puking) did I even wonder could I keep going or was I ever going to see the top of this mountain. It was something I set out to do and it was something I was going to accomplish.

That unquestioned determination is what it takes to be an entrepreneur. You have to start with your goal in mind, and you have to stay so focused on reaching it that you never once question whether or not it is possible.

If my father told me once he's told me a thousand times that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. So can you.

Lessons Learned at 14,000 Feet: Part 1

2007-08-15T10:27:00.000-05:00

When your body is dehydrated, exhausted and oxygen deprived somehow things become clearer, or perhaps they go so far around the distortion circle they seem to become clearer again. Maybe I'm still a little delusional because that makes no sense.

My point is this, as I was walking up Mount Shavano I crossed the tree line which was about 12,000 feet in elevation at 9:00am, I was totally exhausted. I hadn't had anything to eat since my bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal at 6:00am and realized that I should probably feed myself something for some energy as I was burning calories fast.

My pulse rate was around 160bpm as I sat resting on a rock and sipped some water while I ate dehydrated fruit from my zip lock baggie. After a few minutes my pulse rate dropped enough that I felt pretty good again and started walking. As the sugar from the fruit kicked in, I felt a sudden burst of energy and started walking faster and faster. After 20 minutes of a quick pace, climbing higher and higher I spotted a rock about 300 yards ahead on the trail and told my brother in law that it looks like a good place for a rest. As I approached our resting place, I suddenly felt a little queasy and instantly recognized that I was going to puke.

From all my years of running, I knew what it felt like to run until you puke, so this was not a new feeling for me. However, it was new from the standpoint of all I did to get to this point was to simply walk. A few quick breathing techniques to prolong the inevitable until I could get my pack off and get situated and then BLAAACHHHHGH!!! From that point on I felt great and never got sick again.

Not only is that a nice story, but it has a purpose too. Kind of an Aesop's fable sort of meaning behind it. Just as I was aware enough to recognize that I was going to get sick, you have to be aware enough to recognize when things in your business aren't going as well as they should be. Sometimes your body just needs to clear out what's inside and start fresh. A business can get sick and sometimes all that is left to do is launch out what is making it sick.

This sickness could be from lots of different things: bad employees, bad financial management, bad contractors to name a few. What makes you sick isn't the most important thing at first. The most important thing at first is to realize that you're going to puke.

The lesson from 14,000 feet is this. If you feel like you're going to puke, you probably will.

If you feel like something isn't going right in your business, it probably isn't.

If you know you're going to puke, take the time to assess the situation, find the most appropriate place for this to happen and brace yourself, but dont' fight it.

If you know your business is sick, take some time to figure out why, determine the best way to remove the sickness and let it go.

Businesses owners have a tendency to hold on to what makes them sick. For all the risk they endure, they don't want to let go and risk change, but sometimes launching a bowl of oatmeal is what is required to make things better.

On a side note, I still like oatmeal, just not so sure how much I'll be eating apple Cinnamon in the near future.

Climbing a Fourteener

2007-08-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

This past weekend my brother-in-law and I headed out to take the first step in a long-term goal we set together.

In the state of Colorado, there are 54 mountain peaks that are over 14,000 feet tall. We decided we wanted to climb them all. So, we started by selecting two peaks that we could climb in the same day, packed our backpacks and drove out.

Mount Shavano and Tabeguache Peak were the first two to experience our hiking boots on them. It was a great experience, though a grueling physical challenge, perhaps the toughest I've ever had. While running a marathon was tough, it didn't last 10 hours. I've got some great stories to tell and lessons learned from 14 thousand feet that I will share later, but for now, here are some pictures of the event.

This is us on top of Mount Shavano. Some guy, who took our picture, handed us this piece of cardboard with the mountain's name and information on it. I'm not sure where he found cardboard at 14,000 feet, but it makes us look like a couple of homeless guys trying to hitch a ride to Denver.

Here we are on top of Tabeguache Peak. By the way, check out my cool hat. I got it or Father's Day this summer in anticipation of climb. Not only is it stylish, but it is extremely practical as the sun is much more intense at 14,000 feet and will actually cause your head to blister if you don't wear a hat. Trust me... or better yet, trust my brother in law (the one without the hat).

I'll post more this week about my experiences puking and hallucinating and how that relates to business. I've got some other lessons I learned, and will pass them along as well as some more great pictures of the beautiful views.

Maybe Next Year

2007-08-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Nothing to do with Business. This is strictly an attempt to obtain comments from my soon to be jealous readers.

Tonight, I am on my way to Denver with my wife and good friends from Wisconsin to see the Colorado Rockies play the Chicago Cubs. We got great seats down the third base line and with any luck I'll be able to bring home a foul ball.

Perhaps those of you (you know who you are) who like the Cubbies and keep saying how fun it would be to come out and visit us, will actually find the time next summer to come visit when the Cubs are in town.

Maybe next year will be the year. If not, maybe the year after that, or the one after that. Certainly it won't be more than another 5 or 6 years will it?

Molding Young Minds

2007-08-08T18:03:00.001-05:00

I just found out last night at 9:30 that I'm going to be teaching a class here at the University on entrepreneurship this fall semester. So, not only do I get to impact / pollute (you decide which is more correct) the minds in the community, but I also get to have that same effect on college students. This will be my second year of teaching BYOB (Be Your Own Boss) to a bunch of freshmen and now this class will involve the entrepreneurial side of technology firms as part of our new Bachelors of Innovation program.

Honestly, I cant think of a more appropriate topic to teach to college students today. This article talks about how today's generation is perhaps more entrepreneurial than any other before it. Saying that the college campus is now a fertile breeding ground for company builders says a lot about our young minds.

Jeff Cornwall, the Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville is quoted saying, "Forty percent or more of students who come into our undergraduate entrepreneurship program as freshmen already have a business."

When I was 18 I didn't even know what I wanted to do, much less have a company started to do it. Kudos to the young kids.

The Cost of Doing Business

2007-08-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

I got this email from my good friend who was the best man in my wedding. We were exchanging email back and forth and reminiscing about the good old days.

[you are] Giving me flashbacks with all that talk about AIT, Duane and Jennifer - man, she was cute, little anal retentive though (like Kari wasn't.) Weren't we trying to blow up fish in Duane's pond that trip too? Any idea of what he and Mike doing now? Soooooo many good times! Camping at Arrowhead, going to Iowa games with you and your folks, Model UN trips which were basically about checking out brainiac girls, torturing Fiscus and Martin constantly, joining the cross-country team with you (sorry - at least I joined the golf team though - and sucked!) That party at your place before I left for Basic is still the best sending-off I've ever had, and definitely helped keep me going during that 10 weeks of hell. I remember getting back and laughing because I had no hair, and you had more-or-less a curly-haired afro. All things considered though, we really were pretty good kids back then, eh? We didn't really drink, never touched a drug, never got suspended from school (more than a few detentions though!). Hope our kids are as good as we were when they hit their teens.

Reading this, and then re-reading it about 3 times made me think about how much different my life was back then and how much different I imagined my life to be now. At age 16 I was going to never grow up. I was always going to blow with the wind and be carefree until the day I died and wear my curly haired afro til the day I died. Somewhere along the way, I came to the conclusion that I had to grow up if I wanted certain things in life.

So, along the way, I sold off portions of carefree and cut my hair (or maybe it just fell out) for more responsibility and something I wanted more than being able to spend a whole day doing nothing. I'm not sad about it. I knew what I was doing and would never want to go back with my receipt and try to get a refund. It was a necessary expense to get what I wanted more than to be carefree. It was the cost of doing business.

Now here's the business analogy. When you started your business, did you say to yourself, "I'm always going to provide the best quality at the best prices possible." Did you make promises that you would always serve the customer no matter what? Did you swear on a stack of Bibles that you would never cut corners no matter what the savings and you were going to donate a percentage of your business to a charity - you probably even had the charity picked out before your first sale.

Most entrepreneurs make these kind of 'curly haired afro' promises to themselves. But, the difficulty is that as you get into your business, things like cash flow and that pesky Accounts Payable keep trying to take a priority over your promises.

What makes this hard is when we hear the successful business owner talk about how they made a commitment to customer service, or some other promise you tried making but haven't been able to keep, and that's why they are so successful. Just remember, it's easy to talk a big talk when you're making money hand over fist. But, when you're in the trenches trying to make payroll by Friday so your employees come back to work on Monday and you can keep your clients, it is much harder said than done.

So, while lofty ideals are good to start with, don't be discouraged if you find yourself in the predicament of cutting a corner or two to get the job done. Remember the old saying, "If you shoot for moon and miss you'll be among the stars." Which isn't such a bad thing either, it is just part of the cost of doing business.

Remodeling Project DIY Style

2007-07-31T22:41:00.000-05:00

Well, all that DIY television has really added up to some progress. Sure, it has had its toll. Now my wife limits the amount of Norm, Tommy and Bob that I get to watch, but the trade off is that I get motivation from my good DIY pioneering friends 24/7.

The first task was the area above our fire place. I said the TV we have is fine, and my wife was arguing to get a 50" flat screen. I kept saying, "No honey, we don't need a bigger TV." while she kept saying, "I want a huge flat screen TV that I can hang on the wall."

Of course she won that argument (and almost every other one we've ever had). And why do I feel that something is wrong when the husband is saying we don't need a bigger TV and the wife is saying, but football starts in a month and I want a huge flat screen to watch it on?

So, the picture below shows, from left to right, the fire place in our living room and how I removed the wall, then framed in an extension so we can hang sheet rock providing an extension big enough to put a 42" LCD TV on it. It wasn't a total killing in the argument department as I got her down to a 42".

On the left where that hutch is, I'm going to build in some cabinetry with a slide out storage case for CD's and DVD's - can't wait!

Once that was done, we had to have a place to put our TV, which I thought was big enough for upstairs, but is now becoming our "downstairs rec-room TV". Since we didn't have a downstairs rec room, this required removing a wall and the two electrical outlets, moving the light switch to another wall and the cable outlet to a different too.

So, this picture shows from left to right 3 images of the wall, the studs after sheet rock is gone and the end result, with the old furniture. I'm sure there will be another argument that I'll lose about getting new furniture too.

While I was at it, I did manage to run speaker wire just in case we decide to later put surround sound in place.

I love DIY projects and the guys coming to hang the sheet rock and texture above the fireplace and the ceiling and wall sections that I removed are coming Wednesday. While I can hang the walls if there isn't a texture, our walls have an egg shell texture and the $300 they are charging us is well worth the migraine it would have given me trying to match the walls.

