Five Bucks.

I need some help. I know, I know, replies referring to my state of mind, along with offers too extreme to print will flow forth, but I was referring to help with my blog and the marketing required to give it a higher profile on the net. I had been thinking who, how and what is required to market my blog so the New York Times finds me and offers that once in a lifetime chance to continue viewing the world my way from the front page.

Obviously this project requires a marketing budget and expertise to increase my following and gain notoriety, enough to warrant the NY Times offer. My cards, after the Christmas crush, left me with $105.00 credit to encourage someone, anyone, from a marketing company to give me advice and solutions to my dilemma of global blog domination. I was surprised what was on offer.

I was provided with the following solutions, that would give my blog the needed profile upgrade to entice NY to come a calling. To start with, I was provided with a business plan and a complete 30 page SEO and SEM report on my blog site. I was indexed in Google within 48 hours and had my site submitted to Yahoo. I had my blog tweeted to 15,000 new followers along with an ad on a website with 140 million hits. A full HD video of my blog on YouTube was listed with a professional testimonial in any language I chose. Not forgetting the power of social media, I had a Facebook App developed and uploaded along with a QR code in case I ever decided to sell anything on my blog. I was guaranteed 10,000 unique visitors sent to my blog site along with 200 articles posted to 200 sites further enhancing my profile. To finish the ambush marketing side of the campaign, I had a new logo designed, graffitied on walls, the sides of cars and on the fingernails of girls prepared to walk around their neighbourhoods with "O Business" in neon lacquer. Getting close to my budgetary limits I spent $10.00 to run two commercials a day, for five days, on a new country music station along with finding a business mentor to discuss any future marketing and business scenarios.

After accomplishing all of the above, I was left with $15.00 credit towards my second quarter marketing plan, which will include a receptionist for an hour, someone to make hard decisions for me and finally someone who will write my name in coffee cups, because I think that looks cool. Each of the above tasks cost me $5.00 from one of the more interesting crowd sourcing sites, Fiverr. It is gaining notoriety as the place looneys, loose cannons, creative types, business start ups and those hard up for cash gather in one crazy place. Some say Fiverr is catering to the lowest common denominator, those willing to do anything for $5.00, others look at it, as just another aggregator of human resource, while many like me, think it's a hoot and shouldn't be taken too seriously. After all, how much credence would you put on someone providing a business plan, being a business mentor or having your logo painted on finger nails for five bucks?

There seems no limit to what people are prepared to do, for fame, infamy and $5.00. You be the judge on the merits of crowd sourcing with a difference.

P.S. I didn't really spend the money. I'm sure the NY Times will come a calling, anyway.

Merry e Christmas.

In past years I was diligent in sending out Christmas cards to friends and relatives, no matter the expense or time required. I took pride in good English along with heartfelt messages I hoped would make the string of cards in the venetian blinds or better still the string of cards across the mantle piece. Things change and nowadays I send e cards and I lament the demise of a tradition, because no matter how efficient, it's hard to string e cards anywhere.

A tradition that has been in tune with this time of year, since the first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 featuring an illustration by John Callcott Horsley. By 1860 they were commercialised by Charles Goodall and Sons and today, according to the Greeting Card Association, still number close to 2 billion sent every year. A number that is quickly dwindling.

Like e books, I think e cards will take over the printed variety, especially if I am an example, not buying cards anymore and not spending hours agonising over the litany of verses designed to bring fond memories of Christmas to all my friends. Interestingly I don't have any more cash or time, now that I'm no longer involved in the card exercise. Seems there is always something to take over the extra time and money, no wonder it's hard to save.

Having said all that, Christmas is still a time to reconnect with friends and relatives and regardless of how you say it, the thought of good will and cheer to all, remains the same regardless of the media used. I worried at first I wasn't putting the same enthusiasm and forethought into my cards because now they were just bytes of information transmitted via the ether and surely people could just dismiss them with a click or worse, they get stuck in the spam filter.

Yet the time dedicated to finding just the right card, with just the right music, with just the right message, interactivity and the ability for personality to shine through, quickly put paid to that thinking. Where a Hallmark shop would have hundreds of cards to chose from, I now wander sites with unlimited choices equivalent to an airport hangar filled with paper, looking for just the right card. My appreciation of the e card and it's ability to make people smile and think of the sender along with being able to reply instantly, has increased to the extent I now look forward to receiving them as much as sending them.

Along with my geeky side, my inner recycler is also feeling righteous not worrying about cut down trees and wondering what to do with the piles of old cards the day after New Year.

So this Christmas, embrace the new medium of e card connection and enjoy the interactive nature because your friends have taken time to think of you as they hit the send button. The e revolution won't subside and next year, I'm sure I'll be talking about my new e presents. The e shirt, the e tie and no doubt the e underwear, all guaranteed to fit, no matter how much pudding I eat.

Pregnant Pause.

A silence, a crystallistion of thought, a moment, a reflection, a pause filled with delicious anticipation of the next word or insight has given way to fillers in today's speech vocabulary and terminally haunts elocution experts of yesteryear as people rabbit on, rather than take a breath. I listen to industry leaders, politicians, entertainers and the odd footballer and it is rare I come away remembering more than "in between" words repeated ad nauseam connecting what should be salient messages and intelligent insights.

"You know", "ah", "like", "er", "right" and the always reliable, tried and true ubiquitous "um" are go to words for speakers waiting for their mouths to catch up with their brains, or vice versa, depending on how many goals they've just scored. Such words, grunts and unintelligible sounds, used to link thoughts and ideas, were once the realm of first time speech givers but have become the norm as communication escalates via the new media outlets. It was not unheard of, for people to fear a speech more than death and sometimes listening to bad speeches was close to dying as "ums" outnumber real words.

The considered and practiced speech or presentation has long gone the way of the lectern, as cordless mikes give people room to roam and ruminate on their favourite subjects, while mangling the "King's English". As hard as it is to shut people up, on Youtube or countless web avenues, the distraction of "disfluencies", the "ums", only end up discrediting and highlighting the lack of preparation of a speakers.

Those little, one syllable words show volumes about the insecurities and concerns speakers have, as well as communicating they have not taken the audience seriously and practiced before stepping on stage. Even if speakers are experts in their field, the "ums"and "ahs" bring forth a mediocrity of knowledge and insecurities that will not endear you to your audience. Many speech experts (have they ever "ummed"?) see these speech hesitations as lack of self confidence and sincerity and consider them a virus ruining speech at all levels.

The challenges seem insurmountable to many but there is a sure save answer to all the concerns bought forward by the disfluencies and hesitation trapdoors, stop talking. For some this is the complete answer, but for those that have to get up on stage, bring forth your inner Al Pacino or Meryl Streep and use silence rather than the ubiquitous "ah" to bring your audience forward in their seats, while you gather your thoughts for the next intelligent insight that will have them clapping at the end.

The pregnant pause, long disparaged and little used, is seeing a revival of sorts but requires a strong backbone as most speakers don't operate well in a vacuum and it's easy to insert a quick "um" into a speech to cover the overwhelming and crushing silence. So next time, think about drawing a breathe before opening your mouth and setting forth on the good ship "listen to me". Brings new meaning to "grow a spine".

After all, like, ummm, ahhh, you know, how hard, is, ahhh, talking, right?

You're So Vain.

"I bet you think this song is about you" warbled Carly Simon in her get back song, to Warren Beatty after their short lived dalliance. Her take on their relationship centred on the one sided affair Beatty was having with himself, while escorting Simon, who ended up a mere handbag to his vanity. The vanity and narcissistic attitudes of Beatty, as one of Hollywood's pretty boys, was not an option for most people other than singing into a hair brush in front of the home mirror. Times have changed and the social media revolution has given the narcissist in us all, carte blanche to become self absorbed in our own legend.

We all know them, those people a little more inclined to look in the shop window as they walk by, flex a little too much at the gym and remain self absorbed even in catastrophic situations while still maintaining a perfect coiffure. How much fun are they having on Facebook,Twitter and the plethora of forums and activities designed to bring out, attractive, attention seeking, over confident, ego driven, high maintenance individuals, showing the world, it's all about them. Are we headed for a future where the self absorbed become the bench mark for individuality and success?

Facebook and the entertainment world aside, business has long endured those requiring our utmost attention and many of today's leaders fall into what is referred to as "business narcissism". Recent studies found people born between 1977 and 2000 more narcissistic than previous generations and that male business students the most narcissistic of all. In a study of over 500 US undergraduates, statistics revealed students motivated by money were more likely to be narcissistic than those motivated by wanting to contribute and help others. So it seems we can look forward to more leaders of industry self absorbed, needing attention and not interested in higher visions for making the planet a better place to live. Seems business schools have become a hotbed of reinforcement for narcissistic attitudes creating leaders with entitlement, exploitive and empathy issues.

Business narcissism can build up out of a leader’s thinking they are the exception to every rule and every challenge they encounter is exceptional and requires only their specific skills. Think about CEOs, defending their pay packets and share options, that have no place in the common man's thinking, with no other response than "I'm worth every cent". This is narcissism at the highest level and used to be difficult to focus on, as inappropriate behaviour, but where the web is seen as an enabler, it also has the power to spot light inappropriate narcissistic behaviour.

