Golden Compass

This is a new movie based on the "Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Here is a thoughtful review looking at his anti-God philosophy behind the books.

"In these books, Lyra discovers that Lord Asriel is mounting a war against God, and she meets a boy from our own world named Will, who acquires a knife that can cut through anything, including the barrier between universes. The knife even has a prophetic name, Æsahættr, which means "god-destroyer." By the end of the trilogy, God is dead, and Will and Lyra have reenacted the Fall in the Garden of Eden—but in doing so, they save the universe rather than destroy it.

"In Pullman's story, the God of the Bible is not really the Creator, but simply the first angel who emerged out of what Pullman calls "Dust." When other angels emerged, he lied and said he had created them—and he went on to set up churches in multiple universes, to assert his control over them. But now this angel, who is called "the Authority," is old and weak and faces a rebellion by angels and humans alike....

"Pullman says he's just a storyteller," continues Watkins. "I think he's really slippery at this point. Because it's all very well saying, 'It's just a story, just a fantasy, some of the characters say what I believe and some of them don't'—but in his Carnegie Medal speech, he said stories create the morality we live by.

"The trouble is, he blurs the line between fantasy and reality by giving interviews and talking about the Republic of Heaven in the world. And because he's got all of this anti-God rhetoric in the real world that is even stronger than what's in the book, I think he can't get away with saying, 'It's just a story and you can read into it whatever you like.' Because he does understand what he's saying."

The Smart Complexifier

Another great observation from Tom Peters in the same post I previously quoted on Trying Out Ideas. I bet you know some people like this, especially if you hang around academics!

Years ago, in my McKinsey days, one of my bosses was bemoaning the help we were getting from an "economic genius." He said, "Tom, consider a matrix. One axis boils down to 'simplifier' vs 'complexifier.' The other is 'smart' and 'dumb.' Thus we are dealing with a 2X2 matrix. The analyst-from-heaven is the 'smart simplifier.' The analyst-from hell is 'smart complexifier.' He is, in fact, worse that the 'dumb complexifier,' who you can simply ignore, and the 'dumb simplifier' who might actually be of help."

Trying Out Ideas

I love analyzing and conceptualizing and brainstorming...but have no use for them if they don't result in action. Let's try something, baby! If it works, multiply it; if it flops, move on.

And here we get some more insight into the value of flops - they can lead to great revisions. Tom Peters writing about MIT Media Lab guru Michael Schrage, author of Serious Play:

"You can't be a serious innovator unless you are ready and able to play. 'Serious play' is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation." And, in turn, the heart of his serious play is ... fast prototyping: "Effective prototyping may be the most valuable core competence an innovative organization can hope to have." His intriguing connection, which makes all the sense in the world to me, is that true innovation comes not from the idea per se, though it guides the work, but from the "reaction to the prototype." In fact, in a surprising number of cases (the majority?) the collective responses to a host of fast prototypes reshape the original idea beyond recognition—or lead one down an entirely new path.

Defining Hard Work

From Seth Godin:

Sure, you're working long, but "long" and "hard" are now two different things. In the old days, we could measure how much grain someone harvested or how many pieces of steel he made. Hard work meant more work. But the past doesn't lead to the future. The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that's really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It's about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock....

It's hard work to make difficult emotional decisions, such as quitting a job and setting out on your own. It's hard work to invent a new system, service, or process that's remarkable. It's hard work to tell your boss that he's being intellectually and emotionally lazy. It's easier to stand by and watch the company fade into oblivion. It's hard work to tell senior management to abandon something that it has been doing for a long time in favor of a new and apparently risky alternative. It's hard work to make good decisions with less than all of the data.

Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your coworkers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is far more conservative than sticking with the status quo....

None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they're not smarter than you either. They're succeeding by doing hard work.

As the economy plods along, many of us are choosing to take the easy way out. We're going to work for the Man, letting him do the hard work while we work the long hours. We're going back to the future, to a definition of work that embraces the grindstone....

Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you'd rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you've done that, to do it again the next day.

Good Answer

Coming in at #4 on the Sports Illustrated list of 5 hardest-working athletes of all time, 49-year-old julio Franco of the Atlanta Braves tells the secret of his success:

4. Julio Franco: So maybe he can't get around on the fastball like he used to, but the man the Braves called up last week is 49 YEARS OLD. He's built like a Greek statue, and he can still take a ball to right field better than any of the Braves first basemen (other than Mark Teixiera.) I also like him because after Andy Van Slyke insinuated that Franco must be on steroids, Franco responded, "Tell him the steroid I'm on is Jesus of Nazareth."

Death by waiting

Technically, California supports capital punishment. In practice, it does not.

About 30 criminals a year are sentenced to death, but only one criminal a year is actually executed. The backlog is getting larger and larger and the wait is getting longer and longer. More prisoners die in California from old age than from execution.

The average wait for execution in the state is 17.2 years, twice the national figure. And the backlog is likely to grow, considering the trend: Thirty people have been on death row for more than 25 years, 119 for more than 20 years and 408 for more than a decade.

LA's formula for growth

Interesting background and outlook on LA's urban development

Los Angeles ran out of raw land more than 20 years ago and therefore had to move beyond the traditional suburban ideal of single-family homes on tree-lined streets. So it, along with older suburbs stretching from San Fernando to Westminster, is doing what cities have done throughout history -- building up instead of out to accommodate the housing needs of a growing population and an ever-changing set of construction and space requirements for businesses.

This isn't always pretty. But the end result is what L.A. needs to be -- a more urban city....

In the 1970s, when L.A.'s suburbs began sprouting, the city adopted, in 1974, an innovative general zoning plan that called for high-density development around 38 centers in the city, connected by transit, that would absorb most of the growing population. These centers would allow permanent preservation of the vast fields of single-family houses located between them.

The "centers concept," as it was called, was the brainchild of Calvin Hamilton, city planning director from 1964 to 1986. At a time when planning orthodoxy argued that cities had to be "mono-nuclear" -- built around one extremely dense center, like Manhattan -- L.A.'s plan was nothing less than revolutionary. Hamilton's visionary plan acknowledged that L.A. was "poly-nuclear" -- a place with many centers, of varying sizes, all of which had to be strengthened for the city to accommodate new growth.

A reasonable look at immigration issues

Here's a good article revealing the quandary of the American immigration problem: the need for both effective enforcement and realistic laws. If authorities begin enforcing current laws, businesses and the American economy are going to suffer.

But what if, instead of choking the economy, the no-match blitz only drives more of it underground? Some companies will fire their illegal workers and downsize or move. Others will fire and then rehire them -- more deviously or completely off the books. Shady labor contractors will proliferate. Identity theft will skyrocket. Employers who have tried to play by the rules -- asking to see workers' papers, filling out the required forms -- will suffer, while those who deliberately flout the law will thrive and multiply.

The unintended consequences: more underground hiring, more sub-market wages, more mistreatment of immigrants, less tax revenue (most immigrants with fake papers pay taxes -- $5 billion to $10 billion a year in Social Security taxes) and a less regulated, more dangerous workplace for everyone.

Whose fault will this be? Not the feds -- it's their job to enforce immigration law, a job they've neglected for far too long. Some of the blame will lie with Congress, which could have changed the law, making it possible for employers to legally hire the workers they need. But in the end, the mess will be of our own making -- we the skeptical public who signaled to policymakers in May and June that we didn't trust them to rewrite the immigration code.

We told them to enforce existing law without changes, and that's what we're about to get. The question is what we'll do when that doesn't work and whether we can learn from our mistake.

Long Term Results

are more important than short-term success. And there is no better way to learn over the long haul than trying new things and finding out what works and what doesn't.

Tom Peters' observes that the Miami Dolphins' loss in an exhibition game was an example of "failing forward fast," using it as an experimentation and learning experience for longer term growth:

While often credited for "fail forward fast," Peters actually heard it first from a Philadelphia high-tech executive two decades ago.

"I use it routinely," Peters said.

If Peters, who did some consulting with the late Bill Walsh, was coaching an NFL team, he would use it regularly before exhibitions.

