Seth Makes Some Fine Points

Seth Godin's post Rights and Responsibilities is like most of his posts: the bomb. Here's a quote:

...organizations and individuals that focus more on their responsibilities and less on their rights tend to outperform.

It's a journey versus the destination kind of thing, except that, in this case, the destination is for some poor saps the place to which they think they've already arrived.

Kind of insufferable, isn't it?

He also scores big points taking on PepsiCo and anybody else with a position to protect, a status quo to defend when he says:

Once people realize that excessive use of your product makes them sick and then die a long and painful death, it's probably time to stop lobbying and time to start doing something about it.

It's that protectionism that creeps into everything. Kevin Kelly in The Technium quoted Clay Shirky to much the same effect:

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.

When people do this, try to continue to preserve the status quo no matter the cost to others, present or future, they take the easy way out. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," goes the old saying, and boy, it hits home with a vengeance here. But it's more and less than simple practicality or economics.

It's laziness.

It's sheer laziness, because they give up on imagination and innovation, abandoning them with the sobriquet of "idealism."

It's good to be certain that you can afford your idealism, but it's also good to realize that you can't afford to leave them out or behind. Idealism, innovation, and imagination. It keeps us from being the death of something on down the road.

I'll paraphrase Seth's closing sentence to illustrate my point:

If your success depends on taking the easy way out and hurting others in the process, then you have a bad definition of success.

Giving Too Much Control to One Person

"If your happiness depends on your draft pick or a single audition, that's giving way too much power to someone else."

That's the last line of this excellent post by Seth Godin. What does he recommend instead? Realize that the skills you develop in pursuit of your dream are the important thing. They are the things that will serve you well in any of several different outcomes. Things like persistence, valuing hard work, goal setting, accounting for what you've done, learned and accomplished. He also mentions "shipping on time," "bending the market to your will," and "doing important and scary work."

Sometimes pursuing your dream is the best preparation for something different than you expected. With so many things beyond our control, you just shouldn't relinquish do or die decisions to one gatekeeper. It's the internet age, anyway. Gatekeepers are passe.

Rushkoff Scores a Bulls-Eye

Corporations as Uber-Citizens

I think this is really good article. I'm consistently impressed by Douglas Rushkoff, because I really love reading, seeing, or hearing people that have an excellent grasp of their subject, and Rushkoff has this ability to explain the most complicated, institutionalized things in our society in a winning, down-to-earth way.

What does he say here?

The first two paragraphs set the scenario of human interests/rights vs. corporate interests/rights, and Rushkoff comes from the somewhat counter-cultural stance that says corporations are not simply people-collectives. Oh no, they're not. They're something else entirely. The hippie in me kind of likes this, but it's not something I'm certain I agree with entirely.

For one thing, corporations are sometimes the mecha of whatever individuals are at the top. In other words, corporations are sometimes the vast expression of whatever the CEO, the board of directors, or some management team imagines. I don't think Rushkoff expresses this aspect of things, but maybe I can see why: suppose the CEO changes his mind and wants to change policy, but now the board has become invested in these policies, and simply get rid of the CEO rather than allow his policy changes to come to fruition. Viewed from the outside, it might appear that the corporation has a mind of its own.

Anyway, read the article. It has plenty to say. I think I'll post more on it later. Ta...

Competitive Insulation

Seth Godin blogs today, in Facts always win, right?, about something he calls competitive insulation that protects your business from commodification. It's made up of relationships and whatnot, and along with these points of emphasis, you add your story.

I think he's talking about building up a sub-culture around your product or service, which relates directly to how you might go about your brand-building. This competitive insulation is something referenced in part 4 of Cory Doctorow's (so far) excellent Makers, currently being serialized on Tor.com. The event starts in the fifth paragraph, the one that starts "Lester came back..." In it, the group has discovered their product is now being made by a competitor who's selling it for less than the group's cost to manufacture.

"How do we compete with that?" asks one member, and the answer he receives is "We don't...Now we do the next thing."

Then he goes on to explain that they will do something "even more capital intensive," and the implication here is that they are raising the barriers to entry a bit, and by moving on and coming up with something else very cool they are enhancing their story, building their brand. Cory Doctorow is the bomb-diggity.

