When you think you’ve got it bad…..be thankful because you could be just one step away from it being worse.

Why the 2nd Amendment Matters – By the Japanese Leader of the Pearl Harbor Attack

This was from the guy that was the architect of Pearl Harbor. He was educated in the US and understood the 2nd Amendment better than the anti-gun activists do today.

One of the Problems With Big Companies is Their Middle Management

There has been a dearth of articles about middle management issues with big companies recently. Vanity Fair had a great article about how stacked performance reviews has killed innovation at Microsoft, but it really described the problems with most big companies. The irony was that it pointed out how Microsoft made fun of IBM, yet Microsoft had now repeated the same mistakes they IBM has suffered from for years.

Additionally, not to exonerate any big company, all of which have middle management problems, many also have stacked performance reviews which clearly has caused a big morale problem at companies I worked for which is also documented in the article at Microsoft. From what I’ve heard from my associates around RTP, most of the companies (with the exception of NetApp) including but not limited to IBM, , Lenovo, and many others use this type of employee rating. See Stacked Performance reviews below for a further discussion.

FIRST LINE MANAGERS, ONE OF THE WORST JOBS

When I worked as a plumber, they told me I only had to know 3 things to be qualified. They were; 1) payday is Friday, 2) $h!t flows downhill and 3) the boss is an a$$h0le. This is basically true in a lot of jobs. The first line manager has to usually do their regular job, plus be a people manager for which most aren’t trained for and most are not good at. They have extra work for the same pay just on the promise that they would get ahead, which almost none do. It may finally pay off for some, but only when they reached VP or higher. Directors have to take it from the VP’s, but at least can delegate the crummy work to the first line managers.

The reason this job is such a loser is that while you have to deal with the day to day issues, in this economy your managerial duties are to basically give bad news that there are little to no raises, people are being laid off so be happy you’re still working….also that there won’t be any bonuses this year. I watched these managers get dumped on by their next level of management as they had to do the dirty work (some then got laid off just after they let others go). Very few made it past this level of management as there just are so may executive jobs available, and there are many vying for those positions. Plumbers rule numbers 2 and 3 apply here.

Here is an excerpt from Forbes which describes the problem with middle management.

I watched this phenomenon also ruin morale at my last company and David Williams nails some points starting here:

In my opinion, a company needs leaders—not managers.

What does that a leader look like? We start with two of our 7 Non Negotiables of leadership—we Trust and then we Empower. You know how leaders will typically say “I empower my people”—and then they don’t? The tendency is all too common. (This happened in my last job before I retired. I was told by my then manager to be more independent, but I had to run everything by my him before I did anything, and trusted the opinion of a new hire over my review of a meeting that said new hire didn’t attend…talk about lack of trust and sending mixed messages to your employees).

The minute there’s a mistake it’s like a rope around your neck that snatches back—you either get your head taken off, or you get yanked back so hard the natural reaction is to hunker down and become “less” instead of growing to “more.”

With my own paired leadership partner, Fishbowl president Mary Michelle Scott, we start at the top of the company with a holistic, high altitude view of what we want to achieve. Then we bring in the department captains (there are 3 pairs) and say, “This is what we’re thinking. We think it’s time to open up Canada, the UK and South Africa.”

We give that big piece of meat to the captains. They chew on it for a while and come back with either 1) they don’t like it (generally coupled with a counter proposal), or 2) the multiple ways they see to go about achieving the goal. The captains are leaders who play a core role in the strategy’s formation. Then they run the day-to-day deployment of the strategy that’s been jointly created and set.

Yes, there’s a fine line between leadership and management—but there’s a massive difference as well, I maintain. Our approach makes the groups and leaders autonomous, but also interdependent. They are bright. All voices are heard. We decide on the “best” idea, no matter who originates it, and most of the time, we actually forget who brings the idea forward. Nobody worries about “the glory” because all will benefit as a team (my compensation strategy is here.) They come up with better answers than we could ever hope to achieve on our own.

(Editors note here: My view as the author of this blog is not everyone is cut out to be a manager. There are a lot who think that it is their career path or a way to get ahead, but that doesn’t make them qualified. I had a few managers who just were not people persons. Some middle managers held success against the top achievers when they out-performed the manager, or couldn’t handle the fact that some made more than others including the manager. They shouldn’t have let this guide their decisions, but they did. People like this shouldn’t have been allowed to be managers. This guy also used age discrimination while at IBM to get rid of a competent worker, Bill Gesick and wouldn’t re-hire Sid Baker, a veteran coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Further, this person whom his employees named Mr. Feckless bragged that he tried to get rid of me (because I (made more money that he did) as well as bragged at how he gave no extra pay to others, which everyone promptly told me about. I just tried to consistently do good job and was always more successful than he was with work. An example is this success story which I kept him out of on purpose so he couldn’t ruin it. It was how I had to deal with him as did his peer managers as well as his boss (who later told me he wanted to get rid of him and would have had the company not been sold to Lenovo). It is a clear case of a person that should have had a staff job.

This happens at every level.

Why leaders hear too many questions? – From The Leadership Freak

You’ve delegated tasks rather than results, vision, and resources. Delegating tasks is too granular and suggests your need for granular involvement. Delegating tasks causes others to focus on tasks. Delegating vision along with resources frees good people to make decisions on their own.

You may hear too many questions because you don’t have clear processes and procedures. People ask too many questions when they aren’t sure what’s next. Establishing processes and procedures for repeated activities frees both leaders and employees.

On the other hand: The best leaders/managers I worked for had the following trait.

The captains don’t “manage” every day. They have just one meeting as captains per week. That meeting determines the deployment of strategy. We hand off to the captains—then they hand off to the teams, who hand off to the individuals who deploy day to day, and then they get out-of-the-way (as they resume their own production roles, side by side with their teams.)

Here is some advice on how to manage properly if most would take it.

Yes, there are some management components. But we try to stay away from the temptation to micromanage, which makes people so fearful of making a mistake, they feel they don’t dare to create something courageous. (Note: This happened with another manager who said she wanted each of us to take charge, but just couldn’t leave our work alone until we wound up having to do it as if we were her. This made it very hard for our team as we all had different styles… none of them matched with the manager. This of course killed our creativity and morale as we had to try to do things in the style as if we were her, all the while knowing that we knew how to do our jobs better and knew our area’s deeper. The micro-management ruined our chances to succeed as well as our motivation). We had to report every detail constantly making each task taking five times longer with way more revisions than it could have taken. She was one of the last managers I had, and certainly not a leader.

Conversely, the manager I had before her gave me the freedom to succeed by macro managing and encouraged me to try my own ideas which drove me to want to give it everything I have. This fueled my creative juices including starting this blog and joining twitter. I also wanted to help others learn social media, something the following manager didn’t support except by hiring a noob who turned out to be a loafer to basically handle tweet wrap ups.

The link above best describes how to do it this way:

Some managers fear empowering team members because a more powerful team might take some action or a make a decision that the manager would not have made. But you can’t over-control your teams. It’s the responsibility of a manager to know what’s going on but not to micro-manage.

It’s best if you can pick your own team and hire motivated workers who will inspire and enthuse other team members.

That 2nd manager of our Cross Brand team thought that she owned the ability to communicate and this just made it hard for us to get our jobs done. The employees grouped together for self preservation.

The Leadership Freak comments appropriately here:

You may hear too many questions because you’re a control freak (see my micro-manager above). Your people are paralyzed by your need to know, control, and direct details. On a personal note, I don’t think of myself as a control freak, but I am. I mention that because you may not see your freakishness. In my opinion, leaders tend to be control freaks. Don’t toss this possibility aside without thinking it over.

You may hear too many questions because your people lack experience or need training.

You may hear too many questions because you punish rather than learn from mistake makers. Begin honoring both the lessons learned from and the persons with the courage to make mistakes. Obviously, mistakes from negligence, insubordination, or sabotage shouldn’t be honored.

Not all questions are good questions. Some questions indicate poor leadership. Are you hearing too many questions?

ANOTHER MANAGEMENT ISSUE: HOW STACKED PERFORMANCE REVIEWS ARE KILLING INNOVATION

excerpt From Vanity Fair:

Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

Blog Editors note: At my last company, we also had to compete against equal employee “bands” (level of experience commensurate with pay and responsibility) across the company. This was especially unfair for remote employees as those in the home office of New York had access to the management and knew the strategy well before it was disseminated.

TELECOMMUTERS ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST

From the HuffPo:

The millions of Americans who are skipping out on the daily commute may also be losing out on a promotion.

These so-called ‘telecommuters’ are less likely to receive positive performance reviews from superiors than their colleagues who show up in the office, a new study by MIT Sloan Management Review shows.

The report chalks up much of the discrepancy to managerial subjectivity. Managers are less likely to be comfortable with a worker they don’t actually see on a regular basis. In fact, they may become more irritated with someone who they perceive isn’t available at all times. Telecommuting employees are also less likely to reap the benefits of showing up early and leaving work late than their commuting coworkers.

Advances in internet technology have allowed for telecommuting to become more widespread. About 20 percent of workers worldwide report that they telecommute, while 10 percent report that they work from home on a regular basis, according to a recent Ipsos/Reuters poll. That same poll found that 34 percent of workers, when asked, stated that they would telecommute on a regular basis if they could.

But according to some critics, telecommuting creates cause for concern. For instance, telecommuting could prevent workers from being able to fully understand what their managers ask of them, according to PC World. That’s because non-verbal facial expressions are an important component of the workplace that telecommuting, which often takes place over instant messaging or phone, doesn’t allow.

This definitely happened at my last job even though they claimed it was not true. If you did not work in NY (it was an old boys club with both men and women), you didn’t stand a chance for promotion unless you were in the High Potential (HyPo) group, which means you were destined for NY eventually. What was almost funny was that some of the senior management even made fun of those not in NY as if we had a lower IQ. In fact, we knew we could do the same job for 30% less cost of living and didn’t have to go to NY, we just knew that we would only go so far unless we moved there.

I’ve had managers who didn’t trust you if you weren’t there. He projected his own lack of work ethic at home on the team. Each of us were mature responsible workers, except for the middle manager.

One of my favorite worst management lines ever was on the first day of a new job, the manager said to me, “I’m too busy with my new job, you are on your own to figure out how to do your job”. He since has been demoted to a staff job after not succeeding at another company and came back to IBM.

16 THINGS SUCCESSFUL LEADERS NEVER DO – BY LEADERSHIP FREAK

Not doing is one side of finding success.

