I think twitter and text messaging are training me to think and communicate in short bursts of thought.
I recently heard a DC journalist say that if you couldn't capture the audience with your story or message in 25 words they would just tune out. I'm not sure what that says about our nation's ability to maintain a meaningful dialog on complex topics.
I'm looking forward to Clay Lowe's book - A thousand bullets gone astray when I can get it in the USA.
I'm wondering when we begin to associate connotations with the images with see. My life was fairly uncensored as a child. And while I now view many images or situations as having a moral (good/bad) connotation, I know that early on that all images were neutral in my brain. Sunny day = Pithed Frog = Crucified Man = Sleeping Puppies. I don't know whether this is because I saw A Clockwork Orange when I was six or whether I was just a late bloomer in terms of developing empathy.
I was supposed to attend the annual GCEC (global consortium of entrepreneurship centers) meeting at Rice. The meeting program looked amazing. I had everything lined up. I'd even pre-printed my boarding pass for my flight. And then I drove myself to the Emergency Room at 2:30AM when I got slammed by the flu. Since I had an annual flu shot, it was perhaps H1N1. My local ER was no longer testing as the test results had no bearing on treatment - (just not cost effective). I'm not sure how this impacts the H1N1 maps you can find online. In my case 4 days of fever, mostly GI symptoms, 2 bags of IV saline and various medications. During the worst of it, I think I slept 36 hours during a 48 hour period. Not fun.
Today is the one year anniversary of the judge signing my divorce decree. It is also the one year anniversary of getting my tubes tied. Two major life changes in one day. No regrets.
Next week, I'm having Lasik done. My heart is racing just thinking about it. It took me years to even work up the courage to switch from glasses to contact lenses. I did my evaluation visit yesterday (at Spivack) to see if I was a good candidate. Aside from dry eyes (it is Colorado), everything looks good. They have patient "counselors" who help with scheduling, financing and also hand-holding as I heard the doctor tell my counselor in a hushed voice "she is very frightened" as in "hold her hand but close the deal." There are two doctors at this office who do the Lasik surgeries. One is substantially cheaper. I understand wanting generic or discount on prescription drugs or routine doctor visits but on EYE SURGERY?! Give me the rockstar please.
I went to Get Motivated! again this year as I did in 2006. Unlike 2006, I did not attend the entire event. My assistant and I heard Robert Schuller, Laura Bush, Colin Powell (why I bought tickets), Phil Town (I love Rule #1), and Tamara Lowe (one of the founders of Get Motivated). While I remembered that the 2006 event had a "God Bless America" theme and "seemed to use some cult-like techniques to capture the audience" I did not remember all of the "take Jesus as your savior" rhetoric that occurred this year and caused me to leave.
Tamara Lowe has now written a book, Get Motivated!: Overcome Any Obstacle, Achieve Any Goal, and Accelerate Your Success with Motivational DNA
In spite of this, Laura Bush was charming, someone with whom you'd want to have tea or a glass of wine; Colin Powell was as inspiring as I'd remembered; and, I will most likely buy Phil Town's new book which is coming out in March 2010: Payback Time: Eight Steps to Outsmarting the System That Failed You and Getting Your Investments Back on Track. 
I'm finally planning my trip to Hawaii. Smiling just thinking about it.
I went to the movie Yes Man at Christmas with friends. I do not normally go to movies of this kind, but I enjoyed it and think of it still. I find myself saying "yes" more often to things I intended to do eventually. I'm just doing them sooner. It's all part of my quest for Bliss and my realization that there is only now.
My friend Martha is always the executive director of some health related non-profit. This year it's Dani's Foundation which focuses on Ewing's Sarcoma.
Dani's Foundation recently held a fund raising dinner (video here) with several hundred silent auction items. I started the bidding on four items and 'won' two of them, both on my "to do eventually" list: 1 week at a bed and breakfast in Hawaiiand 3 nights in Napa Valley at the Meritage Resort- complete with airfare, limo tour, and wine train tour. Side note: it's really a sign of our economy when the opening bid on items such as these are the winners.While there are some blackout dates, I essentially have until March 2010 to go on these journeys. People ask me when I'm going. I am not yet sure. I need to line up a traveling companion. While I can easily chill in Hawaii by myself for a week, I definitely want a wine loving traveling companion for Napa Valley. Let me know if you are interested...
For my birthday I finally got the Kindle 2
I did not achieve the 6-pack abs I wanted for my birthday. I have been working out regularly - 5 or 6 times a week. However, for every 350 calories I've been burning off per workout, I've probably been eating an extra 600 or so. So, yes, I'm stronger and faster but also heavier. Oops. For the most part, my clothes are still fitting but I'm up a few pounds that need to be shed to see the muscle underneath. I currently belong to two athletic clubs. I really need to decide which one to stick with going forward.
While I have not been writing much on-line (my offline writing is going strong), this has been an amazingly good month. My friend who had the stroke last fall, is now almost fully recovered and back at work. To quote a physician friend of mine "Cathy I don't believe in miracles, but A's recovery is a true miracle." Indeed. I went to her welcome back party earlier this month. I've never seen so many delighted people at a work event such as this.
Work has been insanely busy, but in a great way. We opened our annual business plan competition to the entire state of Colorado, not just our University family. So far, we're getting terrific interest from the community. We've been filming our orientation sessions (feel free to watch the first one). If you are a local reader and know someone who is starting a company, please have him or her contact me. Executive summaries are due April 16th so it's not too late to participate. We award more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind awards to the winners. The CEO of one of our incubator companies has been working with me on my presentation skills. He used to do corporate training for public speaking among other things. Since I open each session, I will soon have ample video footage for him to review and critique. This is not exactly fun, but will eventually make me better.
