Sweet Bags o' Money!

 

We are going to spend over $8.4 Billion on Halloween this year. This is the total for all spending on costumes for adults, children, and pets. Plus the parties, the candy and the pumpkins. 

Adult costumes are expected to outsell children’s costumes, with spending reaching $1.2 billion and $950 million, respectively. And pet owners will drop $350 million on costumes for their animals. 

 

10 Billion pieces of candy corn that will be produced this year. Candy corn was introduced by the Wunderlee Candy Company in the 1880s, before the Goelitz Candy Company (now Jelly Belly Candy Company) started making it in 1900. It has remained largely unchanged, except for the pace of its production: In the early years, its arduous creation process meant it was only available in the fall; now, with modern machinery, it’s available year-round.  

Americans will spend at least $3.1 billion on candy, according to the National Retail Federation (the National Confectioners Association puts the number slightly higher) with 71% of consumers surveyed saying they will be passing out some of the sweet stuff this year.

$400 Million: this is the worldwide box office revenues for all 10 movies in the Halloween franchise. The original, released in 1978, was shot for $300,000 in just 20 days and took in $47 million at the box office (equivalent to around $99.1 million today), making it the highest-grossing independent movie ever at the time.

$300 Million is the worth of the haunted house industry. There are 2,500 haunted attractions worldwide, according to NBC News, and prices for entry range from $15 to $40. The larger haunted houses can earn between $2 million and $3 million a season.

1.5 Billion pounds of pumpkin is produced each year in the U.S., making it one of the country’s most popular crops. At the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze (pictured) in New York’s Van Cortlandt Manor, more than 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins line the grounds of the riverside estate.


Yes, we are setting a record for spending $8.4 Billion on Halloween this year. I wonder if Milton Hersey ever thought that his empire would become as big as it is today. 

Or if William Henry Atkinson the founder of the American Dental Association (established in 1859) would have thought that his organization would grow to more than 155,000 members.

What's your favorite candy?

With Halloween just around the corner, thoughts of candy come to mind. If I asked you "what is your favorite candy?" how long would it take you to answer? I quickly named five. I am definitely a Almond Joy kinda guy. But I have been know to get a paper cut or two opening Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrappers too fast. And I won't turn down a YORK Peppermint Pattie with the cool, refreshing taste of mint dipped in smooth dark chocolate.



Now, you can probably do the same with sports teams, cars, beer, food. It is probably easy to answer these questions, because we have been asked many times. What if I asked you this: what is your favorite charity? This seems to be a harder question to answer. At least, it is for me. 



Charity Navigator works to guide intelligent giving. I'm a fan, and in full disclosure, I donate my time and my money to the cause. 

By guiding intelligent giving, their aim is to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation’s and the world’s most persistent challenges. Charity Navigator was originally funded by the New York philanthropists, John and Marion Dugan, who believed that an unbiased charity evaluation tool needed to be created to help benevolent citizens make informed giving decisions. 

Charity Navigator has become the nation's largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities. In our quest to help donors, our team of professional analysts has examined tens of thousands of non-profit financial documents. We've used this knowledge to develop an unbiased, objective, numbers-based rating system to assess over 8,000 of America's best-known and some lesser known, but worthy, charities.

Charity Navigator's rating system examines two broad areas of a charity's performance; their Financial Health and their Accountability & Transparency. Ratings show givers how efficiently a charity will use their support today, how well it has sustained its programs and services over time and their level of commitment to good governance, best practices and openness with information. 

If you eat Halloween candy that has peanuts, and if you have a peanut allergy, you could find yourself in distress. You certainly would not want your child eating candy that would cause them harm. Maybe we need a "Charity Navigator" for candy?

Which charities qualify as “America’s 50 worst”? The Center for Investigative Reporting developed a methodology to compile the list that focused on those charities that, during the past decade, reported paying professional solicitation companies to troll for donations (groups with relatively few such fundraising campaigns or receiving  most of their funding from other sources were excluded from the analysis).  It’s a pretty horrifying and disgusting list. For example, Kids Wish spends less than three cents on every dollar raised to help kids, but has paid $4.8 million to the founder of the charity and his consulting firms. They are so abominable in their approaches that they truly give a bad name to the entire nonprofit sector.

Yes. I am a fan of the technology based evaluation systems that allows Charity Navigator to intelligently guide us. We want to make sure that our money is put to good use. After all, if we make a mistake, we have no one to blame but ourselves, right?  If there was only a "Charity Navigator" to guide us with true, accurate information for other key decisions in life. 

