This is the first of eight videos ranging from "Organizational Excellence" to "Yes, You are in Sales!" We'll be posting these sporadically over the next week or two, whenever we think you may need a jolt of inspiration. Hope you enjoy them.

(1) the chickens are out and about

(2) the tulips are finally blooming

(3) new porch furniture—it's warm enough to move outdoors

(4) construction of Susan's new studio

Happy Spring! (I know it's almost over for some of you—we're just gearing up. And, of course, for others of you south of the Equator, winter is just around the corner in our "little" "global village.")

[For heaven's sake, don't read this article. Ugh!—CM]

Some of you send emails to Tom, using tom (at) tompeters.com or info (at) tompeters.com in an attempt to get a response directly from him. Tom sees the emails, but I answer them, so that we can be sure that every message gets a reply. Though Tom occasionally answers the email, if you'd like a direct response from him, you are much more likely to get his input by commenting on a blog post (brilliantly!). And, as we've said before, please try to keep your exposition in our comments section short and to the point, remembering that we follow the "living room" rule—don't behave in any way you would not behave towards guests in your home.

But as the article points out, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who wouldn't even comment on the BusinessWeek story, may not be that anxious to get the grey flannel business. Why? Because a corporate sales strategy would require both an expensive sales & support staff and a willingness to modify Mac product designs to suit the conflicting demands of corporate buyers. Apple is doing just fine without these hassles, making high margins catering to students and artists who will pay extra for the Apple cool. Budget-conscious CIOs may not be as accommodating.

If you were Steve Jobs, what would YOU do?

"The path to a hostmanship culture paradoxically does not go through the guest. In fact it wouldn't be totally wrong to say that the guest has nothing to do with it. True hostmanship leaders focus on their employees. What drives them is finding the right people and getting them to love their work and see it as a passion. ... The guest comes into the picture only when you are ready to ask, 'Would you prefer to stay at a hotel where the staff love their work or where management has made customers its highest priority?'"

"We went through the hotel and made a 'consideration renovation.' Instead of redoing bathrooms, dining rooms, and guest rooms, we gave employees new uniforms, bought flowers and fruit, and changed colors. Our focus was totally on the staff. They were the ones we wanted to make happy. We wanted them to wake up every morning excited about a new day at work."

Works for me.
And you?

He was joking, right?

If 100.00000000000% of BPers had been sound asleep at their work stations throughout the quarter, BP would have had great results as oil hit $120 per barrel.

Do these guys—e.g., "Big Tony"—really believe that their "programs are paying off"? I know it's a game, but surely they must understand what complete idiots they sound like.

On second thought, I guess I can understand their reluctance to tell it like it is: "Wow, are we ever lucky blokes! The Chinese are inhaling hydrocarbons by the gazillions of barrels with no end in sight, the guzzlin' Americans still think "conservation" is a 4-letter word, and the Royals in Saudi and their pawns at OPEC know they have the world over a barrel, as it were. Hence, with no action whatsoever by us, demand is soaring, supply is constrained, and our shareholders are rolling in the resultant loot. Plus, we'll be able to keep capital expenditures well under control, since there is utterly no incentive to find or refine more hydrocarbons and thence increase supply and thereby wound the geese that are laying the golden eggs. You can confidently look forward to us doing absolutely nothing except hiring more accountants and acquiring bigger vaults."

How simply can I put it: There is no one in ad world that I respect more than Lee Clow, the chief creative at TBWA Worldwide—he's been my hero since the 1985 Apple ad showing IBMers as lemmings walking off a cliff. (I was in the Stanford stadium when it played for the one and only time during the Super Bowl.)

The New York Times recently reported on Lee's remarks at a big ad world confab. He seems to have said that the key to getting with it in the New World Order of advertising-marketing is hiring lots of youngsters and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future.

Seems as though I've heard that line before—from me.

Well, to a large extent, Lee and I are simply full of it.

How about hiring ... old people [and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future]?

That is: I have met the future, and it is me!

As most of you know, Susan and I have just returned from a seven-day walking tour along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. There were about 15 of us. As I recall, the age range was about fifty to a little over seventy-five. (!!) While the daily hikes were not reminiscent of the Boston Marathon that occurred the day after we left, they were up-and-down, rocky, and averaged perhaps eight miles a day.

You didn't have to be a Rockefeller to be a part of the group, but a reasonable amount of money changed hands, especially when airfare is included.

We—collectively—are the poster "children" for the most enormous-wealthy-healthy market opportunity, well, ever. As in: ever.

Boomers.
Geezers.

Bill Novelli, AARP head, lets us in on the world's most commercially profound "secret":

"People turning 50 today have more than half of their adult life ahead of them."

When I first read that, I believe it's no exaggeration to say that I literally "gasped." I guess I more or less knew it, but I'd never seen it in such plain-succinct text.

50.
Over.
Half.
To go.

Of equal impact, on a micro level, was the fact that:

The average American buys 13 cars in the course of a lifetime.
She-he buys seven of the thirteen after the age of 50.

Cars.
More than half.
After 50.

The leading edge of boomer-dom is now over 60. I tried to describe, on a single PPT slide, what I think is coming-here, from the Boomers, and their older peers, the [amazingly healthy] Geezers:

"We are the Aussies & Kiwis & Americans & Canadians. We are the Western Europeans & Japanese. We are the fastest growing, the biggest, the wealthiest, the boldest, the most (yes) ambitious, the most experimental & exploratory, the most different, the most indulgent, the most difficult & demanding, the most service & experience obsessed, the most vigorous, (the least vigorous,) the most health conscious, the most female, the most profoundly important commercial market in the history of the world—and we will be the Center of your universe for the next twenty-five years. We have arrived!"

We.
Have.
Arrived.

Back to my gripe with my friend Lee Clow.

Here is my current report card on the market's (manufacturers, retailers, designers, marketers, product and service developers) effort to understand and encompass and exploit this Incredible-Humongous Expanding Market Opportunity:

Awful.
Dumb.
Disgraceful.
Insane.
Stupid.
Pitiful.
Embarrassing.

As I put it, ever so gently, and with great cultural sensitivity, post-Croatia, in my London seminar on 28 April:

"You are all idiots."

Hint: I considered it understatement.

NB: I am not suggesting that things aren't changing. But I am suggesting-insisting that I and my friends on the trip to Croatia and several hundred million others with literally trillions of bucks-Euros burning holes in our collective pockets, will be the centerpiece of economic opportunity for the next Two Decades or so. It ain't forever, but 20 or 25 years is a good, solid hunk of time.

Think: Next quarter century!
(After that you're on your own—and I ain't gonna be bugging you.)

Attached is a short PowerPoint "Special Presentation" on this topic.

Above and below are a couple of pics from our trip.

Before the week [day?] ends, somehow or other begin a serious conversation about your attitude toward and approach to the Boomer-Geezer market.

(Like race in the world of politics, try to examine your implicit biases—eventually with the help of an outside facilitator.)

If at all applicable, consider Very Radical Alternatives—e.g., re-aligning strategy around Boomers-Geezers.

Big idea/s:

    (1) It is a big idea.
    (2) Stir the pot. Now.
    (3) The opportunities are enormous; the response so far is pitiful.
    (4) Don't be an idiot.