Tornado Kills Four at Iowa Boy Scout Camp

In this morning's news, I watched a report on the aftermath of a Tornado that killed four at an Iowa Boy Scout camp. Over 40 were injured. I watched one boy, an older Scout, speak of radioing into his Scout leader to figure out what to do and how he ran to offer first aid and support to those who were injured and offered to help with the recovery of bodies from a flattened shelter.

I watched in horror and admiration.

I used to be a Girl Scout Executive at a council just north of here and one of my biggest fears involved exactly this--a storm in the midst of the night, with a camp (Talitha or Sycamore) full of girls, the phones out and....

OK. You get the picture.

In all the things we hear about our children--obesity, sullen anger and disrespect, low test scores, fearful futures--I'm heartened to hear about children who are everything we hope for.

Cross-posted at the American Values Alliance

Do not forget this day....Apple's iPhone is twice as fast for half the price.

Today’s message is pretty simple: Apple is going for iPhone market share in a big, big, way.

Daring Fireball


If you have money in any form, buy Apple stock...now. This isn't just some Mac fan boy reveling in the afterglow of another great Stevenote,  but someone who has gotten an intensely acute view of the immediate future.

Apple will be the next great global tech company.

Forget who has the greater share of the PC market. That metric is for saps! If Apple has it's way, the baby on the breast in Sub-Saharan Africa will be wielding a glossy black brick of 3G goodness.

My friends, Windows was just the beginning, Dell... a passing fancy. Jobs knows that these guys are beaten even though Apple currently only has a sliver of the global computer market. But for those who saw Monday's keynote, remember the image of the 3 legged stool at the very beginning.  One of those legs is about to get very FAT.



While very few people worldwide can afford a computer, the real pool of black gold that is waiting to be tapped is mobile phones. Apple has realized that it's global dominance is tied not to beating up on Vista but spreading it's design DNA pollen globally on the back of the iPhone not the iMac. Apple's global roll-out strategy for mobile market dominance is nothing short of the same poetry with which it designs, builds and markets all of it's other products. Study how they did this with almost every product since Steve returned to Apple. It's simplicity is deviously disarming.

Create the market before you sell the product.

Make the consumer start sucking vigorously on the teet long before the milk is even there. How did they do this? Design, create and sell to the market segment with the most disposable income. Establish the product as a must have for the rich. Once the halo of I-gotta-have-it is sufficiently bright around the product (hence justifying it's existence) you sell it to everybody else for a song  (pun intended). By this time you have made back your R&D money the back of the richest of the rich. You are now going for the jugular that's throbbing with the real life blood of revenue. The Mass Market. You have achieved critical mass in global mind-share now all you have to do is put a couple cracks in the glass ceiling of price and watch global dominance flood the earth. It is a small world after all.

So forget this old metric of PC market share. The mobile market is where the real moola is at. Cell phones are the platform of the future and every IT company worth it's salt knows this. But no one has a product like the iPhone. And for a long time no one ever will. Apple is just too many design cycles ahead of the rest of the field. So while the rest of the world copies this gleaming brick of techno-lust, Steven "Plainview" Jobs is drinking their milkshake. And his big fat straw is the iPhone.

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Monday Morning Melodies

It's going to be that kind of week. I'll need super powers to get it all packed in. I've got a little more than two months and I've finished my Masters, while operating my little empire, maintaining my relationship, supporting my widowed Dad and keeping the spiders at bay (they decided to move in when it started to pour a while back).

I need my Wonder Twin.

Here are two version of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" sometimes known as the theme song to Inspector Gadget, a show my brother, Rodney, and I used to watch when we shared an apartment the first time I was in grad school. We love this show and I love these versions of the Grieg classic.

LNB #053: Help! I Need Someone!

I remember seeing the Beatles' movie, Help! when I was a kid. Love the lyrics, which are so brilliant:

(Help) I need somebody
(Help) Not just anybody
(Help) You know I need someone
(Help)

When I was younger, so much younger than today
I never needed anybody's help in any way
But now these days are gone
I'm not so self assured
Now I find I've changed my mind
I've opened up the doors

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me

In case you don't know the song (like, you're a Namibian goatherd), here it is.