I'll post more pictures once it's all done.

*** I just got off the phone with my wife who said it's all done - so once she gets it painted pictures will be posted ***

The Simpsons Movie Was a "Doh"

2007-07-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

Despite my mother's upbringing, I have long ago turned to watching the Simpsons and find it one of my favorite shows. (sorry mom, I know you raised me better than that, but at least I said no to drugs) Though I don't get to watch it much, I try to tune in as often as time allows.

So, when I heard that the movie was coming out, I was incredibly excited and loved every moment of the trailer. You could often times hear me singing "Spider pig, Spider pig, does what ever a spider pig does."

Knowing I would have to wait a long time to ever see this movie, I made a deal with my wife that I'd see Hairspray with her if she'd see the Simpsons with me. Secretly, I wanted to see Hairspray anyway, so it was a clever, if not fiendish deal on my part.

Earlier this week, we dropped the kids off for some child care while I went with my wife to collect on my deal. My review is this, I actually liked Hairspray better. Sure there were a few funny parts, but I actually find myself laughing harder at the TV show than I ever did at the movie. Perhaps it was a case of over anticipation brought on by the month long bombardment of promotions everywhere or maybe it just wasn't that great. I honestly can't remember laughing much past the part where Green Day stops to preach about the environment and the floating stage they were on corrodes in the polluted water and they sink like the Titanic. Okay that was funny, but after that there just wasn't that much. Oh yeah, Bart accepting the dare from Homer to ride his skateboard naked was pretty funny too, but I'm digressing. My point is that the last 50 minutes of the movie were pretty drab.

I did stay until the end to watch the credits and hear Maggie's first word, which was "Sequel". Hopefully the sequel will be better than the first try.

Sorry Homer, my friend, but that's just how I feel.

Don't Let Your Product Be Mistaken

2007-07-30T01:16:00.000-05:00

Why should you make sure your product or service is distinguishable from your competitor's? I'll give you one reason. You don't want to lose sales because of mistaken identity.

Think about this. Have you ever noticed how some websites use very common names with slightly different spellings in order to capitalize on the more commonly used website to drive traffic to them? Think http://www.whitehouse.gov/ I'm sure most of you have at one time or another in haste typed in the wrong address and ended up at a not so family oriented website.

Another example is the notorious fake Rolex watch. Of course, most people in the market to spend a couple of grand on a watch, don't shop from guys displaying them in a trench coat, but the idea is the same.

I had this problem of mistaken identity happen Friday afternoon when I was at home and my phone vibrated telling me I had an email from work. I popped it open and began reading, then repeated aloud to my wife what I had just read, which went...

Dear UCCS
students, staff, and faculty:
The UCCS Police Department has just received a report of lewd behavior near the campus. According to the witness, they observed a white male, mid-30’s, heavy set, dark hair, who was...

At this point I mumbled the words so my kids, who were in the room couldn't understand what I was reading and was motioning to my wife to keep reading the rest of the email which read...

mid-30's, heavy set, dark hair, who was naked and masturbating. This unknown male was near the dirt trail that leads from Austin Bluffs Parkway south sidewalk to the Cragmor neighborhood just south of the UCCS parking garage.

We both kind of rolled our eyes at each other thinking what kind of deranged idiot would do that when my youngest son piped up and said, "Daddy that's you they're talking about!"

While I am a white male, mid-30's, heavy set and dark hair, there was one important feature of that other guy that was different than me.

Make sure your customers know what the important, distinguishing characteristic your product or service has that your competition doesn't have.

A Delightfully Tacky Yet Unrefined Employee Handbook

2007-07-26T11:27:00.000-05:00

At one time in my life I thought I wanted to go into human resources. I eventually changed my focus, but I still love learning all the employment laws. I'm kind of a geek like that, but it's a hobby.

Recently I started helping a business with an employee handbook. Acknowledging that plagiarism is the highest form of flattery, I started by doing some research on similar industry employee handbooks. As I was browsing through samples, I came across the Hooters Employee Handbook.

A lot of time is spent discussing the physical appearance of the Hooter's girls. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.

Our look is wholesome, yet sexy.
Approved name tags are to be worn at all times on the left side of the Hooters Girl uniform. No provocative nicknames are to be used.
The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace

WOW! That's a far cry from the usual "be at your desk, prepared to work at the start of your shift" and "limit personal calls to break time" that most employee handbooks have.

Well, I guess it could be worse, your employee handbook could say something like "The entertainer with the least amount of clothes on has control of the stage" or "You may drink while on your shift, but do not get falling down drunk."

Divapreneurs

2007-07-17T15:31:00.000-05:00

I just got the first three issues of a new magazine sent to me by the publisher to help them promote their publication to my clients who might be potential subscribers.

The magazine, called "Divapreneurs" with the tag line "Committed to Colorado's Business Women" seems to be a good resource for women business owners. The name is catchy and obviously makes the connection of women and business owner. After reading the cover letter and thumbing through a few of the articles, I got the feel for the type of articles they were going to be writing and who they were targeting.

I then closed the issues and laid them down, and noticed something I thought was peculiar on the covers of each of the magazines. You can make your own assessment of who you think their target market is by browsing through the online magazine here. My opinion is that I don't think the magazine cover is on target for who they are marketing toward.

These are the covers of the first three issues of the magazine. Without reading anything inside, my first inclination is it's a business version of Maxim Magazine. It appears that they are promoting long, tan legs in high heels instead of business women in Colorado. As a result I would imagine that more men than women would pick up the magazine based on the picture.

As a male I am required to stay relatively neutral on issues such as women's rights and what's appropriate in the workplace between men and women. For the most part, this gets dictated to me by lawyers and other women across the country. However, in my ignorant male mind, it seems a step backward for women to be self publishing a magazine about women in the business world where women have been long thought of as sexy secretaries and executives who have slept their way to the top and then put images related to that stereotype on the cover. I especially think they've missed their audience because the women featured in the articles of the magazine, while are nice looking, aren't exactly the modelesque figures on the cover.

But, what do I know, I'm just a dumb guy who doesn't understand women anyway. What could I possibly know. Oh wait, this article (written by a woman) uses the definition of a divapreneur as "a talented and confident woman, who undertakes and operates a new venture, and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks"

Again, I didn't know that talented and confident required long tan legs, but I'll sure make note of that the next time I go to hire a talented, confident individual.

The Influence of Product Placement

2007-07-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

We recently added the upgrade package for Direct TV, which includes the DIY channel. Being a DIY kind of guy, I was bordering on the little kid on Christmas morning kind of excited when we got it. My hero Norm Abram and all the guys from This Old House have become my new best friends. I asked Tommy if he wanted to come over for dinner this weekend, but he went to commercial and must have gotten distracted because he never answered me when he came back.

Needless to say, my happiness level just went up a few points and my motivation level has gone up as well. My lovely wife has even started watching with me. Since getting the DIY channel, I've finished the flower box for my wife's flowers to go in and I hung it nicely under the window on our front porch. We also have plans to remodel our living room and even tear out a wall in our basement.

I told my wife I'd need to have a reciprocating saw to take that wall down, and she didn't argue once. Thank you DIY Network! Because of your influence, I get new tools, my wife gets a new living room and our marriage got better.

My real point is that the DIY Network is a perfect example of how television programming can be more of an influence to buy a product than the actual advertisement is. Sure there are all kinds of advertisements during the shows, but I'm motivated to pay attention to the ads based on what is happening in the show. If I just saw Tom Silva take a wall out with a reciprocating saw, then Milwaukee advertises their saw, I am more motivated to watch the ad and then buy that brand than I am to buy whatever brand of toilet paper they advertise.

It makes me wonder if in the next 10 years with DVR's becoming so prevalent and advertisers losing out on the market to present a commercial, if we will begin to see shows actually become commercial free, but loaded with product placements. Perhaps companies such as Lowe's or Home Depot will actually have a television production studio some day where they go from sponsoring to producing a show.

This article by PQ Media talks about the 37% growth in product placement in 2006 and the new media order that has brought about alternative advertising and marketing strategies.

A New Twist on Old Marketing

2007-07-13T11:55:00.000-05:00

One of the oldest grocery item marketing concepts is the "New and Improved" product. Everything from soap to lipstick to microwave popcorn has been new and improved at one time.
While this article from the Motley Fool explains that New and Improved doesn't always mean that much, as I sat down to eat my morning cereal I found a new twist on an old marketing concept.

My wife, being the great mother she is bought my kids the new Limited Edition Spider Man 3 cereal. This is a new product, isn't it? I mean the movie just came out this summer, so how could you possibly have a new and improved version when the character on the box is new? A great question, I'm glad you asked it.

Well as I poured my first of 2 bowls, I was instantly taken back to being about 10 years old at my grandma's house, where she always spoiled me by buying me that sugar cereal my parents would never let me have. I loved eating Smurf-Berry Crunch. Mmmmm, I loved it. I would eat all of the red ones first and leave the blue ones last. Almost like I was Gargamel, I would chase the little blue ones around my cereal bowl and eat them like Gargamel always wanted to eat Smurfs. (But not Smurfette, she was hot)

So take notice of the two cereals. They look strikingly similar I think. Granted Smurf-Berry Crunch was a Post cereal and Spiderman 3 is General Mills, but there couldn't have been much creativity in copying one cereal to another and slapping a cool new box on it.

Honestly, I don't care if it was a blatant copyright infringement as a result of industrial espionage, I'm just glad to have my Smurf-Berry Crunch back in my cereal bowl.

Entrepreneurial Success

2007-07-10T12:24:00.000-05:00

I just came across this article in the Spring issue of the JCI Leader magazine. Evidently it was originally published in Entrepreneur magazine, but I mention JCI only to plug them as a neat organization with some great resources for the young entrepreneur.

The article, 7 Secrets to Success by Brian Tracy is one of those articles that when you read it you are continually saying to yourself, "Yeah I knew that." But, later you are asking yourself "Why don't I practice that?"

Brian's 7 steps are:

Clarity: You must be absolutely clear on who you are and what you want.
Competence: You must resolve to join the top 10 percent in your field.
Constraints: Your ability to identify the most important factor that determines the speed at which you achieve your business goals is essential to your success.
Creativity: The essence of successful business is innovation.
Concentration: Your ability to concentrate single-mindedly on the most important thing and stay at it until it is complete is an essential prerequisite for success.
Courage: It takes tremendous courage to take the entrepreneurial risks to become wealthy.
Continuous Action: The entrepreneur is always trying new things and, if they don't work, trying something else.

