Big Bad Rhino

Learning How to Walk as a Baby: Everything You Need to Know for Start-ups, Job Searches, and Getting Back Into Shape.

2010-07-06T09:51:00.007-04:00

My daughter’s birthday just arrived and, as I always like to do around that time of year, I pulled out our old VHS tapes to watch the her as a baby. I find it fun to see how far she has come—a subtle reminder of how fast they grow up. This year was a particularly stark contrast for me. I had just finished a Father’s Day weekend of soccer in Brunswick Maine watching her play in 4 tournament games. She floated up and down that field with speed and agility; Always a play maker, many times a scorer. I thought how far she had come in just a year, let alone from the first steps captured on the video.

In those first very difficult and struggling attempts to find the balance to stand and learn to walk I could have never imagined the athlete she had become. It was a process that had to unfold at its own rate.

I found myself in a presentation with an entrepreneur a just a few days ago. He was outlining the entire vision of his company ten years out. I listened hoping that he might be the first person to be able to successfully do it. There were huge gaps of inconsistency, assumptions, and unknowns. As we talked more, it was obvious that he was struggling with defining, confidently, the entire thing.

I stopped him. I shared with him the analogy that I had discovered when building my third company. “I like your premise and the direction of your company. You don’t have to build the entire castle on day one”, I said, “If you can build a turret, or a turret and a wall and prove that it works as intended, then you can start to build out the other features of a full castle down the road.”

I realized that it paralleled my daughter’s baby steps. She didn’t need to be able to run up and down the soccer field passing a soccer ball at 11 months old—she just needed to learn to take steps and learn from each one.

The entrepreneur got the concept and seemed relieved not to have it all solved within his elevator pitch.

The other aspect that I gleaned from the video was the slow but steady repeated attempts my daughter made to ultimately be able to walk across the room without falling down. Instinctively she realized she just needed to keep at it; Not one or two bursts, but slow and steady progress towards her end goal.

It reminded me of my new approach to getting in shape. So many times in the past I started out

with a great 5 mile run only to then have over extended myself and end any hope of getting up to do it again the next day. It was easy to procrastinate and find excuses not to get out the door; “Don’t have 45 minutes, too cold, too warm, too cloudy, too sunny, wrong color shoes…”. This year, I took the new approach to run for just 15 minutes. I always have 15 minutes. It gets me out the door to run more consistently and stops the “I can’t do it right now” excuse hurdle. Once out there, I inevitably stay out longer. It is about the consistency of just doing it, day after day.

Finally, a good friend of mine has been looking for work for awhile, I shared with him my “baby

steps, turret and consistency” approaches to life. “You don’t have to find the exact full time job that meets every one of your criteria on the first day. It is a hard economy out there, if you need to, just start the process with baby steps—it could be volunteering, taking a cube in a shared-office, or just being at a cross-roads somewhere where there is activity. Just don’t sit waiting to be able to run down the field without first learning to walk.

For entrepreneurs, job seekers, and other wanna-get-in-shape people like me, the desired end result will come—even with falls, bruises, cuts and everything else your subconscious remembers—and doesn’t want to remember-- from when you were 11 months old and learning to walk.

The Return to Writing

2010-06-04T20:49:00.002-04:00

A slightly longer sabbatical from writing than I first imagined. Another writing project seemed to absorb much of my writing energy. It feels refreshing to post again! The next posting, as you will see, provided excellent motivation to get back here!

Solving Problems From the Inside Out

2010-06-04T20:20:00.021-04:00

In one form or another I seem to have spent most of my life helping to solve problems. It probably is what led me to be something of an entrepreneur and help start 3 companies. Even in the management of them, I was fanatical about understanding how we were perceived by our customers. It is only from that

view that we can improve and truly provide a service or product that is desired. I brought this same perspective when I served on my local school board for 6 years. I can tell you that this concept is not always embraced, partially I think because it is easier to have the attitude that we can tell customers what they will want and think it will work. That used to work for GM and other

automobile manufacturers, until companies like Honda and Toyota came along in the 1970’s and provided cars that customers wanted. They listened and chose to create solutions to the “problems” or the needs and wants of the customer.

My personal passion for Kenya, Africa and the developing nations is well known. In those gaps of time on long plane rides or car rides I have often struggled with thinking about ways in which real change can occur. I saw first hand the long term failure of well intentioned donor monies either being sucked up by bureaucracies with only a trickle ending up where it was intended, or sitting idle after the initial burst because of lack of cultural integration or understanding of the project. No parts for repairs, no education of locals to sustain the project, or a ‘solution’ that was oversized in its solution to a smaller problem.

I even went so far to outline a concept of creating a holistic, or life-cycle, measurement of the impacts from the success of international aid and projects. The thought being that success today can lead to only really pushing the problems a few decades ahead, unless steps are taken to address understand the impact and plan accordingly. CIAMP.org emerged and helped start to frame my thinking about this.

It was within this framework that I stumbled upon an innovative organization in Cambridge (MA) called Root Capital. “Root Capital is a nonprofit social investment fund that is pioneering finance for grassroots businesses in rural areas of developing countries”. They fill the niche in between microfinance and commercial lending. This “gap” is a critical area for further assist companies to grow to their potential.

I was impressed with the focus and success. I asked what other organizations I should talk to. At the top of the list was Acumen Fund in New York City.

I was instantly absorbed by the information on the website AcumenFund.org. Within the first 10 minutes

on the site I ordered the book, The Blue Sweater. The rest of the site is so well thought out and designed that it pulled me into its world and made me feel good about registering and becoming part of their community.

The book arrived in two days thanks to Amazon.com. Its author, and founder of Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz, wrote with such wonderful prose that in an instant, doors of my memory opened with a rush. Experiences, nuances, places, people, and images from my times living in Kenya were front and center. It was as if I was walking in her shoes. At the core of the story is a powerful message of investing in local people and companies with what she calls “patient capital” and the desire for solving problems from the inside out.

It starts with listening and ends with providing not just the means to achieve success but also setting the expectation of social and financial responsibility by each of the entrepreneurs. Giveaways are not the concept—empowerment and the empowerment of women, in many investments, to grow businesses is the foundation.

Novogratz wrote, “I’ve learned that many of the answers to poverty lie in the space between the market and charity and that what is needed most of all is moral leadership willing to build solutions from the perspectives of poor people themselves rather than imposing grand theories and plans upon them…”. Acumen provides funding to each company in the range of $300,000 to $2.5 million in debt and/or equity with the expectation of an exit in 5-7 years. A familiar Venture Capital model.

I had the same feeling one gets when putting on a pair of shoes that are in an instant a comfortable and an instinctual fit. I couldn't--I can't-- get enough of what Acumen is doing to utilize investment as a central tool to rid poverty--with dignity, engagement, and choice. I wanted to meet with someone at Acumen to see and understand for myself if the energy, intellect, and compassion I read about was embedded into the organization and team. It seemed too good to be true!

Thanks to the business networking site, Linked-In, I discovered that a close friend was friends with one of the senior Acumen management team members. The introduction started on the Friday before Memorial Day at 3pm, and by 6:00pm I was on the calendar to be in New York on Tuesday to meet with Acumen’s head of Innovation. That in itself told me all that I needed to know about the passion and professionalism of the group.

A dynamic meeting with Acumen’s Innovation Manager only exacerbated what I now call the “Acumen Adrenaline Rush”; Thinking about using existing infrastructure and distribution networks to succeed. Hearing the success stories and resulting momentum each one creates; Understanding the plans to recreate the business model in other countries. The drive back home was filled with thinking of ways in which to get involved and utilize my entrepreneurial experience and passion for Kenya and the developing world.

I had discovered an organization that shared my internal belief of making things better by focusing on what the customers need from their perspective—from the inside out. I had read the words of not only a visionary leader in Jacqueline Novogratz, but spoken with an equally talented supporting team. I had found something that worked for me, from the inside out.

I committed to myself to start by sharing the story of the Acumen Fund through my blog, in person, and to encourage reading The Blue Sweater, whether as a book club reading (they have a frame work to assist) or just a great read for an inspiring, innovative story as part of your summertime reading list while at the beach, on a lake, or in the mountains.

To take even a small peak at the power of solving problems from the inside—I hope you too experience the adrenaline rush!

Arrogance of Power Can Damage, if Not Kill, a Brand

2010-02-16T07:25:00.003-05:00

Within the political arenas there is carnage on the left and the right from the arrogance of power. We have grown accustomed to witnessing imploding Governors and Senators with different sex scandals all in the belief that they would not be caught. President Bush’s claim to have “earned political capital” after only razor-thin election victory or Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid believing that the most recent Presidential election gave them the power to do what they want without engaging the other party’s ideas. Even the cleanest of “brands” in Tiger Woods fell victim to the arrogance of power. Yet the same mistakes are repeated overtime—

In the corporate world we have history of arrogance too. But in this continued worsening news story of Toyota there is unfolding an unexpected arrogance. Toyota is to quality what Volvo is to safety. Years and years of hard work helped build Toyota to be recognized as the “quality” leader—which led to its overtaking General Motors as the largest car company in the world.

Then the recent recall—I mean recalls—one right after another. Consumers are generally forgiving if someone takes immediate responsibility, makes it right, and apologizes. Mistakes can happen.

But as this story rolls out it gets worse and worse. Known issues that were not revealed. Slow response to taking responsibility by Toyota. Delayed issuing of recalls—now totaling over 8.5 million in the US alone. Evidence of an intentional plan to not provide recalls. Hiring of former National Transportation Safety Board employees who in essence lobbied their former colleges to consider some of the facts as less important then they were.

What was Toyota thinking? Here in the middle of the worst economy—arguably even worse for the automobile industry—they start to get a big head?

This has REAL impact. Last week a survey by Kelly Blue Book showed 27 percent of the auto consumers considering buying a Toyota prior to the recall now said they are looking at other brands instead. OUCH! It now is also impacting the used-car market where shoppers are shying away from anything “Toyota”

Going forward, this will be a test of Toyota’s ability to handle the crisis—and whether it can re-shine a now tarnished brand. There are examples of companies that did it right (think Tylenol scare—which wasn’t even their fault) or those that did it poorly (think Exxon Valdez).

Beware the arrogance of power. Trust is a hard thing reestablish.

Scott Brown: What Companies Can Learn From His Meteoric Rise

2010-01-28T09:56:00.005-05:00

DISCLOSURES: I waited at least a few weeks before blogging about Scott Brown and his successful Senate run in Massachusetts so as not to get lost in the crowd. Second, I am hoping that the mere fact of having the words “Scott Brown” in this blog will send the traffic through the roof. Finally, Scott Brown is a part-time resident in my New Hampshire seaside town—not that I would have ever been able to pick him out on the beach before now—but we all have to try to lay claim to fame somehow. Oh, and I am a bit of a political junkie.

Rarely—if ever—has an election of one person to the United States Senate had such a profound impact on the psyche and the bearing of this country-- the impacts of which are seemingly well known to those Americans following this historic event.

