Dispatches from the New World of Work

Condolences

My heart goes out to our brothers and sisters in Mumbai. Personally, I feel like the guy who had a flat tire on the way to the airport and missed flight XXX, which was subsequently hijacked; I was due to have landed in Mumbai next Wednesday and proceeded to the Oberoi hotel, radioactive American passport in hand, prior to a Thursday seminar. It's a messy world; this was my third near-miss this year. Earlier in Johannesburg a trio of gunman hit my hotel at 6:30 a.m., 20 minutes after I'd left for my seminar that day. And in Mexico City last month, a small jet crashed and burned 5 or 10 blocks from my hotel; the crash was suspicious (still unresolved), as it carried the young Federal Interior Minister who was having some success against the powerful drug cartels.

I am shaken by the three near-misses, as any sane person would be, but will not curtail my International travels in any way. (Give me a couple of weeks re Mumbai, please.) I am a keen believer in the immense benefits of globalization and a charter member of the flat-earth society, circa 2008. It is my pleasure to be of some tiny service to my friends from Kuwait, Saudi, Dubai (week before last), to Kiev, to my beloved South Africa (may Mr Mandela live to 100+), Ukraine, Romania, etc. And India! Re the latter, I am "one of those"—a true blue India lover!

(As a matter of professional interest, I'd suggest Philip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century. I had just started it; it's a tough slog, but truly an original work.)

Media Sightings Alert

For our friends in the U.K. and anyone who subscribes to the Financial Times, it seems that Tom had 'lunch with the FT' a while back and the writeup of what transpired will appear in FT Weekend tomorrow, November 22. Previous lunches linked here.

N.B. Tom's Lunch with the FT is now available. (Thanks, Bruce, for the heads up.)

2008 Marti Awards

One of our favorite Cool Friends, Marti Barletta, is hosting a survey on her website, TrendSight (the survey's in the right column of the front page), asking for consumers and marketers to vote for their favorite Marketing to Women advertising. The survey will close on December 1 and we'll hear who won before the end of the year. This is the second year of Marti's Marketing to Women awards. Last year's overall winner was Dove's Real Beauty campaign. You can read more about past winners here. Feel free to tell us who you voted for and why in our comments area. If you'd like to read more about Marti, check out her two Cool Friend interviews: One. Two.

Caught In the Act!

I have worked relentlessly to keep this Blog apolitical. For at least two reasons: (1) We are about enterprise management. (With a few VT farm pictures thrown in from time to time.) (2) When a Blog "turns political," then intemperate remarks become the norm—I have spent the better part of the last two months beating up people of every stripe over intemperate language used concerning our presidential candidates.

I think I've had some success in staying apolitical. Nonetheless, the New York Times blew my cover with a lengthy 28 October article in the Technology section that pitted me vs. my great friend Carly Fiorina concerning the election. She is a senior McCain campaign advisor. I was nabbed by YouTube giving the keynote at an Obama rally in Southern Vermont.

I am an Obama supporter, and, having been caught in the act relative to this Blog, I will tell you very succinctly why:

1. I think the time has come to pass the torch to the next generation, and I believe Mr Obama would be an excellent symbol of a new generation of leader. (I think Mr McCain has the haggard look of yesterday, and is, like myself, advertised to be a cranky old man. Age matters—take it from me, and feel free to wish me "happy 66th" on 7 November.)


2. In the spirit of the above, I think Mr Obama would represent a new page overseas for America. Our image is ragged, and I think Mr Obama could and would go a long way toward "bringing America back" to the status of "beacon for the world." (I fear Mr McCain might, on this dimension, project as a continuation of the Bush years.)


3. Concerning foreign affairs, I believe Mr Obama has the disposition and intellect to deal, as best anyone can, with the difficult security challenges we confront; among other things our major problems are likely to be with us for decades—and cannot primarily be dealt with by aircraft carrier superiority, a tough thing for a true blue Navy man to admit. I believe Mr Obama meets the Churchillian standard of "jaw jaw beats war war." I am fearful of Mr McCain's bellicosity and perhaps some volatility. (Unlike the case of Mr Clinton, I also have no doubt that Mr Obama would quickly gain the respect of the U.S. military—as a hot-war veteran, I have no concerns at all on that dimension.)


4. Colin Powell was persuasive.


5. As to experience, I am not troubled by Mr Obama's resume. Surviving Chicago politics, among other things, is no cakewalk—and, also, Mr Obama would be older than either Mr Kennedy or Mr Clinton was upon taking the oath of office. His remarkable cool and measured approach throughout this torrid and lengthy and, at times, bitter campaign suggest to me that he in his own fashion meets the "maturity" test as well or better than any President of any age that I have experienced, with perhaps the exception of Mr Reagan.


6. I sadly believe that Ms Palin is not ready to be Commander-in-Chief on many dimensions. Alas, I have little respect for her, and my McCain diehard friends feel as strongly as I do—almost without fail. I think the selection of Ms Palin does not reflect well on Mr McCain or his "country first" rhetoric. She is a "strong negative" in my assessment of the McCain candidacy. (Understatement.)


