The Grace of God by Andy Stanley Book Review

By E. Brown

Grace.

It’s something we all want. It’s something we all need. It’s something we have difficulty extending to others, especially those who have hurt us.

I have read several theological books on the grace of God over the years and I have to say this is one of the better books. The writing style and treatment of the topic will appeal to both church-goers and non-church-goers; both lay-people and lay-leaders.

While many equate the biblical Old Testament with God’s wrath and the New Testament with God’s grace, North Point Community Church senior pastor and author, Andy Stanley, does an excellent job of demonstrating God’s grace as a continuous theme from the beginning of creation up to our current day.

In The Grace of God, there is plenty of good news for those who have adopted a distorted view of the Bible and Christianity. Unfortunately, many who claim to follow the teaching of Christ have often been the source of these distortions. An adherence to rules-based religion and the demand for others to adhere becomes the main road block for most people outside the faith.

You’ll be glad to hear:

• God initiated a relationship with his people even before he told them what the rules were.
• Grace is not reserved for good people; grace underscores the goodness of God.
• God didn’t give the law to make us good. He gave the law to expose our sin.
• Receiving grace is often easier than dispensing it.

Some of the chapters to highlight are:

In the Beginning Grace – “In the beginning God created, and this was a marvelous act of grace. But that was just the beginning.”

Redeemed By Grace – “The Ten Commandments do not stand in contrast to grace; they are introduced within the story of God’s grace.”

Accepted By Grace – “The story of Jesus is the story of God drawing near to those who had pulled away by sin and were subsequently pushed away by the self-righteous.”

Although the book is only 214 pages (paper back) it is composed of bite-sized chapters and subsections which make it easy to read. However, do not be surprised if you find yourself often pausing after you have read a portion of a chapter to consider the principles and implications of those principles.

Many may read this book and have a hard time digesting the content. What-abouts are sure to abound. Grace can seem like a slippery slope – easy to take advantage of and abuse. But, to add anything to grace no longer makes it what it is. Like Stanley says, “Perhaps it is this tension that has driven churches and Christians through the centuries to add and subtract from grace. There’s something in most of us that screams, It can’t be that easy! But as much as we want to qualify grace, it can’t be qualified.”

It’s not humanly rational. It’s almost irrational. I guess that’s why it is often called amazing. It’s not our grace – it’s the grace  of God.

Comment below with you thoughts on this topic or the book.

Tight Budgets Breed The Best Innovations

By Dan Coughlin

Innovative thinking means searching for and implementing a better way.

That’s it. Nothing more. Do not overcomplicate this topic. It’s not about pontificating on highly theoretical concepts and wasting a lot of money. Innovation is improvement in motion.

A business innovation is the process of creating additional value for your customers that they will pay for at a greater profit for your business. Your innovations have to do both: increase value to customers and increase the profits that your organizations make. Creating value that erodes profit is not a business innovation. It’s actually a self-induced death blow to your business.

The Process of Innovation

Step One: Focus, don’t spend.

For many years I worked with executives in one of the world’s largest companies. Each quarter we would study the business results of the industry in a wide variety of categories. Every quarter one of my client’s competitors, which was much smaller and had far fewer resources than my client, would win in several key performance categories.

I didn’t understand what was happening. The people at my client organization worked incredibly hard on a large number of projects to create and deliver more value to the customers. They invested enormous resources into these innovative projects. And yet this small competitor kept outperforming them quarter after quarter.

Then one day my client hired one of the key executives from this competitor. On her second week on the job I asked her, “How in the world did your former company keep outperforming your new company?” What she said I will never forget.

She said, “We had very, very limited resources. We couldn’t try a lot of things. We had to succeed with the few projects we could afford to do. We were forced to concentrate on delivering great value on one thing at a time. Here we have tons of resources. And that’s the problem. It allows us not to have to focus in order to survive. So we end up doing too many projects and overwhelming our front-line employees and customers.”

Within a few years my client’s organization was achieving incredible results that were lasting far longer than ever before. What was the difference? In spite of having massive resources to work with my client narrowed their focus to a few key areas. No longer did they allow themselves to go off on three dozen wild tangents. They poured all of their effort and concentration into improving just those few areas. Today they are achieving truly remarkable results quarter after quarter.

Note: recessions are good for innovation. It forces every company to operate within a tight budget and be extremely focused. This tight area of concentration generates far more useful innovations than the conceptual free-for-all that companies often use during good economic times.

In the past six months I have served as a business speaker to the National Automobile Dealers Association, National Association of Home Builders, and a national conference of a major residential real estate company. These were three of the hardest hit industries in the past three years. Yet I didn’t hear talk about gloom and doom at any of the meetings. I saw and heard a lot of ideas about how people were working to create greater practical value for their customers in a few concentrated areas. It was clear that everyone understood that innovative thinking was a requirement to survive through this recession and thrive on the other side of it.

