Mobile Design and Development by Brian Fling

By E. Brown

In March 2013, the U.N. said 6 billion of the worlds 7 billion people had mobile phones. Of this number over 1 billion had smartphones. Although there are some slow adopters due to cost and bandwidth issues, the fact is mobile is here to stay. And the mobile web is a maturing part of doing business in today’s world. Are you engaged?

Most organizations have a mobile-friendly web site. This allows for audio and video playback and touch interface navigation. While that is a start it is only the bottom rung of the ladder. You need a strategy, a mobile design, and well developed site to compete for the eyes of mobile savvy users.

Brian Fling’s book, Mobile Design and Development is a good place to start. As Fling says, “I wrote this book to be a beginning—your beginning in mobile—and to give you all the information you need to know in order to start thinking of your site, application, or business in the mobile context.”

Brian Fling. Mobile Design and Development (Kindle Locations 305-307). O’Reilly Media.

Before you dismiss this book as too basic, be sure to check out the chapters on:

• The Mobile Ecosystem
• Designing For Context
• Mobile Strategy
• Mobile Web Apps versus Native Apps
• Adapting to Devices
• The Future of Mobile

Everything rises and falls on strategy and a good mobile strategy is the key to a successful mobile design and roll out. In the case of mobile, context is king! Understanding your users and, consequently, their needs will get you most of the way there. Based on proper personas you can assess the needs of your mobile audience and begin to define goals for meeting those needs. You will most likely have a large list of needs and related goals. Don’t be tempted to develop them all. As Fling notes, “keep it simple.”

Without going into too much more detail, suffice it to say there are many good nuggets of information for application in Mobile Design and Development. This book should definitely be amongst your personal library.

New Book Review Coming Soon – Andy Stanley

I got a copy of The Grace of God by Andy Stanley. I look forward to reading it and posting a review here on WeirdGuy Blog soon.

Other books by Andy I have read are:

• Next Generation Leader
• Visioneering
• Communicating For A Change
• Creating Community
• 7 Practices of Effective Ministry
• Choosing To Cheat
• How Good Is Good Enough?

What books have you read by Andy Stanley?

Which one is your favorite? Why?

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

14 Tips For A More Effective Online Survey

By Dana Fine

Developing a useful, well-written online survey that extracts the information you need from your users can be a challenge. In this article, I will review 14 tips for creating a useful online survey.

1. Write a brief, concise survey. Start with a mental framework that focuses on only what is essential to know. Ask questions only if the answers will give you the data you need and can use. Try to envision each question as its own specific theory that you are testing. In addition, research has shown that people skim and skip on the web, so your online survey completion rate will be higher if the survey is short and succinct.
2. Try to begin the survey with interesting questions. Interesting questions will inspire the respondent to keep reading and complete the survey.
3. Develop questions with answers in the proper format for your purposes. For example, if you believe your students need more time to complete the questions in your lesson, ask, “How long did it take you to complete the unit and accompanying questions?” with various time intervals as possible answers.
4. Plan ahead of time how you and your company will analyze the information before you send out the final version of the survey. This may affect your questions and format when you realize that the statistical analysis you need to perform.
5. Use the simplest language possible and respect the respondent’s dignity when constructing questions. Your survey respondents will undoubtedly come from many different groups.
6. Use neutral language. The online survey is being developed to find out what your audience thinks and is not a forum for you to air your perceptions or opinions.
7. Relax your grammar a bit so your questions do not sound too formal.
8. Be sure to ask only one question at a time and put them in a logical order.
9. Avoid double negatives, difficult concepts, and specific recall questions. Respondents are easily perplexed when trying to interpret the meaning of a question that uses double negatives.
10. Try to use more closed-ended questions, with no more than one or two open-ended questions. Respondents usually have a better understanding of closed-ended questions because they are more straightforward and offer responses they can choose from. Open-ended questions require a written response.
11. Scaled response questions should have answers that are at balanced, comparable intervals. For example, offering choices of excellent, very good, good, and terrible would cause you to miss important information in between the values of good and terrible.
12. Whenever possible, responses should be developed as discrete amounts instead of general statements of quantities, with specific options from which to choose. It’s better to ask, “How many times a month do you go to the movies?” “0”, “1 to 3 times a month”, “3 to 5 times a month or more”, instead of “How often do you go to movies?” “almost never”, “once in a while”, “I am there at least once a week”, etc.
13. Name your survey and write a brief introduction. It prepares them for what is to come.
14. Craft a well-written subject line for the email you send with the survey to capture your respondents’ attention.

In summary, a well-written online survey has higher completion rates and is an effective method for gathering information.

About the Author:

Dana Fine is a Senior Instructional Designer at SyberWorks, Inc http://www.syberworks.com. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company that specializes in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development. Dana is also a frequent contributor to the Online Training Content Journal.

Best Purchase I Made All Year

I love my new ScanSnap S1500M! I just do. This product paid for itself not 4 hours out of the box. Tasks that would have taken me days, even weeks, to do were accomplished in a short time.

Business cards that were piled up – done! Oh, and input into my contact manager! Conference manuals and notes stacked beside my desk – now digitized and searchable. Sweet! File cabinet print outs from previous projects are now converted to Word documents.No more paper clutter.

Did I say I love this tool?!

Save files as PDFs, searchable PDFs, Word, Excel, add to your contacts and in color or black and white. Everything I have wanted to do the Fujitsu designers and engineers seem to have thought of. Even if there is a paper jam, a window pops up showing me the last item scanned and asks if I want to rescan it after I clear the rollers and continue with my project. Nice work.

