To be or not to be - classy

Classy Lesson One

Dear Friends (who are interested in creativity, innovation, and tech): I recently began researching about this new venture, Magic Leap, a novel human and visual computing tech venture (start-up), that is headquartered in Dania Beach, FL. They raised their A round of $50M in Feb this year. Just this week, they raised a B round of over $500M, in less than 8 months!  They are attracting some of the smartest tech and creative talent on the planet.  Their site is very interesting in that they don’t really say much, but articulate their story of how they are in stealth mode and want to change the world of machine learning and visual computing. Inspirational...

You have to scroll down on their web pages to read through the text.  Also make sure you see the neat animation with the elephant. You might have to click on the elephant when you see that part of the image to see the moving image.

I thought it was a neat concept and a different kind of website design, both creative and innovative.  http://www.magicleap.com/#/home

Mukesh Patel, CEO

www.JuiceTank.com

The above was an email that I received from one of MY friends - a serial entrepreneur, a founding principal of a private equity firm, attorney, business advisor, angel investor, and mentor.

*****

Classy Lesson Two

Hi Tom,

I'm working hard to find more practical ways for us to work together to take your business to where you want it to go. To do that well I need to understand how I can best help you. Please complete this short survey. Your answers are for my eyes only and will help me to create the thing you really want.

Thanks for being here.

Best,

Bernadette

www.thestoryoftelling.com

The above is from Bernadette Jiwa, who I met via www.SethGodin.com

“I’m Bernadette Jiwa, I lead organisational change around marketing and I'm here to help you tap into the essence of your idea, to uncover your unique ability and tell the story of how that translates to value for people in a marketplace. I want to show you how to make something people love so that you don't have to work so hard to make people love your thing. Whether you make chocolate bars, or sell consulting services, are a tech startup, a non-profit or incumbent global brand—you've got a brand story to tell. My job is to work with you and your company to unlock the value in your story and translate that into marketing people love. I'll help you to understand the difference you create and show you how to shine a light on that so that your brand becomes more meaningful to the people you serve.”

*****

A Class Act - or Class Dismissed?

Classy people do classy things. They give, they share, they recommended. They have their own adventures, they have their own successes and failures, but they always bring something back to share with the tribe. Seth Godin sends out a daily blog that is essentially free - sharing his amazing brain and valuable insights with the world. Mukesh Patel was compelled to share with his network of friends www.MagicLeap.com which indeed seems to be well on their way to being remarkable and disruptive. As for Bernadette Jiwa, she just seems to exist on this planet to help you to thrive and succeed in business. Explore her website, and tell me how you FEEL about Bernadette.

I don’t know if they can teach this in business school - how to be classy. But at least they should point it out when it rings your doorbell, or arrives in your inbox.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/classy

To be or not to be classy, that is the question. I don’t know the exact definition of classy, but I know it when I see it. 

And I think your customers will know it when they see it, too.

Fingers Crossed

To cross one's fingers is a hand gesture commonly used to implore God for protection, as well as to wish for good luck. The gesture is referred to by the common expression "keeping one's fingers crossed" or just "fingers crossed" and has also been historically used in order to allow early Christian believers to recognize one another during times of persecution.

Some people, mostly children, also use the gesture to excuse their telling of a white lie. This may have its roots in the belief that the power of the Christian cross might save one from being sent to hell for telling a lie. A similar belief is that crossing one's fingers invalidates a promise being made. I recently interviewed a new applicant who said during their recorded video interview "I'm not gonna lie....." many times, describing their passion for their job. How many times have you heard someone start a sentence "The numbers don't lie" when it is obvious that someone's numbers are indeed lying. 

Why do airlines tell us that our comfort, safety and happiness is their #1 concern - then they immediately treat us so poorly? Did you ever read the fine print on the "I ACCEPT" button when downloading software, or accepting an app on your phone? If you took the time to read it, you probably would never hit "ACCEPT" because it says you accept and agree to being a doofus. 

