Microsoft Turns Landmines into Flowers

Looks like the landmine movement will soon reach the desktop. Microsoft is changing the game MINESWEEPER to placate those who thought the game was insensitive to landmine-plagued communities worldwide. With the Vista release you will be able to, at least virtually, turn landmines into flowers ...

from shellrevealed.com:

There have always been a small but persistent group of users who disliked minesweeper as a concept because they felt it trivialized the problem of land mines. For those of us living in North America, land mines are an abstract entity that you really only see in a movie, but in many parts of the world people are killed or maimed by mines on a daily basis ...

One of the realities of making something with the reach of Windows is that it is almost impossible not to offend someone somewhere with anything you do ...

In the minesweeper case, since we were doing a re-write anyway, we thought it would a good time to address these concerns. We added a preference that allows users to change it from looking for mines in a minefield to looking for flowers in a flower field. Now, personally I am not a fan of using flowers here—I mean, you WANT to find flowers, right?—but this was an established alternative in the market and none of the other ideas we had (dog poo? penguins?) could pass the legal/geopolitics/trademark/etc. hurdles

Even I think this is kind of silly, but since they started ... why stop there? Why not put an option into the game to turn a real minefield into flowers with a link (for those users who find the thought of virtual mines on their computers repugnant) to donate to relief groups that remove REAL mines? Groups like Mines Advisory Group, HALO Trust and Adopt-a-Minefield can always use the money. Now THAT would make a difference.

Event: Hexaware

Tom has traveled from Fajardo to Phoenix. (Is that on the way to Vermont?) He's speaking to a group from Hexaware Technologies, at their Client Summit '06. Theme of the meeting: Reinvent.
The PPT slides are available for downloading here:
XAlways, Hexaware, Phoenix, AZ

IDEO Feature

U.S. News & World Report has a feature story about the design firm IDEO. It's definitely worth reading as it includes some fascinating examples of how IDEO has approached finding solutions to various complex problems, most notably the re-design of an emergency room. We've been watching the progress of IDEO with amazement for years. Founder David Kelley was interviewed about the company as one of our Cool Friends back in 2000. His brother Tom, the general manager of IDEO and who is quoted in the U.S. News article, has appeared as a Cool Friend twice (2001 and 2005). Be careful, though. If you read all four pieces in one sitting, you may catch innovation fever and find yourself compelled to camp out in the yurt in IDEO's lobby.

More YouTube

Someone has posted a short clip of Tom from an HSM event called Sixty Second Insight. Tom talks about talent and how if you can still stand after your "performance," whatever it is, you haven't given it enough.

Have I Got 'Em All?

Perhaps surprisingly, this is my first visit to Puerto Rico. It may be "epic" for me. I think this finishes my Tour de U.S.A.+ ... I've been to all 50 states, the Trust Territories of the Pacific (Guam, 1966, on the way to Vietnam), the U.S. Virgin Islands (swiped from Churchill in exchange for a few rusting Destroyers), and now Puerto Rico.

Do we have sovereignty over anybody else? (Iraq doesn't count!)

Event: SHRM

The occasion for Tom's visit to Puerto Rico is the SHRM Convention. That's the Society for Human Resources Management. Their blurb from a Google search goes like this: "Advances the human resource profession to ensure that HR is recognized as an essential partner in developing and executing organizational strategy."
You can get the PPT slides here:
XAlways, SHRM, Fajardo, Puerto Rico
XAlways SHRM Long

Hmmmm ...

This week's U.S. News & World Report, in its cover story, observes that in the last 5 years (a more or less "recovery"), entry level wages for college grads have gone down! Women: 3.5%. Men: 7.3%.

That's a big deal given that "intellectual capital" intensity is supposed to keep us afloat for the next few years/decades/"forever."

26 Passions; 5 "Damn Its"

What's the stuff that's really caught my attention over, say, the last 63 years? That was the reporter's question. I'll drop the first 23 and start in Vietnam in 1966. I figure, more or less, that 26 things have really gotten (way) under my skin. I've never had a plan. I proceed from Passion to Passion and let each one take me where it will. Some are eternal; some are transient. Anyway, I decided to foist them on you, accompanied by a little Special Presentation ... what else? (Sorry: Some are in shorthand; most, though, I think are transparent.) To wit:

Leadership Effectiveness (Vietnam: 2 Commanding Officers: "Captain Do it." vs "Captain Plan it.") ... '66-'68 ('06)

Organization Effectiveness (Vietnam Seabee Battalion in the field vs Pentagon) ... '69-'70 ('06)

B>A* (R.F.A.) (*Behavior drives Attitude: Action takes precedence.) ... '71-'06

Implementation = #1 ... '73-'77 ('06)

"Soft is Hard" ("Management Style," etc.) ... '77-'79 ('06)

Soft is Hard: "It's the PEOPLE, stupid!" (Gobs of autonomy!) ... '66-'06

(Org) Structure>Strategy ... '77-'83 ('06)

Strategy-Structure+/ "McKinsey 7-S" Model ... '77-'81

Action>Planning ... '74-'06

Mess = Reality ... '77-'06

Skunkworks/Skunks ("Offline" Innovation/Innovators) ... '84-'91

MBWA/Hands On leadership ... '80-'85 ('06)

Excellence I ... '79-'84

Mid-size biz is cool ... '84-'89 ('06)

Customer service ... '84-'88

Innovation ... '87-'92

Free trade/Hayek ... '90-'92

New Org Models ... '92-'96

PSF ... '92-'06

WOW! (WOW Projects) ... '93-'06

Brand You ... '94-'00

Design ... '94-'06

Women (Markets-Leaders) ... '96-'06

EXCELLENCE II ... '06-??

Healthcare (Quality-Wellness-PatientCentric) ... '06-??

Exuberance-Passion (Soft is Hard) ... '42-'06

Same vein, same media conversation: Some stuff I've tried to do has caught on ... such as my longterm passion for "Customers First" and "Design Mindfulness." But there are 5 areas where I feel stymied. That is, I scream & shout & reason ... and the tectonic plates creak but do not move. (Much.) Well, there has been some movement on the "women's thing" (market potential, leadership) and Brand You ... but neither have reached the "Go For It"/Revolution stage. Well, I'm not gonna take it anymore (not that I really have); I'm going to get more focused & turn up the volume & be more rude. Watch out! The 5 "Damn Its":

* Women (market potential, leadership potential)
* PSF (Professional Service Firm "model" as driving force in Value Added/Intellectual Capital Revolution)
* Brand You.
* R.F.A. ("Bias for Action" from In Search)
* EXCELLENCE. ALWAYS.

Excellence Always

You can see from recent posts that Tom has been adding new ideas to his slides. The special PPTs all get folded into his master presentation, and here it is, the collection of all current slides that Tom pulls from when speaking. Title: XAlways. 1251 slides reflecting his insistence on Excellence Always.