I do applaud Scott Brown. I love the underdog regardless of political party (when you are down 30 points you are probably more than an underdog)—and the efforts it takes to overcome that perception.

But there are lessons that every company can and should take out of this election of a Republican Senator in a highly Democratic populated state. Here are three:

1. Don’t just sit on the sidelines- Listen to your customers

The Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, appeared to take the strategy of “playing it safe” by staying on the sidelines for months without interacting with her “customers” or listening to what they want. It reminds be a bit the American automobile manufacturers in the 1970’s—they were going to tell Americans what car Americans wanted to buy. Whoops! Enter the unheard of Japanese car companies, Toyota, Honda, Datsun (Now Nissan)—they, like Scott Brown, listened and produced a product people wanted to buy. They have not really lost market share ever since.

Remember, Customers don’t just buy you for what you did. They want to know what you will do for them.

2. Image matters—and so does relevant substance

Martha Coakley has her tough Attorney General image. Scott Brown the hard working “regular guy” who as we all know, “drives a pick-up truck” image. But usually “image” alone does not carry the day—it just gives a good head start (although if you have a bad image it could derail you pretty early on). Coakely’s “substance” while known (follow the Democratic playbook)—wasn’t in tune to the customers. Brown’s substance “I just want to go to DC and start solving problems” meant something to people.

Steve Jobs—also in the news recently for the iPad (there is a buzz word again that will lift the traffic on this blog!)—is a master of both image (think uber-design of the iPhone) across all hardware AND substance (think of the creation of “Apps- yeah, there is an App for that!). How did Palm—who basically created the personal handheld market decades ago—become a mere asterisk? The image was okay—although it never advanced more than the original design—but the substance was relatively limited for customers beyond a calendar and address book.

3. Winning Customers: Hard work, consistently

Attaining customers is hard work. Keeping them shouldn’t be hard if you are doing things well, communicating well, listening well. Customers want to be impressed, cared for, and basically appreciated. There is always a “Scott Brown” in the wings willing to be there to reap the rewards of unsatisfied customers. This is good news if you are an entrepreneur. This should be a wake-up call if you are an established company.

Customers are earned step-by-step, with thoughtful interactions over time. Scott Brown went door-to-door listening and communicating his message. He worked to earn the vote from each and every customer/voter—and as a 30 point underdog, did not assume he could win any other way.

All companies should design a strategy as if they were 30 points down—that would help them make sure they were doing everything they could to win.

Pausing to Appreciate The Nirvana Zone

2010-01-13T08:23:00.007-05:00

Every year for the past five years a group of ten couples got together, it was one of those magical events where we all could be who we are and relax, joke, tell stories, dance, cook, toast each other and, well, just have fun. It was a nirvana of place and people. This year that event didn’t happen with the same group of people. Personal dynamics, changes in life, new friends all entered the equation. There was sadness that manifested itself for some—but in the end it was, for me, about the sadness of change. We all know it is inevitable-but when things are so good it just makes it that much harder when it is not the same any more.

It made me think back to all the times of my life that I was in the Nirvana Zone—company successes, camps, sports teams, summer events, family reunions, summiting a peak, places in Africa... While I know I tried to realize at that moment how special it was—it usually wasn’t until it disappeared or changed that I gained full appreciation.

Red Sox…Patriots. We have had some great Nirvana Zones with those two teams over the past few years. And then poof— now the highs are gone.

A recent news story on the island of Lamu off the coast of Kenya hit home. This island with streets (really alleys) 6 feet wide, one car on the island, rich culture, white sand beaches and not a care in the world is now targeted to be a major shipping port and oil refinery with all the trappings of the 21st Century. Truly a paradise lost (see NY Times story about that here ).

The reality is that we can not assume anything will last forever.

So while I may not put this under a New Year’s Resolution, I am going to make more of a concerted effort to pause, breath in, capture visually, emotionally, and spiritually those moments in 2010 that are in the Nirvana Zone knowing that they do not last forever. Even if I get 30 more seconds of joy as a result—I will have that to hold on to when the magic fades.

Of Santa and Practical Inventions

2009-12-23T11:25:00.004-05:00

Maybe it is just because this past weekend I had to unscrew several drain pipes in the bathroom to unclog the drains and reach down into dark places with my fingers and a use a coat hanger to get even more...Maybe it’s that I almost got sick looking at the dark yuck I pulled out.

But I just saw this—what seems to me—“why did it take so long to invent” drain pipe from PermaFLOW (it is their “Never-clog drain”). Their claim is “The PermaFLOW's patented design ensures that you won't need to open your drain, call the plumber, use harsh chemicals, get out your plunger, or wrestle with your snake the next time you have a clog--just turn the external knob on the PermaFLOW's integrated, drain-clearing wiper to clear out blockage”. Now that is a BIG promise.

Now I’m thinking about the Christmas dinner including the uneaten brussel sprouts and heavy mashed potatoes in the sink. Is it too late to get this on Santa’s list?

Maybe the real thing I want from Santa is the 3am “eureka moments” to think of great solutions to basic problems like this!

Happy Holidays and Best wishes for 2010 to all of you Big Bad Rhino Blog Readers (and thank you for reading and commenting!)

Boy, come to think of it, there aren’t too many people sad to see 2009 in the rearview mirror!

To see the drain in action check out the VIDEO

AT&T: Better Customer Service Too for its iPhone Customers?

2009-12-09T07:18:00.014-05:00

Okay I don’t want to get carried away since ATT still does not rank on my personal top list of customer service.

However, they have just launch an iPhone App called “Mark the Spot” (link) which allows customers to flag an area (s) where calls were dropped, failed, or had no coverage. It also allows marking of data failure and poor voice quality with the additional ranking of how often.

One could argue that this is a faster way than the poor man from Verizon who walks around the country testing their system by saying, “Can you hear me now?”!

As with anything, major kudos for being smart enough to (a) collect the data in an accurate and meaningful way and (b) making the customer feel like their voice is heard---well in this case NOT heard.

The REAL proof of the customer service improvement is what ATT does with the information. Will they actually speed up the installs of new towers or stronger signals?—and will they make this information transparent? Wouldn’t it be great to go to a map and see not only where you mark the spot—but see if others did, how many, and where? THAT is a TRUE connection with the customer. Likewise they should show where they HAVE made changes as a result of this data.

Otherwise it reminds me of the fake thermostats bosses used to put in office buildings to give the appearance that the employees had control over the temperature by letting them adjust the dial-- when in truth it had no connection to the HVAC system at all.

Let's hope this is a real change in customer service.

Home Depot: Who Knew you COULD Teach Old Dogs New Tricks

2009-12-03T15:42:00.003-05:00

My first walk into a Home Depot outside of Boston in 1995 was like a dream come true. Everything and more that I thought I would ever need for my home. Now it didn’t hurt that we had just bought a 150 year old house—read many fix-it projects.

My torrid love affair soon waned.

Every time I walked in the store—without time to walk up and down every aisle—I would look to catch the eye of one of the folks on the floor to ask a question. Almost as if they were trained to, they would get that look like they were already on a mission and couldn’t help you. I was always left alone, feeling a bit like Charlie Brown on the pitcher's mound. When I actually did get someone, they had NO idea where to find something, let alone what it did. I had to do the work—and take the time—if I wanted to give them my hard earned money.

I am not the first to write about this “phenomenon”.

A few years later, a Lowe’s Home Improvement opened a few miles away. Clearly a better focus on customers and at least they could tell you what aisle something was in.

Maybe it’s the high unemployment. Maybe it’s the bad economy. Maybe it’s that the old CEO, Robert L. Nardelli, who took his $210mm “fired package” is not there anymore and went to Chrysler to drive that into the ground further. I am not sure.

But in the past month I have had two occasions to go into The Home Depot in two different towns. I had to look around to make sure there were not some hidden cameras and I was being P’unked! I couldn't believe what was happening.

The first time I was looking for a new door knob for an outside door. Not only did the woman first ask me—even before I had the puzzled look on my face—“Can I help you find something”—she actually walked with me, down the aisle to the spot where the door knobs were. Then she started educating me on the differences between the products. WOW!

Likewise, last week I was looking for some brackets to hold the storm door glass in place. The same thing happened. The man took me down the aisle and showed me two options. THEN he walked to the other side of the store with me—at his suggestion—to SHOW me how the brackets worked in a storm door that was on display in the door section. Mind you this was only a $1.75 purchase. BAM! I was sold.

My hat is off to The Home Depot—and a great reminder to us all that old ways can be mended. Start with what the customer says is bad…and fix it! It is just that simple.

Watch the Unemployment Rate Grow Graphically

2009-11-25T08:09:00.005-05:00

"A picture tells a thousand words" is an often used expression.

Take a look at this graphical represenation of the unemployment rate growing in each US county from 2007-2009. It is striking. That which we read is shown in mere seconds as to the impact of this Great Recession. Watch it a few times and see where and how fast things change in certain areas. Michigan looks to be static--only because they already were with higher unemployment before 2007.

Geography of a Recession

Driving a Car Using Your IPhone

2009-11-12T07:18:00.003-05:00

For something a little fun and right out of a James Bond movie (well almost) Waterloo labs shows how you can drive a car using an iPhone and a McGuyver like set up... The power of technology and a little imagination

Using “The Ladders” in Job Search: Buyer Beware

2009-11-10T07:15:00.005-05:00

I recently read the Silicon Valley Insiders list of 50 most valuable internet startups and saw expected names like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Craigslist. But when I read #19—The Ladders—I stopped in my tracks. It quotes revenue of $90 million with a value of $800 million.

For those of you that do not know The Ladders, it was developed several years ago and flipped the model (charging companies to post a job) for the job posting business that companies like Monster.com perfected for so long by. The Ladders offered companies to post their jobs for free—and charged the job seeker $30/month. At $90 million of revenue that is a lot of people shelling out money.

As an entrepreneur who has started several companies in the online recruitment area (all were acquired) I have more than a passing interest in this area and am always impressed with new ideas. When The Ladders first launched I joined up and found the jobs to be high quality—and more importantly not found anywhere else.

I have been watching it again recently—although through the free membership—and figured out that if I typed some of the keywords from the descriptions from the search results and Googled it maybe the jobs would pop up. Well I have gotten quite surprised…Many, many (in some cases all) of the jobs appear on Google from Monster.com, Indeed.com (ranked at #31 $40mm revenues/$380mm valuation), and many others websites. I checked with a few CEOs I know and they say they did not post the jobs at The Ladders that were appearing. I have had conversations with other online recruitment firms that say it is known within the industry that The Ladders—like Indeed.com—aggregates jobs and also puts them within their system with the other jobs. The difference is that you can go to Indeed.com for FREE and The Ladders charges-- what one assumes is an unemployed person already struggling-- $30/month. Ouch!…Buyer Beware.