I can almost hear the strains of this song on the phone when prospects call me to ask, sometimes convolutedly, for help ("I really don't need help, but if I did, what could you do for me?").

Where I see businesses get into trouble is knowing when to ask for information and when to pay for it. According to the SBA, businesses fail for several reasons, chief of which are lack of planning, capital and other resources. In this biz environment, operating without the key information needed is almost criminal, given the massive amounts of information available on the Net.

Michael Gerber, author of the The E-Myth Revisited, spoke of "working on your business, not in it," staying out of the tactical weeds and into the strategic mission and vision. To do this, Gerber spoke of the importance of creating systems that tied directly into those strategic aims. Burning daylight poring over website after website, looking for information defies our ability to be strategic and our ability to get the most out of our time. The Wild Hunt for information, particularly when you need it to be right and you need it right now, can be the greatest of all cul de sacs.

This week, we hear from Jim Patton of J Patton Consulting and his Prepaid Legal affiliation. What Jim offers is a business service that, for a monthly fee, allows members to pose real-life problems to legal, accounting and other professionals and get real life answers. One example he gave was the business owner who needed to let an employee go. That owner posted the question in the service and got back a checklist for terminations that allowed him to stay fair, square and legal.

Be sure to grab a copy of a copy of The Dip as well.

Listen Now: 24.40

GM to Close Four SUV/Truck Plants

Finally, figuring out that gas prices, which were less than $1.50 in 2003 are not going to decline much from their record four bucks a gallon, General Motors Corp. has announced that it will shutter production at four pickup truck and sport utility vehicle plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico starting later this year.

CNBC lists those factories along with the models they make along with the numbers of workers each factory employs.:

Oshawa, Ontario: Employs 2,900. Makes Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra
pickups. Likely to end production in 2009.

Moraine, Ohio: Employs 2,400. Makes Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7 mid-size SUVs. Closes at end of model run in 2010 or sooner if demand warrants. GM's last midsize SUV plant, meaning models won't be built any more.

Janesville, Wis.: Employs 2,800. Makes Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban SUVs. Also GMC Yukon and Chevrolet, GMC, Isuzu medium-duty trucks. Medium-duty production done by end of 2009. SUV production ends in 2010 or sooner if demand remains weak.

Toluca, Mexico: Affected line employs 250. Makes Chevrolet Kodiak medium-duty trucks; production ends by end of 2008. Other production at the Toluca complex will continue.

Eighty-five hundred people. I wonder how many of these jobs could have been saved had GM operated with a tab more foresight.

And the Hummer, that gas hog that puzzled everyone who didn't own an oil well, is up for sale or a dramatic revamp.

Monday Morning Melodies

I know. I'm way too young to have experienced Bo Diddley, but I remember watching my mother putting on his records and rocking the house for years. It's from her that I got the love of old, old school and Miles, Herbie Hancock and Miriam Makeba who were the staples of Momma's repertoire throughout our lives. I'm still an old school girl.

Well Bo, "The Originator," died today at age 79. He gave us "I'm a Man" (remade by George Thorogood as "Bad to the Bone,"), "Who Do You Love" and much, much more.

Hey Bo Diddley in 1966. He's backed up by Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford on the second guitar and the Bo-ettes, Lilly "Bee Bee" Jamieson and Gloria Morgan.





Who Do You Love, which starts

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let's take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Dang! No wonder I strolled over in the land of punk!

Star Trek's Pevney Dies

The Trekkie in me mourns. Joseph Pevney, who directed some of the very best episodes of the original "Star Trek" has passed away on 18 May in his Plam Desert, California, home. He was 96.

"The Trouble With Tribbles"

In "Trouble" the Enterprise is infested with the cute, fuzzy vermin (who don't seem to like the Klingons).

"The City on the Edge of Forever"

In "City" Kirk and Spock travel back in time to the Depression.

Pevney directed episodes of such TV greats as "The Hulk" (OK, I have issues) and "Fantasy Island" (I really have issues).

The series, in its original run, was a failure. It was cancelled after three years and poor interest and has lived for the past 40 years in syndication, having spun off 5 additional series and eleven motion pictures, books, comics and games.

The series has taught me to fundamentally alter my relationship with failure.