If you are an information hound and collect research, periodicals, newspaper clippings, business cards, and more – you have to get a Fujitsu ScanSnap. If you do, let me know what you think. If you already have one, tell me of your experiences here.

Bait and Switch?

After being away for a week on business I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the fair. Spring in Atlanta brings Lemonade Days – a small community fair in the Dunwoody area. We have been two years in a row and used the coupon in the paper for $5 off admission. Every year it has been $20 without the coupon and $15 with. Imagine our surprise when we got to the gate and they had jacked up the price $5 extra dollars? And you know they only accept cash.

What do you do?

We bit the bullet and went in. Now, the “extra cash” that was supposed to be for lunch was no more. Felt like the old bait-and-switch. Don’t think we will be doing this again.

Dear Lemonade Days staff, next time publish the price please. Especially if you’re going to hike up the admission.

Who Are Your Favorite Holiday Musicians?

My list is a bit eclectic and in no particular order:
- Andy Williams
- Jars of Clay
- Burl Ives
- Mannheim Steamroller
- Third Day
- Kenny G
- Young Messiah
- Celine Dion
- Amy Grant
- Anna Wilson
- Bing Crosby
- Michael Smith
- Andrea Bocelli
- Destiny’s Child
- Charlotte Church
- Harry Connick Jr.
- Michael Card
- Russ Taff
- Linda McKechnie
- Sam Levine
- Northern Light Orchestra

Who do you like? Respond here

 

Could This Be You?

Saw this on a friends feed and had to post. Can you relate?

Thanks to: Comics.com | Pearls Before Swine

Python Programmers Twice As Productive As Counterparts

Saw an interesting article today by Kurt Grandis. After a six-month productivity study of teams using Python and C#, Kurt states, “Given our development processes we found the average productivity of a single Django developer to be equivalent to the output generated by two C# ASP.NET developers. Given equal-sized teams, Django allowed our developers to be twice as productive as our ASP.NET team.”

A programmer friend of mine says, “You have to write 3x more code in C# just to do the same stuff….”

Read the article on Kurt’s blog and tell me what you think about Python v. C#

FoxTrot and iPad

Saw this and had to share. I can relate to the humor of Bill Amend’s FoxTrot.

Leadership Lessons For 2010

By Dan Coughlin

2009 was the most extraordinary year of my life not because of what I earned but rather because of what I learned. The year was filled with more learning experiences on more areas of my life than any other. My hope is that some of these lessons will be of value to you in 2010.

The Value of Life
The single biggest lesson for me was to value the value of life to a greater degree.

From July 2008 to May 2009 six important people in my life died: Aunt Loretta, Aunt Marie, Aunt Helen, my cousin Larry, my good friend Kevin Wade, and my dad. The hardest of all of these was losing my dad. Dad was an encourager. Even though I don’t think he ever really fully understood what I do for a living, he always kept encouraging me and showing interest in my work. Dad died six weeks before his 80^th birthday.

Next to my desk I have a letter I wrote to him on his 75^th birthday. It summarized many of the main events and routine happenings in our lives together. Dad made a copy of it, wrote a note on it, and gave me that copy. I never understood why he did that since the letter was from me to him. Now I’m so thankful he did. At the end of the note he wrote, “Dan, I love you forever, Dad.”

On his 75^th birthday I took him to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. We sat and talked all night. He told me about his volunteer efforts with the Hibernians and with Mother Theresa’s Soup Kitchen. I said, “Where do you find the energy for all of that?” He said, “You never know how long you’re going to live. You have to make the most of your time while you can.” Two years later he was in stage two of a terrible disease called Dementia with Lewey Bodies. A little more than two years later he was dead.

I’m so grateful that for the last eight days of his life I got to kneel by his side, hold his hand, kiss his forehead, and tell him over and over how much I appreciated what he did for me and how much I loved him. His last three words to me a few days before he died were, “…love you, too.” A few hours before he died almost everything shut down for him. His eyes glazed over, his mind was gone, his muscles stopped working, and the blood was leaving his feet and hands. However, his heart was pumping as strong as ever. I’ll never forget that. The strongest part of Dad until his very last second was his heart. I NEVER let a day go by without hugging my wife, Barb, and our children, Sarah and Ben, multiple times. Remember the value of life.

A few months ago members of my church helped to organize a special fundraiser for our good friend, Shannon, who lost her husband to cancer in 2008. It was an awesome night. 600 people showed up and we raised nearly $30,000. As Shannon stood behind the podium with her three young children and celebrated her husband Scott’s life, I was reminded again of the value of life.

These are tough economic times for the world. I know you’re busy trying your best to create and deliver value for your customers and to take care of your family. However, in the end life is about relationships. Life is about making time for our family and friends and really investing ourselves in their lives. In the end our lives are not that long and we never know how much time we have left with anyone. Focus your attention on people, not things and not honors and not rewards.

The Value of Time
This is connected to the value of life. I can’t imagine wasting time anymore. There is simply too much to do: my family, my work, my friends, my workouts, my volunteer efforts, my reading time, and so much more. Every month I have lunch and recess with each of my two children, Sarah and Ben. Total investment: 100 minutes a month. That’s priceless time to me. Every day I read for 30-60 minutes. Again, priceless. My wife, Barb, and I have four to five television shows a week we like to watch together by ourselves. That’s our fun time. I write blogs, twitters, and articles almost every day. That’s time well spent. I exercise for 60-90 minutes every day. Valuable. I have lunch with my mom at least every other week. That’s time that can’t be replaced. Every pocket of time can be filled with value or used to create value. See the value of time.