7. The economy is as abiding an issue as national security, and I believe Mr Obama would be able to do as well as anyone could in dealing with it. I am very impressed with his principal advisors, including Mssrs Volker, Rubin, Summers, and Buffett—none could be called an ideologue in any way, shape, or form.


8. Though I am an avowed supporter of undiluted capitalism (my faith, like Mr Greenspan's, is being sorely tested), I believe that the growing inequity in America is a clear and present danger of the first order. As Mr Buffett said, and I paraphrase, "There's a problem when my secretary has a higher marginal tax rate than I do." It is time for a focus on the middle class and those not quite there, and I believe Mr Obama has an abiding edge in that regard. (I buy his tax policy, though it will not help my net worth—as stated, and simply put, those with incomes less than $250,000 will see their taxes reduced; this encompasses, also, the vast majority of small business and I am a rabid small business advocate.) As to the "redistributionist" talk, if we wanted to erase re-distribution, we'd have to begin by wiping out Medicaid and Medicare and the progressive income tax of 90 years standing and cut the education budget, among others, to approximately zero. In short, I trust Mr Obama with the economy more than Mr McCain. As to the "threat" of a significant Democratic majority across the board, there may be problems, but I have a hard time imagining Congress pushing Mr Obama around. (NB: Though I probably would have come down on the Obama side in any event, I would have given McCain far more consideration, especially concerning economic affairs, and, of course, succession, if Mr Romney had been his running mate.)


9. I neither want a conservative Supreme Court nor a liberal Court. The swing to the conservative end of the scale would likely exceed my comfort level if Mr McCain had two or three vacancies to fill.

In 1960, I was 18—but the voting age was 21. Mr Eisenhower was an effective President, a great occupant of the office for 1952-1960. But Mr Kennedy represented a sprightly America embracing its next chapter with matchless vigor and optimism. In a way, in 2008 I have the chance to finally cast my "Kennedy vote"—and I have decided to do so by checking the Obama box on my ballot. (Actually, I already have.)

It is not my goal here to convince a single soul concerning next Tuesday's election. It has been my goal here to be "transparent" at tompeters.com concerning a topic that has captivated all of our attention. (This Blog is one of my true loves—and I will go to great lengths to protect what it stands for.)

Thank you for your attention if you have read this far.

(I am prepared for a deluge of huffy Comments, which is fair enough. I would prefer no positive Comments—I am not trying to persuade or seeking mates, as I said; I am simply stating my view to our community.)

Tom Peters posted this on 11/01 | Permalink | Comments (109) | TrackBack

Seasonal Banner Archives

When we posted our new fall banner, Glenn Myers commented that we should create an archive page of our banners. We thought it was a marvelous suggestion. You can find the new page by clicking on Banner Archives in the left column under Resources, or by clicking here.

That Time of the Year, Again

Today is the first day of fall, 2008, though as you all know, the equinox, to quote Wikipedia, "is the moment in time (not a whole day) when the center of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth's equator, occurring around March 20 and September 22 each year." That moment occurred at 10:44 a.m. Eastern time in the United States today. And we were going to post the new banner at that moment, but somehow technology thwarted us. It's there now.

I even tried the old "balance the egg on end" trick, but that didn't work either. It's been a tough morning here at tp.com. We can only hope that things will improve.

We hope you enjoy the new banner and all of us here at tompeters.com want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a bounteous fall season (at least those of you in the northern hemisphere).

Opportunity

There is an opportunity for all of you who would like to view a Tom appearance. This is the last month to register to see him at this year's Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD) presented by Linkage on October 12-17 in Palm Desert, California. Register now.

If you can't make it there in person, you get another chance! Tom's speech is to be broadcast over the Internet—not for free—but still a great chance to experience a speech by Tom. Sign up to view Tom's presentation virtually, broadcast live on October 16th.

DailyLit Publishes Tom's 50List Books and The Pursuit of Wow!

As we (sort of) promised back on May 12 of this year when we announced the launch of Tom's Success Tips at DailyLit.com, The Brand You50, The Professional Service Firm50, The Project50, and The Pursuit of Wow! are now available via the digital publisher. While these are not free, the price of $4.95 for 50+ (Tom always delivers more than he promises) essential tips on how to succeed at work seems quite reasonable. (Especially for our British friends!) And the folks at DailyLit have even managed to preserve some of the design elements from those books. You won't see those graphics on your BlackBerry, but we think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you see in your email version of each installment. Happy digital reading!

Happy Birthday to Us

We started the blog before Tom joined in, so there are entries prior to four years ago today, but today is the day we consider our birthday. The official start of Tom's blogging is 28 July 2004, and today marks four years of blog posts! We'd like to thank all our readers for staying with us and contributing to the success of this blog.