"The whole damn purpose is to test stuff, try stuff," Peters said. "And whether you're shooting pool, playing golf or playing violin, the only way you learn is if you're screwing up. My major argument in the world of business is there's too much planning and too much talking, and not enough doing. The only way you grow, for God's sake, is go out and do it, and then correct quick."

So Peters endorses failure, calling it "not only normal but good," so long as that failure is achieved by trying something "with incredible vigor" and not through laziness. He endorses sticking employees in adverse situations, especially employees like Green, who trust the boss enough to understand — so long as you can recognize when an employee needs confidence and you can respond by creating a more favorable situation.

More is Better

The truth about the debate over global warming is that we all want MORE and we don't like the idea of limiting ourselves - or even worse, others telling us we can't have what we want. The real American Idol is consumption. Seth Godin gives ideas on how to market ecology:

"More has been around for thousands of years. Kings ate more than peasants. Winning armies had more weapons than losing ones. Elizabeth Taylor had more husbands than you.

"Car dealers are temples of more. The local Ford dealership lists four different models... by decreasing horsepower. Car magazines feature Bugattis, not Priuses on the cover. Restaurants usually serve more food (and more calories) than a normal person could and should eat.

"Is this some sort of character flaw? A defective meme in the system of mankind? Or is it an evil plot dreamed up by marketers?

"There's no doubt that marketers amplify this desire, but I'm certain it's been around a lot longer than Jell-O.

"One reason that the litter campaign of the 1960s worked so well is that 'not littering' didn't require doing less, it just required enough self control to hold on to your garbage for an hour or two. The achilles heel of the movement to limit carbon is the word 'limit.'

"It's a campaign about less, not more. Even worse, there's no orthodoxy. There's argument about whether x or y is a better approach. Argument about how much is enough. As long as there's wiggle room, our desire for more will trump peer pressure to do less. "Fight global warming" is a fine slogan, except it's meaningless. That's like dieters everywhere shouting, "eat less" while they stand in line to get bleu cheese dressing from the salad bar.

"As a marketer, my best advice is this: let's figure out how to turn this into a battle to do more, not less. Example one: require all new cars to have, right next to the speedometer, a mileage meter. And put the same number on an LCD display on the rear bumper. Once there's an arms race to see who can have the highest number, we're on the right track."

First to 100

NCAA Division I championship leaders (men's and women's):

1. UCLA 100
2. Stanford 93
3. USC 84
4. Okla. State 48
5. Arkansas 43
6. Louisiana State 40
7. Texas 39
8t. Michigan 32
8t. North Carolina 32
8t. Penn State 32

Preaching to the Choir

Interesting. It seems that you are more likely to get clients for your services among people who are already enthusiasts and who want to improve, rather than from among those who are the neediest for it.

How to apply this for your product?

"Most people in the US can't cook. So you would think that reaching out to the masses with entry-level cooking instruction would be a smart business move.

In fact, as the Food Network and cookbook publishers have demonstrated over and over again, you're way better off helping the perfect improve. You'll also sell a lot more management consulting to well run companies, high end stereos to people with good stereos and yes, church services to the already well behaved."

Educators Against Competition

Why am I not surprised that the college presidents mentioned in this USA Today article are against judging their schools' performance? Isn't that a basic tenet of modern education, that teachers and the educational process cannot be held up to evaluation of results?

A dozen college presidents have pledged to boycott a key component of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings because they say the popular rankings mislead prospective students and encourage gamesmanship.

The presidents — from a range of mostly smaller institutions including Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and Earlham College in Indiana — outlined their complaints in a letter dated Saturday to colleagues at other schools.

The letter says the dozen colleges have pledged to stop filling out the part of the survey in which colleges rate each other, which accounts for 25% of a college's ranking. The colleges say they also will no longer use the rankings in their own promotions and ask other schools to do the same.

Religious Interest Growing at US Universities

This report from the International herald Tribune, including some of their analyses:

Across the country, on secular campuses as varied as Colgate University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, chaplains, professors and administrators say students are drawn to religion and spirituality with more fervor than at any time they can remember.

More students are enrolling in religion courses, even majoring in religion; more are living in dormitories or houses where matters of faith and spirituality are a part of daily conversation; and discussion groups are being created for students to grapple with such questions as what happens after death, dozens of university officials said in interviews.

A survey of the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed and that almost 80 percent believed in God.

Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Minimize or Maximize?

Seth Godin tells of an encounter with bad marketing, at the Indian Embassy when trying to get a visa. He lists many ways to improve the attractiveness and easiness of travelling to India, then notes:

"My takeaway was this: the people in that building were way too nice and way too smart to not know the many ways they could fix this process. The problem is that this bureaucracy, like most bureaucracies, has an attitude of minimizing, not maximizing. They want to minimize expense, not maximize benefit. There isn't a single person there who has as part of his job, "change systems to increase the satisfaction of people we deal with." Nobody who is charged with, "increase revenue opportunities for us and for the people we work with." Or even, "employ more people in Delhi."

"Same thing happens at my village zoning board, at most schools, at many churches and even, believe it or not, at most businesses. It's not that difficult, but it requires a very different mindset."

Is your organization focused on maximizing or minimizing?

World's Top Brands

What do the world's top brands have in common?

A lot of customers!

And one reason is that most of these companies provide good experiences - they do their jobs well and make customers happy. You know what you are going to get from Google, and they do it well! And they are providing a service that people want.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc. has knocked Microsoft Corp. from its perch as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings released on Monday.

The rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown, also put Google ahead of well-established brands like General Electric Co., No. 2; Coca-Cola Co., No. 4; Wal-Mart Stores, No. 7; and IBM, No. 9.

Some key factors seen this year in building brand recognition ranged from corporate responsibility to serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India, according to the study.

The top-ranked brand from a non-U.S.-based company was China Mobile, which dropped a spot but still came in at No. 5.

The rankings were based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide, Millward Brown said.

For Google, which ranked No. 7 a year ago, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the Web search leader has become an everyday name. The company uses relatively little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth promotion.

By contrast, Microsoft's slide down to third place from first comes even as the software company has been rolling out its new Windows Vista operating system with a massive global marketing blitz.

Eileen Campbell, global chief executive of Millward Brown, said the rankings showed "a blend of good business leadership, responsible financial management and powerful marketing ... can be leveraged to create and grow corporate wealth."

Some of the other big movers on the list included Apple Inc.. which rose 13 spots to No. 16 and Starbucks Corp., which rose 13 spots to No. 35. Those losing ground in the brand rankings included Intel Corp., Home Depot Inc. and Dell Inc.

The Brand Formula

GREAT advice from Seth Godin:

What's a brand?

I think it is the product of two things:

[Prediction of what to expect] times [emotional power of that expectation].

If I encounter a brand and I don't know what it means or does, it has zero power. If I have an expectation of what an organization will do for me, but I don't care about that, no power.

Fedex is a powerful brand because you always get what you expect, and the relief you get from their consistency is high.

AT&T is a weak brand because you almost never get what you expect, because they do so many different things and because the value of what they create has little emotional resonance (it sure used to though, when they did one thing, they did it perfectly and they were the only ones who could connect you).

The dangers of brand ubiquity are then obvious. When your brand is lots of things (like AOL became) then the expectations were all over the place and the emotional resonance started to fade. If the predictability of your brand starts to erode its emotional power (a restaurant that becomes boring) then you need to become predictable in your joyous unpredictability!

If you want to grow a valuable brand, my advice is to keep awareness close to zero among the people you're not ready for yet, and build the most predictable, emotional experience you can among those that care about you.

Living with lies

From World magazine, questioning Americans' acquiescence to media bias. Worth asking ourselves, what lies goes unquestioned in my everyday world? How do they affect me? How should I respond?

"why in the world do we keep listening to our nation's major media? Why do the nation's big newspapers, radio and television networks, and wire services keep getting a pass—when day after day and night after night they keep hurling king-sized lies our way? Just to remind us how gullible we all tend to be, here's a short list of where the big media regularly get it not just slightly skewed but exactly backwards. Here are seven Big Lies we all are subjected to virtually all the time:
"

Needed: Cultural Architects

Seth Godin's comments on this article remind us of the power of context. Great leaders create environments that empower people - helping them see possibilities and creating incentives to act on them.