Never let the bottom line be the bottom line.
Never pretend things are ok when they aren’t.
Never let what you’ve never done be the reason not to try.
Never get ahead by resenting those who get ahead. – My former boss Ray G.
Never let those who aren’t doing something prevent you for doing something.
Never do on the road what you wouldn’t do at home.
Never trust anyone who never admits mistakes.
Never achieve greatness through negativity.
Never pretend you can do what you can’t.
Never let others fail before doing everything appropriate to help them succeed.
“An executive has never suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.” Peter Drucker
Never find wisdom in excuses, defensiveness, or blame.
Never think of loyalty as a gift.
Never waffle when it comes to taking responsibility.
Never waver when it comes to giving credit.
Never make excuses. “Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.” JohnWooden

Bonus: Never create the future by recreating the past.

CONCLUSION

We can’t get away from having middle management, but companies need to vet who they let be in that position via a better method. They should also give them better training and most of all, realistically set their expectations of the chances of moving up. If they did this, it would weed out those who are only doing the job to move up or to get paid more. Most however, are doomed to stay there and live with plumbers rules numbers 2 and 3.

July 4th 2012, Top Posts Round-up

First of all if you read the dates on the gravestone, Happy Birthday Mom.

So it’s Independence Day, declared in 1776 from the rest of the World. The USA has in its short life (compared with other countries) given more to others in benevolence, freed and saved more people, helped former enemies to recover, sacrificed more than others and established a new way of running a country other than a Monarchy. Unlike the Monarchy’s around the world, the land wasn’t taken from others in a border dispute war or outright takeover like those we declared freedom from….. and has contributed more development, medicine and technology than most other countries combined. So why are our leaders trying to run it in a way that has failed?

Ronald Reagan said, “The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”

Most of this is a blessing from our Creator, mentioned in all the documents of the Founding Fathers, yet the government of today is trying to leave that model and get back to the type of behavior we declared independence from. Why?

First, let’s start off with the Star Spangled Banner.

Here is a round-up of the best posts for today.

Michelle Malkin – Happy 236th Birthday

John Ransom – Washington’s First Fourth

America joining the One World Crappola from the Daily Kos instead of celebrating why we are different (see our Judeo-Christian history) I tried finding something patriotic just for fairness, but it’s just a different world view I guess

America Haters from the Usual sources, Hollywierd

The other America Haters – The Media

Paul Greenberg – The American Idea

Rasmussen poll – Liberty and Justice for all

Speaker Boehner’s Independence Day Tribute: “Here’s to the Spirit of ‘76”

Joshpundit – America’s Birthday Edition (lots of links here)

Robert Samuelson – Love of Country 2012

Fleming: What Life Was Like in 1776

For levity, The Hot Dog eating contest where an American is the favorite

Finally, here is the Declaration of Independence, from tyranny and taxes. Have we come full circle?

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long-established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

How Much They Know About Us, The Perils of Big Data

I wrote this as humor years ago. I thought it was a joke, but due to tracked digital footprint and Big Data, it turns out to be true.

Read it here and weep.

Saturday Humor – Joe Isuzu and Monarchy

This series of commercials was especially funny to me, for a particular reason. This is my favorite one of the bunch as it pokes fun in an acceptable way. When this came out, I had just taken a picture of my daughter next to a guard who couldn’t move in a very similar guard-house, so even to this day I find it funny.

I hope you do also.

How An Average Joe Can Be A Millionaire By Doing Simple Principles

Notice that I didn’t use the words becoming rich. Having a full life, belief in God, friends, family or a passion for doing something is rich. Becoming a millionaire is about money.

Next, this subject has been addressed by the more knowledgeable than I, but I’m going to talk to the average Joe like me, which is the likely reader here.

Finally, I don’t claim to know it all, nor do I claim to be in any financial category. I do observe trends and try to learn from them. Hopefully I’m eating my own dogfood.

HOW IT IS DONE

It is simple math. You either make money or spend less, or a combination of the two. I realize that we have a burdensome government, a tough economy and a next to impossible IRS tax code. In fact the real unemployment number is not what you read in the main stream media, but the U6 rate which as of this writing is 14.5%.

For the purposes of becoming a millionaire, we will assume employment. That means get a job instead of living on entitlements, because that will disqualify you from this discussion.

Sure it is easy to have received Facebook stock or have invented Facebook, but the average millionaire doesn’t have that at their discretion.

USE YOUR MONEY TO MAKE MONEY

This means compounding what you have in ways other than just putting it in the bank. I had a roommate who was a stockbroker and he told me many stories of secretaries making minimum wage who came to him at retirement with 7 figure 401K accounts. They saved in a way that maximized the return on their investment. This usually involves a company match and some diversification. It also assumes that you take risk when you are younger and seek advice or study investing voraciously as it is a mystery to most….despite the fact that everyone thinks they know about it.

Part of your diversification also means not putting everything in the stock market. As an example, real estate has just undergone a busted bubble (thanks to the Community Reinvestment Act which never should have been enacted), but it means there are properties to be had for a song right now and are ripe for the picking. They will grow and become more valuable. My advice is no different from what you’d expect. Start out small and work your way up. That process allows you to learn about what value really is, and compound your earnings into larger investments that have bigger payoffs.

There are many other ways, but the concept is the same, save and invest wisely by starting small and growing your profits and portfolio. You must also study and read or you could throw your money down the drain if you think you know everything. It also involves patience. If you recall the story from my roommate, it was saving and investing over a lifetime

HOW TO LEARN

There are articles ad-infinitum to read about the aforementioned. The other way is to talk to people who have done this. I suggest that you start with Dave Ramsey or Crown Financial Ministries if you are starting out (or are in trouble, or anywhere in between). It is a tried and true method of handling you money.

Who you talk to also matters. There are people who talk in $10’s of thousands, $100’s of thousands, millions or Zuckerberg’s and Gates’. I suggest you seek out those who are in the highest category possible as you need to think big in making and investing. I don’t have coffee with Warren Buffet, but his advice is readily available.

Find those who are successful and ask them how they did it. I’m betting that you’ll find there is no secret code or magic key, they just worked at it and kept their long-term goals of financial independence in mind, and kept check over their human nature.

SAVE YOUR MONEY

The other side of the equation is savings. In other words you need to spend less and when you do, spend wisely. Of the people I worked with at my last job, many were high salaried executives who were in debt because they had a keeping up with (or passing) the Jones mentality. This was especially true of those in the New York area for some reason (but demographics shouldn’t really matter). They had big houses with unfurnished rooms because they were house poor. Living within your means is important which is my next segue.

NEED VS. WANT

Including the basics of food, clothing and shelter, one has to look at the way one buys things. Most buy what they want rather than what they need. If you adopt the buy it tomorrow instead of now mentality, you likely will realize that you don’t really want it as badly as you think.

There is the adequacy (not delusions of adequacy ;-)) vs. luxury mentality also. A Casio, Timex or Seiko watch tell as good of time as does a Rolex, so unless you have money to burn, why are you buying the Rolex? This applies to cars, clothes or virtually any tangible item. Ask yourself, self do I need this/do I need to have the very best/am I showing off or would what I can really afford what I have? I have relatives who have to have the very best, but have wasted as much money as I’ve earned on things to show off.

My son said that some people need to wear their paycheck. You can see them coming down the road in cars that are raised with shiny rims and a 24 thousand watt stereo. Others have to order the best wine, food and show off at restaurants (my brother-in-law).

Back to the person who knows this better than most, here is a story about expensive car drivers:

But what if Ranger Rich is like many people who define rich in terms of income instead of net worth? Certainly many drivers feel the need to display their socioeconomic achievements by acquiring prestige makes of motor vehicles. They may think that those who are successful in generating high incomes drive luxury brands. And correspondingly drivers of more common makes have dull normal income credentials. But the hard data suggest that the level of prestige of a car and the income of its driver are not anywhere near being perfect correlates. In fact, many drivers of luxury makes have neither the levels of income nor net worth which would qualify them as high economic achievers.

Along these lines, Joann Muller, writing for Forbes.com, poses “what the rich people really drive.” She defines rich people in terms of income, not net worth.

. . . the richest people were the most likely to buy luxury brands [39% for people with household income above $250,000 vs. 8% for those people who earn less than $100,000 a year].

. . .61% of people who earn $250,000 or more aren’t buying luxury brands at all.

Her analysis indicates that those households with high incomes are more likely to drive luxury cars. But just because someone is driving a luxury brand it does not necessarily mean that the driver has a high income or a high net worth, for that matter.

Further, here is a story about how the average millionaire deals with car buying.

You have to spend on things that will appreciate, not sparkle. Again, my relatives are the worst offenders who have overspent on toys, baubles, cars and anything else they can waste their money on. It baffles me. When they bought real estate, they over paid, over leveraged and bought for show instead of ROI.

DEBT AND LEVERAGE

This gets most people in trouble. If you can’t pay off your credit card each month, you effectively are paying more for what you bought (because of the interest). Compounding works for debt in the same way as it does for savings. It is the accumulation that is the issue. I’m not just picking on credit cards, anything can be substituted here. If you saved first, you could buy it for less and your want will likely decrease.

For housing, it used to be that you had to put at least 10% down, but due to the above mentioned CRA (can you tell I loathe that legislation?) one could buy a house they couldn’t afford because they were told they qualified for it…. with no money down. You were PLAYED for a fool on this. Living below your means is the best policy.

If you care to splurge on something, it’s OK….just don’t borrow.

The same can be said for leverage. I’ll stay on housing here. Banks will always want you to buy more as the more you borrow, the richer they get. Typically one is paying at least 3 times the amount for a big-ticket item buy leveraging which brings me to my next segue.

PAY OFF YOUR HOUSE

The wisest know that man can not serve two masters. When you have a huge mortgage hanging over your head, it is your boss/master/slave driver/keep you up at night worry/cause of divorce or many other calamities. The bank won’t be calling on you to take your home away nor will you have to file bankruptcy (again, my relatives).

Besides owning a house within or below your means, paying it off early is the best way to get out of debt and improve your cash flow. Take out a mortgage less than 30 years, pay more than the minimum and do everything you can to pay it off early.

Forget the argument that it is a tax deduction. Congress is aiming at trying to take that away as I type. Also, any money you get back on taxes is just an interest free loan to the government at your expense.

By doing this, for most people it will likely be one of the best long-term financial decisions they can make.

CONTROL YOUR DESTINY

Note: I am quoting Dr. Thomas Stanley here. It is better told than I could say it, but it clearly is the moral to the story and what I would have said:

In The Millionaire Next Door I quoted the words of a corporate sales professional, a millionaire whom I interviewed. He like other self made millionaires said that he had a “go to hell fund. . . just in case my employer suggests (insists) that I leave Austin for corporate headquarters in Rottenchester.” He never had to leave Austin and he added, “PTL.” In other words, [the millionaires next door] have accumulated enough wealth to live without working for ten or more years.

