24 December 2007

Christmas Eve 2007

Last year, I asked everyone this question: "What are you doing reading a blog on Christmas Eve?"

Then I asked myself: "What sort of idiot would write a blog posting on Christmas Eve?"

The obvious answer then is the same one tonight: "Only you, Dave!"

Then I was reminded of these famous words:
"A week ago I'd have kicked your butt out of here. But you are absolutely right.

I'm not crazy. It's Christmas Eve. It's the one night when we all act a little nicer. We...we smile a little easier. We...we...share a little more. For a couple of hours we are the people we always hoped we would be. It's really a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve. And if you waste that miracle, you're gonna burn for it. I know. You have to do something. You have to take a chance and get involved. There are people that don't have enough to eat and who are cold. You can go and greet these people. Take an old blanket out to them or make a sandwich and say, "Here."

"I get it now."

And if you give, then it can happen, the miracle can happen to you. Not just the poor and hungry, Everybody's gotta have this miracle! It can happen tonight for you all! If you believe in this pure thing, the miracle will happen and you'll want it again tomorrow! You won't say, "Christmas is once a year and it's a fraud." It's not! It can happen every day! You've just got to want that feeling! You'll want it every day! It can happen to you!
I believe in it now.
I believe it's gonna happen to me, now. I'm ready for it!
And it's great. It's a good feeling.
It's better than I've felt in a long time.
I'm ready."

Sound familiar? These are the greatest lines about what the true meaning of Christmas is, since Linus spoke those famous words on the stage of the Christmas show in Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

These words come from one of my top three Christmas Movies of All Time, SCROOGED starring Bill Murray as Frank Cross. I like to revisit that movie every year and those words at the end sum up how we feel and how we should be. So, dear readers....

Have a Merry Christmas, Everybody!

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21 December 2007

Gift Giving (Tom Peters Style)

This morning, while sipping on some coffee, I started my daily rounds of the Blogs that I like. Always at the top of my list is the Tom Peters blog, it sets the pace for the rest of my day. This morning was no exception, in his blog post titled Christmas Giving: Not Too Late to Do Good Tom gives us an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and who doesn't like that? Giving those last minute gifts, if you are one of those procrastinators, or just to give for the sake of giving.

Tom talks about Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child program. There has been an ongoing program at OLPC where buying one gets you one. Not a bad deal, you buy one for a child in a developing nation (the original intent) and you get one for your child, thus impacting the lives of two children forever. Now that is a great gift.

Next Peters offers the BOGO Powerlight. It is a solar powered flashlight invented by Mark Bent (and happens to be a Texan). The BOGO (which stands for Buy One, Get One) Solar Powerlight is a great idea: a solar rechargeable flashlight, thus eliminating the need for changing batteries. The BOGO site has a deal going now: Buy a $25 BOGO Powerlight (for yourself) and the good people over at BOGO will send one Powerlight to an organization of your choice, such as:
  • The Humanitarian Mission of Saboba's Hope is to support the Saboba Medical Centre, of Northern Ghana.
  • Africa Island Mission - Pearl River, New York
  • Direct Relief International - Santa Barbara, California
  • Evangel Bible Translators - Rockwall, Texas
  • Feed The Children - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  • Global Resource Alliance - Ojai, CA
  • US Troops - Afghanistan - , Afghanistan
  • US Troops - Iraq - , Iraq
So as you can see, not only are you getting an opportunity to get some really cool and cutting edge gear but you also get an opportunity to directly impact the lives of total strangers. Isn't that what the holiday season is all about?

Thanks again TOM PETERS for giving us a little something to do this season.

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17 December 2007

Failing to Prepare (Part 3)

This is becoming a very disturbing trend. Tonight, I along with several million other people got to witness another shiny example of someone that failed to prepare. Before anyone says anything this is another NFL related story.

Yep, it was on Monday Night Football and the one who failed to prepare was Chicago 3rd String Quarterback Kyle Orton. At one point in the second half of the game, the announcers basically asked everyone to cut Orton some slack as it has been two years since his last start in the NFL. This guy is the 3rd String QB, if there is anybody that should be prepared to start in the NFL is this guy. If any team has to call on its 3rd String QB then he should know that something has gone horribly wrong and now the team is counting on him to be their saving grace. He, and all other 3rd String Quarterbacks in the NFL, should be prepared all the time, every time.

Yet, a professional football team took to the field and "expected" to win with a Quarterback that looked exactly like he has not played in over two years. What was this guy doing all this time? Sitting back, taking it easy, sipping Banana Daiquiris, while his teammates worked hard to take to the field and play a professional sport. Now don't get me wrong, any NFL Team worth its salt would not let just any schmuck onto the playing field, however, in this case I really think the Chicago Bears did. This guy was an embarrassment to the team and to himself.

I guess what I fail to understand is that this guy just flat out did not prepare to play, yet he went onto that field in Minnesota. For the record, Orton's stats were 22 completions out of 38 attempts, which comes out to a 58% success rate. That's right for almost every 3 attempts he got one right...hmmm, let's see in school 22 out of 38 is 58% and that was an "F" and I bet it still is.