If there was only some way to get the facts - the true facts - when voting - for a piece of candy, or for supporting a charity. Or when donating money to a political party. Or when voting for the leader of the free world.    

It turns out that ALL CANDY is bad for you. There is NO GOOD CANDY. Some candy is better than others, but some candy, has nuts. 

And the nuts can kill you. 

The time to get cloudy is before it gets cloudy

Matthew, the deadly storm that is spreading misery from the Caribbean to the Carolina coast, is no longer a hurricane. But it's still packing a powerful punch. The storm whipped North Carolina Sunday morning, causing "record-breaking" flooding and blowing powerful winds after killing at least 17 people in four states. As of 2 p.m. Sunday Matthew was about 150 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and heading east at 15 mph.

When a business has a loss of customer data, it might never recover. Any data loss could result in a loss of income. Missing one billing cycle can be enough to devastate a business. It is too late to preach to those who were in the path of Hurricane Matthew about backing up their business data, scanning paper documents, or moving phone and computer systems - moving a copy of everything - to the cloud.

Here on the east coast of the USA, we have been hit many times by severe storms in the past ten years. When a business suffers a loss of its records, its books, its data - this becomes the #1 reason for business to close its doors and never reopen.

This can all be avoided. Buildings can be rebuilt. Vehicles can be replaced. But once the data of a business is gone, it is gone forever.  

We live in a digital world. Our lives are now digital. Photos, contracts, records, anything on “paper” can be scanned, digitized and archived. This has been true for years. And yet, so many in business will have shuttered their doors before Matthew arrived, and they will never reopen when Matthew is just a bad memory. Over the next few weeks, companies all along the east coast of the USA will file for bankruptcy. All because they lost their data.

Hurricane Katrina – 2005

The Category 5 Hurricane Katrina by far tops this list. In the U.S., areas up and down the eastern seaboard felt Katrina. However, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and especially Louisiana were hit incredibly hard. The image of the levy breaking in New Orleans is one that will stay with many of us for a long time. Hurricane Katrina was not only the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, incurring about $108 billion in damage, but it was also the 5th deadliest, claiming approximately 1,833 deaths.

Hurricane Sandy – 2012

If you were on the east coast of the United States in October of 2012, you definitely felt at least some effects of Hurricane Sandy. New York and New Jersey residents felt the full impact of the storm, with much of Manhattan being evacuated and significant portions of the Jersey Shore being completely destroyed. While Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic storm season it was also the 2nd costliest hurricane in U.S. history. To date, Sandy has cost about $85 billion dollars, however the total cost is still being evaluated. Most of that cost is due to the 650,000 houses either damaged or destroyed by Sandy.

Loss of life is tragic during any Hurricane. But a storm can take the life of a business, too. Years ago, storms hit without warning. With the technology of today, we have advanced warning. We have time to prepare, time to get our families to safety. You can evacuate - but you cannot bring your business files with you. You cannot load filing cabinets into your car when you leave for higher ground.

Buildings can be replaced. Insurance policies can help a business to rebuild. But once your business data is gone, it is gone forever. It’s never coming back.

In business, some things can easily be replaced. 

Others, not so much. www.Ready.gov

Aye, Aye Captain!

"Aye aye, sir" is a phrase commonly heard present day in naval language. It is derived from a duplicate of the word "aye" which came into the English language in the late 16th century and early 17th century, meaning "Yes; even so." It was common in dialect and is the formal word for voting "yes" in the English House of Commons. Its most common use is as a naval response indicating that an order has been received, is understood, and will be carried out immediately. It differs from "yes", which, in standard usage, could mean simple agreement without any intention to act. In naval custom, a reply of "yes sir" would indicate agreement to a statement that was not understood as an order or a requirement to do anything. 

The alternatives of "aye aye sir" and "yes sir" would allow any misunderstanding to be corrected at once. This might be a matter of life and death for a ship at sea. Basically, it means that the speaker understands and will obey a direct order.

Aye = Yes. Aye Aye = I understand, and I will comply.

In other words, it's the naval equivalent to the aeronautical difference between "Roger" and "Wilco." Roger = Message received. Wilco = Will comply. 

