The best advice I ever received...

I consider myself a fairly bright individual. One of my best traits, though, I think is that I don't think that I know everything yet. I'm always trying to learn something new. Often times that knowledge comes from reading. I scan literally dozens of magazines a month, daily and periodic newspapers, and several books, plus all of the reading I do online. Sometimes my learning comes from television. I admit it - I still like to watch This Old House reruns as well as the dozens of more current variety. I like to watch How's That Made, and similar shows as well. Sometimes my knowledge comes from something that I learn how to do myself -- working out a data query or presentation issue for instance.

Some of the most important things I've learned have come from a little closer to home, though. Or in this case, a little closer to work.

My degree is in Business management. My initial reading frenzy was largely skewed toward business process improvement -- reading about fast moving companies that were "doing it right." I read about customer service leaders. I read about manufacturing leaders. I read about retail leaders. I read about marketing leaders. I read about small mom-and-pop stores that were competing and winning against the corporate giants. I read about the companies that stretched themselves too thin and then re-found their focus. And I read Dilbert. I learned about as much from Dilbert as I did from all the other reading. What I read in that comic, though, scared me. It was like Scott Adams was working in a cube right next to mine. Listening in on all my rants. Taking notes at the meetings I attended. Reading all my emails. Every comic I read seemed to ring true to my work life. He was writing just for me! I've not even found a horoscope author that could be so accurate - so dead on!

As Adams wrote, and I lived, Dilbert's, I mean my, work life, things just continued to get worse. Except for one thing. I was smart! Certainly smarter than the others who were making all the decisions that didn't make any sense to me. I was going to change things. I was going to make it better. Unfortunately, things didn't always work out that way... I like to think I made a difference, if only in caring to make things better, but the dark side was too strong. Instead of seeing all of my great revelations, they only saw someone who was a complainer. A whiner who should just sit back, shut up, and let them do their jobs. If they wanted something from me, they would seek me out.

And so it went. True, it came in cycles. Sometimes, I would hit on something that I could do, usually in the background, behind the curtain, that would gain some traction. Many months would go by between my introduction of something of value while it sat fallow in the back of some one's mind, before rising up in a flash of brilliance (with minor modification sometimes), as their idea to champion.

OK, so I guess I am still a little bitter. This isn't going where I had intended it to go... What I was going to say was that "Real leaders are not people who can point out what is wrong. Real leaders are people who can make things better." That's what Marshall Goldsmith, Ph.D. says in
his article "The best advice I ever received".

My tendency was to point out where things were broken in the organization. Sometimes I had a fix, but not always. My intention was that I would point out something wrong, and then let the "experts" fix it. I expected it to be a revelation to them. They couldn't see the forest for the trees (or is it the other way around?). They've been doing it the same way for so long, that they just couldn't see that it didn't make sense anymore. Surely a fresh set of eyes was needed here.

In Goldsmith's article, he was an employee like this as well. Finally his boss said "Marshall, you are becoming a pain in the butt. You are not helping the people who are supposed to be your clients. You are not helping me, and you are not helping yourself. I am going to give you two options: Option A: Continue to be angry, negative and judgmental. If you chose this option, you will be fired, you probably will never graduate, and you may have wasted the last four years of your life. Option B: Start having some fun. Keep trying to make a constructive difference,
but do it in a way that is positive for you and the people around you. My advice is this: You are young. Life is short. Start having fun. What option are you going to choose, son?"

Goldsmith replied: "Dr. Case, I think it is time for me to start having some fun!"

A previous manager of mine gave me a copy of this article one day. She stated that she thought of me when she read it. I understand why. I was being a "pain in the butt" and though she was no longer directly in charge of my career, she cared enough to enlighten me to my current situation -- in a not so subtle way. I am glad that she cared enough to enlighten me -- again...

My career took a right turn, figuratively and directly, shortly after that. I was told to find another job (though within the company still). I ended up out moving out of the environment in which I had become a "pain in the butt" and got a fresh start somewhere else. My attitude changed completely. I was somewhere new. I didn't have the baggage on my back, nor were my peers and co-workers carrying any on their shoulders for me. I could offer my services to those that needed them, but because I was now the new guy, I wasn't perhaps so bold.