"[World-class violinist plays for hours in a subway station, almost no one stops to listen]. The experiment just proved what we already know about context, permission and worldview. If your worldview is that music in the subway isn't worth your time, you're not going to notice when the music is better than usual (or when a famous violinist is playing). It doesn't match the story you tell yourself, so you ignore it. Without permission to get through to you, the marketer/violinist is invisible."

A Graphical Dissertation on America's Number One Song

Hilarious satire in the Village Voice, complete with Venn Diagrams and flowcharts:

"The most amazing line in 'This Is Why I'm Hot'—and, even at this early a juncture, quite possibly the most amazing line of any song to see release in 2007—is 'I'm hot 'cause I'm fly/You ain't 'cause you not.' Brutal and unassailable in its simplicity. Consider the reasoning, first, of just 'I'm hot 'cause I'm fly':

Mims is hot because he's fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one's being fly? 'You ain't 'cause you not' would seem to clear that up:"

Redemptive Living

Through the year, magazines publish various lists of the best places to live and work. Who would ever choose to move to the worst place to live and work?

Yet isn't that what Jesus did by coming to earth?

This weekend, as Christians consider his sacrificial death and descent into Hell and subsequent victorious resurrection, perhaps some of us ought to be thinking of ways we could follow his footsteps - by descending into the most undesirable places instead of aspiring to the most desirable places, in order that we could also have some part in leading out some captives.

"According to the Apostles Creed, this day between Good Friday and Easter is when Jesus descended into hell. In December, 2001, I wrote in World about a similar survey of best places to live, and then profiled Christians who purposefully lived and worked in the lowest ranked cities. "

Triangulation

Sometimes offering a third choice makes a decision easier. It becomes a measuring stick to weigh the other two options. How do you offer choices? This from Seth Godin's blog:

"There are two wines for sale at dinner: $9 a bottle or $16 a bottle. Which one do you order?

Now, imagine that there are three, and the third is $34. Are you more likely to buy the $16 bottle now? Most people are.

Competition is almost always a good thing, and marketers can create it... or highlight it. "

Character is the Key to Leadership

According to Warren Bennis in this article:

"...research points to seven attributes essential to leadership. Taken together they provide a framework for leading knowledge workers:

• Technical competence: business literacy and grasp of one's field
• Conceptual skill: a facility for abstract or strategic thinking
• Track record: a history of achieving results
• People skills: an ability to communicate, motivate, and delegate
• Taste: an ability to identify and cultivate talent
• Judgment: making difficult decisions in a short time frame with imperfect data
• Character: the qualities that define who we are

"Senior executives seldom lack the first three attributes; rarely do they fail because of technical or conceptual incompetence, nor do they reach high levels of responsibility without having a strong track record. All these skills are important, but in tomorrow's world exemplary leaders will be distinguished by their mastery of the softer side: people skills, taste, judgment, and, above all, character.

"Character is the key to leadership, an observation confirmed by most people's personal experience, as it is in my 15 years of work with more than 150 leaders, and in other studies I've encountered. Research at Harvard University indicates that 85 percent of a leader's performance depends on personal character. Likewise, the work of Daniel Goleman makes clear that leadership success or failure is usually due to "qualities of the heart" (see "The Emotional Intelligence of Leaders," Fall 1998). Although character is less quantifiable than other aspects of leadership, there are many ways to take the measure of an individual"

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Know Thyself!

Tom Peters commenting on one of the many similarities in thinking between himself and Warren Bennis and Charles Handy:

"One area where Charles & Warren have got me dead to rights is the critical axiom that in order to lead effectively one must know oneself—not navel gazing, but the idea that your core values must not be left unexamined and that you simply must understand how you are understood by others. This is fully half of Charles's presentation. (And will become a larger part of mine.)

(I flatter myself, or resort to wishful thinking, when I say that Bennis &amp; Handy & I might be called 'three peas from the same pod.')"

One reason I think we have a shortage of respected leaders is that so few people know themselves very well.

Sheepwalking

A clever take on a common malady, by Seth Godin:

"I define 'sheepwalking' as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line.

Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?

And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. ("I might get fired!")"

Thoughts on Alignment

I really like the thought of alignment, but it is really hard to put into practice. We see it in clearly in the world of sports, where coaches are able to get their players to understand and fulfill their roles. In organizations, it is harder to identify the skills and roles and objectives, which are more intangible that physical performance on a field. The leaders who can accomplish it are extremely gifted.

"My belief is that when you are in a culture where there is alignment, you do get a sense that everyone is clear about the purpose/ambition of the organization and how their role contributes to that. When people understand how what they do connects to the organization, and if the right systems and processes are in place for the work to get done, alignment can start to happen. On the flipside, I recently visited an organization, and depending who I spoke to, I got a different sense about the company. It felt as if the company had a split personality, maybe multiple personalities. It was clear to me that people were not focusing their energies towards the same goal. The departments weren't in 'relative position,' but rather opposition to each other.

I am not so naïve as to think that every person in an organization will head in the same direction. However, I get concerned when an organization seems scattered, vs. being drawn or pulled in the same direction.

That's my view. What's yours: Is there really such as thing as organizational alignment?"

Observation on Leadership

Regarding the rumored new president of Harvard, an observation on what it takes to be successful:

"“Complex institutions need wise leaders with vision who can inspire collaboration for change,” said Dr. Gutmann, who had said repeatedly that she intended to remain at Penn. “And Drew has all that it takes to be such a leader. She has a strong backbone and sense and sensibility.”"

Quite a checklist:
-wisdom
-vision
-inspirational
-collaborative
-change
-backbone
-sensible

Being Part of Something Special part2

More Tom Peters on great management. Here he's commenting on Daniel Yankelovich and John Immerwahr's 1983 research report, "Putting the Work Ethic to Work." Yankelovich and Immerwahr discovered that there was approximately 70% discretionary effort available in most employees. The discretionary effort being the difference between what they have to do to keep their jobs and what they could do if they brought forth all their talent and effort.

"It seems to me then, that a leader or manager's first job is to pull out that discretionary effort. This starts with clearly identifying the ambition of the organization and helping each and every employee see their part in realizing that ambition. I still believe that one thing we want from our talent is the sense that they make a difference. In my years as a first-line supervisor, I was always amazed at my weakest performers on the job who did amazing volunteer work after hours. Clearly they had the work ethic; we just didn't define an ambition for them worthy of their best efforts."

New Coaches

It's inspiring to read about the new style of coaching making an impact in the NFL. I hope this catches on in other realms of leadership:

"Smith and Dungy, perhaps the two closest friends to coach from opposing sidelines in the Super Bowl, are studies in positive reinforcement. They put unblinking trust in their players. They seek their opinions. Without handing over authority, Smith and Dungy treat their players the way a good boss treats an employee, or a teacher treats a student. For whatever reason, those social rules have not always applied in coaching.
.
'By and large, when you ask good people to accept responsibility, they will, and they will respond,' said the Colts president, Bill Polian. 'They respond to his character, his personality, his care for them, which they return.'
."

"Guys want to know that you believe in them," Smith said. "And then they'll do anything for you. After a while, it grows on you. That's what I see happening here. We have a positive approach to coaching football."

"You don't get tired of Lovie," Bears tight end Desmond Clark said. "He's not trying to impose his way on everybody."

It's About PASSION!!!

Great guidelines from Seth Godin's blog on the potential power of power point:

"Communication is the transfer of emotion.

Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)"

He goes on to give pointers on how to sell your emotion.

Does Success Breed Failure?

This quote from an article about the challenges facing Microsoft sounds paradoxical. How can success breed failure?

Yet it points to a fundamental insight. The ways of thinking and acting that prove effective right here and now may not work in a new time or place where conditions are different, and the very fact of present success may blind us to the need for new strategies and methods.

Are you able to adapt? It takes a basic humility to be able to say that I knew what worked before, but that may be wrong for the current situation. We need continued humility and flexibility for ongoing success - to be lifelong learners.

Can Microsoft Thrive in a New Digital Era? - New York Times:

"“The dilemma for Microsoft is that it is a prisoner of its business model, and the fact that it is a gilt-lined prison makes it brutally hard to change.”