The Value of a Dollar
As with many businesses around the world, my revenues were down significantly in 2009. From that came something very good. I finally realized the wisdom of my two parents who were both born during the Great Depression. They always talked about the value of a dollar, and I always ignored them. If I had money, I almost always found a way to spend it. This year I finally learned the empowering feeling of not spending money. I realized the utter foolishness of advisors who suggested you have to drive a certain car or wear certain clothes or use a certain pen in order to be seen as credible. My value-added is in the user-friendliness of my practical ideas on improving business performance, not in what car I drive or what clothes I wear or what I write with. 2009 has been the beginning of what I hope is a life-long respect for every single dollar that I am responsible for.

The Value of Value
On May 30^th Barb, Sarah, Ben, and I went to see the film, Up, by Disney/Pixar Animation Studios. I loved it. And I gained another lesson from this year. Pixar Animation Studios has now made 14 films since their first one, Toy Story, in 1995, and all 14 films have gone to #1 at the box office.

Apple’s iPhone came out in 2007 and it sells faster now than ever before. It didn’t even exist three years ago, and now in the midst of a terrible recession everybody has to have it and they find a way to get it.

Mitch Albom and Malcolm Gladwell came out with books within the past 12 months and they both shot to #1 on the bestseller lists.

Lesson Learned: Even in the midst of a terrible recession, companies and individuals who create great value generate extraordinary results. The absolute key for any business or any individual to prosper in bad economic times is to create and deliver incredible value that other people will feel they absolutely must have. What value can you deliver and what value can you help your organization to deliver that will help you to rise above this recession and be in greater demand than ever before?

The Value of Tough Times
People talk about 2009 as though it were the worst year of their lives. Ironically, one day we will all look back and realize that 2009 caused significant changes in behavior that led to incredible results. Let’s step back in time and look at two examples of where greatness found its starting point in the “worst of times.”

In her book, The Definitive Drucker, Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, does a great job of describing what Toyota Motor Company went through in its early days after it was founded in 1930. I admire Toyota as much as any company in the world. From Corolla to Camry to Avalon to Lexus, Toyota has managed to create magnificent cars at every price point from economy to luxury. They all ride beautifully and require very, very little maintenance. However, I think their real greatness can be traced to their earliest days.

The founder of Toyota was Sakichi Toyoda. The global business economy was so bad in 1930, that he changed the spelling of his last name to Toyota, according to Edersheim “because in Japanese the letter ‘t’ has one fewer stroke than ‘d’ – thus saving time on printing signs and advertisements – an early indication of the ceaseless focus on efficiency that would come to characterize the organization.” She goes on to say, “The car market in Japan at that time was small. Because the competition was so stiff and capital so hard to accumulate, Toyota had to do everything possible to minimize the time between when it purchased parts and assembled vehicles and when it received payment – hence, the birth of the company’s vaunted ‘just-in-time’ production methods.”

She then explains that the extremely difficult economic period of the 1930s caused the Toyota management team to discuss every decision in detail and only to move forward when every member had an opportunity to offer their perspective in group consideration. They simply could not waste any money. This same careful, collaborative approach to decision-making has carried on to this day.

Would these highly effective management approaches been developed if they had not been faced with a very tough economic situation? My hunch is that it probably would not have happened. Only when trapped in a very tough situation do most humans begin to scramble mentally and physically to figure a way out.

In 1997 Apple Computer had reached nearly to the end of its rope. They had managed to lose one billion dollars in the previous quarter, and they were perhaps six months away from bankruptcy. Steve Jobs came back as the interim CEO and the rest is history. He quickly moved the company from having 80 different computers and variations of computers to just four. He then carefully introduced two new concepts in 2001: a digital music player, the iPod, and the iTunes music store. By staying remarkably focused on doing a great job with a few products, Apple transformed itself into one of the world’s greatest companies and Steve Jobs was recently named CEO of the Decade by Fortune magazine.

These extremely tough economic times can have a very big upside. What is it forcing your organization to do that can ultimately lead to generating sustainable, profitable growth? What could it be forcing your organization to do that can improve its future dramatically?

The Value of Detoxing
A few weeks ago my computer had a terrible virus. I would enter websites and the internet would take me to the wrong sites. I quickly shut down my computer and called a terrific computer consultant. He worked his magic, removed the virus, and installed a much better anti-virus software than the one I had.

This reminded me of my major personal theme for 2009. I wanted to “detox my system” of a lot of bad habits. I define a toxic habit as anything a person does, thinks, or says that keeps them from performing at their best. I identified a number of toxic habits that I needed to focus on including eating, spending, emotions, language, immediacy, impulsiveness, and playing old mental tapes. Each day I reviewed how I did relative to these toxic habits. Like my computer consultant did for my computer, I was able to reduce the impact of these toxic habits little by little. I dropped 18 pounds and kept if off, realized the importance of not expecting an immediate positive result for every effort I made, and let go of some frustrations I have been carrying around for years. The lesson I learned is success is not just about learning new things and achieving new heights of achievement. Sometimes it’s about removing the viruses we build up inside of ourselves.

The Value of Prayer
This was another major learning for me. This is only the second time I’ve ever written about prayer in one of my business articles. If spirituality is not your thing, then you can skip this part. I’ve always prayed, but usually it was very sporadic and done only occasionally. This year I prayed consistently two to three times a week.

