How the ‘Others’ Keep Our Spirit Alive

I’m not sure of the ‘alive’ part in the title… still working on what is ‘alive’.

When the ‘Others’ discovered us, it was too late to move anyone off to another planet before the catastrophy. So, our feelings, thoughts, passions… and DNA where put into a place to continue to live and advance. What we would think of being in a computer program. Everyone continues about their daily lives and making an impact on the whole but there is no real moving parts of the ‘humans’ moving around a planet in space. Here we continue till a new home is found that is suitable to maintain our life functions.

A few questions come to mind. If this message is still here in the morning, is that because the ‘program’ allows us to figure out the truth or because it missed this small thread of reality thought? If we destroy ourselves through war or excesses, do the ‘Others’ let us die because we would have on our own planet thus ending the program or will they reboot us? When the planet was ending it’s life (Astroid impact? Sun expansion?) did they get to earth in time to take actual samples for the program or are we data via being watched from very far away? If from far far away, is our existence for the program based only on stray TV/Radio waves being picked up or actual human ‘being’ structure?

How do we prove or disprove any of this? Since we are being kept ‘alive’ to move forward with our lives, when a suitable planet is found will the ‘Others’ create the world where we left off? Where the program is at that point? Or start over with no history but as we were when it was just a planet of no technology?

While we think this through… who is going to pick this up to be a best seller or make a movie from it?

My Accountant Reminds Me What is Important

Not sure where he got this, I’m sure it is all over the Internet. But, the timing is fitting for us rolling into 2010:

Old Farmer’s Advice:

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered….not yelled.

Meanness doesn’t just happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It doesn’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about isn’t going to happen anyway.

Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

Don’t interfere with something that isn’t bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Letting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Purses and MP3s get different levels of support

My wife loves a good purse.

When I first met my wife, she loved the years she got out of a quality purse like I did out of a great pair of boots. In those days, Coach was not all that… they weren’t capitalizing on their logo (like Louis Vuitton does) as they offered plain leather bags. Very nice mind you, but nothing to make a women think she would get any bag envy when she went to office or dinner. Their bags were all about quality construction.

A bag my wife purchases a few months ago was a medium sized pink bag. The leather was shiny that I at first thought was plastic but found to be a leather treatment. The now usual ‘C’s rise out of the surface everywhere without any special coloring to make them stand out.

A month ago, she was noticed that there was a dark discoloring along one side near the bottom edge. The look is very much like light ink. Did this come from the drawer in her desk? Did it come from the floor mats in her Audi? Nah, most likely from the side of the foot area in my Volvo. No matter how we shield the bag though, the color stain continues to grow.

On a recent visit to the mall, we dropped by the Coach store to see about a cleaner. The greater let us know pretty quickly that she has seen that issue and a cleaner wont take care of the problem. Another individual came out from behind the counter and asked what bag they had we would like to exchange the current bag for. What? We didn’t ask that! We didn’t come in yelling about quality products issues? Nothing, we just came in to see if they had something we could buy to clean the stain. Instead, the first thing out of the mouth was that they have seen the issue before and they would like to exchange for a new bag… choose.

My first question was to see why they wanted to cover up a issue. They weren’t. The color stain problem is because my wife carries her purse low against her jeans. Higher quality leather, lower slung purses and dark dye jeans come together with the purse loosing. Wow… no questions asked, Coach is only worried about my wife being happy with her purchase. A half hour of trying on different bags and transferring contents resulted in my wife telling all her friends that Coach cares. So many businesses just dive into the free give away, refund, or coupons. A refund from Coach would have sent the wrong message.

Mentioning the mall visit at the office, I was reminded of the many books from Starbucks exects that have touted the methods to help employees remember that they matter and that the customers should matter to the employees.

Continue reading Purses and MP3s get different levels of support

Social Networks are destroying families… or…

“Social Networks are destroying families” Really? Is that the best you can come up with?

A day doesn’t go by when we see a headline about Social Networks are going to end life as we know it, not always in a good way. How these systems have destroyed people talking to each other. How families are broken apart because they don’t communicate anymore.

Maybe they should be looking internal rather than redirecting the blame.