We now have AI.  AI = Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos says we're at the earliest days of artificial intelligence and the influence it will have on consumers' lives. "It's hard to overstate how big of an impact it's going to have on society over the next 20 years," Bezos said on stage at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

NYDLA.org advisor Edward Hess, University of Virginia Professor of Business Administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence states: In the next five to 10 years, we will see businesses of all sizes impacted and challenged by a combination of technology advances, including artificial intelligence, global digital connectivity, the Internet of Things, Big Data, increasing computer power, Cloud AI SaaS Services, 3D manufacturing, smart robotics and the beginning of artificial emotional intelligence.

These technology advances combined will likely:

1. Transform how most businesses are staffed, operated and managed
2. Change the nature and availability of work in our society
3. Infuse smart technology and data science into every business function
4. Commoditize operational excellence
5. Make innovation and human performance the primary value creation differentiators

The full article here http://ideas.darden.virginia.edu/2016/09/leadership-in-the-smart-machine-age-the-4es/

What once seemed to be many years away (pizza delivery via drones, self-driving cars, etc.) are now HERE. Today.

Self driving cars (and ships, buses, trains, aircraft?) are here now. And this means no more parking tickets, no more speeding tickets, and maybe even no more car accidents. What will this do to the economy? How many municipalities rely on income from parking and speeding tickets? If there are no more car accidents, what impact will that make on life-saving organ donations? Most organ donations are a result of car accidents.

A chatbot lawyer service set up by a teenage programmer to appeal parking tickets has helped overturn over $4m in fines since 2014. The DoNotPay bot is described by its 19-year-old creator Joshua Browder as “the world’s first robot lawyer” and has taken on 250,000 cases—winning 160,000 of them. Browder made the bot freely available and has described it as a tool to help prevent local governments taking advantage of their citizens.

Full article here http://www.newsweek.com/robot-lawyer-chatbor-donotpay-parking-tickets-475751?

What does IBM Watson mean for the world? Will a medical doctor ever “go against” the advice given by IBM Watson? And if so, what will taking (or not taking) medical advice from Watson do to malpractice insurance? If Watson was available - and you don’t ask Watson for advice, is that alone negligence and/or a form of malpractice?

How far away are we from IBM Watson (Attorney, Doctor, Teacher) affecting the global economy, especially via replacing jobs?

Aye = Yes  

Aye Aye = I understand, and will comply.

Remember, the difference between "Aye" and "Aye Aye" could be life and death, to a ship at sea. And now, we have gone from Aye Aye, to just "AI”. 

Who is the master and who is the servant? 

The AI genie has been released from the bottle - much sooner than anyone predicted.

What do you do?

My friend David Burkus (www.DavidBurkus.com) does many things. One of them is running a really great podcast. He interviews cool people, and every podcast begins with the question: Who are you and what do you do? And everyone knows this question is coming, so they had time to prepare their answers. These people are some of the smartest people on the planet. And yet, many of them seem to struggle with their answer.

Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of the country. It is the Monday of the long weekend known as Labor Day Weekend and it is considered the unofficial end of summer. I write this blog on a Sunday, smack in the middle of the “end of summer” celebration.

When we were kids, we would be asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And we would shout out things like: Doctor! Fireman! Teacher! Policeman! Baseball Player! Nurse! Astronaut!

At such a young age, we could not know the difference in earning potential from one profession to another. As kids we answered this question based on pure emotion. What would it "be" like to become a Doctor? What would it “be” like to become a Fireman? What would it “be” like to become a professional athlete? We were too young to know or worry about little things like car payments and mortgages and student loans. Money had nothing to do with it.

Somewhere along the way, the questions went from “What do you want to BE when you grow up” to “What is your college major” and “What do you do for a living”.

The process shifted. It went from “being” something to “doing” something. And the money - exchanging our time on planet earth doing something - for money - entered the conversation.

When I was in High School in Boca Raton Florida, the Quarterback of the football team was - amazing. I knew him since the 7th grade. Every sport he played - baseball, track, basketball, everything - he just excelled. FAST! Oh, such a fast runner. He went on to college, and everyone knew that he was one day going to win the Super Bowl. It was going to happen! The talent, the skill was there - we just need to watch it all unfold! Then, there was an injury. And a few unlucky breaks.

There was no NFL career for my friend.

But he did pursue a career in football. The passion for the game was too strong. The love of the sport, the “fire in the belly” as they say, was too much to ignore.

Labor Day has become a holiday to celebrate and reflect on “what we do for a living” rather than what we do - since what we do is really who we are.