I'm a big fan of Scott Adams' blog. While I don't always "get" Dilbert, I do like to read about Scott's writings that go behind and beyond his work.
Scott recently paid for a survey of economists to assess their opinions on the ability of the two major US Presidential Candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, to have a positive impact on the major economic challenges facing our country. You can learn more on CNN and Scott's blog.
A strong majority of economists are democratic, a fact which surprised me. Scott had the surveyed economists rate the major economic issues and then rank the presidential candidates with respect to those issues.
Education was #1. Let me say that again, Education was #1. I have always believed this in a very visceral way. If you want to change the world in the long term, education is the only answer. Clearly, I am not alone in this belief. The next key issues were Health care, International trade, Energy, Encouraging technology and innovation (let's hear it for Entrepreneurship! of course I am biased.), and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (homeland security).
On these key issues, Barack Obama was the clear winner, except for International Trade. I found this to be funny since so many people around the world hope that Obama will become our next president (see e.g. this article). Of course, the entire survey is biased given that most of the economists are Democratic (and thus lean towards Obama); in spite of this limitation, I found the data very interesting.
Of course if you don't want to ponder the substantive issues (or data), watch this parody instead. As the fake Hillary challenges the media to grow a pair, so to do I offer mine. Get some.
A few weeks ago I read several books by women who have developed techniques to effectively work with dominant men.
When I got those books, Amazon recommended that I also consider getting What Men Don't Tell Women About Business: Opening up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook
Have any men read this? Is it accurate? Do you really feel this way? Oh wait, I've just lost all of my credibility by asking. Darn.
I found this book to be simultaneously both incredibly illuminating and highly disturbing. On the one hand, the author states multiple times that (alpha) women are the perfect people to become the leaders of today's companies. And yet, within his framework, these same women will always be subordinate to not only the alpha males but also the beta males in the group.
In spite of my discomfort with some of the theories and recommendations put forth in this book, it is written in such a way as to be actionable. Further, it gives very specific examples of behaviors that undermine one's power or will cause one to be "deep sixed." What does it mean to Deep Six someone? "The is the process we use to sabotage your credibility and your career. It comes from underwater (you rarely see it coming), and it has a devastating effect on your position in business."
I need to reread this book, and take notes, as there seem to be two major themes. The easy to swallow theme deals with productivity, professionalism and providing superior value - core ideas in any business book. The other theme seems largely built around loyalty, trust, keeping secrets, and not damaging the surprisingly fragile egos of the alpha males. It seems like the primary cause of getting yourself deep sixed is apparently a careless word that cracks the foundation of the fragile male ego. And woe to the woman who inadvertently provokes the wimpy beta male. Let the games begin, only the woman must wage her war ever so cleverly. Actually perhaps she should just start looking for a job out of state. It seems men can dish out and take criticism from each other, but a women who offers up constructive feedback to a man even when asked, even to a subordinate, risks provoking war and paying the price for damaging the male ego.
Fascinating. I always thought alpha men were hardier creatures than this.
I love my job. Tomorrow I get to meet Gregg Vanourek, one of the authors of Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
In this same theme, there is Chris Guillebeau's blog on the Art of Non-Conformity. I recently stumbled across his manifesto, A Brief Guide to World Domination - How to Live a Remarkable Life in a Conventional World (pdf). This brief (29 page) article starts with the premise that "You don't have to live your life the way other people expect you to." That's the core. If you don't have time for the full 29 pages, you can start with his post on The Decision to be Remarkable.
That's it really. Want to change the world? Just decide, then act. Everything else follows.
I just finished The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By
It's a terrific scholarly work that shattered some of my illusions of entrepreneurship. Scott crushes 67 myths or shares 67 truths depending on your perspective.
Let's start with #1: America is NOT becoming more entrepreneurial. The rate of start-up creation has been declining over the last 20 years. This ties to #2 - there are many countries that are much more entrepreneurial than the USA.
A few things surprised (and depressed) me:
All this painted a pretty bleak picture of entrepreneurship in America for me. Unless you are a job hopping, now unemployed, 40 year old white male who is sick of working for others (yep that stereotype is true) you might as well give up your dream. Sigh.
But the book smartly ended with some recommendations. What businesses are likely to succeed and drive economic growth? More importantly, what should we do? Scott's advice is somewhat like Castor oil - good for you but hard to swallow. Here is a snippet:
A strategy that revolves around increasing the number of new businesses created every year is flawed. Increasing the number of people founding construction firms and hair salons and taxi services that don't do anything innovative isn't going to do us much good. In fact, it might hinder our economic growth because new businesses are, on average, less productive than existing ones.
Instead of believing naively that all entrepreneurship is good, we need to recognize that only a select entrepreneurs will create the businesses that will take people out of poverty, encourage innovation, create jobs, reduce unemployment, make markets more competitive, and enhance economic growth. Therefore, as unfair as it may sound, we need to "stop spreading the peanut butter so thin." We need to recognize that all entrepreneurs are not created equal. We need to think like venture capitalists and concentrate our time and money on extraordinary entrepreneurs and worry less about the typical ones.There is more, much more. Importantly, all of these recommendations tie to decades of data. Get your own copy: The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Lisa Robyn: The Corporate Dominatrix: Six Roles to Play to Get Your Way at Work
Bob Johansen: Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present
Curtis R. Carlson: Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
Phil Town: Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!
Nina Disesa: Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top
Susan Roane: How to Work a Room, Revised Edition: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing
Robert I. Sutton: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