Sure, it is easy to get lost in the fog of millions of people all talking up their day and interests. All making for a easy pull on one’s time and thus less time with the family. Let’s explore how to make the world of Social Networks ‘work for you’ rather than against.

Why do we ‘socialize’ online? To meet friends, live a different life where no one knows us, gather information, banter with ol’ friends, or for Business. Nothing says it can’t be multiples of these but generally folks drop into one bucket.

If you want to live a different life online – other than your avatar image, no one knows who you are so you can be anything to anyone. It’s all about feeding your ego. If this is you, then go ahead and write off your family now, you must be missing something in your offline life that you either need to work out with loved ones or move on. Sooner or later the two will come together and it is NEVER pretty.

Meeting new friends that you might have something in common with online is just what most people do. You can share things in your life and enjoy hearing about far away places. While you don’t want to post up to the world every fact about your life (it will haunt you later), friends online are much more about not having to second guess what you are talking about. The most fun I have in this group is learning about cultures and how people from somewhere else views what you live every day. It can be eye opening to hear about what someone else knows as facts versus what you know as ‘fact’ – Read: different country news agencies.

The trick to this type of online ‘life’ is to keep it manageable. If your on Twitter… there is no way your going to be able to actually ‘follow’ and relate to more than a few hundred. I limit myself to 200 follows so I can really understand what is happening. Other people can follow 500 (depends on how often the people you follow actually post). The people that are following 1000 can not honestly say what half of those posts are or what they relate to if it is in a conversation.

By limiting your following to a manageable (enjoyable) size, you are also able to manage the amount of time it takes to ‘check in’ with your group. You will quickly learn which you need to read in depth and which you keep an eye on without thinking you will need to respond. Depending on your home relationships, it usually wont hurt to talk about what is being posted too. It makes that world more open to the family around you. Of course, back off if they start getting short about what your ‘friends’ are doing. Generally though, who you follow would be close to who family members would follow so they might enjoy hearing about other places or opinions. It will definitely help conversing with others outside of the family too.

Generally, Facebook is more about your old friends or coworkers. There is more an opportunity to banter with someone you directly know and others to chime in. Seeing the whole conversation in their regular UI (most other social sites need 3rd party apps to see a conversation string wrapped together). Once again, I have seen many times a late night post or party image on Facebook bite the posting person later. NOTHING EVER GOES AWAY! Even if you delete it. Also, on Facebook, others can ID you in a image and that can be found by anyone happening upon that image via a friends’ friends’ friend… keep it real!

For people doing ‘Business’ via social networks, you will either look to market to anyone who will listen by creating a Business area on Facebook. Or, in the case of Twitter, you have a couple options. You need followers for your message to get out to a high enough percentage you stand to get a response. You can do this by posting what your interested in and your list will grow, or you can play the follow to get followers game. Commenting on other popular twitters and getting them to respond will drive a lot of their followers to watch you too.

You will find that on Twitter, there are millions upon millions of people just posting up what they have to say, getting followed by friends, family and interested parties. There are far fewer but much more specialized Twitters that pin point what they are talking about to gain the interest of people that may buy from them.

To be successful at using Facebook or Twitter for Business growth, you have to set time aside to manage your ‘marketing’. Since that is exactly what it is, Marketing. Treat it like that by placing a cost and expense number to the time you spend in the Social Online Networking worlds so you know what it is actually ‘costing’ you. Do not think of it as FREE. It takes time from your day and time is money. You could be spending that time shaking hands and building Business relations or playing with your children – time is valuable – track it as such.

Hidden in the above is how you keep a happy family life to co-mingle with a happy Social Network life.
Know what you want out of your time online, manage your time online, keep it real, and know your limitations.
Finally – while I like to keep my family out of my Business Twitter account, we still have other accounts that we keep each other up on. Text Messaging via our phones is fine, but there are limits compared to what you can do online with many free Social Network services. If you want to keep it private, set up ‘invite only’ accounts so others outside of your family can’t see what is being posted. Doing this on Twitter means that everyone in the family has access to up-to-the-minute family happenings (with pictures, etc..) accessible via cell phones, desktops or any Internet connected device.