I've continued to learn a lot in my new job (just passed the two-year mark), and to share that knowledge with others who are very receptive to my knowledge and skills. I continue to read Dilbert occasionally, but it's just not as funny anymore when he's not sitting right next to me.

I still carry that article around with me, and have even shared copies of it with a few other co-workers who had drifted away from having fun.

In less than one week, I will have made it through 14 years with my current employer. Not bad for a tech job. Thanks to all of my co-workers who saw something in me worth keeping around. Oh yeah, one more thing. JN: I think I am having fun now! Thanks!

What was the best advice you've received? Leave a comment.

Then there was this...

Right after I wrote the last post, I happened across this one...

(warning NSFW)



Thankfully, these over-the-top officers are very few and far between. I live in a place where, so far, I've not heard of, or witnessed anything like this thankfully! In fact, I often stop and just say, "Thanks" when I see an officer. They often times will sit at the the end of our street watching for "red light runners." I know that often times their job is a thankless one, so I do my part to change that a little.

Wish I could have seen the final ending to this one, though...

Being right can cost you!

So many of us take the easy way through life. We try surgery over diet and exercise. We cheat instead of studying hard. We pay a little extra instead of researching for the best deal or finding a coupon. We drive a car 1/2 a block to a store instead of walking or taking a bike. We refuse to show a Circuit City "exit guard" our receipt because we're not required by law to do so.

No, wait. Most of us would show the receipt because that's the easier way out -- a small inconvenience. But not Michael Amor Righi. This guy decided to take a stand. He'd done nothing wrong and he was being subject to an unwarranted search. He wasn't mean about it. He just answered "No thank you," when asked if they could examine his receipt. Oh what a tangled mess that led to, though -- including arrest (you gotta read that part!). You can read the whole story on his blog starting here.

He'd done a little homework and chose his words wisely, but he did nothing illegal. I heard this story on the radio the other day and got worked up just listening to it. This is a guy who was smart enough, bold enough, confident enough to know when to say "No." He knew exactly what his boundaries were (thought he learned an awful lot after the fact as well). He knew what his rights were. He knew what he was getting himself into -- at least up to the part where he was actually arrested! He chose to take a stand against the erosion of our liberties. He fought the big corporation. He fought the law, and the law ... Well there is not really a winner in this situation. He took a stand for the apathetic rest of us, and came out about $10k short for doing nothing wrong... but at least they expunged his arrest record.

This little act may not change the world, or even things at the Brooklyn, Ohio Circuit City, but maybe the press it has generated will at least make people think again about what rights they have and cherish as American citizens -- and which ones they're willing to cede to take the easy way out.

(p.s. I don't suggest trying this at home without a law degree and a sizable legal fund lying in wait.)

Shadows and Light

When you hear someone say that someone has incredible hands, you usually think of a "well manicured female," a "surgeon," a "masseuse," etc. Not in even in the back of my mind would I have though of a "shadow puppet artist."

Raymond Crowe is self-described as "Australia's only unusualist." I don't care what you call it, this guys is amazing -- artistic, talented, funny, and famous. I am certainly not the first to post this video of his performance at the 2007 Helpmann Awards, but add me to the list of his admirers.

Speed test

So maybe the Global Index is fine on the Internet Traffic Report site, but your Internet connection is still crawling... How about a few speed test sites:

http://www.giganews.com/test_connect.html



http://myspeed.visualware.com/

Internet Traffic Report

Every day in my car, coming and going to work I hear traffic reports on the radio. It's what we need to stay away from traffic jams, or at least anticipate delays. Some times it is more voyeuristic, just knowing that there are other people stuck in the jams and not me.

There is a site that will give you traffic reports for the Internet -- after all, it's just the same as our interstates. Transportation vehicles (packets) travel down a path (Internet circuit) from one place (host) to another (destination), dealing with congestion (bandwidth), accidents (collisions, dropped packets), and deadlines (TTL), etc.

The Internet Traffic Report, compiles ping response times throughout the Internet and then scores the results from 0 to 100. A little aggregation and averaging later, and you're got an Index score for each continent. The higher the score, the faster the traffic. The lower the score, the more frustrated the users become. The site also gives you trends (speeding up, or slowing down), as well as which routers are behaving poorly (or well).