I once was a paid consultant to "right the ship" of a company on the rocks. I was given unfettered access to everything - the books, the customer records, all internal and external correspondence - everything. It only took a few weeks to discover the core problem of the business. The leadership was lying to everyone, including lying to themselves. I thought that my written report to the Board of Directors, Investors and Senior Management would put things back on track. Instead, it just caused them to lie about the report.

Something has happened in this country. It did not happen overnight, but over hundreds of years. Politicians ran on the platform of telling the truth (Honest Abe, George Washington). But now politics is all about the belief that everyone is liar, but the other guy lies more. The fine print on contracts became finer, and the feeling that you are being lied right to your face is the norm. 

Telling the truth, even when painful, even when embarrassing, even when expensive has become so rare in our world today, that it has become scarce. 

Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human wants in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. A common misconception on scarcity is that an item has to be important for it to be scarce. However, this is not true, for something to be scarce, it has to be hard to obtain, hard to create, or both. Simply put, the production cost of something determines if it is scarce or not. For example, although air is more important to us than diamonds, it is cheaper simply because the production cost of air is zero. Diamonds on the other hand have a high production cost. They have to be found and processed, both of which require a lot of money. Additionally, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be pursued at the same time; trade-offs are made of one good against others. 

Ah yes, of course, the TRADE-OFFS. 

Profits vs. Honesty. Profits vs. Integrity. 

Greed vs. Generosity. 

In business (and in life) things that are rare, things that hard to achieve, things that are hard to posses are valuable. A Rolls Royce is expensive, because it is hand made, and it takes a long time to produce. Let the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth become your key to riches, in both your business and in your life. Your kids will thank you for it. 

Grumpy Old Man

Sadly, my body is now 54 years old.

But my mind is still a wise ass teenager. My mind remembers Black and White TV, with tin foil on the rabbit ears. There was no such thing as a remote control, and there was channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 11 and 13. If you watched TV at night, at some point after midnight they would play the National Anthem and then you would get a test pattern.

How many WPM can you type?

Back in the day, this one question was more important than the rest of your resume. To “get the job” you needed to type at least X words per minute without errors or you would not be considered.

Back in the day, the teacher would write in chalk the chapter to read, the questions to answer and the homework for the day ON THE BLACKBOARD. The next morning some would turn in their homework, some would not. And some would ask “there is a book for this class?”  

Back in the day, we had “car phones” that cost $1,800 plus installation fees, and the service was terrible. There were only 9 cell towers active in 1983, and it cost $1 per minute plus taxes fees and a monthly service charge on top of it all. There was only a very small footprint where cell service would even work. We would say “call me back from a real phone” which was the most embarrassing thing to hear from a client.

Back in the day, we would go to the library, use the periodicals, read things on microfiche, and you NEEDED to go to the library. You did what you had to do to get the job done. Period.

Back in the day, computers did not work well at all. DOS operating systems, dot matrix printers and floppy disks made it an adventure to use a computer. There were no color screens, there was no Internet. You could not share - anything. Back in the day, we just made it all WORK.

You had to read the manual. You had to go to the library. You had to figure it out, do it yourself, read a book, research it. You had to find a way to do anything that you needed to get done. But we were all in the same boat. We all had to learn how to type, we all had to read, research, seek, find, discover.

Back in the day, computers were very, very dumb. YOU were the computer. YOUR BRAIN made that stupid little box do magic. There was no magic in the box, all the magic was still in your head.  It was a wonderful partnership. If you could make a computer “do anything” YOU would be the one to get the credit. Not Google, not Facebook, not Twitter or any billion dollar company. 

Computers in the 90’s were dumb, and WE were smart. We were the ones that pulled the magic out of the silicon chips and wires. We did all of the work, and we got all of the credit. Back in the day, we did the work. Not our machines.

Today, I have the pleasure of working with many kids in their 20’s.  My two sons are on that list. The “work” that they do is very different indeed from the work that I did what I was their age. It is a different time, and I know that we must not live in the past.

