It’s the little things

I was reading a book I’ve been meaning to for some time – I saw it online and have kept in on my desktop for almost a year. I knew it was worth my time as soon as I saw originally, and so saved it. But I never made the time for it.

Ever do that – see something that you know is good for you but just never quite get to it ? It might be today’s plan to exercise or eat right. It might be that compliment that you want to give to your significant other as you know it’ll make their day. Telling your kid that you love them, or even sitting down with them and playing their game, or discussing their topic.

I had some time on my hands today, and so elected to do some of these things. And this book – it’s full of little nuggets of wisdom and gold. Wonderful stuff that’s soul candy. Here’s a sampling:

“We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough. Although we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless... Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Everyone has their own private Mount Everest that they were put on this Earth to climb” and “Power is never given, Power is taken” – Hugh Macleod

I’m clearly pleased with the decision I made to spend time on this, and I feel rewarded in this investment I’ve made. But my point in bringing this to your attention isn’t to gloat or brag about having that time or finding this. Rather I wanted to ask you to do something for yourself today. Doesn’t matter what it is – but it should be rewarding to you on a personal level.

Why ?

Because no one else will do it for you, and you shouldn’t feel cheated or hard-done by if you don’t ever get this kind of little token of appreciation. You should feel responsible that you are attending to a need you really do have. We need to eat, and we need to consume water, we need shelter and occasionally, we need to get a pat on the back. Our managers may not have remembered to tell us "good job" today (wonderful though if they did), and our relationships may not have resulted in some small compliment. That’s ok though, as you can take 60 seconds and reward yourself for making it another day.

Don’t go overboard, and understand that the end result will be someone who is infinitesimally happier and more likely to pass along the benefit to another.

That’s why.

Real vs Reel

I saw a wonderful quote today - Life's more like the real game than an episode of Sports Center.

It made me smile. Then it made me think.

In our world of constantly bombarded messages all competing for our attention, sexy often wins, hence the need to be louder, more colourful and create a bigger impact. In short, we're fed the highlight reel constantly and as a result we come to expect it.

The highlight reel is the best bits - the home run, the diving catch, the spectacular goal, touchdown or try. In short, it's the once-in-a-long-long-time-play that someone makes. When shown this type of feat regularly we start to expect it, but of course life's not like that. It's a counter-point to the movie montage scene where the falling-in-love couple play in the grass, look longingly at each other and go in paddle boats, all set to some sappy tune. The movie is telling us "this is the part where they fall in love". We all acknowledge that.

Except the highlight reel is worse as it doesn't come with that explicitly - it doesn't say this is the unreal part, instead it's implication is - this is how you should play. Or even - this is how you'll do when you use our stuff. (play any Axe commercial in your mind now for proof)

So is reel better than real - the humdrum, the long tedious times, and the days where you have bad hair, bad breath and a bad mood. Would it be better to live in short SPECTACULAR bursts ? Some people undoubtedly think that.

I don't.

Bring on the mediocre, test my patience with life and let me eat lots of average food. I want to wear clothing I don't always like, have unsatisfied cravings and be miserable some of the time. I need to know what that's like and be very familiar with it - for without that I can't appreciate the extraordinary. And I do want to - appreciate it I mean.

Voting with your Wallet

I made a stand today.

I've been on the decision point of paying membership fees at one of those very large warehouse supermarkets. I won't say which, only that it rhymes with ShostCo. I'm not a member, though some friends and family are and so I've been in a few times. I think some of their products are interesting & unique, and some of the pricing is pretty good. Not all by any means - their electronics are outclassed and out-priced at many other places for instance.

Back to my narrative though - I am having some family over this weekend, and I know they'd have what I like to cook up on special occasions like this, so I literally walked in with the intention of paying them their $55 just to have the privilege of shopping at their store. And I stopped. I had a conversation with the membership lady, but really - she didn't need to be there as the conversation was really quite personal between me & me.

Let me say a few things at this point...

1. I'm a fervent fan of small town merchants. A little main street section is what town's revolve around, so big box stores aren't in a town's interest in a character sense. I'm the first one to complain that the place I live has started to look like every other place around here. This urban sprawl is a blight, and an extremely shortsighted way to live our lives just so we can get 48 rolls of toilet paper for $1 less.
2. I'm also not against the idea of membership at stores, and I have a few already - notably my favorite retailer - MEC. I've no issue whatsoever provided it goes to some explainable cause that's a little worthwhile. As a means to simply line the owner's pocket though ? Nope sorry that's in the same league as Airline hidden fees.
3. The stores aren't convenient to get to, nor are the everyday values something I think are great, so it's not a place I crave.
   