Men as Role Models

I'm a man. I'm a parent. I'm a dad. I've worked in a day care. I teach two-year olds at church. I play with my children and others. Before we had kids of our own, my wife and I took balloons to the local mall's play pit for other children to bounce around and play with.

I'd like to think of those things as helping to make me a role model for my own kids, and for other kids as well. To some, though, it makes me a potential predator.

I struggle with this one. I guess I fall into the same trap as many other people when I tend to feel safer if my children are talking to a female stranger than to a male stranger (always within eye sight in either case). Maybe it's because men look more ominous strictly by their physical characteristics. More rugged. More strong. More threatening. Versus the more laid back, primped, softer image portrayed by most women. I'm not a psychiatrist and I've not seen any studies, but it makes sense to me. Add to that the real statistics about who predators are, and the cards are stacked against those of us of the male persuasion.

Jeff Zaslow, from the Wall Street Journal, wrote a couple of articles related to this recently. The first one, Are Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men? talks about what we're teaching our kids about males. The second one, Avoiding Kids: How Men Cope With Being Cast as Predators, talks about how us guys have to limit ourselves lest we be labeled as potential predators. This certainly does nothing to aid all of you women out there asking us to be more open and to express our feelings.

It's a fine line, I know -- on both sides of the sword. The only way for us guys to reverse the stigma is to show that we can be nurturing and loving with little ones and not be stalking our prey at the same time. That might not sit right with some. You know what though? I don't care. Those that I care about how they perceive me, will see the real me and not a predator.

On the other hand, I too need to deal with how I treat and teach my little ones to treat unknown men. The Stranger Danger posting I made just the other day was about a woman, not a man. But that was pure chance. Had it been a man that had given my child candy, would I have felt differently. If I'm to be honest with myself, reluctantly, I'd have to say, "Yes." I don't like that, but, "Yes. "

I teach my kids to look past someone's appearance, their speech impediments, their skin color, their clothing taste, etc. Look at their inside character, not their outside character I teach them. But looks can be deceiving both ways.

I guess I need to take a few lessons on character myself... for all of man-kind.

You can do better than that!

I don't remember where I saw this one link to, but if you're ready to make yourself a little (or a lot) better, this is the place to start. Priscilla Palmer has created a very thorough list of personal development sites. There are over sites for everyone and the list is growing! Don't go overboard though. Pick a few to review and then go back in a day or to for the next selection. Don't want to change so fast that no one knows who you are! :-)

Those guys at Fedex sure are busy

I came across this testament to Fedex's speed and reliability from Presurfer today. Very reliable those Fedex guys...

Embedded music from Deezer/BlogMusik

I've had various problems with the embedded music that I've been trying lately. The service appears to be up and down. It's been down enough that I'll look for an alternative. Sorry for those of you that thought there was something wrong on your side. If you've got a suggestion for an embedded player, let me know.

Stranger Danger

OK, I know that nobody ever said parenting was going to be easy. It's all about balance, love, nurturing, caring, and getting you back for what you put your own parents through.

We've tried very hard with our kids to make sure that they're nice, respectful, caring, friendly, intelligent, polite, loving, out-going, aware, confident individuals. We've been working for years on that part. Now, in one afternoon, I feel like we may have gone too far. My "out little abduction risk" comment a few posts ago has come way too close to home.

My daughter has a soft spot for animals and a general "all people are kind" attitude. Both of those are very admirable traits. Traits that we've tried to instill in her. But... While out on the playground at school the other day, she saw a little white poodle by the fence and went over to pet it and to play with it. The dog was on the other side of the fence that surrounds the school yard. While engaging this puppy the owner came over to talk to my daughter and her friends that had joined her. This particular woman had some kind of handicap that probably helped to allay any sense of fear my daughter might have had, though there's no evidence that she had any to begin with. (She's pretty good about ignoring people's handicaps all together).

When my daughter told my wife this story on Monday night, my wife reminded her about talking to strangers, and that she should should not have any further contact with the dog or the woman.

My daughter is a 4th grader, though. So... Tuesday, she went right back to the dog, and the woman, again. When we found out that she had disobeyed us (and her teacher who had backed us up), we got a little steamed. This woman, living by an elementary school should know better. It's a shame, but in this day and age, if we don't know you, and you're not part of the school, stay away from my children, well-meaning or not.