Some excellent points to immediately implement in life regardless whether success is in business or personal life, it all applies. Plus they all start with the letter "C". Doesn't that just scream "I should be extra motivated and I have to do this now?"

Politics are Funny

2007-07-09T17:41:00.000-05:00

All politics aside (this is not a political blog) I love a guy who can laugh at himself.
Whatever your political affiliation, I think you'll laugh at least once by watching this.

Thanks Mr. Goodpost for the link.

There is No "I" in Team

2007-07-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

Every one who has ever played any sport as a kid growing up has heard the saying that There is no "I" in Team. Which was probably followed by the old "TEAM - Together Everyone Accomplishes More" line.

Well, as corny as those sayings are, they are true. Tonight marked the last game of our soft ball league even though there are 5 more games to play. Despite my great rookie pitching season, it's kind of hard to field a team when only half of your teammates show up. One decided that it would be better to babysit tonight than to show up then we had to recruit 3 others out of the stands. As a result, we only fielded 8, instead of 10. Not that it would have made much difference. We got pounded 12 to 2 and were given mercy in the 5th inning.

So, while some team members would rather baby sit, I'd rather not. So I'm throwing in the towel and forfeiting the rest of the games.

Always looking for the bright side of things, I found this and realized my loser season could have been much worse.

It's Rocket Science

2007-07-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

"Rocket science isn't rocket science to a rocket scientist."

That's what a client told me this morning when I commented that while his business model seemed viable, I wasn't able to give much advice on the technical aspects of what he was doing, which was literally rocket science.

His statement reinforced three things for me.

I don't want to be a rocket scientist - When I was back in high school working on physics, trigonometry and calculus problems, my dad would help me with my homework. At the time I wanted to be an aerospace engineer and design space ships. When I'd miss a problem, my dad would say, "Looks like your space shuttle just crashed." Fortunately for me, and probably dozens of future astronauts, I switched to business. Though I liked the idea of space, flight and all things engineer related, it wasn't my true passion. Finding my true passion is what makes business so fun and easy for me and what makes rocket science so fun and easy for a rocket scientist.

I don't need to be a rocket scientist - What ever the next project is that I get involved in at work or at home, I don't need to be the expert in a new field to be successful at it. I have to be an expert in something, but there is no way for me to be an expert in everything. Instead, I need to go find the expert, the rocket scientist, who can solve my problems in their sleep while I would have to stay up many late nights trying to learn and then implement what is routine for them. I don't need to be a rocket scientist, I need to be a rocket scientist magnet where I am able to find and attract what it is I need.

Leading from your strengths is not a fad - The whole idea of First Break All The Rules or any of the subsequent books and articles that came out about not trying to improve on what you aren't any good at, seemed to reach critical mass a few years ago. I wondered if it would be the latest addition to many piles of once best sellers like the One Minute Manager that have now become pass'e. I realized that this won't be a trend that will later end up on the pile of used to be hot books, but has the staying power of a principle of business. One like the Peter Principle or the Pareto Principle that become quoted and referenced in all of the next generation business fad books. Finding your rocket scientist to complement your weaknesses is a principle of business not a business fad.

Twisted, Demented and Warped

2007-07-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

Losing the focus of business in the summer months, I thought I'd share some personal insight. Be careful though, what you see might frighten you.

My personality has been called many things: twisted, demented and warped are a few of the endearments I get from family members. Part of this is deserved because I tend to think half a click off sometimes.

One thing I recently admitted was that I hate being deceived. This is true for most of us, but what makes me twisted is that I get great satisfaction from deceiving others. I don't like maliciously deceiving others, but I love it when I can bluff my hand in pinochle, or lead someone on who is not gullible, and make buy my story long enough for me to drop the punchline and tease them. For example, in my previous life as a pastor, we had a bunch of people over to our house for dinner. The conversation turned to how old we all were when we married. I said we were 19 and 20 years old. I could feel the line go taught as they nibbled the bait as I saw the surprise that we were so young, so I followed that up with the statement by setting the hook and saying, "Well we had to get married so young because she was pregnant."

The look on their faces was priceless as they were all trying to figure out how they could escape this incredibly awkward situation of their pastor admitting this so candidly after they had so openly shown surprise that I was so young when I married. Twisted - maybe, but I still laugh when I think about the look on their face. So now you understand what I mean by deception.

I think I get this joy from the feeling of superior intellect that I get in that one situation. Somehow it makes me feel like I got the upper hand over them and I've established myself as the better trickster. As a result of this, I hate being deceived in the same way. Where certain people can't stand to loose, I can't stand to be deceived. I hate surprise birthday parties and other such things.

This all come to the surface again when I was recently reminded of a time when I was deceived for nine months by a previous employer. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning analyzing events that occurred years ago and wondering where I missed the signs and how I could have been deceived for so long. To this day it still bugs me.

So there you have it. A look into the mind of a person with a twisted, demented and warped personality.

Springfield, Colora-DOH

2007-07-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

July 27th marks the opening of what I'm going to call the greatest epic movie since Gone With the Wind. More action than all six Star Wars movies and better cinematography than Brokeback Mountain.

In a fortunate twist of fate, our very own Springfield, Colorado has been afforded the chance to host the premier of this movie.

Please click here and cast your vote. We already claim South Park, we might as well get the Simpsons too.

Also, make sure you click on our promotional video. You'll see some great reasons why we deserve your vote, as well as a cameo by Napoleon Dynamite.

Pursue the Passion

2007-06-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

The argument of whether or not passion for your job should be the deciding factor in job satisfaction is not one that is completely settled with me. Perhaps I'm a little crispy after I came to the realization that being happy with my job doesn't make the rest of my life joyful. Maybe that's just me.

Pursue the Passion is an attempt to understand why only 50% of America likes their job and 20% applies passion in their job.

"Pursue the Passion addresses this issue by interviewing people who are propelled by a love for their work. From these interviews, our mission is to assist aspiring individuals to find work they can be passionate about by producing resources that help direct and guide their pursuit."

If you're passionate about your job, or know someone who is, share your story and schedule an interview and become part of the project.

It's a neat concept, though not entirely unique.

The question, which came up in a discussion panel I was part of yesterday is this: Should you follow passion or money when finding a job? I would spin this a little and give it a broader focus by suggesting you should follow your passion in life first. If that's your job then so be it, but if it is family, recreation or something else like travel, then use your job as a tool to fulfill your passion in that area.

*** I would have put a nice picture of something up at the top, but have you ever Google image searched the word "passion" before? Hence the reason for no picture. ***

Applying Business to Golf

2007-06-24T22:26:00.000-05:00

Like always on vacation, I took with me 3 books that I intended to read. Like always, I read less than one chapter in only one of the three books. The book, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, by Dr. Bob Rotella explains the mental edge that professional golfers have that many nonprofessional duffers don’t have.

In the 9th chapter (I already read the first 8 before vacation) he tells of his work with a young professional golfer who just finished shooting a 73.

“I told him that I didn’t look at length off the tee when I assessed potential. I want to know how strong a player’s mind is and how well he plays the scoring game with his wedges and his putter.”

He went on to explain to this golfer that after reviewing his round of 73 he determined that all of his strokes except 9 fell into one of 3 categories: drives, wedges and puts. Throw out the 14 drives and he played 50 strokes with his wedge or putter. After reading this, my first reaction to this was next time I go to the range, I’m leaving my driver in the bag and hitting only my wedges. My next thought was "but I love hitting my driver and it really needs some work.”

This is the reason that I, like so many others remain average at golf and never become better. We spend a majority of our time on something that doesn’t help improve our game. In this professional’s circumstance 68% of his shots were used with clubs the average person doesn’t like to practice hitting.

Now, 68% isn’t quite 80%, but I think the number is close enough to resemble an 80:20 ratio we’ve all heard of before where we spend 20% of our time working on things that become 80% of our productivity and 80% of our time on 20% productivity.

This well known principle has been quoted, cited and rehearsed at about every business conference ever conducted. It is for this reason that I feel leaving work a little early Monday to play golf with business leaders in the community at this course is perfectly acceptable. It’s not golf. It’s the application of a widely accepted business principle amongst a focus group of executives.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I'm a Leavin on a Jet Plane

2007-06-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

Folks, I'm headed out of town for a few days for some much needed family vacation time. I'm heading to beautiful, humid, hot and mosquito infested Missouri where my parents have just finished building their retirement home on the Lake of the Ozarks.

We're looking forward to seeing them and the new house and hearing all the stories about building a house.

I'll try to blog a few times while I'm gone, but literally the house is so new that Internet isn't being hooked up until Saturday, so no guarantees.

In the meantime, here are some recent things I've come across that might interest you.

Ben Casnocha posted about this article on a Navy SEAL's account of being the only survivor of his team. An inspiring story, but I had to question what the underlying message to it was. Any ideas on that?

My kids want a Nintendo Wii. I was poking around researching them and came across this. My only thought was, I need a lot more time in my day to do stuff like this and then even more time to make a video about it.

Now that everyone has a blog, the Colorado Springs Business Journal Golf League even has one. Check out who's tied for 11th place! :)

I've been teaching myself to play guitar and in the process broke my nut. (A nut is the plastic part at the end of the guitar that the strings lay over before running down the neck) I went to have it replaced and almost fainted to find they wanted $75 to replace. Being a huge fan of Norm Abram (my hero), I figured I'd make my own and found this site to inspire me. I'm going to use ebony because I love wood, but if anyone is willing to donate some bone to me, I'd be happy to use it. I'm thinking you probably don't need all your ribs anyway, so if you want to have one removed and mail it to me, let me know.

For those suffering from glossophobia or if you just want to get better at your skills, Guy Kawasaki had these great tips he shared.

I hope that keeps you entertained until I return or get a chance to post again.

Thanks for reading I appreciate you all!

My New Friend Dizzler

2007-06-12T16:47:00.000-05:00

I've been a fan of music on the Internet since Napster in the mid 90's. Of course the plight to find music online in segments longer than 30 second samples has been one of ups and downs. When I saw them arresting some grandma who's grandson downloaded music to her computer off of Kazaa, I decided it would be best to find alternative sources. While those "issues" have been resolved, now it's not free.

I started using Launch for quite some time and still go back there. I like it because it easily sorts music by genre on it's stations and allows for some good customization of your personal music choices. Even though Yahoo now owns it and muddied it up a bit, I still use it.

Later I jumped to Pandora and liked it because it was easier to set up and manage than Launch was. and gave me a better random exposure to new music that I might like.

Then there are the actual radio stations that broadcast live via Internet. These are good, but the traffic reports from New Jersey aren't real relevant to me.