What is the one area that you are going to focus on improving for your customers?

Step Two: Ask.

Of course, one way to find out the best area to focus on for customers is to ask the customers. I suggest a simple question such as, “If there was one thing about your experience with this product (or service) that you would like improved, what would it be?”

Now be patient. Customers don’t have the answer on the tip of their tongues. Allow them to think. If they can’t think of anything, you can follow up with probing questions on specific aspects of the product or service. Another approach is to ask, “What was of value to you with this product, what was not of value to you, and what would have been of greater value to you?”

Before you start to come up with an innovative product or service, identify the statement you are trying to fulfill. Write a one- to three-sentence description of the desired outcome. Say you want to create a new countertop in public bathrooms for the sinks and faucets. Your statement might say, “In the end, we want a countertop that stays dry so people can place a book or small bag on the countertop and the item won’t get all wet.”

Innovations don’t have to be about computers or cell phones or medicine. Innovation is about searching for and implementing a better way. That “better way” can happen in any industry.

Step Three: See.

Remember: insight comes from sight. If you want to understand the customer experience in order to improve it, then go see for yourself what it is that customers go through. Don’t just ask them for ideas on how to improve the experience. Go look for yourself.

A few weeks ago I bought a quarter-sheet cake for a Valentine’s Party at my church. I went to the bakery, and asked the baker if I could see the cake before I paid for it. She opened the box, and it said, “Happy Valentine’s Day, St. Lucas Women in Red”. I looked at the cake, I looked at the baker, and then I said, “Why does it say, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’?”

She pulled out a sheet of paper, and said, “It says right here, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’.” I looked at it, and I said, “I meant I wanted the frosting in red, not the words.” She said, “No problem.” She scooped off the red letters and replaced it with vanilla frosting.

At the party that night I told that story. Someone else said, “I had that same experience at that bakery.” If the owner of the bakery had been a customer of the bakery, then he or she may have gained the insight necessary to create a better experience for customers.

Step Four: Stop and start over.

Sometimes you have to start over from scratch. Don’t feel compelled to merely tweak what you’ve always done.

Several years ago McDonald’s sold Salad Shakers. The idea was to put the salad dressing in a cup with the salad ingredients. Then you shook it up and, voila, you had a salad. Only problem was there were a lot of problems. You had to ask for a plate to pour the salad onto after you shook it up, and the salad dressing oftentimes ended up on the customer’s clothing.

So McDonald’s stopped and started over. They gained insights from customers. They went and observed the Salad Shaker in action at restaurants. And then they came out with a completely new salad, their Premium Salad. This new salad has been wildly popular for several years and helped to significantly increase sales of Happy Meals.

Don’t be married to your current way of doing things. Once you’ve identified the statement you are trying to fulfill and have gained insights into what customers really want be willing to take out a blank sheet of paper and start with new ideas on what will deliver the value that you want to deliver.

Step Five: Improve.

A prototype is a model that represents what your idea will look like when it’s put into action. You can create simple prototypes for both products and services. Use cheap, basic materials to assemble your prototype. Use paper, napkins, paper towels, paper clips, cardboard, and Styrofoam. Don’t use expensive materials to make fancy looking models. That’s a waste of money.

When you are explaining your concept you can refer to the prototype and that may very well help the other person understand better what it is you’re trying to get across. My all-time favorite book on innovation is The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, who is the general manager of IDEO. My favorite quote from that book is, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.”

Start with five or six prototypes under the area of focus that you selected earlier. Study the prototypes, capture the best ideas, and then continue to make prototypes as quickly as you can as better ideas evolve.

Notice so far you have not spent very much money. You’ve invested time in talking with customers, observing customers, and developing prototypes. The process of innovation is not expensive. The primary investment is a mental investment, not a financial one.

Keep improving the prototypes until you land on the one that you are ready to actually create and deliver into the marketplace. This is where the costs primarily occur. You will have to spend some money in producing the product, training people on the new service they will be delivering, and on marketing the new product or service. However, notice that if you hold off on the spending until this stage you are able to provide something into the marketplace that has a far better chance of success at a lower overall investment from your business.

Step Six: Sell.

At some point you have to attempt to sell your innovation. You can’t innovate in a vacuum forever. You’ve got to put your idea out in the market and see how people respond to it. Innovation does not end with the first sale. Innovation is an on-going process. Find out what customers like and don’t like in your new product or service. And then keep working to make it better and better.

Step Seven: Find out if the proper connection has occurred

One important question to ask after your product or service has been in the market for awhile is, “Do customers feel they received the value that we intended to deliver to them?”