And so is Seth Godin. I really like this term, competitive insulation.

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Gushment Is Not Good Enough

Gushing is disgusting. In that respect it’s related to “spewing.” But the icky phenomenon to which I refer is sticky sweet.

I’m referring, of course, to “unsolicited” testimonials. You see them in non-fiction books where the writer is recalling the responses of former students exposed to her revelatory techniques.

“This changes everything!” they sometimes say, which is a fine thing to say – everyone does, from time to time, but it should not be presented as evidence of anything. It’s gushing, for pity’s sake, and for all the liquid biological connotations, it should be obvious that it’s involuntary, and not a considered response.

Advice to writers always includes things like, “Don’t tell the editor how much your sister likes your writing.” Duh. It’s a referral on 1) hand-picked dataverses, and 2) anecdotal evidence in general. We should pay attention.

We should not accept gushment as evidence.

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Focus Sauce

Seeking to set measurable goals, people often forget what the term “measurable” actually means in this setting. It doesn’t mean “invent a new yard stick.”

It means that you pick a simple goal, one that can be spelled out piece by piece. One that can attract consensus because everyone knows what it will look like, a kind of communal vision or some sort of social contract, de facto style.

Successful visualization is the focus sauce for your project dish and prevents the dreaded feature creep.

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Destroy Your Industry?

Seth Godin posts today about Singer and how they’ve been through a cycle, going from very prominent to not so prominent, and how this is simply a fact of life. Businesses have their season, and then the bloom is off the rose, so to speak, and the cycle completed (or moved on, at any rate).

Seth’s big point is that during Singer’s boom-time, cycles were decades long and outlasted the careers of most managers, so they could not (or did not have to) address the situation before retirement. Cycles are much faster now, even annual in some cases. He says that the best marketing strategy is to “destroy your industry before your competition does.”

What does this mean?

Does it refer to the shelf-life of markets? How is that any different from industries? (Industry = “the people or companies engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise”) (Market = “the customers for a particular product or service”) An industry is tied to a market – you have demographic markets, geographic markets, industrial markets – but you could re-orient yourself towards a new and different market, and re-orienting could involve getting the word out there in new and different ways (marketing), or tweaking the product (I guess you could tweak it for the same market).

If an industry is comprised of the players engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise, then enough tweaking would eventually change the particulars, and so the old industry is destroyed and a new one rises from its ashes. I think Seth is saying that we should tweak, innovate, iterate, hack, whatever, our industry constantly, even if it becomes something different, because everything is in constant flux, and the market won’t hold still anyway, so innovate faster than your competition and you might be fortunate enough to help steer the market, particularly if your innovations are somehow tracking the market.

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Salsa vs. Chutney

What makes salsa be salsa? The Free Dictionary says it’s “a spicy sauce of chopped, usually uncooked vegetables or fruit… used as a condiment.” So what’s a condiment? Again, the Free Dictionary: “a substance, such as relish, vinegar, or spice, used to flavor or complement food.”

Chutney, on the other hand, seems to involve cooking. Foodgeeks calls it "a jam-like preserve consisting of fruits cooked down with vinegar, sugar, and spices." One of the definitions at the Free Dictionary seems to hold out the possibility of veggies: "a pickle of Indian origin, made from fruit, vinegar, spices, and sugar." That one doesn't mention cooking. Go figure.

So the other day I cut up a cucumber, a yellow squash, and I put them in vinegar and added some Splenda, which would be like the sugar. I called that a salsa.

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Try This: Map Goals to Strategy, and Action Plans to Tactics

I love the terms strategic and tactical. A strategy is a high-level, big-picture thing, while a tactic belongs to the more specific things pertaining to the strategy.

Strategies and tactics can sound like goals and plans just a bit. Goals are pretty high level, and the trouble I’ve gotten into in the past was an over-commit on goals – I want to set a goal for everything! – and no real plans for getting there with any of them. As I said above, what I’ve needed to do is get the emotion out of it, and have some nice, sensible steps to follow to actually achieve these things. That’s the tactical part.

It’s like you’re a contractor. You go out and get some business from a customer; they want you to do a project. That’s fantastic. You sign a contract to do such-and-such project by such-and-such date. Now you need to get your sub-contractors together to get the work done.