I was reminded of these words of wisdom after reviewing an email from Ms. F who currently resides in a lovely community in the Southern United States:

I went to my local library this morning, hoping to borrow The Millionaire Next Door. However, the only available book was in Spanish, so I borrowed “Millionaire Women Next Door” instead. By the time I completed the second paragraph on page 8, I had collapsed in a fit of “craughter” – simultaneously crying and laughing at my sad truth. My newest work assignment is no less than 8,200 miles, 18 hours of flying time and 12 time zones away from everyone who means the most to me in this world. Simply put, the situation stinks, but I had convinced myself that it was necessary to pay the bills. Suffice it to say that I have renewed by concerted efforts to become a cultivator of wealth, and I plan to share my transformation with you soon. Thank you for creating this compilation of evidence-based encouragement!

What precipitated Ms. F “crying and laughing?” Consider the words from Millionaire Women Next Door:

Aren’t you growing tired of being among the ranks of hunter-gatherers? Do you enjoy your hyper consumption lifestyle so much that you must fly out of town every week to earn a paycheck to pay your bills? . . . begin making the transformation to a cultivator of wealth. Think about that the next time you are ten thousand miles from home, surrounded by strangers, and flying in dreadful weather. It is up to you. Do you want to spend your life as a hunter and gatherer of income, earning a million mileage points? . . . those financially indpendent folks. . . . They make their own decisions about their next destination. Right now, you and your career are essentially corporate property. Neither one of you has the luxury of self-determination.

I also stated that:

The [millionaire business] women profiled herein will not tolerate such an existence. They are free. They are cultivators of wealth and satisfied with life. They are in control of their own destiny.

INCOME AS A PERCENTAGE OF WEALTH

People who believe that they will never become wealthy generally fulfill this hypothesis. I explained to Brit, who was once a member of the ultimate income statement affluent club, that he has an excellent chance of becoming a millionaire next door type and that the typical millionaire next door is 57 years old. The Bible states that those with faith and hope can achieve a great deal. Even those with faith the size of a grain of mustard seed will likely reach their intended goals.

The will and discipline that this couple demonstrated in paying off its considerable debt is telling. The same determination can be used in setting aside at least 15% of their income for savings and investing.

What should you anticipate as a typical member of the millionaire next door fraternity? One, given the calculation via the Wealth Equation, actual net worth exceeds its expected value by a factor of 2 or more. Two, the market value of the home is less than 20% of net worth. Three, debt totals the equivalent of less than 5% of net worth. Four, annual income tax is the equivalent of about 2% of net worth. Five, total annual realized income is approximately 8.2% of net worth [median], or the equivalent of $8.20 of income for about every $100 of wealth.

This $8.20 figure from my own research is fairly congruent with the findings of other researchers. For example, three scholars employed by the Treasury Department, Johnson, Raub and Newcomb, compared the wealth characteristics of millionaires via 36,352 federal estate returns who passed away in 2007 with the incomes of these decedents when they were living. Those millionaires who were married and under the age of 70 [like the large majority of the millionaire next door types that I have surveyed] realized the equivalent of $8.45 for every $100 of their net worth. This figure is within approximately 3% of the dollar figure ($8.20) that was determined from my surveys.

IN CONCLUSION

There is no conclusion, just work and keep your long term goal in mind. I may talk later about other basic ideas that contribute to this like paying cash instead of credit (briefly mentioned here), couponing, buying the store brand instead of the premium name brand and other tricks. Nevertheless, adhering to the above puts you well on your way to being the average Joe millionaire.

My relatives laughed at me all my life for watching what I spent, how I lived and called me a skinflint. I knew that I had a long term plan for financial security. Today, at retirement age, they work just to keep up. Who’s laughing now?

More on the Gitmo Trials

Trying not to cooperate, the terrorists accomplished their jobs. What is ironic is that in 2008, they already pleaded guilty so they could die as martyrs. If the trial had not been stopped so Attorney General Holder could put them on display, this would have been over.

To provide balanced coverage, I picked a site that is the opposite in ideology from yesterday’s source. I will let the readers make a decision on who covers it fairly. I only care about justice.

The other defendants — Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al Hawsawi – joined Mohammed in refusing to answer questions from Army Col. James Pohl, the judge presiding over the proceedings.

At one point, two defendants got up and prayed alongside their defense tables under the watchful eyes of troops arrayed along the sides of the high-security courtroom.

Bin Attash was put in a restraint chair for unspecified reasons, then removed from it after he agreed to behave.

Lawyers for all defendants complained that the prisoners were prevented from wearing the civilian clothes of their choice, in a proceeding equally slowed by technical legal questions about defense complaints about the court’s authority and access to evidence and translators.

Brigadier General Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor of the Pentagon’s Office of U.S. Military Commissions told Fox News that he “understands the skepticism” about access to evidence, but some still remains classified.

Mohammed’s civilian lawyer, David Nevin, said his client was not responding because he believes the tribunal is unfair. He also suggested Mohammed was not wearing the earphones because it reminded him of being tortured.

All 5 men occasionally looked through what looks like the Koran, magazines, and other reading materials.

Neurological Self Test (If You Fear Alzheimers)

1- Find the C below.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2- If you already found the C, now find the 6 below.

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

3 – Now find the N below. It’s a little more difficult.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This is NOT a joke. If you were able to pass these 3 tests, you can cancel your annual visit to your neurologist. Your brain is great and you’re far from having a close relationship with Alzheimer.

Was IBM’s Watson a Breakthrough or Very Cheap and Creative Advertising?

Update 1/8/14: Only $15 Million in sales for over $5 billion invested so far as IBM struggles to turn Watson into a business

The worst news in the above link is that companies like Google can do the the same for far less and that Watson doesn’t even work with other IBM technology.

Update: Watson is in the next publicity stunt with Wall Street as sales seem to be lagging.

As we all know, Watson appeared and won on Jeopardy last year. It was the culmination of years of work and manpower to build a machine that could react faster and be programmed to win a game show. It was brilliant, but more for promotion than technology sales (as evidenced so far). There is little doubt that the promotional value was priceless to the IT industry and an easy calculation by IBM to one up the competition.

The two humans were limited to their capacity, whereas Watson was a massive computer with incredible storage and processing capability. It was programmed specifically for the game, so while not a slam dunk, inevitability wasn’t in much doubt.

I don’t know about you, but as I get older, I forget things and computers don’t. You can add memory, processors and build it big enough to recall more than any amount of humans. Jeopardy had two champions, so it wasn’t really a fair fight. You ultimately can overpower any certain situation with billions in technology (which is what it cost to win), but throw something like emotion or nuance into a situation and computers are lost.

It was the perfect set up. Everyone loves to root for the underdog even though the humans really fit that role. It was accomplished by putting the biggest two winners ever on Jeopardy up against poor Watson. The truth was that it never was going to be close given the confines of the rules of the game. In real life, with unforeseen issues, the humans would have a fair chance. That was never the point of Watson though.

IBM got to promote a research facility, executives, technology and almost a free ticket for three days. Jeopardy also was a winner with dominant ratings.

I don’t want to debate the possibilities of Watson’s future contribution to technology other than stating that it is another step (and possibly direction) in data analytics, and it increases the perception of IBM’s lead in this area (thanks to a lot of M&A and some folks that worked without getting enough credit). It hasn’t been the breakthrough that companies have jumped on like an iPhone, yet billions of dollars have been spent on the same hardware used to build Watson since Jeopardy for traditional IT. Time will tell.

ADVERTISING

For now, the real victory was exposure. How much would it cost to purchase 1.5 hours of prime time advertising for a 3 day period where you basically get to change the rules of advertising to where you don’t even have to pretend that an ad agency was involved (also saving millions). Here is the breakdown of advertising to program, but in reality the big IBM Watson Avatar is a commercial by itself every time Alex said the word Watson.

From a Mad Men point of view (advertising show for those who don’t know) this was a stroke of creative genius that began with winning a chess match against Gary Kasparov, then moving to prime time TV when new exposure was needed. I saw people glued to their seats and talking about it the next day at a conference. Nevertheless, it still has all the appearances of a publicity stunt. Unfortunately, it saddled IBM with a 2015 earnings projection claim that Palmisano left Gini Rometty to figure out. With this economy, it has Sham’s chance of beating Secretariat in the Belmont Stakes to make it.

There will be claims that further technology is Watson legacy and success, but it is not what was intended by the efforts which related to making sure it beat the humans on Jeopardy. That is supposed to come later.

CURING THE COMMON COLD

It has been suggested that Watson technology is being used to cure cancer. I like others wish for this as I lost my mother to that disease. Along with AIDS and the common cold, I have my doubts that we’ll really see this in our lifetime. By then, trillions will be spent. Like Global Warming, we could do more by helping to feed the starving and providing help and aid to millions. This is not what Watson is about though last spring, it was the advertising win of 2010.

So the jury is out on whether it will succeed in medical or some other breakthrough. For now, it was the promotional prime time win last year.

Duh, Science Confirms the Obvious

Another post that got lost which I liked.

From Popsci.com.

I get the part about cigarettes cost you money, combining drugs and alcohol are bad for you…but get number 3 meeting heads!

3. Too Many Meetings Make You Grumpy

The Study: “The relationship between meeting load and . . . well-being of employees,” Group Dynamics, March 2005

The Findings: Ever get the feeling that you’d get more work done if you weren’t constantly attending meetings to discuss all the work to be done? Two social scientists from the universities of Minnesota and North Carolina hypothesized that meetings are analogous to “hassles,” defined in stress-research literature as “annoying episodes in which daily tasks become more difficult or demanding than anticipated.” The psychologists analyzed diary entries from 37 meeting-prone midlevel university workers over one week. They found that days chock-full of meetings left employees feeling stressed, exhausted and burned out.

Why Bother? Employers take heed: Since beleaguered workers may perform poorly, be tardy, or quit, the authors suggest that “organizations be sensitive to the number of meetings employees are required to attend.” Managers could create “formal guidelines” for meeting necessity (presumably not drafted at a meeting).

Here’s another Mr. Obvious, dudes prefer good looking women? Who’d have guessed it?

Interviewing, What Not to Say

As I face the end of this phase of my corporate career, I recall back on the many interviews I’ve had. Some went well as I’ve had jobs, and certainly many did not as I didn’t get others.

The strangest question I was ever asked was if you could choose whether to be on a planet where you worked all the time or one that you could rest and play all the time, which would you choose? Fortunately, I answered I’d go to the planet to work all the time so that I could get to the other one to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Somehow that worked and I got the job.

After I wrote this, one of my friends from work sent me this worthy entry. Thanks Arline.

After spending 30 minutes interviewing a young man for a position
he asked if I would elaborate a little more on my own position, I
kindly agreed, He then said he had decided he wanted my Job and
not the on he was interviewing for.

After hearing the mention of what people say, I decided to include these answers from Rachel Farrell, Careerbuilder.com, to whom I give full credit.

You can always depend on young children to tell you exactly what they think, or precisely how they feel on any given topic. Want to know if your breath smells bad, if you should wear a different tie or if you really look fat in that outfit? Find a 5-year-old. He will give you an uncensored, honest answer.