I have seen the angst of those unemployed and want to share this to help them be successful without spending more money that they already don’t have. To be fair I did not do any scientific method in my research—but even if a company posts jobs in multiple places it leads one to believe that a job seeker does not have to pay $30 to find the job posting at The Ladders. I’m not saying stop using The Ladders (I happen to like the interface), but use it as a “screener” of matching jobs and then type in the shown parts of the job description and find the full job description and company name elsewhere on the web and go from there. Buy a massage with the money you saved for the stress relief.

Best of luck in your Search in what are the darkest days in decades.

Marketing Through Smell

2009-11-03T19:28:00.005-05:00

I vividly remember walking through Downtown Boston, when I worked there, in the middle of the afternoon. Five blocks away I could smell the baked chocolate chip cookies from Mrs. Field’s cookies. The 80 square foot “shop” on the outside walls of Filene’s was a stroke of marketing genius. Above the take-out window was a pipe pumping out the fumes of the ovens. Little room for signage was never an issue—I, and what always seemed a line of 15 people, were hooked long before we could see it.

It is not surprising that of the five human senses (sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell) that science has proven that smell is the most acute. In addition, it is more tied to emotion and memory of past experiences than any other sense.

It was with this history that I was captivated by an article about an artist, Mitchell Heinrich, and his development of “smell graffiti”. The concept is designed around using smell out of a spray can instead of paint to express a new art form. His graffiti lasts 20 to 60 minutes. (see how to make it yourself )

There is also a company, AromaSys, who produces unique customized scents. They have provided over 1000 systems and over 100 aroma blends covering millions of square feet for clients including the Wynn Hotels, Bellagio, MGM, and the Ritz Carleton. So it seems marketing by smell has found some footing.

Real estate brokers are not new to this. Fresh cut flowers and baking bread from the kitchen oven are often used smell marketing strategies to make the house feel like a home.

Nivea (the skin and beauty company) ran an advertisement during the previews at a movie cinema showing a beach scene. Part way through the advertisement they pumped in the smell of suntan lotion to finalize the effect to great success.

Then there is the “evil side”—like in all marketing. Maybe it is the post-Halloween in me. Maybe it’s just that today is Election Day—and political elections are usually heavily skewed towards negative political advertising. But it is hard to resist not to think of the opposite use of smell marketing…

Just think about what one could do to their competitor combining the business of AromaSys with the ease of Heinrich’s spray cans. Spray a smell of cow manure or human barf at the front door of any competitive retailer…that is sure to drive away customers. Even do it at an event function you don’t like. It is kind of a demonstration/picketing by smell. The possibilities are endless—and if smell is our strongest memory connection, the “brand association” could last for a lot longer than the one time. ..Ouch!

China’s Power: Nothing More Than a Cross Between Eddie Murphy’s Movie “Meet Dave” and the Game Monopoly.

2009-10-28T11:33:00.013-04:00

Ever since I started writing this blog I can’t seem to stop seeing things around me in parallel universes. Maybe that is part of the point of writing—to see things in unique and different ways. This past weekend was a typical New England Autumn weekend. One day and night of heavy rains, wind, and depressing raw gray, followed by a sunny, bright day showing off the multi-colored leaf season we call autumn.

It was during the hibernation day that we did not venture outdoors. We played a family game of Monopoly—and my daughter seemed to land on “Free Parking” (and the $500+ it had in it every time) on every other turn. As a result she amassed a fortune of money that she (smartly) used to buy up properties, houses, hotels and cut “partnership deals” with those of us with the one or two property colors she needed and in recognition of our need of cash. She didn’t need or have to even own Park Place and Boardwalk to dominate the game. No one else could do anything against her depth of money—and discount the price to sell to her—all in an attempt to survive and hope to land on Free Parking ourselves…

After the game we all settled down for a family movie…Eddie Murphy’s “Meet Dave”. The core plot of the movie is that Aliens arrive on Earth in a space ship designed to look like a human being (Eddie Murphy). The aliens need to save their planet, Nil, which is running out of energy. The energy component they require is salt and their plan is to drain Earth's oceans with no regard to the impact to Earth—even if it means destroying all life--to get salt. The only thing the aliens know is that to survive on their own planet they need to take this resource from Earth because they didn’t have it at home. (No spoiler alert here—watch the DVD)

On Sunday, the nice day, I squeezed in one more afternoon on the screened-in porch before putting the furniture away in preparation for the onslaught of snow. I had a stack of magazines and some podcasts to catch-up on. Several of the stories, not all that surprisingly, had some angle on China and its growing role in the world.

Having been to China twice on business in 2005 and 2006—and having seen its raw power, the hard work ethic, focus, and modern push—I have continued my interest in the goings on there. What I read both startled me and confirmed an observation—China is making its full move to the head of the pack…now.

Then the parallel universe thing hit me. China is "Meet Dave" and Monopoly wrapped up into one.

China Meets Dave

China’s acquisition is driven by its need to save the country. 1.3 billion people to feed. 1.3 billion people leap-frogging their way from the 19th century to the 21st century trying to make up for the lost 20th century...That is a lot of energy and raw material need. Like the aliens from Nil, China recognized it does not possess all they need even within their vast borders. The Asia Times states, “But with only 7% of the world's arable land, and the loss of over a million hectares of arable land annually to pollution and desertification” China needs to control options quickly.

Note only some of many recent dealings for raw materials include:

$1.5 billion for a 17 percent stake in Canadian mining Teck Resources Ltd.

$949 million for 11 percent of JSC KazMunaiGas Exploration Production, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan's main state oil company

Attempted $19.5 billion into London-based Rio Tinto Ltd, one of the largest mining corporations in the world increasing its stake from 9.3 percent to 18 percent.

$127 million for Centrex Metals Ltd for 50% stakes in iron ore projects in Australia.
A 50.1 percent stake of Perilya Ltd, an Australian zinc and lead mining company

$7 billion mining deal for access to Guinea's bauxite and other minerals

One-sixth of Nigeria's known oil reserves, currently owned by Western energy groups, for a reputed $30 billion to $50 billion.

Sinopec, bought Swiss oil producer Addax Petroleum Corp. in August for $7.24 billion and acquired Addax's high-potential operations in Nigeria and Gabon, as well as Iraq.

$2 billion for Tanganiyka Oil
$171 for Vancouver’s Peru Copper

$10 billion loan for Brazil’s Petrobras in return for guaranteed oil flow minimums to China

$4.1 billion for PetroKazakhstan
China National Petroleum forked over $5 billion to develop a section of the South Pars gas fields in Iran.

The impact is not just one dimensional. This is a bit of a zero sum game as these are resources—particularly oil—that the US would want to have access to as well.

When you look at food growth needs, one sees a trend in land-lease and acquisitions of over 2.1 million hectares (1 hectare= 107,639 sq ft) . This is land China controls to feed its people—at the same time that local starvation rates are high in many of the countries they are leasing land from. Some of the countries include:

Philippines (1,240,000 H)
Laos (700,000 H),
Russia (80,400H)
Australia (43,000H)
Cameroon (10,000H)
Kazakhstan (7,000H)
Cuba (5,000H)
Uganda (4,046H)
Mexico (1,050H)
Tanzania (300H)

China owns the Monopoly Board

The only difference in the acquired wealth ($2.1 trillion) from my daughter’s landing on “Free Parking” is that the Chinese earned their significant wealth through hard work—and the West’s huge consumer appetite. But with cash—and now more importantly the rest of the world’s lack of it—it puts them in the drivers seat to not only acquire—but, as the buyer of last resort, acquire at bargain prices. Add to that the US’s almost complete reliance on China’s buying of US Treasury debt, which also limits the US’s political pressure to bear on China and subjects the US to significant financial risk, one sees that the game changing... oh so quickly.

They are also buying real estate and bought a 10% stake in Morgan Stanley, 20% stake in Standard Bank, $3 billion stake in Blackstone, 1% secret stake in Prudential, Britain's second-largest insurer.

There is not a square they are landing on that they are not buying. Money is flowing.

While it could be easy to condemn China for all of these actions, it seems to me to just follow in the steps of what the West already did several times over in previous centuries. It is also strategically serving its own self interest--survival--first.

It just isn’t as fun when you are on the other side of it all—particularly with only a limited ability to change it, if at all.

China learned fast. It must have been playing the actual board game of Monopoly while they were making them in the factories there—and they must have been watching the “Meet Dave” DVDs they were pressing on the DVD players they were making.

Funny how sometime life imitates entertainment—or is it the other way around?

See what I mean by these parallel universes that I keep experiencing?

Top 10 Actual Occurrences in Interviews. Probably Things NOT to Say or Do.

2009-10-20T10:28:00.007-04:00

Just to change up the blog a bit I decided for a little direct, put-a-smile-on-your-face sharing moment.

I had a chance to recently catch-up with some other CEO friends of mine that I used to be in the YEO Forum with my start-up companies. One remembered some of the funny--maybe could be considered sad-- interview stories I used to bring to share. I have interviewed hundreds of candidates over the years and this is my Top Ten list of things NOT to do or say during an interview that I actually witnessed:

1. “I interviewed at the telephone company. I really wanted to work there but I failed the pole test. I would love to be a salesperson for you."

2. “I am recently divorced but it is okay. I’m getting laid a lot. I mean a lot…”

3. “If you Google me you will see my name in police logs in the paper. They are not legitimate issues.”

4. “If EMC ever offered me a job I would work there, but I’m interested in a long term job with your company.”

5. “The only reason I’m interviewing here is that I need health insurance for my wife.”

6. Handed to me: A pink paper resume with photo on back.

7. “Is your admin assistant single?”

8. “I know the position states that it is telesales position, but is there anyway to do it without using a phone?”

9. A 30+ year-old candidate’s mother called to ask how the interview went for her son. The son then called to apologize the next day.

10. Asked what hobbies the woman had she replied, “Men!”

Branding:Lessons from a Online Dating Site

2009-10-11T05:31:00.013-04:00

Expereince has taught me that many times it is smart to take lessons (or products) from one experience in one business segment and determine if they can also apply to another business segment. In searching for these, we either can learn much and/or find great opportunity. So when I recently read the interesting blog of Christine Huang "What Brands Can Learn From Online Dating" it only reinforced my belief. Her analysis of results from OKCupid as it applies to "brands" is as follows:

"Dating site OKCupid recently published some interesting findings culled from an analysis of over 500,000 first contacts (messages or IMs) made through their free service. They looked at repeated keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and other statistically significant trends in their members’ online courting practices. They compiled their findings into a set of nine ‘rules’ to help users successfully break the ice (or at least get a conversation going) with other members.Their list got us thinking: what can these lessons of online dating teach us about relationship-building on a larger scale? What makes an online interaction feel genuine and appealing, whether it be between a suitor and his love interest, or a brand and its audience? Let’s take a few of OKCupid’s first impression rules and consider how they might be useful for brands:

#1 – Be literateNetspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs. Our negative correlation list is a fool’s lexicon: ur, u, wat, wont, and so on.
…Interesting exceptions to the “no netspeak” rule are expressions of amusement. haha (45% reply rate) and lol (41%) both turned out to be quite good for the sender. This makes a certain sense: people like a sense of humor, and you need to be casual to convey genuine laughter.