One of the evolutionary laws of business is that success breeds failure; the tactics and habits of earlier triumphs so often leave companies — even the biggest, most profitable and most admired companies — unable to adapt."

Marketable vs. Electable

Would you rather make an impact or be well liked? From Seth Godin's Jan 2 blog:

"To be marketable, you must be remarkable. Marketing isn't about getting more than 50% market share, it's about spreading your idea to enough people to be glad you did it... 3% of a market may be more than enough, especially if you have a local business or an expensive service.

The temptation of the marketer is to try to get elected. To be beloved by everyone. As a marketer, you hear from someone who doesn't love your product and you work to change it. Eventually, that strategy leads to boredom, to sameness and to stagnation.

I know it's tempting to create electable products, but it never works. All the tried and true warhorse successes (Nike, Starbucks, Apple... the NSA of marketing examples) didn't accomplish market share until long after they accomplished becoming remarkable. If the founders had set out to get elected, they would have failed in creating much of anything.

Who have you offended today? You're not running for anything except perhaps Mayor of the Edges."

Part of something extraordinary

This is a quote from "The Secret Letter from Iraq" posted on the internet.

Some interesting observations in the letter, nothing earth-shattering, but very down-to-earth and touching.

One that caught my eye is here - the high re-enlistment rate among Marines. It just reminds me of how we all long to be part of something extraordinary. Where do you find it?

"Highest Unit Re-enlistment Rate — Any outfit that has been in Iraq recently. All the danger, all the hardship, all the time away from home, all the horror, all the frustrations with the fight here — all are outweighed by the desire for young men to be part of a band of brothers who will die for one another. They found what they were looking for when they enlisted out of high school. Man for man, they now have more combat experience than any Marines in the history of our Corps."

Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

From Tom Peters' blog on Dec 8. He argues for promoting your whole industry, including your competitors, because it will benefit your business; and then differentiate yourself from your competitors through your work, not through badmouthing them.

"At the top of my business priority list, I want my overall market to grow by leaps and bounds. My market share will go down (It was about 100% after In Search of Excellence, when I was more or less the only public 'management guru'), but my revenue will soar—the 'bigger pie' axiom.

In short, I want my competitors to thrive. And I welcome their presence at my events. I go so far (see our 'Cool Friends' interviews, for example) as to enhance their careers!"

Is My Leadership Spiritual?

This brief article in Leadership Journal reminds us that spiritual leadership is really about communing with God. It is about letting him shape our character and vision, and then impacting those around us with his presence and purpose. The spiritual leader's first priority is time alone with God.

"Rather than leading from a place of frenetic, ego-driven activity, I am leading from a place of rest where I know what I am called to do and I am confident God will produce it. Rather than manufacturing ministry, I am leading from my own experience with God. Rather than being subject to inner compulsions of the self and outer demands of people's expectations, I am learning to respond to God's call upon my life."

Singapore, a new home for riches

From a Los Angeles Times story:

"Singapore, a new home for riches
The country, which has eased its banking laws, is touted as the next Switzerland. Its resort properties are luring wealthy foreigners."

If any wealthy foreigners are looking for a property investment in Singapore, my family and I would be glad to manage the place for you : )

The Shuffle Generation

Happy 5th Birthday, iPod!

Beyond our music-listening habits, the ipod and iTunes Store have revolutionized how we consume and control our entertainment.

"But to me, the iPod's biggest legacy will be the shift it symbolizes by its signature feature, the shuffle. In the simplest sense, this refers to the way iPod users can randomly reorder the contents of their music libraries to create instant radio stations stocked with music they chose. So although you don't know what song will come next, you know it's one you'll almost certainly like....

This reflects the experience that the Internet offers in other categories. Instead of buying an entire newspaper, you can cherry-pick articles from a vast virtual newsstand (shuffle the news!); instead of being stuck with the offerings in a department store or mall, you can engage in a focused global shopping spree in which even the most obscure goods are a mouse click away (shuffle the shopping!). And instead of being stuck in the covers of a book, or the contents of your local research library, Google promotes the prospect of typing in a few words in a search field and getting page after page or relevant results from books, videos, research reports and Web pages (shuffle all of human knowledge!)."

The Power of Small

Years ago I read the classic book "The Ugly American" which teaches the power of personal action, appropriate technology, small development projects. It biased me against large capital projects in developing countries which seem to lend themselves to corruption, and which seemed to be the way the US government went about community development.

Today I read in Tom Peters' blog that that the so-called father of microlending won the Noble Peace Prize. I hope many more will take up this approach to development, which is the methodology which most of my friends in the Christian church and mission world are taking:

"Yunus is the father of microlending, one of the most potent tools of ours or any other times. Microlending was long dismissed by the powers that be (the World Bank among them) as being a peanuts idea. Big Loans for Big Projects was the ticket. Yup, big loans for big projects was the ticket for a few good things ... and an unimaginable amount of corruption.

Yunus started Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. A typical first loan is $15. After many a trial and many an error, Grameen ended up granting over 90% of its loans to women. (Women = Reliable. Men = Unreliable.) Lending primarily to women in a Muslim country was, to say the least, no mean feat. Yet Yunus persisted."

Spiritual Formation

"Spiritual formation in a Christian tradition answers a specific human question: What kind of person am I going to be? It is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person. That's all it is. You are taking on the character of Christ in a process of discipleship to him under the direction of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. It isn't anything new, because Christians have been in this business forever. They haven't always called it spiritual formation, but the term itself goes way back."

- Dallas Willard

Thoughts on goodness and decency

From Dennis Prager:

"Indeed, much of the world is no longer capable of even identifying the indecent -- or the decent, for that matter. Moral relativism, multiculturalism and dividing humanity between strong and weak or rich and poor, as opposed to dividing it between the decent and the indecent, have all virtually paralyzed the human conscience.

The net result is that not only do the bad keep eradicating the good, but much of the world actually denies that fact, denies that we can even categorize any people as 'good' or 'bad,' and often opposes the best taking up arms against the worst.

Is the prognosis for good triumphing over bad therefore hopeless? Not yet. The good need to fight not only the bad but also the vast middle of humanity who can't tell the difference between the two. It is a daunting task."

Notes on Success

The ones who succeed are usually the ones who are not afraid of failure, and not deterred by failure. Which relates to a few of characteristics - courage to go for it, persistence to keep going for it, and vision to have something to go for.

"To put all of this in context, and before you start to vomit at my bragging, I must confess that I fail miserably about ten times for every one success. (That’s an accurate estimate. I’ve literally kept score.) But interestingly, the failures always involved activities that seemed entirely feasible. I was completely qualified for all of the things that failed. Ironically, I couldn’t even “keep my day job.”" [whereas his long list of successes involved areas way outside his competence, but where he had a premonition he could succeed]

The Biggest Mind-Flip in Business Today

This article reminds us that one smart person in the room is no longer enough. The most effective leaders are able to elicit and utilize the contributions of many people.

How are you at creating a culture of contribution?

"creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling 'architecture of participation.' That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products? Ultimately, he argues, the companies that are most likely to dominate their business are the ones most adept at harnessing the collective intelligence of everyone with whom they do business."

Leadership for the "I-Cubed Economy"

I love the sound of this from one of my favorite writers. It's inspiring to me, and I would love to be "leaderful" as he describes it. But I'm a little skeptical about how this will really translate into our everyday lives, where people are comfortable with traditional authority structures.

"According to my recent research, we have entered what experts call the 'I-Cubed Economy' ... which stands for INTANGIBLES, INNOVATION, and INFORMATION. Knowledge assets (what people know and put into use), collaboration assets (who people interact with to create value), engagement assets (the level of commitment and energy of people) and time quality (how quickly value is created) are the four factors of production in this 'Intangible Economy' according to Wikipedia. 'They' also say this new era calls for new leadership ... 'post heroic' leadership which is based on 'bottom-up transformation fueled by shared power and community building.' Organizations that apply this leadership approach are referred to as 'leaderful' and assume that all of us have leadership qualities that can be pooled and drawn upon as needed.

