Stand Out in a Crowd — Wisdom from Dan Heath

(From Guy Kawasaki, from Twitter, a link to a terrific video featuring Dan Heath — one of the two Heath brothers, authors of Made to Stick).

A great, insightful, motivating 3 minute video.  He points to Voodoo Donuts and zipcar rentals.  He tells us that if you’re in a crowded market, you need to do something that no one else does or compete on one dimension and do it ferociously.

Watch the video here – I promise you, it is worth the 3 minutes!

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To purchase my synopsis of Made to Stick, with audio + handout, go to our companion web site 15minutebusinessbooks.com.

“Nobody who works hard should be poor in America” writes David Shipler

Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage.  They are caught in exhausting struggles.  Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn hold them back.  The term by which they are usually described, “working poor,” should be an oxymoron.  Nobody who works hard should be poor in America.
David Shipler, The Working Poor:  (Invisible in America)

Christmas is right around the corner.  And we are all beginning to think about gifts and parties.  But this year, stories overflow about those in need.  Maybe it’s time to read a book or two about the struggles of so many.

Unemployment is up, food pantries are overrun, and hunger is on the rise.  My friend Larry James, the CEO of Central Dallas Ministries, constantly reminds us to think of others.  Here is an excerpt from a Thanksgiving entry on his blog (by the way, his blog is on my regular to-read list):
While millions of Texas households prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with a hearty family meal, millions of their fellow Texans aren’t sure when or how they’ll get their next meal.
“Texans should be shocked that a state as prosperous as Texas is doing so poorly,” says the state’s agriculture commissioner, Republican Todd Staples.
According to federal statistics released last week, 16.3 percent of Texas households lack regular access to adequate nutrition or face hunger nightly. The percentage of so-called “food insecure” households in Texas is more than 4 points higher than the national average of 12.2 percent, ranking Texas ahead of only Mississippi. In these households, people regularly skip meals, eat cheaper and less nutritious foods, depend on government aid like food stamps or seek help from food pantries.

One thing you could do this holiday season is read a good book about those in need.

For a few years, in addition to the books I read and present for business audiences at the First Friday Book Synopsis and elsewhere, I also read at least one book a month dealing with issues of poverty and social justice.  I present these for the Urban Engagement Book Club for Central Dallas Ministries.  There are many books to recommend from the list of books I have presented.  For example, Nickel and Dimed:  On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich has become a modern day classic.  But if I had one book to suggest as a starting place, it would be The Working Poor:  (Invisible in America) by David K. Shipler.

David Shipler is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who turned his gaze upon the working poor in America, the “invisible” among us.  It is a group worth discovering, but, in Shipler’s words, they are almost “invisible in America.” From Shipler:
The man who washes cars does not own one.  The clerk who files cancelled checks at the bank has $2.02 in her account.  The woman who copy-edits medical textbooks has not been to a dentist in a decade.
This is the forgotten America.  At the bottom of the working world, millions live in the shadow of prosperity, in the twilight between poverty and well-being.
They are shaped by their invisible hardships.

Check with any food pantry and you will find that significant percentages of their clients are people who actually work  — hard.  They have jobs, but they simply do not make enough to take care of all of their human needs.

Shipler writes this about the people he profiled in the book:
If this were a collection of short stories, they could be said to have character and sometimes plot, even family tragedy and lonely heroism.  But there is no climax, and no tale ends.  Lives continue unresolved.

Yes, we should continue to pay attention to and give to the nonprofits that serve the abused, the homeless, the mentally ill.  But the needs seem to be spreading to many in these more difficult days.  Reading a book like The Working Poor is an old-fashioned exercise in “consciousness raising.”  Maybe we all could pay a little more attention to this problem that never really goes away.

Let’s remember the people in need – and seek to do our part.

(If you are looking for a place that will put your contributions to work, let me suggest Central Dallas Ministries.  Click here to contribute).

Technology is not Kind, Does Not Wait — and continues to change the world

“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
Winston Churchill

—————————–

I’ve been thinking a lot about what has changed without us hardly noticing it – until after it has happened.

For example:

• I now read e-mail, and blog posts, and news sites, during commercials while watching television – on my iPhone.

• I never have to worry about having any of my “stuff” from my computer with me – it is available practically everywhere, on any computer, or on my iPhone.  For example, all of my book synopsis handouts are always accessible from my iPhone.

• I never have to record any appointment twice.  The whole computer cloud thingamajiggie syncs it all.  (Yes, I know that many of our readers know the right vocabulary – I just know that when I put an appointment down in my iPhone or iMac, it shows up in both places).

These are just stories of convenience.  But there are some much bigger stories, with real life significance for the way we live..  You might say that I am becoming a believer in the possibilities of technological fixes to all sorts of problems.