People taking themselves too seriously, especially in business circles, becoming too self absorbed and self centred and requiring the highest maintenance, whether via money or sycophantic attention are now at the mercy of the anonymous and the direct via the same avenues they seek attention through. The ability to take pot shots at the high and mighty and poke fun at those putting themselves on a pedestal provides balance in the tug of war between the preeners and the doers.

So while we may give a wry smile to people living large via Facebook we have the opportunity to bring attention to those in power and highlight the need for a balanced approach to business views, other than their own. By the way, does my bum look big in this suit?

Grunt Work.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am as connected as can be, from smart phones to iPads to any technology nearby, I will connect and communicate whenever necessary and sometimes when it's not. This is the world today, not just the future, and there are few moments or locations when I am not in communication mode or within range of a WiFi zone. Having said that, there are times I enjoy leaving everything behind, especially while exercising, either on long runs with the iPod playing my favourite running tracks or at the gym trying to figure out the latest equipment that will have me looking ready for the Summer ahead.

This is not so for everyone and while I barely get through my weight sets without passing out from exertion, many people continue to text and call while throwing around heavy equipment, which always brings a wry smile to my face. My understanding of the need to stay connected battles with my requirement to concentrate on what I'm doing in the gym and I wait for the day a treadmill throws an unwary emailer off the tracks. I wonder how much energy is expended on the phones versus the technology equipment. Curling while texting at my local gym is common practice with people barely out of breath in case a call comes through.

The two camps of opinions are polarising the gym sector with some gyms siting safety issues and going so far as banning mobiles, but with almost everyone having music or apps such as Gym Buddy or Cruncho Meter on their phones it's hard to say no when a phone is strapped to an arm with earplugs. In the end gyms are not cinemas or libraries and grunts and groans from fitness buffs will continue to mix it with phone calls that couldn't wait another 30 minutes.

The other aspect of smart phones that is causing gym owners concern, is the "Funniest Home Video" syndrome as privacy and security come into play for people not in their comfort zone doing ridiculous things to stay in shape or worse, scantily dressed or undressed in the locker room. For most people, their gym look, is the least attractive and the last thing they want, is to find themselves on YouTube or Facebook going viral because their spandex didn't quite hold everything in place. YouTube is awash with inappropriate gym videos of unsuspecting barbell junkies in a zone of their own.

So the challenge for gyms and similar establishments, is deciding on appropriate mobile protocol to be used between the racks of weights and stair master machines that will enhance people's exercise regimes while not mandating against use that will drive customers to another gym.

The ubiquitous nature of the smart phone will continue to challenge establishments like gyms and in the future will no longer be absent from even the "shush" areas of libraries and cinemas. How do you say no, to life's communication enabler when we've all decided to start talking at once? Good luck with that.

School Dances.

My first girlfriend in primary school was cute with blonde hair and freckles. I was 11 years old and it took me a year to muster up the courage to ask her out, to the end of year dance. At the time I didn't really know why it too me so long but the angst and anxiety built up, confined me to hanging with the boys at the marble pit. Not that I knew what angst and anxiety was but something was stopping me from just marching up and asking her to the dance. The lack of control, of another person's feelings, created a hurdle I didn't jump till many years later.

I had not had any rejection at that early age, after all, I did my homework and cleaned the yard, so no, was not something I heard from my parents when asking for anything. Yet this innate fear was palpable and unexplainable when facing that decision and didn't go away for many dances to come.

I look around and that fear still exists for a lot of people, especially in sales. A no, a thanks anyway, not today and a thousand others are encountered daily and are over in a second, but the fear of rejection can last a lifetime. Everybody hates rejection but most don't do anything to climb that mountain or get that gorilla off their back. Often it's too easy, not to make that call, not to make the meeting or just not even try and answer the call. With hindsight and therapy it is often easier to come up with reasons rejection doesn't have the sting we all fear.

Most of the time, what you consider a rejection has nothing to do with you and the number one lesson, is not to take it personally. Could it be a rainy day, did the kids not behave, did the mother in law cause problems, is the economy not being kind to your client? So many variables you have no control over. The next time you meet that person they may have had a wonderful day and the result turns around. Often the stories you build up, never exist and you only build them, to explain the end result.

The majority of rejections are never real but we carry the scars of the few that did cut deep and manifest them onto every decision carrying any weight. Especially if the rejecter has some importance in your work life or you have a closer relationship, rejection can be more traumatic.

So you need to ask yourself serious questions and set parameters to gauge your breaking point. How many negative responses before you to start taking it personally? What management level causes you to tremble the most? Being involved is part of the sales process but does that extra engagement with your client make it more personal and does criticism or rejection hurt that much more?

In the end, things you have control of, your beliefs, your attitude, your emotions and your actions are the only things that will work in over coming rejections and letting you move forward. I know you are all wondering, so to get you out of your misery, she said yes to the dance.

That's too much man.

My first car, a second hand Beetle came in 3 colours, black, white and I can't remember the third colour. The colour wasn't important as a choice factor but how many sand dunes it could traverse or how many people it could carry home from the pub and never having to worry about putting water in the radiator were important but never mentioned in the brochure. Choosing a car was easy when the parameters of choice were limited in colour and aimed at a market not mature in advertising and accepting of offerings.

So I'm in the US, where "you better have this product or I'm going somewhere else" attitude extends to over 350 models of cars, more than 6000 banks and so many breakfast cereals and that the first 3 letters of the alphabet cover more than 140 packets in the supermarket aisle. Companies have made no secret of their desire "to own the customer" and have ramped up choices because this is what they believe will keep them at the forefront of customer advocacy, choice.

It is also why confusion and abundance of choice are turning ordinary shoppers into "paralysed avoiders". Throw in regret, panic and anxiety about choices made and not made and you have a consumer base looking for a way out of the choice maze. Do you really need hundreds of breakfast cereals to choose from? How many cars are you really going to look at? Don't even get me started on how much money I'd need to have, to contemplate more than a couple of banks, let alone 6000.

One of the issues psychologists are concerned about, are children growing up with abundant choice and never really choosing anything. The so called digital generation is bombarded with so much choice, they end up continually picking, not choosing and end up hoping for the best. As opposed to making a choice and managing the outcomes of that choice, which prepares them to cope with an adult world.

Having said that, a 2010 study by researchers at the University of Bristol found that 47% of adult respondents, thought life was more confusing than it was ten years ago, and 42% reported lying awake at night trying to resolve problems. So no one is finding it as easy as it used to be with retailers fighting for attention at every chance.

Some though, are getting the message and have worked out that selling fewer products at a higher quality can gain significant market share. One of the best examples is Apple, whose entire product range fits on a coffee table. Using only continued design enhancement on those few products it has become the most valuable company in the world. The less is more mentality is slowly becoming a movement within US retail and companies such as Proctor and Gamble experiment with products such as shampoos, taking their Head and Shoulders range from 26 to 15 and improving sales by 10%. This is further emphasised by a 2006 Bain study suggesting that reducing complexity and narrowing choice can boost revenues by 5-40% and cut costs by 10-35%.

So in the end, the most important thing, isn't what we choose but that we make a choice and have the capacity and coping ability to manage and live with that choice. Now, coco crisps, crispy chocs, coco roos, coco pops, coco puffs, cocoa hoots, chocos, chocolate flakes, chocopic, chocolate crunchfuls, chocolate checs, chocolate cherrios, count chocula, chocolate oat crunch, chocolate peanut butter, chocolately peanut butter crunch?????

$ervice.

I have been coming to the land of the shopping mall,since the late 70s and always enjoy my time, especially when it comes to purchasing with a great exchange rate but more importantly with great service. My first trips were not about malls but about drinking and sporting events, travelling with friends and marvelling at the cheery faces greeting me from behind the bar. Cheery faces wrapped around home spun greetings of "have a nice day", "glad you could join us" and "I'll be your waiter tonight". All for $4.50 an hour and all seemingly plastic at the time.

I say at the time, because at home we hadn't bothered to go past G'day in the service industry and anything beyond seemed slightly sycophantic behaviour. As far as we were concerned, the product was the desired result and we weren't interested in wrapping it in any extra layers of service. Things change and decades later many of us find ourselves in service industries, competing for the same market and having long ago agreed the US is a bench mark. A bench mark created out of competitive necessity and a long instilled cultural norms surrounding service.

The $4.50 hourly rate still exists in the US and the jokes around working for that extra tip continue but nothing has changed regarding service and that's a good thing because all those years ago it wasn't plastic, we just hadn't caught up. The service mentality, especially in the retail sector, is an ingrained culture within the US and has become second nature. The fact that it exists at the lowest end of the pay scale extrapolates out to superb service at the top, that is only found in niche markets at the high end back home.