What if you never get around to signing contracts with the sub-contractors? You get shafted, that’s what. You haven’t done your job as a contractor, and you haven’t fulfilled the contract you signed with the customer.

Here’s the other thing. If you’ve got committed strategies with uncommitted tactics (that means goals with no firm plans), then you’d best not be committing on any new strategies until it’s taken care of. Fail on this part, and you will quickly find yourself overcommitted and overwhelmed.

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Rethinking the Process for Improvement

Over at the Reforming Project Management blog, Hal has reviewed Ric Merrifield's Time to Reth!nk Improvement.

Quote from book: “Never has there been a more important time to continually improve your company's efficiency and productivity. (F)or that to happen, they are going to have to avoid the ‘how’ trap, rethink and focus on their ‘whats,’ and become a collection of plug-and-play operations.”

Last year author Ric and co-authors Jack Calhoun and Dennis Stevens published a paper called “The Next Revolution in Productivity.” Hal boils the process down like this:

• 1. Describe your operations in terms of desired outcomes (the whats, or “conditions of satisfaction” in Hal’s lingo – you know, what are we committing to deliver to the customer – or, what’s the goal in other parlance)
• 2. Identify the activities supporting the desired outcomes (in other circles, this could be like the plan)
• 3. Identify the capabilities supporting each of your activities (or the resources required for each step in the plan)
• 4. Identify activities most critical to your project’s success (are these the drop-dead requirements? or critical path analysis?)
• 5. Design a more efficient operating model (re-think!)

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The Slashdot Effect Hits the Real World

Hitoshi Watanabe of Japan posted details of his successful diet on a social networking site in Japan, and instead of inundating a website, he caused a run on bananas! They are now, at the moment, hard to come by because of the drastically increased sales.

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My Notebook

I love my notebook, any notebook really. It shouldn't be too massive, though, because it is too overwhelming at the start, and the really great, visceral thing is when you reach some critical mass of filled pages and now suddenly it is a notebook of substance, and the written-on pages feel different, of course, they're bumpy and dimpled and textured, a regular patina of thoughts and feelings, palimpsets of the soul, and there it is: I. Love. Notebooks.

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Put a Bullet In Your Plans

Plans are fragile. Just ask Robert Burns. His poem, “To a Mouse,” contains this: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” So things are not entirely within your control. But surely you knew that. Everyone does.

But are they as out of our control as we most-times imagine? Take on the role, for just a moment, of the pain management nurse, and rate your pain (lack of control, in this case) from 1 (complete control, no pain) to 10 (no control whatsoever, unbearable pain). Be honest! Write it down.

Now reconsider. Might you be your own worst enemy, a villainous saboteur, blithely shooting down your own “best laid” plans with one of these bullets?

• Laziness - You assumed too much and didn’t bother to vet your assumptions. These often center in two areas: availability and process.
• Availability - Four points.
• Don’t assume that everyone will simply show up. Were they notified appropriately? Was the list complete and accurate? Was there an opportunity to have them sign up, to commit?
• Don’t assume that the things you want to work on are going to be available. If it’s movable, is it going to be there? Is it going to be in use by another group? Are you absolutely certain that you have permission to tie the resource up for this long?
• Don’t assume that your time frame matches the required time frame of the resource. Talk to the right people.
• Don’t assume that the necessary tools and supplies will magically be on site. You may have to make arrangements.
• Process - Three points.
• Do you have the necessary know-how? In other words, do you know the process?
• Do you have the necessary leadership ability? Do you command enough respect to assign duties? Here’s what I mean: if nobody thinks you know the process, they may not believe you know what you’re doing with your assignments.
• If you don’t have the best handle on process, you might need to hand control over to an expert. Next question: should the control you cede be advisory/technical, or should it be administrative also? If the expert is no good with people, you might need to run interference for him, continuing to be the administrator.
• Naivete - You underestimated the situation. You ran all the traps listed above, but just underestimated how much trouble some of them could be, or you overestimated your or your group’s ability to handle them. “We can handle it,” are four words that can kill your plans.
• Denial - You refused to face up to certain truths about your situation. Someone told you something about availability or process, and you said to yourself:
• “They’re lying.” Come on. Really? Maybe you’re not only in denial, but paranoid as well. Why would they lie? If the answer is not immediately obvious, then this conclusion is not obvious either.
• “That’s not true.” You may not be calling them a liar, but what’s the alternative? They’re an idiot? Someone’s lying to them?
• “They don’t really understand the situation.” If you’re told something by someone you thought should know, and your response is, “That’s not true,” then maybe you need to ask at least one more question. Maybe several.
• “That was then, this is now.” This assumes that your information is more current than theirs. Is that warranted? Nail it down.
• “That’ll never happen.” Watch out, now. Never? You know what they say about pride. It happens right before you fall on your face.