In SuperFreakonomcs, Levitt and Dubner describe how one Doctor, Craig Feied, combined his early love for machines (“he is a fervent early adopter – he put a fax machine in the ER and started riding a Segway when both were novelties”) turned his passion into a technological fix for the need for information for the health professionals in an emergency room.  (“The WHC emergency department had a severe case of ‘datapenia,’ or low data counts.”)  And in the process, his initiative and dogged pursuit of such technology has turned the emergency room in his hospital from the worst in his area to the best, and he is now an example of the power of technological fixes in SuperFreakonomics.

All of this made me revisit a terrific book by Juan Enriquez, As the Future Catches You:  (How Genomics and Other Forces are Changing Your Life, Work, Health, and Wealth).  He writes:

If it seems like your world has been topsy-turvy over the past few years…  Consider what’s coming.  Your genetic code will be imprinted on an ID card…  For better and worse.  Medicines will be tailored to your genes and will help prevent specific diseases for which you may be at risk…  It all starts because we are mixing apples, oranges, and floppy disks.

But this is the money quote:
Technology is not kind.  It does not wait.  It does not say please.  It slams into existing systems, and often destroys them – while creating a new system.

The creation of new systems is what today’s entrepreneurs are deeply engaged in.  We don’t know what they are developing/discovering/bringing, but what they bring will be different, I think better, and absolutely amazing.  And I believe that solutions will come to some very big problems because of the promise technology holds.

Rod Dreher tackles a new role in pursuit of learning — a noble goal

Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher has become a significant voice –I think an honest voice (with whom I frequently disagree – different political viewpoints…) – and he is now leaving the Dallas Morning News to head publications for the John Templeton Foundation.  Dallas’ loss…

I know little about the John Templeton Foundation.  Here is what they say about themselves, from their Mission Statement:

Our vision is derived from Sir John Templeton’s commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The Foundation’s motto “How little we know, how eager to learn” exemplifies our support for open-minded inquiry and our hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries.

It’s this phrase that captured my fancy: “How little we know, how eager to learn.” It reminds me of what I wrote recently on this blog about the quest for learning that drives me to keep reading books:  KEEP LEARNING — there’s always the next new thing to learn.

I’m going to assume that the John Templeton Foundation diligently seeks to live up to this mission.  It is a noble quest.

All the best to Rod Dreher.  Keep Learning.

What I’m Not Reading – and why I’m bothered by it (should companies focus, much more, on nurturing jobs?)

From today…
…l’m making it the responsibility of this government…
…to find a job for every American who wants one.

Have you seen the look in someone’s face…
…the day they finally get a job?
I’ve had some experience with this.
They look like they could fly.

And it’s not about the paycheck.
It’s about looking in the mirror…and knowing you’ve done
something valuable with your day.
And if one person could start
to feel that way, then others….
Soon all these other problems
we’re facing may not seem so…
…impossible.
(Dave, the “stand-in” President, at the Presidential press conference, from the movie Dave)

———————-

For eleven and a half years, my colleague Karl Krayer and I have each presented one synopsis a month of a best-selling business book.  In that time, themes emerged as dominant and lasting.  We’ve read books about how to find the right/best people; how to encourage your best people; why it takes such a serious work ethic to succeed – including the 10,000 hour rule and the need for deliberate practice; how to nurture innovation and cultivate creativity; how to be personally more productive with energy and time management in an ever-more-complex world.  These are just a few of the major themes over the last 11+ years.

In the last 15 months, a new theme has emerged – what went wrong? We’ve only presented a handful of such books (we generally have avoided “finance books” at the First Friday Book Synopsis), but the current best-seller lists include titles that make us sort of wish we could simply run for the hills.

For example, this week’s list of business best sellers from the New York Times includes
Too Big To Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin. — The 2008 financial implosion on Wall Street and in Washington, by a New York Times reporter and columnist.
and
This Time is Different by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff.  — Analyses of centuries of financial blinders.

But there is one theme that is not being written about.  At least, if it is, it has not made it close to anyone’s best-seller list.  It is this theme:
how can we build companies that nurture and protect the jobs of the people who make those companies successful?

There are a couple that are close, like the terrific Encouraging the Heart by Kouzes and Posner.  But such books deal more with the idea of “bringing out the best in people” than with how to build a company that puts and keeps its own people first.

In other words, the growing joblessness, though understandable, may reveal a subtle truth – companies really do put maximizing profits and increasing productivity as the highest priorities, taking precedence over this question — what is the role of corporations and organizations in maintaining the overall work force for this great nation?