For many years, the jokes aimed at American tourists, coming to Australia demanding better service from restaurants and shops, showed our lack of intuition in matters surrounding a full product offering. No wonder they ended up building brand hotels where ever they travelled, at least they could take the service mentality they were used to, with them. As a callow youth travelling around the world, it never occurred to me, to listen and learn and take back lessons from the most competitive retail society on the planet and try and integrate them into my own businesses. It was more fun having a laugh at someone in a loud shirt wanting that extra bit of service because we were afraid to look into ourselves and know this was the future.

Service in the US is no longer attributed to that end of day, tip jar mentality, it is part and parcel of the offering of daily life and continues to be a bench mark. Travel around Europe for a while, you'll see service slide as you head south towards the Med, walk through one of our department stores over Christmas looking for some help or try and get a tradesman to show up on time. All indications there are still things to be learnt from the land of the dollar bill.

Newman's Own.

I've always been a fan of Paul Newman's pasta sauces. Firstly because he was a great actor and it was cool for a celebrity to muck about in the kitchen, way back in 1982, many years before the celebrity huckster movement. Secondly and most importantly because all the money went to charity. Could I make a better sauce, of course, but time restrictions and laziness often conspire and of all the sauces on the supermarket shelves I grab Paul's because it makes me feel good. With over $300 million given to such projects as the "hole in the wall camps" for kids, arts and education and breast cancer research, Newman's Own gives back and makes a difference.

I'd like to do more of the above and whenever a product associated with a social cause or conscience I agree with becomes available, I look into the viability of that product fitting into my lifestyle. Global surveys have found that just over half (51%) of all consumers would like to reward responsible companies by buying their product or shopping in their premises, with 53% saying they would pay a 10% premium for products from a responsible company. We all want to do better, give back and feel like we have done some good, often life gets in the way so we are happy for someone else to provide the avenue, even if it is only pasta sauce.

Surveys go onto to show that 85% of consumers want companies to do the right thing and be engaged in social issues but not many (22%) consumers think they are doing or getting enough. A recent list of the most "positive" global brands still finds most lacking in the "social graces" and more interested in output. Ikea, Google, Nestlé, Danone, Leroy Merlin, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, Unilever and Bimbo make the top ten list but the question of whether they impact people's lives for the better remains generally unanswered.

The future will see people more informed about the social conscience of companies and products they sell and it is not too far fetched to think consumers will reward the "good" guys and either avoid or negatively feedback on the"bad" guys. How you are seen in the future as far as your social conscience and the good work associated with that, could directly impact your bottom line.

It's not all about the big boys with so called disposable profit, paying out to make themselves look good in the eyes of the consumer. Without a heart companies are easily identified as buying a social conscience for bottom line results and consumers are savvy enough to see through the dollars splashed about. Size is not as important as good will and altruistic tendencies and even the little guys have opportunities to make a difference.

A good friend, running a successful travel agency in Melbourne, has supported causes for years and recently set up a micro financing project in Malawi, working with locals to make a difference in their daily lives. Loans available through "reHope" will give people opportunities to improve their lives significantly and it all became a reality because Karsten Horne, owner of Reho Travel cared more about making a difference than the next dollar. Now wouldn't you want to book your travel through someone that truly cared?

So next time you are shopping for anything, contemplate making a difference, even if it's only with a jar of pasta sauce.

Emotional Quotient.

A Qantas friend asked for my opinion on the latest disruptions, mud slinging and emotional turmoil encountered over the last month with the national carrier. I thought about what it meant to be Qantas staff, disrupted travellers and the general public accosted by a media frenzy. In the end I ended up with one opinion. You cannot run a global business, along normal business lines, including hard line decisions, if your business segment is in travel and tourism. It is without a doubt the most emotionally charged and angst ridden sector within the business community. When was the last time you heard a squeak out of the CPAs, the RTA or the Real Estate Institute? Okay, lame examples but if you did, would it amount to the last month of Qantas woes?

No matter what decisions are made by airlines within travel and tourism, the global consequences are far beyond the scope, of business objectives and this brings decision makers into confrontation with the biggest disadvantage the industry has, emotion. No pragmatic decision to cut staff, introduce new procedures and processes, buy equipment, change direction or even tamper with the lunch menu can be made without encountering an emotional wave tossing the decision makers to the beach.

While emotion is often seen as a disadvantage from a decision making process, travel and tourism have always been about passion and emotion, a lifestyle built on service driven by emotion to succeed. So the struggle between getting you from A to B safely, making your holiday memorable and accomplishing corporate travel objectives, all the while working with big entities needing advantages over each other, sees the industry balancing on an emotional fulcrum.

General Motors Holden deciding to cut a line of unprofitable models, Coles not providing the cheapest muesli bar alternative and the local pub not serving your favourite beer are business decisions made by management to increase bottom line and stay in business. None of them cause the consternation and emotional outbursts an airline creates via cuts, changes or challenges to the states quo. Everything about travel, from making initial decisions on a holiday, saving up the required money, to lists of shopping and tours along with who you travel on, are emotionally based decisions that don't have a plan B because that would be too practical and unemotional.

Some see the airlines as emotional cripples, not able to see or care about the people they compromise, disadvantage and generally disrupt. I see airlines trapped in an industry not always ready to make hard decisions because the bottom line is people and lifestyle, not dollars. Perhaps the airlines need to get in touch with their EQ before making decisions? Perhaps airlines should consult more with the industry they service? Or maybe they just need to not change anything and we'd all be happy?

None of that works if you run a business. You being the operative word, not them, not others but you. Welcome to The airline CEO's world. I'm sure sometimes they wished they worked for a widget company, only responsible for a simple product, or providing a service without emotional turmoil attached?

Don't shoot me .......

“They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play.”

The famous line, written by John Caples in 1926, considered by many the most important line in advertising has spawned countless copies in one form or another for the past ninety years. Fifteen words tell a story so powerful and emotional, that the reader cannot help but be swept into the pitch. A pitch that has been turned into movies and stories for fifty years. Look at any motion picture with the under dog succeeding in the end, think Sylvester Stallone or any ugly duckling romance and you come back to the same message that Caples was trying to convey in the shortest possible story with only fifteen words. Fifteen words that contained emotional and technical hooks advertising has been using ever since.

The emotional hook relies on your sympathy and empathy towards the person sitting down at the piano. No one wants him to fail and you want him to succeed with all your might because everyone has been in a similar situation, where they wished they had whatever skill or product was being sold. We all want to believe in the silver lining of Caples' copyright and advertising has used his principles of get attention, hold attention, create desire, make it believable and finally give you a reason to buy, ever since.

From a technical aspect Caples gave his story both negative and positive effects, that create the scene in your mind, as you see yourself being laughed at by the crowded bar, maybe even some booing, the look of embarrassment on the face of your new girlfriend. The silence as you hit that first note becomes the beginning of your triumph, as the audience sits spellbound and amazed. That ending is the analogy for life's triumph over adversity we all seek and the advertising industry has built itself a platform from which to preach to the converted.

The issue was then taking that powerful story and diluting its effectiveness by over use and creating credibility gaps. How often have you seen the back pages of magazines with copy hawking a product along the lines of "I didn't believe this face cream could make me look younger in 30 days but look at me now" and the before and after pictures testament to the so called effectiveness of the product. How many weight loss stories, how many financial successes, how many dreams fulfilled within a single line of copy have we bought into because we want to believe the story for ourselves?

So remember Caples' line and ask and challenge and step back emotionally when looking to buy, to enhance or even to fulfill your dreams via products and services that seem too good to be true. Thankfully the web has thrown up challenges to the advertising industry with its ability to crowd source, work with peer credibility and forums testing what used to be a given, a great copy line on the back of a magazine.

....... I'm only the piano player.

6 Million people can't be wrong.

Just like Elvis from my previous article, Bill Gates should have an album of greatest hits, only his would include the number of people his foundation has saved globally. In this time of "Jobs" and how the world is being "Applefied" it's worthwhile going back a few years, to when thousands of people lined up at midnight for the latest Microsoft release before racing home and downloading it onto their PC. Seems Bill and Seattle are no longer relevant compared to Steve and the innovations coming out of Cupertino. The world is more interested in what cloud we put our information on and how we carry that information in our pocket.

Like many people who hit global heights of success, Gates suffered under the "Tall Poppy" syndrome and we couldn't wait to cut him down to size and look to the next coming of greatness. Steve Jobs gave Bill Gates a less than friendly summation in his biography, which Gates replied to in a most magnanimous manner allowing many an insight into a man whose direction in life has changed.

Stories abound about the sums of money that Gates is using to save the world's poor via his medical foundation. $6 billion is the latest number Gates has spent on just the vaccine side of his foundation's work, fighting hep- B, measles, AIDS, polio and rotovirus. Part of the largest single philanthropic enterprise in history, Gates is suitably humble and points to his money being able to focus the global pharmaceuticals into developing drugs that had no chance of being profitable but are effective in lowering death tolls. The measles drug has now been lowered to 23 cents and with one vaccine you never get measles again.

“The metric of success is lives saved, kids who aren’t crippled,” says Gates. “Which is slightly different than units sold, profits achieved. But it’s all very measurable, and you can set ambitious goals and see how you do.” “I’d be deeply disappointed,” says Gates, if in the next 25 years he can’t lower the death toll by 80%. Otherwise, “we’re just not doing our job very well."