But deep down inside, I wish that the kids today could experience what did when I was their age. I wish they could experience the feeling of getting the TV picture to come into focus, from putting tin foil on the rabbit ears. I wish they could appreciate standing in line at the library, to make photocopies of some pages of some “reserved book” that you could not check out. I wish they could appreciate writing a term paper with a typewriter, with whiteout and with carbon paper. OMG, who remembers using carbon paper!!!!  We drove cars with paper maps, not a GPS. If there was traffic, you were going to be late. And AM radio was terrible in the car, back in the day.

Yeah, my body is now older, but my mind is still a wise ass teenager. But when I was a teenager, we just made it work. You either did your homework, or you did not. You either made your computer work, or you did not. You used the map, you read the book, you figured out how to do just about anything and everything. Back in the day, it was a simpler time - we could take credit for everything, because we did everything.

I love technology. I sell it, I have made a wonderful living over the years, selling and embracing and marketing technology. But somehow along the way, in the last 30 years, we as a society have somehow lost our way.

Doing a Google search is simply not the same thing as walking to a library on a rainy day, to search the stacks and the periodicals so that you could do your homework. Back in the day, homework meant that you actually had to do the work. Not cut and paste stuff from the Internet. WORK was the key part of homework. It was supposed to be hard, that was the point.

Hey kids: cc: means carbon copy, as in carbon paper.  bcc: means blind carbon copy.

Back in the day, if something went viral, it was not a good thing at all. I wonder if this blog will go viral? Damn, I am old. Is this what it means to be a grumpy old man? I better Google it.

Safe at home!

I don't know if there is a more thrilling moment in sports. They say that baseball is a boring game, with lots of time between the action. But I think that is exactly what makes it so special. At any moment, from out of nowhere, there can be a play at the plate. SAFE! Safe at home is what makes the game of baseball so special.

  www.joetorre.org

Joe Torre, for­mer pro­fes­sional base­ball player and man­ager of the New York Yankees and the Los Ange­les Dodgers, grew up the youngest of five chil­dren in Brook­lyn, New York. His father was a New York City police detec­tive and revered in his com­mu­nity. He was the cop that made every­one feel safe. Every­one except his own family.

Joe, Sr. ruled his home with an iron fist. He was a phys­i­cally abusive hus­band and an emotionally abu­sive father. The vio­lence that had besieged the Torre house­hold for so many years was a well-kept fam­ily secret and stayed a fam­ily secret for gen­er­a­tions. How­ever, in Decem­ber of 1995, Ali and Joe Torre attended a sem­i­nar called Life Suc­cess.  As a result of Joe’s participation in that sem­i­nar, he began to talk openly of his childhood experience with domes­tic vio­lence. He went pub­lic with his fam­ily secret in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Chas­ing the Dream: My Life­long Jour­ney to the World Series.

Ali and Joe Torre wanted to edu­cate chil­dren about the issue of domes­tic vio­lence. In 2002, they cre­ated the Joe Torre Safe At Home® Foun­da­tion. The mis­sion of the Foundation is “educating to end the cycle of domestic violence and save lives”.

Ini­tially, the Joe Torre Safe At Home® Foun­da­tion focused its resources on aware­ness build­ing through a local and national mul­ti­me­dia cam­paign. How­ever, the Joe Torre Safe At Home® Foun­da­tion quickly determined that they wanted to edu­cate chil­dren about vio­lence so that chil­dren under­stand that they are not alone and that there is hope.

In 2005, the Joe Torre Safe At Home® Foun­da­tion opened its first school-based pro­gram­ming ini­tia­tive, Margaret’s Place, at Hostos-Lincoln Acad­emy, Bronx, NY. Margaret’s Place, a trib­ute to his mom, is a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram which pro­vides stu­dents with a safe room in school where they can meet with a pro­fes­sional coun­selor trained in domestic-violence inter­ven­tion and pre­ven­tion. Cur­rently, the Joe Torre Safe At Home® Foun­da­tion has ten fully funded and oper­a­tional Margaret’s Places in New York City, Los Ange­les, Westch­ester County and New Jer­sey.The sites are fully funded and have a minimum commitment of three years.