RSS Feed for Comments

Some of our readers are very active in adding comments to our blog posts. For those of you who use RSS to read this blog, you may enjoy our new feature to keep track of the conversation: an RSS feed for the comments. We've added a new button to the top right of the banner to access the RSS feed. You can see its location above and more detail below.

Thanks to Michael for commenting on this post with the suggestion.

Happy Summer

We neglected to mention this last Friday, but in honor of summer's arrival, we did post a new banner at tompeters.com. In case you hadn't noticed, somewhere along the line we decided to usher in each new season with a new image/images at the top of our homepage. We've been working with Joy Stauber, who we met through our friends at 800-CEO-READ. She's responsible for the home page banner and all the sub page banners as well. Joy is smart, fun to work with, and she really gets Tom.

We put a lot of thought and time into selecting what we post at the top of this page. Our goal is to create a sense of the season and even a sense of moving through that season. In the current incarnation of the banner, we've got a morning image of a dock jutting out into the water (Tom says it reminds him of him of growing up in Severna Park, Maryland, on the Severn River). The lobster buoys are the requisite technicolor component and the lobster is there because we eat lobster in summer here in New England but also because it is red, Tom Peters red. Initially we had a cherry pie, but for some reason our team wasn't all that keen on cherry pie. We've even worked in a small image of Tom hiking in New Zealand. The lilacs replaced the multi-colored tulips, which were too spring-like. (I'm telling you, these are pretty complicated decisions we make about these images, after much discussion.) Now the lilacs are somewhat reminiscent of spring as well, but we liked their color and I guess we all smell them when we see the image, so they powered their way into the banner that way. And at the end, at sunset, a young woman splashes into a lake. End of the day, end of the season. Yes, we look ahead to the end of summer, but we savor every moment in between.

We wish you all a happy and sun-filled season. For those of you in the other hemisphere, we hope your winter is just as fabulous. (The ski season in Portillo, Chile opened this past Saturday.)

All Together Now

We're part of a very cool effort by Cool Friend
Dave Balter—you might remember him as the
founder of BzzAgent. Today, around this time, 20 select blogs around the Web are together announcing the appearance of his new book, The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. We'd like to point you to this link, where you can download it for free. The actual book is being offered for $45.00 and comes with a piece of original art by its illustrator, Seth B. Minkin. You can read more by Dave Balter about why he's distributing the book this way at HBSPress.com.

Good news for tompeters.com readers! We have a few copies to give away, and we're making it a contest. To win a book, go into the comments under this blog entry and post your best word-of-mouth story. The word limit is loose—100 words or thereabouts. We won't penalize you for going way over, but we'll be tempted to. Just between you and me, I got a strong sense of bias in favor of extreme brevity among the judges. (Full disclosure: I'm one of them.)

[To see the list of 19 others blogging this today, click on "read more" below.]

Jason Fried, 37signals, http://www.37signals.com/svn/

Todd Sattersten, 800-CEO-READ, http://800ceoread.com/

John Moore, Brand Autopsy, http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/

Chris Brogan, http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell, Church of the Customer, http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/ and (Jackie alone) http://www.theswom.org

Emmanuel Vivier, Culture Buzz, http://culturebuzz.com/

John Bell, Digital Influence Mapping Project, http://johnbell.typepad.com/

John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing, http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/

Jeff Bussgang, Flybridge Ventures, http://www.bostonvcblog.com/

Greg Verdino, Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog, http://gregverdino.typepad.com/

Bill Taylor, HBSP: Game Changer, http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/

Guy Kawasaki, How to Change the World, http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Rohit Bharagava, Influential Marketing Blog, http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/

Seth Godin, Seth Godin's Blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/

Todd Defren, SHIFT PR, http://www.pr-squared.com/

Chris Carfi, The Social Customer Manifesto, http://www.socialcustomer.com/

Jeremy Gutsche, Trend Hunter, http://www.trendhunter.com

Mitch Joel, Twist Image, http://www.twistimage.com/blog/

Mitch Caplan, What's Next in Marketing, http://whatsnext.typepad.com

Good company to be in!

Broken RSS (Temporarily)

We got RSS for the comments up and running, and, in the process, it seems we broke the RSS for our blog entries. We're working on fixing it, but it may be early next week before everything is working smoothly again. We apologize to everyone who has a problem with the RSS feed in the meantime, and we send thanks to two readers who sent emails alerting us.

Tom's Tweets

There's a new way to experience Tom's Success Tips. We recently told you about the serialization services of DailyLit and that you can have a success tip delivered to your email inbox each day. Now they've expanded the format of their offerings to Twitter, the micro-blogging service. Tom's not planning to jump on the micro-blogging bandwagon anytime soon (limit Tom to 140 characters? I don't think so), so for now, this is the only way to get your Tom fix on Twitter. How does it work? Using your own Twitter account, you "follow" Tom's Success Tips. Each day, everyone in the world following Tom's Success Tips on Twitter will receive a "tweet" with a link to the same tip. Why sign up for this instead of the DailyLit email delivery? The email delivery is a personal subscription and will begin with the first tip the day you sign up. The Twitter offering is more like a global reading group with everyone receiving the same tip on the same day. Since Twitter can be used on a computer or a cell phone, it's fun to imagine the varied locations and circumstances of the folks who will be reading the tips at the same time. Get on board by June 16th to get the first tip along with the rest of the world's Twittering Tom fans.