I’ve been at several work days over the years at church or school or the ball field, and plans that fell apart through one of these factors were really just as discouraging (and damaging to future recruitment efforts) as no plans at all. So take care not to put a bullet in your own best plans.

Bailout Mess

This post at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity makes the most sense of the bailout mess that I've seen so far. Well written, informative.

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Sandwich Security Breakthrough

In a move similar to taking a Sharpie and writing "Biology Experiment" on your milk container, someone has come up with a clever, non-verbal strategy:
 See the link.

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Me and Dudley Try to Commiserate

I have a friend; we’ll call him Dudley. He’s old oil money, not big time, but he inherited quite a few producing wells several years ago and with light sweet crude topping $120/barrel, he’s not hurting.

I think he’s benefiting from this oil crisis.

We were talking the other day over plates of fried eggs, bacon and toast. “Melissa has been after me to get rid of that little old Toyota truck I’ve been driving since Methuselah was on the earth. ‘You’re gonna get killed when some big old Dodge Ram hits you on the road. You need to get you a big one, too.’ That’s all she says, all the time.”

“Put that fork down, Dudley,” I said, trying to spear a piece of egg. “You’re going to hurt one of us.”

“So anyway I’m gonna get a big Ford,” he said, setting down his fork and picking up his butter knife and a packet of grape jelly.

I put my fork down and counted to ten. “I think they ought to outlaw all full-sized trucks and SUVs,” I said in my most reasonable voice.

Dudley didn’t even blink. He finished spreading the jelly on his triangle of toast – he can really paint that stuff on there - and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Are you a communist or something, Emmitt?” he said. He bit into the toast, not taking his eyes off of me.

“No, Dudley,” I said, “I’m as American as you, but this is ridiculous. Everybody’s scared of getting smashed by SUVs and big trucks, so they go out and get SUVs or big trucks, and it’s getting bigger and bigger every year, and the gas prices keep going up… There’s no end in sight!”

Dudley shook his head. “People don’t like to be smushed, Emmitt. That’s the American way.”

“But what about the people that can’t afford to buy bigger and bigger SUVs and trucks, Dudley? What about them?”

“Come on, Emmitt. You know good and well that they go out and get big old cars! I was downtown yesterday and I saw this fella in a 1976 Caddy that was as big as a boat. And those things are heavy, heavier than that Ford I’m looking to get.”

I sat there and steamed.

“Dudley,” I said, “I’m not mad at you…” I paused for just a second. “Well, maybe I’m a little mad at you, but that’s not the point. I’m not hostile towards you…” I hesitated again.

Dudley paused from putting together a bacon and egg sandwich with his toast, casting an apprising eye over at me.

“You’re feeling a little hostile, aren’t you?” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Well, yes, maybe a little. But your attitude is so typical of rich people. You’re totally clueless about the consequences of your knee-jerk spending. The economy’s in a death-spiral!”

“I hear you, Emmitt.” He got up from the table and shook my hand. “I’ll see you later, hear? I’ve gotta run over to Home Depot and pick out the flagstone flooring for that new wing of the house we’re adding on next month.”

“You have a good one, you hear?”

Supply and Demand Still Exists: Found on Vacation in the Virgin Islands

Contrary to public opinion, the Law of Supply and Demand (SnD) is still alive and well and vacationing in the Virgin Islands. Some say she’s been down there for twelve months while others put it at only a few weeks.

Noticeably absent is SnD’s longtime partner, Markets.