Technology can play a supportive role. 

I am the Executive Director of the www.NYDLA.org and the Director of Sales and Marketing for the www.USDLA.org Together, we donate technology on a nationwide basis to allow children to receive free professional counseling via "virtual safe rooms" where in-person professional counseling is not available. 

  

Please donate to www.joetorre.org 

as every kid deserves to be "Safe at Home"

The Cool Table

 

Last night we all went out for dinner with the family and friends. There is a cool “All You Can Eat” Sushi Bar called Mr. Sushi.  Well, if this is the place that Sushi is named after, it must be great, right?

My job (beyond financing the meal) is to torture the waiter / waitress whenever we go out to dinner. I let them know that I am good tipper straight up, so that we don’t get kicked out before the food arrives.

When we go out to eat, there is always good food, lots of laughs, and lots of snarly and snarky comments. No one asked last night for us to “keep it down” which has happened on several occasions.

The place had a policy - you can order all the Sushi that you wanted - but - if you WASTE any food, they will charge you FULL PRICE for anything that you don’t eat.

Scene I

The waiter told us that the place will soon get busy, so if we want to order MORE food, we might want to order the 2nd round - now - otherwise we might have to wait. “Oh, sure, let me double down right now, so we don’t have to wait! Thanks for the advice, Mr. Waiter!”

The girls all ordered WAY MORE than they could possibly eat. So, the boys had to eat what they could not, otherwise the bill at the end of the night (according the to fine print on the menu) COULD be 2x.

So, the scene turned from happy and silly, to “EAT THAT DAMN SUSHI!”  Why the hell did you order so much food!  We are gonna have to pay double you fool!  I can’t eat another bite! Does anyone have a purse? Put it in your purse!

It ended well. We only had one or two pieces go begging, and we were able to break them apart and spread the rice around, destroying the evidence. REMINDING the waiter that I am a good tipper, we all said how much we loved the place and how we would be back again soon!

We are never going back.

This was not just an Sushi Bar, it was an ALL YOU CAN EAT Sushi Bar. The ALL YOU CAN EAT was the hook. The ALL YOU CAN EAT made them stand out from the rest. We drove an extra 10 miles to see Mr. Sushi, because HE was going to let us be gluttons!

This morning all of our house guests - we all KNOW what we did last night. We all did the walk of shame. Let’s just say that we all used the Febreze® in the bathroom this morning. Too vivid? Sorry.

Scene II

As I sit here thinking about ALL YOU CAN EAT things in other areas of life, how do they really work? At the end of the day, are there any ALL YOU CAN EAT things where people are truly glad and more happy due to the fact that they made pigs of themselves?

All you can eat data plans on cell phones. All you can eat voice and text. All the movies you can download and watch in the month. All the books you can read for a flat fee. Is there anything in business or in life where UNLIMITED really makes it better? We know that UNLIMITED makes it MORE, but does it make it any better?

Last night, my first bite of Sushi was amazing. In fact, the first few bites made me say the frequently uttered line “Oh, this is the best Sushi I have ever had - ever.” And then, bite after bite, piece after piece, I was slowly starting to wish that Mr. Sushi would commit hara-kiri.

“That bastard Mr. Sushi is running a scam!” was the general consensus at the cool table, less than an hour after we all sat down.

The things in life that we have unlimited access (Social Media, for one) do not get better because of quantity.

Quality does not come from quantity. But our brains see ALL YOU CAN EAT and we will drive further, and wait in line longer to get it. Lemmings, all of us.

Bigger is not better.  Better is better.  

With that being said, I would not say no to one of the kids running out and buying the LARGER size bottle of Pepto-Bismol this morning.

We DO love the VALUE PACK, however....