The lesson for brands: Don’t underestimate your audience. No one likes to be talked down to – whether by a suitor or a company. Speaking with humor and candor will sometimes work; but in general, what we want and expect is intelligent messaging, design, and services. We feel good about supporting smart brands (and dating smart people) – and your approach should acknowledge that.

#2 – Use an unusual greeting.We took a close look at salutations…The results surprised us:
It’s smarter to use no traditional salutation at all (which earns you the reply rate of 27%) and just dive into whatever you have to say than to start with hi…The more informal standard greetings: how’s it going, what’s up, and howdy all did very well.

The lesson for brands: This goes without saying – but strive for originality, right from the get go. As with suitors, brands must earn their audience’s attention and stand out amongst its competitors. The most obvious way to do that is to be unique.

#3 – Don’t try to take it outside...An offer to chat or of an email address right off the bat is a sure turn off. One of the things online dating has going for it is its relative anonymity, and if you start chipping away at that too early, you’ll scare the other person off.
Also, don’t ask for or give away a cell number (10%). I thought that was a no-brainer. For the brainless among you who are doing this, my best advice is to paypal me 25 dollars and never use a computer again.
Lesson for brands: Desperation reeks. It’s hard to respect a suitor who puts his/her cards on the table too quickly (we all know a romance requires some chase). The same goes for a brand-consumer relationship; we want to feel like we’re making conscious decisions, not doing what’s easiest (caveat: this really only applies to ’serious’, loyal relationships: as with booty calls, some brands can capitalize on being cheap ‘n easy – but those relationships aren’t meant to last.)

#4 – Bring up specific interests.There are many words on the effective end of our list like zombie, band, tattoo, literature, studying, vegetarian (yes!), and metal (double yes!) that are all clearly referencing something important to the sender, the recipient, or, ideally, both. Talking about specific things that interest you or that you might have in common with someone is a time-honored way to make a connection, and we have proof here that it works.
Lesson for brands: Be relevant. If a brand is cutting and pasting its message across segments and media, its audience can tell. In marketing as in courtship, making an authentic connection requires a true understanding of your potential partner and his/her beliefs, behaviors, interests, and passions.

#5 – If you’re a guy, be self-effacing.Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful, yet none of them except sorry affects female messages. As we mentioned before, pretty, no doubt because of its adverbial meaning of “to a fair degree; moderately” also helps male messages.
Lesson for brands: Be humble. This doesn’t mean simpering and stupid. It means being human and real. In OKCupid, men who were willing to share their vulnerable sides were taken more seriously than those who showered their recipients with generic compliments and pick up lines. A brand should think along the same lines – if you want to make an impression on your audience, try to behave more like a person than a corporation.

Read the original OK Cupid post on their findings here"

Dan Brown’s “A Lost Symbol” and Drew Barrymore’s “Whip-It”: Great Formula Entertainment

2009-10-04T20:10:00.007-04:00

There has always been a constant clash between “innovation and freshness” and staying with the formula of “what worked”. This is no more apparent than in entertainment. Whether its “Reality TV” starting with the freshness of the original “Survivor” and now every possible activity from fashion to cooking or the film Rocky… and up to Rocky V. Even when the first version is unique and the additional ones take on the structure of the first—some work and some don’t.

“The Lost Symbol”

So it was with great anticipation that I bought local New Hampshire hero, Dan Brown’s, newest book “The Lost Symbol”. I do not read as much or as often as I should, or would like to, so my wife was a bit surprised when Amazon.com delivered the book only a few days after it was released. I purposely did not read any reviews prior to buying or reading the book. I am a bit of the action/suspense genre lover in the form of Clive Cussler and Robert Ludlum so I have found Brown’s books to grab me in the same way.

A Lost Symbol did not fail me…I could not put the book down and the action pushed me from page to page. That said, it wasn’t too long into the book that I felt a bit of déjà vu. Obviously the main character was the same as The Da Vinci Code in Robert Langdon, but so was the entire framework with just the location, the names, and the actual organization, the Masons, at the core of the plot, different.

Yet, for me, this was actually fine. I really enjoyed the entertainment value of the book—even if a bit formulistic-- and the intrigue of symbols, puzzles, and history weaved into the story. Survival of the hero in this genre has always been a bit far fetched—so that was a non-issue for me, too. I reflected that the same “formula argument” could be said about Ludlum and Cussler books—yet they too are excellent entertainment. I am not sure any of these three authors set out to write a Pulitzer Prize novel or literary work of art ala Catcher in the Rye.

It was with a bit of surprise that upon reading reviews after I read the book that many “critics” took Dan Brown to task on the new book. It seemed that there was a false sense of expectation or even maybe jealously over his wide success on the pages and on the screen. Maybe this was finally the channel for those whose religious beliefs ran counter to the fiction novel of The Da Vinci Code to vent themselves against Brown.

In the end books, to me, are entertainment. No different than the enjoyment of my free time that I get from watching sports, movies, television and reading magazines, newspapers, and of course blogs. I got more than my $16.47 worth of value—and learned some things along the way.

“Whip It”

I did scan a few reviews of first-time director Drew Barrymore’s “Whip It”. Not unlike the “love” given to Dan Brown, many “critics” complained that the movie was totally predictable and a typical Hollywood story. I wasn’t sure about a roller-derby movie, but I happen to really enjoy Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page (Juno) so I plunked down my $7.50 to watch the film.

Was the plot predictable? Pretty much. Had I seen the same basic story played out a hundred times on the big screen? Yup. But this—even as a bit of a formula movie—was really great entertainment…and somehow still really fresh. It was well executed. Like Brown’s book I was eagerly awaiting each next scene and the two hour length never seemed long.

I think the advantage Barrymore had to make a formula fresh, is it that she was able to tell the story through film. It was the directing, the cinematography, and the personal “Drew-isms” that made it work so well. Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar (aka Babe Ruthless) was natural and engaging. In fact, the chemistry between all the actors made it obvious that they had fun making the movie. You can’t formulate that. Chemistry either happens or it doesn’t—and when it does it is magical. And in Whip It the film worked—and I think has the potential to go down as a bit of a cult film ala Caddyshack and Napoleon Dynamite—.

I’m glad I didn’t let the roller-skate aspect of the movie send me to a different theatre—I would have missed a gem.

While I do appreciate and enjoy originals—and the creativity behind them--in the end I measure these things in terms of the level of my personal enjoyment.

Top 5 Tracking & Mapping Technology Applications

2009-09-29T10:52:00.012-04:00

One of the coolest things in technology to me is the combination of tracking and maps. I think I am a GPS-aholic. I am continually in awe as things come across my desk that show these two features intertwined. It seems to me that the number of these devices, programs, and apps are increasing at an increasing rate.

The ability to visualize data in real time is a unique benefit of technology today.

Here are my Top 5:

#1. Trendsmap http://www.trendsmap.com/ “Real time local twitter trends”
Whether you are a Twitter user or not, it is hard not to appreciate this new integration of data and mapping. Trendsmap combines real time mapping of Tweets/Retweets by the volume of words within the Tweet to the local, regional, and national location. If a thousand people include in their tweets the words “Red Sox” in Boston the words appear larger than 100 people’s tweet on “Idol”.

In an instant one can get a sense of thoughts, issues, and communications going on at multiple levels---around the world. If you see something of interest, just click the word and see the actual tweets including pictures. Today “Typhoon” and “Philippines” are big. Anyone can see in real time what is going on from multiple vantage points.

I think it would be fun to “test” the system with 25 or 50 people tweeting or retweeting the same words. Maybe something like “Big Bad Rhino”! and watch it appear.

#2 Run Keeper http://www.runkeeper.com/ “GPS fitness tracking, mapping, and history”

Run Keeper is designed for a variety of outdoor fitness activities including running, skiing (downhill and XC), snow boarding, biking, walking, and skating. It tracks you via GPS and provides you with realtime data on distance, miles per hour, and total time in activity. Add to that a historical map of where you actually went and measurements in 1/10th of a mile increments and you have a really neat (free) way to keep accurate records. I have found that by using it I actually do these activities MORE now to see if I have improved…

The only downside of course is that you need a strong GPS signal for accurate information.

For actually seeing the exact trails—and recording them on a map—that you skied, there is also the program SkiTrak http://www.skitrak.com/

#3 Loopt http://www.loopt.com/ “Shows who you know is around you…”

Have you ever been out on the town and the next day bump into a friend who was out as well—but you just didn’t bump into them and wished you had? Need to find your child at the fairgrounds? Well Loopt is a GPS technology that can help.

The user has to proactively put the feature “on” but it does track you as you go from place to place—or you can manually identify each place that you go to. (They are developing a premium feature that has it on –always. Which obviously has its good (read: teenagers) and bad (obvious privacy concerns…) )

Loopt also combines this as a social networking tool which allows for integration into Facebook and the like, again with updates, photos, etc.

#4 Trapster http://www.trapster.com/ “user identified police speed trap identification”

Trapster is the 2009 equivalent of flashing your lights to oncoming cars when you have just driven by a police speed trap.

Activate the application and the GPS tracks you and tells you when there is a “historical police trap” on the road ahead or if another user has recently indicated that there is a live speed trap. Likewise, if you drive by a previously unidentified trap, you can, with the press of a button, mark the trap for future users. You can also indicate that one is not longer there.

The applications (free) are for a wide range of phones and GPS devices like TomTom. Also they indicate that without a smart phone one can “still get Trapster text message alerts on your mobile phone, report traps that you see using our 1-800 tip line, or just print out directions for your trip with speed traps, speed cameras, and red light cameras included”

Like many services that rely on assistance from other users, you need to give good info if you expect the benefits of receiving good info.

#5. A Box Life http://www.aboxlife.com/ “Keeping cardboard boxes in use longer by tracking them”

Columbia Sportswear started this program to become more “green”. Their strategy was to make it more fun—and they did it by being able to track boxes that they shipped out as they were reused by customers for other shipments.

Scan the code with your iPhone or other device (Blackberry, Nokia, Sony, Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and more) and you can watch and see the “take off’ and “arrival” destinations of the box and how many trips it made before its ultimate crunching into (hopefully) the recycle bin.

My one frustration with this is that you have to FIRST buy something from Columbia. I think it would be better to be able to print out the QR code (high tech bar code) and attach it to a box yourself. If the ultimate goal is longevity of boxes why not open it up for all users? Hopefully they will be convinced after reading this blog…

...The day-to-day benefits of technology is just downright fun!