There is value to you regardless of the answer to that question. If customers feel they are receiving the value you wanted to deliver, then you can tell how much this value is worth to them. If customers believe they are receiving some other value that was unintended, then what is it? Perhaps that unintended value can lead to great profits for your business. If customers feel they are receiving no value from this new product or service, then you can work to determine if you need to scratch the idea or merely modify it.

My point is that I don’t want you to just stop after you’ve sent the new product or service into the marketplace. Allow customers to teach you what you don’t know about this new innovation. It doesn’t matter what value you think you put into the marketplace. What does matter is what value your customers think you put into the marketplace.

Keep searching for and implementing a better way. It is the key to surviving in tough times and thriving in good times.

About Dan Coughlin

Dan Coughlin teaches practical ideas 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 Accelerate, Corporate Catalysts, and The Management 500. Dan’s new book Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America’s All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach, will be published in May 2010.

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.

The Economics Of Social Media

This provocative clip gives you some data to chew on if you are wondering about the ROE and ROI of Social Media. Thanks Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.

Comprehensive List of Best Business Books

Once again, friend and author, Dan Coughlin does his research and puts together a very comprehensive list of some of the best business books through the ages. I hope you find this list helpful. If you see some you have not read, I recommend adding it to your library this year. Enjoy!

By Dan Coughlin

In her terrific book, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder wrote, “Benjamin Graham’s book, The Intelligent Investor had mesmerized Warren. For years, he had been going down to the library and checking out every book available on stocks and investing. Warren wanted a system, something that would work reliably. Warren more or less memorized the course textbook, Security Analysis, by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. Buffett says, ‘The truth was I knew the book even better than Dodd. At that time, literally, almost in those seven or eight hundred pages, I could quote from any part of it. I had just sopped it up.’”

Through intense reading and experimentation, Warren Buffett became the world’s greatest investor and one of the richest individuals in the world. Imagine what such in-depth reading can do for your career.

Here are a variety of books I’ve read that I encourage you to consider. My hope is you will scan this list of more than 100 recommended titles, purchase two books for yourself, and read them. I really believe that business leaders are readers, and that one way you can improve your performance is by reading. But don’t just read your two books. Read them, capture a few key ideas that you want to implement, and move those ideas into action.

Here are my recommendations, which have been organized by topics:

Productivity
Less is More by Jason Jennings
Think Big, Act Small by Jason Jennings
It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small, It’s the Fast that Eat the Slow by Jason Jennings

Leadership
On Leadership by John Gardner
Personal History by Katherine Graham
My American Journey by Colin Powell
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by Clayborne Carson
My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas Gandhi
Walt Disney by Neal Gabler
Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
Wooden by John Wooden
Leading with the Heart by Mike Krzyzewski
Leadership & Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute
The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
Gifted Hands by Ben Carson and Cecil Murphey
Think Big by Ben Carson and Cecil Murphey
Leadership is an Art by Max Depree
The Gettysburg Gospel by Gabor Boritt
Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches unabridged by Abraham Lincoln, John Grafton, and Roy Basler

Management
Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker
The Unofficial Guide to Power Managing by Alan Weiss
Winning by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer
The Spirit to Serve by Bill Marriott

Teamwork
Organizing Genius by Warren Bennis and Patricia Biedermann
Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson
Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Russell Rules by Bill Russell
The Winner Within by Pat Riley
A World Waiting to be Born by Scott Peck

Strategy
Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Profit from the Core by Chris Zook
Beyond the Core by Chris Zook
Top Management Strategy by Ben Tregoe and John Zimmerman

Marketing/Branding
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy

Innovation
The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley
The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley
The Elegant Solution by Matthew May

Organizational Performance
Built to Last by Jim Collins
Good to Great by Jim Collins
The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker
The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed
Leading By Design by Ingvar Kamprad and Bertil Torekull
The Pixar Touch by David Price
The HP Way by David Packard
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

Personal Effectiveness
Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Living a Life that Matters by Harold Kushner
Raising the Bar by Tim Rosaforte
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong
The Dip by Seth Godin
Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
From Promise to Power by David Mendell
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
The Other Side of Me by Sidney Sheldon
Secrets for Success and Happiness by Og Mandino
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
I Dare You by William Danforth
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
First Things First by Stephen Covey
The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale
The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale
Law of Success by Napoleon Hill
Success through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
A Treasury of Albert Schweitzer edited by Thomas Kiernan

Investing
The Snowball by Alice Schroeder
Warren Buffett Speaks by Janet Lowe

Sales
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

Inspiration
The Greatest Miracle in the World by Og Mandino
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Consulting
Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
Getting Started in Consulting by Alan Weiss