Finally, just yesterday I came across a new one. This one has some real teeth and goes beyond just music. It covers video, games and live radio as well as music. Dizzler is a free web based application that searches for online streaming media that you can use through it's player.

It allows you to create a play list of your favorites and will cycle through them all for you. While it's maybe not the best way to listen to music like you would a radio station it is great to listen to songs you have stuck in your head, but don't want to buy from iTunes.

It also offers a business application. I'm not exactly sure how it works yet, but I've got ideas on how to integrate pod casting into a player on a website using Dizzler.

So check it out and give me your thoughts on where you get your music.

Google Street View is Watching

2007-06-12T11:45:00.001-05:00

We all think we're good people. We know we have little things about us that we'd like to change, but they are secret and no one really knows about them anyway, so what's the big deal right?

Well, Google Maps has a new feature where in some locations you can get an actual street view of what it looks like. Called Google Street View, I think this is a great idea, but it gets me thinking of Big Brother a little bit. Here's how it works.

Sure these are just random pictures taken by a car driving down the street, but are you sure that every moment of every second of your life you were behaving in a way that you would want the whole world to see and then blog about?

Here are a few links to GSV that I think might drive my point home a little.
970 OFarrell St, San Francisco, CA 94109, USA - just exactly what are those two guys looking at?

172 bush street san jose ca - The movie wasn't that great.

Telegraph Ave & Dwight WayBerkeley, CA 94704 - No one will ever know I'm taking 2 breaks this afternoon.

Google Headquarters1600 Amphitheatre PkwyMountain View, CA 94043 - This is not from America's Most Wanted.

While somewhat amusing, GSV has raised some legitamate questions in my mind. Like is this legal or an invasion of privacy? Read more about that here.

Momentary Tension in the Workplace

2007-06-06T10:23:00.000-05:00

Working on a university campus has its advantages. My office environment is very laid back, staff meetings are rarely, if ever formal and everyone is in the business of helping everyone else, so there are lots of friendly people around all the time. I even like eating in the cafeteria from time to time.

However, yesterday had its immediate drawback to working on campus when I got this email.

Subject: [staff-l] SUSPECT

We have received a call 15 minutes ago that there is a man on the campus possibly with a gun. The description of this person is : Hispanic male 5’8” w tank top shirt blue jean shorts black hair and brown eyes. If you have seen/or see someone fitting this description please call UCCS police with the location.
Thanks UCCS police

With immediate memories of the Virginia Tech incident just over a month ago my mind began racing with what to do next. Fight or flight was the choice.

About 10 minutes later, which seemed like a day and a half later, I got this email.

Subject: [staff-l] earlier e-mail

The suspect is in custody, UCCS police with CSPD have the person in custody.
Thanks,
UCCS police

As it turns out, it was only a pellet gun, but the guy got arrested anyway. Regardless, I am glad that our campus police carry guns, unlike those at Virginia Tech, and am glad they were able to act and react so quickly and effectively.

Local news covered the story here.

I have to say, the moment was somewhat surreal and while I wasn't ever afraid, it did leave me thinking about what possible outcomes might have happened.

Maybe I'll move my offices to the post office. They haven't had a shooting in several years.

A Customer No-Service Vent

2007-06-05T15:59:00.000-05:00

Normally I don't get too fired up about anything, but this one got me going so I have to share.

A few months ago, we got an invitation to come and look at Direct Buy, a membership based store that sells home improvement items to the consumer at wholesale prices. Think Sam's meets Home Depot. Partly curious and partly skeptical my wife and I decided we should go check it out.

After several weeks passed we finally scheduled a time to go, and began talking about a time line to do some remodeling to our basement and our living room we wanted to do. Direct Buy was a little off the beaten path so we got a little lost trying to find their store. That combined with all the construction between our house and their store put us a few minutes behind.

When we walked in the front door and were greeted by the receptionist. We said we were here for our open house tour. She looked at her watch and said, "Oh, let's see that started at 1:15 and it's now 1:20, so you're 5 minutes late. We have another time available at 3:00 or how about next Saturday?"

"Couldn't we just catch up to the group which is right inside that door?" I thought to myself.

She must have been able to read the look on my face because she said, "The tour starts promptly at 1:15 and since you're 5 minutes late you will have to reschedule for a later time."

To which we said, "Uhhh... NO!" and started to leave. On the way out the door, she stopped us and wanted our name so she could make sure they took us off their list.

When we got home I was amazed to find a voice mail from some sales rep at Direct Buy letting us know that we must have forgotten our appointment and she'd be happy to reschedule us for next week. Again my response was, "Uhhh... NO!"

What I know about customer service is that a good portion of quality customer service is accommodation. What I don't understand about Direct Buy is how they can exist, and not understand what I do about customer service. I honestly can't imagine trying to sell memberships at a fairly significant price per year to people who will then make large purchases of home improvement products like flooring, cabinets and furniture and then being unwilling to accommodate them.

Imagine someone walking into your place of business or even your church and saying "Hi, I'm here for the 8:30 service." and you look at your watch and say "Gosh, I'm sorry, but It's 8:35 and you're not welcome right now, you'll have to come back at our 11:00 service so we can tell you why you should give us your money and become part of our group."

Well, to the people at Direct Buy, I'm sorry, but I will not be recommending your company to my two friends that have major home renovation projects going on this summer and would have probably made great members at Direct Buy. In fact I'll be letting them know why they shouldn't join.

For more information on the customer no-service phenomenon, check out customer service guru Clark Howard.

Nervous No More

2007-06-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

After having butterflies for most of the evening and pacing the living room until 6:00pm on Friday night, I loaded the kids up in the van and headed to the local school where I practiced pitching softballs into a tupperware crate until 7:00. Then I drove to the field for the game.

I followed Pamela Thomas-Graham's advice and huddled the team together before the game and let them know that I was a little nervous about pitching, and I was counting on them to help me out in the field. They supported me all the way.

After the first inning, we were up 3 to 0 and I only walked one person.

After the second inning we were up 7 to 0 and I didn't walk anyone. In fact I think I only walked 2 people all night in 5 innings of play. I actually had two strike outs. Sure it was this dainty girl who wasn't much bigger than the bat she was swinging, but a "K" is a "K" on the stat sheet.

The final score was 25 to 15. WE WON!!!

Obviously our defense needs a little work, but not as much as Team Sexy Time's did (an obvious reference to their favorite movie). Of course they said half of their team was in California partying that night and with a name like that I believe them.

Next game, this Friday at 6:00. Less nerves - more confidence

A Nervous Leader

2007-06-01T14:31:00.000-05:00

Tonight is a big night for me. I've been nervous about tonight for several weeks and I can honestly feel the butterflies right now. Normally I'm calm, cool and collected, even in the face of the storm, but I just can't quite get this under control.

At 8:00PM I'm going to make my debut as a coach and pitcher for our softball team and I'm not sure I'm up for it.

Believing that my past has created who I am today, I've been carefully analyzing my history of softball and have come up with 2 distinct possibilities as to why I'm a nervous wreck.

1. The very first time I played, I subbed in on a friend's team in college. Standing in right field, the first ball of the game sailed over my head for a triple because I didn't judge the depth right. The next inning I played catcher and then was benched for good.

2. The first time I played a whole season, I was back in Tulsa and our pitcher walked 3 out of every 4 batters. As a result, our average loss (which was every game in the season) would be something like 4 to 25. It was a horrible and frustrating experience for everyone. Shannon and Adam were on that team and can tell you how bad it was.

So, whatever the reason, I've got to overcome the jitters and WIN WIN WIN tonight... or at least not walk more than one batter an inning. I'm setting a reasonable goal for myself.

Wondering how my leadership ability as a coach might be jeopardized by my nervousness, I read this article by Pamela Thomas-Graham, CEO of CNBC and was reassured that it's okay to sweat a little in front of my team.

She said "You have to break a sweat so they understand at an emotional level what's really at stake."

I'm hoping she's right.

The Most Annoying Sound in the Universe

2007-05-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

I think most would agree that the most annoying sound in the universe is the sound of your alarm clock going off in the morning.

So, when I saw this over on Barry Moltz's blog and thought how annoying could an alarm clock be that launches a rotor in the air and keeps buzzing until you find the rotor and return it to the base?

Probably not that annoying if you had one of these under your bed as a snooze button.

Just a thought.

3 Day Weekend Hangover

2007-05-29T18:24:00.000-05:00

A three day weekend is something I always look forward to. Savoring that one day off that I can spend being lazy around the house or being quite productive, depending on how the mood strikes me.

This past Memorial Day was quite the family weekend, which seems to be more of the tradition than the original traditions of the holiday. We had a Sunday dinner BBQ with family. We went to a local festival as a family, saw a movie as a family and got tired and cranky as a family. Well my boys got tired and cranky, but what can you expect after 3 days of non stop family fun?

So, today back at work was not an easy transition. Feeling tired and cranky myself, I pulled myself back to my office and after avoiding it for quite some time I finally got a little work done.

This article from the Career Journal gives some good tips on what to do after coming back from a long vacation, but how about some help on a 3 day weekend? There's a niche market for someone. A consultant on 3 day weekend recovery.

What a Friend We Have In Myspace

2007-05-23T23:42:00.000-05:00

Myspace has gone beyond epidemic proportions. I don't have and don't plan on ever having a myspace, but I find it amusing to poke around and see who I can find and what is on their site.

The curiosity about myspace is that people who lead normal lives by day will put ridiculous things on their myspace by night. I've even gone to the extent of checking to see if coworkers and professional acquaintances have myspace account. Surprisingly they do. This article will explain why poor judgement on myspace can be costly.

My prediction is that myspace is on it's way out. Why? Because I've now noticed that old people such as parents of teenagers are now putting up myspace accounts. Unless remedied, it will eventually kill myspace because the young and the hip will no longer find the allure of the semi-anonymous refuge as attractive when they realize all of the parents are hanging out there. It's just not cool anymore.

One "old person" that I found on myspace who is pretty cool might just be the savior of the whole thing. Pun intended. Check out his space here. I might just sign up for an account so I can have him as my friend!

Finding a Zoo's Niche

2007-05-21T11:31:00.000-05:00

What do you get when two giraffes collide? A giraffic jam.

Go ahead and groan all you want, but hanging out with these giraffes was pretty cool. They are beautiful animals and very soft behind the ears.

A zoo is a zoo right? They all have animals in cages and they all put up some kind of "save the animals" sign. But if you hang out long enough you'll quickly realize that most zoos have given themselves some kind of niche. There is something special about them, regardless of how big or small they might be.