PSFK in SF

Our friends over at PSFK always have their fingers on the pulse of trends. So they know who to feature at an event focused on trends, insight, creative ideas. They just threw one in New York, and now they're flipping coasts and hosting one in San Francisco on July 17th. To us, it sounds like a cool way to spend a day. If it does to you too, find out more here. And if you go, say hi to Piers for us.

Comments Redux

We consider our readership our community. And we appreciate the participation of a great number of community members in the comments area of the blog. There have been some marvelous debates on complex issues. We understand all too clearly how annoying it can be when you try to add your voice by posting a comment and, once you click Post, it seems as though the computer didn't register your action. So you click on it again, and again, and finally you see that your comment has been posted three times. We've been trying to solve this issue for some time now, but with no success. So, apologies for the long wait after you click Post to submit your comment. But please know that even if it takes a long moment, your comment has been submitted. This frustrates no one more than it frustrates Tom. Thank you for your patience!

Daily Quote Launches

Today we began a new offering from Tom—a daily email with a bit of his wisdom in your inbox. By opt-in only, of course. Today's first Tom Peters Daily Quote went to 57 recipients, but we invite you all to sign up. In the top right of this page there is an icon, which, when clicked, takes you to a page where you can subscribe to our TP Times newsletter, and now, the Daily Quote as well. Thank you to the 57 who found it and signed up without knowing when the quotes would start! We hope you and all new subscribers enjoy it.

Not So Recent Photos

Kate at 800-CEO-READ found some photos of Tom from the Pursuit of Wow book tour in 1994 and posted them today. If you've been doing some spring cleaning and have found your own collection of Tom photos, feel free to share them with us.

Tom Peters Live in London!

Opportunities to experience the fizz of a Tom Peters live presentation in London are quite rare these days. That's why we wanted to give visitors at tompeters.com a final heads-up for what is the only London public event in Tom's 2008 speaking schedule. It will take place at the QEII Conference Centre on Monday, 28th April, and Tom is sharing the "Look Beyond Change" theme of the day with Kjell Nordström. You might know Nordström from his Cool Friends spot with Jonas Riddersträle; together they wrote Funky Business and Karaoke Capitalism.

The Peters/Nordström combination promises to provide a heady cocktail for what will be a large and lively audience. Event details can be found on benchmarkforbusiness.com, or email us at team@tompeters.co.uk if you have any other questions about the day. We hope you can join us!

Love It or Leave It

The speaking business, that is. That's Tom's advice for new authors who are considering speaking as a career. (Never the half-way sort, that's Tom's career advice for anyone. Period.) Tom spoke with Jon Mueller at 800-CEO-READ's Author Blog today about his chosen profession. They covered a lot of ground concerning the ins and outs of being a professional speaker. If you're curious about how Tom got his start, or how to communicate effectively with an audience (including one that speaks another language), you should listen to this half hour interview.

A Blog for Business Authors

We have news to share about what our esteemed colleagues at 800-CEO-READ have been up to lately. We mention 8CR now and then as they're a little known, but phenomenal, resource for business authors and the people who love them. One of the areas where they excel is keeping us informed about what thought leaders are saying. Their Daily Blog, New Releases Blog, and the inimitable ChangeThis manifesto site are all must-reads. Now they're reaching out a helping hand with the addition of the Author Blog. Chief blogger Jon Mueller is lighting the path for business authors, exploring and explaining the pitfalls and best practices in the industry. We're excited about this new blog as navigating the business book publishing industry is no easy task and we want to see more great ideas entering the public forum.

Tom Peters Company Wows! You With Two Events

There are two upcoming events presented by the associates at Tom Peters Company, in the UK and in the U.S. You've got to know them through their posts on tompeters.com, now you can hear them virtually and in person.

First, you can learn more about Future Shape of the Winner™ and how you can apply its principles in your own situation at a free Webinar, on Thursday, 6 March 2008, once at 12.00 midday GMT and once at 12 midday EST. During this one-hour web presentation, the team at TPC!UK will explain how FSW can help you deal with some typical dilemmas facing business today, tell you how to begin applying the basic FSW principles in your business, and outline next steps for those who want to go further. For information and registration, go to tompeters.co.uk.

Second, the Brand You road trip is back in progress! The next stop on the tour is Dallas, where Tom Peters Company, U.S., will team with Southern Methodist University to bring you the Brand You™: Inspired Performance workshop, on Monday, 31 March 2008. Sign up to learn why all your employees should be Brand Yous. That is, talented people dedicated to achieving excellence, who improve your brand while enhancing their own. For information and registration, go to www.cox.smu.edu.