What's all this mean - it means I walked away from "ShostCo" and their membership desk and decided that if I didn't take a stand and vote with my wallet, then how can I complain if no one else does.

I encourage you - not to do what I did as that's my decision - but rather I encourage to make positive, conscious choices and vote clearly with your own wallet. Your retailers & suppliers deserve to know whether they are providing the kind of value to you that you want.

The New Consumer Experience ?

I stand here writing this standing in line for a new technology toy. I have tried in vain to acquire this for the past weeks, spending lots of brain cells trying to determine the supply and demand economics behind my planned acquisition. I've tried 5-6 times in person, and innumerable times over the phone. Today, I've been in line for 90 minutes with an estimated two hours still to go. A number of questions have been going through my head during the whole exercise and I wanted to share them.

1) Is this the new desirable consumer norm ? By that I mean is the PR story of demand worth throttling sales in our consumer twitter-verse of what's cool in the moment.

2) What is the line of toleration people have? How do we know we (sellers) are getting enough product out to sustain excitement and maintain front page news status.

3) How can this be re-created for services or other offerings ? Building contractors and plumbers manage this - how do professional services manage this too..?

And lastly... How much longer will my phone battery last as I write this.

This last question is determinant of the others, and hence I will leave you to ponder the other questions on your own.

__

As a postscript, it did indeed take 3.5 hours of waiting and then an hour plus with the merchant in question. Was it worth it...well that's another post.

When Observation and Reality Don't Match - Part 2.

I said I'd keep my eyes open for this, and I didn't have to look for long. The New Scientist magazine article on recently unveiled observational evidence that the laws of physics may change across the universe. (Please take special note of the word 'law" here). Here's the link to all who are interested: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19429-laws-of-physics-may-change-across-the-universe.html

I offer this quote..."If the interpretation of the light is correct, it is "a huge deal", agrees Craig Hogan, head of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Illinois. But like Cowie, he suspects there is a flaw somewhere in the analysis. "I think the result is not real," he says."

Ok - so that was easy enough to come across and it's admittedly anecdotal...BUT it does illustrate the point. I'm sure with a little more eloquence, the scientist in question would have more precisely said: "I question the validity of this observational data, and the scope of it's implications as we have significant other data which would indicate that the laws as defined are sound."

So, what's the morale of this story ?

Never stop questioning - curiosity is how we advance our knowledge base.

We may Die, but We Never Really Go Away

Everyone knows we convert food into energy and use it to grow - the 'stuff' that is food, is converted by our bodies into mass - some people are very very successful at this.

When we're conceived, it's a contribution by the father and mother that gets us started - and the building blocks of that were the foods they ate, the drinks they drank.

What about when we die..? Well our stuff goes back into the ground or atmosphere and the cycle begins anew.

So is anything 'new'? Yes and no. New forms of matter are created (from other forms). Think about high school science and the table of elements. Our bodies create muscle, fat, bones, ligaments and so on from what we consume. Extra stuff is discarded as waste.

Is there ever a time when we create new matter..? No, everything we're made of was always here*. It wasn't in this form, but every atom that we are, that is around us - the ground, the trees the birds and sky - it was here in the beginning in some perhaps more basic form such as Helium or Hydrogen. Thanks to element producing factories such as stars, it's been transformed and we're possible. Of course there's lots more to it...but it does make you wonder.

Hold up your right hand, look at it closely. Where do you think the atoms that make it up were, before you were using them ?

When Observation and Reality Don't Match

Science has given us many many things. If science was on Facebook, I'd 'like' it, as we have received so much from it over the centuries. Modern science - since say 1500 - has enabled us as a species to take leaps and bounds forward - I won't bore you with an infomercial as I don't think there would be much disagreement over this point. (note I'm not deriding any other form of contribution here, just singling out Science for recognition).