It seems Apple is doing very very well these days.

Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1000 or more. Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.

Daring Fireball

BUY BUY BUY!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The World Bank and the Gods of Lending

Some Jamaican policy wonks will tell you this bank helped our country get into deeper unescapable debt. I don't know how true that is but I think this book will open the eyes of many undeveloped countries.



"A passionate, informed, and devastating first-hand
account from the front lines of World Bank operations. Students,
development professionals, and especially policy makers in Washington
should read this book." - Jeffrey A. Winters (Professor of political economy, Northwestern University and co-editor of Reinventing the World Bank)

"Recommended reading as a hard-hitting lesson on how not to run the Bank." - Paul Arlman (Former Executive Director of the World Bank (1986-1990) and member of the Dutch Treasury

Plaxo's Personal Card

Big doings at Plaxo today! We are really excited to announce some of the biggest news in the history of Plaxo: We have just signed an agreement** to be acquired by Comcast, the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services (and our largest customer and partner).

Plaxo's Personal Card

Social Media’s wall St. cred is building ever so rapidly. Now even for the slightly smaller companies. Congrats Plaxo, you guys have truly come a long way!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

LNB #052: The Dip (pt. 2)

This week, we cover ways to think your way through quitting. Knowing the answers to the key questions for your business or accountability, you can figure out pretty quickly what you should be saying "yes" or "no" to.

To remind you, in Seth Godin's little book, The Dip, he describes three key conditions when we get stopped:

• The dip: a deep, wide break in the action. You just need to hang on and get to the other side.
• The cul de sac (or dead-end): you can blow and blow and blow, but, little wolf, you'll never blow this house down.
• The cliff: this looks like it will work, but it will run out of gas and land you back in the cul de sac with your Big Wheel.

Be sure to grab a copy of this little book. I'll be chatting about it for a few more 'casts.

Listen Now: 17:17

The Force is Stong in You, Young BizWalker

For those of you who know me, I'm a pretty fine coach and consultant, who's gotten to write some of the guiding literature for the coaching profession and created and lead coursework in coaching psychology for such illustrious venues as New York University.

I'm all that. (Ask me sometime how long it took for me to be able to say that and know it for the unabashed, unapologetic truth that it is.)

That doesn't mean that stuff is necessarily any easier at Camp Lita. I love those coaches who say that they coach themselves. Ever see a dentist pull her own teeth or a doctor remove his own appendix. Didn't think so. Coaching's power comes from the interactions between an actor and an observer, and not from the perfection of a coach's life (that's called a Messiah, kidlets).

So, when I get messages out of the clear blue like this one from the hubster, I'm inclined to listen carefully. In addition to watching me work my business and live my life, he's been watching as I work to finish graduate school (Masters in HR with honors later this summer--then off to dive into a doctorate...I can sleep when I'm dead...I can sleep when I'm dead...I can sleep when....).

Being the stress kitten that I am (ain't gonna change it, either....just learning more and more how to make that way of being work for me rather than work me over), he's just got a different sense of how I work.

Something from Star Wars comes to mind. “Luke, trust the force”. Your innate ability and sense of excellence is one manifestation of your “force”. Learning to trust it will reduce your stress and worry many fold. I know, cause I’m there too.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

God, I love this stuff.

Monday Morning Melodies

I love this guy. Before KT Tunsdall hit the scene with her ubiquitous hit "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," there was Owen Pallett, his violin and a loop machine.

Fantasy (a cover of the Mariah Carey song)

This Modern Love (a cover a hit from British group, Bloc Party--also a fave)

This Modern Love (Not stuttering. Here's Bloc Party with the original. Very excellent!)

Peach, Plum, Pear (covering Joanna Newson's work)

Going to be an excellent week, people!

LNB #051: The Dip (Thanks, Seth)

Marketing guru, Seth Godin's book, The Dip, forms the basis for this podcast (and several more to come). Seth describes three key conditions when we get stopped:

• The dip: where the break in your action is so deep and wide that you can't move out of it with the resources you're expending. Kind of like the straight-A highschooler who never really had to expend herself...until she got a snootful of Calculus 115.
• The cul de sac (or dead-end): staying here will keep you from doing something that will work for you and it will never, ever change. His suggestion? Get out as quickly as possible. Remember, the analogy of the kid on the Big Wheel? It was cute the first few times around, and then it never seemed to stop.
• The cliff: you can keep this going for quite a while, but it runs out of gas and leaves you on the side of the road with no options. Kind of like smoking, that doesn't seem to really hurt anything--that is, until the doc gives you That Look, you know the one.