When we retire (if we ever CAN retire…..save that topic for another blog) we talk about our careers - as if once retired we have transformed into a different person. When we talk about our past work, when we reminisce about our past careers we are describing our identity, our purpose. The “thing” that we did for a living, the actions that we performed in exchange for compensation becomes everything.

As we celebrate the long holiday weekend, try to reflect on this interesting process. We go from “what do you want to be” to “what do you do” to “what did you do” - for a living. 

Don’t let the compensation (the money) that you exchange for your time on planet earth become your label. Parents: teaching moment for your kids!

What you do - and what you have done - should always match your passion. It should be your special purpose. Financial compensation has nothing to do with it. We all have bills to pay, we all have financial responsibilities. 

Passion needs to equal Profession.

The next time someone asks you “What do you do?” stop and ask yourself - do they want to know about my passion - or are they trying to figure out how much money I make? The secret to a successful life and career is to have “what do you do” and “what do you do for a living” have the same answer. 

Too often, the answer to these two questions are very different. And that is sad.

Mark Richt is the head coach of the University of Miami Hurricanes. Prior to Miami, Richt served as head coach at the University of Georgia for 15 years, Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks coach at Florida State University for 14 years, and as offensive coordinator at East Carolina University.

A plague o' both your houses

Often quoted as "A pox on both your houses." This is a famous quote from Romeo and Juliet. As Mercutio dies, he utters this phrase three times, cursing the families whose rivalry led to his death. We’ve all had nightmare customer service experiences. Some experiences so vile, so painful, that we might find ourselves secretly cursing the person on the other end of (the phone, the email, the “your call is important to us” phone robot). This probably brings back vivid memories of wishing you could transport yourself (like on StarTrek) to the call center.  “Energize, Scotty! I’ve got a customer service miscreant that needs to meet my phaser...”

And then, every once in a great while, the opposite happens. 

A customer service experience so good, so amazing, so flawless - that it stops you in your tracks. Customer service so impressive, that is makes you feel like you are watching Triple Crown winner Secretariat taking the Belmont Stakes in what remains a record time, leaving the field far behind him (I was there in 1973 screaming “That’s impossible!”)

We use Highrise and Basecamp in all of our companies. The FAQs on their respective websites are good, and their “self-service” customer service is strong. But I had a specific question about how a certain feature worked in Basecamp. I was about to make a significant change in how we do things in our back office. If I got it wrong, disaster could ensue. So, even though the FAQs were clear, I needed some hand-holding. I needed to make sure. So I sent off my email to Support. On a weekend. I’m hoped to hear back sometime next week.

Ah, no.

Minutes later, “James” from Basecamp is in my inbox. No robot, no auto responder. James (turns out he was in Berlin) is answering my question, with such detail and care that it felt like he was talking to me, standing behind me, with his hand on my shoulder. Words matter, but I “felt” James in the room with me.

There was a flurry of emails back and forth, with me now having a virtual conversation with my new BFF James from Berlin. And then with all of my questions answered I sent this email to James (and to the entire support team) at Basecamp:

Just so you know, the level of customer service from Basecamp may indeed be the best - as in - THE BEST I have ever experienced. I am not trying to be overly dramatic here.  It is so good, so fast, so efficient that it makes me pause and wonder how does one duplicate this level of professionalism in my own company. How do you TEACH this? How do you hire for this? We use Highrise and Basecamp to run all of our companies (plus a handful of other SaaS tools). But the technology is only a small part of the process, yes?  I feel that your level of customer service is the gold standard of using technology plus talent via remote work. How can we learn and teach the ways of Basecamp?

Best,

Tom@NYDLA.org

What happened next pushed me over the edge. James then responded with the most eloquent, detailed, helpful, caring email I have received in years. I cannot cut/paste it here without permission. Suffice it to say that James was talking to me like he was my best friend - partner - investor - cheerleader. One human (not a single robot involved) talking to another human. And, he needs my mailing address to send me some “goodies”. I love goodies! Goodies are my favorite thing!

The book REWORK arrives. I have now read it twice, and before this weekend is over, I’ll probably have read it three times. It has been 8 days since my email exchange with James. And I am still stunned.

How can I repay James?

Maybe I can give every member of the NYDLA.org a FREE copy of REWORK, on me. Maybe I can give every member a free trial of BASECAMP and HIGHRISE. And if they love it (what’s not to love) I’ll pay for their first month AFTER their 30 day free trial.

Maybe I can do all of the above?