Determining If Optimists Are Ostriches

2009-09-24T09:38:00.010-04:00

Several recent events have made me think that there are two (at least) categories of the way optimists interpret data and information: Reality based optimists and Ostrich optimists. The first is the optimist who sees the hopeful signs within analyzed data and information and works on an enduring belief that everything will work out for the best based upon the thorough analysis. Then there is the Ostrich Optimist who either consciously or unconsciously chooses not to really look deeply at the data and sticks his/her head in the sand hoping that it all works out in the end.
(Note: It is actually a complete myth about ostriches sticking their head-in-the-sand. But the metaphor works. I digress.)

FINANCIAL CRISIS

It is now one year later—at least since the demise of Lehman Brothers and the continued onslaught of the financial markets—it is hard NOT to be tired of the constant bad news… 8 million jobs lost, home values dropping 20,30, 50%, major auto companies filing for bankruptcy, companies shutting their doors, banks teetering on the edge of existence. The list goes on and on…

In recent weeks though, it seems that we have put much of this behind us. The stock market (a leading indicator of future belief (read, optimism) up 30%+ from it lows in March, some banks and financial institutions paying back the TARP funds ahead of schedule, Goldman Sachs had huge quarter results, and, not insignificantly, we think we know now that we are not in—or even headed towards—a depression, but rather are in a major deep recession.

Looking at just this information one can not blame the “Optimism” that all ahead is grand. It reminds me a bit of the story President Ronald Reagan used to tell about the boy shoveling the stall that was up to the ceiling in manure. “There must be a pony in here somewhere” the boy replied when asked why he was shoveling so hard. Clearly we Americans are by nature and historically optimists—or we probably otherwise would have never left Europe or headed to the Great Wild West.

Don’t get me wrong. I too am suffering in this economy and want nothing more than to have it “in the rearview mirror” and return to better days. At the same time I find no solace in false hopes and denial. My mantra is to accept the data—not to run from it, not to fabricate it, not to ignore it, not to put a ridiculous spin on it —rather, accept the truth of it and figure out a plan based upon that information.

Yet I think many only believe what they want to believe? Hence Ostrich Optimism.

How do I get to that conclusion? I just read that most major credit card companies (all except American Express who has been paying high risk card holders $300 to give up their cards and transfer their debt to other cards) announced record levels of consumer default; JP Morgan Chase & Co. reported 8.73% write-offs; Bank of American Corp. 14.54%. All as a result of the continued rise in the unemployment rate and as the impact of tax refunds waned. Delinquencies—those not yet in collections-- averaged an additional 5-7% in the major credit card companies that also include Visa, Capital One, and Discover.

Already extended unemployment insurance is running out for the first waves of people “downsized’ a year ago. If those people do not get new work than everything accelerates that much faster. Add to that 8 million people coming off of unemployment.

Shift over to Commercial Real Estate and any industry insider will tell you that the “ugly years” are about to arrive between 2010-2013. Notes done in the heyday of acquisitions come due at the same time that vacancies are at 20 year highs (8 million less people need space to work in) and as a result rental rates are significantly lower than at the time of financing. Oh, and not surprisingly there are less banks and other institutions willing to refinance. The Real Estate Roundtable in Washington, D.C., estimates $400 billion in commercial real estate loans will come due this year. By 2012, the figure will be more than $1.8 trillion.

Add to this a national deficit of $1 trillion—annually--that needs to somehow be financed… well you get the picture.

While doom and gloom is not the recipe for success, taking stock of the realistic picture and putting a balanced optimism to work would sure seem like the right thing to do

I can not shake the image of Bernard Madoff. Seems like a lot of smart people were Optimistic Ostriches about his financial return capabilities. Many just believed their neighbors and friends wanting to believe what they wanted to believe without taking stock of the data and information and really understanding it.

I hope, optimistically, that I am wrong.

With apologies to the ostriches to drag them into this mess.

No #$*% Respect: Kanye West, Serena Williams, Joe Wilson …

2009-09-14T14:36:00.028-04:00

Rodney Dangerfield made the expression “I get no respect” famous via his various comedy routines in the 1970’s. Little did he know that Americans would take the expression and start down the incremental path of disrespect.

I walk around my local schools and see signs neatly painted outlining expectations for students to "be respectful" and "caring". On weekends I stand on sidelines of my kids’ soccer games and hear abusive language being thrown at referees. There was a championship tournament game last spring that I was watching (not my kid's) in Brunswick, Maine. After warning a specific abuse yelling parent twice to be quiet and to leave the grounds, a ref stopped the game and awarded the win to the opposing team. The team was made up of 12 year old girls. The losing team was in tears because they were ahead and lost because of a mom's lack of respect. What message does that send to kids? Where does the modeling of respect come from?

Have I ever disagreed with a ref? You bet I have. Have I moaned in agony over a call? Guilty again. But does that translate into the right to disrespect the ref and attack him or her personally? No way. One of my coaches told me that not all calls are going to be good or go our way. We needed to, as a team, play even better to win and compensate for some poor calls.

Just this past Saturday I watched Serena Williams lambaste a line judge for a call. Was the call suspect? Maybe. Was Serena really upset at herself for playing poorly? Most definitely. Yet she showed the highest level of disrespect—and paid the ultimate price of losing the match as a result-- which she should have.

Take the now famous line “You Lie!” yelled out at the joint session of congress by Representative Joe Wilson to President Obama. Is there not a place more steeped in tradition and decorum than with the US House and US Senate? If this is tolerated and accepted where does it stop?

And just Sunday night, Kanye West rushed the stage (not as a presenter) to diss the VMA winner Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech and highlight who he thought should win… does disrespect stop anywhere? OMG

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Do we get our cues from Simon Cowell and his “for-show” disrespect on American Idol? If so, than the line between reality and entertainment bears some responsibility.

Some talking heads on television and radio point to the right of Americans to speak their mind and stand up and be heard. I could not agree more. But I say “Style points count”. Can someone express their views without being inflammatory? I think of recent town hall event where a person called—actually yelled-- that the proposed healthcare plans were a “Nazi policy”. Could that dislike for the healthcare proposal—fully the right of the speaker to have-- have been stated in a different way and still be understood? I think so.

We as a nation and nations across the globe have disagreed for centuries—and things were changed and modified. Sometimes not. Understanding both sides occurred through the civil dialog. Disagreement and opposition coexisted. Life advanced. The long used example of political respect by opposites is Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. Both going toe-to-toe on policy during the day and sitting down and having a beer together at night. This would seemingly never happen now. Did Reagan get much of what he wanted accomplished? Yes. Did Tip have an ability to shape much of the debate—recognizing the realities? Yes. Did either of them make it personal? No.

Cutting to the bone by being disrespectful is, in my mind, one of the lowest forms of communication. It is the easy way --a cheap short-cut-- out of constructive conversation. I suggest what is critical is to look at what the end goal is. If in fact the end goal is to change the outcome (Soccer calls, healthcare policy changes, tennis line calls, award winners…) then more thought needs to be put into understanding what can actually help make that occur. I can almost guarantee that complete disrespect does not facilitate change in outcome. In fact, it probably just the opposite.

I have tried to get my head around how we got this way—in only the last 10-15 years. I think it is a bit like watching your own child grow. It happens a little by little and is really hard to notice until one day the kid is wearing high-waters or a friend from out of town says “my they have grown so much”. Incremental change.

The solution… well this obviously is the tough part. I am a big believer in social peer pressure. If a significant group of your peers chides you for your behavior it tends to have some lasting effect. Think of the Scarlet Letter. Can you imagine if the parents from the same team ALL went up to and told the other parent to be stop yelling from the soccer sidelines? What if the Republican party in unanimous fashion and publicly told Wilson that he was disrespectful? I’m guessing that any tennis player now or Williams herself will think twice about slamming a line judge. Kanye West banned from being nominated for the next 10 years and attending award shows. That might send a message.

Alternatively—or maybe in conjunction--like the concept of “taking a deep breath” before we speak our mind, maybe people need to get Aretha Franklin singing Respect in our heads (a bit like Barry White songs in Ally McBeal’s head on her TV sitcom show) before blurting out some disrespectful comment.

Listen to her here…ironically at the 2007 US Open Tennis Championships.

Respectively submitted.

iPhone Apps: “WOW!” Moments

2009-09-08T09:54:00.008-04:00

Okay, I know not everyone has an iPhone and while at once really trendy there is starting to be iPhone and the anti-iPhone groups polarizing. Even the cover of Fortune magazine pits Blackberry vs iPhone. I think regardless of whether its iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre, or any other device, the core aspects of and the addiction to applications are here to stay.

I have only had my iPhone since 2008. Still the most amazing application (“App”), in terms of technology is Shazam. (OK, if you are an iPhoner I know this is not “new” to you…). I am horrible at remembering or even knowing names of songs or artists, but I know music I like when I hear it. It is with this premise that Shazam makes my #1 on a list.

Hold the iPhone up to any speaker in a car, Bose box, or elevator that is playing music and within seconds Shazam tells you who the artist is, the name of the song (piece), and album including an image of the cover—even a YouTube video is there is one. At first I thought it determined the information by the words (thinking of course it just converts the audio to text and compares to a database…) Not so! Even Classical music and instrumentals can be discerned by Shazam. Hold it up at the Boston Pops concert (speaker is best) and it can tell you everything you want to know. I can not get my head around how it works—but I know it is a“Wow”. User alert: The ease of which to find music you like will cost you as you buy more from iTunes.

The ability to easily transfer contact information, photos, or other information from one iPhone to the other has been made easy and fun with two applications; Bump and Moving. No emailing, texting, cut and pasting, typing…

Bump, as it the name implies, allows you to identify what info to transfer and do a “fist bump” with the iPhone in your hand to the receiving iPhone and instantly the information arrives.

Moving has a bit more pleasing interface—although slower.

With Moving you select the photo and it appears on the iPhone screen. The names of the other iPhones within range appear as well. Slide the photo toward the phone in range and it disappears off the screen and appears on the screen of the receiving phone! Once accepted it reappears on your phone to let you know it was successful. Use this application once and I can tell you that it is addicting just to watch the graphics of shooting a photo from phone to phone.

The last of my iPhone WOWs (for now) is the Sonar Ruler by a company called Laan Labs.

With this App you can do a fairly accurate measurement of distance (up to 60 feet away) in the event you do not have your tape measure in your pocket.

Find something in the distance (a wall, a car…but not a pin on the green), point the speaker at it and the App sends sonar signals (clicking sound) and measures how long it takes for them to bounce back. Bam… you have the distance. While you wouldn’t build a Stimulus package funded highway with this, it is a cool app for the arsenal

With Apple adding something on the magnitude of 100 new apps per day, I am sure there are many more that you have gotten a “Wow” from.

Feel free to add yours favorite WOWs in the comments section.

Where Did Summer Go?

2009-09-01T08:25:00.008-04:00

As I flip the calendar to September, put on a sweat shirt and sweat pants in the 5 a.m. dark that now greets me in the morning, I know at almost every level that summer is over.