Physical Fitness
The Best Life Diet by Bob Greene

Problem Solving
The New Rational Manager by Ben Tregoe and Charles Kepner

Presentations/Writing
Pop! Stand Out in Any Crowd by Sam Horn
Presenting with Pizzazz by Sharon Bowman
Ask Not by Thurston Clarke
The Dream by Drew Hansen

Global Trends
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman
The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan

Management Lessons from Auto Racing
One Helluva Ride by Liz Clarke
At the Altar of Speed by Leigh Montville
The Enzo Ferrari Story by Enzo Ferrari
Winners are Driven by Bobby Unser
Racing to Win by Joe Gibbs
McLaren Formula 1 Racing Team by Alan Henry
Racing Back to the Front by Jeff Gordon
Michael Schumacher by Christopher Hilton

Management Lessons from the American Revolution
A Leap in the Dark by John Ferling
1776 by David McCullough
The Summer of 1787 by David Stewart
American Creation by Joseph Ellis
Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson
Thomas Jefferson by R.B. Bernstein
Common Sense by Thomas Paine

About Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin works with large and mid-size companies to improve their business momentum. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation. His next book, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success is due to be published in May 2009.

Martial Arts, Emotional Intelligence, And Academia

This came from the Edutopia site. Having studied martial arts, I would agree with many of the ideas Jordan has in the article. I hope you find this informative as well. Have fun!

On paper, Jordan Schreiber is a martial arts teacher, but his real goal is far broader. By shaping the social and emotional lives of his students, he hopes to prepare them for successful lives outside the tae kwon do studio and in the classroom.

The academic benefits of social and emotional learning are well established by now, and they’re no less germane in a martial arts studio. Schreiber says that as his students learn to recognize and manage their emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically and responsibly, develop positive relationships, and avoid negative behaviors through tae kwon do, they also improve dramatically in the classroom.

Indeed, with the ability to self-regulate comes the ability to focus and take in new information that’s vital for academic success. For that matter, establishing a goal for the week is as important as learning a proper stance. Schreiber rewards equally academic achievements outside the studio and physical achievements within. He follows up the students’ martial arts sequences with discussions on the meaning of success.

Read more…

Play Is Good For You And For Business

I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown.

more about “Presentation Zen: Play is good for yo…“, posted with vodpod

The 10 “Cannots”

Don’t know what you may think of Dave Ramsey, but there is no doubt he has helped many people become financially free. Here is a list Dave has recently been using on his daily radio program . Enjoy!

By William J. H. Boetcker (wrongfully attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

Vodcasts Free Up Classroom Time and Raise Performance

Saw this. Loved it. Wanted to share.

Experience – A Critical Business Driver

By Dan Coughlin

Woke up the other day and found out I’m middle-aged. Here’s what happened. A friend of mine said, “Dan, now that you’re middle-aged, how do you feel about such-and-such a topic?” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “I’m serious, I want to know your thoughts on this topic.” I said, “I’m not talking about that part. I’m talking about that crack about being middle-aged.” He said, “Dan, how old are you?” I said, “I’m 46.” He said, “Dan, I have bad news for you. Not only are you middle-aged, you’ve been middle-aged for several years now.”

Well I’ll be darned. The whole thing happened so fast I didn’t even know it. Guess I have to order the Corvette now. Barb is not going to be too excited to hear about that. Now that I’ve come to grips with being middle-aged I have a few thoughts on experience.

Define What Words Mean
I’ve learned that definitions matter and we should never assume what people mean by a certain word or phrase. For example, when I say I “coach” someone, I mean I observe, ask questions, discuss ideas, and offer suggestions. However, when some managers say they need to “coach” an employee, they mean they need to tell the person what to do and how to do it. We’re using the same word but we have two totally different meanings. If I suggest to a manager to be more of a coach with her employees that can mean two different things, so I need to define what I mean by that word.

To me, “experience” means “extracting lessons from one set of circumstances and applying them successfully in another set of circumstances.” Consequently, experience is a function of being able to step back, reflect on what has been learned, and determine how that lesson can best be applied in future situations.

Experience is Not a Function of Age
The most experienced person in a group is not the one who has gone through the most situations or is the oldest, but rather the person who is the most effective at extracting lessons from one life situation and successfully applying them in another life situation.

I used to get jealous of people who achieved amazing results at a far younger age than I was at. I used to think they were just lucky. However, I’ve learned to dig for the truth behind their success, and I’ve found that experience can be gained at all age levels.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, Inc., became millionaires in their 20s and billionaires by the age of 31. Recently they ranked in the top five of the Forbes 400 richest people in the U.S. They were just lucky, right? Well, let’s look at their life experiences and how they extracted lessons from one set of life circumstances and applied them to another. Eugenia Brin, Sergey’s mother, is an accomplished scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Michael Brin, Sergey’s father, teaches math at the University of Maryland. He has published a number of academic papers on complex mathematical systems. Carl Page, Larry’s father, was a world authority on computer science and artificial intelligence and a professor at Michigan State University. Gloria Page taught computer programming as a professor at Michigan State.