"Built to Last"?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal's feature piece was titled "Seeking Growth in Urban Areas, Wal*Mart Gets Cold Shoulder." To continue to grow, the argument goes, the only thing left for Wal*Mart is urban areas. Except many of those urban areas don't want 'em. E.g., Boston's mayor said Wal*Mart's not his kind of company. Mayor Menino is not alone. Is this the kiss of death for the Arkansas giant? Hardly! Nonetheless, couple it with bad publicity, pullouts from places like Germany, and a long-dead-in-the-water stock price ... and things could be better. The same can obviously be said for recent times' Utterly Invincible Duo: Microsoft & Dell. (And then there are the Big Pharma embarrassments. Oh, and Ford. And ...)

The day's mail also brought my 2 October Fortune. In an article titled "Bill Ford Finally Joined the Club" (the high growth Deposed CEO's Club), there is a telling ("Telling?" Try: Amazing!) "little" chart. Standard & Poors rates companies as "Low risk," "Average risk," and "High risk"—based on "the ability to achieve long-term stable earnings growth." In 1985, some 41% of big enterprises were "low risk;" and 35% were "high risk." In 2006 the "low risk" group had dropped to just 13%. And the "high risk" gang weighed in at ... 73%.

Yikes.

Not to be smug (sure, Tom), such facts support (1) my long-time skepticism of the "built to last" idea and (2) my Total Skepticism about any "business model" (I hate that term) considered and labeled, as so many are-have been, "the last word"—Dell & Wal*Mart have been accorded that status for the last few years.

(See the wee Special Presentation attached.)

In the Day's Mail

Amazon delivered Louann Brizendine's book The Female Brain yesterday. Here's the opener: "It's not as if we all start out with the same brain structure. They are different by nature. Think about this. What if the communication center is bigger in one brain than the other? What if the emotional memory center is bigger in one brain than the other? What if one brain develops a greater ability to read cues in people than another? In this case, you would have a person whose reality dictated that communication, connection, emotional sensitivity, and responsiveness were the primary values. This person would prize these qualities above all others and be baffled by another person with a brain that didn't grasp the importance of these qualities. In essence, you would have someone with a female brain."

This gem of a book goes into today's "travels to Puerto Rico" pile. If I'm right (I am! Period!) about the overwhelming importance-humongous size of the women's market, and the boomer women's market in particular, well, my case has just gotten much stronger based on the evidence presented in this book. Men just don't cut it when it comes to understanding the women's market. So ... put women in charge. Now.

(So you're bored about my harping on this issue. Shut me up: Respond strategically to this monster opportunity.)

The Pepsi Challenge

In September's Fortune magazine there is an article announcing the recent promotion of Ms. Indra Nooyi who will be taking over as CEO of PepsiCo as of October 1. "And with that, the soda and snacks giant becomes the largest U.S. company by market cap to put a woman in charge." Several other powerful women spent much of their careers at PepsiCo, including Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, and Irene Rosenfeld, CEO at Kraft Foods. They give credit to the Pepsi culture. Since 2001, CEO Steve Reinemund has enforced an aggressive hiring and promotion plan that requires half of their workforce to be women or minorities. Their bonus structure also rewards managers on their ability to hire and retain such talent. Today, six out of Pepsi's top 12 executives are women or minorities.

The reason for this aggressive push for diverse leadership, they say, is to better understand the tastes of new consumers as the business continues to expand globally. This, in my opinion, is the best reason. I haven't yet bought into the idea that women make better bosses, but I certainly agree that if you want to compete in a global market where women have almost all of the purchasing power, it's necessary to get into the heads of women and minorities. For old white men to think they have all the answers is absurd. Kudos to Steve Reinemund for getting it!

More Falling Leaves

The leaves are not just falling at the top of our home page. They're also falling at Grey Meadow Farm ... as you can see above.

[More pics at flickr.]

Guess I'll Keep on Truckin'

As you know if you follow this Blog, I occasionally have "crises of faith" (as a Priest friend of long standing, who knows me well, puts it). As in: What the hell am I doing running around like a madman at 63.9? God help me, is it all ego?

Yesterday [Meet the Press, 09.24.06], in response to a question by Tim Russert, President Clinton said in part: "The biggest problem confronting the world today is the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity. That's what's driving the terrorism."

As my out-of-U.S. work, for the first time, eclipses my in-U.S. work, I do to some extent (a significant extent) see my role as "Ambassador at large"—salesman for humanistic capitalism perhaps. You may recall that I returned to "excellence" (Excellence. Always.—my new signature) and the "basics" on the occasion of my April trip to Siberia. (Trying to answer my own query: "Why the hell am I in Siberia?") Furthermore I added a PPT slide and said, and believe, that:

"Business* [*at its "excellent" best] can be: An emotional, vital, audacious, innovative, joyful, frightening, risky, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that breathes life & fire into our work & life & elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted effort to help others ** [**employees, clients, suppliers, communities, owners, temporary partners] succeed & profit & imagine & reach places they'd never dreamed they could go."

To usurp Clinton, that is effectively a plea to vigorously engage as many as possible to produce and pursue the fruits of our "common humanity." Amidst my far-flung travels, when I discuss "cultural differences," my unyielding perspective is that "of course they exist"—but a person who exudes common human decency will prevail—if not with bowls of profit, at least with the self-knowledge that her or his passing has added rather than subtracted from humanity's plight.

So, thanks, Mr President. Guess I'll keep on truckin.'

Imagination!

I was appalled by the Home Depot Annual Meeting fiasco—an unprecedented display of corporate arrogance. On the other hand, I am beside myself with glee at HD's new effort to add value through the imaginative provision of new Client services. Forbes (0918) reports on the Home Depot Business ToolBox ... a new package of services provided to its precious plumbers, electricians, carpenters, small homebuilders, etc. Included is more or less a customized, turnkey kit to support the businesses of these folks. For instance: payroll processing, credit card processing, personnel paperwork, shipping services, mobile phones, and the like. And then there is the most surprising-fabulous (as I see it) part of "and the like." HD is offering these quintessential small businessmen ... health insurance. Yup. Health insurance for the principals and their employees ... at Home Depot's highly discounted corporate group rates! I call all this the IBM Global Services "encompassing professional services" analog in the land of the Yellow Box.

(Will this be an automatic "big win"? Of course not. Hard work of a new sort will be required to pull it off. Nonetheless, it is wonderfully imaginative—and a very interesting part of CEO Bob Nardelli's longterm effort to provide ever more services to business and retail customers alike.)

Jim Scores!

I like, no, love, businesses that surprise with imaginative services—such as the Home Depot case above. It perhaps gets better. Consider Jim, my favorite Australian these days.

Jim (Jim Penman) sports a Ph.D. in cross-cultural anthropology. While working toward the degree in 1984, he did some odd jobs mowing lawns. Found he had a knack for it—and started Jim's Mowing.

To make a long and glorious story short, "Jim's Mowing" morphed into Jim's Group. It now provides an array of home services for busy families—including mowing, cleaning, handyman jobs, fencing, paving, pool care, and even dog walking. It also "morphed" from Jim to 2,600 franchisees in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

In an "industry" not exactly marked by standout people practices, Jim has shined as much with management skills as with his overall business concept. For instance, in a huge departure from standard practice, a franchisee can leave the fold and start a competing business—at will with no restrictions attached. Penman's contrarian reasoning is that he can't imagine having unhappy franchisees in the fold. But there's also a tough side, and it involves client service. His franchisees typically have zero or one customer complaint per year. (Ye gads.) Every complaint is investigated, and franchisees who don't get with the program get the boot.