Here's where this conversation gets juicy ... in a world that changes so rapidly, the gap between what we know and what we do has to close...leaders can't just know that command and control leadership doesn't work ... they actually have to DO a different kind of leadership ... NOW! The problem, as I see it, is that we lead from our rearview mirrors. We learn to lead from those who lead us, in an environment that supports old business practices and in cultures that reinforce old values and belief systems. If we learn from those before us ... are we not, in fact, followers? And, if we want to be great leaders, doesn't it make sense that we look to our 'followers' to learn how to lead? Imagine a future and live into it, rather than trying to just improve upon or change the past? We spend a lot of energy trying to capture and apply best practices ... but, in a world with so much change ... what is the shelf life of a best practice anyway?"

Countdown to 300 Million

The US population hits 300 million on Octebr 16th, up from 100 mil in 1915 and 200 mil in 1967.

Other interesting stats are mentioned in this LA Times article.

"Right now the formula is one birth per seven seconds, one death per 13 seconds and one net increase in immigrants per 30 seconds. With the number of deaths subtracted from the number of births, immigration accounts for about 40% of population growth."

Teaching Groups

Some thoughts worth considering for preachers, from Seth Godin's blog. In an increasingly selective world, how to make mass-delivered information interesting?

Make it emotional (preachers should get this one) and make it interactive (include time for personal reflection and small group interaction?).

I would also suggest making it enjoyable, which is perhaps part of making it emotional.

"Here’s my point: In our scan and skip world, in a world where technology makes it obvious that we can treat different people differently, how can we possibly justify teaching via a speech?

Speech is both linear and unpaceable. You can’t skip around and you can’t speed it up. When the speaker covers something you know, you are bored. When he quickly covers something you don’t understand, you are lost.

If marketing is the art of spreading ideas, then teaching is a kind of marketing. And teaching to groups verbally is broken, perhaps beyond repair. Consumers of information won’t stand for it....

If you teach--teach anything--I think you need to start by acknowledging that there’s a need to sell your ideas emotionally. So you need to use whatever tools are available to you--an evocative powerpoint image, say, or a truly impassioned speech.

Then, and this is the hard part, if you’re teaching to a group of more than three people, you need to find a way to engage that is non-linear. Q&A doesn’t work for a large group, because only the questioner is engaged at any given moment (if you’re lucky, the questioner represents more than a few, but she rarely represents all)."

The Value of History

Here is another reminder of the importance of paying attention to what has gone on before. We can learn from our predecessors' experience and wisdom.

This article quotes John Ashcroft in a 9/11 memorial speech:

"Observation number two. The father of our Nation, George Washington, steamed open the mail in the fight for freedom. Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt monitored all communications across our borders, and Roosevelt interned over a 100,000 people, a third of them that were citizens of the United States of America. Neither Woodrow Wilson nor Roosevelt suffered domestic casualties."

A Great Tribute

It is thrilling to read the tribute in this article about legendary golfer and follower of Christ, Byron Nelson.

Over and over people comment on the way he conducted himself and the way he was respected by others.

I especially like this summation: "the thing that defined the man was _______"

What kind of influence are you having on those who know you? If they summed up your character, what would they say defined you?

"'Byron Nelson was a man who was at peace, a man whose life and entire being was filled with joy,' Nantz said. 'If you were lucky enough to come into his area, he passed it on to you. For all his accomplishments, the thing that defined the man was his faith, his goodness and his joyful heart and spirit.'"

Customer Service - just don't say no

The Bible says: "Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them." (Eph 4:29)

It struck me that Jesus wants the default attitude of his followers to be positive, and to leave the critical responses up to him. (He tells us elsewhere not to worry, that he will judge.)

These are hard instructions for me to follow, because I am good at evaluating, and like to point out when others need correction. But he is the Boss, and I am just his counter worker - like this illustration about McDonald's from Seth Godin's blog:

"When I was in business school, we did the McDonald's case. Part of our preparation was to go to the nearby McDonald's with a stopwatch and clipboard. We walked in the door and stood just long enough to get noticed. Boy did those guys hop to attention. Then we went to another McDonald's and performed the following experiment (please, please do not try this at home, just take my word for it). We ordered a milkshake and a Big Mac. Ate half the Big Mac. Drank half the milkshake. We put the Big Mac remainder into the milkshake cup and went to the counter, 'I'm sorry, I can't drink this shake, there's a Big Mac in it.' They gave us a new one.

Why?

Because McDonald's didn't want counter people making decisions about who to say 'no' to. It was worth the expense of humoring idiots like my study group for the brand power of knowing that counter people didn't alienate people on a sliding scale."

What's the Matter with Liberals?

They don't like the marketplace decisions people make when they have economic freedom, so liberals want to force everyone to make the right decisions with their money. (Conservatives, on the other hand, focus on moral decisions.)

"Their campaign [against Wal-Mart] is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets.... Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots, and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals.

Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?

No. The current issue of The American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for ``lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses'' and of having brought ``great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world.''

What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).

When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled ``What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?'' No, the book they turned into a best-seller is titled ``What's the Matter With Kansas?'' Notice a pattern here?"

NBC slices and dices "Veggie Tales"

Sad, but not all that surprising, to read about the anti-religious editing at NBC.

Veggie Tales is a very popular Christian children's cartoon which has sold more than 50 million DVDs. Network TV wants to get in on the bonanza, but having signed up the program, they want to strip it of what has made it popular - its biblical values.

"This is one of those moments where you understand that networks like NBC are only talking an empty talk and walking an empty walk when it comes to the First Amendment, and 'creative integrity,' and so on. They have told parents concerned about their smutty programs like 'Will and Grace' that if they're offended, they have a remote control as an option. The networks have spent millions insisting that we have a V-chip in our TV sets. Change the channel. Block it out.

But when it comes to religious programming -- programming that doesn't even mention Jesus Christ -- just watch the hypocrisy. Instead of telling viewers to just change the channel if they don't like it, or put in a V-chip for Bible verses, they demand to producers that all that outdated old-time religion has to be shredded before broadcast.

It's truly sad that this anti-religious hypocrisy would emerge. Today, no one in network TV fears what the children are watching -- unless it makes them think about God."

Americans' Four Visions of God

Although 91.8% of Americans say they believe in God, there is a lot of room for difference in what they mean by "believe" and by "God."

Baylor University has recently conducted the most extensive survey of American religious beliefs. They found belief in God falling into four views:

31% The Authoritarian God
24% The Distant God
23% The Benevolent God
16% The Critical God

"Still, says Baylor's Christopher Bader, “you learn more about people's moral and political behavior if you know their image of God than almost any other measure. It turns out to be more powerful a predictor of social and political views than the usual markers of church attendance or belief in the Bible.”"

Still, I don't like any of these labels for the God I worship, who is much bigger than labels.

Family Movie Night

Here's a VERY favorable review of the new movie Lassie, along with a list of the some great movies for young viewers. Most of them I haven't heard of, but I now want to get them for family movie nights.

"Director Charles Sturridge has brought Lassie back to the screen, and it's likely that many moviegoers are rolling their eyes, writing it off as just another disposable kid-flick about wisecracking critters.

But think again. Lassie isn't just better than the other films currently being marketed for all ages. It's a rare work of substance, simplicity, and grace that deserves to be mentioned among the best features crafted for younger viewers in the last twenty years, including Mike Newell's Into the West, John Sayles' The Secret of Roan Inish, Alfonso Cuarón's A Little Princess, Agnieszka Holland's The Secret Garden, Carroll Ballard's Duma, and Andrew Davis's Holes. Some critics are using the word 'classic' even though it's only just arrived.

Sticking to the basic plot of Eric Wright's 1940 novel Lassie Come Home, this film returns Lassie to the context of the original novel, where her adventure leads her from the home of the Carraclough family in a Yorkshire mining town to a vast estate in Scotland."

People Love Passion

We had a moment of silence on Monday for one of our heros, Steve Irwin. My family loved his shows and movie and were thrilled they got to meet him at the Singapore Zoo this year. We were stunned and saddened by news of his death.

We really couldn't believe it! How could he die? He was indestructable. He was an inspiration for all of us to be a little more adventurous. Now I guess we will all go back to playing it a little bit safer. Even Steve Irwin wasn't invincible.