Growing up Sergey Brin and Larry Page spent endless hours studying and debating a host of intellectual topics within their families. When they met at Stanford in the spring of 1995 at the ages of 21 and 22, they almost immediately immersed themselves into intense arguments about a wide variety of topics. Through these arguments a great friendship emerged. Shortly after that they became intensely focused on organizing information on the world wide web in a way that a reader could get the content he or she wanted as fast as possible. They wanted to democratize information. With this single clear goal in mind, they applied lessons they had learned from earlier in life and began to develop a mathematical system for gathering content on the web and organizing it in a way that was useful to the viewer. Thus, Google was born in 1997. And as they learned more about how to improve their search engine, they applied those lessons back to their business. Today they are 35 years old and are two of the most influential business people on the planet.

Katey Charles started her own business at the age of 34 in February 2003 in e-marketing. She wanted to help organizations clearly communicate their messages in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Within two years, Katey Charles Communications was sending out over 13,000 e-newsletters a month. By 2008, her organization was sending out over 850,000 e-newsletters a month. This year alone her company has sent out over 5,000,000 e-newsletters. She was just lucky, right? Prior to launching Katey Charles Communications, Katey was head of communications and public relations for world-renowned artist Mary Engelbreit, where she developed Mary’s first e-newsletter in 2000. She invested 14 years as an Internet marketer, writer, managing editor (IPI Report magazine, now Global Journalist), graphic artist, art director (Missouri Life magazine), and overall communications manager. Katey extracted lessons from three critical areas, writing, media, and computer technology, and then compiled them together into an extraordinarily successful e-marketing business.

Jason Jennings wrote his first book, It’s Not the BIG that Eat the Small…it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW, at the age of 44. Within a few weeks that book went to number one on amazon.com and hit the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and New York Times Bestsellers Lists. Published in 32 languages, USA Today named it one of the top 25 books of the year. How lucky can a person get? First book and it became an instant bestseller. He seemed lucky until I dug into the details.

In his 20s, he was the youngest radio station group owner in the world. Later, he founded Jennings-McGlothlin & Company, a consulting firm that, within three years, became the largest media consultancy in the world. Jason combined lessons he learned on how to interview top performers, craft their ideas together in meaningful ways, and communicate those powerful messages in ways that could make a huge difference for the readers of his books. His purpose was to search for the very best companies in the world on a given topic, interview the executives responsible for running those companies, and then artfully combine the best of the best ideas for readers to be able to use in their organizations. He has since followed that book with two more bestsellers: Less is More and Think Big, Act Small. His fourth book, Hit the Ground Running, will be in bookstores soon. He has spent more than 25 years extracting lessons from one set of circumstances and applying them to others. It’s really not luck. It’s a proactive approach to improving one’s level of experience.

Ed Catmull didn’t really taste great business success until the age of 50. In 1970 at the age of 25, Catmull established a clear dream: to create a feature-length computer animated film. The only problem was that in 1970 you could barely get a computer to put out a still image. Over the next 25 years Catmull worked with a variety of investors, computer technologists, and animators to steadily extract lessons at each point in the journey and apply them to furthering the dream. In the end, he built Pixar Animation Studios and created the first ever computer animated feature-length film, Toy Story, in 1995. That film went to number one at the box office. Over the next 13 years, Pixar made eight more films and each of them went to number one at the box office.

At 62, Alan Weiss is today the world’s leading guru on how independent management consultants can build their own business. He has written more than a dozen books on this topic including his classic book, Million-Dollar Consulting, and his most recent book, The Global Consultant. How did he do it? Essentially, he extracted lessons from more than 30 years of experience as a consultant and taught them to other people wanting to start and grow their own independent professional services firms. Have you ever met a person who did something for more than 30 years and yet never extracted any lessons from the experience that they could apply to another set of circumstances? The key to Alan’s success is he stepped back on a regular basis, identified what lessons he had learned, applied the lessons in his future work, and shared those lessons with other people. That’s how experience becomes a business driver.

Experience Can Be Strengthened Like a Muscle
Regardless of your age, you can strengthen your level of business experience level right now. Here’s the process:

The Process for Gaining Experience

1. Recall a situation you have been in at any point in your life.
2. Identify the lesson you learned from that situation.
3. Clarify how you can use that lesson in your current work situation.