Lemonade Antidote

  

Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business or other organization. The entrepreneur chooses/develops a business model, acquires the human and other required resources and is fully responsible for its success or failure. Entrepreneurship operates within an entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Entrepreneurship within an existing firm or large organization has been referred to as intrapreneurship and may include corporate ventures where large entities spin off subsidiary organizations. Entrepreneurs are leaders willing to take risk and exercise initiative, taking advantage of market opportunities by planning, organizing, and employing resources, often by innovating new or improving existing products. More recently, the term entrepreneurship has been extended to include a specific mindset resulting in entrepreneurial initiatives, e.g. in the form of social entrepreneurship, political entrepreneurship, or knowledge entrepreneurship.


This was the scene that I saw when I left my driveway yesterday around noon. Six adorable girls, doing a well choreographed dance with pom poms and umbrellas, getting people to slow down, stop, and then buy Lemonade for $0.50 per cup. And, with 1/2 of the profits from their enterprise going to charity - Animal Rescue no less. I asked the father who was in charge of quality control and supervising (my neighbor who I had yet to meet) if I could take few pictures for my blog, since this week's topic would be...wait for it....Entrepreneurship. 

It turns our that our new neighbor works for one of my largest clients. I am so glad that I already gave a big tip to the girls BEFORE learning this fact.

According to Paul Reynolds, founder of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, "by the time they reach their retirement years, half of all working men and women in the United States probably have a period of self-employment of one or more years; one in four may have engaged in self-employment for six or more years. Participating in a new business creation is a common activity among U.S. workers over the course of their careers." In recent years, entrepreneurship has been claimed as a major driver of economic growth in both the United States and Western Europe.

There are many definitions for Entrepreneur, but one is as follows: an individual who organizes or operates a business or businesses. Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to lead a business in a positive direction by proper planning, to adapt to changing environments and understand their own strengths and weakness.  These adorable six girls having a blast on a Saturday afternoon - while doing great work for our society - they are the future of business in this country. 

I am an Entrepreneur. I know that my greatest strength is in sales, marketing and in business development. I can wear many hats, but some hats fit better than others. And, some hats make me look like a fool (like a beanie with a propeller on top).  The key is to know your weakness, and to find others who can complement your weakness. Walt had his brother Roy Disney. Hewlett had his friend Packard. Very few people make it alone. And the sooner an Entrepreneur can figure this out, the better the chances of success. 


Yes, I have many weaknesses.  And one big one is that I can never, ever say no to Girl Scouts selling cookies, or say no to little girls twirling umbrellas (no matter WHAT they are selling). 

Let's just say that here are some very happy dogs and cats at 11th Hour Rescue.  

Left to right, Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, which is 

sometimes cited as an example of entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation.

Sergey and Larry needed help, and they hired Eric. Google it!

TED knows best

Sugata Mitra is the winner of the 2013 TED Prize: 
Build a School in the Cloud, where children can explore and learn from one another.

 Education is a self-organizing system, where learning is an emergent phenomenon.

 The Victorians were great engineers. They engineered a [schooling] system that was so robust that it's still with us today, continuously producing identical people for a machine that no longer exists.

   It's quite fashionable to say that the education system's broken — it's not broken, it's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore. It's outdated. 

Ever watch a TED.com talk?

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan: "Ideas Worth Spreading".

TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event. The annual conference began in 1990, in Monterey, California. TED's early emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its origins in the Silicon Valley. Since June 2006, the talks have been offered for free viewing online, through TED.com. As of April 2014, over 1,700 talks are available free online. By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million, and on Tuesday, November 13, 2012, TED Talks had been watched one billion times worldwide. TED's mission statement:

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. Until 2010, it annually granted three individuals $100,000 and a "wish to change the world". Each winner unveils their wish at the main annual conference. Since 2010, in a changed selection process, a single winner is chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. For 2013, the prize amount was increased to $1 million.

Here is his prize winning 2013 TED.com talk

Now, here is your homework assignment:

• Watch this prize winning TED.com talk
• Think
• Spread

Why? Because "Everything is Distance Learning"