What made him so appealing to us? He had tons of charisma and showed us adventures we didn't even dream about.

But I think it was how passionate he was about life that attracted us and millions around the world. Wouldn't you love to be half that enthusiastic half the time?

We'll miss the raw Stevo. Check out this article for a good protrait of him.

"'I can travel through life just being me. 'Cause, deadset, the secret of our success is just havin' raw Stevo.' "

Gays must change, says archbishop

Glad to read these words by Rowan Williams, the leader of the world's Anglicans.

"The revelations came in a newspaper interview last week in which the archbishop denied that it was time for the church to accept homosexual relationships, suggesting that it should be welcoming rather than inclusive. 'I don't believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don't say 'Come in and we ask no questions'. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions,' he told a Dutch journalist.

'Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics.'"

Who's Paying Taxes

Interesting stats from the IRS:

"First, the new data show that the bottom 50% of Americans in income--U.S. households with an income below the median of $44,389--paid a smaller share of total income taxes in 2004 (3.3%) than in Bill Clinton's last year in office (3.9%). That 3.3% is the lowest share of total income taxes paid by the bottom half of earners in at least 30 years, and probably ever. The majority of American families with an income below $40,000 pay no income tax at all today, and many of them also get a welfare subsidy from the Earned Income Tax Credit that effectively offsets much of what they pay in payroll taxes."

Another interesting point, seemingly contradicting those who don't think the rich are paying their fair share:

Richest 1% earn 19% of US income, and pay 37% of taxes. In other words, twice their share.

The richest 5% earn 33% of US income and pay 57% of US taxes.

The bacteria of stupidity

Summing up the world...

"the official spokesman of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, Ghazi Hamad....told his fellow Palestinians to dismiss Israel's responsibility for the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the Gaza Strip. He said it was time for the Palestinians to embark on a soul-searching process to see where they erred.

'We're always afraid to talk about our mistakes. We're used to blaming our mistakes on others. What is the relationship between the chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, indiscriminate murders, theft of land, family rivalries, transgression on public lands and unorganized traffic and the occupation? We are still trapped by the mentality of conspiracy theories -- one that has limited our capability to think.'

I pray for this man's safety after he said such a sensible thing in such a lunatic place. But what takes his comments beyond a brave, local wisdom to a shrewd global insight was his epigrammatic conclusion:

'We have all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity.' 'We have lost our sense of direction and we don't know where we're headed.'

That seems to sum the world up pretty well. "

Crying wolf on the issue of evil

Bravo to Micahel Medved for pointing out the avoidance (on the left) and overuse (on the right), of labeling people evil

"Liberals regularly discredit themselves by their refusal to recognize the existence of evil in this world, and with their notorious reluctance to call that evil by its proper name. As conservatives, on the other hand, we occasionally undermine our cause by crying wolf on evil – imputing wickedness and malevolence to those with whom we merely disagree in ongoing debates on government policy."

There's gold in them there discs!

Interesting statistic here that reminds us how important the home video industry is to Hollywood studios.

"'Finding Nemo' is the all-time bestseller on DVD; it made $340 million at the U.S. box office and $537 million in home video."

Worldviews in Conflict

Dennis Prager makes a strong argument in this article for the moral inferiority of Islamic societies. Isn't Islam, if faithfully practiced, basically intolerant?

"No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best."

Worldviews in Conflict

Dennis Prager makes a strong argument in this article for the moral inferiority of Islamic societies. Isn't Islam, if faithfully practiced, basically intolerant?

"No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best."

Map Your Life

This looks like a lotta fun....I love maps, and I love nostalgia, so making a personalized map of my favorite places and memories sounds like something I could spend hours on!

"Built on conventional mapping data from services such as Google Maps, these sites let you add digital pushpins that link to personal descriptions of the locations....any visitor can peruse the contributions of others on these sites....

"Want to follow the virtual footsteps of Jack Bauer, protagonist of the TV show 24? Users can also post comments on other users' maps."

Making What People Want

Note to those who are selling a product or service, but have no name recognition to launch from:

"I'm afraid we come back to something that marketers have been struggling with for a really long time--the best way to succeed is to have a really great product."

What People Want

We all want to be special while enjoying the comfort of the crowd.

"What people want

The same thing everyone else is having, but different.

A menu where the prices aren't all the same.

More attention than the person sitting next to them.

A slightly lower price than anyone else.

A new model, just moments before anyone else, but only if everyone else is really going to like it.

A seat at a sold out movie.

Access to the best customer service person in the shop, preferably the owner.

Being treated better, but not too much better.

Being noticed, but not too noticed.

Being right."

The War For China's Soul

Balanced view and interesting commentary on Chinese Christians in Time magazine:

"In the long run, though, government attempts to circumscribe how people practice their faith seem unlikely to succeed--and could well spark more unrest. It's telling that even in the face of such crackdowns, some Chinese Christians say they are confident that they will eventually win the freedom to practice their faith as they choose. Brother Chow (not his real name) is one. He is every inch the model of the modern Chinese Christian, a preacher who doubles as a businessman. Despite his pressed jeans, polo shirt and fancy mobile phone, he professes to believe in a deep, ancient faith, one that he says has carried many a Christian through persecution. 'Why don't I think it will be a problem? Because as time goes on, the government will get to know the Christian spirit and realize that God exists.' He smiles with the secret knowledge of a true believer. 'And then,' he says, 'they will become Christians too.'"

Islamic Fascists?

Helpful observations from columnist Charles Colson:

"The expression “Islamic fascism” is used in order to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and the perpetrators of terrorism. It serves also to make a point that our enemy isn’t Islam itself, but a particular kind of Islam that perpetrates terrorism and tyranny....

"That still leaves the question: Is it right to call the bin Ladens of the world “Islamic fascists”? The answer is “yes.” The president was right on.

"As Stephen Morris of Johns Hopkins recently wrote, fascism’s goal is to “achieve national greatness” through totalitarian control of both political and social life; it seeks to create an empire; and it “aspires to re-create a mythical past.”"

Renewing the Mind

In his book Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard quotes John Calvin, making a point from a Christian perspective similar to the one made by David Foster Wallace in my previous post on "Real Freedom."

For as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God." (Willard, p.63)

He goes on to point out that this has been the classic viewpoint of Christianity, following the teaching of the Bible which says, "let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." (Romans 12:2)

The Real Freedom That Comes From Education

Here's a fascinating commencement speech. The kind of stimulating thinking I don't hear very often.

"This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

"They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

"And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like 'displayal']. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

"That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."

'A More Practical Approach'

This thoughts in this article do not so much represent a new attitude by Christians in China as they represent a new kind of Christian in China.

Educated, urban professionals who have become Christians recently, and who became adults since Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

They have more progressive expectations for Chinese society than the less educated, rural Christians who have been believers longer and experienced persecution as a powerless minority.

This is an exciting development in China's move toward building a civil society. May God bless them and increase their numbers.

"As Yu Jie put it at the conference, 'Christians need to change from 'silent resilience' to a more practical approach. Christians have to change.' That more practical approach will require a shift in consciousness and terminology—from 'underground church' to 'family church,' said Yu Jie.

Yu Jie goes further. 'We want to bring changes to China through the love and justice of God, and through nonviolent means. God will raise great spiritual men like Martin Luther King and Archbishop Tutu who changed their countries by their faith.'"

Life Lessons through Failure

Years later, a former player realized that the difficult experiences on his college basketball team were what taught him the lessons that helped him succeed in business and family and life.

"'I look back at my days at UCLA and now realize it was the greatest experience any young person could have had.” Hill recalls.

“I discovered learning can’t always be pleasant. Sometimes the people who help you the most when you're young aren't necessarily the ones telling you everything is great all the time.”"

God's Hall of Fame

This poem had a profound impact on me as a teenager when I read it in John Wooden's book "They Call Me Coach."

God's Hall of Fame

To have your name inscribed up there is greater yet by far,
Than all the halls of fame down here and everyone man-made star.
This crowd on earth, they soon forget the heroes of the past,
They cheer like mad until you fall and that's how long you last.

