In Seth’s latest book, Linchpin,  he spends a lot of time talking about maps and artists.  That being an artist means you create your own map, your own path.  And, that society is changing.  Rather than spending your life following a map someone else created, to be successful you’ll need to create your own map moving forward.

While I’ve not been an assembly line worker in a literal sense, it took me awhile (couple dozen reiterations) for what Seth was talking about to truly sink in…appreciating how much of it related to my own life.

Life was relatively easy, for a long time.  With a clear goal in front of me, I could move mountains to achieve it.  I would feel a sense of accomplishment, and life was grand.  So, for the first 3/4 of my life, this is how it worked.  Goal, after goal, after goal.  Going into the service, I bought a map out of the carousel, having chosen to go into aviation.  Once there, the Navy gave me a nice [flight] bag of additional maps to follow (exams, flight certifications, instructor certs, regular performance reviews, etc.).

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This paraphrases the situation a friend of mine, selling a sophisticated yet simple product, frequently encounters.  The fact the company he’s selling for can’t get past the objection reflects an indifference to customer sensitivity.  A lack of customer-centricity.

The question today is how to compete moving forward.  If you’re in a market like the U.S., Western Europe, or Japan, you face a mature slower-growing economic environment—current economic challenges notwithstanding.  Using the automotive industry as an example, growth of 20, 30% annually is considered good.  In North America, 2-3% is considered good.

So if your market is mature and you can’t count on a rising tide to float all boats, how do you prosper?

The days of competing primarily on product and price, particularly for commodity-oriented offerings, are dwindling.  If you’re selling a car, there are numerous ‘family sedans’ with almost identical feature sets, for nearly identical prices.

This suggests a new way of competing must become prevalent.

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Ever wonder why customer service just plain sucks in so many cases?  Ever wonder why?   Perhaps you’ve been just so amazed, like ‘made your whole day’ amazed, when you actually receive good customer service?

A lot of it just plain comes down to a pure desire for the provider to care, passionately care, about the job they’re doing…for you.  After all, it isn’t about ‘where’ the service came from, or ‘who’ provided it, or ‘what’ they were providing it on.

Here in the U.S. it can be popular sport to gripe about the latest ‘terrible’ customer service experience.  All too often we blame it on some poor sap in India, sitting amidst 4 b’zillion other reps, that can’t speak ‘my’ language, and hasn’t gotten a clue.  Hey, I’ve been there, got the shirt, sure you do too.

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The fine folks at Heavenly Acres Pet Cemetery, in Brighton, Michigan.  That’s Who!

For those of you who have been with me a while, you’ll recall the passing of my dear friend, Kimba.  She had succumbed to cancer this past August.

Working in the garage yesterday, my 9 year old son asked me why we had ‘gotten rid’ of her.  Though he had lived through the period with us, I was surprised to find he thought we had gotten rid of her for somehow having been a ‘bad’ dog.  This led into some deeper discussions, and eventually the topic of her ashes came up.

I’m sure I’m not the only person, who after having had their pet cremated, might have waited months, years even, to look inside the returned package.

This isn’t the first time my family has been through this.  Yet, it was ‘my’ dog this time, striking closer to the heart than with previous pets.  So, there was a bit of gravity to the moment as I retrieved her and began to look inside.

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“How We Decide”
by: Jonah Lehrer
ISBN: 978-0-618-62011-1

Thinking about how we think.  That’s the gist of Jonah Lehrer’s book, “How We Decide.”

I’ve read books in the past about how the brain works. What the amygdala does, what the prefrontal cortex does, and so on. They’ve all been rather clinical, dry in nature.  Certainly not engaging. In surprising contrast, Lehrer has not only crafted a book on the topic of the brain and it’s constituent parts, he also puts it all in context of our daily lives.

Going all the way back to Plato’s day

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One can argue whether economists are cheapskates, or not. The debate can certainly be entertaining, such as in this Wall Street Journal article.  There’s even an old economics joke tied to their, umm, stereotypical tendencies.

It goes something like this, “…an economist is walking down the street with a friend when they happen upon a $100 bill laying on the ground.  As the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says, ‘Don’t bother—if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up.’” (Andrew McAfee and Andrew Lo.)

Andrew wrote an article comparing companies’ use of IT with that $100 bill.  The notion is that ‘everyone’ has the same technology.  We all have, or have access to, tools like email, internet, smart phones, computers, and the like.  So, technology itself should be a non-competitive tool. Right?

While Andrew continues to discuss inconsistent use of these tools—fewer than 5% of all firms do the job well—I’d like to briefly look beyond just ‘IT’ per se.

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Energy costs.

Ask yourself, why did the economy tank last year? A popular answer is bad mortgages leading to a collapse of the financial markets…and the dominoes just fell from there. But if so, then why did Europe and Japan head into recession (by a couple quarters, at least) before the US?

If you listen to the popular economist Jeff Rubin (http://www.jeffrubinssmallerworld.com), he’ll give you an earful on why it was really triggered by 2008’s run up in oil prices. Consider that in 4 of 5 previous recessions (we can’t say about this one yet, for sure), oil spikes preceded economic recession by about 12 months each time. Interestingly, 09’s spike was nearly 500% prior spikes. I encourage you to read Jeff’s book, or at least skim the related blog post, Financial Crisis or energy Shock? You Be the Judge.

So, what happened to us as energy sky rocketed, before last year’s collapse? We started

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Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series,  Starting Your Own New Business.  The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business.

Below, is the high-level presentation I’m giving today.  The focus is on moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.

Does your company stand for anything? Do you just go to work each day to, ‘make money?’  If you don’t have an answer, why not?

The best place to find it, if there is one, is in an organization’s Mission Statement.  Too many mission statements though are simply great places to collect a bunch of fancy words used to simply obfuscate any underlying meaning. Hmm.  Obfuscate: to confuse, hide the meaning of, be ambiguous.

Google has a 10-point Philosophy.  The most famously quoted is, ‘…do no evil.’  While one might question this basic tenet, it is there, it is understood, and it can be used to help align the organization toward a common purpose.

Even if your organization has lost its way, its never too late to start on a path toward recovery. Maybe this is part of what Google’s doing today, with it’s recent stand against Chinese censorship.  Is what Google’s doing noble?  It’s an interesting question.  See what HBR has to say in, “Why Is Google Doing Government’s Job?”

It’s never too late to Pick Your Fencepost and decide whether to Focus or Flounder.

(Photo Credit: Rainer Topf)

Had a good conversation with a friend today.  As we talked, we seemed to circle around a common thought that has been all too apparent to many of us these days.  We have increasingly become a nation of specialists.  The foremen (and women) have largely been sent packing.

Sometimes the essence of this thought comes to mind, even though you might not do so tangibly.  For instance, my family has had a spat of medical ‘things’ going on.  10 years ago, most of our time was spent with our general practitioner.  You know…the one doctor you went to for just about ‘everything.’  Now, the GP seems to simply be a glorified gatekeeper.  Skin your knee, see the GP.  If you need a band-aid they’ll set you right up.  Otherwise, you’re off to for visits to any number of point-practitioners.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit…‘just’ a bit.

This problem is also very evident in our professional lives as well.  Today I met with a number of folks in a regional networking group.  The group reflects what is already known about this recession…most of those effected are mid/senior careerists.  What seems unspoken though, is these are also the folks known to a different generation as foremen.

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