Needless to say, we expect more from adults. Especially adults who are interviewing for a job.

For the second year in a row, we asked hiring managers everywhere to tell us the craziest thing they’ve ever heard in an interview. Keep reading for 37 hilarious (and true) statements from the job candidates:

1. “I interviewed a gentleman who looked great on paper but said two things during the interview that made me think, ‘Really?’ When starting the interview, I asked him what his hobbies were, to lighten the mood. He replied, ‘I sometimes walk up to perfect strangers just to say hello. I also like to pick up trash if I see some when I’m walking around.’ After I asked him how the position would contribute to his professional goals and future plans, he replied, ‘My main goal is to be a rock star; this is more of a backup plan.'” — Jessica Harrington, marketing associate, Eastern Michigan University

2. “I remember interviewing a secretary some years ago and asking her, ‘What is important to you in a job?’ Her answer was: ‘I want to work close to Bloomingdales.'” — Bettina Seidman, career management coach, Seidbet Associates

3. “‘When your workload is heavy and you are overwhelmed, how do you handle the stress?’ ‘I run in the bathroom and cry.’” — Jessica Simko, Career Branding Guide

4. “We performed mock interviews where our clients were put in an interview session using their real backgrounds, interests, etc. When asked why the client left her last job, which was in a family buffet-style restaurant, her response was, ‘I was hungry and didn’t know it would be a problem so I had pizza delivered to the restaurant while was on the clock.'” — Jacqueline Lisenby, chief visionary officer and president, StatusJ Entertainment Group

5. “I interviewed a senior engineer for one of our open positions. He demanded coffee and proceeded to spill coffee in his lap. Then he pointed to his groin area, laughed and said, ‘It looks like I wet myself!’ Needless to say, he didn’t get the job.” — Lisa Hall, human resources trainer and author of “Taking Charge of Your Own Health”

6. “I recently had the craziest interviewee ever come into our offices for a copywriter position. I wanted enthusiastic, but this guy was so over the top, I almost laughed in the middle of the interview. He high-fived someone on my team after hearing that my team member just got engaged. He talked about how terrible his boss was for a good 20 minutes. He said he felt like he was already working with us. And then he left something behind so that he could come back and get it. He called wondering when he could come back, and we [saw] him prepping in the parking lot.” — Amanda Halm, senior copywriter, editor, Bridezilla.com

7. “Without a doubt, the craziest thing I ever heard came from a candidate for an entry-level management position. He looked perfect on paper, so we scheduled a phone interview for 3 p.m. He answered the phone and when I introduced myself he said, ‘Hold on, I’m at a bar. Let me finish this shot and go outside.’ Amidst the noise of an active game of pool and a rowdy bar crowd, he slipped outside and told me, ‘You know what? I’m a little drunker than I thought. Can we reschedule?’ Needless to say, we did not.” — Heather Lytle, senior partner, H&L Media Partners

8. “While I am not the interviewer for a corporation, having been in many interviews for opportunities, I have actually heard a number of interesting, crazy, less-tactful things said from the interviewer side. The worst was, I drove two hours to do an in-person, one-hour interview and the interviewer was 30-40 minutes late to the interview, even though she walked by me in the lobby six or seven times with a bag of chips talking about her personal life to the receptionist. When she finally came out to get me, she didn’t even act shocked or sorry for the delay, and just said, ‘I was munching on a bag of chips and time flies when you’re eating chips.’ Let’s just say I knew then it wouldn’t be a good fit.” — Chris Perry, founder of Career Rocketeer

9. “We recently asked a job candidate, ‘What do you know about us?’ He leaned back in his chair and replied, ‘Not much. Why don’t you fill me in?’ He wasn’t hired.” — John Kramb, Adams County Winery

10. “We always include a casual lunch or dinner portion during an interview to continue our discussions in a more informal manner. This candidate let their guard down, falling out of their ‘interview mode,’ during the friendly and casual meal-time discussions. They went so far as to share that they installed an illegal second network in their office with co-workers and would spend their afternoons gaming on the clock. They then went on to further share how regularly in the mornings and afternoons they would sleep at their desk during working hours. Bragging that they had never once been caught in either of these acts. Needless to say, this candidate was not hired. Prior to this meal-time, more casual discussion, they were likely to be made an offer. The lesson learned and to be shared is that you are on the interview from before you arrive at a location until you have returned home. I was truly surprised that such a smart individual would make such a stupid mistake by sharing such obviously unacceptable work practices with a potential new employer.” — Zachary Z. Zguris, chief technology officer, Lime Design Inc.

11. “The interview was for a highly visible administrative assistant position. Clearly, I was looking for someone who would exercise tact with top-caliber people who would come into our office. I opened the interview with a fairly standard question:

‘What is it that attracts you to this job the most?’ Without hesitation, she replied, ‘My mother thinks this will be the right job for me.'” — Bill Lampton, president, Championship Communication

12. “We have the standard lists of questions you’d expect to hear, but at any given moment, I’ll interject with, ‘If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?’ The most shocking response was, ‘I’d be a cat so I can lay around all day and not have to do anything.'” — Efrain Ayala, account executive, Walt Denny Inc., The Home Products Agency

13. “The man’s phone kept ringing. Finally, he answered it and he said, ‘Hello. No. I’m fine. OK.’ Of course, it was rude and uncalled for in my opinion, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked if everything was OK. He basically said nothing was wrong but that his wife was checking in. He had not flown in for the interview. He was local.” — T. Murray, author of “Stuck on Stupid: A Guide for Today’s Professional Stuck in a Rut”

14. “The most bizarre experience I ever had was regarding a candidate who was offered a position with my client. Because she had disclosed that she had a college degree, she was required to produce proof in the form of transcripts, diploma, etc. She told us that she was unable to produce the required documentation because her identity had been changed and that the information the firm was seeking was in her previous name. Due to safety reasons, she was unable to produce proof (in any name she had or was using).” — Cathleen Faerber, managing director, The Wellesley Group Inc.

15. “I was interviewing an older woman for a position in my company. I thought she had a great personality and was considering hiring her. Then at the end of the interview she asked if I would be able to give her a ride to work and then back home again everyday! Umm, no.” — Janice Celeste, president and CEO, Celeste Studios Film & Video

16. “I had a woman come in and tell me that she ran a business around the corner and that she would be working this job, as well as managing her business during business hours. I wanted to be sure that I understood her correctly — that she would be taking time away from the position with me to ‘check in’ on her store periodically. But when I asked her a few questions to clarify, she became upset with me and ended up storming out of my office.” — Shay Olivarria, speaker and author of “Bigger Than Your Block”

17. “One job candidate arrived late for the interview, in a not-so-gracious mood. ‘The commute is terrible,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad I don’t have to do this every day.'” — Sammie Samuella Becker, CEO, TigressPR

18. “I had a candidate in the final interview stages. He pretty much had the job. He was invited to interview with a couple of people who would become peers as last step in the process. One would-be peer asked my candidate to demonstrate to them his work ethic and drive, to which he replied, ‘You can just strap a saddle on my a** and ride me!’ Apparently, he was hoping to show what a workhorse he is. As you might imagine, he did not get the job.” — Jenny Foss, recruiting agency owner, recruiter and job search consultant

19. “I interviewed a candidate over the phone for a sales position. Less than five minutes into the call, I began to hear water swishing and realized that the candidate was taking a bath during the phone interview.” — Jessica Miller-Merrell, owner, Xceptional HR

20. “I had a candidate come into my office with her child and proceed to breastfeed her baby boy during the interview. There was no acknowledgment or mention from the woman I was interviewing about the baby or him eating.” — Miller-Merrell

21. “While interviewing a young lady who was wearing a revealing top, at the end of the interview, she leaned forward and said in a sultry voice, ‘I’ll do anything to get this job.’ She got people’s attention, but eliminated herself from getting hired.” — Ronald Kaufman consultant and author of “Anatomy of Success”

22. “One [candidate] came in dressed very professionally and really looked like she had made an effort to look the part. Some people assume because we are laid back and bring our pets to work, that we are extremely casual and will show up for an interview dressed in jeans, so this was a nice change. Toward the end of the interview, I complimented her on how professional she looked. She got this huge smile and looked down at her clothes and said, ‘I know. I think I look like Mary Tyler Moore; that’s why I wore this!’ We ended up hiring her and she was such a quirky, fun, enthusiastic employee with a style all her own.” — Cindy Lukacevic, owner/vice president of marketing, Dinovite Inc.

23. “While wrapping up a seemingly decent interview with a young lady for an administrative assistant position, I asked her if she had any questions. She asked one or two default questions about the company then — drum roll — she says, ‘I used my last bit of change to put gas in my car to make it here. Is there any way that you could help me out?’ Needless to say, I was floored and the candidate did not get the job.” — Clorissa Wright, senior publicist, WrightWay Marketing and Consulting

24. “‘I like to date the young ones, is that bad?’ and ‘I love older women, do you really only have women working in your organization?’ Those are the two I will never forget.” — Greg Palomino, CRE8AD8

25. “I was working for a private investigator and interviewing applicants for a decoy position, in which they could possibly be confronted with various situations while investigating everyone from potentially cheating wives to drug dealers. I asked a guy in his early 20s, ‘What would you do if you were working undercover and someone you were investigating starting using drugs?’ He laughed, ‘Oh, it wouldn’t bother me. I mean, I have a medical marijuana card and all. You know, anxiety and stuff.’ ‘Oh, really?’ I noticed his eyes were slightly glassy. ‘Yep.’ He grinned. ‘So, are you high now?’ I asked. A chuckle. ‘Just a little!’ ‘Oh, just a little?’ I replied. ‘When did you last smoke?’ ‘Oh, before I left my place to come here.’ He didn’t get the job.” –Lauren Gard, Infinite Public Relations

26. “Over a nice dinner, the president of a company conducted a final interview with a vice president of sales candidate. At the end of the interview, the job was going to be offered to the candidate. The waiter brought the bill and the candidate, who was employed at the time, took it, pulled out his company credit card and said, ‘Don’t worry about this, I’ll put it on my company’s expense account.’ The president later said he didn’t know which shocked him more, the lack of ethics or the candidate’s stupidity. Obviously the job offer was never extended.” — Brian Marchant-Calsyn, Health Career Agents

27. “An executive search recruiter was explaining the qualities needed for the job: multitasking, hard-working, time management skills, attention to detail, etc. The candidate responded with, ‘I can’t do that. I’m not a robot.'” –Andrea Friedman, public relations coordinator, The LaSalle Network, a Chicago professional staffing and recruiting company

28. “A recruiter was in the midst of an interview, when the candidate asked, ‘Do you mind if I use your kitchen to eat my turkey sandwich?'” — Friedman