I never pray for results. I never pray for health or safety or any type of outcome. Essentially, I pray for advice on what to do. My prayer is basically the same one over and over. I ask God four questions: How am I doing? What am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What should I be doing differently? Usually I hear something I don’t want to hear, and it causes me to reflect on what adjustments I need to make. I think prayer helps me to be a better person, and I think it helps me to be more genuinely who I really am in all situations. Praying has helped me to be more comfortable in every setting. I don’t ask God for money or material things. I ask for insights. Based on those insights, I try to figure out what to do next.

The Value of Reading
This really isn’t a new lesson. It’s something I’ve known for 25 years. However, I thought you might like to see my reading list from 2009. I found value in every one of these books:

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Uncommon by Tony Dungy
Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer
Enough by Jack Bogle
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom
Leading, Living, and the American Dream by John Gardner
The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh and Steve Jamison
It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For by Roy Spence and Haley Rushing
Hit the Ground Running by Jason Jennings
The Shack by William Young
Development of Professional Expertise edited by Anders Ericsson
Broken Trust by Patrick Fleming, Sue Lauber-Fleming and Mark Matousek
Take the Risk by Ben Carson
Shooting Stars by Lebron James and Buzz Bissinger
Obstacles Welcome by Ralph de la Vega
Greater Than Yourself by Steve Farber
The Definitive Drucker by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim
Mockingbird by Charles Shield
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Dutch Total Football by Terry Michler.

About Dan Coughlin
Visit Dan at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009), which has been endorsed by Jason Jennings, Marshall Goldsmith, and Brian Tracy. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, Denny’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Leadership – It Is Not A Label

By Dan Coughlin

It’s official. I’m at the halfway point in my career. Over the last 25 years of working with individuals and groups the topic I have focused on the most is leadership. It is my favorite topic of all. Here are five lessons I’ve learned about leadership.

Lesson #1: Leadership is Not a Label
In studying leaders and in working side-by-side with leaders as a management consultant in over 30 industries, I have always searched for what these individuals had in common. First, here is what they did not have in common: height, size, race, gender, sexual orientation, spiritual focus, political preference, or personality type. Leaders come in every size and shape. Some are men and some are women, some are tall and some are short, some are big and some are thin, some are light-skinned and some are dark-skinned, some are straight and some are gay, some are devoutly spiritual and some are atheists, some are conservative and some are liberal, some are quiet and some are loud. I found no title, income level, or authority that ever automatically made a person an effective or an ineffective leader.

Lesson #2: Leadership Means Influencing How Other People Think
After studying leaders for a long period of time, I discovered that leadership really means influencing how other people think in ways that generate better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it. It is the person’s ability to influence how other people think that determines his or her effectiveness as a leader.

Lesson #3: Leaders Answer Four Critical Questions
I did find one thing that all effective leaders have in common. They all actively worked to answer the Four Critical Leadership Questions. Now they didn’t call it that and most of the time they didn’t write down these questions. However, each person did work to find the answers to these questions and then persevered to implement his or her answers.

The Four Critical Leadership Questions are:

1. What outcome do I want to improve for my organization and why do I want to improve it?
2. Who do I need to influence in order to improve that outcome?
3. What do I need to influence them to think about?
4. How will I influence them?

Now let’s go through the four questions together and I’ll offer some additional thoughts for each of them. Take out a sheet of paper and write down your answers to these four questions as we go through them.

What outcome do I want to improve for my organization and why do I want to improve it?

Leadership is not acting. You can’t just walk into a room and say with a deep voice, “Let’s go out there and rock the world.” Leadership has to be geared toward improving some outcome. On your sheet of paper, write down the specific outcome you want to improve in your organization. Be as clear as you can be about what it is you want to have happen. Then write down as many reasons as you can think of as to why you want to improve that outcome.

Who do I need to influence in order to improve that outcome?

After you identify the desired outcome, then write down who needs to be involved in improving that outcome. Be clear about whom it is that you need to influence.

What do I need to influence them to think about?

Notice an important point here. The question doesn’t say, “What do I need to tell people to do?” If people are just doing something because they are told to do it, what happens when you’re not there to tell them what to do? The key is to identify what you want them to think about when you are not present. For example, if your desired outcome is to have customers who are vastly more loyal to your brand than your competitors, you might want to influence your fellow employees to think about the value of significantly more loyal customers. Once people start thinking about that outcome they can come up with all kinds of ideas on how to improve the customer’s experience. If they buy into the idea that vastly more loyal customers will improve their careers over the long term, they may very well focus to an even greater degree than you do and in more of a hands-on fashion than you can toward improving the customer experience on a consistent basis.

How will I influence them?

Now we are getting down to the act of leading, or influencing, others. There are 12 different types of leaders I’ve met or studied in my career. Each type can be effective in leading other people, and you can be more than one type of leader as you go about trying to influence your target audience to improve the desired outcome.

Lesson #4: There are Different Types of Leaders
In reflecting on the various individuals I have watched effectively influence the way other people think and generate significant and sustained results for their organizations, I have found that each of them provided one or more of the following types of leadership.