Those 6 million from his "Greatest Hits" so far, add up to 3.4 million lives saved from hepatitis B, which causes liver cancer, 1.2 million lives from measles, 560,000 from the Hib bacteria, 474,000 from whooping cough, 140,000 from yellow fever and 30,000 from polio. In the past year the new initiatives have prevented another 8,000 deaths from pneumonia and 1,000 from diarrhea.

Makes you want to go out and buy a Microsoft product, doesn't it? Our attention span and our memory seems to get shorter and shorter, the more innovation and channels we have to work with today. With everything we say, cut down and shortened to the smallest possible throw away line and stories lasting less time, before being made redundant on the web, Bill Gates just doesn't have the same pull anymore when compared with the Kardashians of the world.

So what has Kim Kardashian done lately?

The Numbers Game.

As a child I was fascinated by an Elvis album cover. It showed him resplendent in a gold lama suit with the title "50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong". So before you channel your inner Elvis and give us your best rendition of "hunka hunka burnin love", it wasn't the lama suit that caught my eye but the staggering number on a cover from 1959. I say staggering because in those days to be a fan you actually had to go to the record store and buy the album, you actually had to turn on the TV to watch Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show and you actually had to post a fan letter at the post office. So those 50 million were die hard fans willing to go out of their way to be involved with their idol.

Today it's a lot easier to get fans and a click or two can have your content transferred across the world. With 2 billion Internet users, at least 1 billion of those using Google, 133 million blogs, 800 million Facebook users, 500 million monthly You Tube users, 400,000 android devices activated daily and 100 million dot com domain names registered, 50 million fans seems like an afternoon's work for some like Han Han a Chinese blogger with 340 million readers.

The most influential on the net now have the capacity to change ideas, change culture and bring about change, all from the confines of their lounge room. Without having to attend large rally's, without doing a country tour and without spending time on planes, trains and automobiles people from all walks of life have the opportunity to make a difference if their story is engaging and credible. The ability to find large audiences no longer requires booking agents, writing a hit book or song or even being famous.

People will search you out if they are looking for your story and the ease via multiple search engines, to find what people are looking for with a couple of clicks makes a true fan almost irrelevant. Now those 50 million Elvis fans would only have to download the music, check out the concert on You Tube and give the king a quick tweet about what they thought of his latest hit, all while sitting in a cafe sipping a latte to get the free wifi.

So the numbers today come too easy and the effort behind them doesn't even require getting off the lounge. The places people used to gather like book stores, cinemas, even shopping malls have all noticed the lounge effect but the smart ones like Amazon, Apple, eBay and the like have taken advantage of the numbers game easy access. Even influential writers like Seth Godin who now writes one of the world's most read blogs never needs to leave home to hawk his latest book or even attend conferences. I know because I read his blog and order his e books online while listening to him via TED, You Tube and any other online conference facility available.

All of this makes those Elvis fans, real fans and not just mouse manipulators. Not all the numbers count. Sometimes small numbers with real effort and engagement count for more.

Yesterme, Yesteryou, Yesterday.

Falling asleep at a friends Birthday late Friday night, not because I was bored but because I had attended a couple of late night concerts and I don't bounce back like I used to, got me thinking about why I spend large sums on the past? Steve Winwood, Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder filled up my nostalgia quota, along with denting my bank balance for the month and they got me thinking what this generation will be nostalgic about in a couple of decades? Surely not the Kardashians or Paris Hilton? Maybe Maroon 5 but then their biggest hit at the moment is about a guy from the 60s, still doing his thing today. Will there be a boomer generation harking back to a simpler time?

Nostalgia still sells out concerts and entertainment venues and for those that lived through the cocaine days of the 70s and 80s they celebrate a time of simple joys. Nostalgia sells to many remembering a simpler time, where airlines didn't just stop flying unless the pilots decided not to fly, where you carefully scripted your thoughts before putting them on paper, where you picked up the phone and where change happened over years not minutes. "It's about trying to go back to a time when things were different," says David Sprott, an associate professor of marketing at Washington State University and the author of several studies on the topic. "When things are uncertain in the present time, looking backward is a comforting thing for people to do."

So with change being the only constant today, albeit at rapid speed, what will people remember about the 2000s that they would be willing to pay a premium for? For nostalgia to sell, it has to have an emotional hook, and with today's convenience, instant media generation looking to the next best thing, what will fill their memory bank and empty their online bank? Will we be nostalgic about technology and the men who pioneered it? With technology the mainstay of our society, Steve Jobs will certainly have a slice of that memory bank and perhaps retro versions of the iPod and iPhone for sale in 20409 will remind people of the fun they had with the first tweet, the first time they filmed and down loaded their friend with underpants on his head or even the rush of having something published on the net.

By then the iPhone will have been implanted into your earlobe and you no longer have to type anything into systems and all you will hear around you will be chatter as people communicate with their equipment, which in turn communicates with everyone else. Maybe there will be nostalgic seminars on talking with people, television and radio along with anything we had to pay for, before the net went free. There will be giants of technology Jobs, Gates, Bezos, Page and Brin, Ellison and Zuckerberg, enshrined for the foresight and the legacy they left but will they engender nostalgia for a simpler time when everything seemed simple, even a phone call.

So as Stevie sings Yesterme, Yesteryou, Yesterday, the question remains, what are we building today that will stand the test of time, to be celebrated in decades to come?

Corporate Manslaughter.

Do you know where all of your staff are, right this minute? Could you contact them on mass if there was an emergency? Ae you looking after them, body and soul? Are you prepared to go to court because your travel policy for duty of care didn't tick the right boxes? Questions like these come up every day as employees travel, become more mobile and need to go to more than just capital cities to do business. The recent Australia, New Zealand GBTA conference was awash with duty of care, mobile connectivity and the consequences of not having either well set up.

In 2008 the UK passed a duty of care act to protect employees making corporations responsible for their safety and their working environment. The big question in all of this, concerns the work environment which no longer means the corner office, with technology giving companies freedom to move and work from anywhere, anytime. You know a government is serious when they don't sugar coat the name and in fact throw down the gauntlet calling it "The Corporate Manslaughter Act", making it sound much more menacing and confronting.

For many it was seen as a vicarious liability because of the difficulty in managing remote staff and the past lack of technology being a hurdle to rounding out a duty of care policy with the employee at top of mind. The act highlights that responsibility sits with the employer and states where a corporation's activities cause a person's death and the failure was because of a breach that falls far below what can reasonably be expected of the organisation, then the company will be prosecuted.

How long it takes for a similar act to be made law in Australia is uncertain but the concerns around employee safety are probably justified considering the nature of corporate travel today. A recent discussion with a resource company highlighted the fact that what they took out of the ground was running out in the so called "safe" countries and the ice fields of the northern continents and the jungles of Africa and South America beckoned. From finding trustworthy transport to safety in camps it behoves such companies to have failsafe policies backed by technology that spans the medias in regards to communication along with safe guards for the wellbeing of the employee.

OH&S policies used to round out to the person responsible for the medical kit stacked with band aids but it now claims company directors as responsible for their employees whenever they are doing company work and as we all know that work line is no longer blurred but invisible as we stay connected and work 24/7. Will there be a time when home offices, cafes, transport facilities and hotel rooms need to pass OH&S working standards?

Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was the first organisation convicted and sentenced under the Manslaughter Act and fined $750,000 for the death of one of its employees.
The police said CGH had a “cavalier attitude” to health and safety and that it used “out-dated working methods”. The final straw being a small company, CGH is likely to go into liquidation.

Do you know where your staff are, right now? Do you know what they are doing? Are they safe?

Giving it all away.

I remember my first charitable donation as a child, to the local football team, the Warilla Gorillas for their raffle. It wasn't much, after all how much disposable income can you have from a dollar a week pocket money. Still it felt good to help, even a little, and I got to go to a game free of charge for my largess. When it came round to doing it again a friend, much more grown up, added his piece of wisdom and told me when I start earning real money I can write that donation off my tax.

Something to look forward to, I thought, but then I didn't have a clue what a tax deduction was anyway. Yet the good feeling of helping, no matter how small, stayed with me even when I eventually figured out the labyrinth of tax deductions. If you think about it, why does a government need to incentivise people to give to charities, why aren't people giving anyway?

Sometimes they just have to be shown how it's done. Forbes has released its list of the biggest givers globally and the names of Gates and Buffet and Turner and Bloomberg shine brightly with donations exceeding one billion dollars each. It is not an easy list to make and requires donations exceeding 1 billion dollars to be from private wealth, not company shares or family trusts. So 19 givers of over a billion dollars are led by Bill Gates, who gets the monicker of "the most generous man on the planet", having donated 28 billion of his own money and giving us all a reason to feel good about buying that next piece of Microsoft software.