One of my very favorite contributions that scientists have made (after-all it's people doing science that counts) is in theoretical areas where they are trying to establish something as fact. When looked at this way, science comes to the border lands with philosophy with a "I think therefore I am" approach credited to Rene Descartes, arguably the father of modern philosophical thought and a noted physicist and scientist too, who lived until 1650. You see back in those early years of modern science, there was so much to discover, uncover and prove still, that where science began, and philosophy ended was still murky. One of the first tasks of modern scientific thought was to establish a set of rules or laws for how it would work that would stand the test of time. Descartes wasn't alone in doing this, his contemporaries like Galileo and shortly afterward Newton worked to establish similar sets of rules we could lay our scientific foundation on.

One of the best outputs of these various efforts in my opinion was a generic rule was that a theory had to be established as sound, and then proven, before it could be accepted as a scientific 'law'. So powerful is this idea, that it translated well into Biology, Chemistry , Physics and modern life. Just because I say something that feasibly makes sense, doesn't make it real, unless observation and experimentation can prove it to be real. For example, when I was a little kid, I thought I'd figured out the whole human body thing. You see I knew that when your heart stopped, you died. I knew the heart and lungs were related in some way too. So, I hypothesized that when you held your breath, your heart stopped, and then you died. It explained asphyxiation and why your body took over in an involuntary spasm when it really needed air (the body wanted the heart to go again) This is an example then of a theory that could have been easily dis-proven by checking your heart rate when holding your breath - only I was 6 and unaware of this scientific principle, so didn't do that. But I digress.

The value of this simple, elegant law is tremendous, and sometimes it's shocking that it's forgotten.

When we witness something that should make us question the law or established 'fact', we often choose instead to disbelieve what we have witnessed. While granted we can be fooled or mistaken by what we see at times, when strong empirical evidence is presented to us that contradicts something we had previously taken as "truth or fact" often the reaction will be to maintain our view, when it is clearly wrong.

I'll keep my eyes open for this in the coming days - and I bet I can come back with some meaty examples pretty quick.

Diet Coke - A Case Study in Breaking The Habit

Hi, my name is Steve and I'm an addict. To Diet Coke that is. It's been 5 years since my last drink.

This is a case study in brand allegiance rather than a study of addiction. Arguably as you'll see I was addicted to the brand, not the drink as such. But I get ahead of myself.

I was a loyal Diet Coke drinker for many years. I enjoyed the taste, and it was a nice little jolt of caffeine when I wanted it. In fact I was able to nail the timing on the rush I'd get. You might say after years I was a familiar and true client. I wouldn't drink Pepsi/Diet Pepsi as I could tell the taste difference from 50 paces and I didn't enjoy it. In fact if I was in one of Pepsi's restaurant chains where Diet Coke wasn't an option, I'd go without rather than suffer through a bad imitation.

As I moved around the globe for my work, my Diet Coke was beside me, trustworthy and dependable. I was a happy guy with my Diet Coke relationship. And then something happened. Something awful.

I was living in Hong Kong at the time, and for reasons no doubt to appeal to the local 6million people there, Coke changed the recipe of Diet Coke locally. They had a few variations on the market at the time too - my optional favourite was lemon Diet Coke (trust me, it's good). Anyway, the nice folks at Coca-Cola changed to a sweeter Diet Coke, and I didn't like it. They didn't change all variations though, and I was able to enjoy my Diet Coke with lemon flavouring for 2-3 months after they switched the traditional one. So what did I do when they changed, when they broke their promise to me about what it would taste like, how it would satisfy my cravings..?

I kept buying it. I'd sip it, cringe and throw it away. But the next day I'd buy another. This went on for a while - I was addicted

You see I had so conditioned myself to reaching for the red & silver can that my Diet Coke relationship meant more to me than just the taste. But I hated it now. I wouldn't / couldn't drink it. I reveled in any business trips to other parts of the world where I could secretly sip my mistress (Only Hong Kong changed the formula to my knowledge). But all this simply postponed the inevitable. The break-up that was writing on the wall. I had to stop.

Eventually after some months, I stopped buying & drinking Diet Coke as I was betrayed by it. I now live where I can easily access it - the same old great taste that I'm sure I'd enjoy still today. But I don't. I don't dare go near the stuff as the brand broke it's promise to me, and betrayed our special relationship. I won't buy it again on principle. (I'd still never buy Pepsi products either though, and I can't quite rationalize that ether).

My Diet Coke tale is a rich one in lessons I think - about brand loyalty, about conditioning and about addiction. While I still have high regards for the brand, I won't touch it any longer. Which is odd. Sometimes to this day I still feel the urge to get the comfort of buying one - knowing I have a go-to choice or a friend I can count on.