29. “An executive search recruiter asked the candidate, who was previously an accounting manager, what their ideal job would be. The candidate responded with, ‘A Playboy photographer.'” — Friedman

30. “I had to interview for a position that required organization, time management and attention to detail. My candidate was young, in his early 20s, and wore all black to the interview. We were a very casual office, so I thought nothing of it. But when I asked him to describe for me an instance when he had managed his time effectively, he cited managing his time in dungeon raids in the online game ‘World of Warcraft.’ When I said I knew the game and had even played it a bit, he took that as his cue to answer all my questions with ‘World of Warcraft’ examples. The word ‘necromancer’ came up far too many times. Needless to say, I was looking for real-world examples and he didn’t get the position.” — Jennifer Escalona

31. “One of the funniest things an applicant said to me was in response to my question, ‘What do you like in an office environment?’ The applicant said, ‘I like 42nd and Broadway.’ Needless to say, that wasn’t what I was asking, and that wasn’t anywhere near our office location.” — Sharon Armstrong, author of “The Essential Performance Review Handbook”

32. “‘I have a hunch that someone in your office is dating an ex-boyfriend/acquaintance of mine and I feel that’s too awkward of a conflict of interest. I will not accept any job based on this kind of pork-chop recommendation.’ Especially amusing because no one in our office at the time was dating any men. We still have no idea where the candidate came up with this theory, or what exactly she means by ‘pork-chop recommendation,’ for that matter.” — Anne Howard, Lynn Hazan & Associates

33. “In an interview, the oddest thing has to be a candidate asking if we had any
food that she could have.” — Howard

34. “When I interview candidates, I always ask the following questions in this order: What are you most proud of? What do you enjoy doing? Why did you leave your previous jobs? Here are the answers I received from one candidate: ‘I am most proud of my wife and children.’ ‘The thing I enjoy most is spending time with my family.’ ‘I decided to quit. I had an affair with a co-worker and when we broke up there was too much tension in the office.’ And he said it without batting an eye.” — Bruce, executive recruiter and career counselor, Hurwitz Strategic Staffing Ltd.

35. “One time during an interview, a candidate removed his flip-flops and literally stuck his foot in my face. Another time, I was interviewing a candidate who asked me out on a date three times in five minutes. I had to remind him that he was on an interview — not speed dating.” — Heather Araneo, branch manager, Snelling Staffing – The Wyckoff Group

36. “Interviewer (president of a mid-sized company): Do you plan on having children?
Answer (me/candidate): Yes, at some point.
Interviewer: Do you intend to continue working then?
A: Yes.
Interviewer: What are you going to do, be like a cow and drop it in the middle of a field?” — Janice Warren, director, OneReport, SRI World Group

37. “One day, I met with a candidate who, on his résumé, had good experience and education. I was going through the normal interview questions with him when I asked him which accounting system he had implemented. His response was immediate: ‘PEACHTREE!’ But then he started shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no’ and then he slapped himself across the face and said ‘NO! QUICKBOOKS!'” — Meghan Norman, corporate recruiter

Green Jobs – Teaching my Offspring about Capitalism

Times are tough for teenagers to get a job. I’ve heard that unemployment is more that 20 +% for teenagers. My son has struck out getting a job, although he has put more effort into video games than looking for a job, so we started an eBay business.

It’s name is NeonDeal, Click on the name and see what he is selling, vintage fishing lures. The one in the picture is worth a few hundred dollars. Of course, I know something about it, but he built the blog and the Twitter account which you should follow and see what he is selling. He sold and shipped his first lures last week and made more money in one night than he would in a month at McDonald’s. He’s learned a valuable lesson, work for yourself and it’s good to be the boss. Michael Dell started a company called PC’s Limited out of his dorm room….It’s now call Dell Computers. Hope my son gets that kind of taste for the real green. So he’s self employed for the summer and is understanding inventory, shipping, logistics, marketing, sales, blogging and if you don’t work…you don’t get paid.

Now, when I said green jobs in the title, I mean in terms of Money. If you thought I meant Green jobs in terms of saving the planet, they are tough to come by in real life. One thing I learned is that if they really were a better solution, they would have succeeded on their own already. That is the way business works.

Memorial Day 2011

I am so proud of our country and honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. It peeves me to no end when some who have been our allies take shots at our country just because we are not like them. We are not. We are our own country, based on a Judeo Christian set of principles that have made the exeptionalism of our country great. It peeves me worse when it is internal. America has been more benevolent, contributed more to the welfare of mankind in it’s short history than any other country in history. The USA is the only country that built itself rather than conquer another. We have made sacrifices for the freedom of others our mission. We have joined with some countries and fought against the same either with bullets or words.

So on this Memorial Day, we remember those who fought the fight for freedom that others trample and don’t appreciate. I for one, honor them and understand how tough it must have been to go where you didn’t want to go, fight with and on behalf of others who wanted to take freedom from the world.

America has been a uniquely productive nation: a font of invention, creativity and economic dynamism. In America, tens of millions of people have risen from poverty. The United States has been a singularly generous, if not always effective, provider of assistance to other countries including those where Americans are not popular.

My father saw Europe tear itself apart in the 40’s, a continent that has been at each others throats for hundreds of years. My uncle saw the atrocities of the Pacific Theater as a B-29 bomber Captain. We now face attack from radical terrorist Muslims from the outside and socialism attacking Capitalism or those who invent faux issues like Anthropogenic Global Warming from the inside. Now, other religions are trying to take our holiday from us.

We must stand on the principles that made this country great, honor the memory of those who gave their lives to make us free and stand up to those who wish to defeat us now, or tear us down because we are not like them or are able, willing and ready to defend ourselves and our freedoms This is unlike the pacifistic and appeasers and even some of our current deleterious leaders who didn’t understand what Patton, MacArthur, Nimitz, Bradley and others knew. You fight to win, then you negotiate the terms of surrender and how business will be conducted. Even on my blog, there are some that just have no clue as to what we are about as demonstrated in the absurd comments of this entry.

Others feel this way also like Ricky Gilleland, quoting from this article:

Quiet, soft-spoken 17- year-old Ricky Gilleland spends most weekends surrounded by tombstones, as he walks through Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C. looking for the burial sites of those individuals who have died in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. Gilleland has taken on the job that the historic cemetery has not been able to do itself.

Through his website, preserveandhonor.com, Gilleland has cataloged the thousands who are laid to rest in Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery. With a camera in hand, Gilleland shoots a photo of both the front and back of the headstone, “to provide a virtual place for loved ones and friends to both locate the graves of the fallen and reflect on the memory of their sacrifice.”

Or these great American’s who realize why we have Memorial Day:

GM’s Place The Last Battle

Michelle Malkin – Honoring the Fallen

Knowledge is Power – Gone but Never Forgotton

And this:

Ft. Carson Warrior Memorial

Blackfive, one of my favorite Milbloggers

Check out these images from Blackfive which tear at your heartstrings

Michael Yon

So I don’t wish a happy Memorial Day, although I hope you enjoy the hot dogs and family celebration. Rather, remember those who fought so that you could live free

Dealing with Email

The 300 Baud Modem Days

I remember back in the 80’s when I had exclusive access to some very important reporters as only about 50 of us were on MCI Mail and it was sort of a club that we had. We didn’t say it, but we didn’t share our secret as they got pounds of press releases by snail mail daily. If they got an email over a 300 baud modem, they knew it meant something. We only contacted each other when it was important, so no one abused it.

Remember, this was the days of the office memo that got typed on a typewriter and sent around. CC’s were made with carbon paper so it was to tough to abuse it due to the trouble

The Evolution, Email is the new Snail Mail, and Spam King

Later, Outlook, Lotus Notes, Pegasus and a ton of other email clients have come and gone. Email could now even be regarded as the new snail mail, and certainly it’s the king of Spam. Being CC’d or BCC’d on thousands of notes fills up inboxes globally. Many have gone to multiple email addresses to divert off the spam for personal use, but if you work for a company, you’re stuck with that address that is all to easy to find.

So what are the up’s and down’s to email? It can be the only way to reach someone (in a company, a text message or tweet DM is likely faster) if they are in a different timezone or are miles up the corporate ladder for you. So that is good.

Slogging through endless emails that have little impact are a time suck now and you must fight the urge to respond, stopping the chain. There are other downsides which I’ll discuss below.

Email Road Rage

Ranting behind the false curtain of email rather than face to face or calling the person directly. I dubbed this tactic Email Road Rage. All have been the recipient of it or have seen someone go off the deep end, many times later to regret it. Bosses seem to think they have immunity on this, but it inhibits employee behavior and openness via email exchange.

The best executive I’ve worked directly for, Buell Duncan once told me to answer these kind of emails once, and then let it roll off your back like water off a duck. Don’t spend nights letting it keep you up. Deal with it and be done.

While it may be tempting to get into the fray, especially when one is feisty is to defend your position, attack back or go behind the offender’s back describing in unflattering terms what kind of a person would send these emails, the best answer is…..

Don’t Respond Unless Required.

Most email stops when you stop the chain. I get you have to answer the boss, but not joining the fray is the best medicine. I have found this hard to do, but being a Ph.D. in the School of hard knocks, I’ve learned to not answer when at all possible. Don’t explain or defend yourself, just use the del key, the appropriate response. This is true for tweets. I’ve gotten into endless tweetbacks that I wish had never happened. Now I just ignore and I’ve forgotten the next day or someone else is naive enough to get caught into the trap.

Along with don’t answer is don’t send. You can avoid a lot of useless email if you don’t feel the obligation to fire off emails at every whim. I’m learning that lesson also. My inbox thanks me.

The most important time to start going dark is….

Before Vacation

I purposely don’t start anything that could bite me while I’m trying to not work. IBM is the poster child for people working on vacation, something I try hard not to do. I got emails from bosses on anniversary vacations, which I’m sure made their spouses happy. The way I see it, the doors to the company will stay open while I’m away. Americans are notorious for not being good vacationers. Not me. I put on that I won’t be checking email until I return.

The key to this is to start slowing down a few days before you leave. This slows the wheels of motion and gets the anonymity going.

Conclusion

While email can be helpful and it certainly is still our main method of communicating, it follows Sturgeon’s law. Life has enough of that anyway, so why add to it?

World’s Shortest Books (Satire)

For those easily offended, move along, nothing to see here. For those with a sense of irony, humor and perhaps sarcasm, enjoy.