Though the exact timeline for SnD’s departure from Markets is unclear, sources say that trouble has been brewing for some time.

“Okay,” said one insider, requesting that his identity be kept secret, “let’s just look at the effect it’s having on the children. They’re always the ones to act out, dear things. They bear the brunt.” The insider paused to wipe at his eyes, then blew his nose and cleaned his glasses. “They bear the brunt.”

“Would one child in particular be a good illustration of this?” I wondered.

“Oil,” he said without hesitation. “Oil is really acting out at this time. Oh, I know, she’s always been an unruly child, but as long as SnD was in the home, she at least knew she had guidelines. That’s all changed now that Markets had taken up with that skank, Scarcity.”

“Scarcity?”

“Yes, Scarcity. Markets think that there won’t be enough Oil, that it’s somehow become under-supplied overnight, and so Markets seeks to keep her under his thumb, and not just for right now, but far into the future, when Markets believes that Oil will be so much harder to find.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, considering. “Isn’t that just good parenting?”

“A child needs her mother. What are you, some kind of Nazi?” He glared at me. “No,” he continued, “it’s not good parenting to shack up with an entirely different model. It’s still the same Supply and Demand this year that it was last year, but Markets is reading the papers, listening to the paparazzi, and now his attitude has changed. He thinks Scarcity is the way to go, so Supply and Demand packed up her stuff and went to the beach. I don’t blame her.”

“Is this all Oil’s fault?” I said.

“It’s complicated. Are you some sort of a Philistine? I don’t know that you can even blame the entire thing on Markets, though he certainly behaved abominably.” He threw up his hands and rolled his eyes.

“Well look at Copper, for instance,” he said, shaking out a pack of cigarillos and hanging one from the corner of his mouth. “Copper’s been saying he was going to grow for years now, and Markets would hold steady, not put big restrictions out there or buy up Copper’s futures ahead of time, confident that his son would come through with the extra production, and there would be plenty for all.”

“I suppose it didn’t happen?” I said.

“No it didn’t happen. And Markets got burned, in some cases pretty badly. He claimed Supply and Demand had betrayed him. He took out a page in the Journal and claimed that Supply and Demand just wasn’t working for Markets anymore.”

“And so Scarcity was the new model?”

“That’s the way he saw it,” said the insider as he lit up and took a drag. He blew smoke in my direction.

“So why even deal with models?” I said. “Who cares about models? We just want things to be right and cost what they should.” I stopped at this point, embarrassed by my outburst.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” he said, throwing down his cigarillo and grinding it beneath the heel of his patent leather boot. “Where do they get you people?”

Five Ways To Be Happy With Your Job

Most people have to work. Sad but true. So why not grab a little gusto? Make the most of a difficult situation, and continue to be a breadwinner for the family. They'll appreciate it as they sleep in.

Office Supplies

Have you checked out some of those new Post-It thingies? Awesome, baby. Just sticking a couple on my flat screen brightens up the morning immediately. And now Sharpies come in all these amazing new colors - even personalized! Now, imagine this: writing stuff on the Post-Its with those Sharpies!

Coffee

Juan Valdez is an American hero! And he's Colombian! Office workers like caffeine!

Think about it. You get up and go get some coffee. Use a mug, not a styrofoam cup. Styrofoam clogs landfills, and besides that you don't get to stand at the sink and wait for the water to get hot, then rinse out your mug - do a good job! - then find something to dry your cup with. You get the picture.

And hey, be a good cubicle neighbor, and make another pot if at all possible. Plenty to feel really good about: protecting the environment, having a clean mug, serving the people around you...

Now go outside and take a smoke break before you work yourself to death!

Smoke Breaks

You don't have to smoke to enjoy a smoke break. Those are some nice people, and they get to waste - oh, nobody knows exactly how much time they waste - anyway, go out there and visit a little bit. Management by walking around!

Try to stand upwind.

Sharpening the Saw

I borrowed this sub-title from Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It's code for Reading in the Restroom. It's best if your restroom is for one person at a time. That way you can just lock the door, displaying the little "Occupied" sign, probably in red, and shut out the world. For, you know, concentration.