I know Coca-Cola's lost a truly loyal customer in this mess, and I'm still searching for something tasty at every lunch.

Vanity

I know some adults who have worn braces in their adult years. I know others that have done teeth whitening and gotten botox. I myself am going under the knife for some health – related adjustments too – all in the name of vanity.

Why ?

As my friend Alan (as pure an Aussie as there ever was, all 5 foot 3 of him, & the spitting image of Kris Kringle) was fond of saying.. ”Last I checked, this wasn’t a F$%^& beauty contest”. Indeed it’s not, but sometimes it can seem like it.

We’re bombarded with visuals of what beauty is supposed to look like. There’s a class of celebrity-ism out there that revolves around beauty, and the reality TV industry is arguably built on this foundation. (Marketing line: Watch pretty people go through various traumas). This is so beaten into us that when a true talent arises that doesn’t happen to be beautiful (Susan Boyle anyone ?) it’s remarkable to us.

But I rant.

Do we need to adjust ourselves to be younger, more perfect looking, a virtual mating ploy a la peacocking..or is it done as we feel better about ourselves and that confidence shines through.

Or does this matter – is it really worth thinking about (I’m parking the whole first world “Let them eat cake” attitude argument for the sake of this discussion). Is it just what makes our world and economy go round like malls, fancy cars and manicured lawns. Is playing with our appearance simply the manifestation of these same desires.

Years and years ago when GOD was being drilled into my head (unsuccessfully), I questioned why Pride was a sin as I thought the effort to do something well and the effort it took to achieve that outcome surely couldn’t be sinful. I see however that pride & vanity are two sides of the same coin - and it’s all heads and tails.

Do you count up or down to your goals ?

I was exercising this am, and the machine I was on was counting down towards 0:00 remaining. It did create a sense of urgency as I had a defined effort level I wanted to reach, but it got me wondering. If working towards a goal, do you look at the time (effort) invested as your metric, or the time (effort) remaining ?

I've no issue with the way this machine works and am therefore probably a 'beat the clock' goal oriented person. But equally valid would be the person who wanted to invest "X" effort in what they do, and therefore would like to see the count on that.

It's always interesting to think through the psychology of the designs all around us. Most of it isn't overtly obvious and requires us to see it, to acknowledge it. Too many of us don't I'd bet.

What I did on my summer vacation

It was a great summer.

I did many things.

I spent time with my family, and we went on vacation to Africa.

My youngest and I climbed a mountain.

I saw lions.

I moved house.

My oldest went off to school.

I had fun.

I worked a little.

I wish it was still summer.


By Steve

Are There Similar Challenges in Technology Adoption for Schools & Sales ?

One might see many similarities in the challenges that affect formal education as they relate to technology adoption, to the world that I primarily work in - helping sales people excel, often through the use of technology. Not surprising perhaps as learning and technology are both ever-evolving so represent moving targets on both counts.

A number of salient points were raised a little while ago by Larry Cuban (an American teacher and education expert) and Mr. Cuban goes onto describe two divergent views in his post - worth a read if you're as fascinated by how key learnings in one area can apply to another as I am.

The primary issues that Mr. Cuban highlights through a reference to another expert are technocentrism and pedagogical dogmatism.

Technocentrists ... seek “educational uses for particular technologies.” Instead, “educators must focus upon how best to assist students’ learning.” to quote his post. While pedegogical dogmatism is to put it in a dull fashion - "my way or the highway" - an educator with an unbending view of the way things should be done. This lack of a flexible view combined with singular focus on the way to embrace technical change is problematic - image that!

This issue isn't unique to schools, it runs rampant in the sales training world as well I'll suggest. I see it in the lack of depth of offering at 99% of the providers in the space, and the eyes of customers who have experienced one too many poor executions of sales methodologies captured in software of some sort.

Granted this is a difficult nut to crack, but first a few needed assumptions have to be to acknowledged :

• Not everyone optimally learns the same way
• Some people are "computer impaired", some are "process challenged" and a few are both
• Learning is about the student, not the teacher and that's as true in the meeting room as it is in the classroom

Luckily for us and our children some companies and teachers "get it" and they embrace a toolset - where it makes sense, and can help accelerate the desired change, and not just simply because it's there.