Angry at our daughter. Angry at the woman who should know better. Angry at the school for letting this happen (apparently the school monitor said it was OK as long as they stayed on this side of the fence, never mind the safety this precedence sets that might allow someone to lure them over to the woods where there is a break in the fence). Angry at myself (I'll only speak for me on this one) for not doing a good enough job of "training" my daughter to be careful.

We had a long talk with her, in appropriate terms, about the bad things that could happen -- about kidnapping, about being hurt or killed, about not being able to see her family again, about how sad we'd be if we couldn't give her kisses at night. We reiterated that we make rules to protect her and others, and that the rule to stay away from strangers was to protect her from those dangers. We wanted to scare her since nothing else seemed to be working. My wife told her about Elizabeth Smart, and how it wasn't just a man, but his wife who was in on the kidnapping -- that women can be bad people too.

Then we got the real shocker -- this woman had given the girls candy! The very trick called out in all of the "stranger danger" discussions we've had, she's seen on TV, and they've talked about in schools, etc. and my daughter TOOK IT! To our relief she chose not to eat it and I took it out of her backpack and threw it away.

The principal has been informed and my daughter said that she didn't see the dog or the woman at the fence today.

How sad is it that it's come to this? How do you raise kids that are friendly when they meet someone new -- they're gonna meet thousands of people in their life; you don't want them to be an outcast recluse -- and yet, wary enough to remain safe. How do you balance that "be friendly and polite" mandate with the "don't talk to strangers" mandate?! How?! Tell me!

Strange what you find when you communicate!

Ran across this article that reminds us all to communicate with our mates...

It's a tale of two married people finding each other again. A kind of real life version of an old Rupert Holmes song called Escape.

I was tired of my lady,
we'd been together too long.
Like a worn-out recording,
of a favorite song.

So while she lay there sleeping,
I read the paper in bed.
And in the personals column,
there was this letter I read:

If you like Pina Coladas,
and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga,
if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight,
in the dunes of the cape
.I'm the lady you've looked for,
write to me, and escape.

I didn't think about my lady,
I know that sounds kind of mean.
But me and my old lady,
had fallen into the same old dull routine.
So I wrote to the paper,
took out a personal ad.
And though I'm nobody's poet,
I thought it wasn't half-bad.

Yes, I like Pina Coladas,
and getting caught in the rain.
I'm not much into health food,
I am into champagne.
I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon,
and cut through all this red tape.
At a bar called O'Malley's,
where we'll plan our escape.

So I waited with high hopes,
then she walked in the place.
I knew her smile in an instant,
I knew the curve of her face.
It was my own lovely lady,
and she said, "Oh, it's you."
And we laughed for a moment,
and I said, I never knew...

That you liked Pina Coladas,
and getting caught in the rain.
And the feel of the ocean,
and the taste of champagne.

If you like making love at midnight,
in the dunes of the cape.
You're the love that I've looked for,
come with me, and escape.

If you like Pina Coladas,
and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga,
if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight,
in the dunes of the cape.
You're the love that I've looked for,
come with me, and escape.

Do you know what your mate likes? I bet you'll find it has a lot in common with your list.

Old dog...new trick

My wife taught me something about Gmail the other day. I probably knew it and just forgot, but I'll give her the credit anyway :-p

She was looking for an email conversation she had with a friend. I would've gone to the search box and typed in the person's name or email address hit return and sorted through the output that way -- that is what Google is famous for after all. She chose a different route. She clicked on the person's name in her contact list and had all of her conversations pop up at the bottom of the screen. I hadn't thought of that. Kind of a nice feature. Of course I could add more search terms if I'd done it my way... :-)

Websites with personality

Several weeks ago I wrote about a home valuation site called HouseFront. I wrote about it because I thought the service was innovative and different, and because I had used it myself to check on the value of my home. And because I wanted to share my experience with others... both of you :-)

But, I got something more out of it as well. Shortly after I posted my comment, someone left a message. Stephen Joos from HouseFront themselves left a comment! And, he linked back to my posting from his blog as well. In fact, about 10% of my traffic since that post has come from people linking in from Housefront.

A few things I want to say about that. First, Thanks Stephen! Second, I'm curious what service HouseFront uses to find back links like mine. Third, I now read your blog as well. Fourth, I have no idea what position Stephen holds at HouseFront, but the fact that he commented on my blog adds a personality to the hi-tech facade that is most websites nowadays.