Types of Leaders

1. The Researcher – this person’s advice is based on data and carefully selected interviews and examples from the past.
2. The Exemplar – this person’s behaviors and personal choices model the desired performance so well that he or she influences other people simply by being watched.
3. The Teacher – this person breaks down the idea and explains it so well that other people truly get it and can run with it even when he or she is not present.
4. The Listener – this person simply listens while the other person shares the details of his or her situation.
5. The Visionary – this person describes a compelling dream of what the future can look like and that vision is what people hold on to as they go about their daily activities.
6. The Storyteller – this person tells stories that convey a powerful point.
7. The Coach – this person engages the other person in a conversation and offers advice based on observed behavior.
8. The Facilitator – this person asks open-ended questions and gets multiple people involved in developing the answers.
9. The Collaborator – this person exchanges ideas with the other person and works together with the other person to develop even better ideas.
10. The Organizer – this person influences other people based on the roles he or she places them in and the way he or she distributes resources.
11. The Motivator – this person provides inspiring words with an inspiring tone, but his or her impact oftentimes has a short shelf life.
12. The Dictator – this person tells people exactly what to do and how to do it, but this approach is generally only useful in dramatic life-or-death short-term situations.

To familiarize yourself with these different types of leadership, here are a few exercises for you to consider doing.

Exercise #1: Think of three leaders who affected your life in an important way. Then scan the list above and determine which type or types of leadership they provided.

Exercise #2: Think of a time when you were an effective leader. Then scan the list above and determine the type or types of leadership you provided.

Exercise #3: Write down how you will influence the individuals you identified earlier in question #2. Which type or types of leadership are you going to provide to influence them to think about what you want them to think about?

Lesson #5: You have to Earn Your Platform in Order to Lead

Regardless of the type of leader you want to be in any given situation, you have to earn the right to be the leader. Speaking from a platform is not difficult. You walk up three steps, walk over to the middle of the platform, and start speaking. The greater challenge is to earn your platform as a leader, which is the privilege of having people trust you and be willing to consider your influence. Tony Dungy, the former Indianapolis Colts head football coach, talked about this in his book, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance.

What do you need to do to earn other people’s trust and their willingness to consider your influence? Essentially, you need to do what you said you would do and you need to be seen as being credible on the topic you want to influence them on. Anyone can be a leader, but no one is guaranteed to be a leader. Take the time to answer the Four Critical Leadership Questions, and then every day act in a way that other people can trust you and will want to consider your influence.

Once you have earned your leadership platform never take the privilege of having a platform to influence other people lightly. It can take many years to earn a platform as a leader and a few minutes to lose it.

Interviews with Experts on Leadership

A relatively new feature on my website is my Featured Book Recommendations section. In this section I provide an in-depth book review and conversation with the author(s). Currently this section contains interviews with three experts on leadership.

The first expert on leadership is Steve Jamison, who is in my opinion the world’s best author at interviewing extraordinarily successful athletic coaches and extracting their insights on leadership and teamwork. He has worked very closely in writing books with the late Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, John Wooden, the former UCLA men’s basketball coach and winner of 10 NCAA Division I Championships, and Brad Gilbert, the extraordinarily successful tennis coach of Andre Agassi and Andy Murray. I reviewed his newest book, The Score Takes Care of Itself, which he wrote with Bill Walsh and his son, Craig Walsh.

The second expert on leadership is Jason Jennings, who has studied in-depth more carefully selected business leaders than anyone I know of. In his most recent book, Hit the Ground Running, he studied the 10 most successful new CEOs in the first seven years of the 21^st Century.

The third expert on leadership is Roy Spence, CEO of GSD&M Idea City, who along with Haley Rushing from GSD&M Idea City, wrote the book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For. These two have worked closely with leaders at Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines, BMW, and a host of other companies.

To read these conversations with the authors and the book reviews, click http://thecoughlincompany.com/featured_book_recommendations.html

About Dan Coughlin
Visit Dan Coughlin’s Free Resource Center on Business Acceleration at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009), which has been endorsed by Jason Jennings, Marshall Goldsmith, and Brian Tracy. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, Denny’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Why You Do Not Want A Job

By E. Brown (Repost)

Did you know that many people use the words, job, career, and vocation synonymously? Are you one of them? These words are actually very distinct with distinct definitions.

The Dictionary says of these:

Job – A paid position, responsibility, or piece of work.

Career – Time spent in an occupation for a significant period of one’s life.

Vocation – A strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or a person’s main occupation.

When thinking about your work, how do you see yourself positioned? Many newbies to the workforce see themselves in particular jobs for the money. Yet studies have shown that after 5 to 10 years, money is not the prime motivator many thought it was. Many lack passion in what they do, but it pays the bills so they stick it out in an environment they dread returning to each Monday morning. Today, employees are asking themselves if they are truly making a difference with their lives in regard to work. After all, in the western world, work is such a big part of one’s life, you cannot help but wonder if there is any lasting impact. “Is this all there is?” many are asking.

So, how about you? Are you in a job, a career, or a vocation?

Dan Miller offers the following definitions as you think about your life and its purpose as related to work. Read on.

Job - A job is the most specific and immediate of the three terms. It has to do with one’s daily activities that produce income. The average job is 3.2 years in length, meaning the average person will have 14 to 16 different jobs in his/her working lifetime. Jobs will come and go….

Career - Career comes originally from the Latin word for “cart” and later from the Middle French word for “racetrack.” In other words, you can go real fast for a long time but never get anywhere. That is why in today’s work environment, even physicians, attorneys, CPAs, and engineers may choose to get off the expected track and choose another career. You can have different careers at different points in your life.