However, in the business world, there are plenty of times that getting an "F" is like getting an "A". While it is true that it is the times that completions are made that matters. Unfortunately, what really matters is when you win, then you can miss 99% if all it takes is that 1% to win.

So this then begs the question: Can you afford to miss 99% of the time and hope that you can make it that 1%? or is it better to prepare now for when the time comes you can make 100% or real close to all your attempts being completions?

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14 December 2007

'Tis the season

Here we are RUNNING head first into the holiday season. By now you have been bombarded with holiday advertisement after holiday advertisement. Have you noticed that each ad claims that it is offering the biggest discounts of the season?

Tonight, for no less than four different times in an hour I saw the same TV ad for KOHLS declaring that this weekend's sales have the biggest discounts of the season. I can only imagine how much bigger next weekend's discounts will be, "bigger than the biggest discounts of the season" maybe?

Remember back on my Black Friday post when I mentioned that retail merchants will always make a profit, so this then begs the question: "How deep can those discounts go?"

I guess we'll find out next weekend.

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08 December 2007

Time to Pull The Plug (on CompUSA)

CNN.com, last night (12/07/07), reported that CompUSA will be closing ALL its stores. It seems that the company has been struggling to stay afloat for almost the past 10 years, so this comes as no surprise. The report stated that CompUSA has already closed "more than half its stores this spring and got a cash infusion of $440 million to restructure" obviously this was not enough.

I take it that the company realized that the $440 million for restructuring was not enough. It is good that the company realized that things were not going the way they were expected and decided to bring things to a halt as opposed to dragging it out until it would eventually die off, all the while the internal stakeholders would start to get apathetic and it would create greater customer service problems, which would make the fall even that much more uglier.

While it might be more valiant to stick it out and fight through the problem and "hopefully" come out a big winner. However, at close to 10 years of trying, I would say bringing this to a close and declaring CompUSA "DOA" is a good thing for all concerned.

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07 December 2007

02 December 2007

Sunday Nights (cramming a weekend into a few hours)

Lately, Sundays around here have been brutal. By this I mean, that I have been trying to cram the last of the projects that I had planned for the weekend into those few precious hours after Sunday dinner and bed time.

Does this mean that I am not properly executing my plans or failing to plan properly? Yes and no. Yes in that I am not finishing projects earlier in the weekend and No, in that some projects are bigger than I think when I agree to begin them. Then there are those family commitments that have no choice but to get done. So where does that put me?

This is not a pity party. This is just an observation with a realization that I need to start saying NO to people and projects. While it is always difficult to pass up on paying projects just as it is difficult to pass up on those Pro Bono projects. Still they all have one thing in common, they take time.

While GTD may come into play here. I might just have to reconsider the fact that GTD on the weekends might sound like a plan, is just not for me. By this I mean that I really should not have to prioritize what is happening, especially when I like to reserve the weekends as spontaneous time with the kids. So what's a guy to do?

Throw GTD out the window, at least between 5:00pm Friday and 8:00am Monday. We'll continue this tomorrow. Right now I have a couple more things to do before hitting the hay

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01 December 2007

Failing to Prepare (Part 2)

It seems that people that fail to prepare are coming out of the woodwork. I guess they have always been there and I am just starting to see the trees in the forest. As we know the credit problems are affecting all parts of the country and my area is no exception. As a matter of fact, my next door neighbor recently turned his home of two years over to the bank as the ARM adjustment kept going up and up. Well, since he vacated the house, one of these "flippers" acquired the note and spent about two weeks of contractors making the house ready for sale.

Here is where the lack of preparation comes in. This "flipper" contracted with a two man house painting crew to paint the interior walls and the exterior trim and a guy to mow the yard. The lawn man comes over to the house and asks to borrow a broom to sweep the mess he made. I gave him one, after a couple of minutes he returns it. So I go out to the drive way to see his work, BAM!!! talk about an eye opener. This idiot did a great job of sweeping...he swept the stuff from the vacant house side an onto my driveway. I was livid...good thing for him, he was gone. Well, not five minutes pass and the jokers hired to paint show up and then knock on my door. The guy proceeds to tell me that he was hired to paint the house next door and would like to use some water and electricity while they are working. I asked him to repeat himself, I know he did not just ask me that. He did and I said no.

I found out who the new owner/"flipper" is and gave him a call. I identified myself and told him what happened. I told him that he is to tell the contractors not to ask for anything from anyone. Flipper starts to get mad at me and that I should tell the contractors and why am I bothering him. I fired back "Because you hired them to mow and paint, you did not hire me to provide water, electricity, or to sweep up the mess the lawn guy made" I had him at that point, he started to apologize, I told him that I was very interested in acquiring the house next door as a rental property but seeing how the new owner is so unprepared that I will have to look someplace else. This guy's tune change on a dime. He became Mr. Nice. He knew that in this market if you have a lead you don't lose it. To make a long story short this afternoon he came by and offered to give me a personal tour of the house so that I can see the modifications and upgrades he made. So as I walked over, I was impressed with not just the work on the house but what was in the back of his pickup truck; ice chest full of nothing but water and a portable electric generator. I think he learned a lesson, ensure that you hire the people that can do 100% of the job without collateral damage.

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