I know, it seems so simple, and that may be why so few folks do it. You’re busy doing your job and you have a ton of responsibilities, and I’m asking you to take out a sheet of paper and start proactively writing down memories, extracting lessons, and applying them to your work. Ok, we’ve established that this seems a little crazy. Now do it. Give it a try. Actually give it about ten tries. Within 60 minutes I believe you will land on a powerful insight that can improve your performance. And you will dramatically improve your level of experience.

The difference between investing time and gaining experience occurs when you step back from a situation, extract a lesson, and apply that learning in another situation. Going forward, I encourage you to pause after each situation you find yourself in, and ask, “What lesson can I take away from this event, and how can I apply it to improve results in another area of my life?”

“Good things come to those who wait.”
My dad’s not doing well right now. He’s been living in a nursing home for the past few months. When I visit him, I push him in his wheelchair all over the campus. When I put my arms around my dad and tell him I love him, memories of growing up with him start to flood back to me.

My dad’s favorite saying was, “Good things come to those who wait.” When I was about five years old, my dad bought our first electric typewriter. I can picture him sitting there writing, “Good things come to those who wait.” When I was 16 and wanted to borrow his car, he said, “Good things come to those who wait.” That was code for, “You’re not getting my car.” When I wanted to buy my own car at 18, he explained that waiting was better because my money could be used to help pay my way through school. Just now I’m starting to realize the true economic brilliance of my dad’s advice. Here are a few paraphrases of my dad’s philosophy:

Good things come to those who wait to buy a house or a bigger house until they can realistically afford the loan.

Good things come to those who wait to give out a loan until they find a person who can realistically afford to pay it back over time.

Good things come to those who wait to buy something until they can pay cash for it.

Good things come to those who patiently invest in improving their craft and not worry about how well other people are doing.

Really, really good things come to those who clarify a purpose and sustain their focus within that purpose for long, long periods of time.

As you read the examples above you may have noticed a pattern. Whether the story was about Google or Pixar or Katey Charles or Jason Jennings or Alan Weiss, they all had one thing in common. They clarified a purpose in terms of adding value to other people and then they stayed focused within that purpose for a very long period. Over the course of many years, their experience level for that particular purpose grew and grew and grew until one day they had each separated themselves from all the others in terms of the value they could contribute.

My purpose is to help people achieve remarkable results by explaining simple, practical processes of two to seven steps that they can use to improve their performance regardless of their title, function, education, industry, or age. It sounds so simple when I write that, but it’s really the challenge of a lifetime. Each process has to be so simple that any person can understand it, but so useful that every person who wants to improve his or her performance will gain value by giving it a try. Now the key for me is to continually gain more experience at crafting and honing the content and delivery of these practical processes.

Whether you own a business, run a business, or manage a part of a business, what is the purpose you are going to operate within for a very, very long period of time? After you identify that purpose, then stick with it. Someday you will have more experience within that area of focus than any other person in the world. And that will be your ultimate business driver. Find your purpose, stay patient, and gain experience. That’s how to generate extraordinary results.

Book Recommendations
The Pixar Touch by David Price. This is a remarkably well-researched book that supports my point about experience both with Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. I found these stories to be enormously useful and inspiring.

The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. This is another useful corporate biography from which you will be able to extract lessons for your job and your organization.

Dan Coughlin is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation.

Graphic Design, The Beauty of Type, and The Days of U&lc

By E. Brown

I just stumbled upon this site while visiting, Moving at The Speed of Creativity. The site is Wordle. They have created a cool little app that allows you to create word clouds from your delicious tags or blog rss feed. You can then customize the fonts, colors, and layout to your choosing.

Here are my delicious tags in Wordle…

Ah, this reminds me of the days I used to subscribe to U&lc (Upper & lowercase) Magazine. Now you can see the online version. But, the print edition was a thing of beauty. Never had type or the crafting of words looked so sexy. Type designers would draw inspiration and just a little envy from the over-sized newsprint periodical. I loved to look at the use of words and letters to create textures and patterns.

Good times…

It’s hard not to get just a little nostalgic. Here is the blog feed in Wordle. Enjoy!

Web Working Team Work Just Got A Whole Lot Easier With Wiggio

Are you on a virtual team? Are you amongst the next generation web workers of the world? Then Wiggio is for you!

From Wiggio’s About Page
As seniors at Cornell, we started wiggio out of our own frustrations with unnecessarily clogged inboxes, using five different websites for five different functions, and all the other hassles associated with working in groups. We were tired of sending eleven emails back and forth just to set a meeting time. We were tired of that guy who just never knows where and when to be there. We were tired of list-servs, contact lists, phone-chains and incompatibilities. We wanted everything to be in one place, and we wanted it simple. So we created wiggio.

Wiggio lets you use the following group tools, and it’s all for free!