Since my oldest son loves animals, I've spent many hours in zoos so I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on this topic. For example, the Tulsa zoo had these lions that would frequently roar. Every zoo has lions, but these lions opened up and let go with a chest rattling roar. Sometimes we'd go for a few hours and just sit, watch and listen the lions and do nothing else.

The Omaha zoo has the aquarium with the peanut butter fish. No not really, but after walking through the entire aquarium you see a huge glass pillar filled with live jelly fish. Next to it is another glass pillar filled with some other kind of fish my son called peanut butter fish. He explained that if these are jelly fish, those must be the peanut butter fish.

Well in Colorado Springs, the niche is the giraffes. They stand in a sunken in area with bridges and decks that surround it, which puts you at head height with the giraffes. Then for a few bucks you get some crackers that you get to feed to them. The interaction is the niche here. You can touch and be touched by the giraffes up close and personal. Watch out though. If your personality is like mine, and you enjoy teasing people and animals they might try for some revenge and try removing your backpack when you're not looking.

The best however, was when our son in that gentle quiet voice, screams "EEEWWWW, those giraffes are french kissing!" At which time I felt like hiding in my back pack and hoping the giraffes would haul me off.

My Head Is Going to Explode!

2007-05-18T02:49:00.000-05:00

I've been up in Denver the last 2 days and finally get to go home tomorrow. Normally I'd enjoy the fun of haning out on the 16th Street Mall, but when you spend 8 hours in a conference room with 20 people, going over PowerPoint slides... Ohhhh, my head hurts.

This is our semi-annual director's meeting, and in all honesty it's not that bad. The rest of the directors aren't griping and complaining as has happened in times past, and the information I'm getting will really help my clients when I get back and recover.

On top of it all, I finally convinced my superiors to count a contract I helped a client get that took me from 50% of my annual goal to 700%. When the told me I could count it, I joked and said I'm going on vacation for a couple of years. They gave me the courtesy laugh and said no.

It's 2am, my head is going to explode from all the information I've gotten and slides I read in the last two days. I'm going to bed now so I can get up in a few hours and enjoy the half day of meetings planned for tomorrow. Fortunately my friend and role model, Harold from SCORE will be presenting for part of the day. He is anything but boring Power Points and overload of information.

It's a Little Known Fact That...

2007-05-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

With Mother's Day this last weekend I thought this would be an interesting tid-bit of information to share.

According to the National Retail Federation, florists do most of their
business around Mother's Day.

The day of maternal appreciation usually brings them 30 percent of their annual sales. Florists also report the week before the holiday is their busiest. Consumers were expected to spend $2.3 billion on flowers for mom this year.

Those are the kind of stupid facts that stick in my head for years. I know that at some point in the not so distant future, while standing at some networking event, I'll look incredibly intelligent by saying, "It's a little known fact that Mother's Day is responsible for bringing in 30% of the annual sales for a florist shop."

If you think that I sound at all like Cliff Clavin from Cheers, my deepest thanks to you.

Only recently did I quote Cliff's Buffalo Theory to some friends. Though I don't drink so I can't prove it, I'm quite sure it's true. Cliff Clavin, you are my hero!

Encouraging Words

2007-05-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

I just got an email from a friend, Lynne Rosiak who is a life coach. I've always enjoyed our conversations and her words of encouragement were kind and thought provoking.

Like most common sense things, if you really stop and think about them you knew it anyway, but it was the act of stopping and thinking that you hadn't done until someone brought it to your attention.

Her email had the following quote from Ralph Marston in it. I hope it gets you to stop and think about this common sense realization in your life and causes you to look at your life and see where you can improve.

Everything in your life has an influence and an interaction with everything else. Make an improvement in one area of your life, and many other areas will benefit. Everything in your world is interconnected. Create value in one place, and that value casts its light in additional places as well. Your positive thoughts and actions often have immediate and direct results. They also have indirect results that can continue far beyond the obvious. A small kindness offered to just one person can end up benefiting countless others. The love you give will always, in ways that you may never even realize, come back to you. Success and fulfillment do not occur in isolation. You'll receive no great benefit from being positive about only a few things if you take a negative approach in other areas. Instead, focus all your awareness and intention in a positive, fulfilling direction. Then, all the many connections will organize in such a way as to move you quickly forward.

Why Matching Employee Values to Company Values is Crucial

2007-05-09T12:33:00.000-05:00

Many small businesses I deal with have difficulty finding good employees. One insurance company I'm meeting with next week sent me the question, "How do I motivate sales people who are not self-motivated?"

I thought, well let me shake my magic crystal ball and rattle off the answer to you.

As crazy as that question sounds, it is the one question that at one time or another, every business owner lies awake at night staring at the ceiling, contemplating the answer to.

The essence of the question, however, goes beyond motivation and gets to the issue of how do I find employees who value what I value and value what the company values. I'm not even going to try to attempt answering that question here. I'll save that for the topic of an entire book I may someday write. What I want to mention is how absolutely important it is that you hire only the most value consistent employees that you can find for your company. I would further clarify this by suggesting you leave a position vacant until you can find such an employee and don't just jump on the first square thing that floats by that you can somehow pound into your round hole to temporarily ease your pain.

My friend, Scott Hodge, a pastor at a church near Chicago and original inspiration for starting my blogging journey, posted this video yesterday on his blog.

It's not a true example of business, customers and employees, and it's an analogy that I've received some criticism for in the past, but I think it drives home a very obvious point that for most Americans can relate to in some form. Let me explain. My analogy would place Jesus as the business or product, employees as Christians and customers as the people represented by those being interviewed in the video.

Shocking how it is easy for people to have some sort of a good opinion about a company (Jesus), but a horrible - to the point of not even wanting to comment in come cases - opinion of employees. Now, knowing that your product or service is being represented by your employees, do you want people to say I'd love to buy that product or service, but those employees make me so sick to my stomach that I can't even stand to go in the store.

If you disagree, think of your favorite kind of car. Now think of the experience you expect when you go to buy that car. If you like Chevy, I'm guessing you probably don't like Chevy car sales people. Same with life insurance. When your grandpa died and left you money, you probably liked the insurance, but you probably don't want to sit down with a life insurance sales person.

Bottom line is that before you hire a quick fix employee to help you out of a pinch, consider how their values compare to your company's values or run the risk of clients having a split opinion about your company.

Making Decisoins Without Blinders On

2007-05-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

In the April issue of HBR, an article by James Hackett references something called cognitive blinders. Cognitive blinders "prevent a person from seeing, seeking, using or sharing highly relevant, easily accessible, and readily perceivable information during the decision-making process."

Though the article was about a product launch, this one thing has been the most revelatory piece of information that I've learned in a long time.

I've long since been aware that when in a place when a decision needs to be made quickly, or has significant consequences behind it, the average person's ability to make an effective decision decreases significantly. It's the can't see the forest for the trees analogy. I've often compared it as soldiers in the heat of battle can't see the war. And just as the General used to sit on the hill on his horse to direct the battle, we should each have a General in our life to help us evaluate our decisions when we are in the heat of battle.

Unfortunately, many of us think we are talented enough that we don't need help, or we are ashamed that we will look weak if we ask for help and as a result, we never ask. This isolationist attitude is your quickest way to making a bad decision and it is what has led me to develop a network of people, both personal and professional that I can run scenarios by to get their feedback on so while I'm wearing cognitive blinders they can objectively see what is actually going on.

My first You Tube Video

2007-05-04T17:53:00.000-05:00

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going back for my fraternity's alumni weekend. Well I took with me my golf clubs for our annual golf outing and my video camera with the idea of putting together a recap video of what went on and make it a hook to get people not able to make this year's event eager not to miss next year's event.

For my first attempt it's a little rough and needs some things added to be more effective, but still pretty good.

On a side note, I made it on my Mac with iLife, which is pretty good for free software.

Lost in Translation

2007-05-04T17:29:00.000-05:00

As the world becomes flat, international business is quickly becoming a growing part of every community. Even small communities now have international businesses. Some even have city offices designed to help local small town businesses go international.

This brings back the issue of multicultural and multilingual products.

Azteca America television has a show that maybe just hadn't gone thorugh enough scrutiny when they named it.

Infarto, spanish for heart attack, doesn't quite "conveyo" the same "meaningo". Though it looks funny when I watch it. Just wish I spoke spanish.

Overcoming Stress In My Life

2007-05-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

Several months ago at Panera Bread, I had a great conversation with a young business owner about the possiblity of putting together some kind of trade show for small businesses. That conversation ended up turning into a two day conference which is going to be held this Friday and Saturday at the local Sheritan hotel, include 18 seminars, 2 lunches, exhibitor booths, key note speakers during lunch both days and a partridge in a pear tree.

On one hand I'm beyond excited because it's the first major event that I've been a part of at this level in the area, but on the other hand it's down right terrifying. Thoughts like, "What if no one shows up?" or "What if one of my instructors doesn't show up?" have plagued my mind for the last two days.

So earlier today, I pulled out my favorite stress reducing tactic to ease the mental pain and asked myself these questions.

What is the worst case scenario?
If worst case becomes reality, can I live with it?
What can I do to prevent worst case from happening?

I don't remember where I developed that tactic from, but I imagine it's some kind of hybrid blend of all the slef-help books I used to read. It doesn't matter too much where I got it, becaue it still works. Since answering my questions I realized it's all good and I've been extremely produtive and had less stress since then.

So, if you find yourself stressed about any thing at all, give my questions a try.

A Legacy Is Like Legos

2007-04-26T10:04:00.000-05:00

It's the last weekend in April, which for me is always a special time, I make the pilgrimage back to Lincoln, Nebraska every year so I can re-acquaint myself with the men of my college fraternity. It sounds a little juvenile and "animal housish" I know, but trust me it's not like that at all.

As a member of the board and a founding father of Omega Alpha Chi, I hold a very fond place in my heart for this group of men.

My children aren't quite old enough for me to say I've left a legacy in them. I know I've obviously shaped their lives, but I'm not quite sure that a 9 and 5 year old have the mental ability to grasp the concept of legacy from the receiving end yet. So this organization, in its 13th year, is the first legacy I've been able to leave. While it hasn't been left technically since I'm still alive, I at least have a good foundation built and am very proud of it.

The whole leaving a legacy thing has kind of come and gone in the buzz words of leadership category, but I hope that you each have the opportunity to experience leaving a legacy of your own in some way.

One thing I find funny is all the talk about how to leave your legacy. From my experience you don't set out to do it intentionally. Even in the middle you don't say to yourself "Hey this could be my legacy". Rather, you follow the passion you have for something and that passion guiding you turns into what you are remembered for.

