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).

Westinghouse versus Edison: Shocking and Revolting Competition

Here is a brief excerpt from American Entrepreneur: The Fascinating Stories of the People Who Defined Business in the United States in which Larry Schweikart and Lynne Pierson Doti examine an especially nasty competition in the 1880s between George Westinghouse (not yet 30 and already a millionaire) and the legendary Thomas Edison. Westinghouse had developed alternating current (AC) electrical systems, a superior alternative to the direct current (DC) systems then in use, used by Edison’s various devices. “Westinghouse founded Westinghouse Electric Company in 1886 to build the equipment needed to control AC, developing a system of transformers and generators…Edison’s company enthusiastically publicized accidents from AC voltage, to the point of conducting experiments in which cats were electrocuted to show its dangers. Newspapers cooperated with stories whose headlines read ‘Electric Wire Slaughter” and “Another Lineman Roasted to Death.’ After the State of New York adopted electrocution (using AC) as its means of capital punishment, Edison officials referred to it as ‘Westinghousing’ the condemned.”

Then in 1892, Westinghouse’s company won the competition to provide the lighting for the Chicago Columbian Exposition, “proving to the world the safety and efficiency of AC power. That was the break that Westinghouse needed, and contracts to provide electricity to homes and businesses flooded Westinghouse Electric.” Years later, the ailing inventor’s insatiable curiosity remained as active as ever. “He spent his last year working on an electric wheelchair.”

Interview: Gregory S. Berns

Gregory S. Berns

Berns occupies the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics, serves as Director of the Center for Neuropolicy, and is a professor in both psychiatry and economics at Emory University. He earned an A.B. degree at Princeton University (his major was physics), an M.D. degree at the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Davis. His research uses brain scanning technologies to decode the relationship of neural activity to decision-making. The approach is called Neuroeconomics. He and his research associates are particularly interested in how the brain integrates personal valuation decisions with the effects of social messages. His work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense. Berns is the author of Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently published in 2008 by Harvard Business Press and a recipient of several prestigious awards. For example, it was named by Fast Company magazine as one of the 10 best business books of 2008.

Here is a brief excerpt from my interview of Berns. The complete interview is also available.

Morris: In Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Martin Lindstrom shares what he learned about “what’s going on in our brains that makes us chose one brand over another – what information passesthrough our brain’s filter and what information doesn’t — well that would be key to truly building brands of the future.” His book offers what strike me as preliminary conclusions about neuromarketing. In fact, how much do we know for certain about how we make various types of decisions, such as which product to purchase, which political candidate to vote for, or what to plant in a garden?
Berns: Neuromarketing is a more recent application of fMRI. I think we have to be very careful in interpreting claims like this. For example, fMRI measurements are noisy. You have to make many measurements to be sure what you have is a real signal and not just a random fluctuation. There is a huge amount of variability between people. This means you need to study an adequate number of people, typically 30-50, to get a good idea of what constitutes a typical response. Even then, we must be careful in interpreting what brain activations mean. The brain is a very efficient multitasker, which means that it will use a given part of the brain for many different functions. This means you can’t always point to activity in a particular brain region, and know what a person is thinking. I think this aspect of neuromarketing has been way overhyped, and any neuromarketer that claims to predict what people will do is overselling the technology at this point. I say, prove it.

Morris: To what extent is the human brain “hardwired”? To what extent can it be “rewired”?

Berns: Everything is hardwired to the extent that the act of thinking depends on physical molecules moving around the brain. Unlike a computer, the distinction between hardware and software is not so clear. We do know that once the brain reaches maturity, it is much slower to change. It *can* change under the right circumstances. Novelty will force the brain to adapt because it can’t rely on past experience. And most interesting, exercise, because it releases brain growth factors, is probably the best lubricant for rewiring.

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If you wish to read the complete interview, please contact me at interllect@mindspring.com.

Berns invites you to check out the resources at these Web sites:

Main lab research site
www.ccnl.emory.edu

Neuropolicy Center
www.neuropolicy.emory.edu

Occasional Blog
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/plus2sd

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

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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.

Foxes, Hedgehogs, and Problem-Solving

Think Twice

In Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? published in 2005 by Princeton University Press, Philip Tetlock suggests that so-called experts tend to be either foxes (who know a little bit about a great many subjects) or hedgehogs (who know a great deal about only one subject). Tetlock asserts that “foxes” tend to make better decisions because they rely on a variety of sources and consider several different points of view whereas “hedgehogs” tend to view reality through “a single lens” and explain everything wholly in terms of what they already know.

It is worth noting that these two critters were previously discussed by Archilochus (c. 680 and 640 B.C.E.), more recently by Isaiah Berlin in his essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, and then by Jim Collins in Good to Great.

