What's the Real Goal ?

I think there are times when we lose sight of our real goals.  Instead, we get convinced that executing our plan to achieve the goals is actually what it's about, and forget the plan itself isn't actually the goal.

I live and work in a world where we bring new ideas and ways of working (and being successful) to people.  If we're effective, people adopt these new methods and perform better.  But there are times when in our eagerness to demonstrate how well thought-out our ideas are, we lose sight that it's about people understanding and adopting what we speak about, rather than the need to transmit all the information we have.

I think it's better to get 100% traction on a smaller set of ideas, than to drown when confronted with all of them.  Of course, optimally we get both results - understanding and full content.  But, if we have to choose - choose wisely.

You - The Artist

We are all artists.  Seth's taught me that, and I've come to believe it.  We each perform our art every day doing whatever it is we do, from garbage collection to leading organizations to taking care of our kids.  Our art varies (as it should) and those really great artists stand out from the crowd as exceptional, in their own respective fields of expertise.

I had a week as an artist where I left no stone unturned, I performed to my own max, and it felt great.  I didn't short change my audience, and as a result I'm proud of the work I did.

When your experience combines with your talents, and you throw yourself into what you hope is a bravura performance - you'll never regret it.

I strongly encourage you - embrace that in your own life, and give it all you've got.  Be the artist you're capable of being.

Be Thankful

I had what in some instances might be considered a tough day on Sunday – It wasn’t really tough in the scheme of things – stuff just didn’t work out the way I’d planned, or hoped.  I was trying to get to another city  on the west coast for work– a 5.5 hour flight and I’d arranged to go early to both enjoy the day a little, and take some stress of travelling off.

Here’s what happened – I’d gotten up at 5am, and made my way through a mild snowstorm into the airport for an 08:00 flight.  They downgraded the airplane, made me do the extra security check, and couldn’t give me a seat until 25mins to departure, where I got the very last row.  Then the flight delayed.  Then the flight cancelled.  Then I couldn’t get re-booked, even though there were 3 more non-stops that day, and countless connections.  Flights were operating poorly all over the place due to the weather, even though my situation was mechanical in nature.  I ended up getting a 12:10 flight, but again due irregular ops at the airport, that plane was actually was scheduled to leave at 3:45 and eventually took off at 4pm.

But here’s why I was thankful – I made it, the plane didn’t crash, I ended up not sitting in the last row, I was able to do some preparation work while I waited and I felt better about the week’s tasks as a result.  What it costs me was some anxiety, and about 8 hours of my time, which truth be told I was going to try to enjoy casually – so nothing really lost.

I decided to be thankful rather than wound up as it made my day easier to deal with.  I tried to think consciously and positively, and appreciated the various assistance that was offered to me by others in the airport.  I don’t want to get all preachy here, but I would offer that I’m not sure what I’d have gained by being very angry and upset- I did see those people all day, and it didn’t work out well for them.

What I had reinforced from this was that some time things don’t go as planned, the situation often and frequently looks dire, and our response to it governs our experience.  But, you’ll get through it. I did.  My day wasn’t bad, and I hope I’m smart enough to have the same reaction next time. 

Motivation & Going the Extra Mile

Do you know people that work 60+ hour weeks and don't complain ?  How about those that volunteer for their community by coaching, or for their church by singing or advising those with less, or even in their families by being the 'go-to babysitters' ?

I'm sure you do, most of us know people that do those things, and perhaps some of us even do it ourselves -  but what motivates this behaviour ?   What drives us to get up at 5am, to work-out, or stay late and make personal sacrifices for the benefit of work or others in our lives.  In my work, we talk a little about business and personal agendas - the drivers we experience that cause us to do certain things.  But there's more to it I think.  Some people are simply wired to try a little harder out of a sense of wanting to be better, or the fear of the latter -  wanting to avoid looking worse.   I might suggest that there's an altruism spectrum, with Mother Theresa at one end, and a black-hole of selfishness on the other end.  Most of us are in the average, middle area, though some of us are clearly more altruistic than others.

These people tend to stand out in whatever group they find themselves in, they're the caring and giving ones.  It's great to recognize them, but the need to understand their motives doesn't always strike us.   I think it's a truism to suggest we can't force people to be selfless - not for any length of time anyway.  Any attempts to do that are misguided and ill-conceived.  The way to stimulate that behaviour is to reward the original motivation - show the fitness-oriented real gains in strength or capabilities, demonstrate to the work-focussed a raise, a promotion or a bigger office.  Show tangible results for those that strive to do a better job.  If I'd like to see someone try even harder, I might help them achieve the desired results they're aiming for, and in the process develop a sense of deep loyalty in that person.