Some popular radio commentators like to call America the greatest country this planet has ever seen.  I agree.  But I know that one of the things that made it great is the American worker.  From Rosie the Riveter, who played such a key role in winning the second World War, to all of the men and women who worked in all for the factories for so many decades, this country was built by a rich and great combination of corporate leadership and an in the trenches workforce of unparalleled strength.

All the day long,
Whether rain or shine
She’s a part of the assembly line.
She’s making history,
Working for victory
Rosie the Riveter
(Big band era song popularized by Kay Kyser).

So this is what I am not reading, and it bothers me — I’m not reading any books about how corporations can nurture this great American work force.  We send jobs overseas, we cut jobs in entire industries, we cut entire industries, and we read, month after month, that we have lost even more jobs.

In the article Stop the ‘jobless recovery’ madness! — An economy that isn’t creating employment opportunities simply isn’t doing its job from Fortune, there are two charts that illustrate this truth:
But job and wage growth have been weak for a decade. Total private sector employment has dropped since the Yankees held their previous victory parade, in 2000.
That means there has been no net private sector job growth over a nine-year span where the U.S. population expanded by 11%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In my opinion, the fact there are no best–sellers on this reveals part to the problem. We might have a tendency to take the American worker for granted.  We might have a tendency to focus on everything but the well-being of the American worker.  And our negligence might be contributing to our biggest problem – a nation without enough jobs is a nation without a healthy economy.

Now, I’m not crazy.  I know that if there are not profits, then there is no way to hire and keep the workers.  But Henry Ford understood that if you don’t pay your workers enough to afford the cars they were making, then there would be no market, no buyers for the cars.

Well — if you don’t have enough workers to begin with, then the whole economy shrivels and collapses.

I think that CEO’s and Board s of Directors need to be asking, constantly, how can we keep people at work?

The reason that President Obama has called a jobs summit is that we don’t have enough jobs.  This is not a small problem – this may be the problem of the era!

Help me out.  Anybody got any really good books to recommend on this for me?

About that multi-tasking expertise…

A person using a computer experiences “cognitive drift” if more than one second elapses between clicking the mouse and seeing new data on the screen.  If ten seconds pass, the person’s mind is somewhere else entirely.  That’s how medical errors are made.
Levitt and Dubner, Superfreakonomics

The books say that women are better at multitasking than men.  Maybe so.  But I’ve got a theory that all of us have trouble multi-tasking.  In fact, I would argue that focus is lost by most attempts to do multi-tasking.  Some call the problem Adult ADD, but I think I would call our era the era of focus deficiency syndrome.

The quote above from Superfreakonomics jumped off the page at me.  The quote comes from a section of the book discussing medical errors.  But it’s the first part that grabs me:
A person using a computer experiences “cognitive drift” if more than one second elapses between clicking the mouse and seeing new data on the screen.  If ten seconds pass, the person’s mind is somewhere else entirely.

This rings true – to me.  I had not heard of “cognitive drift,” but the phrase certainly describes me — a lot; frequently; maybe constantly.  My mind is constantly drifting.  I will look something up/do a google search, and as I am waiting for it to load (and, yes, I do have a fast-speed connection) my mind has already gone elsewhere, and it may or may not make it back to where it was just a few seconds earlier.

For my own life, I have found that to read a book effectively – you know, with focus — I have to turn my phone off, my e-mail off, and keep my sight lines relatively clear of anything but the pages of the book.  Otherwise, I find myself constantly facing the problem of “my mind is somewhere else” entirely.

The ability to focus on one thing at a time — the ability to single-task — may be a new necessary job skill.  I know that it’s a skill that I definitely need to master.

News item – Mac Users are (or, at least consider themselves) more creative than other people

in the beginning...

iPhone users are happier to pay for digital content than the wider online population; while Mac users are more creative and individualistic, a pair of surveys released this morning claim.
reported on the Huffington Post

After turkey and pumpkin pie, during a lull in the football and pinochle, I read this short piece on the Huffington Post on my iPhone.  Then, I got home to write this post on my iMac.  (I could have posted it from my iPhone – but I haven’t tackled that much complexity and effort yet.  So much for my own abilities, such as creatively learning what all I can do with what I have).  Back to the news item — it pleased me that surveys show that Mac users are more creative.  Here’s the summary:

Analysing aggregated data from 76,000 PC and Mac users asked about aesthetic preferences, media choices, and personality traits, the survey declares that Mac users want to be perceived as unique, prefer bold colors and retro designs, enjoy indie films, and consider themselves risktakers. Those PC users, on the other hand, are more likely to see the world as “different enough already” and appreciate “being in tune with those around them.”  This is reflected in their more subtle, “mainstream modern” (neither retro nor extremely contemporary) design choices and their practical choices in clothing, footwear, and cars that favor getting the job done rather than making an overt design statement.