Though I lifted this story from Australia's Management Today (Jan-Feb 2006), I confirmed it with Aussie execs at a recent seminar in Adelaide.

"Wallop Wal*Mart" is one of my persistent themes. I'm a great fan of Wal*Mart, but the point is that there is, in any arena, invariably room for someone who does it differently. ("Dramatic Difference," swiped from our pal, Doug Hall, is the term I prefer.) Superb, focused Community Banks can "compete effectively against" (beat the crap out of) BankAmerica. Inspired retailers can "own" a community—even with a Wal*Mart right down the road. And Jim Penman can cobble together a 2,600 unit franchise operation, almost flawlessly performing mundane tasks that others ignore.

Good on you, Mate.

(Attached you'll find a brief Special Presentation, "Jim's Plus," that includes the PPT slides associated with this Post.)

Urgent Reading!

NPR was kind enough in late 1999 to name In Search of Excellence one of the Top 3 business books of the century then drawing to a close. One of the others was Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'm loath to admit it, but to this day I haven't read it. But, courtesy Amazon.com, it's on the way to Vermont as I write.

The trigger was coming across the following Carnegie quote: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

"Obvious." Profound. Enduring. In practical terms, "a/the key factor to success"—in any endeavor. And ...

And ... ignored in 99 cases of 100, at least by most men. I want to read more! A lot more! Now! (And then perhaps use it as my Desktop background.)

Running into Carnegie's gem brought to mind another profound winner from Harvard professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, in her book Respect: "It was much later that I realized Dad's secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say."

I'll finally be reading Carnegie by the time you read this. I suggest that you do the same—urgently. We all need this ... all the time.

(NB: How to Win ... was ranked #88 on Amazon yesterday. That's many a rung above In Search of Excellence!)

(NB: All this recalls a little story I once heard. Excuse me for butchering it, but it goes something like this: Following a formal dinner party in which the famous Lady X had been seated between the equally famous Lord Y and Sir Z, she was heard to say, "By the end of the meal, Lord Y had made me aware of just how important he is. But Sir Z had made me understand how important I was." Or some such. You get the drift, eh?)

(Attached you'll find a brief Special Presentation, "Dale Carnegie," that includes the PPT slides associated with this Post.)

Master PPT

You can see from the above entries that Tom has added a few PPT slides to his collection, so here is the new "ShortMaster," now 955 slides.

Modern Age ...

You know it's a new world when ...

When you are sitting on the can with a computer on your lap, attached to All Known Things (the Internet), and reading the Wall Street Journal online at 3 a.m.—and the subject is new cell phones dedicated purely to Skype ... which can cut one's (my!) mega-int'l phone bill upwards of 95%. New product idea, guys division: airport & restaurant urinals with embedded wi-fi/email capability.

(NB: Speaking of urinals, Urinetown may be the funniest-saddest-best play I've seen in a long time. Incidentally, I/we saw it at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT—one of those handful of amazing regional theaters where the quality of productions literally equals Broadway's.) (NB: Speaking of TechTime, our new puppy has an implanted chip.)

Speaking again of TechWorld, on a flight from San Francisco, I ran into my pal Kevin Kelly, tech uber-guru and founding Wired editor and, far more important, incredibly good guy. It's nice to see someone who's not as young as he used to be still waaaay ahead of most everybody in what's been declared (by me, among others) a "young man's/woman's game." Kevin is also "one of those people" with whom, even though you haven't seen 'em in 10 years, you take up the last conversation you had with them mid-sentence from where you left off.

Amazing!

In our realtime world I love to run across a thoroughly new, well-researched idea that hasn't been reported on. (Or at least hasn't caught my attention).

BusinessWeek has a barnburner of a cover story this week (0925), "What's Really Propping Up the Economy." Long-time, brilliant BW economics reporter Michael Mandel begins, "Since 2001, the healthcare industry has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? None." Paradox: We decry h-care spending—and without it, at one level, we're sunk. Interesting, no?

Speaking of healthcare & "amazing," on another note I remain fully captivated-blown away by the Planetree Alliance; their "patient-centered" acute-care model is more or less (more more than less per me) peerless. "Patient-centered" is no hollow slogan with these folks. Attached is an updated Plantree PowerPoint FYI. Not so incidentally, they are the only acute-care operation (their flagship Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT, that is) to make the "100 best companies to work for" list—7 times running, currently at a robust #4.

Purell Time (Again)!

Fall, of course, is officially here. FluTime ain't that far away. While at my local/Boston pharmacy (a GREAT "small company," by the way—Gary Drug on Charles Street), I bought my Fall-Winter supply of PURELL. It's my favorite, easy-to-find anti-bacterial hand wipe.

Health Rule #1: WASH YOUR HANDS! I've been (recently) turned into a gen-u-ine fanatic. Consider:

"If God spoke to me by saying, 'Mark, you're down to your last three words: What would you want to say to your fellow humans that would make the most positive impact?' It would be a close call between 'Love Thy Neighbor' and 'Wash Your Hands.' A close third would be 'Move, Move, Move.'"—Mark Pettus, M.D., The Savvy Patient

"The most important thing you can do to keep from getting sick is to wash your hands."—CDC/National Center for Infectious Diseases

Purell has 62% alcohol, which serves my purposes pretty well—though 80% or more is recommended. Of course in "speech world" I shake hundreds of hands—but that's not the point. If you don't shake a hand a week this matters—a lot.

Desktop Madness!

63 years of age? Yes. In fact, 64 in 6 weeks. (God help me and God willing, 65 in 58 weeks.) And still no idea what I want to be when I grow up. And, worse, still fearful that I'm like one of BF Skinner's rats—trapped in rituals of my own making but no longer under my control.

On the way to and from Korea last week I read a superb novel by Douglas Kennedy: State of the Union. I ended up bending the corner of three pages, on which I found the following quotes:

"We make our own traps."

"We construct our own cage."

"We build our own roadblocks."

It's hardly a new idea, for you or me. Still, they got/have gotten under my skin. Deep. Embedded. In fact I'm using them as my Desktop Background. And it's driving me stark raving mad. Looking at the damnable, devilish quotes—hour in and hour out.

Obvious ideas. Axioms. But "troubling" "disturbing" "madness making" "barf-bag inducing" nonetheless.

Humanity. Conflicting Notions of

I pretty much tore into the late Peter Drucker a couple of weeks ago for his description of, as I see it, you and me as "mediocrities," even "idiots." (Perhaps not you, but I know for a fact he thought of me as a charlatan-idiot. Well, I didn't think much of him either—so fair is fair.) (I participated in a Drucker tribute a few weeks after his death, appearing with several grandees. I was supposed to open with 5 minutes of laudatory remarks; me, essentially "never at a loss for words." I've seldom worked so hard on a thing—but in the end I couldn't pull it off, couldn't make it work—so I demurred. I did remain as a for once quiet participant—and did murmur a few supportive words—which, concerning constrained subjects, were genuine. Not gonna make the Highlights Tape.)

