Comments

Hope you feel better soon Tom

I love the words of the Remembrance Prayer:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them".

Maybe it is simply because I am getting older but to me the Remembrance Service yesterday seemed more emotional than usual. We went to our local church service and in the two minute silence at 11 o'clock, I had feelings including sadness, pride and sympathy for all the families of those millions of brave men, women and children who have died for me, my country and my freedom in wars.

The merits of war disappeared from my thoughts for those two minutes. I thought only of parents who saw their sons go to war and not return; the young children who must have wondered where and why their Dad was going away and then the questions to Mum about why he did not come back; the brave women left at home without their husbands trying to keep the family together only to die in bombing raids; the young men in the forces who died alone in a foreign land.I looked around and as some older people gently raised a tissue to mop a tear, my own eyes became moist and a gulp or two was needed.

Some people want us to stop this Remembrance Day tradition – not me. I hope we NEVER change this tradition.It is a yearly reminder to those of us lucky enough never to have fought in a war where many brave people have made (and of course continue to make) the ultimate sacrifice for their country ..... and therefore for ME.

I did some quick research with Wikipedia to get a feel of the numbers involved – it is staggering! The total deaths among civilians and the military in the two world wars on both sides amount to over 78 million people. That seems unbelievable and lets us remember that every one of those people was ‘somebody’s someone.’

Posted by Trevor Gay at November 13, 2006 11:12 AM

Just curious, Tom..(and certainly feel free to ignore this invasion of privacy)...did you get a flu shot this year?

Feel better!

Posted by Scott Segal at November 13, 2006 11:25 AM

Yes, flu shot. Tales 2 weeks to be in effect; got my flu before 100%. (Wives' tale: flu shots can give you a mild case of flu.)

Posted by tom peters at November 13, 2006 12:09 PM

Wonder if Terror victims will be classified as Veterans? Never had flu - never got a flu shot - why does the body need 1 shot every year - Big Pharma Profit?

Posted by sean_healthful at November 13, 2006 12:47 PM

Create new category. Veteran is veteran.

Posted by tom peters at November 13, 2006 3:19 PM

For a man recovering from the flu, you look so handsome. Susan took a wonderful picture. Carry on your good work of showing your brilliance in business and your humanity in these troubling times. I think you are the best, Tom Peters.

Posted by s. guglielmi at November 14, 2006 12:58 AM

Tom,

Hope you recover soon from your flu…I jus made a small calc (absolutely for the fun of it – no intention to hurt – so pls don’t get me wrong)

Ave. no of speeches in 28 years = 28*50 = 1400 speeches till date

No. of speeches you couldn’t attend = 3 speeches till date

Defect rate = 0.21% which is very low by any standards (success rate of 99.79% - VERY GOOD!)…though I must say you should tend to ‘six-sigma’(3.4 DPMO) gradually (ofcourse, if and only if you have a million speaking opportunities in your life-time).

Posted by K.Sriram at November 14, 2006 6:02 AM

Cool K.Sriram - & note how world-wide [55% '06] the TP Inc mission/passion has become. Al Gore ['08 may]: 50 world-wide websites in 1994 - now billions.

Posted by sean_november at November 14, 2006 8:49 AM

K.Sriram, right after In Search of Excellence in, say, 83-86 I did about 125 a year, with 2-a-day common. Talk about mania! Talk about nuts!

(Oddly, I was travelling so much that I was always pissed off about travel problems. Typically, I went public--graphically--with my complaints. Timing was right, quality was THE buzz--and in the space of about 36 months we jacked Customer Service to the top of the vocabulary-buzz list, where I contended -- and contend -- it belongs. It's an instructive story about how to change the language; I sure as hell wasn't smarter than a roomful of guys, but I was noisy, graphic, murderer of sacred cows, and persistent to a fault; I just wouldn't let the damn thing go. It's a real advertisement for my opoint a while ago that there is no sin in repitition if the thing hasn't happened. The history books have little room--Ben Franklin being an obvious exception--for those who flit from thing to thing. But you gotta stay pissed off enough to pound the nail one more time.)

Posted by tom peters at November 14, 2006 9:06 AM

K.Sriram - your comment about the 6 Sigma target applying, "... only if you have a million speaking opportunities..." isn't quite correct. 6 Sigma requires you to identify how many defect opportunities exist for each transaction. So, for each speaking engagement you could say that Tom might be sick, be delayed by an airline, clean forget etc etc. If you said there were 10 failure opportunities for each engagement, then (do the math) 3 failures on 14,000 opportunities = 214 defects per million opportunities which is 5.02 sigma. Which is very good indeed!

Posted by Mark JF at November 14, 2006 9:21 AM

Tom, you look great in orange and black!!!

Go Giants!!

Posted by Mike Mendoza at November 14, 2006 10:24 AM

Thanks, Mark. I think it's more like a million things per event, or so it feels. The AV guy having an off day, the pressed suit not coming back from housekeeping, food poisonoing, not to mention alien invasions!

Posted by tom peters at November 14, 2006 11:07 AM

One of the ways 6 Sigma people can "manage the numbers" is by inflating the number of defects that can occur in any transaction. If you can come up with just 631 reasons why an event can go wrong (shouldn't be too hard!) then bingo - you're 6 Sigma! Ah, the joy of stats...

Posted by Mark JF at November 14, 2006 11:40 AM

Errrrrr... sorry guys … numbers leave me cold. I will stick to stories - they are easier to tell and easier to understand. If I'd had an honest tutor my school report on Statistics would have read; 'Trevor sets himself a low standard and fails to achieve it.' But good on you guys who get turned on by numbers. My ambivalence regarding numbers explains why I still have to work to eat instead of enjoying watch my Swiss bank accounts grow :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at November 15, 2006 10:17 AM

Tom,

How come no comment on the recent decission by the San Francisco school board to ban JROTC? With all the support you claim exists for the military in the bay area, I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding.

Posted by Dave at November 16, 2006 10:24 AM