Wiki Contributions

Have you checked out the PSF wiki lately? Feeling shy? No need! People are joining in and sharing their stories and thoughts about PSF strategy. Here are a few examples you'll find there:

On taking ownership:
Madeleine McGrath: "A client of ours pulled off a remarkable PSF transformation by positioning his management team of a business unit as a Professional Service to the organisation. He launched the initiative by calculating the gross cost of employment of the 12 person team (a few miilion UK pounds!) and asking if they felt they could justify the value that they added. There was a tense moment or two at the event, but from that point onwards we noticed a shift in the team's mindset. We went on to reframe their work agenda to transform the ownership that they had of what the unit was attempting to achieve."

On selecting clients carefully:
Mike Neiss: "A psf doesn't 'sell stuff' to a client, they join them in a partnership to do great things. And just like external knowledge workers, an internal psf is only as good as their last client. So when you find a turned on, gets it, passionate client, coddle them with fantastic results. You really need to see your "brand" as an extension of the clients. As an external provider, it does take some real thought and quite frankly, courage, to turn down a client. Cash flow does matter! And internally, it is very difficult to turn down a request. However.....it doesn't mean you have to provide WOW in equal measures. As an external consultant, we have to have faith that a remarkable engagement with a cool client will lead to lots of business by word of mouth. And likely to clients that are also cool. Internally, positive press regarding your best client's results will do the same. You don't get cash, you get political currency!"

This is based on Tom's PSF 50List, so there are plenty of topics to cover under the PSF umbrella. Let us hear your stories. Simply click Edit Page at the top of the page to which you'd like to contribute. The password/invite key is tompeters. See you there!

Success Tips at ChangeThis

The Success Tips, also known as 100 Ways to Help You Succeed/Make Money, are complete. Well, sort of. Tom has gone past 100—the last one is #110—and we hope he continues to add to their number. But, there are 100 Success Tips, which was the original plan. Part 2, tips 51 through 100 (plus a bonus #101), is published this month by our friends at ChangeThis. You can get Part 2 here, and while you're at it, you might want to download Part 1 also. Or, go to ChangeThis.com to see what else is new there.

What's Fresh?

Conversation! Join in over your morning coffee or your nightcap this weekend at the PSF wiki. We've added a new badge to the front page (over there underneath the TP Wire Service box in the right column). Simply click on the box and read what people think about real world applications of Tom's PSF50 list. Don't forget to add your own.

Book Page

Sure, you're a Tom-fan. But have you read ALL the books he's written? Did you miss one? Or perhaps you'd like to find your favorite Peters classic read aloud by the man himself (chances are good since he's recorded almost all of them). Find it all on the newest page at the site, Tom's Books.

Update: PSF Wiki

Folks are beginning to start discussions at the PSF wiki. Our team has been changing the format today, hoping that it will make contributing even easier for you. If you're having any troubles, or have suggestions, please let us know. Most of all, we'd love to hear your stories at the wiki. Are you a "Connoisseur of Talent?" Are you "Committing Cool?" Tell us about it!

PSF Wiki

In the comments of a recent post about PSF, one of our frequent commenters, RTodd, asked us the following: "Where can we share stories of the little guy implementing these concepts? Why doesn't Tom Peters.com create a PSF Wiki where people can share, build, and expand on these 50 items."

We rose to the challenge. Please join the fray by going to tompeters-psf.pbwiki.com and adding your own insights or stories. In order to contribute to the wiki, choose a page of interest, click "Edit Page" and enter the password tompeters.

We'd love to hear from you, either on the topic of PSF at the wiki, or with other ideas about things you'd like to see us implement here at tompeters.com.

Watch Tom!

Tomorrow, Friday, December 7, 2007, Tom will be speaking live to Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Network at 6:00 p.m. (Eastern U.S. time). The show is eponymously named Cavuto. Here's an opportunity for our readers who don't often get a chance to see Tom. So, if you have Fox Business Network among your cable TV choices, be sure to tune in!

Podcast by Tom

Karen Salmansohn does a weekly podcast at Lime.com/radio. She calls it "Be Happy, Dammit," and Tom's message fits right into her theme. So, you can listen to 11 minutes of Tom's "Extreme Success Advice" by going to Lime.com and choosing his 25 October 2007 Be Happy, Dammit Podcast. Thank you, Karen!

15 October 1982

Tom called me from the road to tell me this story. He's celebrating an anniversary. On the 15th of October, 1982, he received a small package from New York at his Palo Alto office. When he returned from a meeting in mid-afternoon and opened the package—there it was—two copies of his first book, from an initial print run of 5,000. Beside himself with delight, Tom fondled the book—and headed off to Cupertino with the second copy to give it to a senior executive at Apple, a little computer company with about 200 employees.