• Messages— send mass text messages, voice messages and emails from wiggio
• Calendar— keep a shared group calendar that will send you text message reminders before all your meetings, practices, rehearsals, games and other events
• Poll—survey your entire group and get their responses as they answer
• Folder— dump all your groups’ files into one folder and never send another attachment
• Meetings— never walk 15 minutes through the snow to get to a 10 minute meeting again… setup free conference calls and web chats on Wiggio
• Links— keep a shared favorites folder

Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty

Last year WeirdGuy blog participated in Blog Action Day. This year, we will again and share from a weird perspective on the issue of poverty. I encourage you to get involved. Find out more details at Blog Action Day.

Quotable Quote – Blaise Pascal

Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance.
– Blaise Pascal

Jeffrey Veen Taps Into eLearning For Start Conference

By E. Brown

While on a recent panel discussion, Jeffrey Veen noticed something…

I was on a panel at this year’s South by Southwest talking about the role of analytics in design. With me were two veterans of the advertising industry who’s work included some of the biggest ad campaigns of the past few years – some really amazing stuff. I started the conversation by saying how the remarkable amount of audience data available to us gives designers tremendous power to affect user experiences. My collegues suggested my approach sucked the creativity out of design. I countered that they were mistaking preferential research from behavioral. The argument heated up.

While this was happening, my phone was buzzing non-stop. I slipped it out of my pocket to discretely turn it off, but noticed a stream of Twitters going by – many from audience members in the room. So I set the phone down on the table in front of me and kept an eye on it. I’m so glad I did.

As the conversation on stage continued, the stream of questions and comments from the audience intensified. I changed my tactics based on what I saw. I asked questions the audience was asking, and I immediately felt the tenor of the room shift towards my favor. It felt a bit like cheating on an exam.

I guess it really wasn’t cheating, but it does illustrate one of the frustrations I’ve had at conferences lately. Most of the events I attend have a rich conversation happening in the room, yet the only people not able to participate are those on stage. A couple times, I’ve seen organizers project a live IRC channel, but that usually bring out the worst in people (“First!!!111″) – and is terribly distracting. So I’ve been wondering for a while if there was something smart we could do at our conference.

Apparently, Bryan had the same idea. As we were planning Start, he said, “We should have someone onstage the whole time to represent the audience. Like an ombudsman does for a newspaper.” (for more visit Jeffrey’s blog)

This is community driven synchronous learning at it’s best! Why do we often think learning has to be limited to traditional “learning environments”? Learning happens every moment of every day. Unfortunately, there is often a monologue going on inside each of our heads as we learn new things about ourselves, others, and the world around us. Yet now, with the social networking and collaborative tools available, we no longer have to settle for a monologue — we can have a dialog. And, the fact is, we are!

Learning On The Road
Mobile devices incorporate much of the new social networking technology. Whether you’re a tweeter, yelper, IM’er, ichatter, texter, blogger, vlogger, or whatever, there is a conversation going on. It is constantly going on around us. You see people talking and texting in cars, trains, buses, and planes. Even during meetings there are other conversations going on (some related to the meeting, some related to the speaker, and some totally unrelated).

Those of us in the learning profession have seen synchronous and asynchronous learning happening for years. Utilizing the latest tools and technologies to further equip learners is what good trainers do.

Speakers Do The Same
Who is my audience? What do I want them to learn? Is it practical? What is the best way(s) to communicate and transfer information to them? How can I make it “stick”? How can the audience take and apply what they learn?

These are questions any good communicator/trainer should be asking. So, what have you learned today?

Related Articles
- Is Your Organization Ready For Online Learning?
- Is Blogging Dead? Long Live Twitter
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 1
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 2
- Twitter For The ADD Generation – Response
- Now, Some Possible Value In Using Twitter

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Top 5 Reasons To Be A Jack-Of-All-Trades

By Tim Ferriss

Are the days of Da Vinci dead? Is it possible to, at once, be a world-class painter, engineer, scientist, and more?

“No way. Those times are long gone. Nothing was discovered then. Now the best you can do is pick your field and master it.”

The devout specialist is fond of labeling the impetuous learner–Da Vinci and Ben Franklin being just two forgotten examples–”jack of all trades, master of none.” The chorus unites: In the modern world, it is he who specializes who survives and thrives. There is no place for Renaissance men or women. Starry-eyed amateurs.

Is it true? I don’t think so. Here are the top five reasons why being a “jack of all trades,” what I prefer to call a “generalist,” is making a comeback:

5) “Jack of all trades, master of none” is an artificial pairing.

It is entirely possible to be a jack of all trades, master of many. How? Specialists overestimate the time needed to “master” a skill and confuse “master” with “perfect”…

Generalists recognize that the 80/20 principle applies to skills: 20% of a language’s vocabulary will enable you to communicate and understand at least 80%, 20% of a dance like tango (lead and footwork) separates the novice from the pro, 20% of the moves in a sport account for 80% of the scoring, etc. Is this settling for mediocre?