For me, as you know, the answer to everything is ... another PowerPoint. (Hmmmm ... maybe I am an idiot.)

The poet (my favorite) Mary Oliver said: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Picasso said: "Every child is born an artist. The trick is to remain an artist."

I'm hardly he-who-wears-rose-colored-glasses. Yet I do have a rather exalted view of human potential—daily headlines on human barbarism notwithstanding. Attached you'll find the Special PowerPoint Presentation: "Peter & Mary on Their Fellow Humans."

No Worries

I love many things about Australia. For instance, Australians. And I love their routine "No worries." For them, it is of course mere ritual. But it's fresh to me—and a wonderful sentiment. I've adopted it in everyday speech—and hope it's awhile before it becomes mere ritual.

Outlet Rage!

I've spent hour after hour in airline clubs in recent weeks (years, decades). Lately I've a new phenomenon (or maybe I'm just paying attention for the first time). Ever so many of us are working assiduously for our 45 minutes or 2 hours on our Laptops. "Mini-offices" are almost always full. Okay. But it's the absence of Wall Outlets that is becoming a source of tension. I collided with a guy in the Chicago Red Carpet Club as we ungracefully plunged for the last outlet in the joint. It wasn't the first time I'd seen such a thing—or, frankly, participated in it. Only the TSA proscription on knives, pointed objects in general, and guns has kept lethal forces at bay.

The Marti & Margaret Show

Marti Barletta authored one of my favorite books, Marketing to Women—and she coauthored with me one of the four "Tom Peters Essentials" books, Trends. And in January 2007 she'll offer us her newest and, I think, best: PrimeTime Women.

Here are a few ... STARTLING ... Boomer Facts that I pulled from my early copy of Marti's book:

Boomer turns 50: every 7 seconds. 2009: majority of U.S. households headed by someone over 50. 2006-2016: U.S. population up 22.9 million; 22.1 million of the increase in over-50 group. 2006: 1 in 5 adults is F, over 50. Percentage of women between 50-70 who are single: 35. Age 45-54: highest average income, $59,021 (national average is $42,209). FASTEST GROWING INCOME CATEGORY: WOMEN, 55-64 (4X men in same category). Women, age 60-64: 50% still in workforce. Highest net worth: families, 55-64 ($182,000). People over 50: 70% to 79% of all financial assets; 80% of all savings accounts; 62% of all large Wall Street asset accounts; 66% of $$ invested in the stock market. Age 50+: 29% of population, 40% of total consumer spending, 50% of discretionary spending. Next 2 decades: BOOMERS WILL INHERIT $14 TRILLION-$25 TRILLION ("largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history").

Apparently, treats come in pairs. Right on the heels of receiving Marti's ms., I got Margaret Heffernan's How She Does It, by far the best book yet on the incredible Women-owned Businesses Saga! The stories are great, but let me provide, as in Marti's case, a few extracted stats:

U.S. firms owned or controlled by Women: 10.6 million (48% of all firms)

Growth rate of Women-owned firms vs all firms: 3X

Rate of jobs created by Women-owned firms vs all firms: 2X

Ratio of total payroll of Women-owned firms vs total for all Fortune 500 firms: >1.0

Ratio of likelihood of Women-owned firms staying in business vs all firms: >1.0

Growth rate of Women-owned companies with revenues of >$1,000,000 and >100 employees vs all firms: 2X

After a decade of chasing—and yelling and begging about—the stories of Marketing to Women, Marketing to Boomers-Geezers, The Power of Women-owned Businesses, I am very frustrated. While there has indeed been progress, virtually no sizeable enterprise has "turned itself upside down" in pursuit of this matchless opportunity. A little bit of work here, a little bit of work there ... but nothing that meets the "turned itself upside down" nature of the opportunity. Frustrated! Yup. And: Flat out pissed off at the stupidity (STU-PID-ITY) of failing to chase this ... GIGANTIC OPPORTUNITY ... as hard as it deserves.

Damn it.

(Yup, you guessed it: A wee PowerPoint Special Presentation, "The Marti & Margaret Show," is attached—offering up a few stats and quotes from Barletta's and Heffernan's efforts.)

OneWebDay

"OneWebDay is one day a year when we all—everyone around the physical globe—can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities."

In honor of OneWebDay, here are a few stories from the TP Wire Service, posted this week, that show the kind of impact the web has, and might have in the future, on our lives.

Jobs
The Jobs of Web 2.0

Communication
Why Fly When You Can Web Conference?

Education
Windows HS: Microsoft designs a school system

The Future
Recognizing Tomorrow's Hot Ideas Today

The Now
Here are two very innovative ways of chronicling your life:
Waymarkr
Umbrella Photo Browser

Cool Friend: Bob Tomasko

Consultant, speaker, and author Bob Tomasko is our new Cool Friend. His book is Bigger Isn't Always Better: The New Mindset for Real Business Growth. He explains that he's "not really a 'small is always the most beautiful' advocate," but that we should "think differently about growth. It's useful to de-couple the idea of growth from the idea of getting bigger." You can read more in his Cool Friends interview here, or visit his website, www.roberttomasko.com. Check out his blog on the topic, too.

Event: Omaha

The First Data event Tom mentioned earlier is in Omaha, Nebraska. You can see his finished product, 117 slides, here: XAlways, First Data Corp.

The Store Just Added Another Shelf!

Yes, the day before yesterday's "short" 823-slide MASTER just grew to ... 902 slides! Some of your comments have been barbs about brevity. I guess it's obvious, or should be. A "MASTER" is my personally constructed encyclopedia; from it are drawn various presentations—and as I prep for those presentations new material is added. For example, today's First Data presentation started with the whole 902-slide shebang. The sculptor Henry Moore, I believe, said that sculpture is, uh, easy. If you are sculpting A. Lincoln, for example, you simply take a big stone and get rid of everything that's not Lincoln. Hence Round #1 of the First Data presentation reduced the slide count from 902 to 322. (By removing the 580 slides that "were not First Data.") Round #2 got me to 211. Round #3 came in at 172 and round #4 at 154. (It gets harder!) Eventually I'll get to about 100 slides; all in all it usually takes about 10-15 drafts.

Minding the Store

Home in VT after 50,000+ miles in 2+ weeks. (Roundtrip to Australia; RT to Korea.) Off tomorrow/Tuesday for Nebraska. But today (and much of my trip home from Seoul) devoted to "tidying up"—specifically, re-editing my "XALways Master." Have changed Fonts, added stuff, more stuff, etc. More to go, but for now find "XALways.MASTER.SHORT.0918.06." Yes, 823 slides is "short." Will start work on the Revised LONG in a couple of days.

Monologue disguised as ...

The great philosopher Martin Buber described three types of dialogue:

1. Genuine dialogue

2. Technical dialogue (explanations of things)

3. Monologue disguised as dialogue

I loved that description of "monologue disguised as dialogue," where conversation is only a pretense for making one's self heard.