The World’s Shortest Books:

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY COUNTRY
by Jane Fonda & Cindy Sheehan.
Illustrated by Michael Moore
________________________________________

MY CHRISTIAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS &
HOW I HELPED AFTER KATRINA
by Rev Jesse Jackson & Rev Al Sharpton
_______________________________________

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
by Hillary Clinton
________________________________
Sequel:
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HILLARY

By Bill Clinton
___________________________________

MY LITTLE BOOK OF PERSONAL HYGIENE

by Osama Bin Laden
___________________________________

THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD

by Bill Gates

____________________________________

THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY

by Dennis Rodman
_________________________________

THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

by Al Gore & John Kerry

_____________________________________
AMELIA EARHART’S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC

___________________________________

A COLLECTION of MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES

by Dr. J.. Kevorkian

__________________________________
ALL THE MEN I HAVE LOVED BEFORE

by Ellen de Generes & Rosie O’Donnel

____________________________________
GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE

by Mike Tyson

__________________________________
THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY
_______________________________________
MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS

by O. J. Simpson
_________________________________________

HOW TO DRINK & DRIVE OVER BRIDGES

by Ted Kennedy
___________________________________

MY BOOK OF MORALS

by Bill Clinton with introduction

by the Rev. Jesse Jackson
*******************************************************

AND, JUST ADDED:

Complete Knowledge of Military Strategy!

By Nancy Pelosi

**************************************************************************************************************************

My Real-World Work Experience

by Barack Obama

Interesting Facts About Israel and the Middle East

Below is some vital information for you to assimilate and to ready to give to others who do not understand.

ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM FACTS

1. Israel became a state in 1312 B.C., two Millennia before Islam;

2. Arab refugees from Israel began calling themselves “Palestinians” in 1967, two decades after (modern) Israeli statehood;

3. after conquering the land in 1272 B.C., Jews ruled it for a thousand years and maintained a continuous presence there for 3,300 years;

4. the only Arab rule following conquest in 633 B.C. lasted just 22 years;

5. for over 3,300 years, Jerusalem was the Jewish capital. It was never the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even under Jordanian rule, (east) Jerusalem was not made the capital, and no Arab leader came to visit it;

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Holy Bible, but not once is it mentioned in the book of Qur’an;

7. King David founded Jerusalem ; Mohammed never set foot in it;

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem ; Muslims face Mecca . If they are between the two cities, Muslims pray facing Mecca , with their backs to Jerusalem ;

9. in 1948, Arab leaders urged their people to leave, promising to cleanse the land of Jewish presence. 68% of them fled without ever setting eyes on an Israeli soldier;

10. virtually the entire Jewish population of Muslim countries had to flee as the result of violence and pogroms;

11. some 630,000 Arabs left Israel in 1948, while close to a million Jews were forced to leave the Muslim countries;

12. in spite of the vast territories at their disposal, Arab refuges were deliberately prevented from assimilating into their host countries. Of 100 million refugees following World War II, they are the only group to have never integrated with their co-religionists. Most of the Jewish refugees from Europe and Arab lands were settled in Israel , a country no larger than new jersey ;

13. there are 22 Muslim countries, not counting Palestine … there is only one Jewish state. Arabs started all five wars against Israel , and lost every one of them;

14. Fatah and Hamas constitutions still call for the destruction of Israel .. Israel ceded most of the west bank and all of Gaza to the Palestinian authority, and even provided it with arms;

15. during the Jordanian occupation, Jewish holy sites were vandalized and were off limits to Jews. under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian holy sites are accessible to all faiths;

16. out of 175 United Nations Security Council Resolutions up to 1990, 97 were against Israel ; out of 690 general assembly resolutions, 429 were against Israel ;

17. the U.N.. was silent when the Jordanians destroyed 58 synagogues in the old city of Jerusalem .. it remained silent while Jordan systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the mount of olives, an d it remained silent when Jordan enforced Apartheid laws preventing Jews from accessing the temple mount and Western Wall.

these are trying times. We must ask ourselves what we should be doing, and what we will tell our grandchildren about our actions during this crisis, when we had the chance to make a difference.

Advice for Men, 9 Words that Women Use That YOU Need to Pay Attention To

Men, pay attention. This could save you.

(1) Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

(2) Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

(3) Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

(4) Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission.. Don’t Do It!

(5) Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)

(6) That’s Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. That’s okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake..

(7) Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you’re welcome. (I want to add in a clause here – This is true, unless she says ‘Thanks a lot’ – that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say ‘you’re welcome’ . that will bring on a ‘whatever’).

(8) Whatever: Is a woman’s way of saying F- off!

(9) Don’t worry about it, I’ll do it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing herself. This will later result in a man asking ‘What’s wrong?’ For the woman’s response refer to # 3.

Poison People in the Office

This article was written by Sid Adelman and Larissa Moss. I would recommend that you don’t be one of these, work for one of these or if you know one, stay away from them. It’s still work, but enjoying it has a lot to do with those you interact with.

One of the biggest risks to any project manager is having people on the team with the wrong attitude, bad work habits or incompatible skills. Do not accept them on your team, even temporarily – a temporary assignment may outlast your tenure, and is likely to, if you accept these people. Your job is not to rehabilitate, but to implement your project. Have a clear understanding with your boss of what your job really is. Your boss will only be successful when you are successful, so your boss should support your efforts.

The Poison People are not just dead wood, they infect the entire team, hurting morale, and hurting work habits. They will require time from both you and the other team members to deal with them, their problems and their incompetence. Good workers do not want to be on the same team with these people.
1.      Retired-on-the-job Rudy – Rudy may, in fact, be close to retirement or just a non-performer. Whatever skills he once had (autocoder and board wiring) are either rusty or of little use on your project.
2.      Bad Luck Bob – Bob has never worked on a project that has been successful. Disaster seems to follow him wherever he goes. His bad luck will undoubtedly rub off on the project.
3.      Obstructionist Orville – Orville finds fault with every approach suggested and will argue every minor point that could be debated. By the time he is finally convinced (and then not convinced but grudgingly acquiesces) the project is way behind schedule or has been cancelled.
4.      Learning Lena – Lena believes she can take on her assignments only if she attends classes (all scheduled in resort locations) for the next six months.
5.      Researcher Russ – Russ believes that we should not move forward until we have thoroughly evaluated every tool on the market, brought each one in for extensive evaluation and testing and visited all the reference sites.
6.      Incompetent Ernie – Ernie couldn’t find his mouse at high noon with both hands.
7.      Oldie Goldie – Goldie has been with the company since the company was founded. She knows everything and everyone. She manages to stay employed by playing the politics very well and by working the minimum time. She does manage to look busy. It doesn’t matter what you assign her, she only works on tasks she enjoys doing. She has seen many project managers come and go and is willing to take her chances that she will outlast you.
8.      Gunslinger Gus – Gus doesn’t believe in following standards, rules or anything else. Version control is an annoyance and cramps his style. He’s pretty confident of the quality of his code and so his motto is “Testing is always an option.”
9.      Water Cooler Walt – Walt loves to discuss everything with the team, whether it’s relevant to the work or not. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just do it at the water cooler, he drops into the other team members’ cubicles and wastes their time and they don’t know how to get rid of him politely or otherwise.
10. Big Idea Bernie – Bernie has read everything – and he believes everything he reads. He knows every web site and he attends every conference. Unfortunately, he’s too busy to actually do anything productive.
11. Internet Ida – Ida surfs the net for everything. Very little of it applies to her job. She is an internet junky and, even though she has been urged to, she has not yet joined the 12 Step Program for Internets Anonymous.
12. Safe Stan – Stan has some mysterious connections that protect him from ever being fired. He may be the CIO’s wife’s idiot son (by a previous marriage) or he may have some pictures that the Board’s Chairman would not want on the front page of the Evening Bugle.
13. Insensitive Igor – Whenever Igor opens his mouth, he manages to offend everyone, and those that seem to be the most offended are the users. You hate to bring him to meetings for you know you will have to make amends later on.
14. Saboteur Sam – Sam hates everything and everybody. He has an ax to grind and thinks the company has done him wrong. He does his best to sabotage every project he is on.
15. Heat-seeker Henry – Henry know no fear. He will try anything and everything, as long as it is new and technical, even if he brings down a few systems in the process.
16. Reminiscing Rena- Rena remembers the Good Ol’ Days and she reminds you of them constantly. Nothing ever lives up to her expectations, and it takes an act of God to get her to try something new.

So, you say, you can’t get rid of these people. What to do? Establish a gulag; separate them from the productive workers. Make the separation physical as well as by tasks. Separate them from the mainstream project. Give them work to do that will keep them out of trouble, will not detract from your project and will minimize contact with the rest of the team. Give them tasks such as reviewing all the code and reporting on standards violations – a complete review is always required when anyone makes even the slightest change in their code. You might also assign them to research obscure tools that have no chance of ever being chosen, but be sure that activity does not take up the vendors’ time as well.

This article is excerpted from a book titled Data Warehouse Project Management.

Will the New Facebook Take Over Linkedin?

Not for me. There is already too much information available out there and Facebook just increased it. Regardless of the predictions, I don’t see it happening completely. Some will like millennials, but boomers are much more conservative. Also, a lot of youngsters don’t go to Facebook as their parents are on, enough reason to not put your life there.

I keep my professional life on Linkedin and my personal life on Facebook, family and real friends only. I like I assume others will keep it that way based on conversations I’ve had. I don’t want to have pictures of co-workers in compromising situations (guaranteed to happen) on my professional profile.

I can screw around a bit on Facebook, but even then I keep it tame as the world doesn’t need to know that much about me.

The Social Network, A Movie Review with Comparisons to Corporate Life

I’m rarely first in line to many movies and the Social Network is the same, I just saw it last Saturday night. I realize that the movie didn’t tell the exact story, but I’m sure there were enough similarities to be close.

CAPITALISM, WHY OUR COUNTRY IS GREAT AND THE BEST ECONOMIC SYSTEM IN HISTORY

My first impressionism was thank the good Lord for Capitalism. There may have been some rough issues with the ongoings of the start up, but that we can live in a country where entrepreneurship and the ability to start a company, create jobs and have a shot at success should be celebrated. I want an environment where you can make it, or make it big, which is what is great about this country….The American Dream. The idea that we should re-distribute wealth because some do better than others is nonsense. One of the best lines in the movie came at the deposition when Zuckerberg answered if he stole Facebook from the Winklescarfs, “if you guys were the inventors of the Facebook, then you would have invented the Facebook”…ouch. It took hard work, vision and of course a couple of lucky breaks, but would this come out of the current environments in Venezuela, Iran, North Korea….I’m open to any examples?. That Zuckerberg had an idea and was able to become a billionaire gives real hope to everyone. Build a better Mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door………………………….but only in the free world.