Add to that the new clothes on the MasterCard bill and my kids’ sad excitement to start school today…and it is gone. In New England this year the end brings extra pain because we barely had a summer. 28 days of rain in June. A mild July. About only 4 days of heat over 90 degrees in August. It all seems unfulfilled.

But then again I can not remember a time that the calendar said September 1st that I wasn’t sad and there wasn’t some reason the summer wasn’t really fulfilled. It is hard to forget the end of summers on Cape Cod with a co-ed group of twenty-somethings. I rented a house with them for 8 summers that was endless fun—days and nights—and always a spike in the heart on the last drive back to Boston. The end of working farms in Vermont. The end of the hard work, dedication, and thrill of competition with various equestrian teams. I hit the wall every time at the end-of-summer.

The genius of Bruce Brown to title his 1966 surfing documentary “Endless Summer” –the ultimate attempt to cheat the end of summer by chasing the season around the world as it moved from North America to Africa, Australia and beyond. How great would that be?

How funny the instinct in the last days of summer to start to notice the curve in a road, the picket fence on the way to the beach, the sound the screen door makes when it bangs shut as the kids run out to play, the faded Red Sox baseball hat on the clerk at the general store who sold you a paper every morning, the shadows of the trees on the lawn.

Then there is mad rush in the last week to do all the things that were on the list—bridge jumping, surf lessons, the must-read-book, a hike, take in a AA baseball game, breakfast on the waterfront…All a desperate attempt to freeze summer and some how keep it from ending. How foolish of us sitting in June looking ahead to the summer—with so many weeks ahead—that we did not absorb every micro-event to try to stretch it.

In a portion of his newsletter message, Berwick Academy Head of School Greg Schneider eloquently wrote about the loss of undirected play in children today. He reflected on a conference where Michael Thompson, author of Raising Cain, discussed the context of this cultural change.

It instantly brought me back to my first 16 youth summers near Bar Harbor, Maine. There were no televisions. VCRs had not even been invented for the masses—let alone cell phones, Play Stations and iTouches. There were hours at a time that we would wander around the “neighborhood” swinging on swings, playing badminton for what seemed like forever, wiffle ball, army, spy games… there was rarely a lack of creativity to find some type of game out of anything we did.

The kid chain of family communication was rampant. “Kevin. Your mom wants you home now” started at his house and was heard by his sister Cathy in the meadow who then yelled it towards the cove where my sister heard it and yelled up to the point towards us. “I have to go now” Kevin quipped, “see you guys after dinner?” Not long after, another message would be relayed for Jon or me to go home…

Sometimes the directive from mom was to listen for the “bell”—a large hand bell—when she wanted me home. Sometimes it was “be home by dark’—which depending upon the stage of our game could always be “just a few more minutes” until we literally could not see each other across the path. Sometimes my definition of “dark” got me in trouble once I got back to the cottage.

Has this all been lost in this age of electronic games, cell phones, and GPS?

It was just after I had been reflecting on these memories while on vacation in Michigan that I looked up and saw my kids playing with their cousins on the trampoline on the lake. From the shore I could hear them outlining the rules of “the game”. They played for three hours straight…until it got dark. Laughs, screams of joy, smiles, and splashes.

The next day they created a “horse show” where each of them was a horse having to jump a course and be judged on time and style. Again limited arguing—but clearly they worked through getting to an agreed upon format that was fair for the 13 year-old to compete equally with the 7 year-old. All unstructured—yet essential skill development occurred that would be repeated throughout their life.

It was refreshing to see this all still happening. I smiled.

While we probably do not just open the door and let kids out for five hours without checking in until “it gets dark” anymore-- thanks to arguably unjustified fears that they maybe taken or some other horrifying safety concern driven by front page headlines—we are smart to at least create the environment to let them play made-up-on-the-spot games.

So whether the inevitable end of the season of summer or the end of summers as we knew them as a kid, they are and always will be warm memories to live on though autumn and to start looking forward to towards the end of winter.

Video Inside a Magazine: Technology "Wow!" Moment Part Two

2009-08-25T07:41:00.009-04:00

In this day and age of non-stop barrage of innovation and marketing it sometimes seems that we could become unfazed or oblivious to any “Wow!” moments. Continuing from my previous post here is another technology discovery that I am still amazed with.

Although I have not personally seen it, the September 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly will be unlike any magazine in history. Inside it contains a small 2” x1.5” mini screen that plays up to 40 minutes of video. Yes, you read it correctly. You can watch a video in a magazine! (They call this VIP--- Video in Print)

CBS television (along with Pepsi) has ponied up what is rumored to be $2 million to buy the “first time in history” advertising coup. The video will have clips from its entire Fall TV Lineup including “Two and a Half Men” and “Big Bang Theory”. Only the thickness of cardboard, the video player allows scrolling and seems to be very similar to the musical birthday cards that are now so common—except this is video and not just audio.

Don’t run out to the nearest magazine stand though to see it… it will only be available in New York and LA.

While clearly the historic nature of this is amazing—my brain has started to process the additional opportunities of such a marketing tool. Like all technology, as it becomes more widely available and used the price will drop.

Direct mail with an instant video versus a link to a website or even a DVD? It would seem almost impossible to ignore the video and not at least just start it for a short time.

Educational opportunities? Embedded into school text books would surely engage this Gen “what-ever-letter-we-are-on” population.

Instructional directions? How many times has the toy I tried to build for my children look nothing like the front of the box because the directions were some form of hieroglyphics and contained no words. Imagine a video showing real directions…

Real estate? Get a tour inside the retail or office space for lease. See the workings of a home for sale. A guide to a luxury car for sale—OK the auto industry might not have the $ for this right now.

The list goes on and on. So here’s hoping that the technology developer, Americhip , is successful with this and many more engagements.

A Technology “Wow!” Moment: Part One

2009-08-23T18:29:00.023-04:00

As I have mentioned in earlier entries, I do appreciate and get excited about new technology in all of its forms. I am in many cases, closer to the “early adopter” side of the curve than the “mass market”. It is with this perspective that within the last few weeks I have had several “Wow!” moments. In this case with a Google product—of all places!

A LONG time ago I registered with a company (when it was GrandCentral) in its “invite only” program to ask to be a beta user of its product now called Google Voice (re-launched in March 2009). About a month ago I received an email welcoming me and asking me to do the required software downloads and standard data inputs. I received a local telephone number and was on my way.

Google Voice is designed to be a “One Phone Number for Life” solution that rings on any number of phones that are input (home, office, cell). “Additional phone numbers ring simultaneously when the Google Voice number receives a call. The user may answer and receive the call on any of the ringing phones”.

I like and use my iPhone for almost all of my calls (local/interstate), so once the initial excitement of having been invited wore off (after about a day) I did little with it. That was until I was in the boonies of Northern Michigan. We were staying at a house that had no cell phone coverage and the house phone was blocked from making long distance calls. I had to make a critical call—and remembered my Google Voice account.

From my laptop I entered the number I wanted to call and the number of the house phone. Click. In two seconds the house phone rings and I pick it up to hear the phone ringing on the other end of the person I am trying to reach. BAM!

I was saved and Google Voice “in-love” again all in the same moment. Oh yeah, the call was free. Yes no cost, no bill, no nothing.

I started to give out my Google Voice telephone number and discovered a few other “WOW!” moments. The voice mails I received were converted to text and EMAILED and TEXTED to me. It is so cool to be in a meeting and READ the voice message and be able to take any appropriate steps, if necessary, to respond.

I was on a call on my cell phone and walked into the house and switched the call to the house phone line in mid-call. Based upon the inbound number I can differentiate my voice mail greeting that that person hears (if from my children's cell phone..."kids, be home at 5:30"...), and I can record any call (very helpful when I think I have said something to my wife that she doesn’t remember me saying…although it usually comes back to bite me).

There has been much in the news recently about how Apple has rejected the iPhone app for Google Voice. (shocking!! To think that making a free call on an iPhone would make Apple/ATT think twice…) I can tell you it is REALLY easy to create your own “app icon” and add the Google Voice webpage access to the home screen of the iPhone by clicking the “+” sign from the bottom of the Safari page.

For sure one of the smartest things the cell phone companies ever agreed to was the portability of cell phone numbers from one carrier to another which also allows for “one number for life”.

With what Google Voice offers I can tell you it is worth my effort to inform everyone to delete my cell number and add my new Google Voice number. The only thing that I am not sure of is if—or really how—this can be free forever. I wonder if at some point I will have to listen to a 10 second advertisement before every call. That would be a bummer. But until then I am WOWed!

If you are interested, get a Google Voice Invitation here.

See the Video Overview:

Converting Successful Challenges in the Physical World to Benefit with Personal Struggles

2009-08-18T14:47:00.007-04:00

A mentor and good friend who I met for the first time in East Africa in 1983 (He was the American director of the St. Lawrence Kenya Semester program) emailed me several months ago to say he had prostate cancer and was going through surgery in the coming weeks. He created a blog to be able to easily update all of his family and friends and share his thoughts and emotions during the process. He also wanted to make sure that men realize the potential of prostate cancer and take appropriate actions—early.

I identified with one of his blog entries regarding his climb on a mountain in Tanzania named Ol Donyo Lengai. His blog entry included these passages:

“Ol Donyo Lengai (Maasai for Mountain of God). It is one of those Ndikirr, (Maa for steep and narrow places) that is not only a place of crossing, but of ascent and descent. For more than 300,000 years, this volcano has been growing, spewing rock and ash towards the west to the Serengeti.

Climbing the Mountain of God is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. In a few hours, climbing 8,000’ vertical feet from the floor of the Rift Valley. The morning sun heating the air, dusty ash, gravel, and rock under foot. Reaching the summit, aching and exhausted is nothing short of exhilarating. The steepness is unreal, and I wonder how it will be possible to descend. And in the crater, vents, cones, fumaroles. Flowing rock. Curiously peaceful and yet ominous in its unpredictability. The mountain seems alive.”

Upon reading, I instantly replied:

“Your post reminded me of my own recent times of soul searching--reflecting. I too was brought back to a mountain. It brought me back to a trek in Nepal in the Anapurna region in 1994. Specifically the summiting of Thorung La (17,769). Up to my waist in snow. Exhausted from "walking" since 3am. How deep I had to dig in my personal will to continue. How joyous the summit... each step of angst and desire to quit now met with a 3x reward of overwhelming natural beauty and inner sense of pride. Amazing how the tools given to us--maybe earned-- at earlier times in life are always in our tool box, ready to be pulled out at just the right time.”

Two physical experiences, years apart, on mountains that are continents apart-- and yet so impactful that we both drew upon them for different yet similar reasons; To use the experience as a guide to battle through new unknown emotions and challenges--A map to help provide some level of assurance that the energy draining mental and physical battle would be worth it in the end—like the euphoria of reaching the summit.

In the tropics there is the monsoon season where it rains for months on end (those living in New England may think this is what our month of June was!). But there is an end to the rain—sun and temperate conditions return. Life returns again to ‘normal’ and the state of contentment. I used this as an analogy for another friend going through a tortured divorce. I reflected for him, “Realize that as bad as it is, as dark as it is, as never-ending as it seems, the monsoon season DOES end. Know this and keep moving forward.”