As interesting as it is, to take a peak into the lifestyles of the uber rich and their philanthropy, the act if giving cannot be left up to them. Australia as a whole is a country that gives beyond its capacity, as every natural disaster testifies. Yet the recent government initiative to bench mark charities, showing how much money is eaten up in administration fees, will give many pause to think, how best to donate their hard earned dollars and to whom.

Still there are alternatives to giving the dollar as the only option. It seems we are often inundated from street side stalls to railway spruikers, to splashy ad campaigns and black tie dinners showing the charity arena touches everyone all the time. It seems less time between charity Fridays than Christmas toys and Easters eggs at the local supermarket. I know the feeling when walking past another giving opportunity, wishing I had more dollars to make a difference. Yet it's not always about the dollars and often you can make more of a difference, especially to those around you, with the most precious thing you have, time.

So can earn you another dollar? Of course you can, but you can't get back the last 10 minutes, so spend them wisely and give them generously. While the boys are giving all their dollars away, you can do the same with your most expensive gift, time. Be the most generous you can and Bill Gates won't hold a candle to you.

My Favourite Things.

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens". As Maria sang, "these are a few of my favourite things" in the world's most loved musical, it got me thinking, not a about my favourite musicals but my favourite apps. I know, gotta get a few more action movies into my library.

The iPad purchase I made last year came with a flurry of app downloads across the breadth and width of my imagination. From goofy games about fruit eating ninja bats, to every conceivable social networking tool imaginable, through to so many productivity tools downloaded, that I needed productivity tools just to manage the productivity tools. Pages of apps to show my friends how cool I was, never noticing the accumulation affect it had on my time.

Like every love affair, the ardour cools and sensibility takes over and practicality rules the short timeframe you have, to love each and every app the same. So when it came time to choose why I bought the iPad in the first place, the sad farewells given the fruit bats along with their crazy cousins, the angry birds, made way for a more intense love affair with apps that really counted and improved my work life balance, along with providing what I needed most, time. Time to really use the technology smarter and get more out of the labyrinth of information available at my finger tips.

So here goes, my favourite apps at the moment. If you love some the same already, great, and if you find some new ones to love then it was worth taking the 5 minutes to read my blog today.

From a space perspective I have embraced the cloud. Even though I have not approached the end of the available iPad space I can see the future where there will be no need to carry technology with hard drive capabilities. My two favourite clouds are "Dropbox" and "Box", both of which provide me with my own private cloud come postbox to file and retrieve countless documents and anything I think will be relevant for later use on any PC loaded with the app. "Box" even went so far as providing 50GB free until recently, to any new members. That's a lot of mail posted to your cloud.

As an avid reader of newspaper articles I am always looking for the aggregators. Why buy 50 newspapers to read a couple of articles in each when "Zite" can give you a personalised paper, filled with only those articles of interest to you, where the more you read and like, the more the app gives you, on a personalised view? If you have media sites you read but don't want to open 20 different magazines and websites, why not let "Flipboard" and "Pulse" put them together in one place for you. If none of those suggestions turns you on and you still persist in reading online pages but don't have the time, consider "Instapaper", which can save any online pages to be read at a later date offline, while you are plane bound or out of wifi range. From a thought leadership angle, consider "TED" where the world's brightest and most creative people discuss topics by invitation only. Eighteen minutes to get your point across to an audience of mental giants makes for great video watching.

From a work view I have a couple of favourites that make the list. After some serious kidding from friends reading one of my articles about going paperless, I decided to bite the bullet and use the iPad as my everyday workbook and along those lines grabbed "Mental Note" to enable me to take notes, save them, collate them and send them straight from the meetings. I also had to have the obvious office apps such as "Pages" and "Keynotes" for presentations. Having said that, the world still insists on PowerPoint and if you absolutely have to show them, then use "Slideshark" to have them emblazoned across your iPad in all their numbing glory. Never forget to load the new "Adobe" reader as the Apple, Adobe war of words calms down, PDFs and their like are now more viewable on the pad.

As a traveller there are just too many apps to consider but some of my favourites include, "Flight Tracker Pro", which can give you every updated airport board, for departures and arrivals, while telling you if your flights are on time or delayed. From a mapping view I use several including "Wundermap" and "Map Draw" which let's me draw on my maps to calculate distances and highlight destinations. Locally I use a couple of apps designed to get me around the city and home on time. "Trip View" for public transport and "Go Catch" for that elusive cab at eleven o'clock at night, always help out.

Okay so the ninja fruit bats have bitten the dust but if anything, the iPad lends itself to distraction from an entertainment angle and that would require a few articles to name all of my favourites. So till that time I hope you get one or two ideas out of the above.

Attention Span.

A baby cries, a small child tugs at its mother's sleeve, a teenager gets some inappropriate piercings and an airline union goes on strike. Not much in common with any of the above but as we have all learnt throughout our lives, there are certain ways to get attention, some better than others. Sometimes it's just acknowledgment you are after and a quick smile from Mum will send you back to the swings. Sometimes it's about getting your way no matter what and that takes being cantankerous, obstreperous and just downright 'ornery with consequences to match.

Such seems to be the way of the unions, causing passenger grief and disruption at our airports as they wrangle with the national carrier over dollars appropriate to the current working conditions. A long time ago the carrier was owned by the government and union troubles were never encountered. Although I suspect government policies, dealing with the aviation industry, were closer to stand over tactics in the halcyon days of exotic and romanticised travel, and unions either took what they were given or looked for jobs elsewhere. There was only one sheriff in town, in the old days.

Today we operate in an open range filled with gunslingers willing to shoot their mouths off at the slightest mention of strike and give forth vindictive comments that only shoot the innocent, the passengers. If it was an Arnie movie, they would call it "collateral damage". Seems the people caught in the crossfire have no where to run but they do have a choice of shelter and today that choice ends up being the competition airlines.

The strikes will eventually be resolved through a series of ugly meetings with finger pointing, crass comments about the other side and a compromise that both sides will call a win, with one loser, the passengers.

How long the travellers are willing to put up with the inconvenience, disruptions and service downfall will depend on loyalty programs and the airline's ability to spin the end result into a win for all. For many this will not be enough and if they have chosen an alternative carrier in these times of chaos, it may be harder to get them back than the national carrier realises. The recent initiative by the competition to match loyalty status was a stroke of timing genius as corporates willing to give the other guy a go may find they are welcomed as a king and queen and not as a pawn in a game for position and dollars.

Passenger's loyalty attention span, has shortened significantly differences between full service and low cost carriers becomes less about seat pitch, buying a pillow, free drinks and more about getting to your destination. So unions intent on making a point with their employer at the expense of the travelling public, need to be careful what they wish for. The strike initiative may be considered a success if caving in the employer is the desired result but at what cost? The loss of passengers who may never come back to the airline? The loss of brand equity and credibility? The loss of faith from the corporate market to deliver a product worthy of the reputation so long in the making?
Not much use for unions if the airline doesn't have any customers and that could be the end game, if passengers give up on the airline?

PS. Just caught the the competition to Melbourne, and arrived on time. Hmmmm.

Spy vs Spy.

Used to be a time, when companies and countries employed "James Bond" style espionage agents to get the dirt on their competitors and find out when the latest nuclear device would be sold to the bad guys or when the latest high tech product would roll of the production line. They would carry concealed cameras in their cigarette lighters along with tape recorders hidden in the lapels of their custom made dinner suits. All to get the smallest amount of information about "the other guys" and what they were really up to. Not ethical but for some it seemed the only way to stay in front of the competition.

Nowadays, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook etc etc will get you 90% of the information you need and the rest is available when executives and politicians open their mouths without turning on their brains via Twitter, email or text messages.

Seems there is an epidemic of "foot in mouth" disease in the corporate world and it looks like escalating as executives fall over each other to deliver the latest gossip, latest share news and latest boardroom chatter, all to show who is in the know and who has the ear of the information hungry public. It used to be the occasional staff memo that leaked about the directors decision not to pay for the Christmas Party, but today that has taken a back seat to Tweets coming from within a board meeting all the way to LinkedIn faux pas by people like HP VP Scott McClellan tipping off the competition about the company's new cloud computing strategy.

Seems executives have found new ways to shoot themselves in the foot via the plethora of social media channels and at the same time put a whole raft of spies out of business. A Forrester Research survey showing 82 percent of 150 companies that monitor social media are primarily searching for competitive intelligence giving you a good idea why so many spies are now working in pizza parlours.

Everyone loves to be first with a story, it's human nature to want to impress your friends with a secret. Whereas it used to take days and weeks for stories to leak out, today a tweet can travel around the world in seconds and that makes it even more imperative for companies trading in sensitive information to have relevant social media strategies. Strategies that are aligned with the company culture so that everyone understands why there is a need to keep information safe and the consequences of leaks.

Steve Jobs had the culture right at Apple, for no matter how hard people tried, no one ever got the salient information for the latest technology releases until Steve hit the launch button. Sure there was speculation and gossip but Apple used that as marketing fodder and used its code of secrecy to build up expectations that delivered sales records such as the 1 million first day pre orders for the iPhone 4s.