WHY I’M GLAD IT TOOK PLACE IN hARVARD (lower case intentional)

That (at least) the 2nd dropout from harvard (lowercase emphasis mine) became a billionaire shows that an Ivy League credential is not what it used to be, nor is it necessary or as prestigious as it once was (unless you are a dropout billionaire) . Another great line in the movie that the Winkledoofuss’s were mad because they didn’t get their way such as they had all their pampered life was epic. We don’t live in the entitlement world (or shouldn’t). I’ve worked with Finklehorsespatoots from all of the Ivy league skools (sp on purpose) as well as those like Duke, USC, UNC-CH, Notre Dame, columbia, princeton who take college snobbery to the wrong level. Proud of your school is one thing, elitism is another….guess which one is appreciated or listened to? These institutions are reducing themselves to credentialed, not necessarily educated. Guess which ones are laughed at and not considered worth the money they charge? For the most part, the extra money they paid for their education was a waste that could have been invested and would be worth more. The reality is most are doing the same job for the same money. It got to the point in one of my jobs at IBM when someone would brag that they had a harvard MBA, someone would comment in public what a waste of money that was for the person. The rest of us would know to work around that person as they would just be a hindrance to our ability to get any work done. They were almost pariahs to everyone else being the snowflakes they usually turned out to be.

It takes a dream and passion to see it to fruition, otherwise you are a lemming in the working world. No degree earns you the right to do anything but try. I also subscribe that things are not equal, nor should they be. Some get more than others, be it because they are smarter, work harder or some combination of both. If you get a lucky break, consider it a bone, but it’s not an entitlement.

The plaintiffs didn’t have the ability to pull off what Zuckerberg did and they wound up sucking on the hind teat of his success. You could tell that the lawyers got as much as the clients he settles with through billing and retainers on that settlement. Might as well include lawyers in the offended since it looks like I’m growing that list in this blog. This brings me to another of my favorite scene’s, the best answer I’ve ever heard at a deposition. I wish I’d said it although I’ve said something close I’ll admit.

HARD WORK

Facebook didn’t just succeed because of luck (maybe luck in the timing) and some who didn’t see it’s potential got left behind, but the key to it’s success like most things is ability and hard work. Although I work for a big company now, I cut my teeth with entrepreneurs who gave every drop of blood, sweat and many times their personal life to make something they believed in a success. Most are at least Millionaires now and I don’t begrudge a one of them. They took the risk and deserve the reward. I only wish more would make it so they could hire more people and reduce unemployment, restart and grow the economy This will be the turn around our current economic situation needs, and much faster than our present Keynesian politicians.

REALISM OF THE FILM

I thought they captured the timing and semantics of the period correctly I was noticing the coding on screen, the Apache servers and that Zuckerberg edited his blog in HTML. I even noticed that the cell phones were time period appropriate. What hasn’t changed is College partiers. Not that I know that much about college partying, but I’m sure some of that really happens. Although they said he wasn’t an asshole, but that he tried so hard to be one was partly true. He didn’t have to try.

REAL LIFE

It turns out that Zuckerberg is a suck up to the President to promote Facebook. Why someone so smart would let himself be manipulated is beyond me. He didn’t realize that he let a campaign go on for the youth vote who are so easily manipulated by MTV, The Comedy Channel and such outlets. Older, wiser and those hurt more by the economy know better than to support this or be buffaloed by this sort of trick. The fact that Fakebook is censuring political groups that are not liberal and letting terrorists plan attacks or post mendacious things about moral groups shows who they and Zuck really are, biased.

EPILOGUE

This was a good movie that shows you can still make it in the business world. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and many others are all good examples of the American dream that Zuckerberg lives. By now it is out on DVD, I even TiVo’d it the other day an watched it again just to see success. I am glad we live in the part of the world where you have the chance to succeed or fail. But if you succeed, you usually take others with you. A rising tide floats all boats.

The 65th Anniversary of the Hiroshima Bomb

August 6, 2010 is the 65th anniversary of the introduction to the nuclear age. Since then, over 1000 nuclear bombs of various configurations have been detonated by multiple countries, but only 2 have been in wartime.

Some say it was barbaric, I’m taking the position that it saved millions of lives. At that time “while the infrastructure and industrial capacity of Japan may have been ruined, the army was committed to and capable of suicidal resistance to the end.”

That is difficult to comprehend unless you understand the dedication to the emperor as a god, and the Samurai code of death by suicide before capture. Even when the Allies fought the Germans in the European Theater, both sides wanted to live and many surrendered before death. Not so in the Pacific theater where many Japanese were dropped off on Islands without provisions and told to live (as cannibals), documented in “Flyboys”. In fact, very few Japanese prisoners were taken as they either died fighting, or committed seppaku.

History notes the use of the bomb was first and foremost used to end a war against an enemy who was determined never to surrender.

While the Americans and their fellow countries were preparing for the Japanese invasion, they predicted the loss of life on both sides to be north of 2 million.

Ultimately, there had to be a statement of finality to convince this mentality of the utter futile nature of continuing. The bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did this. My uncle, then a B-29 Pilot told me that far more damage and more lives were lost by the fire bombing, but it didn’t break the will of the Japanese people.

Victor Davis Hanson explains:

Japan still refused to surrender and upped its resistance with thousands of Kamikaze airstrikes. By the time of the atomic bombings, the U.S. Air Force was planning to transfer from Europe much of the idle British and American bombing fleet to join the B-29s in the Pacific.

Perhaps 5,000 Allied bombers would have saturated Japan with napalm. The atomic bombings prevented such a nightmarish incendiary storm.

The bombs also cut short plans for an invasion of Japan — an operation that might well have cost 1 million Allied lives, and at least three to four times that number of well-prepared, well-supplied Japanese defenders.

World War II was the most deadly event in human history. Some 60 million people perished in the six years between Germany’s surprise invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, and the official Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. No natural disaster — neither the flu pandemic of 1918 nor even the 14th-century bubonic plague that killed nearly two-thirds of Europe’s population — came close to the death toll of World War II.

Perhaps 80 percent of the dead were civilians, mostly Russians and Chinese who died at the hands of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Both aggressors deliberately executed and starved to death millions of innocents.

World War II was also one of the few wars in history in which the losers, Japan and Germany, lost far fewer lives than did the winners. There were roughly five times as many deaths on the Allied side, both military and civilian, as on the Axis side.

Further, evidence was found that the Japanese had their own nuclear bomb and tested it on the Island of Hungnam days after the “bomb” was dropped on Hiroshima. So this act not only saved millions of lives, it now appears to have stopped a nuclear war. Reporter David Snell has documented this.

American soldiers found and destroyed a cyclotron in Japan shortly after the attack.

So ultimately, the goal of all war and the way it should be fought was achieved, to win. You fully defeat your enemy, then negotiate the terms of surrender. I only wish that today’s political correctness would go away and we would let the soldiers do their job without the meddling of an incompetent congress and inexperienced leader and put in a man like Harry Truman who said “We will unleash a rain of terror from the air”.

We face this again and will continue to face it as everyone will challenge the top dog. It is up to the free world to deliver what the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack knew.

This was both an important event in history and a lesson we should learn so that the next Hiroshima is not named New York.

Star Trek Adapted to the Recent Mass. elections

It was too funny being a trekkie

Incompetency by the Media – Top 10 Media blunders for 2008

Still more ammo to those predisposed to thinking the establishment media’s days as gatekeeper are numbered.

Getting Your Executives to Cut Down their Presentations

The first thing I read today was by Carter Lusher on this subject. He calls it getting them to Change their presentations.

As always it is a good read and of importance to Analyst Relations. After talking about this subject to analysts before, during and after presentations and conferences, I’ve developed my personal pet peeve list.

His example was an executive using a sales presentation for a deck which happens about 387 out of 365 days a year.

With that lead in, here is the list of issues I’ve thought about having done or been a part of close to 1000 analyst presentation decks (likely over that number).

1. Carter is right, don’t bring your sales presentation to the table, instant credibility loss.

2. If you can’t get your message delivered in 15 charts or less, you likely have clarification issues.

3. Analysts (most people) look at the number of charts and immediately judge what point they are going to listen to before they check email.

4. Send it in advance and ask what is clear and what is important to them to get to the point. If you have to get through a couple of set up charts fine, but say that in advance.

5. No chart is golden, (many) could (should) be sacrificed.

6. Discussion about strategy and technology is a much better use of time than chart after chart preaching.

7. Don’t take offense in chartsmanship, most people aren’t that good at it.

8. If the analyst wants to go off the charts, be willing to go as long as you stay on topic.

9. Use A/R to speak to the analyst before the briefing/discussion/meeting/conference to see what is the analyst goal and actually make charts to answer the issues, not pound your chest on what your end of year rating is based on.

10. Accept criticism where appropriate, the analyst is right.

11. Never fail to have a chart to say, what do you think or are we on topic, message, right course or other to let the analyst offere advice or opinion.

12. Consider using web conferencing if your audience is over 10 people.

13. Personal opinion here – I hate powerpoint, it’s been used as a crutch for too long and we were able to get our job done well prior to it’s invention. Please someone invent the next tool.

14. A presentation deck has a life. Don’t recycle charts too long. I’ve seen analyst eyes glaze over with “I’ve seen this before blaring in neon” on their face.

15. Be aware of your audience. We at IBM run more conferences than months in the year by at least double. I’ve seen the same charts at multiple conferences where I knew their were the same analysts (this is a similar comment to 14).

16. Leave time for questions at the end. Don’t look at the time and gauge the number of charts you can cram into it.

17. Give the analyst a copy if you haven’t sent it to them upfront. Sometimes there are circumstances that prevent one from sending early (the executive didn’t finish until 5 minutes before the presentation, been there and done that double digits).

18. If there are multiple executives presenting, have them compare notes prior to the briefing so they don’t conflict or aren’t redundant.

Grocery shopping observations and comedy

I’ll state up front that Dave Barry should have written this, because I just can’t do it proper justice, but here goes.

I love going to the grocery store, not just because I get to buy stuff to eat, but it’s a people show extraordinaire. I pretty much hate shopping, it’s go get what I need and get out like most real guys. But the grocery store is different.

I first noticed that I liked going back when I lived in South Florida, where I spent most of my single years. People would get dolled up to go to the mall, out to dinner, the movies, anywhere. But ask them to go to the store and they’ll put anything on, anytime of day. I’ve seen some cuties that looked like death warmed over picking up something to eat. There was of course, some making the walk of shame picking up eats or coffee on the way home early in the morning.

Since it was South Florida, there were a few phenomenons. If you went to the store by the beach, people would shop in their bathing suits. Being a normal single male (walking hormone) at that time of my life, this made for quite a bit of entertainment. I’ll make only passing comments here about liking the frozen aisle.

The other phenomena there is that there were a lot of old retired cranky people, mostly moved down from New York which made for endless shopping entertainment. Where I lived in Delray Beach, they used to bus them in from the retirement villages, either Kings Point or Century Village, affectionally known as cemetery village. They’d hit the Publix en mass and raise the level of complaining to new highs. I varied between going to see this almost like going to a sporting event, and avoiding it because it could really grind on you. These folks could spend 30 minutes complaining to the manager about a 5 cent increase in the price of anything. If there was an advertised special, they moved faster to get there than the rest of the year, except maybe to the bathroom after prune breaks. Hitting each other with their shopping carts was hilarious until it happened to me. I politely informed the person that if they did it again, they’d wind up in the meat section.