Once again we are able to draw from the lessons of nature to help us in our own personal understanding of that which is daunting and confuses us.

As seems to be a pattern, I was content to leave these paragraphs as this week’s blog. Then I received an email from another friend who had been in a personal funk in her life from a professional and personal level. In her case, she was not reflective on previous experiences but was training TO challenge herself in the future with long distance canoe racing. The mere focus of ramping up for a physical challenge had given her new energy—a road map to getting back on track in both her professional and personal pursuits for which she was ecstatic.

So it appears that whether looking back or looking forward, the challenges that we experience in the physical world and in nature are of significant value in our human-based, internal struggle to overcome and succeed.

Patience!

2009-08-11T06:50:00.006-04:00

Here we are in the “dog days of summer”, the sought after time to kick back, relax, read, surf, golf, or participate in what ever other activity is deemed unrushed. It has been on my mind for awhile to write about patience—and seemingly our inability to have any.

What started as an almost comical observation of news reports regarding President Obama moved to downright disbelief. I am not being political or selecting one group over another in my reference. But the headlines in April and May, including “Gay-Rights Groups Blast Obama Administration…” with comments along the lines of “The GLBT community helped him get elected and he has abandoned us…” and “why has Obama not moved forward with our issues?”…just had me shaking my head. Now I don’t pretend to be an expert or understand all the passion and frustration behind the GLBT issues, but I still wonder what they as a group are thinking.

January 20, 2009 was Inauguration day for a 4 year Presidential term. Barack Obama had to build a team and immediately start dealing with finding some solution to slowing—if not turn around-- the economy heading to a deeper recession. There are still two wars the US is engaged in (Iraq and Afghanistan), Major industrial companies like GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, unemployment at 10% (I would argue probably really 15-18% since the statistics only reflect those receiving unemployment benefits—which run out--artificially assuming that the person is no longer unemployed! A blog topic for another day). He has had to appoint a supreme court justice. Obama has also selected this time to push for his health and energy reforms. Trying to resolve some or all of these issues will benefit a majority more of Americans—regardless of political party, gender, geography, or sexual orientation.

Agree or disagree with the guy, but you have to admit that Obama has been dealt a tough starting hand of cards—only made more difficult with his focus on the additional national policy changes. Energizer Battery could not have found a better icon for its brand.

So how is it, 3 months, 3 months!, into a 48 month term do groups start pounding the table demanding that their issues be top priority and threatening to wreck havoc and payback for being “abandoned” by promises?... it boils down, in my mind, to a lack of patience.

American culture is by definition fast paced, technology driven, and impatient compared to almost every other country in the world. We get frustrated when we only have two bars of cell phone coverage while hiking in the Adirondacks without anything that resembles civilization within 100 miles. A comedian recently remarked that we are angered when our plane is 10 minutes late and yet fail to appreciate that we are in a metal tube in the sky 30,000 feet in the air—how amazing is that when you stop to think about it.

I recall a trip I took as a kid through Europe and being struck by the small 4”x4” signs that often hung inside Cathedrals stating it took 100 years or 150 years to complete. A hundred years... Basically 2 generations! Who in today’s world would even start a project that would not be seen finished in their lifetime? Now that is patience.

Just as I was ready to post this to the blog, I read a small entry on a CEO friend, Ed Mallen’s, company TimeTrade blog that made me think a bit broader and full circle on this notion of patience.

The image is immediately identifiable as we all no doubt have sat for too long a period waiting for service somewhere and wished we had left a message in the way these people did. Hooray for the customer for taking a stand and fighting back against poor service!

Easy to rally around pushing for more, faster, and better.

Yet, if this day was in the middle of a 8 day blackout and only one restaurant was open, I’m guessing that these people would have gladly waited 30 minutes for food. But, if they only had 30 minutes for lunch and the boss would fire them for taking 15 seconds longer, it is understandable why a they might be impatient.

So what is the key element between being impatient and patient?

It would seem to be finding an appropriate and excepted timeline by two parties. If either unilaterally changes that verbal or non-verbal “contract” than there is the right to be impatient and a demand for accountability—whether written in ketchup or press releases and newspaper headlines.

Social Reality: FaceBook Fails. LinkedIn Gets It.

2009-08-03T06:13:00.007-04:00

I’m not shy about using new technologies. While I may not be the first person in line to buy the iPhone, I am usually the first 10-20% of the population to try/use new technologies and embrace new ideas and concepts. I may not use them for ever, but those I see value in, I stay with.

I was pretty early on with LinkedIn. I’m not sure they even called it a social network—definitely not social media—when I signed up. My personal observation is that it is a more organized way to network by sharing your “who I know” rolodex—literally-- with others to facilitate—easier and faster—introductions to other people. In the “Old Days” I would call and ask “Do you know…?”. Do that ten times to the same person in a week and pretty soon there are no returned phone calls!

LinkedIn has been an excellent and efficient tool for me personally and professionally and I have directly benefited and benefited others by way of introductions from it as a tool. To me LinkedIn is basically a far more efficient replication of life.

I signed up for Facebook later in the curve for sure—like 6 months ago. So I can claim no early adopter title for this. After Friending my core 20 close friends and family I became spooked by the requests of people wanting to friend me:

My 11th grade English teacher—without a doubt one of my all time favorite teachers and influencers for me—but that was a long time ago.
A person in town who knows me only from sitting on a school sub-committee for 2 months together.
A kid from 8th grade who I didn’t much know, let alone like.
friend of a friend who also went on the undergraduate Kenya program in college—6 years after I did.
And the list went on and on…

I am by nature a friendly and open person. But reading comments of people I don’t know about people I know is bad enough. Thinking about people who I don’t know reading my comments on my friends wall is strange. But if I Friended every request of mere friends of friends of friends or the most casual of acquaintances that translates to a lot of people seeing, reading, and participating in my life… and by default vice-versa!

Do I really want someone from town that I barely know to see a picture of my dancing at the ski bar at Sunday River? Not that I was doing anything bad, or embarrassing—and certainly I have at least slightly better moves than Elaine on Seinfeld. But where is the control? Do I want people who barely know me to see inside jokes and references of events past on my wall? I do not.

I poked around for awhile on the FB “Privacy Settings”. There is some control for sure. I have a choice of letting “everyone” see buckets of information, or “friends of friends” or just “friends”. All well and good---assuming that the “friends” you have Friended are all at the same level. Therein lies my problem with Facebook. There is no understanding that there are degrees of differences WITHIN the term “friends”.

Facebook, unlike LinkedIn, does not really replicate life in a more efficient way. In real life I—and I imagine almost everyone—has different degrees of friends:

1. At the core are my best friends and closest family—
-They know me and would not, or should not, be surprised by anything I say or is said about me. I have no issue with anything being kept from them.

2. Very good friends
-Maybe I haven’t seen them for awhile and they don’t know my everyday activities, but they are also pretty close to the inner circle—and know me well.

3.Good friends
-Those who I know around town, see on the soccer fields but they don’t know everything about me, my history. They are good friends and not “best” for some good reason (time to get to know each other, personality, etc.)

4.Work friends
-Might be in the groups above—but know me more on a professional basis and my work style and work life—certainly limited in much knowledge of my personal life.

5.Acquaintances
-Friends of friends. People I say hi to at the dump. Those who know me because I am on school board or in my kids’ classes at school or on sports fields.

It may be that within these groups people move up or down based upon the normal social movements we have in life.

In the recent upgrade, FB does now allow under the “customize” tab for me to type each person’s name that “I DON’T” want to see certain information. I can only imagine if I had 400 names how much fun that would be to retype names…

Why not replicate life and make it easier to quantify the level of the term “friend”? Maybe next to each name there could be a radio button to select. Something a bit more consumer friendly than having to type everyone’s name. The level will dictate what information can be seen, shared, and shared with complete strangers! See my sample design.

While I am sure this is also fraught with issues—particularly in the use of FB for business, political campaigns etc. I am sure someone much smarter than I am can figure out a way to allow for easy coordination of what each level allows for.

Now I know someone may say that I am comparing “personal” to “business” in my FB v.s. LI comparison here. But that is not the point. My belief of a social networking benefit is to replicate and enhance real world social structure in an easier and more efficient way through technology. Right now, in my opinion, FaceBook does a face plant.

Burnt Bridges: A Sales Opportunity

2009-07-28T05:52:00.007-04:00

Sales are hard and even harder in a slow economy. Some times working harder pays off. Other times working smarter.

I have read a lot recently about how the economy is giving people more time and more incentive to be nicer and more receptive to customers and potential customers including potential business partners. As a very customer-centric thinking person is strikes me as amusing that it takes a recession for many people to start being nicer and more professional with potential customers. Maybe that is one reason we are in a recession! Shouldn’t we be professional and nice all the time?

It made me recall an experience I had with a Venture Capital firm back in 1999. I emailed the Managing Partner of the Waltham, MA based firm (I will leave it unnamed) introducing myself as an entrepreneur who had co-founded 2 successful companies (they were acquired) and asked if I could come in to introduce myself. I was networking and wanted to see if there were any of their portfolio companies where they might be able to use my help. At the time I used my personal email address from a recent start-up called Bigfoot.com (their model—similar to Google Voice for phone—was to allow you to have one email address for life and it would forward to your newest email address). My email address at the time was igrant@bigfoot.com.

A quick email reply asking me to “come in the following week for a meeting”, was met with a bit of a swagger on my part. I had heard about how brutal it was to get meetings with VC’s in the go-go internet boom—and here I was with one email getting a meeting. When I arrived at the swank offices overlooking the Cambridge Reservoir I should have been a bit more suspicious. In the lobby was a sign that said “Welcome Ian from Bigfoot”.

In the conference room was the managing partner and a junior associate. I started in on my background and the two companies (HR/recruitment technology) I had co-founded. “When did you get involved with Bigfoot”, the managing partner interrupted. “Bigfoot?” I replied, “Bigfoot is just my email address…”

At that point he literally got up and said, “Excuse me I have other things I need to do”. He walked out. The junior guy was a bit embarrassed—as was I-- and spent 15 minutes with me and the meeting concluded. I had never alluded or indicated anything about Bigfoot.

After the initial sting to my ego, I thought how silly of the managing partner to burn this bridge. A gracious indication of a misunderstanding and 15 minutes of his time would have saved me repeating this story about him 50 times since 1999 and blogging about it now. I will admit that I am no Bill Gates or Richard Branson in my entrepreneurial successes, but I have had a few wins. But how would he know where I might end up? I do know that it cost his firm one potential investment. A close CEO friend of mine scratched the VC firm off his list after he heard the story. They ended up raising $25mm and sold for $150mm several years later.