When we see a web page, or use a web page, we think of it as having a life of its own. We rarely think about the people that dreamed up the idea, or the programmers who created the site, or the IT staff that keep it running, or the marketing staff that try to get you to give them a try, or the researchers that are digging through all that data to put on the site, or the click streams that we're generating when we do visit their site, or... The resources necessary to run a successful site are endless.

A blog on the on the other hand is just the opposite. You see me when you come to my blog (sorry about that). You see my choice of colors, you see my design elements, you see my words, you see what interests me. You don't see Blogger (except for the logo in the corner and the URL). The tools that do exist on my blog are there in the background, but that's not really what the site is about.

More and more CEOs, and other C-level staff are writing public blogs to engage their customers, to give a little bit of personality back to the corporation. When I think about this, my cynical mind thinks about Wal-Mart's reason for greeting you when you enter each of their stores. It's not to be friendly (come on, do you really believe that's the case?!). It's a loss-prevention technique. Millions of dollars of research has shown that you are less likely to steal from a store that acknowledges your presence ("I know you're here, and I've got my eyes on you.") or one that can get your mind off the big company image ("You're not stealing from a multi-billion dollar company, you're stealing from little 'ol minimum-wage-making me --so don't do it."). Those red jackets aren't so that you know where to turn to for help, they're there to let you know that no matter where you look (if you're lucky enough these days), one of the staff can see you.

Companies are going to need to do a lot more than create blog to convince me that they really care about more than the short-term dollars, but I guess it's a start.

Amazing Resizing video

Very technical, but cool results. This is what you'd call a specialty.

YouTube on Steroids!

Check out Chime.tv! Click on the Help link on middle right side to see all the power!

Tell Google where you are

Sounds kinda old school to suggest that you should tell Google where you are (and actually they could probably figure it out themselves, but that's another blog.) What I'm talking about is an entry I came across in the Google System Blog that identified a way to tell Google SMS what your default location should be. Looks like this is a new enhancement.

Basically, you send set location [location] (where [location is a ZIP code, City, State pair, etc) to 46645 on your phone. Then the next time you need to use Google's SMS, instead of typing weather 01234, you can just send weather and you'll get the information based on your default location.

Hey! Every few thumb strokes saves helps!

Spare a dime?

I've added a new source of pennies: Amazon Affiliates. If you're planning on buying something on Amazon, click through this link and you'll be donating a few pennies (maybe a dime if I'm lucky) toward my children's college fund!

Ticketed!

The schools in our area had their parking lots repaved over the summer. As part of this effort, the traffic flow was modified to allow each school to have a drop off loop to keep the "heavier" traffic out of the main path where the kids are congregating. Just like the first rain, or snow of the season, people seem to forget how to drive when things like this change. In short, they're being idiots!

People are driving up over curbs, parking in spots marked for no parking, standing in no standing zones, blocking buses, etc. I even gave a few seconds thought to spending a vacation morning down there just being a jerk and confront these people. I even thought about trying to be deputized so I could issue tickets! They were driving me nuts!

I went looking for a fake traffic ticket on the Net that I could modify and leave on these people's cars... Then I came to my senses and decided that I was just being too obsessed.

But, had I continued... What should I have put on the ticket? What kind of idiotic violations should be called out?

• Distracted Driving (includes cell phone use, makeup application, etc)


• Illegal Parking (includes parking in a Handicapped-labeled parking space without an hang tag or plate, parking across a parking line taking up two
  spaces, etc)


• Aggressive driving (includes speeding, changing lanes without using a blinker, etc)


• Running a red light (regardless of whether there is crossing traffic) I actually sat and watched 7 red light cycles on my road the other day. During that time there were 10 people that ran the red. We've got cops sitting watch now and picking them off more frequently, but it's still a really bad intersection.

What else? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Wanted: Editor

I was reading one of my posts last night to my mom who hadn't had a chance to catch up on-line. That's when it hit me. I need an Editor.