Quality of life, for my mom

My mother is a wonderful women that brings smiles to anyone she has contact with. She spreads her energy by volunteering at her church, where she has always been the driving force behind cookies for the kids, welcoming friends old and new, and keeping events rolling along.

When I started my second business, she left her day job to run my bookkeeping group. We expanded the offices and the people working numbers, she kept them all in line. As the years went by we kept an office for her in her and Dad’s house. This way she could work the hours that was comfortable. She is a great example of keeping busy keeps you young.

Ten years back, we sold off many of the businesses as a bundle to a group… keeping a few that were base loaders to new directions. Mom relaxed a bit, took a few bus trips (she still drove but not long distances), took a couple train trips and had fun rooting on the local hockey team. For her travels, we played with CD players, tape players, digital players… nothing has really jelled for her to enjoy using.

Time has passed and health issues have set in. Same spirit, but Parkisons slows her walk and shakes causes her to avoid crowed to keep people from feeling uncomfortable.

Paperback books have always been fun for mom to read. She enjoys quite a variety of books, but generally the smaller layout of the paperback. Holding these open, still, and looking down is becoming more of a chore every day. Generally resulting in a sore neck. Taking away the joys of reading, leaving pleasures missed.

I have done the normal son type things. Being half way across the US has some limitations, driving my folks when they need to get places type of help. Always making they have no wants the best I can, while my sister and her boys are local to help with manual efforts. What seems to be missing is those little pleasures in life that goes beyond helping with changing a light or buying groceries.

Along came the Kindle 2. Julie in the office was the first to actually buy one. She brought it in so we could see if the hype was just marketing hoopla. Nope, we all thought the hardware worked very well. Several of the other team members have eBook readers by other manufactures, all with great features but too many negatives to be a ‘must buy’. It isn’t another thing we would NEED to haul around with us, everyone has smartphones and mininotebooks.

But, for my mom… the Kindle 2 has proven to be a life saver. I purchased one, set it up to an Amazon account and shipped it off to my mom. My nephew buzzed by (on his own, what a great guy!) and helped her get around a bit. She most likely would have found her way on her own, but having others explore with you always makes it go smoother. Another set of eyes, etc…

The beauty of it is that she can rest the device on a pillow on her lap. Paperbacks you have to hold open, the Kindle is always open and ready. She doesn’t have to look down in her lap. Test is adjustable for late evening reading too. Then, to my surprise, she discovered the audio reader feature. Now, she listens more than she reads. When she is interested in a new book, it’s a matter of me finding it Amazon – when ordered it shows up on her Kindle without having to connect to a computer – no extra charge. The second surprise… life is good for her. Mom’s reaction to being able to enjoy her books without pain and shaking being accented by holding a little book is incredible. Who would have thought?!

Another new lesson in life about watching for the less obvious…

I think… because I can

For many years now, the only reading I do is trade industry magazines/books and news information. Sneaking a history or How it works book in there when I find an interesting one jump out at me. Mostly though, I’m a sponge for information.

It wasn’t always this way, my early reading days was filled with the Tom Swift series. My folks took me to a local discount store every month to see if they the latest release. I wonder if those are still in their basement or my sister cleared out that corner.

When I hit elementary school, every teacher encouraged me to write stories. By the fourth grade they had me reading the stories to the class. This was good and bad. Being thrown into a pressure situation to read my creations to people I didn’t know helped my public speaking later. The tough kids in school thought that anyone that could come up with stories needed to be slugged regularly – a interesting outcome of this was a development of the senses to ready people.

As time went by, I found that I took more notice of people’s actions in different situations. Face activity, posture, arm placement, breathing, eye movements, as well as how they are timing their speaking. Early on this help me know if a bruised arm was in my near future. Now though, putting people’s actions in conversation has led me to now be able to say: everyone has a agenda in every conversation. They may or may not consciously know it, but there is a reason we are talking. Is the agenda to chat to let me know you are having a bad day or are you hoping to get a contract… taking the time to pay attention in the beginning, you can see how the next few minutes will go. Do it long enough and you no longer have to think about it. Continue reading I think… because I can