This article from Entrepreneur.com explains it in different words.

"Making a lasting impression on the people who mean the most to me is what I
really care about, and I want to be remembered for the right reasons: for being
kind, warm, sincere, generous, unique, special, funny and fun. Being remembered
as an entrepreneur or leader matters less to me than being remembered as someone who was a good listener, gave great advice, showed good judgment, and really
cared about what I did and who I did it with every day."

I think what the author and I have both failed to say until now is that you don't leave a legacy intentionally. Rather, you live your life adding one Lego brick on top of another, one brick at a time. Sometimes your actions tear down a section of bricks, other times the bricks are added quickly. Your legacy isn't the Lego, but rather the interpretation of how others see the bricks you've assembled when you're gone.

Like kids watching clouds in the sky one may see a rabbit and another may see a car. You can't change what they've seen so don't be concerned with it. The only thing you can do is try to assemble the bricks in the best formation possible from your view point at the time you stack it, and not worry about how others interpret them.

Some Photo Blogging

2007-04-24T09:54:00.000-05:00

I've been collecting pictures as I go, but have never taken the time to post them, so I thought I'd get it all done in one efficient post.

Today, like most April days across the county, school is closed because it is snowing. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Most school districts shut down because of the snow. I didn't even know it was supposed to snow last night, but this is what it looked like on the way to work.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a student employee appreciation reception here to show our gratitude to the college students who work so hard to make our lives easier. Since I have two student employees and I never pass up free food, I went. They had this cake there to eat. I could have turned it into its own post about positive reinforcement or employee motivation, but a picture says a thousand words.

The USPS has launched some kind of new campaign where they have turned mailboxes into R2-D2 replicas. Perhaps they realized that it's going to take the force to pull them out of the tailspin they have put themselves into. This one is located downtown Colorado Springs on Tejon St.

My "anonymous" friend is now receiving treatment on his wart infested foot and let me take this picture. This is after 3 or 4 treatments of putting acid on the warts, waiting 2 weeks, letting it burn the skin off, cutting the skin off and reapplying more acid. Later that day he slipped on his crutches, put his weight on his foot and burst the huge, nasty blood blister. 3 days later it was still oozing blood. No joking, the sight of this actually caused a couple of his co-workers to gag a few hours before I snapped this picture.

Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

2007-04-19T00:21:00.000-05:00

I just started getting my subscription to the Harvard Business Review at work. It's been since grad school that I habitually read it, so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to see what the world's greatest minds have to contribute to business.

With my subscription came "Leadership Insights: 15 Unique Perspectives on Effective Leadership", which is a collection of previous articles on leadership. The first article I read was "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You" by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones. A catchy, but challenging title, so as I flipped to the article, I wondered if I would be disappointed in myself after reading it realizing I'm not worth following.

The essence of the article is that inspirational leaders share four qualities.
1. They selectively show their weaknesses - By exposing some vulnerability, they reveal their approachability and humanity.

2. They rely heavily on intuition to guage the appropriate timing and course of their actions - Their ability to collect and interpret soft data helps them know just when and how to act.

3. They manage employees with tough empathy - Inspirational leaders empathize passionately and realistically with people, and they care intensely about the work employees do.

4. They reveal their differences - They capatalize on what's unique about themselves.

Immdiately I was glad I saw myself in 3 out of four of these. Not seeing myself revealing my differences did stick out as something I don't do very well. So I made the conscious effort to begin separating myself from the heard a little. I'm not exactly sure what that means or how that is going to take form, so perhaps it is better said that I am going to begin consciously looking for things that are positively unique about myself first, and then begin to bring that trait to the forefront of who I am.

One interesting point that I got out of the article was in regard to empathy. Contrary to the long-held statement that leaders are made, not born which implies we can each become an effective leader, this article states that "Real leaders don't need a training program [interpersonal-skills training program with 'concern' for others] to convince their employees that they care. Real leaders empathize fiercely with the people they lead." The authors imply that if you're not born with it, you can't learn it.

I'm not sure I buy it totally, but it makes me think and wonder if it's true.

If nothing else, it's a good, quick and simple evaluation of yourself to answer a tough, hard and challenging question. Why should anyone be led by you?

Big Stress - Insignificant Product

2007-04-17T13:50:00.000-05:00

3 years ago I fought to avoid getting a cell phone. I didn't need one and thought they were a vain display of how important people thought they were by insisting people needed instant access to them at any given time. Today, I carry two cell phones at all times. One of which has my calendar and email on it. I guess I'm a little hypocritical.

Increasing my vanity, I suddenly felt the urge to get a custom ring tone. Why? Well my brother in law got a new one which inspired my wife to get a new one, which made me feel like I should get one. Again with the vanity, I know.

Deciding on a ring tone has got to be one of the most difficult things to do in the world. The pressure and stress of identifying your life with a song that plays for maybe 10 seconds for the whole world to hear is just too much. It's that same feeling that you get when you are trying to come up with a good user name for an email account.

I finally decided to find a song that I would use only when my wife calls me. It had to be something good, so I settled on Hall & Oates' "Kiss on my list", but it wasn't available for download. So, I thought I'd get real funny and go with George Michael's "I want your sex", but better judgement stopped that pretty quick. Nothing seemed to do justice to what I wanted, so I sat up until 1:00 this morning stressing and searching Google for the right song. AAHHHH!!!

My conclusion is this, buying a stupid $1.99 ring tone should not be this involved and the company behind it all should come up with some way to make the process easier to help the victims like me maintain a certain level of vanity while lowering my stress. So, if anyone comes across a great tool, like an Internet quiz that helps associate the most appropriate ring tone for people, please pass it on. PLEASE!

Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 3

2007-04-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

Here it is, the third and final installment of "Buy It Later", where you'll hear me say "My moral compass doesn't swing that far."

I decided that the chances of this complete stranger living in New York knowing anything about my situation was pretty remote, so I decided on the good Samaritan approach and told her someone was using her eBay account to run a scam. Her shocked stutter confirmed that I played the odds correctly.

I hung up and within 30 minutes our phone rang and caller ID showed it was Meri from New York calling me back. This made me a little suspicious about how she was able to get my number, but I later found out that despite using a calling card in an attempt to mask our caller ID, it didn’t work and the result of my ignorance was Mia’s husband calling back to let me know that a few months ago someone hi-jacked his eBay account and he’d just gotten control of it again last month. I believed him as much as I could.

The next morning the bank called to let us know that they were working on it and the first good news was my 10% litmus test was passed. She felt we had better than a 10% chance of getting our money back.

My wife then called the Heinz County Sherriff’s department to file a report with them and as the story was retold to the Sergeant he answered in his Mississippi accent by sighing “Awww Sh&%”. It wasn’t exactly the words I might have chosen, but it definitely conveyed my feelings.

He instantly became our greatest asset in Mississippi as he got subpoenas for the email account, the bank account and about anything else he could think to subpoena. He then told us that one of the managers of the fraud department over at Trustmark National Bank used to work at the Sherriff’s department and he would go over there and make sure things were being handled properly for us.

Following his instructions, my wife called the bank and asked for the deputy turned banker. She was instantly assured that Sergeant Lofton had already called and was on his way over at that moment.

Whatever impressions I might have had about Mississippi being a bunch of backwoods, lazy and slow, rednecks just got thrown out the window and sunk in the delta. This Sergeant Lofton was on the ball and the ball was rolling fast.

Not much else transpired for a few days. Well, unless you count the 4 additional emails from the scammer assuring us that our car would be on a truck shortly and we’d have the tracking number as soon as he had it, but he’d gotten caught up at work and wasn’t able to take care of it. Then it was parked at the shipping company’s garage, but it wasn’t loaded on a truck so no tracking number was available. Last we heard was, “It’s a beautiful vehicle and you need to take good care of it when it arrives.”

My wife had a hard time keeping him on the hook with the hopes that it would somehow help the Sherriff’s department with the investigation. It made her feel weird communicating with a criminal. My moral compass doesn’t swing that far so I fed her lines to type in response. I even set up a bogus hotmail account to try to lure the criminal back in to trying to sell my newly established hotmail alias the van with hopes of being able to then turn it over to the Sheriff’s department and letting them reel him in.

Shortly after, the email stopped coming, hope diminished and thoughts of losing $8,000 began to shrink. Saturday came and we knew it would be Monday before we would hear anything from anyone about it as we served our weekend prison sentence without knowledge one way or the other.

We never did get a nibble on our fake hotmail account.

Monday morning came and we told and retold the story a dozen times to friends, family and anyone who would listen. It was a kind of therapy going over and over our story, so when we heard from the Sergeant that things were wrapping up, we were delighted.

Arriving home Monday, listening to the machine I returned the call to US Bank and heard the sweet words that “there was a problem with our wire transfer and for some reason the money had been returned to our account.” Thinking there had been some kind of glitch in their system; the poor banker must have been quite confused at my joyful response.

“That’s great!”

“It is?”

“Yeah, thanks for letting us know, we’ve been working on getting the money back in our account.”

“Oh, uh… okay.”

What we eventually learned is that the seller / slimy criminal is somewhere outside the United States, most likely in Asia somewhere. He went phishing for eBay account information and caught Mia’s account in New York. He used that information to set up a fraudulent auction. He then took out an ad to hire a “Transfer Manager” who would be responsible for opening a bank account and then monitor account information. When money was transferred into their account they would follow instructions provided via email and wire money to an off-shores account, retaining a 7% commission for their efforts.

Mr. Cathy, the “Transfer Manager” who had our money was very quick and willing to transfer our money back to our bank account after Sergeant Lofton had a kind and gentle conversation with him about his obligation as a good citizen who wants to avoid a night in jail.

Mr. Cathy, come to find out, was also a previous employee at Trustmark National Bank, had been fired or laid off or something and was not flat broke. Making another good decision he decided to break into his ex-girlfriends place, steal the computer and toss it in a ditch while she was in the shower. I’m sure it had something to do with wanting to make sure his Spider Solitaire record wouldn’t ever be beaten. Or maybe it was because he had some evidence on his computer that he didn’t want subpoenaed by my new hero, Sergeant Lofton. I’m going to go with my gut and stick with his Spider Solitaire record.

Where do we go from here? Well, we could press charges against Mr. Cathy, but we’d have to go to Mississippi and then return for court, which his attorney would most likely file a continuance 3 times meaning we’d have to travel a total of 5 times to Mississippi to make it all happen.