So it came to me as a big surprise in 2009—the year of open doors and friendliness—that another bridge was burned. A good friend told me of a COO position that was opening up in his old firm (high level technology professional consulting and staffing) on Deer Street in Portsmouth, NH where he had been the VP of Sales. I emailed the CEO with a resume and my background as a COO in two HR/Recruiting companies and said I was referred by our mutual friend. No reply. I sent two follow-up emails. No replies. I left two voice mails. No replies. I stopped by the office with an envelope addressed to him with a letter and resume and follow-up phone call. No reply.

Now there could be a hundred reasons why he never contacted me—But he should have... even if just by email to say “sorry, not interested” or “sorry position filled”. But he didn’t. How silly again I thought. Would I ever use this firm if I ended up in a position to hire the types of people they provide? I am already on the 10th person telling the story and the company name and now blogging (although I’m not coming right out to give the name of the firm—unless asked—because I should take some of my own advice every once-in-a-while). I really wonder what people are thinking.

It seems that old habits of burning bridges die hard—economy in a shambles or not. What a great opportunity for the rest of us to have competitors like that- easy to steal business!

Keep your eye and ears alert for competitors burning bridges—and harvest away!

Thinking About Marketing in 3-D

2009-07-21T17:35:00.015-04:00

I find that summertime is a great time to take a day off, take the kids to a fun place, and give the brain a rest on anything to do with business. So it was a bit surprising when I went to Canobie Lake Park in NH that I was captivated by the impressive marketing around the Park. The fact that I even could focus after my kids brought me on the first ride of the day on the super-spin ride on the Turkish Twist (see video here)— makes my observance all that much more impressive.

Now I have to admit that I am a bit of a marketing junkie. Ever since the 6th grade (1973) when I won a local competition for the best poster for “saving energy”, I have had this ability for unique and clear marketing by simply making myself “be the person” I am marketing to. Four start-ups later—after live and die marketing efforts—I am still the kid in sixth grade in many ways. It is through this prism that Canobie Lake Park impressed me.

It amazes me how much we usually only see marketing in a 2 dimension way—on the web, in magazines, TV, billboards etc. .With the advent of YouTube clearly we are getting used to—sometimes demand—seeing things 3-D via video and capturing a sense of size, scope, and movement.

But Canobie Lake clearly had tapped into something that most probably only “saw” in a subconscious way. A 3-D representation of what they wanted to sell to us. Not only did it make it fun and memorable, but it was inviting to engage—and ultimately purchase. Something as simple as a bag of popcorn. Here was the booth, probably 20 feet high, made to look like a bag of popcorn, with popcorn overflowing.

Had it been just the traditional food stand with a 2-D sign saying "Popcorn"... Which one are you more likely to buy from… or even notice?

It reminded me a bit of the clever subconscious marketing done in the 1950’s at movies. A few frames of a bag of popcorn and “Eat Popcorn” shown during a preview triggered a run on the concession stand.

It got me to thinking of other 3-D ads I had seen. Compare the difference in a car billboard ad—2-D and a car billboard 3-D. The 3-D is distinct, fun, and most importantly memorable. I wonder if anyone actually really ever "saw" the Ford truck billboard. Arguably wasted time, space, and money.

I remember a very successful campaign I ran in my first company—one of the pioneers of resume database recruiting BEFORE the internet. It was a classic “clutter-buster” in order to get through to two levels of decision makers at a company; The head of HR and the CFO. We offered unlimited searches and hires for $5000/year. We sent a box with a “shrunken head” in it with the message “Head-Hunters are Scary. Cut Recruiting Costs and Still Make Successful Hires”. Repeatedly we were told that it was the shrunken head in the box that got their attention---and therefore their money. We had some unbelievable response rate in the neighborhood of 33%.

You still have to have a product or service that someone wants. It can not be a ridiculus price. Canobie Park could have had a 3-D booth of worms and sold a bucket of them for $100 and the benefit of the design would not have made a difference. Now in the end my stomach may have felt the same if I ate a bucket of worms as it did after the Turkish Twist Ride—but that is a story for another day.

So remember to think in to stand out in the crowd.

Healthcare: A Case For National Investment Into Wellness?

2009-07-14T07:07:00.003-04:00

My wife and I were on our honeymoon and when we came back the 85 year old oak tree that clung to a rock cropping had fallen over in a storm and fell perfectly between our house and the shed. Besides a mess of branches there was no significant damage to any of the structures. Because it was covered under our home owner’s policy, the insurance company came out to assess the cost of cutting up the tree and removing it. When I asked about the sister tree that was still standing—at a 70 degree angle perfectly towards the house—the adjuster said the insurance company would not cover taking down that tree. I queried a bit more explaining that once the tree removal company was here it would be cheaper to take this tree down at the same time, not to mention significantly cheaper than the cost of ALSO repairing the house when the tree landed on it in the next really good storm.

His response was startling to me at the time. “There is no guarantee that when the tree falls on the house we will be the insurance company of record therefore we will not pay to take it down now. It is cheaper for us to pay for the repairs later than to take down every tree leaning towards a house”. End of story. They, as all insurance companies do, were playing the statistical probability game.

I recall a conversation awhile back I had with one of this country’s great primary healthcare thinkers, David Howes of Martin’s Point Health Care. He was explaining how 70% of the cost of healthcare was related to 4 main chronic health care areas: cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Except for cancer, the other 3 could be managed from the beginning.

My conversation with the home owner’s insurance company over my tree flashed back to me. One of the issues with healthcare is that most of the health insurance companies do not want to provide significant investments into “wellness” in their coverage—things that could help prevent obesity, diabetes, and heart disease—because there is no guarantee that the resulting benefits will occur while they are the health insurance company of record. This seems like a misplaced focus. In fact, it is probably one of the main drivers of employer based wellness programs that are cropping up. They DO have an incentive for healthy employees from a productivity and premium cost standpoint.

I am not sure where President Obama’s healthcare plan will end up over the next how-ever-many months but if nothing else happens there would appear to be a clear advantage of the government investing into Wellness at the very least at a national level for all of us.

As a nation we all would benefit from being healthier and from the reduced costs even if just in the 70% area. The payback for taxpayers would seem pretty self evident considering all the areas that healthcare costs impact us on a daily basis.

Big Bad Rhino Blog 2.0

2009-07-07T17:35:00.005-04:00

OK. Maybe it has been what… 2 years since the last blog. I have been re-inspired by fellow blogger (well that might put me in his category which I clearly am not) Eric Schultz (see: http://theoccasionalceo.blogspot.com/ ) after having a very enlightening coffee with him in Newburyport, MA. Thank you Eric!

Among many conversations was the realization that words count. Conversations count.--- even more so in this age of Tweets, blogs, iPhones and emails. There are less around the table conversations over a Starbuck's coffee and more in the digital arena. They are all important and the worst thing to do is NOT to have a conversation.

I will attempt again to be disciplined to contribute on a regular basis random observations, commentaries, ideas, and thoughts and take extra care to note the world around me.

Serial Entrepreneurs

2007-09-07T06:39:00.005-04:00

I recently was interviewed by Wall Street Journal writer Raymund Flandez (I did not make the editorial cut--it may have been partially because I originally posted this blog ahead of the article being published. Lessson learned! The good news is a friend, Briscoe Rodgers did make the cut) for a story he is writing about serial entrepreneurs (see it here The Secrets of Serial Success).

It got me to thinking why we entrepreneurs keep going back to do it all again. Is it nature or nurture? My conclusion--after 3 days of reflection--is that it is both. I think the core personality DNA in a person must contain some of the elements (delusions?) to keep jumping in against all odds, long hours, and no guarantees. At the same time the personality DNA is developed by our life experiences probably starting out on day one. As I continued on this premise I tried to remember as far back as I could to when I showed signs of self-initiated entrepreneurism.

I had the prerequisite "Lemonade stand". We lived on a rural dead-end road with 5 houses. I sat for 4 hours and sold 1 glass. I didn't have any change so the kind neighbor said keep the quarter (I was selling for $.10/glass. yes I know I am dating myself now). I was so excited (bored?) that I was throwing the quarter up in the air and catching it when all of a sudden I dropped it. It rolled across the road into the grass and I lost it. OK 40+ years later and I remember these details so well--and the obvious take away lessons from my first venture--This was both nature (set up the stand and desire) and nurture (learning from the mistakes I made). It also gave me the knowledge that when ever I see a lemonade stand--no matter how late I am for something--I stop, knowing that the excitement/confidence boost that it gives could help solve a problem down the road when the budding entrepreneur grows bigger!

I remember back to my 1oth grade year in high school at the great public school Mt. Greylock Regional in Williamstown, MA. I was selected for a program called "Community Studies". It was a sub-set stand alone group (30 students I think)--team teaching focused--designed to provide integrated learning in challenging environment. Unstated--but I realize many years later--the core skill "take-away" they wanted us to have was to learn how to "problem solve". The very first day of class they had us--as a group--figure out an event we wanted to do, how to coordinate it, involve everyone etc. I remember we "failed" miserably with 30 students each having their own ideas and no consensus. By the end of the year--after probably hundreds of exercises--we did learn. I think this added to my personality DNA.

My Junior year at college (St. Lawrence University) I was in Kenya, East Africa for a semester abroad program. I had never been to a Third World country. I remember "having" to have my pillow, my shower everyday, and orange juice every morning. I learned that I didn't and that I was the better for not needing these and could confidently survive without them. More importantly, one of the defining moments was during my third day there. We--30 students--still jet lagged and out of sorts climbed aboard the university lorry and drove 12 hours to western Kenya to the shores of Lake Victoria. Each of us was going to have a "homestay" with the Luhya people for a week. The lorry drove down long dusty orange roads seemingly--no actually--in the middle of no where. Each student was met by a family and embraced and taken into the bush. After about two hours of driving, I was the last one to be dropped off. I had my backpack, sleeping bag--and of course my pillow. The lorry drove off. I was left there alone. No greeting committee. No one at all for as far as I could see. I sat and waited. ..and waited. My comfort zone was stretched--well almost broken. Just at the point of total despair, a colorfully dressed women came out of a path that I had not even seen. A very big and warm smile followed. A big embrace and apology. I was whisked away on foot down magical paths to the family "Shamba". I stretched, held on, and realized I could go beyond want I knew. I soon discovered over the next six months that Kenya operated this way by its nature. Not everything--actually almost nothing--went to plan. I learned not to let it bother me. It wasn't personal, it just "was". More experiences to add to the personality DNA. More to draw on and accept in those sometimes dark days of being an entrepreneur.

Serial Entrepreneur: Nature or Nurture?

2007-07-15T06:47:00.000-04:00

I to thinking why we entrepreneurs keep going back to do it all again. Is it nature or nurture? My conclusion--after 3 days of reflection--is that it is both. I think the core personality DNA in a person must contain some of the elements (delusions?) to keep jumping in against all odds, long hours, and no guarantees. I need more time to think this through. come back soon to see my final conclusions

Kick Off Blog

2007-06-13T14:53:00.000-04:00

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