Not at all. Generalists take the condensed study up to, but not beyond, the point of rapidly diminishing returns. There is perhaps a 5% comprehension difference between the focused generalist who studies Japanese systematically for 2 years vs. the specialist who studies Japanese for 10 with the lack of urgency typical of those who claim that something “takes a lifetime to learn.” Hogwash. Based on my experience and research, it is possible to become world-class in almost any skill within one year.

4) In a world of dogmatic specialists, it’s the generalist who ends up running the show.

Is the CEO a better accountant than the CPA? Is Steve Jobs a better programmer than the iTunes VP of Engineering? No, but he has a broad range of skills and sees the unseen interconnectedness. As technology becomes a commodity with the democratization of information, it’s the big-picture generalists who will predict, innovate, and rise to power fastest. There is a reason military “generals” are called such.

3) Boredom is failure.

In a first-world economy where we have the physical necessities covered with even low-class income, Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs drives us to need more for any measure of comparative “success.” Lack of intellectual stimulation, not superlative material wealth, is what drives us to depression and emotional bankruptcy. Generalizing and experimenting prevents this, while over-specialization guarantees it.

And what are the #2 and #1 reasons? Find out here…

Quotable Quote on Change

Emotion supplies the energy to change.
- Larry Sternberg

Don’t Be Amongst The Millions Of Apathetic

11 Easy Ways To Save Time Using Google Apps

1. With Google Docs, you and your coworkers can edit the same document simultaneously, so you don’t have to waste time emailing files or tracking down the current version.
2. Put the Gmail gadget on your iGoogle page so you know right away when new email lands in your inbox (and can read it with one click).
3. When you’re away from a computer, check your Google Calendar events and appointments by sending a quick text message from your cell phone. Send one of these messages to GVENT (48368):
• “Next” to get a message about the next event in your calendar.
• “Day” to get a message listing all of today’s events.
• “Nday” to get a message listing tomorrow’s events.
4. Don’t waste time waiting around for a friend or coworker to answer your email. Use Google Talk to see at a glance whether the other person is online; if she is, click her name to start chatting.
5. Quit slowing yourself down by reaching for the mouse. Use the keyboard shortcuts available for Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar to bring your data entry up to power-user speed.
6. If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer to browse the Web, install the Google Toolbar so you can keep an eye on Gmail, add events to your Calendar, and open files as you zip around the Web.
7. Use Gmail’s colored labels so you can scan your messages and quickly find what you’re looking for. Or simply use Gmail’s awesome search feature to zero in on a message.
8. Creating a Web site? Don’t get flummoxed by HTML, CSS, or any other what-the-heck-does-that-mean acronym. Use Google Page Creator, which comes preloaded with layouts and color-coordinated themes so you can see your pages as you build them.
9. Speed up data gathering by creating a form that automatically feeds data into a Google Docs spreadsheet: Create a new spreadsheet, and then click the Share tab. In the “Invite people” section, turn on the “to fill out a form” radio button, and then click “Start editing your form”. The form can have text boxes, multiple choice lists, checkboxes, and radio buttons. Click “Next, choose recipients” and specify who’ll receive the form. You can publish the form to the Web or embed it in your Web site or blog. When someone fills out the form, the info goes straight into your spreadsheet.
10. Send or receive files as you chat in Google Talk—no waiting around for someone to remember to send them via email or drop them off at your desk. Just drag-and-drop the file into the chat window, and off it goes.
11. Gather the info you refer to most in one place: your iGoogle page. Using Google gadgets, you get at-a-glance access to news headlines, weather forecasts, local movie times, a dictionary, and a whole lot more. So instead of chasing information around the Web, you’ve got the info that’s important to you right where you want it, all on one page. Best of all, you can put mini-versions of your Google apps on iGoogle, including Docs, Gmail, Talk, and Calendar, making it easy to keep an eye on your work and sending your productivity through the roof.

Source: Amazon.com, Google Apps The Missing Manual

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Jaggedsmile Now On WeirdGuy Blog

Had your Jagged Smile today? If not, close friend and illustrator, Jeff Gregory, will be showing up in the side bar on a weekly basis. You’re bound to be captivated and tickled by his mental offspring.

If your day is sour, you need a jagged smile. If your boss has got you down, you need a jagged smile. If you have to get a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, you need a jagged smile. If the doctor just gave you bad news, you need a jagged smile.

Jagged Smile — humorous doodles and ramblings from a mind that no one should dare to get inside of. Venture at your own risk… and have fun! (See side bar for more)