Probably not going to happen. Summer in Mississippi doesn’t sound like that great of a proposition.

The moral of the story is this: If you’re going to get scammed and then get your money back and want to press charges, make sure the criminal is in Hawaii or Southern California or some other great place worth visiting five times.

So with our money back, the criminal in some other country and the pawn in the scheme visiting every Best Buy and Circuit City in Mississippi to hone his Spider Solitaire skills, we headed back to our computer to find a suitable vehicle to buy; A little wiser and a lot more cautious this time, but still on the look. This time, I think we’ll wait on the Buy It Now method and look in person. There’s nothing wrong with buying it later.

There you have it folks, my true life story of being scammed and getting our money back. Hope you enjoyed this short story more than I enjoyed living it. To my mom and dad, you can quit worrying, start sleeping and quit calling to get all the details.

Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 2

2007-04-11T16:58:00.000-05:00

Here's the much anticipated part two of our adventures. Enjoy!

5 short minutes after she sent her inquiry to eBay, they replied to my wife confirming her “women’s intuition” by saying this message had not come from them and we should not follow the instructions to wire the money into an account.

She contacted US Bank, but they said that they couldn’t do anything for us because once the money was wired, it was gone. They gave us the information for the bank where the money had been sent and wished us good luck. If we had that kind of luck, we'd be in Vegas, not stressing about this.

A call to Trustmark National Bank in Jackson, Mississippi led us to the manager of the fraud department, who after hearing my wife’s explanation and near panicked tone, said if the money was still in that account she could freeze it until things got sorted out. However, she couldn’t confirm for us if the money was there or not. She also couldn’t tell us if she was able to freeze the account because that would indicate that the money was there and she couldn’t divulge that information. She suggested we file a police report.

My phone vibrated again and I flipped it open waiting to hear what was going on. I said I’d file the police report and got the number for the police. I left a voice mail with a detective in the financial fraud department of the CSPD but wasn’t satisfied so I called back. After speaking with the lady who answered the phone, she agreed to send an officer out to take the report. I called home and said I was on my way. I wanted to be there. I had to be there.

The drive home might have taken forever, but was made bearable by the detective calling me back. I reviewed what we knew so far in hopes of triggering a response that might lead to an easy solution, but all he could tell me was to file the police report and if the officer taking the report was at all hesitant, let him know that I spoke with the detective and he said a report should be filed. I asked what he thought our chances were of getting our money back. After rewording the question a couple of times so I wouldn’t be able pin him with liability if we didn’t get the money back he thought our chances were less than 10%.

I got home and found my wife stressed to the point of fracture. I hugged her and the stress broke as she cried in my arms. I reassured her that money can be saved again and we still had our family so everything would be fine no matter what happened. I'm not sure it helped much, but it got me a few brownie points for being a sensative husband. Expensive points if we lost the money, so I made a mental note not to screw something up later and burn them before I could spend them.

The officer arrived shortly after, and we retold the story again and provided him with copies of the email correspondence we’d had with the seller / con artist. Thankfully he didn’t give any resistance to filing a report, but he didn’t give us any better chances than the detective did. “About 10%.”

Later that evening, we put our heads together and started tracing down leads since we weren’t sure the police would be much help beyond filing a report. We started by calling the bank in Mississippi again to see if by chance they were working late. They weren’t, so after hearing “Leave a Message” I gave my best victim voice to the machine and began hoping she would get in early.

Next we looked up the seller’s account that came with the spoofed eBay email, and did a quick search to find previous auctions they’d been involved in.

I still find it amazing that someone would put their phone number on eBay.

The anxiety was building as I was contemplating what I was going to say to the person who answered the phone. How would I get them to divulge that they were a con artist, or that they knew nothing about what had happened and doing all of this without tipping my hand that I suspected them to be a criminal?

I dialed the phone, still unsure about what I would say.

A lady’s voice, “Hello”

“Is Williaim there?”

“Who?”

Was the game of deceit on, or was her question honest?

Come back tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of "Buy It Later".

Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 1

2007-04-10T10:05:00.000-05:00

The following several posts are my attempt to cross the last several weeks of our life with a shor story format. I'll write a section each day and post it like a normal blog, but will try to keep your attention with clif hanger style endings. I hope you enjoy my story I've titled "Buy It Later".

I got home from work last night later than normal. It was about 6:00 and I rushed to preheat the oven to 450 so I could put the frozen french fries in and the grill started before my family got home. I spoke to my wife on the way home and she was having a rough day with a headache and two boys who always seem to find ways of annoying her. I was glad to hear that they found a bicycle for my oldest son Jake. Though he was getting close to outgrowing his previous bike, we weren't replacing it because of a sudden growth spurt, instead we were replacing it because with the garage door left open for a couple of hours one evening, someone walked in our garage and walked out with the bike.

There were certainly better things in the garage to steal than a kids bike, but it still made us feel a little unsafe for a few days. I was just glad to get dinner going and was looking forward to watching a movie with the family. I was so preoccupied with everything that I forgot to check the 2 messages flashing on the machine. When everyone got home I remembered the flashing number two and hit play while my wife and I leaned over the counter listening for the message we hoped would be there.

"Hi this is (someone) from US Bank. I need you to call me right away. I'll be in the office until 7:30 tonight so please call. This is kind of an emergency, so please call."

I half grinned at my wife as I dialed because I could somehow tell by the confusion and urgency in her voice that the emergency wasn't as bad as she thought it was.

It was a couple of weeks ago that we began talking about selling our 4Runner and buying a newer vehicle. True, the Toyota only had 70,000 miles on it, a mere teenager as far as Toyotas go, but a 1990 Toyota was pretty old regardless of low mileage, so we agreed we'd try to sell it privately, take the money we got and look for a steal of a deal on a low mileage, 2-3 year old vehicle.

We'd talked at length about a Chevy Uplander, and my wife had been tracking several eBay auctions hoping to catch one that didn't sell in the auction so she could negotiate a good deal afterward, so I was surprised when she showed me a Toyota Sienna she liked. Regardless, the price was incredible so I said follow it and see if you can get it for that price.

Buy It Now said $12,500 for a 2006 with 30,000 miles and absolutely loaded, but when she went back to find the auction a message appeared that said the auction had been removed by either the seller or eBay. But then she got an email from the seller answering a few of the questions she had earlier asked and a note saying that the auction was pulled because someone was going to Buy It Now, but then was unable to put together the money, so he was still interested in selling it. The vehicle was in Texas, but he would ship it to us if we didn't want to drive to get it.

Tuesday, a few more questions and answers were exchanged and phone numbers and a phone call to solidify the deal. We would run the sale through eBay so we could both be protected.

Later that evening, we got an email confirming from eBay that we won the auction from the seller and it gave us instructions on how to proceed. We were to wire money into an account that eBay would hold in escrow for us for 30 days. We would have 15 days from when we received the car to evaluate it and make sure it was what we thought we were buying, then we would wire the balance of the money into the account to complete the transaction and the seller could then withdraw the money.

Wednesday morning came with some excitement as we were anticipating getting a great deal on a great vehicle. We both agreed the price seemed almost unbelievable, but the seller confided in us that he was selling it because he needed the cash bad to help a serious cash flow problem with a restaurant he owned that was failing and he was about to lose. “Sounds like a lot of my clients”, I thought. Maybe after business was done, I’d refer him to his local SBDC office, but first, I want his car.

My wife went down to US Bank to wire the money off to this account with eBay’s corporate address on it. It seemed a little odd that it had some guy’s name attached to it, so she asked the banker if it was normal for a business account to have an individual’s name on it and she was assured it was.

“I’d hate to be the guy with my name on the account for eBay” she remarked as the details of wiring the money were settled.

My wife returned home and started going about the rest of her day when she had a strange feeling that something wasn’t right. She went upstairs to our office and started poking around eBay’s site. She saw mention of an email address that you could send an email you believed to have come from eBay, but weren’t sure and they would verify it for you. She forwarded the “you won the auction” email and waited for the reply.

At the same time, I was down town shaking hands and passing out business cards at the Small Business Outreach. Shifting my weight back and forth as my legs were starting to hurt from standing on the hard floors all day, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and excused myself from the conversation I was in to answer it. It was my wife. She sounded like she was about to cry.

“I think I lost $8,000” she said as her voice quivered.

“What?”

“I’m trying to get a hold of the bank, but I think our money is gone. The email didn’t come from eBay. It’s a fraud. I’ll call you when I know something.”

Come back tomorrow for more of "Buy It Later"

Conspiracy Theory

2007-04-05T09:08:00.000-05:00

I'll admit that I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Call it years of watching the X-Files in college, call it my somewhat deviant personality with solid morals, but I always suspect there is something more significant at work than what is evident on the surface.

My latest conspiracy is American Idol. Honestly, last night was the first time this season I've watched it, but I've kept up on the whole Sanjea scenario. On the very surface, the American public believes that this kid is a good singer and physically good looking. Scratch the surface a little and you reveal that it is more likely that people are pulling the typical high school prank of, "let's vote for the nerd to win the homecoming king".

But, and here comes the real conspiracy theory, I think that Sanjea himself entered this competiion knowing full well that he couldn't win. He heard the others sing and knew he wasn't going to win, so he contacts his friends back home, one or two of whom are a genius computer hacker and they write a program that war dials the American Idol voting giving Sanjea a winning vote every week.

Whether or not we'll ever find out that is the truth, I don't know. Probably not, because then the fortunes generated by American Idol will be ruined and how will anyone ever trust the system again, but maybe John Stossel will run a report 4 years from now exposing the conspiracy.

This Little Piggy Was A Virus

2007-04-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

***WARNING - images in this post may be disturbing and actually cause you to throw up a little in the back of your mouth. Having been warned, read at your own discretion.***

A dear friend of mine developed warts on his foot. We've all seen warts before. Little calloused looking things that are usually the size of the end of a pencil at most. However, this particular case is an exception to the norm.

In less than 2 years it went from one small pesky bump to this.

Now that you've swallowed your own vomit in the back of your throat, let me continue. I received special permission to post these pictures as long as I adhered to the following request. "You can blog it as long as you keep 'The Foot' anonymous and make it clear that it is a viral infection and not lack of care."

So, I will give no clues as to the owner of the foot, but I will tell you that how this case formed. According to the doctor, was a small cut on the bottom of the foot came into contact with the virus and the virus has spread. When the doctor saw this, he left the room, called his nurse and told her that it was really bad and he'd only seen one other case this bad.