As I was reading verbatim from my blog to her over the phone, I was stumbling in places. I had missed a word, or found a wrong word, or something else that threw me off. I do try to spell check my posts before posting, and even after posting, I occasionally will break the rules of blogging and go back and edit an obvious typo. In this case, most of the issues were where I used the wrong word, but a correctly spelled one. I had typed weather, instead of whether for instance. I'm usually pretty good about using the right word, but I was either typing too fast, or tried to correct a miss-spelling and chose the wrong replacement.

I've seen plenty of typos that lead to some really funny quotes. Spell checking is not enough as evidenced by:

Spelling Poem
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Now, I can't pay for a professional editor (though feel free to chime in if you find something wrong. I play that game when I'm reading books, etc. -- looking for wrong, missing words or miss-spellings), you'd expect that a major company like Disney could.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my kids were really liking the Hannah Montana / Mylie Cyrus CD. The CD, when inserted into the computer, would take you to a site where you could download the lyrics. I played along. Keep in mind that this was the official site linked to by a CD that has sold hundreds of thousands copies... I downloaded the lyrics and took them in the car for the next sing-along journey.

After the kids had used them a few times, I tried to follow along (just for curiosity's sake). I was shocked that the words didn't match the songs. Some times they were just missing a word. Other times, it was obviously a different word being sung than the one printed. Why didn't anyone catch this?! It made me mad.

I downloaded the lyrics again and pasted them into Word, turned on Track Changes, and listed to each and every song, changing the lyrics as needed. When I was done I was staring at several pages of redlining and strike-throughs. I finally just accepted the fact and moved on (yeah right, I still have a chip on my shoulder), accepted all revisions and printed a clean copy for the car...

Why don't they just tell us with words?

My son and I occasionally get into conversations that I have no idea where they start from. Tonight, on the way home from shopping, out of the blue he asked me which country was the most famous. I stumbled for a few seconds and then asked him what he meant by famous to clarify his intentions. He said the country that everyone likes, and is known by people all over the world. I talked about how there are a number of countries that a lot of people know about, the United Stated, being one of them. Then I added, "but there are a lot of people around the world that don't like us."

"Why not, Daddy?"

"Well, because of things that we do around the world, like the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places over seas."

"We're still fighting over there?"

"Yes, there are still men and women over there."

"Why are they still over there?"

"Good question. The President would say that it's to protect us from terrorists that want to come over to America and hurt people over here, like they did with the Twin Towers."

"What Twin Towers?"

This is when I realized that 6 years after the attack, we'd done apparently pretty darn good job of sheltering at least him from the events of that day. It sounded like he was ready to hear a little bit about it anyway. I continued, "The ones in New York that they flew the planes into and made fall."

"Why did they do that?" He's a very inquisitive little boy, I thought. If only he realized how insightful (I don't think that's the word I want) he was.

"Well," I said. "I'm not really sure, but most people say it's because they don't like us."

"Why don't they just tell us with words instead of crashing planes?"

"Another good question," I answered...

Then we pulled into the driveway. "I ask a lot of questions, don't I," he said.

"Yes you do. And that's a good thing."

I Remember...

DON'T Do the Limbo

On the way home this evening I heard a story on NPR about a group of people wanting to give schools credit for "trying" as it relates to the No Child Left Behind laws. I admit that I'm not educated enough on the law to debate it's merits, though I do feel like in a lot of cases we are failing our students and our nation when it comes to education.

Listening to the story got me thinking about something more general though -- lowering the bar. In this case, what I heard, was "you weren't able to make the grades that we set, and you complained loud enough, so we'll lower the bar and give you credit just for trying. Our goals were legitimate and reasonable, but that's ok, they don't really matter."

I've been in that situation a number of times before. Well intentioned, well thought out goals and measures are set in place for people to meet. Then someone falls short of those goals, usually for lack of trying, and so they come up with all sorts of excuses and the powers that be cave and allow them to pass. Whether in a corporate team, the executive ranks, our education system, or anywhere else. This is not the way to establish standards of excellence and build a better nation. All it does is reinforce that those that don't eventually get the same rewards as those that do. Then, those that do, figure out that there is no reward for doing anything and join the ranks of those that don't.

If you're going to set performance goals, make sure that they're realistic, obtainable, but challenging. then enable and expect people to meet them. If they fail, don't reward them (or dole out appropriate punishment if warranted), but don't cave. Don't reward the don'ts. Do reward those that rise to the challenge and accomplish the goals. If you find that you've not done enough of your own homework ahead of setting the goals and measurements and that the goals are not reasonably obtainable, or are restrained though outside forces outside of your control, don't reward. Finish the timetable set for the goals and reevaluate. Or add more, less ambitious goals that more people/teams can meet. But then make sure to reward based on those new goals. If the new goals aren't met, don't lower the bar.