We don't all operate in sensitive areas in our work environment but it behoves us to have some forethought before hitting the button on the latest bit of information tease or office gossip to consider what the consequences are and how they affect you and your brand. It's not about spy vs spy, it's about knowing your job and doing the right thing.

Inspiration.

It's been a week since the passing of Steve Jobs and the accolades and tributes continue in all the media and mediums he influenced. From historical pieces to innovation surprises through to legacies left, his mark was indelible. No doubt like many artists before him, his works including his soon to be released biography will gain even more importance and historical significance with his passing. For many he was an inspiration from a business viewpoint in resurrecting Apple from the scrap heap, for others for showing the world different ways to communicate and rejoice in entertainment they thought they had left behind.

The best analogy from all articles read over the week gave me Steve Jobs as Walt Disney for the current generations and like Walt giving our imagination room to fly. Like Walt, Jobs and his ilk, including the Richard Branson's and the Bill Gate's of the world were looked to for inspiration and their books and every utterances were captured via all manner of media. Globally their reach was unimpeachable but it wasn't like you could give Steve a call and ask his advice.

Every day people look for inspiration in their business life, their family life and their community life but more often they overlook what is directly in front of them. You would be surprised what some of your work colleagues have accomplished, what family members have achieved and what you can gain from your community. All things you can use as inspirational fodder to spur you on to the next level of success.

An 80th Birthday party for my father in-law gave me such an insight within the family environment and gave rise to some inspirational speeches, especially for the grand kids. From being chased out of Burma and the Indian Sub Continent by the invading Japanese as a child, to successful careers with Qantas and as a teacher, to now writing down the memories of eight decades, a life well lived with a legacy built up of family values should be more than enough inspiration for any of the children following on.

So the trick is not to continually look into the distance and overseas for what you are looking for, but dig down closer to home and closer to work to find stories of inspiration and people looking to lead tribes of self minded colleagues and friends. That will give you reasons to stay creative, innovate, experiment and follow your own drum.

Everyone has a story to tell and most often it is about overcoming adversities and figuring out better ways to get through the day, so why not listen closer to home, you might be surprised what you find. You may also be surprised how much influence you have and how many people look to you for inspiration. Think about it for a moment and think about what an inspiration to your kids you are? One day they'll say my Dad did this and this and isn't that amazing.

Steve Jobs was a man for his generation and he left too soon and the unwritten potential he left behind, is the greatest tragedy of his passing. Don't let that be your legacy, go inspire someone today, you know you can do it.

Trust.

"Do No Evil". What a great tag line. Sounds like it could belong to a previous article on Get Smart. A naive line from the 60s, encompassing wanting to do everything right and really really not wanting to do evil because there was already so much of it in the world. When you are a small company fighting the injustices created by the global players, everyone believes in you and of you. Such was the way of Google against the tyrants of Yahoo, AOL and the king of the kingdom, Microsoft.

Like so many popular movements before it, Google became a champion of the people, who were looking for their own way of tackling this new monster called the web. A new way to look at the world, from above and on the ground, a new way to search for things you didn't know you knew or even wanted to know. All the while doing the right thing and giving it away for free. Sure there were Ad Words but they were for the people that wanted to do business. We all agreed that 90% free was a good deal and surely the 10% business that Google wanted wouldn't make any difference to us.

Then Google became Gloobal and the world was different. Google was now so big that even 10% was bigger than most multi national companies and people started looking for a new champion. The bigger the company the more likely there is mistrust from the general public, especially if they don't understand the technological intricacies of how they really make their money. Google is looking to take on all competitors in it's field and more with the recent foray into social media with Google+ and the daily deals with Google Offers.

Yet it's the recent updates on services such as CNN, declaring "Bon voyage travel agents - Google's taking over travel" that have many in the travel industry feeling they trusted the wrong site for too long. Seems the travel industry was happy for Google to provide information and maps free of charge to them along with destinational information and put up with the information it provided OTAs but draw the line when the giant oversteps the mark and joins the already despised OTAs.

From Hotel Finder, through Google Flights to the most recent acquisition, Zagat's food site, Google is finding it hard to hide behind, we are doing this for the greater good of information being available to all. It all looks like a recipe for travel heaven to those living online and an attack to those still providing relevant travel services face to face. Google is already the most sophisticated search engine there is and it doesn't take a leap to see them challenging the big OTAs and going for everyone's business, including the high street travel agents, once they aggregate all of the search tools with a "book it" button.

With online hotel revenue already past $120 Billion in the US alone and slated to pass $150 Billion very soon, it seems odd that a company so advanced and in tune with online business today, hasn't decided it wants a slice of the action. Still we may all be wrong and it could be for the greater good of travelers without any repercussions to the travel industry.

Still I'd stay close to my clients and work on the angle that Google will never be able to replace, you.

Next Business.

E business is common today and we all subscribe in one way or another. After all who hasn't bought something on the net and who hasn't been touched by an inbox filled with daily deals. Yet in 1997 this concept was but a twinkle in the eyes of IBM and their creative development team as they forged a vision of what could be our future. No one believed it could be, as we struggled with our Commodore 64's and carried around house bricks disguised as phones.

Now the esteemed, well they got the e business thing right, bods at IBM are talking up "social business" and what it means for our future. It's not social media mixed with some sales thrown in, it's not Harvey Norman being social and it's not business done at the pub.

It is in fact all about people doing business in the new digital age, that's been around for a while but has been overwhelmed by chatter, the inane and the Facebooking of daily minutiae. Ethan McCarty, of Digital and Social Strategy at IBM has clear views on what the future looks like for them as a company and also for businesses so far not engaged in social business.

Business is the biggest "thing" going on globally. I say "thing" because it encompasses everything everyone does on a daily basis. Without business, there is no us, no we, no planet. So what happens when that all encompassing "thing" takes hold of the social media side of the equation? McCarty says it will dwarf social media as we know it. Social business is people interacting via their digital experiences in everything business related with people. Even IBM which has more to do with services and brand than consumer products now looks to its "IBMers" experts to do their business digitally and not via legacy sales thinking.

They have figured out their employees need to be turned on all the time, via the digital world, and carry on business conversations that have value and relevance to their organisation and the services they offer. To do this McCarty has indicated that some media like email, may be on the outer as they look to more collaborative platforms to do business. He looks at email as a silo affecting tool and not geographically enabled to carry on multiple conversations about a product. The opportunity to talk with many at the same time, about a product relevant to many, on many levels is the nirvana.

Imagine being at the local electronics store discussing the purchase of a new flat screen TV with the resident expert and having your friends along for support and then going next door and getting the rival electronic expert to join in and then adding the manufacturer along with an external expert and anyone else you trust or want an opinion from. What about that important meeting where you really want all your support staff involved, along with experts you trust, along with the finance department and the boss for the final sign off.

Having everything and everyone at your finger tips and having them involved on a social platform would make decisions quicker, more relevant and cut out the back and forth communication that often sinks decisions over long periods of discussion.

After all business is about people and the more of them you can get involved and engaged, the more likely you are to come to the right outcome.

Would You Believe?

Who didn't like Get Smart? Who didn't want to be Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, fighting the forces of KAOS with all that technology built by the mad scientists from Control? Who thought that any of it would come true? Maybe Mel Brookes was a technology innovator disguised as a comedy genius. After all how far away are we from talking into our watches? How far away are we from carrying around music in a special gadget in our pocket? How far away are we from having a camera and voice recorder hidden in everyday objects?

Not far at all, in fact all are present and working in some form or another from MP3 players to smart phones and beyond. Apart from being a very smart comedy, Get Smart used imagination and foresight to play around with everyday objects and project them 50 years into the future. It was a time when we could still imagine what might be or what could be and nothing seemed too far fetched, although the "cheese sandwich phone" and the "tomahawk phone" and not to mention the "shoe phone" from the early episodes are still to take off.

So it is with interest that I see the latest smart watch by Meta Watch looking to reinvigorate the arm band scene. Under 30 and you are likely not to wear a watch but get all your information from your mobile phone. The issue is, that quite often it's hidden in your bag or briefcase and as you fumble through your possessions the ringing stops. Or you really really want to look at a message during a meeting or conversation but can't make the obvious movement of reaching into your pocket or bag and turning on your phone to view it. As the smart phones get smarter, they seem to be putting on a bit of weight around the middle and that's another reason to consider the smart watch.

It's always handy dangling there at the end of your wrist and if you can do everything the same as a smart phone, then it becomes a consideration and if you really do need more, then combine it with a tablet in your bag. Rolex, Tag and Omega all subscribe to the old adage of "you don't buy a watch to tell the time" focusing on the brand equity of having one of their products on your wrist. The Meta Watch subscribes to the same adage but for reasons that include carrying around your music, photos, a camera and a myriad of apps to make your life easier.

I'm surprised that Apple hasn't fully utilised their Nano with the touch screen, making it smaller and putting it on a wrist band. It already does a power of work with music and photos, so why not adapt the iPad thinking and fill it with suitable apps? Regardless of what the new smart watches will look like, they will need to have smooth touch screen technology and no one does that better than the team at Apple.