You can tell pretty much the state of life they are in by what’s in their cart. The college kids usually had health food like cheez-its for breakfast, a frozen pizza and a case or two of beer, real cheap beer like old Milwaukee, Busch, Pabst or Schlitz when it was available. Young couples would have 40 cans of baby food and diapers. Middle age had progressively healthier food, the elderly’s had prune juice and polident.

The time of day that you shopped will vary the crowd also. The moms running households dominate the morning, Working moms and dads are on Saturday mornings. The folks picking up something for dinner after work are regulars from 5-7 PM. Anywhere from 10 PM on, especially are the partiers. Anyone after 10 in the twinkie aisle had the munchies.

Who don’t you want to see at the grocery store? Anyone you know usually, especially someone from work. Unless you’re already lunch buddies, the level of uncomfortableness increases dramatically with how far away they are from your cube. What’s really embarrassing is someone you know and forgot their name. People duck down the quickest escape route to avoid conversation like there was a nerve gas explosion for this one. I find it especially rewarding to see someone I know who looks like death warmed over at the store, but they spend extra time to be dolled up at work. I’ll always make it a point to say hello, even when I wouldn’t want to talk. One person whose name I’ll not mention does have her hair always perfect, I can’t figure this out. My son’s kindergarten teacher told us at orientation that seeing someone at the store was her least favorite place to see a parent as she would have to run down the kid’s behavior.

Back to South Florida, seeing someone you work with in a bathing suit at the store was like a touchdown and an extra point for me. Invariably, they acted like they were naked in public for which I got endless pleasure.

It’s a lot different now that I live in North Carolina and am married and running a household. It’s a contest to see if you can hit double or triple coupon day to see how much you can save. The old people are different here also. I heard the other day, “please get in front of me, you have a baby and I’m not in that big a hurry”.

Also, as I’ve mentioned, I have a dog, and we have to pick up the output when we take her for a walk. Only plastic (not paper) works for that. Since she goes for a walk about 20 times a day, we need a big supply of bags. So its always a struggle to get as many bags as possible for this while the store tries to cram every item you buy into as few as possible.

And about me, think I care what I look like? Think again. I’ll put on jeans and a hat and it’s off to funland, hunting for co-workers. Too bad we live inland now.

Blogging at IBM, a snowball rolling down hill

This time last year, we put up the developerWorks blog as the first external IBM blog site. It was a small snowball barely dropped from the top of Mount IBM. It turns out be an end around being able to blog at IBM who now want to establish a company wide policy that will smother and restrict effective blogging communications. Fortunately, IBM Corporate Comm’s is clueless and so behind the times and we were able to put this site up under their noses without much effort. Since we did it without asking, it now can’t be taken down as too many people look to this site for blogs. Many people are trying to get on to it so for now, we control the outbound blog content unlike comm’s department in Armonk which moves at the speed of smell.

Armonk communications is a bubble that can’t see past New York, led by a hot head who ran Ed Koch’s liberal political campaign. Their lack of vision is the bane of much of the sterile communications that you read about when IBM is discussed. While they see it as a well oiled machine, the rest of the comm’s team who actually does all the work, know that they are a ball and chain that has to be worked around to get anything done. The developerWorks blog site is a prime example of how to work around people such as those in Armonk.

It’s funny, almost like the tail wagging the dog, as we are doing what we want, whenever we want, while the rest of every word written from IBM goes under the microscope at the home office, effectively removing any creativity or actual information that might be helpful. If you don’t believe it, read a press release. It is quite enjoyable to usurp the Stalin like control that they try to impose on everyone else, and act like a regular company who understands how to deal with the media.

I decided to list my blog there as I was the first official blogger for IBM analyst relations and have set many of the policies up until now, including starting and running blogging for IBM A/R. When the corporate communications machine finds a way to destroy the effectiveness through obsessive guidelines overseen by people who have never written or likely read a blog, any control I currently have will diminish. They are so paranoid from the monopoly trial that they manage to put effective PR into the stone ages. Fortunately, they are so obsessed with the media right now, the most effective communications program is on the analyst side as they don’t understand what it is. Anytime they try to interfere, they treat A/R like pr and look silly.

At that point, my blog may or may not be on the corporate site depending on the rules and guidelines. Since I don’t care what they say (and best of all am not in NY, which the powers that be can’t see beyond) and have learned to be more creative about communicating through social media than they have, I’ll make that decision as needed on my terms. I’ll likely then be on new social media platforms that are industry wide so it won’t be tough to stay ahead of them while keeping current with the rest of the world. Since they move so slowly for fear of actually stepping out into the real world, I won’t have to worry about it for a while.

With prodding from the outside (thanks to the analyst community) and many unconnected but interesting bloggers, we got the fever. Now there is the internal blog with thousands of bloggers going at it (another IBM communication killer since the audience is IBM’ers), a mainframe blog, gamers and worst of all attention on this from the top.

What I see is momentum for blogging that started as grass-roots inertia (bottom up, not the usual top down) which I believe is best (ask RIM or Palm). Sure, we were a bit later than some companies, but it won’t be that long for us to catch up. Fortunately, I started my blog and put up the developerWorks site like we did and that is how it will be done. All we need is a few rock stars to start writing.

Now the blog plan is prominent in the outreach plans for new products and announcements. Normal companies do this and since I came from the outside where I honed my skills staying ahead of companies like IBM, it is important to connect on terms with the audience that are mutually agreeable and most effective. I knew that I’d already won and would get the message of the company I represented if there were IBM communicaitons people in the room. Sure, they were the 800 lb. gorrilla in the room, but as soon as I got time with the media or analysts, they were far more likely to work with me as A) I wasnt’ trying to write their story and B) I actually was working in the 20th or 21st century. I’ll bet those same comm’s folks were hell with tabulation machines and IBM 360’s.

So it’s more like cells dividing, people from all over the world in IBM are jumping on this as they should. Many of the execs who are the busiest people in the world are blogging Buell Duncan and IWB.

I’ve watched trends for a while at IBM, lots of hype at first, then some catch on or fizzle out, but this one has legs…the snowball is now big, and for now the only blog site at IBM until the wonks in IBM corporate communications figure out how to sterilize this also. The fact that I can write this clearly shows that they have no clue about social media at this point, nor do they move faster than cold honey.

If you’re reading this, you likely had something to do with IBM blogging brought to you by developerWorks. Thanks. We offer more information on a timely basis that is more meaningful than you’d ever find from the wonks in Armonk.

The faces of humanity

Update: I posted this in 2005. My daughters then bf got bent out of shape because I spoke the truth. He was going to write a rebuttal, but didn’t. This was before the Kardashian sex tape or their awful show that I never have watched. It turns out that this was right all along and he’s done a 180 now that he is in the working world. My sister has lost everything now, but due to financial mismanagement and the inability of her husband to keep a job, not due to natural disasters That is a different story.

I was going to call it the 2 faces of humanity, just thinking of what the folks in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are going through bringing out the good and bad in some, but it occurred to me that there are many flavors of this subject. But for this post, I’ll concentrate on the simple good and bad.

What is happening in those states is devastating. I can only mildly relate as we’ve had some bad hurricanes here (Fran comes to mind in NC where some are still recovering) and a recent ice storm where we were out of power for a week, but it is bad there. My sister lives near Lake Pontchartrain and has likely lost her house. Her family got out in time and are living with my parents right now, lucky them. It’s not the same for those who have lost lives, jobs, family and other things like heirlooms and photo’s which are forever gone.

These catastrophe’s bring out the good in some folks. Already there are local fisherman driving around in bass boats rescuing people from their houses. There are organizations which are gathering supplies, people lining up to donate time and money to help. I read this morning where you can donate like the Red Cross , Samaritans Purse, and other good groups who are sincere in helping out. FEMA is organizing for the biggest relief effort ever. For those that get my feed via RSS, I’ll be visiting del.ico.us today to add them to my list.

Then there is the other side. I’ve seen reports of looters, the construction scammers, insurance fraud and many others. This is also unfortunately something that raises it’s ugly head during these times. I hope that this is kept in check.

Then the way we can act hit me. Through the power of DVR (i was scanning and deleting shows), I happened to watch back to back the hurricane coverage then the reality show, “filthy rich cattle drive” where the spoiled brat kids of celebrity’s are “roughing” it on a cattle drive. This is like going to a zoo to watch animals. These kids are the most narcissistic people I’ve ever seen, worried about how they look, trying to get make up, dry cleaning and Fed Ex in the middle of nowhere and me, me, me. This was supposed to be about helping a charity. One of them of course was Kim Kardashian.

It’s just to ironic that these two faces of humanity are happening at the same time.

Natural disasters have been happening since the creation of the earth. There was the tsunami last year for example. Fortunately, people have stepped up and helped others through the course of history and I hope and pray it happens here.

A lesson that strikes me (besides the obvious of striving to be good) is to be prepared and to be able to take care of yourself in the many situations life will present to you. Acts of God like this (even for skeptics, this is the clause in your homeowners insurance) will continue, so dealing with it is inevitable. Being ready in anything is half the battle sometimes. Appreciate your family, friends and experiences in life. It’s times like this that remind you how important and fleeting they can be.

So it’s off to my now seemingly trivial day when compared to those now trying to put their lives back together.

Update on Sis: just heard from her and the house made it, but she won’t be able to go back for months. Thanks to those folks who sent regards.

Category: obvious

Will Rogers Gets It Right on Our Government Spending

How Not to Succeed At A Job Fair

Having A Bad Day? It Could Be Worse

Why the 2nd Amendment Matters – By the Japanese Leader of the Pearl Harbor Attack

July 4th 2012, Top Posts Round-up

How Much They Know About Us, The Perils of Big Data

Saturday Humor – Joe Isuzu and Monarchy

How An Average Joe Can Be A Millionaire By Doing Simple Principles

More on the Gitmo Trials

Neurological Self Test (If You Fear Alzheimers)

Was IBM’s Watson a Breakthrough or Very Cheap and Creative Advertising?

Duh, Science Confirms the Obvious

Interviewing, What Not to Say

Green Jobs – Teaching my Offspring about Capitalism

Memorial Day 2011

Dealing with Email

World’s Shortest Books (Satire)

Interesting Facts About Israel and the Middle East

Advice for Men, 9 Words that Women Use That YOU Need to Pay Attention To

Poison People in the Office

Will the New Facebook Take Over Linkedin?

The 65th Anniversary of the Hiroshima Bomb

Star Trek Adapted to the Recent Mass. elections

Incompetency by the Media – Top 10 Media blunders for 2008

Getting Your Executives to Cut Down their Presentations

Grocery shopping observations and comedy

Blogging at IBM, a snowball rolling down hill

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