The nurse came back in and began treatment, which consists of rubbing acid over the warts, covering them with gauze and then in two weeks when the acid has caused huge blisters to form all over the foot, come back and cut the dead skin off the foot and reapply a stronger acid. This process will repeat for 3 months and at that time it will be determined if surgery is required to finish removing the remaining warts. Surgery done now would leave my friend unable to walk for 3 weeks. But as the first round of treatment is concluding, he has had to spend his time on crutches and limping in his house slippers because the pain is too great to put his full weight on his foot.

Everyone shiver and let your stomache tighten a bit as you get that out of your system.

I know you didn't think that I was just going to show disgusting pictures and not relate it to something business, so here is my analogy.

One thing that small business owners must be continually aware of is do they have any employees who act like a virus in their operation. Virus employees are those who come in and spread their negative attitude to other employees and eventually to customers too. They start out as an annoying little bump on the bottom of your foot, but if time goes on and if left unattended, their viral attitude infests the whole company making it hard for your company to walk and requiring severe and painful treatment to get rid of. Along the way, the morale of your other, helathy employees will deteriorate. You will begin to lose customers too as they are either disgusted by what they see from this viral employee or they begin to believe what the employee says. Either way, you lose.

So keep a close eye on any problem within your organization. Something as innocent as a small cut can result in a major problem. This is why it is important to continually clean your company and remove problems. Sometimes it hurts to rub a little alcohol on the cut, but the pain of prevention will be much quicker and far less than they agonizing cure.

So, if you have any employees in your company that are causing a cut or are potentially bringing a virus into a cut, don't let them end up turning your beloved company into this.

Peppermints Improve Test Scores

2007-03-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

Bad breath is a huge turn off. It gives an instant impression that someone doesn't care for personal hygiene. However according to this article, "those with halitosis are blissfully unaware of their condition" while "people convinced they suffer from bad breath actually have odor-free mouths". Certainly there is some kind of psychological reason for all of this. Perhaps those without bad breath have noticed someone with horrible breath that is unaware that they have bad breath and as a result become paranoid that they might have bad breath and be unaware of it too.

Regardless, there is a new movement not only to increase the rate of fresh breath, but to increase test scores as well. At first glance, and even second and third glance it seems to be a bit of a stretch, but according to this article by the Washington Post, there seems to be something to it.

Now whether or not there is some magical power in the smell and taste of peppermint is yet to be determined. It may be attributable to the Hawthorne Effect, where people knowing that they are being observed perform better. Even if they are being observed under poorer conditions their performance would improve.

Regardless of the reason, the benefit is better performance and better smelling breath. It sounds like a win-win to me. I only wish this informatoin would have been out during my school days. I had a few teachers that had terrible breath and loved to get real close when they talked. BLEEGCHH!

Because I Do Look Good

2007-03-28T10:49:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned a couple of times recently about running for an elected office and made it pretty clear that it isn't going to happen. However, leave it to the creativity of our Music Pastor to come up with my campaign slogan if I ever change my mind.

Thanks Jared! If I ever run, I'm making you my campaign manager.

If It’s Broke Don’t Ride It

2007-03-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

As I was leaving our nation’s capitol Thursday, the weather turned to spring and I got to thinking what a beautiful day for a bike ride. The cherry trees were in blossom around town and the light breeze lifted me as I breathed in fresh air.

Unfortunately my 2:30 flight didn’t allow time for a bike ride, but I did have the chance to reflect on what I learned on our legislative trip. I think what was the most eye opening and troublesome is that I became convinced that our system is broken. Maybe I was already convinced, but it just became a reality.

Take for example the issue of immigration. If pressed, I have an opinion about it, but that’s not what this is about. This is about things that are broken.

Immigration is certainly a hot topic for America and the upcoming elections, but also a perfect illustration of a broken system. The US Chamber of Commerce briefed us Tuesday on their involvement in the issue. There are an estimated 12 million “shadow workers” in the US today. These are people working illegally, many of whom pay taxes, but none the less are in our country illegally. How do we fix this problem? Many suggest we absorb them by making the process easier to immigrate legally. Not providing amnesty and granting them immediate legal status, but providing a grace period of sorts whereby they can process through immigration and become legal citizens.

Oh, what a splendid compromise. That sounds like it would work so wonderfully, but guess again. Presently, the United States allows for 65,000 legal immigrants to be given citizenship per year. In case your wondering 12,000,000 divided by 65,000 is 184.6 years. While we may be used to government working slowly, that’s a little much unless shadow workers are okay with waiting for their great grandchildren to be the first citizens of the United States in their family.

But have faith! Our government isn’t made of idiots. They can do the math can’t they? Obviously they can because they are raising the limit from 65,000 to 215,000 legal immigrants per year. That cuts the number substantially by 70%, from 184 years to a measly 55.2 years. Much more acceptable I think. Oh yeah, but did I mention that presently there is such a demand for legal immigration into the US that the 2007 quota has been filled, and the 2008 quota is almost filled and this without any influx of shadow workers being added to the daily workload.

I’m sure though that our hard working and dedicated immigration officers are quite capable of picking up the extra slack for the next 55 years or so and double their production to accommodate the shadow workers. In case you’ve never met a government worker, let me explain sarcasm… Continuing with my sarcastic remarks - because the process of legally immigrating takes the sponsorship of a business, which is already quite costly, and our government understands the concept of economics, immigration decided it would raise the price of immigration in hopes of limiting the number of applications. It all makes perfect sense now doesn’t it?

We want 12 million illegal immigrants to become a legal part of our working class, yet it will take 55 years to immigrate them all if our government increases the proposed capacity by 100% and the current capacity by 662%. Meanwhile we can’t keep up with the current rate of immigration at a mere 15% of what it would take to accomplish in 55 years. That doesn’t even take into account things like population growth. Certainly as a worker, today age 30, has children and grandchildren, the 12 million shadow people will grow too. As the day passes and the sun sets, the shadow will grow longer.

It kind of reminds me of walking along the sidewalk on a beautiful day and seeing a bicycle leaned up against a light post and thinking to my self, “what a great day to ride a bike, I’m going to go hop on that one and take a spin around the block.” Then as I walk up to the bike, I realize that the bike has a flat back tire, is missing the front one altogether, the chain has rusted in half and the seat is missing. No matter how nice the day it’s not very realistic to think I’m going to be able to pedal down the driveway and past the blossoming cherry trees, enjoying the sunshine.

Been Looking Forward To Being Home

2007-03-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

Monday night and I just got back home after spending 7 days in DC and 4 days at Copper Mountain. I love skiing and it was so much fun being up their with my hot ski-bunny wife and two thrill seeking boys, but I have been looking forward to being home and I am so very glad to finally be home, sit on my couch watching TV in my house and planning on going upstairs and sleeping in my own bed. Life as a rock star isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I do have a good couple weeks planned for blogging. After struggling for a couple of weeks with subject matter, I spent a good hour on the plane ride home outlining my upcoming posts.
Looking forward some more, here's what you can expect:

Our broken government
Unions on the rise
How fresh breath means increased intelligence
Why customer service must be company wide
And hopefully I'll bring you a totally gross and disgusting story that will make your stomach turn. But, I'm waiting on approval from the source.

Check Please!

2007-03-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

It's now Monday evening and I'm crossing things off my list like crazy. In the same order of my last post, here's how I'm doing.

We saw as many sites as humanly possible. My feet hurt so much from walking.
I've eaten at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries (gut bomb burgers that are ohh so good). Then I ate at Fogo De Chao a Brazilian Steakhouse which was incredible. It was delicious meats of all kinds on an all you can eat basis. My God I didn't know I could eat that much. It's only Monday and tomorrow is the Indian embassy. I'm not a big fan of Indian food, so it will be one of my "try something new" things.
When I spoke to my wife today she actually said, "I saw a Subaru today that I liked."
Uh... yeah.. haven't even opened the book. Tomorrow I promise!
I've made some good inroads with a lobbyist that I'll need for a later project as well as some great people from back in Colorado that will definately be good political allies in months to come.
Not exactly 7 hours last night, but 4-1/2 is kind of like 7... until the alarm clock went off.
My wife and I experienced something new together, but I'll keep that secret because somethings are more fun when only 2 people know and the second thing - see number 2
After sitting in presentations from 8:00am to 5:00pm, my mind is on overload. I learned about how the Vietnam Memorial was created, how pollsters do their job, how the General who is #2 over the Iraq war thinks, how Nevada's Congressman makes tourism work for his state, how lobbying works, how appropriations happen in DC, and how an Indiana Congressman tore his knee up skiing in Colorado. I also learned that I REALLY don't want ot run for office. Thanks for the vote of confidence Betsy, but I tell myself I'm an idiot enough. I don't need half the world helping me out.

Tomorrow I'm off to see the DLA and beg - I mean respectfully ask for money for a program we're starting. What's another half mil in a federal budget?

Gone, But Not Forgotten

2007-03-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

I left Thursday morning on my way out of town to fly with my wife to Washington DC. She's returning next Monday, but I'll stay on for business until Thursday. Then on Thursday I fly back to Denver and meet my wife at the airport so we can drive up the mountain to do a little skiing at Copper Mountain until the following Monday. Then finally I'll be back home and able to sleep in my own bed.

I'll make sure to post as often as I can about my adventures in DC, both personal and business. As I was running around packing and double checking my lists of what I need to do and pack I created a list of what I want to accomplish in DC.

1. See as many sites as possible with my wife
2. Eat as much good food as possible
3. Convince my wife that a Subaru is the perfect choice for our next vehicle
4. Finish reading and write a review for at least one of the two books I was given and get it posted (good book - not enough time)
5. Make some "political connections" with some of the other 70 plus people traveling to DC on this trip
6. Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night
7. Experience at least two new things
8. Learn as much as possible

Valuing Employees

2007-03-13T16:38:00.000-05:00

We all know in theory how important it is to take care of your employees. We study leadership, we work to improve managerial skills, we learn to communicate in their style and reasons why we should show them appreciation. The book shelves are filled with books on employees, but (and answer honestly) how many actually practice what we use?

I've heard statistics that something like 95% of the people who attend a seminar never practice what they've just learned and I thought what a waste and then wondered if I was part of that 95%.

Well, feeling convicted about this today, I decided that our balmy weather is the perfect opportunity to appreciate our staff who has been working incredibly hard. So, we're having what I call an "anti-snow day". It's not my word, but I like it so I'm using it. In the event that the weather becomes too nice and the majority of the work is getting done, the office should be closed. When I heard they are giving free ice cream out just up the hill it seemed like a natural fit. Go get some ice cream and then take off to enjoy our first beautiful spring like day.

What have you done recently to show your employees you value them?