If James can do customer service like Secretariat, then so can I - so can we! If James can love his customers to this degree, so can we! So it shall be written - so it shall be done!

Starting in September, all new NYDLA.org members will receive a FREE copy of REWORK, and 30 days of both BASECAMP and HIGHRISE. We shall care about our clients and our customers and our vendors and our sponsors - and ALL MEMBERS of our community, with the same passion as James.

There you go, James. I just returned your serve. “Goodies” back at ya!

My Checkered Past

Today for the first time in many years, I played checkers. Similar to the life lesson on the sign: when a kid from the neighborhood comes over with a checkerboard under their arm, you play checkers. You stop writing your blog - and you play checkers.

And, you make sure you look happy and surprised and thankful for the opportunity.

And, you lose. You answer toy phones, and you lose to neighborhood kids in checkers.

Now, I was not sure what was in the box: were we going to play chess, or checkers? Based on age, I assumed checkers (but I did not want to assume anything) since my other neighbor was International Master Dean Ippolito, who started playing chess at the remarkably early age of two-and-a-half, and is one of few International Masters in the United States. Ippolito attained the elite level of International Master in 1999, is a ten-time All-America Team member, eleven-time National Champion and one of the foremost and recognizable chess players in the United States.

But today’s game of choice: checkers.

And, it is going…slow. We are playing checkers, but it is at the speed of chess. And so, I smile as I take out my phone and I Google checkerboard. I asked myself: are checkerboards and chessboards the same thing?

GOOGLE KNOWS ALL:

A checkerboard is a board of chequered pattern on which English draughts (checkers) is played. It consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, often black and white.

Other rectangular square-tiled boards are also often called checkerboards. In this sense it refers not to a physical board as such but to the mathematical abstraction of such a board.

The adjective chequered refers to the pattern shown in many contexts, such as the checkered flag used to signify the end of a vehicle race, the popular ice cream flavor or the livery on some emergency service vehicles. However, when this pattern is used on such vehicles, in certain countries, it is called a Sillitoe Tartan.

A red-and-white checkerboard is the medieval coat of arms of Croatia, and is widely used in national symbology there.

The checkerboard pattern is often associated with the Ska music genre, for breaking the racial barrier between black and whites at the time.

A checkerboard marking painted on a hilltop was used as visual guidance on Hong Kong's old Kai Tak Airport. Many taxicabs also use a checkerboard pattern.

A checkerboard pattern of alternating aviation orange and white is commonly required for compliance with the FAA as a means of making tall or sufficiently sizable structures stand out, so as to make them clearly visible to pilots, including water tanks, gas tanks, grain storage tanks, tall buildings and flags.

In the time that it took me to lose a game of checkers on my back deck to a fine young gentleman from the neighborhood, the power of the Internet allowed my mind to wander, and drift around the world.  Checkerboards, checkerboard patterns, the “math” of the checkerboard matrix.

And then I asked myself: which came first, the checkerboard or the game checkers? Or the chessboard or the game chess? Did the board come first, and then the game followed, or was the game invented - and then a board made to support the game? And why an 8 x 8 matrix of 64 squares? Why not 6 x 6 or 5 x 5?

Where are you going with this, Tom?

Chess computers were first able to beat strong chess players in the late 1980s. Their most famous success was the victory of Deep Blue over then World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, but there was some controversy over whether the match conditions favored the computer. Chess programs running on commercially-available desktop computers had convincing victories against human players in matches in 2005 and 2006. Since that time, chess programs running on commercial hardware - more recently including mobile phones - have been able to defeat even the strongest human players.

And there it is: today - our smartphones 

can now beat any of the strongest human chess players.

My checkers match on my backyard deck took me around the world today. It made me pause and reflect on how Artificial Intelligence is coming. 

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos says we're at the earliest days of artificial intelligence and the influence it will have on consumers' lives.

"It's hard to overstate how big of an impact it's going to have on society over the next 20 years," Bezos said on stage at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

I guess it is inevitable that robots will soon be smart enough to beat any of us - all of us - in chess, checkers -or any game. International Master Dean Ippolito or Gary Kasparov or anyone - we are not going to be a match for the AI robots.

I hope that these same AI robots who are doing more and more of our repetitive tasks (our jobs) are also going to be smart enough to know how to LOSE to a kid who rings your doorbell and wants to play a game.

AI robots will soon be able to beat us, every time, all the time - in many, many things.

But will they know when to lose?