Buber writes that monologue disguised as dialogue is where "two or more men, meeting in space, speak each with himself in strangely tortuous and circuitous ways." In other words, they are really only talking to themselves, and not with each other.

Bad sales pitches, bosses who pretend to listen but only talk, most marketing copy writing ... all of this can be called monologue disguised as dialogue. Have you spotted any of this lately?

Exhausted But Happy ...

In the last two weeks I've been to Australia and back and to South Korea (I head to Vermont in about five hours). My 3-seminar stay in Seoul ended with a Bang. I spoke in the Olympic wrestling venue to 3,000+ folks. That was great ... but the real "out of the park" treat was that two-thirds were under 30, and about 50% under 25 (or so my rather practiced eye says). It is sooooooooooooooooo great to speak to "tomorrow" instead of "yesterday." The obligation is enormous, of course. I think we had a great exchange—and we also had a lot of laughs. (You must laugh a lot when you're being serious.)

The "laughs" are the byproduct of at least three things, all important. First and foremost, BRILLIANT interpreters!!! If you are "playing with" humor in somebody else's culture the nuance and timing must be EXACTLY right. (On top of that, no matter how hard I try to do otherwise, I talk fast. Though I am pretty good at purging the American colloquialisms.)

The second thing is a slap at conventional wisdom concerning an age-old issue. I totally believe in "sensitivity" (to the extreme) concerning "cultural differences." On the other hand, I fervently believe that the first 99% of "effective cross-cultural communication" is all about one's humanity. I do pretty well, or even better than that. And that seems to be as true in Saudi and Siberia as in Seoul. I am sure it is mostly because I "get off on people." I just love hanging out with folks at home and away—and trying to connect my passions with their lives and issues. If you truly love people, then the "cross-cultural conundrums" will mostly disappear. (Among many other things, there's a Great Big Message here concerning the selection of people for "foreign" assignments.)

Third, an old saw that is true, you must be comfortable with yourself! This young group, for instance, energized (at least for three hours) an exhausted carcass (me). Though the crowd was 3,000 and "foreign"—I felt (I do not exaggerate) engaged, as fully engaged a human being as in an energetic one-on-one discussion in my Vermont farmhouse. I felt among friends—and we acted accordingly. We laughed and wept (metaphorically) as we talked about the Crazy Old World—and how valuable and joyful our life's work might be. Simply put, you can't do that if you are constantly "looking over your shoulder" at various gremlins and "how to behave" stuff. (Frankly, I feel that my "foreign" "work" gets better the more I forget that I'm "away from home" and the more I remember that we're all wrestling with pretty much the same issues.

Also, you'll belatedly find my PowerPoint.

Happy weekend!

(NB: The vibrancy and optimism in Korea is a delight to behold—and the smog I expected has long been mostly erased. The only big complaint by one and all is that, as usual, a primary byproduct of sustained success is sustained traffic mess.)

Impact on Organizational Creativity

We (at the Tom Peters Company) have known for a long time that innovation is important and that companies must become more innovative if they are to survive. We also know that the talented people in an organization are capable of solving the most complex of business issues and are a wellspring of great ideas. As Tom has espoused, "All the answers to our problems are inside the front line staff, if we would only bother to ask them!" Well, in recent Gallup research, they studied the impact of employee engagement on the creation of innovative ideas. So, it should be of no surprise as to the results. Drumroll, please ......

When Gallup asked people to agree or not with this statement: " My current job brings out my most creative ideas," the responses based on levels of engagement are as follows:

Engaged Employees = 59% agree

Not Engaged Employees = 17% agree

Actively Disengaged Employees = 3% agree

See the report of the study here.

The more engaged employees are, the more they are able to generate creative ideas. How do we foster high levels of engagement? What keeps you engaged and what makes you disengaged?

Slides: KMAC

In Korea it's the 14th, and Tom is in Seoul speaking to KMAC, Korea Management Associates Consultants. Wednesday he met with senior execs, and Thursday he addresses several thousand up-and-comers. For the occasion, Tom prepared two slides sets: The final version has just the introductory slide for several lists. The second contains the lists in full, e.g., 209 Irreducibles, 122 Truths about Selling, and 60 TIBs (This I Believe). You may download your choice here: XAlways, KMAC, the Final Version and KMAC, with Complete Lists.

Cool Friend: John Moore

John Moore's résumé includes eight years as Retail Marketing Manager at Starbucks Coffee and a few more as Director of National Marketing at Whole Foods Market. Now, he runs the Brand Autopsy marketing consultancy and writes the popular blog of the same name. He's also written a book, Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture, which we discuss with him in his Cool Friend interview. Here's a sample of what he has to say:

We talk so much about building a brand, creating this company that exudes so much personality. But in reality, all the most endearing brands that we know are really good businesses at heart.

We're glad to add John Moore to our list of Cool Friends.

Tom on the Web

Tom spoke to InformationWeek on Monday, and they've posted their take on Tom here, in an article subtitled "Experiment Fearlessly."

AdAge.com also recently put up a post that features Tom's Essential Series: Talent. They did a snapshot of Amazon.com's Top 10 Books on Recruiting and Managing Business Talent as of August 29th, and Tom's book is listed as #4. See the other titles that made the grade in this article on AdAge.com, 4 Sept 2006.

Kevin and JCPenney

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, and one of our Cool Friends, is going to have to put his money where his mouth is. He just landed a $430 million contract to take over JCPenney's advertising account, and he promises to turn it into a "lovemark" for middle American consumers.

Hmmmm ... let's see if the guy who wrote the book about it can do it. Kevin's really putting his reputation on the line. Anyone want to place bets?

I Left My Heart ...

Indeed, I did leave my heart in San Francisco, where I lived in the City and then on the Peninsula for 30 years, more or less. Nonetheless, I'm one of those who also love and have long-loved peerless LA. It was my "port of entry" to California in 1966. Actually, I was up the road a stretch in Port Hueneme—among other things, Pacific Headquarters of our Naval Mobile Construction Battalions.

Well, I was back in LA yesterday, and out near Palm Springs giving a talk at the annual InformationWeek 500 gathering of IT execs. Upon returning I went out for my daily (speed) amble—and enjoyed every minute of it, as I cruised down Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire, et al.

Yup, I had a great time—but the meaning of the word "caricature" was in evidence. I was staying in West Hollywood. (Tell the truth, at the Four Seasons, thanks to my Client's donation to the TP Fund. Though in West Hollywood, the 4S stoops to "title inflation" by calling itself the "Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles at Beverly Hills." In fact, B.H. starts about a block away.)

I reached at least one conclusion on my little adventure. The Women of LA all have at least 20 fingers! There is simply no other way to explain the frequency of nail salons—hey, I was tempted. The other shopping staples (again & again & yet again) are home furnishings stores, and, yes, centers for plastic ("cosmetic"!) surgery. Of course there is indeed the Rolls-Bentley dealership—see above. And you know something's going down when the vacuum cleaner store has, prominently listed on its window: "Berlin. Paris. Rome. Sydney. Etc." Miele, naturally. And did I mention, I kid you not, the mild epidemic of Lamborghinis? As I said, caricature.

