Talk with Tom
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Summer Banner, Excellent Idea
For our summer banner (which went up two days early because the Solstice occurred on Sunday), we asked Joy Stauber, who has been designing our banners for a couple of years now, to think about Summer and Excellence. While Joy has been designing a seasonal banner every three months for tompeters.com, this time we asked her to also consider Excellence, for Excellence is what this site is all about. Of course it hearkens back to the book Tom co-authored with Bob Waterman. It's an idea that launched Tom's speaking career and also an idea that at some level overwhelmed Tom, so that he found himself shying away from it for a long while.
To quote Tom from an April, 2006 blog post:
I got so damn sick of "excellence," so worn out by "excellence" ... for years after "the book" became a hit. Distanced myself from it. Ran from it.
But no longer. Excellence is back in a big way. If you've looked at any of Tom's slide presentations lately, you'll see that the first slide always includes: "Excellence. Always."
When Joy began to think about Excellence (which hereafter will always be capitalized at this site) and images for a banner, she thought about the wheel, and when she thinks wheels, she thinks bikes. (As a fan of bicycles myself, I’m glad that the banner begins with a bike in motion.) Joy discovered the black and white spiral while exploring the Golden Mean, also known as the Golden Ratio, and she liked the energy of it. (Cathy's concern: "When you scroll down our front page, the black spiral seems to pulse in and out. I hope we don't cause any seizures.") Yes, we all here at tompeters.com hope we don't cause any seizures, either, unless you’re seized by an urge to sit bolt upright and realize that you can begin right now to always be Excellent.
Flowers are Excellent, of course, but especially this flamboyant one. (No meek and mild-mannered flowers here.) (Recall also that Tom suggests not cutting back on your flower budget even during this recession.) And what could be more Excellent than fresh-grown garden tomatoes? From the earth, pictured next. As for the star, isn't Excellent work always rewarded with a star? (Maybe not in real life, but certainly in school. But maybe real-life Excellence should be rewarded with stars, too?)
Joy likes to include a silhouetted character in her banners. You may or may not think it's Tom, flying a kite. (His hair has never been that long in our recollection.) Think Ben Franklin and the discovery of electricity, think wind power. The words in the speech balloon clearly are Tom's, part of his new clarion call, "If not EXCELLENCE, WHAT? If not EXCELLENCE now, WHEN? " After that, we move on to the sunset, our Excellent reward at the end of each day.
That's the lowdown behind the new Summer/Excellence banner.
With that, we here wish all of you a wonderful, warm, relaxing, and Excellent summer. (As always to our friends in the southern hemisphere, best wishes for an Excellent winter.)
ARCHIVES
Before blogging became all the rage, Tom was posting book reviews and Observations (essentially early blog posts) to this site. You can find the archives below.
What Tom's Reading Archives
OBSERVATIONS ARCHIVES
right now
What we're talking about
on the front page.
Comments
And an Excellent Summer to all of you, too.
Posted by Dan Gunter at June 23, 2009 4:09 PM
I recall In Search of Excellence. It was the beginning of a lifetime of interest in management. The passion for what could be accomplished was very engaging. The wind power reminds me that we are definitely on the brink of a suite of new technologies that will address our energy concerns. A most Excellent time to be engaged and interested.
An Excellent Summer to you too.
Posted by Patrick Bergen at June 23, 2009 10:42 PM
Excellence is always elusive, always a step beyond us, however Good we are. We should never think we have reached it. The totemic words in TP's first two book titles were not Excellence, but Search and Passion, which convey the constant hunger for improvement, and the spirit that makes it possible, whatever the odds. Search Always, Passion Always.
Posted by RobCH at June 24, 2009 2:42 AM
Summer Banner, Defile It
Love reading the April 2006 blog post - MarkJF educating the young "Trevor" - so timeless & perfect; & now a 2009 Tory Speaker - fabulous in our beloved UK - so love wonderful. :>)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3YqaIxDp_0
Posted by UK Love at June 24, 2009 5:51 AM
No comment too inane to post. :>)
Posted by Bruce at June 24, 2009 8:22 AM
Except when you come to the post from the rss feed, the banner is missing.
http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?rss=1¬e=http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/main/011147.php
Posted by Ken Gregg at June 24, 2009 10:05 AM
In Search of Excellence, It was the beginning of a lifetime of interest in management. The passion for what could be accomplished was very engaging.
johnson-c@northwestern.edu
Posted by CJ at June 24, 2009 12:50 PM
Thanks to this post I finally know the meaning of the Golden Mean. This blog has become an educational One Stop for me. Erik, good luck in your PMC bike ride. Are you using a two wheeler this time?
Posted by John O'Leary at June 24, 2009 1:14 PM
The summer banner is outstanding. It surely does portray excellence.
I love the use of the golden ratio. It signifies perfection, which all nature attempts to achieve. It is almost impossible to achieve and can be disrupted in so many ways.
Posted by Ryan Freed at June 24, 2009 1:23 PM
john, yes, i am going to use a two-wheeler, though it would be cool to see someone do it on a unicycle. that could be tough. last year someone ran the 192 mile course. ouch!
Posted by erik at June 24, 2009 1:35 PM
I hate the black and white spiral: it's too distracting. When I look at the banner, my eye is pulled back to the "look at me me me" spiral. It stops me looking at the other images because it's trying to dominate them. Then it pulses when you scroll down the page. Yuk.
And a cyclist playing with his ear and not concentrating on his riding? Yuk.
The 'excellence' strapline randomly broken across 2 lines, breaking up the flow of the sentence? Yuk.
I think this is the weakest banner by a mile.
Posted by Mark JF at June 24, 2009 2:58 PM
mark jf,
noted.
Posted by erik at June 24, 2009 3:11 PM
Erik,
Love the banner. It has a storyline. The fact that people found themselves looking at it long enough and closely enough to catch the details says something in itself: it makes folks stop, look, and think about stuff. Even if you don't agree with what you discover, it leads you to ask "Why" you don't agree. Sounds like Tom's modus operandi as I see it. He doesn't demand that we agree with him all the time, but he seems to have a low threshold for thoughtless disagreement. Just the kind of folks I like to hang out with in life.
Posted by Dan Gunter at June 24, 2009 3:42 PM
Yes, Ken, our individual post pages (which can also be accessed by clicking Permalink on the main page) have a different format than the front page of tompeters.com.
Posted by Shelley Dolley at June 24, 2009 3:59 PM
I thought you were all proponents of reality and transparency? Where's the rain? :) Happy summer!
Posted by Tom Asacker at June 24, 2009 5:01 PM
Tom A.,
That's what the guy on the bicycle is scratching his head and wondering, and the person with the kite is trying a desperate attempt at "cloud seeding." Never hurts to think big.
Posted by Dan Gunter at June 24, 2009 5:24 PM
tom a.,
we figured there was so much rain outside our windows every day that we didn't need to include a picture of the stuff.
Posted by erik at June 24, 2009 10:31 PM
erik, PLEASE send some of that rain down here. Sweltering heat... record breaking temps... "I'm melting, I'm melting..."
Posted by Dan Gunter at June 24, 2009 10:53 PM
Thanks Tom,
I've borrowed your words (I always give credit) for the close of all my internal company emails..."If not EXCELLENCE, WHAT? If not EXCELLENCE now, WHEN? "
My new mantra is, "If I haven't challenged someone today, I haven't done my job." If we don't learn to do business differently, we are going to be out of business. And to be different, we have to act differently! Challenge everyone!
Thanks for the inspiration Tom!!! Keep on Rantin'.
Mike
Posted by Mike Wadley at June 27, 2009 12:46 AM