Be sure to grab a copy of this little book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). I'll be chatting about it for a few more 'casts.

Listen Now: 20:23

I'm Too Sexy for this Work!

I saw this on Seth Godin's blog:

You can't hire that guy because he's not as good looking as George (Clooney). And you can't believe that speaker because he doesn't present as well as George. And that guy? He's short. Short? Well, shorter than George. And you can't trust him to make good decisions because his skin is much darker than George's.

You can't date her because she's not as good looking as Jennifer (whichever Jennifer you want to set as the standard). And her? Well, she stutters, and Jennifer doesn't. And Jennifer herself, of course, is not nearly as smart as George.

Jennifer and George may be extraordinarily good looking movie stars, but you don't get to work with them. By buying into a standard of expectation for what's normal (or great or very good or trustworthy) we shortchange ourselves every single day. (Read the rest)

Seth's right. Back in my HR days, I remember reps clearly making decisions on which resume to put on the top of the pile based in such (illegal) banalities as "He's cute" or "Her name sounds nice." That, by the way, is when my hair really started turning prematurely white. Seeking to draft an AA/EEO program to help "deal with this," I went to work gathering research on looks and expectations, the positive and negative Pygmalion Effects, and such.

Here's where I found myself scratching my noggin: Studies showed that CEO's were between 45 and 55, were traditionally good looking, worked out regularly, were heterosexually married to a pretty wife. More than their education or past experience, the researchers found that their presumed attractiveness was more of a constant. Their ability to succeed was, in part, predicated on the expectation that pretty people did well. Around that same time, where was a rash of CEO flameouts where they fell to earth like comets. Their good looks bought them all kinds of space, but didn't change gravity then they became less than lighter-than-air.

Remember the horribly ubiquitous Right Said Fred song, "I'm Too Sexy?" a novelty hit that was so successful, that they re-released it in 2007 (could Mac Daddy, Macarena II be far behind?). That, it seems, is quite a bit of what can be seen at networking events, as people, oddly, preen and stut their looks rather than their other...um, wares.

Monday Morning Melodies

Getting the week started. Thought I'd send out a little love to Rachelle Ferrell, who can do some stunning things with her voice.

Autumn Leaves



I Can Explain



Bye, Bye Blackbird (with unrelated montage)



Have a great week--taxes and all--ya'll!

Boil Those Start-up Grunts

Reading Fastcompany.com, I found a discussion thread, which began with this quote from Michael Arrington, the Editor of TechCrunch: “Startups should hire people who work 24 hours a day because there is nothing else they’d rather do. ”

Silly rabbit, that Michael Arrington! The notion that start-up grunts will work for slave hours AND slave wages indefinitely is, um, (choosing words carefully) dunderheaded.

Start-ups should hire people who will be with them--not only in those first heady days--but will stay for the long haul. The corporate memory that's lost when good people leave (especially those who were there in the greenfield days) is tremendous and irreplaceable. We don't even have a good calculator for Loss of Talent-Intelligence, but we do have a calculation for cost of turnover. Trust me: it's high and only those start-up managers who are tone-deaf to their HR gurus (or, not wanting to be bothered by those pesky strategic staffing types, just blew off having someone in that role in the first place) will ignore the impact of their expectations of staff both during and after start-up.

Besides, those who thrive on the crisis-driven thrash and crash cycle of your start-up won't be there long...and if they are, they won't be worth a steaming puddle of spit (a technical term from us HR and leadership development types). I don't know a lot of people from back in my college days who produced excellent results from cramming (and if they pulled it out, they were useless in short order).

Think it through, plan it well, treat your people like gods and rock on! If you can't do that, turn your business plan over to people much smarter than you and get out of the way.