In Think Twice, Michael J. Mauboussin supports Phil Rosenzweig’s criticism in The Halo Effect of Collins and other business thinkers who write bestsellers. According to Mauboussin, “The important question is not ‘were all great hedgehogs’ but rather, ‘were all hedgehogs great?’ If the answer to the latter question is no – and it assuredly is – then dwelling on the survivors creates a bias in the analysis, leading to faulty conclusions.”

My own take on all this is, both foxes and hedgehogs first need to make certain that they are asking the right question, that they are solving the right problem. Only then can they determine what they need to know and where they can obtain the information their decision requires.

In another commentary, I will share Mauboussin’s thoughts about how to avoid or correct errors of judgment such as those associated with the “halo effect” and reversion to the mean.

What was she thinking?

Will she still like this public portrayal in 20 years?

Sara observes: I was walking around a local college campus during their recent elections.  A young woman had signs from one end of campus to the other proclaiming her run for “Head of the Programming Council.”  By the way, this is not a picture of Phyl, Muffy, Fluff-for-Brains or whatever her name is.  However, it is eerily similar.   I have to be honest, when I saw the signs I began to chuckle…several rude comments about the type of programming she might recommend just leapt into my head before I could shoo them away.   Here are some questions that remain for me:  what is she selling?  No, seriously, when you put your picture on a sign and post it in public, you are selling something! What is the cost of using that type of picture?  Once posted, it will never go away completely…so that question will follow her into the future.  What message did she mean to convey?  This young woman and the logic she and her political campaign committee used elude me.

I am left with a painful example of why women have difficulty changing their image.   Gail Evans, points out in “Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman”  that  the problem is, when women act in a manner that confirms stereotypes,  all women get categorized.  This journey of equality needs to begin earlier than I had been thinking.  It’s important that we teach our daughters the value of self respect, the importance of being aware of their impact and how long the future might be (case in point, hiring companies checking candidates out on MySpace and Facebook.)

Those who know me, know I am not one to publicly poke fun at someone as I am doing now.  Please know that I wish the best for Muffy.   To be fair to her, I’ve carefully left out the name of the university, concealed her real name and even used a fake picture…so, if this sounds like someone you know and you are offended, talk to them, not me.

“The Five Deadly Business Sins”

Managing in a Time of Great Change

In an article that first appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1933, Peter Drucker identified what he characterized as “the five deadly business sins.” They are:

1. The worship of high profit margins and of “premium pricing” that always creates a market for the competitor. “And high profit margins do not equal maximum profits.”

2. Mispricing a new product by charging “what the market will bear.” “This, too, creates risk-free opportunity for the competition.”

3. Cost-driven pricing. “The only thing that works is price-driven costing.”

4. Slaughtering tomorrow’s opportunity on the altar of yesterday. Drucker cites the example of IBM that committed this sin at least twice, first when forbidding sales initiatives that could threaten the sales of punch cards and years later when preventing its PC people to contact mainframe customers.

5. Feeding problems and starving opportunities. “All one can get by ‘problem solving’ is damage containment. Only opportunities produce results and growth.”

The complete article as well as 24 others are available for the first time in a single volume, Managing in a Time of Great Change, published by Harvard Business Press in 2009 as part of the centennial celebration of Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005).

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.

High school football at its best

Our Boys

On Saturday, November 28, 2009, the Centralia Panthers defeated the Smith Center Redmen, 20-12, in the Class 2-1a championship game in Hays, Kansas. Thus ended the longest active winning streak in high school football (79) and, following the game, the Smith Center coaches, players, parents, and other supporters gave the victors an ovation of respect. Over the 32 seasons in Smith Center (a town of 1,931), Coach Roger Barta has won 301 games. As Joe Drape explains in an article published by The New York Times, “by creating a culture that values the whole man over a football player, that emphasizes getting ‘a little bit better each day,’ and insists that the Redmen cannot be champions until they love one another.”

Later in the locker room, Barta said this to his players and their family members: “Nobody hang their heads in here. We have lined up 80 times against teams, and finally one of them got us in a game that is going to go down there in the history books. They were a play better than us today.

“We’ve never judged ourselves on wins and losses. We’ve measured ourselves on whether we have been there for each other. You guys have been there all along. What you and those who came before have achieved over 79 games is something a lot of schools in America would like to say they have done.”

How many high schools in Texas can say they have? There are rimes when it seems to me that the success of a high school’s football team seems to be much more important than the quality of education that the school provides.

You may wish to check out Drape’s bestselling book, Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen, and Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success: 12 Lessons for Extraordinary Performance and Personal Excellence co-authored by John Wooden and Steve Jamison.