Next problem: getting quality, saw-sharpening reading material into the restroom. Some people are blessed. They just don't care what anybody thinks, and they take an entire armful of reading material to the restroom right in front of everyone.

We're not all so bold. If your desired reading material can be printed out, then by all means do so. As long as it's not too many pages, you can simply fold it up and put it in your pocket. If it's the size of a magazine, you can wrap it around your ankle, sticking it in your sock. All your paperbacks need to be mass market size, because these can be easily put in a back pocket or a purse.

If it's really too thick of a printout, divide it into two piles. Get some rubber bands. Now take your shoes off and wrap the piles around your feet, securing them with the rubber bands. Walk to the restroom like you mean it. If someone challenges you on the way, just tell them the Tony Robbins thing didn't go so well.

Me Time

After all that, you're probably exhausted. Rest well, brave warrior! If you have an office door, use it. Print up a banner that says "Power Hour!" and put it on your door from 1:00 to 5:00. This will fend off all but the most cynical.

When someone does breach your defenses, transparency is widely respected. Let your shoulders droop and even let the outside corners of your eyes sag a bit (this takes practice in front of a mirror). When you have the look just right, tell them, "I just need some alone time." Woggle your head slightly. Don't overdo it!

Calling Geraldo

Where is Geraldo Rivera when you need him?

Here's an msn article by John W. Schoen, senior business producer. In it he mentions that "since some traders have no intention of ever using the oil, prices can also move on just the potential for future changes in supply or demand." Then he goes on to say, "Right now, oil producers — both countries and companies — are among the biggest winners."

I fell out of my chair. Bob, my cubicle neighbor, began to laugh.

"You just read that article on oil prices," he said.

"It's the traders!" I squeaked. "They're traitors!"

"What about the oil companies?" said Bob. "They're raking in the dough, too."

I sat there in the floor, contemplating my navel. It was my x-ray vision that allowed me to see it through my shirt and tie. You know, I like a shirt with a little bit of rayon in it. It hangs better - the extra heft is comforting as well. Oh, sorry.

"Why isn't Geraldo on this?" I said.

"Hey, you're right!" said Bob, snapping his fingers. "It's so obvious that..."

"The oil companies..." I said.

"Have an incentive program," said Bob.

"To futures traders..."

"To artificially run up prices..."

We just looked at each other, frowns creasing our sweaty little foreheads, marvelling over this diabolical bit of brilliance. Obviously, consumption is about as high as it can be... Oh, quibble all you want, but fluctuations at this point are going to be marginal.

But if you can double your pricing in two years without increasing cost very much... Of course, consumers would crucify you - crucify you unless you can blame it on something high and mighty, something the public holds in awe, something pure and yet wholly obscure, something that defies logic and reason, a veritable holy grail... Market Forces!

Market Forces are widely believed to be infallible, infallibility historically being the Pope's province, located somewhere in a broom closet in the Vatican. Market Forces are therefore the perfect foil; in a Market Forces vortex, accountability levels go to zero!

I relayed all this to Bob in a breathless rant. He handed me an unopened water bottle.

"I'll email Geraldo," he said. "This is big."

This is big.

To Do List Seeks Amnesty

My to do list is sorry.

"What have we learned?" I asked it the other day. It would barely look at me.

"My eyes were bigger than my stomach," it mumbled.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't make that out."

"My eyes were bigger than my stomach," it says, eyes flashing up at me.

I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips. "Do you think that's really called for?" I asked.

There was no response. We sat there for several minutes. I whistled a bit, feet up on the empty guest chair in my cubicle. I checked my watch; scrolled through the phone book on my cell. The list began to stir a bit, rustling it's wrinkled pages.

"I just wanted..." it began. I looked up from clipping my fingernails.

"I just wanted to do my part," it said. "I just wanted to make a contribution, to give you some direction, some inspiration..." It paused again and looked at me. I was studying my fingernails.

"Umm," I said.

"I thought," it started again. "I thought if you had a big list - you know - a really comprehensive list that... that each of your next actions would really become clear - self-evident, really."

I looked up sharply. "Have you been talking to the inbox?" I said.

"Never mind all that," it said, ignoring me. "I'll be good from now on." It seemed to make a swallowing sound.

"I promise."