Monday Morning Melodies

Heading out to the gym. Weight's beginning to really melt (15 pounds), but I'm being an ingrate. I just want a bagel and a big cup o' joe. At this point, I am reminded that the nice Korean doctor-- (Dr. Young ki Park) the one who was smiling gently at me when he told me I could no longer have wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, mint, caffeine, milk and heavily spiced foods--as an acupuncturist was also standing in front of a rack of needles as long as my cat. His message was clear to me: mess this up and it won't go well with escalating treatments and more disabling pain.

Well, I haven't messed up, though this took quite a number of foods of the list and made business lunches a real pain (I opted for breakfast--more easy options).

So, here's some tunes from the fabulous Gap Band, Zapp and Roger to get your day started.

You Dropped the Bomb on Me (a college staple from the Gap Band)

Burn Rubber on Me (by the Gap Band)

More Bounce to the Ounce (by Zapp and Roger)

OK, now with more bounce to my ounce, I'm done whining and heading to the door.

Peace and chicken grease, people!

It Continues to be the Economy, Stupid

The airlines are clearly struggling. House members are trying to figure out how Southwest Airlines could have for so long violated safety rules and how the FAA, the agency responsible for oversight, could have missed these safety violations. Planes have been flying with cracked fusilages (one of which cracked open in the 1980's, sucking a flight attendant out of the plane to her death), inspectors being told to "hush up" missed inspections of fusilages and rudder systems...

Horrible.

Now ATA, like many other low cost airlines like Aloha which pulled up stakes, are shutting their doors. As fuel prices keep going up and discretionary travel is drying up, the smaller players are going to continue to disappear, either filing bankruptcy or being absorbed by other businesses. Even the bigger players are feeling the pinch, particularly with domestic flights (they make more money from international flights). Fewer flights, more crowding and higher fares. What an unholy mix.

This from MSNBC on ATA's collapse:

ATA Airlines shut down operations and stranded thousands of travelers Thursday when an unexpected loss of key charter flights and soaring fuel costs forced the carrier into bankruptcy.

Once the nation’s 10th-largest air carrier, ATA entered bankruptcy for the second time in just over three years. The company had more than 2,200 employees, and “virtually all” were told that their jobs were gone, company spokesman Michael Freitag said.

Many passengers learned of the collapse at ticket counters, where advisories were posted in the handful of cities ATA still served. About 10,000 passengers flew ATA each day before operations were shut down, according to the airline.

Oh, and while I was tapping out this post, I read a report on NPR which extolled the failures of the newly revamped Heathrow Airport in London in doing the little things--say, like keeping track of baggage. Turns out they're having to send the mountain of misplaced luggage to Italy to be sorted and processed.

(sigh)

"The doctor will see you now. Be sure your webcam is turned on."

Interesting article on NPR:

Doctor-Patient 'Web Visits' Spur Privacy Concerns - As more doctors go online to communicate with patients, two of the country's biggest health insurers have started reimbursing patients for the Internet visits. But critics say the online advising could lead to errors, and patient privacy could be compromised.

I think this is an excellent idea and, with the rise of Minute Clinics which are springing up at grocery stores and pharmacies, doctors need to consider the growing need for speed in getting treatment. Most doctors seem to be taking Scheduling 101 from beauticians, for example, who routinely overbook leading to long waits. Their clients--I'm loath to use the word "patients" because it fails to capture the market relationship between the provider and his/her customer--are expressing their frustration by seeking other forms of doctor-client contact.

Before one recent doctor visit, I found myself waiting mid-morning for over an hour. I was scheduled for a follow-up visit which turned out to be no more than "How are you feeling? I think we should continue the treatment as is. Come back in two months." No internet connection (which even my auto dealer has figured out to offer), no tea and the water cooler was empty. With travel and wait time, that took an hour and forth minutes out of my day.

This could also be a boon to communities where there aren't enough doctors to go around--that is, once, they suss out how they'll manage internet connections in these, sometimes, technologically depressed areas of the country.

Before, there was nowhere else for "patients" to go if they were displeased with customer service issues. All the doctors were doing the same thing. A different level of competition has now arisen in medicine--both the retail sectors and the internet will certainly change what has been a "given" in medicine--you'll get your treatment when and in the manner in which I want to dish it out.