My walk probably tallied six miles, not bad after an all-nighter preparing my speech. Mostly it was that long because I was determined to keep walking until I found, in the low-rent environs, a Starbucks. I did, at about the three-mile mark; I took my laptop in my backpack, and worked for an hour or so at the shop.

I'm almost tempted to re-register to vote in CA so I can pull the lever for Ahhnold. The Guvenator (many "Guvenator" hats and T-shirts at LAX) in fact seems a perfect fit for earth's 40-million person sixth largest economy. As far as I can determine, he's doing a pretty good job—and he fits California to a T. (In SF in my time we had the dapper Willie Brown as mayor—he is SF!)

I can also report that the air is a helluva lot cleaner than when I arrived in '66. There are still a lot of nasties floating around—but the particulates that cause the smoggy look are waaaay down.

Enough. In 110 minutes, speaking of smog, I leave for Seoul.

Sorely Tempted

I got an email from a member of our Web family a couple of days ago, reporting that he had disconnected tp.com. Naturally, I am aggrieved by such happenings. In this case his principal complaint was my pictures and "reports from the road." He called it, as I recall (I deleted the email), "take a crap and take a picture of it." Ah, well. I will continue to mix the deadly serious stuff (hospital CIOs as "mass murderers") with road-show reports. You'll see no picture above this Post—but I was sorely tempted to capture in megapixels you-know-what ...

Surgeons as Secondary Players

One of my favorite parts of talking to IT execs is the hospital CIOs. I call them "mass murderers" (with a smile, of course)—and I mean it (with a frown). We're finally making some halting progress in healthcare safety, but we still have a long, long, long way to go to tame the killing fields. And my point to my hospital CIOs was that they are far, far more important & central to the safety improvement process than a stadium full of surgeons. We are in desperate need of "EMR" (Electronic Medical Records); and the likes of DSS (Decision Support Systems) would help do the unthinkable—actually bring evidence to bear on docs' decision making!

Last year when I got my Medtronic pacemaker I survived the hospital—as I read the stats, I can only conclude that I was lucky. And I'd rather depend on something a little more solid than luck. Yes, damn it, I believe every word of what I said in Rancho Mirage yesterday: We are faced with an emergency, and a disgrace (we know how to fix the problem)—and the IT gang must lead the way out of the conflagration. Period.

(No surprise, some hospitals are doing a great job on safety and safety improvement. A couple of CIOs gave me their cards and invited me out; I will probably take them up on their offers, as I am determined to learn much more about this issue. Incidentally, the Veterans Administration's hospital system is, among big systems, leading the parade.) viagra for men 100mg

Thank You, Dell!

BusinessWeek last week had harsh words to describe Dell's recent freefall. (Its biggest shareholders are, to put it mildly, liquidating.) The story was of immense value for my talk at the InfoWeek confab yesterday. It underscores one of my "Top 5" points-in-life. No "business model" is "the last word." Not GM. Or IBM. Or Sears. Or, doubtless, Microsoft or Dell. (And, equally likely at some point ... Wal*Mart.)

Hats (waaaay) off to Dell! Along with Wal*Mart it did proffer a spanking new approach to "supply chain" organization and management. Most everybody, including the Army and Marine Corps, have assiduously copied.

And while there are some pretty good runs on Broadway (IBM's dominance stretched over two decades—and "unassailable" GM was on the King's throne for about 25 years), no model is "the last word." "Perpetual revolution" is my message in general, and especially to the likes of CIOs who are dealing with what are still immature technologies.

(NB: I'm one of those "former Dell customers"—who cut and ran courtesy crappy service.)

On the other hand, Austin offered up a success story that also dovetails with another of my principal "teaching points." It looks like Freescale Semiconductor will command a LBO price in excess of $15 billion—the biggest ever in the industry. Why am I giggling at that? Motorola dumped what became Freescale in 2004, because it had no great future ahead! And Freescale once again is demonstrating that misfits-"losers"—if disentangled from overbearing bureaucracies—can become winners almost overnight.

(Attached you'll find a wee Special Presentation titled "Dell Doldrums+". It includes some quotes from the BusinessWeek article on Dell—and a couple of Slides on what happens when "losers" are let loose.)

Whoops! Huh?

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Warren Bennis and Pat Biederman wrote one of my favorite management-leadership books, Organizing Genius. Its topic-data is "great groups"—e.g., the Manhattan Project, Disney's 1st animation lab, Xerox's fabled Palo Alto Research Center. Warren shared with me a copy of a handwritten note he'd gotten from his great friend, Peter Drucker, when the book appeared. PD complimented Warren on the book, but challenged the choice of title. He wrote to Warren, as I recall (and I'm sure I've got this right), "It should have been 'organizing idiots.'"

I thought that rather revelatory, but it slipped into the recesses of my mind until last week when I was in Adelaide. To do my "Australia prep," I read several issues of their Management Today. There was an interview with Drucker, apparently one of the last before he died, in the magazine's Jan-Feb 2006 issue. PD was asked about the importance of management schools, to which he had contributed so much. Here's his take on their raison d'être: "The purpose of professional schools is to educate competent mediocrities."

His take, my double take. Did Drucker really have such a low, even malign, view of his fellow human beings? To be sure, he had personal experience with Nazis, and had closely observed Mao and Stalin. So skepticism is warranted—I carry around a wagonload of it myself.

Still, what the hell am I doing with my life? Working to develop "competent mediocrities" ("idiots")? While I may not believe in the likelihood of salvation to the extent that Billy Graham or Tony Robbins do, I get up in the morning—and travel to Australia for one day's work—because I enjoy (love!) hanging out with seminar participants wrestling with their lives and the whacky professional world we all inhabit in 2006.

Do I think they are all Einsteins? Of course not—I ain't either. Yet I do think we can aim higher, perhaps achieve some measure of Abe Maslow's "actualization"—and occasionally create enterprises of the Starbucks or Virgin variety that do indeed offer worthy challenges to their employees and "astound" their millions of customers with something special in the way of service rendered. (NB: I laugh at Dilbert—but openly decry Scott Adams' patent cynicism.)

There's a question I dearly want to ask former Girl Scout head Frances Hesselbein. PD repeatedly labeled her the best CEO in America, as I recall. And she in turn is a genuine devotee of his work. So, Ms H: Did you view your Girl Scouts as "mediocrities"—who you were presumably trying to improve? Somehow I doubt it. I own no rose-colored glasses—how could you if you read the papers these days? Nonetheless I love talking to cabbies and sewer crew guys (several on my street Sunday); I learn a ton. I also love—yes, LOVE—talking to young duos who own tanning salons, and middle managers in big companies. Quite simply, though no owner of those rose-colored glasses, I "get off on" people—considering them neither "idiots" nor "mediocrities." What about Drucker? And how did it influence his work, assuming that what's above is in any way representative?

My "Watch," My Responsibility!