Vocation - Vocation is the most profound of the three, incorporating calling, purpose, mission, and destiny. This is the big picture many people never identify for themselves. It’s what you’re doing in life that makes a difference and builds meaning for you, which you can review in your later years to see the impact you’ve made on the world. Stephen Covey says that we all want “to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.” Our vocation will leave a legacy. The word vocation comes from the Latin vocare, which means “to call.” It suggests that you are listening for something that is calling out to you. Everyone has a vocation or calling. (48 Days To The Work You Love, pages 38-40)

Anyone can do a job. The question is, have you been listening for your vocation? Are you fulfilling a purpose beyond the weekly grind? Are you proud and excited about the legacy you are leaving?

These are not easy questions to answer. They will take some introspection but in the end you will find the time you took was worthwhile. You will approach work with exuberance.

You will have fun.

You will find yourself content.

Contentment is not a word used much anymore. Yet, isn’t that something we all want at the end of the day - contentment?

Go. Pursue your vocation and at the end of your life you will find contentment!

Now tell me about you — are you in a job or vocation?

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Turkey Bowling Is Back For The Holidays!

Fun online Turkey Bowling game is back for the holidays. Give it a shot.

I actually did better this year than last. I got a 70! Try it and let me know what score(s) you get here on WeirdGuy blog.

Have fun!

Is A Balanced Life Really Attainable?

Note: Reposted as a good reminder

This is one of those primary yet tough life principles for me. I have learned that I need others in my life to hold me accountable to this principle. Accountable to my dreams, goals, and aspirations as a businessman, father, and husband. What is this primary life principle? It is balance.

I can still hear Mr. Miyagi yelling at Daniel LaRusso in the movie, The Karate Kid, “Balance Daniel-san, balance!” There is some truth to this in the concept of “life-balance”. We’re all torn in two directions, as illustrated below:

Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . Serving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Applying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . External Life . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Leisure Meditation Following Listening Recreation Waiting Receiving Learning Humility Solitude Freedom Sorrow Internal Life

So, how do you find balance? Is it appropriate or even possible in this day and age to find balance in life? With all the competing areas above, most people settle for focusing on one area alone.

Sacrifice For The Sake of Excellence
Excelling in one area is good, right? Where would Michael Jordan be, or Donald Trump be unless they excelled in one focused area? By no means am I suggesting we stoop to the level of mediocrity. Yet, while unbridled attention in one area may bring success, it almost always brings failures in many other areas. For example, “it is not uncommon to discover a physician who fails as a parent, an entertainer who fails as a spouse, a pastor who neglects personal health, or an executive who fails at all the other areas,” says author and educator, Dr. Richard Swenson. Stanford Physicist, Dr. Richard Bube, recommends a more balanced approach so that we do not fall into, what he calls, “negative excellence.” A person who chooses to strive for high degrees of excellence in one or two areas often fails in others. While, the person who choses to live balanced has no outstanding levels of excellence but, they do not have any areas of failure either.

There Is An Answer
You’ll be glad to know that life balance is attainable. It starts with time. You thought I was going to say priorities. Business people practice prioritizing a lot. The mistake is, prioritizing dictates that one area is more important than another. What I am saying is that all these areas are important and that to attain balance we need to start with the time we give to each.

Learn to say “no.” In today’s Western society it is easy to overload and overbook ourselves. Saying “no” puts you in control of your time demands. This leads to the next item: Get better control of your life.

Getting control means overthrowing the tyrannical rule of the urgent. Reorient your life around the important, not the urgent things of life.

Next, watch out for the circular trappings of trying to find the imbalance in your life. In doing so you run the risk of becoming even more unbalanced. George Rust warns, “We respond to our sense of imbalance by committing more time and energy to an area in which we feel deficient.” The last thing you need is to commit more time than you have.

Finally, be considerate of others trying to live a balanced life. If someone tells you “no”, learn to accept it. Just because we choose to overburden ourselves doesn’t mean we have to do the same to others.

Balance is attainable. It takes work but it can be done. You might consider sharing your desire to live a balanced-life with a close friend and then ask them to hold you accountable. Give them permission to ask you how you’re doing on a regular basis — and, be honest in your reply.

Related Links
- Living More With Less
- The Overload Syndrome
- Margin
- A Minute of Margin

Are You A Dreamer?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Do you have trouble remembering details and instructions?

Do you love positive feedback, yet not desire to conform to the cultural mold of expectations?

You are not alone.

Lately, I have been doing reading about cognitive styles. Primarily, there is plenty of information about strong-willed children/adults and High-D personalities as well as compliant children/adults. Yet, there is little information out about “Dreamers.”

Dr. Dana Spears and Dr. Ron Braund have a very interesting book on Dreamers, the passionate-creative-culture-changers of the world. Join me soon for a more in depth look at this type of individual and see if you are a mold breaker.

Kindle’s For Kids

By E. Brown

How many of you have kids in school? How many of you have kids carrying HUGE backpacks to school? How many of you are paying doctor bills for your child’s back problems because of lugging around heavy books? Even the packs with wheels are a pain – literally. Ever seen a child try to roll one over a curb on his way to school? Not a pretty sight.

Here’s an idea for Amazon — why not work with the National Education Association, State Departments of Education, or the U.S. Department of Education and give K-12 school kids Kindles with all these “heavy books” loaded into them? The schools own the Kindle’s and when the child graduates, he or she will certainly want to have one of their own. Did someone say, next generation adopters/consumers?