And now, exactly 25 years later, Tom is still out on the road, "spreading the word" about "MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around," "A Bias for Action," and other more or less eternal truths. On this 25th anniversary to the day, Tom is making the 10,000-plus-mile trip to Seoul, where he will present, along with General Powell and the President of Korea, among others, at a major event aimed at vaulting Korea's innovation skills to another level.

Happy Anniversary! to Tom and In Search of Excellence.

Tom's Essential in Taiwan

That's Leadership, Talent, Trends, and Design, appearing this week in Taiwan. The publisher is Commonwealth Publishing Group, and we'd like to thank them for making available Tom's (and let's not forget that Marti coauthored Trends) Essentials Series.

Anita Roddick

For the next couple of months, or some undetermined period, we will have, as you can see at the top of the right column on this screen-page, a small memorial to Anita Roddick. She challenged all of us to consider our business, of 1 or 1,0001 employees, a force for positive, broad-based social change, while also contributing to traditional capitalist growth through investable profits and job creation. The right thing is also the profitable thing—a message and method to which I, as well, have devoted my career.

(The memorial also links to this excellent article in the Telegraph, which reports on an interview recorded shortly before she died.)

With the Greatest Sadness ...

I have just read on the Web of Anita Roddick's death. While I was hardly her great friend, we were pals and spent many hours over the years chewing the fat about most every topic under the sun. She was passionate about so many worthy causes, and used her business and strength-of-conviction for the greater good in a way that can genuinely be called "peerless" in the exact meaning of that word. In my sphere of business, she was a practitioner and vociferous champion of doing business in a way that contributed enormously and directly to society; her causes went from environmentalism to the creation of a "supply chain" that lifted hundreds of thousands out of poverty.

My best personal memories are of her appetite for life—and her constant challenge to me, in a pointed, no nonsense way, to use my bully pulpit to champion the causes which she and we held dear. She was a "for profit capitalist" who used her commercial power to enhance the life of so many, and, indeed, the planet itself.

At just 64, she departed, alas, much too soon.

Goodbye, Coach

Sadly, one of Tom's inspirations died yesterday. Bill Walsh was the legendary coach who led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl wins for the 1981, 1984, and 1988 seasons. He also coached at Stanford, and part of his tenure coincided with Tom's studies. Read this blog by Rich Karlgaard, who knew both Bill Walsh and Tom during those days. We add our goodbye to his.

There's Still Time to Sign Up

Are you located near Denver? The scheduled Brand You workshop is to be held there on August 1st, so the time to sign up is now. As we said in an announcement a couple of weeks ago, the war for talent is more competitive than ever. Thus, personal branding is becoming increasingly essential. Explore the possibilities of enhancing Brand You to the advantage of yourself and your employer in a customized, one-day session to be presented by Tom Peters Company in partnership with Arapahoe Community College.

Repeat: Brand You workshop, Denver, CO,
August 1. For more information click here, or for registration, click here. There are only a few openings left, so hurry! And for those of you who can't make it to Denver, there'll be another session in Dallas in early October.

Widgets

As you can see, we've added a few new features to our posts. We're catching the Web 2.0 wave and trying to make it easier for you to share what you read here with your friends and colleagues. Below each post, you'll still see the name of the author, the date it's posted, the permalink (the permanent web location for each post), a link to comment (join the conversation!), and the category. You'll now also see a row of icons.

The envelope allows you to email the post to a friend. The colored blocks next to the envelope link to del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. If you click on the blocks, you can save the post as a bookmark that you can share with your network. The green SU is the icon for StumbleUpon, a great way to discover new sites. You can save the post to your StumbleUpon account and share it with others by clicking on this icon. Next to the StumbleUpon icon is a little guy with a shovel. This is the icon that lets you to submit the post to Digg. Digg is a social bookmarking site that's well known for its post promotion feature that rates the most popular posts. Next to Digg's icon is the alien from reddit. Reddit is similar to Digg in its features, with a focus on rating posts. The last icon links to Technorati. If you click on this link, you can see which blogs are linking to this post. Soon we'll be adding a feature that will indicate how many blogs are linking to each post. We're also planning to add trackbacks.

Our intention with these changes is to facilitate conversation. We love experimenting and we're open to your feedback.

Thanks!

A friend is heading home on leave from Iraq today. I thought I'd write him a note—then I decided to publish it here:

Dear _____, I am at an uncharacteristic loss for words. Hence, I don't know what to say other than "Thank you." As we both know, the war is a contentious issue here in the Homeland. Many think we must indeed stay the course; at least as many think the war is a reckless, counterproductive disaster.

Well, history is my hobby, and there is nothing new under the sun. On 4 July 1776, the majority of our Colonist forebears thought war with Great Britain was sheer madness. And so it has been ever since. Civil War proponents and opponents, North and South, were about evenly divided—and insanely passionate about their respective views. In WWI, Wilson was seen as a madman. In the "obvious" WWII where the stakes were "clear," millions upon millions thought FDR was a mad warmonger. And we all know about "my war"—Vietnam. I was in I Corps-Danang for the 4th in 1966—while at Kent State just a couple of years later the level of disputatiousness rose to a point where domestic blood flowed, children's blood no less.