Think about this the next time you see a situation, any situation where attempts are being made to force 'extra's' out of someone.  The way to see success here isn't a stick, or even a carrot for that matter...it's standing beside them and helping them realize the outcome they seek.

Superbowl Ads

These are works of art unto themselves at times, and they all have a couple things in common - they're over the top.  They're not regular marketing, the costs involved and expectations are too high.  Where else are the ads judged for creativity, humour and originality and viewed as stand-alones worthy of the main program.

RIM is doing one this year for the new Blackberry10, and I kind of hope they just have images of someone gasping for a last breath, as that would be realistic, ironic and worthy of note.  But I bet they try to convince us instead that they're contenders for wallet-share.  I'd be open to that story if they hadn't bought a superbowl ad actually.  But that purchase, that stage and surrounding hype really do make this seem like a desperate last gasp.

Work & Excercise

This isn't how to stay fit on the road.

Rather I'm seeing the parallels lately between physically working out, building up muscle tone, and being able to do more physically, and the work equivalent.

When you're working harder, you seem to be able to do more work.  That's somewhere between counterintuitive and obvious perhaps, but it has struck me lately.  The more you work, the more efficient you become, and your diligence and awareness of deadlines increases.  Your capacity to handle work increases.  In a way, your work "muscle" gets stronger.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this. How does it work for you ?

Hey Apple - TV is Different

There have been rumours, rustling and swirlings about Apple's move into TV for some time.  It's the 'next big frontier for them' has been some of the hype, and they'll do to TV what they did to mobile telephony.  I'd like to go out onto a limb and predict the pending arrival of the next "Newton".  Apple will uncharacteristically fail in their TV effort and here's why.

TV is different.

Than what you say ?  Than just about every other vertical they've entered before, and some of the barriers to success are not competitive but rather behavioral on the consumer's part.   These tend to be the toughest to change.

For a start, the long, slow approach to TV that they've done has left Apple without some of the more obvious quick wins it could have 'pioneered', such as web connectivity to your set - been done already.  What they've got left that's easily available to them is messing with the user interface - think TV remote morphing into an app on your various iDevices and Jetsons-era talk of the connected household.  Cool, yeah, but worth an Apple-style premium over a Sony or LG TV set ... don't think so.

TV like the original iPod, or now the latest mobile device universe is a consumption device.  And TV isn't about music, or books (hello Amazon), it's about video content that has to be fresh.  As is today's shows - that fresh.  Apple's got music, Apple's got video rentals.  Apple doesn't have TV content, and the Complete Season 2 of Friends doesn't count by the way.  They have excelled in other markets as they offered content to match the device. iPod+iTunes, iPad+Apps etc.  But without TV content that is in some way interesting, where are they ...  well, they're in the same spot as a few other TV makers...fighting a price and screen-size war.

Even if we put that aside for a moment, and assume they find TV content, the second big chalenge I see is that the business model behind TV is different than music and movies, both areas they've seen some success in.  Those are paid content models, and so buying content through another media (device) wasn't really that tough to understand.  TV however is a free subscription model, whereby we've access to the fresh content, and in return we watch certain commercial messages that are associated with it.  Apple's captive market is zero, so they aren't in a position to get a share of that revenue.  Frankly, they made such an impact on the music and movie business that was negative for most content creators, that I can't imagine any TV content creator  will want to play with them.  If the content was free on the Sony TV why would you pay Apple for it ? The answer is you won't and that's the behaviour they won't be able to change.

The last big challenge for them sprung up in December of last year, and they've perhaps not yet put two and two together about it yet.  Apple's recent hardware push has been in screen clarity, more pixels, better visuals etc.  Nice if I'm looking at photos or something.  They call it retina display, and you really can see a difference.  Imagine a TV with that...  no seriously, imagine a TV throwing incredibly high definition visuals in 30 frames per second (or more) at you.  It's overwhelming as your brain struggles to deal with it all.  Peter Jackson found this out the hard way, as he released his Hobbit movie in a variety of formats, including one in what I'll call "Super-definition".  People got lost in the story due to the visual impact. They were overwhelmed, they got headaches.  Mr. Jackson gave us a movie version of retina display, and showed us the upper end of tolerance for more visual detail.  What works fine in a photograph doesn't always translate to live action.  Again, I'm not sure Apple understands that yet, as they've not hit this barrier themselves with iDevices.

So, will they proceed anyway and release an iTV ?  I think they will, as Tim Cook, Apple's CEO needs to be seen to have a rabbit or two up his sleeve. Let's wait to see what happens..