I’ll bet, once parents see the Kindle up close and in action, they will want to buy one for themselves. Talk about market share and saturation. I hear the distant sounds of Ka-ching!

Let me see, off the top of my head here are some ways this could be of benefit:

1. Less paper consumed
2. Less trees cut
3. Easier to update published content
4. Less trash from out-dated school books
5. Lighter pack backs
6. Less stress on children’s backs and bodies
7. Lower family medical bills
8. RSS feeds to teacher assignments
9. Bookmarks to teacher blogs
10. Exposure to Kindle eReaders
11. Create raving fans

I am sure the list could go on. Also, if you’re an Amazon employee, this is another opportunity for you to help out your local community. School administrators will thank you and parents will love you.

If you think this is a worthwhile idea, let Jeff Bezos know. Send him a quick email and let’s see what happens.

Feel free to comment here as well and let me know your thoughts or if there is anything missing on the list of benefits. If you do not see an upside to this idea, let me know that too.

Visualizing Your Next Job

By Dan Coughlin

I’ve learned that writing a book is an exhilarating experience. Essentially an author is handed 250 blank canvasses and is allowed to create whatever he or she wants. However, the canvasses do have to fit under a certain theme and the chapters, while being able to stand alone in terms of their uniqueness and contribution, have to connect to one another in some meaningful way.

Your career is like a book where you fill in the blank canvasses.

Writing a book requires a person to both step back and visualize how the chapters fit together and step forward to the keyboard and fill in the words. To build a great career you need to step back and visualize how the various jobs you take on fit together in a meaningful way and step forward to each job and execute your responsibilities masterfully. This article is about stepping back and visualizing how your next job will fit meaningfully within your overall career.

Move within Your Purpose, Passions, Strengths, and Values

You have roughly 1,000 different things you can do as your next job. As a starting point to narrow your job search, I suggest that any job you take on should fit within your purpose, passions, strengths, and values. Take out a sheet of paper and answer these four questions:

1. What is the purpose I want guiding my career?
2. What gets me excited when I do it?
3. What am I good at doing?
4. What beliefs determine my behaviors?

After you answer these questions you’re in a much better position to select your next job. Some people might argue that during a tough recession all of those things should be put on the back burner and that making money should be the driving force. In other words, the only question that should be answered is, “How much does the job pay?”

I don’t think that is a good idea. If you take a job just for the money and you find no purpose in your work, you have no passion for doing it, you are not particularly good at it, and the work does not match your values, then you are destined to fail. So how worthwhile will that good paycheck be then?

Put in place the four critical career screens of purpose, passion, strengths, and values first, and then begin to consider various career moves that fit within them.

Career Move #1: Same Organization, Expanded Responsibilities

The grass is not always greener at the next organization. And if you keep chasing greener grass eventually you will run out of grass to chase. Sometimes the very best career move for you is to stay within your organization.

Two organizations I worked with for over a decade as a consultant are McDonald’s Corporation and Marriott International. I admired these two companies long before I worked with their executives and managers, but in being side by side with these individuals I learned one of their most important keys to success: they provide opportunities for people to expand their responsibilities. At McDonald’s USA, many of their top executives started working in a single restaurant. Then the person became in charge of the restaurant, then oversaw four restaurants, then 16 restaurants, then 500 restaurants, and ultimately all 13,000 restaurants. And with each expansion of responsibilities the person’s breadth and depth of leadership and management skills grew and grew. The same pattern is true within Marriott. I’ve seen a bellman become general manager of major Marriott hotels.

Is there a possibility that you can expand your responsibilities within your organization as your next career move?

Career Move #2: Same Organization, Different Responsibilities

I have a good friend who received her degree in Economics from Northwestern University. She started her career in finance at a large national company. After a few years, her boss offered her a brilliant piece of advice: learn different parts of the business and it may help you later in your career. So she went on to take jobs in marketing, sales, and operations. Today she is the Chief Global Marketing Officer of a massive company that spans countries around the world, and she never had to change employers.

If you’ve become a great performer within a particular function in your organization, then your next best move might be to leave that function and dive into a different one. If you know operations, apply for a job in human resources or marketing or sales or business research. What makes Roger Federer such a great tennis player is his mastery of all of the different aspects of the game. Master the different aspects of your organization and make yourself dramatically more valuable.

What function within your organization could you step into to expand your skill set?

Career Move #3: Same Industry, Different Organization

Sometimes you just need to refresh your perspective, opportunities, and relationships. A lateral move to a different company in your same industry may be just the ticket to reignite your career. Like a professional baseball player who finds new levels of success with a different team, you may find that people view you differently when you walk through a different door.

A friend of mine went from a sales manager position at Procter & Gamble, which was his first employer out of college, to a sales manager position at Brach’s Candy. He was still in the consumer goods retail industry, but he was seen in a new light. Instead of bosses seeing him as the 21-year-old college grad with no experience, he became seen as a fast-rising 25-year-old with experience at one of the world’s greatest companies. Suddenly he was given opportunities that he never would have received as quickly at P&G.

Assess your situation. Are you being perceived by your boss and peers in ways that are keeping you from receiving meaningful new opportunities? Is it them or is it you that is keeping you from advancing in the organization? That’s a tough call to make, but it’s a crossroads we almost all face at some point.

Can you leverage your industry knowledge into a new job that may lead to an even brighter future for your career?