The Middle East is a godawful mess. We will argue for 100 years about the rightness or wrongness of the path we have chosen. But whether through diplomacy or arms, there must be some sort of resolution, most especially for the sake of your children and mine—that's always the point in the long run.

So thank you, from the bottom of my heart—especially on this special day. Your stunning sacrifice and willingness to voluntarily place yourself in Harm's Way is the price, alas, virtually every generation has borne to honor that tiny band of "insaniacs" (later called "Founding Fathers") who concluded on this date 231 years ago that their flavor of Freedom was important enough to merit David bearding Goliath—the odds of their success on 07.04.1776 were miniscule, the price of their almost certain failure, unspeakable.

Thank you, TJP

Brand You Road Trip

Tom has been saying "Be distinct ... or extinct" for ten years now, and he wrote the seminal book about personal brand distinction, The Brand You50. In an era where the war for talent is more competitive than ever, personal branding is becoming increasingly essential. From establishing your own personal strengths to aligning your values to those of your organization, becoming a Brand You is key.

To address this need, the tompeters!company is bringing a series of Brand You workshops to the public. Following a successful Boston session, the next destination is Denver, CO, on August 1. Partnering with Arapahoe Community College, the tompeters!company will provide a customized, one-day session, in which people from diverse organizations will explore the power of their brands, how to augment them, and how to put them to use.

For more information on the Denver event, click here, or for registration, click here. For those of you who can't make it to Denver, we'll be doing a workshop in Dallas in early October. For information on this Dallas event, other possible stops on the Brand You Road Trip, or the Brand You program in general, e-mail me at nickadams@tompeters.com.

Twins!

For those of you familiar with our community here at tompeters.com, we have a bit of exciting news. Cathy Mosca became a grandmother on Monday. She welcomed not just one, but two babies into her family. We couldn't be happier for her or the twins (they hit the jackpot in the grandmother lotto!). Congratulations from all of us to the whole family!

Leaders Take Breaks

Item #45 in The Leadership50 from Re-imagine! states: Leaders take breaks. And Tom is taking his own advice. He's off walking in a foreign country. Not New Zealand; he's already been there. We don't know where. Maybe he'll return with pictures and stories; maybe not. So at least until the end of April, there won't be any posts from Tom as he's left his computer behind. In the meantime, folks from the Tom Peters Company will be blogging occasionally. Yes, we know it's not the same as Tom, but Tom's off recharging his batteries, because he's got a lot of traveling to do in May.

See Tom Live in Connecticut

The Quinnipiac University School of Business in Hamden, Connecticut, is presenting a Business Leadership Forum, and Tom will be appearing along with several other speakers. It is sponsored in part by a friend of Tom Peters Company, the Miller [Insurance] Agency. Space is limited, so act soon if you'd like to attend. To register, go to www.quinnipiac.edu or call 203-582-3766 by
March 9.

TP Wire Service Staff Update

The TP Wire Service editor and TomWorld denizen, Shelley Dolley, is taking a hiatus. She and her family are expecting a new addition. Shelley will return from maternity leave in a few months. In the meantime, we will continue to bring you the latest news and keep you plugged into the stories we think will interest you most via the TP Wire Service.

Excellence 2007

You'll notice a new banner at tompeters.com today. 2007 is the 25th anniversary of the publication of In Search of Excellence. Thus the Excellence25 logo on the right side of the banner with the years 1982-2007 running along the bottom. Our focus is not so much a celebration of the book, as much as a celebration of the idea of Excellence, which, as Tom said in his post of 29 December, is as potent today as it was when he first presented it. To that end, this is the first of what we hope are a dozen or more banners from our friend, designer Ken Silvia (he's the man behind the red exclamation point), exploring Excellence. We feel that the banner images convey the timelessness and power of Excellence. We hope you think so, too.

Good Friday 1978.
October 1982.
January 1, 2007.

I had to look it up! British management writer Stuart Crainer wrote, in 1999, The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made. E.g., in the "Marketing Magic" chapter there is the tale of Richard Sears' decision in 1891 to put all his products into a catalog. (Sixty-five percent of Americans still lived in the sticks—and the catalog grew from 32 pages in 1891 to 532 in 1895.) But "Great Decision #45" was the one I was looking for: "In April 1978 McKinsey's John Larson decided to ask colleague Tom Peters to step in at the last minute to make a presentation on some research he'd done. The presentation led to In Search of Excellence."