Think about the possibilities, you could carry around a full payment facility and impress your secret agent friends by waving your wrist over the NFC device and paying for the coffees whenever you hunker down under that cone of silence. You could take those secretive photos and record spy goings on. All the while bopping along to your favourite tunes. Who needs to tell the time?

Max never had it so good.

Quality vs Price.

It's the age old argument, dating back to the first transactions from the stone age where BC (old cartoon for those of us that remember) could argue his dinosaur necklace was worth more because he risked his life to personally extract the teeth from the T Rex as opposed to finding some bleached teeth from a dead dinosaur. They were newer teeth, more exclusive and as such should command a premium price on the dinosaur necklace market. Not much has changed since then and companies are still risking their reputations and brands by trying to pry lose those elusive dinosaur teeth.

Commoditisation has made many products irrelevant in the quality versus price argument as generic and low cost equivalents of originals become the norm. Baked beans are baked beans and the shelves are full of generically wrapped cans. Cars are cars and the lots are full of low cost 4 door 4 wheel vehicles that have no purpose other than transport from A to B. Even airlines, which used to have the elegance and romance of travel as their calling card, have commoditised their wares to an extent where it is difficult to tell the difference between them, except on price.

All of that is true and yet people still buy a Mercedes as opposed to a cookie cutter version of a car that only has two things in common, 4 doors and 4 wheels. Yes it's important to get from A to B but how and when you get there can be just as important. Certainly no one expects the cookie cutter car to be as expensive as the Mercedes, after all, luxury ride, engineering excellence and technology should cost more.

So things that are manufactured have the constant challenge of quality versus price but the truly exceptional or exclusive will always command a premium. Rolex versus the petrol station watch, Apple tablets versus anything in the market and German engineering versus Chinese generics are all areas where a premium can be counted on to bring quality and price into alignment. Just the way you could command a premium if your service was outstanding and your exclusivity gave your clients the peace of mind that the quality was beyond reproach.

In service industries, where everyone says they are the best, they are the most successful at what they do and they should be the ones looking after you and your dollars, the quality versus price challenge leaves most contenders on the mat. How do you differentiate yourself from the pack? The easiest way is to work with your zealots, those people willing to follow you anywhere and use their loyalty as the beacon to attract others.

It's always a pleasure for me to recommend colleagues I know, that provide exceptional service as the thank you notes come back to me as well as the service provider. Everyone loves to be able to opine on the subject of quality versus price and who they deal with. You only need a small group who today have the power of the net to bring you business but woe be tide if the scale of quality tips low because then price will trip you up so badly that recovery is often untenable.

Do you deliver quality or are you running with the pack? Without it you'll be driving the cookie cutter car forever, and who wants that?

So Sue Me.

I've never been sued and I've never sued anyone but I've heard it's not a pleasant experience on any level, especially if your name or brand is involved. The net has opened up a landscape compared to the wild frontier when discussing libel and defamation and has given people the opportunity and a voice that is getting many into trouble. Freedom of speech is that inalienable right for all, especially if you watch American movies with heroes standing behind the free speech door pointing out their right to say anything and then print it. If it ever gets to libel and defamation then there was always a payout and retraction, maybe even an editorial apology. The thing with print media, compared to today's communication avenues, is that it ended up at the bottom of the bird cage, was used as wrapping paper for university kids moving house or as land fill and as a consequence seemed to disappear, eventually.

Today's communication however, is here forever, and that fact has caused great consternation for many in the legal game who suggest that libel cases from online posts at social networks, tweets and web attacks have doubled in the last year. Seems the very nature of open content and anonymous contributors is creating a whole new branch of the legal system as lawyers expert in "online law", still to be agreed upon by many nations, are now as common as the "social media expert".

Two countries at extreme ends of legal doctrine are the US and the UK. In the US articles are true until proven otherwise, whereas in the UK they need to go through all sorts of regulatory tests to prove their authenticity before they can be published. Both sides contain great complexity as the truth can be glazed over, hidden and generally disregarded depending on how you research as in the UK case and how forthright you want to be in the US case.

The UK has gone to the extremes of providing "super injunctions" that enable people to in effect gag publishers from printing what they might consider defamatory content. The US continues with its freedom of speech platform but being the litigious country it is, there will no doubt be online laws before we know it.

Many consider a quick remedy to be stricter controlling of the tools used, ie, the web platforms. The open nature, especially of the social platforms, is so large that is seems an impossible task when people can now find unlimited ways to "slag" someone, a company or even an event. Anonymity is the greatest challenge and it's unlikely that this will be solved as trust and honesty take a back seat to people using the online forums to say what they don't have the fortitude to say face to face. Blaming the tools does not diminish the integrity required whenever someone posts an opinion or viewpoint.

It may not be resolved until some of the big players like Facebook, Google or Twitter face prosecution for defamatory and libelous content. With all the money in the universe behind these players such a scenario could take decades in court, all the while the mores or society become less about privacy and more about an openess where individuals will have to fend for themselves. Looks like we might all need law degrees or at least know a good online lawyer. Maybe we can do an online course for online law?

In a Perfect World.

In a perfect world, you would wake up to the dulcet tones of water lapping against your yacht as it bobs in the azure waters off Monaco. You would ring a bell and breakfast would appear on a tray carried by the last two Miss Universe winners or the equivalent in the best looking man in the universe category and regardless of how much bacon you ate, your cholesterol would never rise. The sun would not stop shining and you would have Internet access where ever you sailed on the globe. You and George Clooney would then spot up across the gambling tables and enjoy a good hearted round of banter as you win a truck load of money from the casino.

In a perfect world, no one needs to work and no one wants to work. It's retirement heaven and in reality only a dream, unless you win the lottery.

So what does the perfect world for most people look like? For most it would be a place where they garner respect for the work they do, have a lifestyle balance that gives them opportunity to create and be close to the ones they care about and to have the chance to leave a legacy of sorts. Sounds like yours, mine and our lives right now, doesn't it?

If it doesn't, then what do you need to change? What have you got influence over that will enhance your life's experience? What can you change tomorrow that will make your life better?

In a perfect world I would get up in the morning, eat something tasty but still good for me, surf the local break, create some meaningful dialogue with people all over the world, have ideas accepted as intelligent and insightful all the while continuing a relevant career that gives back all I have learnt. As coaching icon, John Wooden used to say, "You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you." That's starting to sound more like it and for most people has elements of being achievable.

The trick has always been what is possible and what you think is possible. For this, people need to admit to themselves what they are really good at and then decide if that's enough or do they require help to get to that next level to live in that perfect world. So "in a perfect world" ends up being more about how you live your life and what decisions make the most sense to you rather than where you work. After all jobs come and go across your lifetime and if asked, most people would not consider their employment to be part of a perfect world, unless they were working on their passion in life.

So if the daily commute is getting you down and work isn't giving you what you need, think about what your perfect world might look like and decide one way or the other to fix it. Nobody ever said life was easy, they just promised that it would be worth it and in spite of the cost of living, it’s still popular. So let's not hear about what doesn't float your boat but rather what does and then go sailing.

I Don't Share.

That's not true at all anymore, especially if you consider what has happened over the last 5 to 10 years with the Internet and the amount of content shared every minute. In fact we have become such a sharing world, it's a wonder there is anything left to share. Before the web it was books, newspapers along with pens and paper and long telephone conversations that shared information, stories and gossip with people we either knew, or wanted to know. It was a way for culture and history to be passed on

A New York Times study tried to make sense of why people shared and what motivated them to open up and to share information and content with strangers. The study ended up splitting the sharers into 6 online engagers being, altruists, careerists, hipsters, boomerangs, connecters and selectives. All of them shared for different reasons and used different channels but mostly it was for recognition of some kind.

No doubt you fit into one or more of the above as you share for entertainment, causes, selling, relationships and finding ways for self fulfillment. From the helpful altruist, the Linked In careerist, the Twittering hipster, the Facebooking boomerang, the creative connector saving you money and the selective knowing that whatever you post is there forever, they all look to share.

The one thing they all have in common is they all want to be "on shared". For everyone gets a kick out of having their thoughts, opinions and findings validated by someone sharing them with someone else, who with any luck will share it with someone else. This is the way stories used to carry through cultures by way of the troubadour, the story teller and the village elder. Nowadays everyone has the opportunity to be the village elder, especially if they are part of an online tribe.

Those village tribes are now global and have names like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Facebook villagers create a million photos a minute and share updates and wall posts enough to fill all the libraries in the world. The Twitter village shares 125,000 tweets a minute with most of it falling into the inane and useless gossip about people caught with their pants down but has replaced the tom toms whenever quick news is required. The most creative of villages is the You Tube village, which has just announced its villagers upload 48 hours of video every minute. To give you an idea of how much they are sharing, if you watched nothing but You Tube your entire life, you would get through about 10 days worth of uploads.

So sharing has taken on monumental numbers and doesn't look like slowing down any time soon but villagers are challenged by the sheer volume of information and content and this could lead to some forming smaller tribes. Smaller tribes for greater recognition, smaller tribes for less information over load and smaller tribes because we want to know each other. We may laugh and pick on larger tribes but our tribe needs to be "where everybody knows your name" because whenever you share, the highest recognition is always from your peers, colleagues and friends, not from the unknowns of the other tribes.