I tell you, friend, I would not trade my name, however small,
If written there beyond the stars in that celestial hall,
For any famous name on earth or glory that they share,
I'd rather be an unknown here and have my name up there."

Living Under a Rock

This reminder from marketing guru Seth Godin for anyone who is trying to get a message across:

"Never underestimate the ability of the public to ignore you. They can and they will."

Lodestars of Breakthrough Success

Worthy of some reflection and self-evaluation: how do you rate in your quotient of focus, curiosity, passion, and courage?

"Nothing of much significance has ever been achieved, and nothing of much value has ever been created, that wasn't, at some time the point of someone's single-minded focus, the object of someone's intense curiosity, the subject of someone's deep passion, and the product of someone's enduring courage."

Class envy

Observations from Abraham Lincoln that I think apply to modern-day terrorism: isn't it really class envy?

"You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich."

"World opinion" is worthless

Dennis Prager comments on the value of "world opinion." As someone else said, it is doubtful if the majority has ever been right.

"If you are ever morally confused about a major world issue, here is a rule that is almost never violated: Whenever you hear that 'world opinion' holds a view, assume it is morally wrong.

"And here is a related rule if your religious or national or ethnic group ever suffers horrific persecution: 'World opinion' will never do a thing for you. Never.

"'World opinion' has little or nothing to say about the world's greatest evils and regularly condemns those who fight evil."

Sharpest Manmade Object Ever: A Tungsten Needle

This is amazing. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of an atom before.

"The picture you're looking at on the left is the tip of a tungsten needle, which happens to be the sharpest object ever made by man. How sharp is it? Well, you see those red and black orbs? Those are ATOMS! And the tip of the needle? One single atom."

What LA Needs

On my recent trip to LA, the biggest change I saw from 2 years ago is how freeway traffic is now a daylong affair. No longer are the roads wide open from 10am to 3pm.

LA drivers need a m more sophisticated way to figure out where the congestion is. Of course, they also need more highways.

"If you want to understand what an Internet-map-powered world might be like, look to Europe, where there's a higher adoption rate of mapping technology. In the United States, for example, commuters get traffic updates from frenzied helicopter pilots shouting over muddled AM radio; it's literally a top-down model. Many European drivers enjoy a more elegant solution. TomTom, Europe's leading in-car navigation company, dynamically updates traffic conditions on the maps in users' GPS devices, including which roads are congested because of an accident or roadwork and even the location of speed traps, all with the help of its subscribers. In effect, travelers are forming instant communities to cooperatively learn about their environment."

The compassionate ones

This article points out that the overwhelming factor in determining a person's compassion level is not politics, but religion:

"conservatives have slightly more compassionate attitudes than liberals; for example, they are three percentage points more likely to say they have tender, concerned feelings for the less fortunate.

Far more important than politics, however, is religion: people who attend their house of worship nearly every week are 15 points more likely to say they have tender feelings toward the less fortunate than people who never attend worship services (or attend less than once a year). That difference persists even when grouping people by their demographic characteristics, such as age, race, education, sex, marital status, and income.

As we all know, talk is cheap. So even if religious people say they feel more compassionate, do they also act more compassionately?

They do. Religious people of all political persuasions are 40 per cent more likely to donate to charities each year than secular people, and more than twice as likely to volunteer. They are also more than three times more likely than secular people to give each month, and three and one-half times as likely to volunteer that often.

And those religious believers aren't just giving to their churches, either. Research on volunteerism and philanthropy shows clearly that people who give and volunteer for religious organisations are far more likely than others to donate time and money to secular charities as well. For example, a 2000 survey of 30,000 people around the United States shows that religious people are 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give (and 21 points more likely to volunteer) to explicitly nonreligious causes and charities.

Perhaps it is unfair to conclude that secular people (even those who feel compassionate) are simply less generous than religious people. Secularists with compassionate sentiments may simply be more likely to favour non-private means to help others - say, by supporting higher taxes to cover government welfare pa"

Do You Need A Boss?

From Seth Godin's blog:

You don't realize how much you need a boss until you don't have one. Bosses don't always do the following, especially when they're not very good bosses, but here's what we know about good bosses:

Bosses organize your time for you.
Bosses decide what's urgent.
Bosses give you cover when you work on something stupid ('she told me to!')
Bosses pay you even when the client doesn't honor the invoice.
Bosses can be sued.
Bosses create deadlines, and stick with them.
Bosses make sure you show up in the morning.
Bosses pay for the Postits.
Bosses give you someone to complain about.
Bosses carve up the work and give you just that piece you signed up to do.
Bosses give you a role model. (Sometimes one to work against, but that's a different story).

The main thing a boss does, though, is give you the momentum you need to get through the stuff that takes perseverance. The main thing that ends the career of a Free Agent is the lack of a hand pushing on the back, someone handing out assignments and waiting for the deliverables. Who keeps you going when you don't feel like doing it?

If you don't have a boss, you may need to invent one."

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06_crm_allstaff.jpg
Originally uploaded by crmphoto.

Our family had a great time at the CRM Worldwide Conference, connecting with colleagues from around the world who are building spiritual leaders. Our boys, especially, feel a great sense of connection being "CRM Kids."

What Was the Point, Again?

I like this quote on the decline of American liberal Christianity:

"When your religion says 'whatever' on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church."

What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It?

I'm sitting in a public library in southern California and enjoying the free public wireless internet connection that the city of Fullerton provides. It's wonderful for a visitor like me, who doesn't have internet access where I am staying.

But if I lived here, I would have broadband at home and at the office, and doubt I would go to the library to get on the internet.

Maybe it would be helpful if I am out somewhere and need to check the internet or email for some reason, but that would be on rare occasions.

"Yet as Taipei has found out, just building a citywide network does not guarantee that people will use it."

Family in Monterey

My boys fell in love with the California coastline on a trip to Monterey in June.

Shaq Blames Poor Performance on Brainpower

Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat lost the opener of the NBA Championship series when "the three-time champion went 1-for-9 at the free throw line, leading Miami's abysmal 7-for-19 performance.

"'Throughout my career, I've known that for my team to win a championship, I have to step up at the line,' O'Neal said. 'I will. I was probably thinking about it too much.'"

Thinking about it too much?

Yes, sometimes we can over-analyze. Lots of times our intuition knows what our brains haven't figured out yet.

Have you been able to find that balance between your cognitive and intuitive strengths?

A Sea of Sand Is Threatening China's Heart

Wow, read the staggering statistic from this article about the advance of the desert in NW China "...its precarious state threatens to accelerate the spread of barren wasteland to the heart of China.

The national 937 Project, set up to fight the encroaching desert, estimated in April that 1,500 square miles of land, roughly the size of Rhode Island, is buried each year. Nearly all of north central China, including Beijing, is at risk."

Could it be that the crucial commodity for China's future is not oil, but water?

Attention-Juggling in the High-Tech Office

"TECHNOLOGY is having a double-edged impact in the workplace, says Ed Reilly, president and chief executive of the American Management Association. It improves productivity, he says, but it may also be a distraction that prevents high-quality thinking."

I like the sound of that phrase: "high-quality thinking."

How important is high-quality thinking to my work and life, and what do I do to pursue it?

Certainly time-management is crucial. Also relating to people that stimulate my thinking, and putting myself in learning contexts. And carving out blocks of time for thinking rather than for action.

It reminds me of a phrase I read in a bok by Eugene Peterson more than 20 years ago. "When did the pastor's study become the pastor's office?"

And back then, we didn't even have computers in our offices. Or fax machines. Or cell phones! But I think even 2,000 years ago it was easy to let activity crowd out the "high-level" functions of thinking and spiritual formation.

"We apostles should spend our time preaching and teaching the word of God, not administering a food program." Acts 6:2

New Friends from Down Under

We had a great visit with houseguests Rick & Marcy Paynter this week.

Rick is a pastor in Melbourne, and they are friends with my mate Steve. Check out their website. Marcy is a Creative Arts lover, so she and K!Mberly shared some drama. They introduced us to a great learning resource from Mars Hill Church in Michigan, USA, called Nooma.