Apparently (per Crainer) the presentation, to Dart Corporation (Dart Drugs, Tupperware, etc.) in L.A., was made on Good Friday 1978. I do remember that I had less than 24 hours to get my act together; Larson, who ran McK's S.F. Office and was no particular fan, suffered a computer crash that destroyed the mother lode of data he'd intended to present—so he decided to hold onto the meeting, but offer me up as a questionable sub for his all-star data jocks. I remember rather clearly that I hadn't a clue as to what to call my hastily assembled "findings." Somehow the word "Excellence," all by its lonesome (no date, no nothing), ended up on the cover. I wasn't moved by it, and frankly the presentation was no award winner—but I recall a surprisingly intense discussion bubbled up around the meaning of the word "excellence" in business. I guess that was a tip-off—though only much later did I realize it; in general, just putting "the word" on a screen (via transparencies in those ancient PPP/Pre-PowerPoint days) triggered a robust exchange.

To make a long story painlessly short, 4.5 years later Harper & Row shoved In Search of Excellence onto bookstore shelves—mid-October 1982. And the rest is ... whatever.

Advanced math suggests that when the clock strikes midnight 2 days from now, we'll be entering ISOE+25, the quarter-century anniversary year of the book's arrival.

I'm psyched! That I'm still around. (I was 23 days short of my 40th birthday on Search's pub date.) That I still get semi-annual royalty checks from Search. (Not that many books are on the active duty shelves 25 years post initial appearance—the non-virtual shelves, not just the Amazon-Long Tail virtual "shelves.") And that, as I see it, the message—the power of Excellence per se, the word, the idea, the images—is as potent, if not more so, in 2007 as it was in 1982.

I'm psyched because I plan to join with colleagues from here, there and everywhere—starting now with our Blog Community—to celebrate & re-commit to the Idea of Excellence in our lives and in our organizations.

Excellence25. The Search continues ...

[Cake acquisition & photo by Erik Hansen; bakery name to come.]
[Addendum 01.02.07: The bakery is Party Favors on Beacon Street in Brookline, MA. Our thanks to them! And Happy New Year, everybody.—CM]

Thanks, Mr Ford!

In 1973–1974 I worked in the Nixon White House on drug abuse treatment and drug interdiction policy. I left on August 1, 1974, Mr Nixon about a week later. (We both went to California.) I hate to say something like this, it's so pretentious, but in a way only those of us who were there at the implosion may know how it felt from the inside. All of which is to say that the administration of the oath of office to Gerald Ford was a very momentous occasion. The Republic was wobbly. Ford doubtless had his faults, but he restored calm in almost a flash with his demeanor. (Anyone remember the picture of him in the White House kitchen toasting his own toast?) Hence, I will miss him. I met him only once, when we were both speaking in San Jose. Our conversation lasted but a couple of minutes, but his graciousness and lack of pretense shone through. Ford was tough when he needed to be tough, to be sure—it goes with the turf. But it is his decency that I shall fondly remember.

Advertisements Revisited

"Ready. Fire! Aim." is one of Tom's favorite mantras. In that spirit, we've been experimenting with advertising at the TP Wire Service. We've also considered and researched it for this site. The results have underwhelmed us. We removed the ads from the TP Wire Service RSS feeds yesterday and will be removing the ads from the TP Wire Service home page in the near future. Tompeters.com will remain ad-free. (Mail to: feedback (at) tpwireservice (dot) com.) We welcome your thoughts on the subject. Here's to "Relentless Experimentation!"

09/11

I've been thinking about a "911 post"—and the fact is that I am at a literal loss for words. Our world flipped upside down five years ago today—and there are few signs that it will right itself any time soon, perhaps not even in my stepkids' lifetimes, let alone my own. I ruefully admit that during the Lebanon fray/debacle, I thought more than once: "Enough. What's the point of carrying on with my mundane affairs?" But I am, and I shall.

What's my "911 Post"?

Silence.

That seems the most appropriate personal memorial and tribute—since indeed no words will be adequate to the task of remembrance. Silence also serves as a prayer for the thousands upon thousands, from Soldiers to TSA screeners, who are working in Iraq and Albuquerque to thwart the nefarious plans of our invisible and insane opponents.

Rethink Pink! Third Annual Conference

London, 9th November 2006, Thursday: The Cumberland Hotel will be the site of the third annual Rethink Pink conference.

The organizers sent us this promo:

The theme for this year is Boom Boom BOOM—covering key growth trends in personalisation; the screaming need for Hi-TOUCH - lo-tech customer service; the shift from me to we and inclusivity; the inexorable strength of word of mouth marketing; the future feminisation of society; and finally the BOOMING boomer-women market ... the ultimate power consumers.

An international line-up of speakers will feature Cool Friend Fara Warner, author of The Power of the Purse, and Mary Brown from Imago Creative, coauthor (with Carol Orsborn and Paco Underhill) of the new book BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer—the Baby Boomer Woman (coming soon).

You can get more details at www.rethinkpink.com.

HR Top 100

Human Resources magazine in the UK published a list of the Top 100 Most Influential people in HR (June 2006). In their words: "Here is the most definitive list ever published of HR's biggest movers and shakers, produced from names submitted by readers—and then ranked by the top 100 themselves."

Tom made the list. Maybe because he calls HR "The Rock Stars of the Age of Talent." You can see the whole list and accompanying article here.