Career Move #4: Same Skills, Different Industry

This is the move that opens up your career chessboard considerably. It is where some careers accelerate to new heights and where others crash and burn. Leaving an industry is fraught with challenges. For one you’re leaving your contacts and relationships and reputation behind you. The personal brand you’ve built for yourself is no longer going to win you new opportunities. You have to start over and build a new brand one for yourself. If you’ve been a star performer, this can be a daunting mental challenge to overcome. You also are leaving behind all of the industry knowledge you’ve developed that allowed you to resolve issues quickly and move forward effectively.

However, if you move forward with your enhanced experiences, maturity, sense of purpose, passions, strengths, and values, you may very well build a far stronger brand in the new industry. This is certainly a viable option if you want to create a variety of new opportunities for your career. My friend went from Brach’s Candy to a tremendous opportunity in the medical device industry because he was willing to let go of one industry and step into the challenges of another industry.

Career Move #5: Turn a Dead End into an Eight-Lane Superhighway

Considering the incredibly high percentage of layoffs among white-collar workers over the past 12 months, this next career move might apply to you now or in the near future. Managers and knowledge workers in virtually every industry have lost jobs in huge numbers, and the end may not be in sight yet.

Rather than seeing the end of one job as the end of your career, I encourage you to see it as a valuable time to step back and rethink the future of your career. Go back to the four questions at the beginning of this article and really clarify the purpose you want to fulfill in your work, the things you are most passionate about, the strengths you bring to the table, and the values you absolutely, positively want guiding your life and your work.

Invariably it was the forced stops in the game that caused some of the world’s greatest performers to step back, rethink their next move, and come back with renewed focus that made them vastly more successful in their new job than in their previous ones. In 1981, at the age of 39, Michael Bloomberg was fired at Salomon Brothers. He went on to build Innovative Market Systems (later named Bloomberg L.P.) that today is worth $16 Billion. In addition, he has been Mayor of New York City since 2001. None of this may have happened if he had not been forced to deal with a dead end.

If your career has suddenly run into a dramatic dead end, I encourage you to step back and start over. Go back to the original questions concerning your purpose, passions, strengths, and values. Then go through each of the career move options discussed in this article, and visualize what your next job might look like.

Do you want to seek a different position in your company, possibly in a different function?

Do you want to seek a job at a different company in your industry where you can leverage your industry knowledge?

Do you want to seek a job at a company outside of your industry where you can leverage your passions and strengths while still operating within your purpose and values?

Or do you want to start your own business where you can create an organization that reflects your purpose, passions, strengths, and values?

In his autobiography, The Other Side of Me (Warner Books 2005), Sidney Sheldon, whose books sold more than 300 million copies, told a powerful story. He wrote that in 1934 when he was 17 he tried to commit suicide because there didn’t seem to be any opportunities for him. His father found him at the last second and after a little warm-up conversation said,

“Sidney, you told me that you wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. You don’t know what can happen tomorrow. Life is like a novel, isn’t it? It’s filled with suspense. You have no idea what’s going to happen until you turn the page. Every day is a different page, Sidney, and they can be full of surprises. You’ll never know what’s next until you turn the page. If you really want to commit suicide, Sidney, I understand. But I’d hate to see you close the book too soon and miss all the excitement that could happen to you on the next page – the page you’re going to write.”

Sheldon didn’t commit suicide. Instead he went on to become a prolific writer of stories in Hollywood, on Broadway, and in his 18 novels.

Your career consists of a series of chapters. Choose each job carefully, execute your responsibilities as well as you can, and take time to step back and visualize your next chapter.

About Dan Coughlin

Visit Dan at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009).

Humorous Word-Play To Start Your Day

Got this from my friend Chris, this morning. Enjoy the play on words.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference .  He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race.  They ended up in a tie.
10. Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.  The police are looking into it.
12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.  One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head.”
14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.  Then it hit me.
15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: “Keep off the Grass.”
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital.  When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
20. A backward poet writes inverse.
21. In democracy it’s your vote that counts.  In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
23. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Social Media Summit Day 2 – Take Aways

By E. Brown

Day 2 is down but not out. In today’s line up was Mari Smith, Jason Alba, and Ann Handley. Mari covered the in’s and out’s of using Facebook for business while Jason revealed the power and reach of using LinkedIn. Finally, Ann ended the day with her Top 5 reasons to be on Twitter and listed some of the tools she uses.

My take aways from the today’s Summit are listed below. I have broken then down by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Facebook
Create a loyal following by:

1. Optimizing your profile
2. Choosing your core message
3. Creating a fan page
4. Adding “friends” strategically
5. Thinking about relationships first
6. Creating viral visibility
7. Running tests with social ads
8. Adding Facebook to your overall marketing strategy

Also, use Friendfeed.com as another means to networking and creating community. You can pull your Twitter tweeps, Facebook friends, and Google contacts in as well.

LinkedIn

• Create a comprehensive and complimentary Social Strategy for your organization
• Tie your Twitter tweets to your LinkedIn status updates
• Use keyword phrases in your profile summary
• Export your LinkedIn contacts to a personal database for backup and mining
• Use the Slideshare app for displaying presentations
• 2-Minute Per Week Strategy = accepting/rejecting connections and asking/answering questions

Twitter
Why use Twitter? Here are several reasons:

• Create a strong community of followers
• Use it to provide Customer Service
• Stronger brand awareness
• Networking
• Monitoring the online community conversation in regard to your organization

Tools to use:
- search.twitter.com
- backtweets.com
- bit.ly
- Tweetie (iPhone app)

Related Links
- Social Media Summit Day 1
- Social Media Summit Day 2