In the case of apparent atrocities at Abu Ghraib, I have been dumbfounded that most of the consequences have been laid at the feet of enlisted personnel. I surely favor punishing them if guilty. But why no Courts Marital (or have I missed something?) for the higher ups. The whole damn chain of command should have been held accountable.

Which leads me to Patricia Dunn, HP's chairwoman. Simple: She should step down. The California Attorney General seems certain something criminally illegal occurred in the process of "pretexting" to dig up info on Board members' phone records. I surely don't think Ms Dunn did it herself or even knew about it. But, damn it, it happened on "her watch." I surely think she has every right to defend herself against accusations, and I likewise acknowledge that I am hardly aware of the details.

But the/my point is straightforward: Something scurrilous clearly occurred. It occurred on "her watch." While she may be several degrees of separation from the dirty deed itself, as one reviews the Board's affairs, she is clearly responsible for setting the tone that may have spurred the excessive (criminal?) behavior.

Your watch. Your responsibility. That's the whole damn point of a chain of command—in Iraq or Palo Alto.

Step down, Ms Dunn.

Revised!

You'll find an "XAlways" PPT attached. It has been completely re-edited, new look, new material, etc.

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.

Apologies!

Buy that (63-year-old) boy a map. I know I've been quiet for the last several days. Put simply, I have two round trips to Asia/Australia in two weeks. Left home Friday a week ago, spoke last Tuesday in Adelaide following a door-to-door 38-hour trip from Vermont. Then immediately on to Austin, another 24+ hour jaunt. (My presence didn't seem to help the Longhorns Saturday night.) Home for a/one day—and off to LA for a speech today followed by another marathon, to Seoul, for back-to-back full-day forums. By next Saturday, God willing, I will have racked up 50,000+ miles in two weeks.

My jet lag has jet lag—I'll be approaching sanity in a couple of weeks. Please bear with me.

Event: InfoWeek

As he tells us above, Tom is on the West Coast, in Rancho Mirage, CA. He's speaking to a group from InformationWeek. If you would like to download the slides, you may do so here.

Event Slides: Austin

Tom's back in the States, speaking in Austin to the community leadership forum. You can download the slides for this event here: XAlways, Austin, Final Version and XAlways, Austin, Long Version

We welcome him back from Australia. Next week, he goes to Seoul.

Down with scripting

I see a trend going in the right direction ...

In companies where front-line employees have direct customer contact, it's common for there to be a "12-step process" or "19-point customer service checklist" that tells employees what they have to do when they meet a customer. Often, these companies hire people to pose as customers and rate employee compliance on these steps. I heard a story of a hotel front desk clerk who received an apology at check-out from one of these hired "blind" shoppers who said, "You were one of the best people I've seen in this company, but I'm going to have to give you a bad grade because you skipped a lot of steps."

Ugh. Not surprisingly, when I work with front-line employees at companies like this they tell me how silly the scripted processes are. One company I worked with had a 38-step process. Luckily, none of the employees I interviewed knew what the 38 steps were.

The good news ... I'm starting to see companies realize the folly of this rigid employee scripting. Recent comment from the operations V.P. of a client company: "We don't need a 16-step process. We need one step: Connect with the customer."

Is this a trend that is really happening? If so, is it all good, or am I missing something?

Report from the No-Sleep Zone

Writing from the Admiral's Club in LAX; about 25,000 airmiles and 10 hours of sleep in the last 96 hours. Hence, my head is fog-bound. I assume that's why I can't find any logic whatsoever for appointing an "airplane guy" (who thinks sales of 100 items is a great year) to run a crumbling car company. The only dimension the new guy scores well on is "anybody but Billy." I'll say more when the fog burns off—maybe it will all become clear to me.

Time to Get Engaged

I've often wondered why many organizational leaders don't get it about "workforce engagement." Some pay lip service to it but don't invest in it, while others simply discount it. I had a conversation with a Big Pharma executive a few years ago who thought "employee passion" was "fluff." He said his company focused on talent and bottom line results, period. (He couldn't see that a company with a reputation for having an engaged, inspired workforce MIGHT be a better talent magnet.) Meanwhile the latest Gallup survey shows that only 31% of employees are "actively engaged," 52% are "not engaged," and 17% (over 23 million U.S. workers!) are "actively disengaged."

For those who want data on the quantitative value of employee engagement, there's plenty of it. Gallup estimates that the lost productivity of the 17% "actively disengaged" employees costs the US economy $370 BILLION annually (not to mention the lost productivity of those 52% who are merely "not engaged").

Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina in Follow This Path reveal that business units in the top half of employee engagement (compared to those in the bottom half) have a higher success rate of: 86% in customer metrics; 70% in productivity; 70% in reducing turnover; 78% in safety metrics; and 44% in profitability.

And according to a 2004/2005 study by Watson Wyatt USA "the financial performance of organizations with highly favorable employee attitudes is typically nearly 4 times better than the financial performance of companies with poor employee attitudes."

There are plenty more studies to cite, but you get the picture. How come more business leaders don't?

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Fred Karl, designer of the Viking range and owner of that company said, "I was a weird kid—I began designing towns when I was 12." We all know that "weird" can be good, if we don't judge others through our lens ... Being weird increases creativity if we allow it to flourish. Fred Karl, founder of Viking Range, let his weirdness flourish abundantly.

Karl's headquarters for Viking is located in his home town of Greenwood, Mississippi. Karl has restored old buildings to house his operations, so not only does his product, the Viking range, generate income for the small Mississippi town, Karl is revitalizing the town through his restoration work. He remembered a bustling place in the '60s that had "gone way downhill" by the time he returned there after a tour of duty in Vietnam. The little town of Greenwood, previously sustained by the cotton industry, wasn't ever going to be the same. But Fred Karl saw the possibilities and brought all his talents to bear to create a new Greenwood.

Fred Karl designed the first Viking range for his wife and hoped that he would sell 1,000 a year; now he sells that many in a week. Just like most startups today, he had little money. Fred Karl bartered his building design skills to obtain office space to work in. The local people called the new range Fred was designing his "Stove Project." What kept his spirit going was the encouragement from the town—support he knew he wouldn't get if he moved to a big city. That little "Stove Project" eventually became the big business of Viking Range.

Feeling a little weird lately? Take time to see where your passion and entrepreneurial spirit is calling you. Even in corporate America, the entrepreneurial spirit must remain alive. That spirit can solve the toughest of corporate problems, if only we let it.

See the article in INC about the entrepreneurial spirit of Fred Karl.

More for Less?

I came across this factoid on workforce.com while gearing back up after Labor Day. The current expansion may be the first period of sustained economic growth since World War II that failed to bring an increase in real wages for most workers. The value of most workers' benefits is also failing to keep pace with inflation, government data show. Meanwhile, productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. All of this means that most people are working more and making less.

I'd love to hear your comments on what you think this trend will lead to. For instance, I do see a potential resurgence in the labor movement as employees become weary of rising executive pay. My guess is that there will be serious organizing efforts in the middle management and supervisory levels. I also believe we may see greater shareholder activism and more scrutiny on wage and salary policies. What do you think? Will employees "fight back"? Is it the beginning of a new norm for the value of work? Will productivity continue to increase or are we near burnout stage?