Working 9 to 5.

"Working nine to five, what a way to make a living
Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving"

The song, certainly the concept of 9 to 5 and even Dolly Parton all sound a bit cute and dated in today's frenzied work environment. It' s a concept remembered with fondness for those who still remember what the 6 o'clock news looked like. I know a lot of people would like to tie up their boss, ala Dolly and her co workers, and change the office environment but the whole 9 to 5 concept is coming under pressure without rope and duct tape.

Flex time, job sharing, shifts and freelancing are all putting pressure on a traditional model that required attendance for certain periods of the day to make the company and the boss feel comfortable that work had taken place. The issue is that work doesn't necessarily happen at work and if you can avoid the meeting and interruption cycle, endemic at most places of employment, you might just get some business done. Hours have always been a way to measure productivity but mobility has put paid to that concept with work being anywhere and work hours being anytime.

The trick is that unstructured work is not for everyone and without strict parameters many people feel under duress to complete tasks when is there is no finish time or finish line. If the environment can be turned into a results oriented work place, then the opportunity to restructure that mindset can be integrated into the work place. Flexibility can also have an impact on lifestyle and we know that blurred lines regarding work times can lead to the scenario of, if you can work anytime, then you can work all the time. So the added stress of imposing your own work hours can lead many to stay and feel comfortable in a 9 to 5 environment, even if neither of those times are relevant to the hours they actually work.

So different skills are required when adapting to the new order, along with personal learnings on what people can accomplish by themselves outside of the walls. Many home offices started as a small desk in the bedroom but have had to evolve into a proper work space with WiFi, printers and no working in pajamas and fluffy slippers. Sometimes it's the little things like work attire at home, that enable people to feel they are still in the office environment and in control.

Along with personal changes, company perceptions and measurements need to be aligned so people working outside the system feel they have the backing from management as well as the people who stay in the office. Backing that they are still considered part of the group, the team and the company when it comes to celebrating milestones and achievements.

So Dolly can untie her boss in the knowledge he gets it and understands that although 9 to 5 may still be his domain, his employees have moved on and are much more empowered by the flexibility of today's new work environment.

Follow Me.

"I have a dream", "We shall fight them on the beaches", "Ich bin ein Berliner" are all excerpts from stirring and inspirational speeches aimed at rallying people for a cause, okay the last one is about a jam donut, but Kennedy didn't let that distract him from inspiring the people of West Berlin. The 2011 World of Work report by HR specialist Ranstad found that any employers who can inspire and rally their employees have a greater chance of keeping them, along with engaging them on the company vision and then leading to greater productivity.

The report found more than 30% of employees found their senior management lacking in the skills required to inspire and lead with words. Since the GFC, a change has taken place, where the bunkering down and getting on with surviving the global conditions is taking second place to managers and CEOs having to work to motivate through vision and aspirational speech. Randstand CEO Fred van der Tang says the results signaled a break from the recent past, with the ability to react well during periods of economic instability no longer being foremost on the minds of employees.

Big picture thinking and not the minutiae of the day, is what people are looking for from their leadership teams. Big picture in a way, that give them reasons to feel good about their company, come to work motivated and be a single working unit engaged for the betterment of the company. Some employees noted that the vision of a leader within the company, was the only reason they came to work.
 
So it behoves leaders to work on their profile and feel comfortable about visionary talks because they can have a profound effect upon employees looking for more than doing the end of month reports. Employees want to feel they are contributing to the company vision and that it aligns with their picture of the world with them in it. There are enough distractions in the world that absorb motivation and inspiration, in fact work against them on all fronts, that employers need to think beyond the next quarter results.

Whereas employees are looking to be engaged by powerful words and deeds, employers think their biggest challenges are performance and productivity along with filling vacancies caused by increasing turn over. Interesting to note how the two can be so far apart and all management has to do, is improve one aspect of their style and they could solve two future challenges. A company vision articulated with elegance and credibility could reap rewards if employers have the courage to open up and inspire rather than rely on bottom line adherence.

Are you following a leader at work willing you to a better place or are you just clocking in and doing the uninspired requisite to get you through the day? A tough question and I believe there is a dearth of people willing to stand up and be beacons to their employees.

Ask yourself, are senior management anything like the below?

“I want to put a ding in the universe" - Steve Jobs Apple.

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” 
- Larry Ellison Oracle.

“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.” - Akio Morita Sony

"Management is nothing more than motivating other people" - Lee Iacocca Chrysler Corporation.

“Take risks. Ask big questions. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough.” - David Packard Hewlett Packard.

C'mon Get Happy.

David Cassidy and The Partridge Family had it right in the 70s, when all you had to do was sing about happiness and it happened for you. The problem is, most of us can't drive around in a colourful bus singing for our supper. Most of us have to go to work and with that, taking up a lot of our life, it needs to fit into the happiness spectrum, somewhere.

Surveys have shown that occupations with a lot of giving back or serving people in need provide the highest happiness return. Firefighters, Clergy, Physical Therapists and Authors rank high in the happiness work scale, while Clothing Apparel Salespeople, Grocery Packers, Roofers and Cashiers head the list in not being happy at work. Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago indicated, after interviewing more than 27,000 people about job satisfaction and general happiness, that the level of job contentment affected people's overall sense of happiness.

With work occupying so much of people's lives, it can become the social and mental focal point of who they are and how they are defined by others and as such have enormous influence on the levels of happiness in the rest of their lives. Without job satisfaction, many people find it hard to equate happiness in their lives outside of work.
Even that extra raise in pay may not be enough to influence happiness as a survey in the UK foundm that managers, bankers and lawyers were the most discontented with their work days, while hair dressers were the most content and happy to come to work every day. So money really can't buy you happiness, according to the managerial ranks.

Chris Humphries, director general at City & Guilds, said: "It may come as a surprise to some that financial reward doesn't always mean a happier working environment for an employee. A quarter of all UK workers have left, or would leave, a position because of a lack of training and the survey results clearly demonstrate that some of the happiest workers are those who feel they have a lot of opportunities for professional development." Companies, take note of the last time you cut the training development program and maybe check that against the number of employees who left the company.

Even sunshine and location have an effect on happiness as indicated by workers in the north-east of England, especially those in Newcastle, being the happiest while staff in Scotland are the unhappiest, according to the UK report. I wonder what would happen if those workers were transported here, to take in our sunshine? Oh yes, that's been done and it created the happiest convicts that founded the happiest place on earth, sorry Walt.

If you are in a position, where you can affect change and give back, then likely your happy demeanor becomes infectious to the rest of the staff and you are more important than the company realises. On the other hand, if you are sitting behind the cash register or laying those roof tiles, the chances of giving back and making a difference are slim, so consider a change because regardless of what the surveys say, no one else is responsible for your happiness, only you. As Shirley Partridge used to say, "you're not here forever, so c'mon get happy".

Details Schmetails.

"God is in the details", yes God, so let's get the facts right once and for all. The quote we use in all variants has generally been attributed to German born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and even his obituary in the New York Times attributed the quote to him. The problem, a lot of people thought details were painful so a quick switch to the Devil made for a better excuse when missing the finer points or the little things not noticed on first go around. Interestingly, German pop musician Blixa Bargeld has been attributed with the Devil quote and I quickly ask, what is it about those Germans and details?

Guess you don't come up with the engineering marvels we drive around in, along with the Siemens', Bosch', BASFs, insurance companies like Alliance and banks that dominate Europe without having an eye for detail. In 2004, Germany was the market leader in twenty-one out of thirty-one branches of the entire world’s engineering industry! At the time it represented a quarter of the entire world market.

So here I am, German born and did that gene skip past me on its way to Gustav now designing the latest Porsche? I sometimes find myself at odds with colleagues and friends over details I think are not relevant or worse, insignificant. Yet thankfully I'm not alone and there seems to be a reasonable spread of details people surrounded by ideas people, or as the details people call them, no hopers. For me it's more about what could be, what might happen if, how do we change that and who can help make a difference. Some would no doubt suggest that to make a difference, do the little bits all the time but then, when would the big stuff get done?

This is no doubt the situation many people find themselves in, as they figure out how best to use their skills effectively within the constraints of whatever employment landscape they work in. The trick is to find that path you are comfortable to walk, that satisfies the work requirements but still gives you freedom to create, think and make a difference.

I'm in awe of engineers and developers I come across, who work in a world of dots and numbers encached in lines of script that eventually turn into a technology innovation. I couldn't do without my accountant, timetables keeping me on time, people behind the scenes making our daily lives better and I certainly couldn't get by without my travel agent who takes my dreams of a holiday and turns it into reality making sure all the details are correct and that nothing goes wrong on those precious weeks of escape.

So in the end, this is an ode to everyone doing the little things that count more than you think. The little things, that if they break down cause more concern than the big ideas that come and go. The little things really do count and they should be recognised. Maybe I do have some of that German DNA after all?