From a personality perspective, Mac People are more likely to describe themselves as “verbal”, “conceptual”, and “risk takers”, with PC People countering that they are “numbers oriented”, “factual” and “steady, hard workers”.
 
Interestingly, PC users like John Travolta, while Mac users prefer The Wire.

I, of course, am having fun with all of my personal Mac references.  But – there is a really subtle message.  I think we all want to be seen as “like” the people we want to be like.  So if we want to be known as creative, even subconsciously, then we choose products that reinforce these desires.  And we all know, from our earliest days, that “peer pressure,” the simple desire to be “one of the group” will dictate our choices:  our purchasing choices, our vocabulary choices, our style choices – all of our choices.

In other words, we dress and talk and act like others in our tribe – in order to be seen as part of the tribe, because this is our tribe.

But back to Mac – is it any surprise that Mac users and creativity go together?  Just think about the simplest illustration of this:  Steve Jobs seems to be the living exemplar of creativity.  Can anyone even picture Steve jobs using a PC?  I rest my case.

Some Places To Keep Current With The Folks At First Friday Book Synopsis

Doug Caldwell keeps telling me that I’ve got to get better at all this social networking.  It comes more naturally for some than others.  I acknowledge the obvious — I’m something of a Luddite.  But I’m working on it.

So — here’s a little…

Yes, I’m on twitter.  You’ll find me as Randy1116, and you can follow me here.  (I’m still learning about what it means to tweet, and how to do it effectively — but there’s usually a few tweets a week from me).

I try to put the title of the next book I’m preparing up on my LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

And Doug Caldwell posts new videos from our First Friday Book Synopsis gatherings, and our Take Your Brain to Lunch gatherings, up on youtube and other sites.  Thanks, Doug.

Here’s the First Friday Book Synopsis youtube page.

You can get a taste of Take Your Brain to Lunch here.

But, of course, my primary attention is given to this blog.

And, don’t forget Bob Morris’ main page at Amazon.

Thanks to all of you for reading.

Curiosity and the Successful — Wisdom from Seth Godin

There are times when there should no elaboration, no commentary…  You just let the great writer and the great writing speak for itself.  Here it is, from Seth Godin:

Thirsty
I’ve noticed that people who read a lot of blogs and a lot of books also tend to be intellectually curious, thirsty for knowledge, quicker to adopt new ideas and more likely to do important work.
I wonder which comes first, the curiosity or the success?

Peter Drucker; Warren Bennis; Tom Peters; Jim Collins; Malcolm Gladwell – Makers of the Business Universe

My blogging colleague, Bob Morris, is more able to tackle this post than I am — but here’s my try.

I was reading a couple of the speeches in the great William Safire compilation, Lend Me Your Ears.  (I blogged about this before here and  here, and Bob reviewed the compilation here).  I read this toast: George Bernard Shaw:  George Bernard Shaw Salutes His Friend Albert Einstein.  It is a remarkable piece.  Here is a key excerpt from the beginning of his toast:

Napoleon and other great men were makers of empires, but these eight men whom I am about to mention were makers of universes…  I go back twenty-five hundred years, and how many can I count in that period?  I can count them on the fingers of my two hands.
Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Kepler, Copernicus, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein – and I still have two fingers left vacant…
Newton made a universe which lasted for three hundred years.  Einstein has made a universe, which I suppose you want me to say will never stop, but I don’t know how long it will last.

George Bernard Shaw

 

It was the phrase “makers of universes” that grabbed my imagination.  I really don’t think that we can put the business luminaries listed above in the same category.  (Well, maybe Drucker).  But in a lesser sense, and certainly in a narrower arena, I think we can say that these business thinker/business book giants have created at least some small universes.

Here’s what I mean.  When you think of “leadership,” you think of Bennis.  When you think of studying successful companies, extracting their secrets, you think of Peters and Collins.  Collins “hedgehog principle” has become part of our vocabulary.  And Gladwell is the true master at introducing phrases that become part of our understanding and vital parts of our vocabularies, (even if he borrows the ideas from others):  “tipping point,” “outliers,” the “10,000 hour rule.”

And, if you had only one you could read, you could make the case that Drucker is the one you would choose.  Many have observed that in communication, Aristotle said it first, and everyone else simply provides commentary and updates illustrations.  Well, in business, Drucker said it first, and everything else builds, in one way or another, on his work.

As I said earlier, Bob Morris is far more qualified to choose the names that could be called the “makers of the business universe.”  But I like the quest – who are the voices, the minds, that have most shaped our usable understanding of business effort and success?  Who has created our business universe?