(You may also want to take part in the poll on workforce.com.)

Adelaide Slides

Tom is in Adelaide, Australia, speaking to the Australian Institute of Management. I'm posting Monday evening for his appearance there on Tuesday morning. He's 13 or so hours ahead, so the timing should be about right. Greetings to our friends in Australia. Here are the slides for the event: Final Version and Long Version.

New! New!

I'm in the air to Adelaide as you see this. Pre-trip work included putting together a bunch of new slides. You'll find 'em attached.

And, to U.S. readers, Happy Holiday!

WOW!

Yesterday, page 1, the New York Times reported on revised history textbooks for high school seniors in China. In: "economics, technology, social customs and globalization." Out: Socialism in general ("one short chapter"). Chinese communism before the 1979 economic revolution ("a sentence"). Mao ("only once—in a chapter on etiquette").

A small thing? Or an incredible indicator of acceptance of change?

You be the judge ...

Under 30 Ain't Like it Used to Be

BusinessWeek online had a great interview with the owner of a small marketing firm that hired summer interns. She discovered that people under thirty years old have quite different priorities than those of us over fifty. The next CEO of your company may be on Craigslist right now, looking for work, as that seems to be the hot spot where the under 30s look for jobs.

Tom would say we should worship the young; I say, at least have a few on board your team. The diversity of thought alone is worth dealing with any work style differences that they bring.

Small*Mart VT

Must read: Michael Shuman's The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition. (A great companion to Bo Burlingham's Small Giants: Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, discussed here several times.) I pick this time to mention the book because of a local happening that occurred yesterday. My closest town is Manchester Center, Vermont (pop 3,000; Tinmouth, where my farm is, comes in at 500). Small though the town might be, "our" bookstore, Northshire Bookstore (see picture above), won the ultra-prestigious Publisher's Weekly "Bookseller of the Year" award this year. It is deserving—a true "small giant" that "gets" the Small-Mart idea. (Big*Mart in bookselling, of course, is Borders and Barnes & Noble.)

The "yesterday" part of my remark refers to Northshire Bookstore's 30th birthday—celebrated with a blowout party yesterday. One reason for the store's sustaining Excellence is its devotion to re-imaginings—for example, a recent program, which cost the owners a pretty penny, doubled the store's size and was accompanied by complete re-merchandising. The store was already "fine enough and then some"—but "fine enough" is not enough for any of us or our enterprises in 2006.

(Attached you'll find my "Small-Mart," a Special Presentation titled "Wallop Wal*Mart16"—first created for last year's annual meeting of ACB/America's Community Bankers.)

Exuberance

Recently read a marvelous book, Exuberance: The Passion for Life, by Kay Redfield Jamison. Ms Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, is the expert on manic-depressive illness and also author of the stunning Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Below you'll find a few quotes from Exuberance that sent me soaring:

"I believe exuberance is incomparably more important than we acknowledge. If, as has been claimed, enthusiasm finds the opportunities and energy makes the most of them, a mood of mind that yokes the two of them is formidable indeed."—KRJ

"The Greeks bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language—the word 'enthusiasm'—en theos—a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it."—Louis Pasteur

"Exuberance is, at its quick, contagious. As it spreads pell-mell through a group, exuberance excites, it delights, and it dispels tension. It alerts the group to change and possibility."—KRJ

(A brief Special Presentation, "Exuberance," attached, provides a few more quotes in PowerPoint format—what else?)

Must Reads, a Couple+ More

You M-U-S-T read Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao's Will the Boat Sink the Water: The Life of China's Peasants. The book, an immediate mega-bestseller in China, was soon banned—but pirated copies have exceeded legitimate sales by millions.

Yes, I'm one of the ones who talks non-stop about China. And I doubt I'll stop. Nonetheless these two authors tell a compelling and gut-wrenching story about the 900 million Chinese left behind, leagues and leagues behind, as China's economy has soared. The story in and of itself is extraordinary—and the implication that "this must not/will not stand" is utterly fascinating. And, yes, on my recent trip to Norway and Sweden I read it in one sitting!

With much less gravitas, I recommend a couple of fiction entries:

JPod by Douglas Coupland is a matchless look at how today's generation is living and working. It is at once hilarious and compelling—and instructive. Ben, my 21-year-old stepson, raced through it on vacation, and then passed it to me.

Legends, by Robert Littell. I love thriller-spook stories. This tops Le Carré for me. Here's the Washington Post: "Littell has outdone himself [no mean feat—TP] with this dizzying, dazzling portrait of a spy who has so many identities—legends, in spook talk—that he no longer knows who he is."

Keep On Truckin'

Great snippet in this week's Newsweek. "Keep On Truckin'" describes In-Cab University, "the first accredited college catering to the trucking community. Drivers, whose classes start this week, listen to lectures while on the road and submit assignments at rest stops and loading docks using cell phones and Wi-Fi." One driver-student, Stephen Fraser, 38 and a business major, says: "Rather than driving all day and dreaming about lottery winnings, I'm actually using my mind." Several fleets are covering the $225 per credit hour cost. Courses are offered in science, business, the humanities, and personal growth (the latter addressing such relevant issues as long-distance relationships).

Talk about a positive spin for the tech revolution! Congrats to the creators of In-Cab University, the "freshman" drivers—and the companies that are ponying up.

Virgin Brand Hit

I admire Richard Branson. Actually, I am awed by his business savvy, drive, and style. This month's Fast Company (Sept '06) highlights his customer service mindset. [Subscription required.] My experiences with Virgin Airline have been above average. I believe the brand lives in the mind of the consumer and is based on these experiences we have and the dealings we have with the organizations' employees. Yesterday, Virgin brand took a real hit as I watched one of their employees in action at Logan airport.

I was sitting in the Northwest Airlines World Club with my dear friends and colleagues from tpc!UK, Richard King and Madeleine McGrath. Virgin apparently has some kind of agreement that allows them to share the space with Northwest. Overall, the World Clubs do a nice job. Open bar, cappuccino machines, free snacks, free wireless, and friendly staff. As we were enjoying the amenities, the Virgin hostess set up a hot buffet with a pretty good spread. There was no indication that this was for Virgin customers and was set up just a few feet from the NWA snacks. Rick and I stood up and got in line. Then the Virgin Food Police sprung into action. In a very stern voice, she let us know that the food was for Virgin customers only! She even physically grabbed a plate full of food from an NWA patron! Later she walked around with ice cream going table to table making sure that she only offered it to the right people. We openly wondered what Sir Richard would have thought about the display of Virgin hospitality. I even found myself watching how many Virgin customers were helping themselves to NWA crackers and stale cookies!

I certainly have no problem with Virgin's doing something exclusively for their customers. They paid for it, they are entitled to it. But a sign might have helped. Or perhaps a separate seating area. But not the food security force. The episode left me feeling that these are not pleasant people to do business with.

Also, a quick note to NWA execs. While sharing your World Club with another airline might help offset cost, your crackers and cheese looked pretty cheap compared to the other airline's buffet. That is not doing your brand any favors, either.