Zeroing In on a Hundred

UCLA has set the standard in US collegiate athletics, and are about to be the first team to reach the milestone of 100 team championships.

They were a relative newcomer when they won their first championship in 1950, more than fifty years after Yale won the first NCAA team title. However, since then they have passed up every other school by a wide margin.

"The Bruins are No. 1 in No. 1s and are on the cusp of a milestone.

The women's water polo team notched UCLA's 99th NCAA team title on May 14 — toppling USC in the championship game, no less. Stanford is second with 92 titles, and USC is third with 84, with a huge margin over fourth-place Oklahoma State, which has 47."

Coaching Your Best People

Here's some practical help from Marcus Buckingham's book, "First, Break All the Rules" on how to attract, retain and develop top performers.

"Gallup narrowed the material down to 12 questions that proved to be effective tools to measure the core elements needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees. Here they are:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?

8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?

9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

10. Do I have a best friend at work?

11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?

12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

According to the book First Break All the Rules, questions 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 are linked to retention."

The Fictional Defense

"It's just a story" say the movie makers, but they take the Davinci Code details so seriously.

"Given this kind of dialogue, it's impossible to take the filmmakers seriously when they say that their movie makes no historical or theological claims. Why did they feel the need to add details missing from Brown's book, or to correct some of its errors, if the historical claims didn't really matter? And would they have been just as pleased with a closing scene in which Langdon said Jesus is the divine Son of God who became man to show us how to become the fully human beings we were originally meant to be? Somehow, I doubt it."

A Maniacal Focus on Talent

I love what this article has to say. Basically:

It's the people, stupid!

While most organizations may say they agree with this value (our people are our biggest asset), most don't actually act like it.

Perhaps it's because they don't know what to do. Finding and cultivating talent isn't easy. It's a soft science, which most of us aren't good at.

Or perhaps they don't really have the vision for it, assuming that top performers will develop themselves without corporate guidance. They may question whether the time and effort spent by organizations to develop their people really pays off.

But some companies like those studied in this article, have developed systematic approaches to finding and developing their top performers.

Who should be leading the way in developing people? Churches!

"All leading firms display this one obsessive characteristic: a maniacal focus on getting, developing and retaining the best talent. Their attention to human resources is pivotal to their performance: staff stay with them and grow to become great leaders, and good leadership leads to superior financial performance. A veritable mantra for success."

Laughable "Code" Kicks Off Cannes

Didn't anyone else feel this way about the book?

I can't understand how it became such a hit, except that people love a conspiracy theory.

Pedantic, polemic, arrogant, clumsy, plodding.

"Da Vinci's overreliance on exposition drew jeers on several occasions toward the end of the screening and even prompted a few walkouts, as it faithfully went through the motions of translating Brown's elaborate puzzler of a book to the big screen.

'At the high point, there was laughter among the journalists. Not loud laughs, but a snicker, and I think that says it all,' the Associated Foreign Press quoted Gerson Da Cunha from the Times of India."

How to Become an Expert Performer

In a word, practice.

And a word of caution: If you're going to spend enough time practicing something to become great at it, you had better pick something you like to do.

Which is why people don't often become experts at things they don't like - they are not willing to spend the time practicing that is necessary to become an expert.

"Their work, compiled in the 'Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance,' a 900-page academic book that will be published next month, makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't 'good' at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better."

What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?

This NY Times article lists 27 books. How many have I read? Zero. Most of the authors I've never even heard of.

Wow, it's a little sobering to realize how out of touch I am with what is considered great literature.

I read good non-fiction books, but the fiction I read is pure entertainment: John Grisham, David Baldacci, etc.

Maybe I should try a few of these for a stretch.

Universal Library

I remember reading in the 90s that the future was digital. This prfoundly influenced me to realize that what I had in digital format was useable, and re-useable.

But it was really in the 00s that Google led the way in teaching us that what was digital was searchable, making it useable to others also.

"When Google announced in December 2004 that it would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make their contents searchable, the promise of a universal library was resurrected. Indeed, the explosive rise of the Web, going from nothing to everything in one decade, has encouraged us to believe in the impossible again. Might the long-heralded great library of all knowledge really be within our grasp?

Brewster Kahle, an archivist overseeing another scanning project, says that the universal library is now within reach. 'This is our chance to one-up the Greeks!' he shouts. 'It is really possible with the technology of today, not tomorrow. We can provide all the works of humankind to all the people of the world. It will be an achievement remembered for all time, like putting a man on the moon.' And unlike the libraries of old, which were restricted to the elite, this library would be truly democratic, offering every book to every person.

But the technology that will bring us a planetary source of all written material will also, in the same gesture, transform the nature of what we now call the book and the libraries that hold them. The universal library and its 'books' will be unlike any library or books we have known. Pushing us rapidly toward that Eden of everything, and away from the paradigm of the physical paper tome, is the hot technology of the search engine."

'Da Vinci Code' Now a Tool to Win Christian Converts

This article recounts some of the approaches Christian churches across the US are taking to dialogue and answer peoples' questions about the famous book and upcoming movie.

As I was listening to a good sermon about DaVinci Code last Sunday, I thought "Christians are going to learn more about the reliability of the Bible and early church history than ever before."

I also thought, this movie is going to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff. No thinking person could be dissuaded from believing in Jesus because of the fabricated statements in the book - but it will give ammunition to people who are looking for an excuse not to believe.

"His sermon, like many on 'The Da Vinci Code,' was no fast-paced romp through the novel's intrigues. It presented historical, archeological and theological evidence about key elements of Brown's conspiracy theory: The Gnostic gospels, the Council of Nicea, the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Priory of Sion.

In recent years, evangelical pastors have shied away from such dense sermons, preferring to preach practical self-help messages instead. 'The Da Vinci Code' has prompted a renewed interest in basic theology — to many scholars' delight."

Let's Othercott Da Vinci

This writer makes a lot of sense to me.

While I applaud Christians' intent of engaging culture and using interest in DaVinci Code to talk with people about the historical facts about Jesus and the impact of his life, I don't want to contribute a cent to the success of the movie.

I threw the book in the rubbish bin and was sorry I had bought it.

"This film is based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor, and I intend to stay far away from it."

UCLA Wins Another Title

"Steve Klosterman and Damien Scott helped UCLA win its NCAA-record 19th volleyball title Saturday, leading the Bruins to a 30-27, 30-27, 30-27 victory over Penn State. "

The Suspense is Over!

We can now get back to work for another five years, as Singapore's nine-day election distraction has come to a resounding close.

"Final results showed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's People's Action Party winning 82 of 84 seats in Parliament, including 37 seats it captured automatically before the election because the opposition did not contest them.

The breakdown of seats — with two for the opposition — is unchanged from the outgoing Parliament. The result was widely expected, but the percentage of votes won by the ruling party dropped to 66.6 percent from 75.3 percent in the last election in 2001, indicating that more Singaporeans want new voices in government."

Motivation of a Winner

Al Scates is the dominant presence in the US collegiate volleyball scene, having led his UCLA teams to NCAA championships 18 times in 43 years, named Coach of the Year 5 times, developed many of the greatest players in US volleyball, and won 1,100 matches.

What keeps him going after seemingly accomplishing everything there is to accomplish in his profession?

"'He takes pride in finding the perfect spot for each player so the players can have their optimum performance on the court, and makes sure the players are confident in their roles,' [UCLA assistant coach] Rofer said. 'He gets excited when the team starts to play well, and its great to see him do what he loves.' "

Now that's the definition of a great manager, and a great coach. He is motivated by bringing out the best in people, and creating the most effective team. What gets him excited is not the winning per se, but seeing the individuals and the team reach their greatest potential.

Singapore Record Falls

Which record, you ask? The World's Longest Chain of Bras!

Do you know how many records Singapore holds in the Guinness Book?

I'm not sure, either, but certainly more than our fair share. Last I checked, we still held those for largest Tea Party and Duck Race, and longest Line Dance.

But will this new development signal a downward trend? I'm sure the Government will think of something, so we can keep our place among the great countries of the world (at least among those following these kinds of records!)

"Their success will shove Singapore, which had held the record since 2003 with 79,000 bras, off the top spot in the Guinness Book of World Records."