Challenge teams to find creative, out-of-the-box ways to meet the measures even if they don't think that they can. You may be surprised with what they come up with, and the achievements you see even if they don't make the goals. Reward their effort with praise (don't forget that part), but if they don't make the cut, don't give them the reward.

Of course you need to tread a fine line here. They need to trust that the goals are achievable, or you risk alienating them from the start and then they don't even try to reach the goals. I've been in that boat too. You need to have the group's trust. Be open to honest debate about the value of the goals and their reachability before instituting them. But, once agreed to, keep them in place. You'll be surprised what you get rewarded with.

Looks can be deceiving

My daughter asked me the day how old you have to be to say someone's cute. I told her that she can say someone's cute anytime she wants. You don't have to be a certain age. Then she asked me how old she had to be to kiss a boy. I told her 25. "Aw, Dad" she said with a "I know you're kidding" smile. "OK, 18 if you behave" I said."

Pressed further, she said she had seen a boy on the bus the first day of school that she thought was cute, and seemed nice. She didn't know his name. I told her that she should say hi and see if he really was nice. That was last week.

Today she informed me that she had talked to him and found out his name, though she couldn't recall it on the spot. Something else she learned... He's in 7th grade -- my daughter is in 4th!

She rides two buses to and from school. The first bus also takes middle school kids and then she transfers to another bus that goes just to her school. If the seventh grader was nice enough to indulge a fourth grader, he can't be that bad... Can he?

Oh, I'm not ready for this. Isn't there something I can take to just sleep through the next 10 years? My daughter is a very outgoing, friendly, blue-eyed-blond cutie. My wife and I used to call her "our little abduction risk" jokingly. It's not so funny anymore.

A GeoGreeting Card

You can find a lot of strange stuff if you look from space. This has become a pastime for a whole industry since Google added satellite imagery to our desktops and browsers. GeoGreeting has turned (mostly) building shapes into a fun little mashable greeting card.

See this greeting card for an example.

Blind faith

In every situation, in every field, there are people that are considered, rightly, or wrongly to be experts in their field. Some are actually experts, others aren't. Some are really smart at some things and not so smart at others. Regardless of what they are talking about, people who are perceived to be really smart, are often taken at their word. They are believed when maybe they have no clue at all. Or maybe they are just good at crafting something that sounds good enough to avoid the shadow of doubt.

But be forewarned. No one is an expert at everything. You must not fall into the trap of believing everything that someone says just because they sound smart, or have even been proven to be smart at something in the past. Check their comments/advice with what you know. Listen to everything with a healthy dose of skepticism.

At a meeting several years ago, a co-worker of mine made a comment during an introduction of someone else that exemplifies this. He was saying that this upcoming speaker was so smart, and such an influence on him that he had even changed the way he did his dishes because of what this man had to say. (This was not a dishwasher's convention, nor a meeting about any other domestic duties.) He went on to say that, for efficiency's sake, he placed all the spoons in one slot in the rack in the dishwasher, and all knives in another, etc. The premise was that, by spending a couple of seconds doing that chore when he loaded the dishwasher, he would save the sorting time later, when it came time to put the dishes away. He could simply grab the handful of spoons and put them in the drawer, then grab the forks, etc. This certainly was a practice that everyone should emulate because of it's obvious efficiency. The rest of the overworked audience was elated that now they would be gaining another 3 seconds in their daily routine that could be used else wise for more productive endeavors. I was less so.

First, let me say that I have no empirical evidence as to whether this practice would work or not, but two things bothered me about this practice. First was that everyone simply blindly believed it. Second, my experience has shown me that if you do that, the spoons end up sticking together and not getting clean, thus adding more time as now I've wasted the time attempting to clean them one time and needing to put them back through a second time to accomplish what I tried to do the first time!

I'm not saying that the speaker was wrong, or that his way doesn't work for him, or that it won't work for others, but don't just accept things without thinking about them. Sometimes we lose all sense of reality when in the face of an "expert."

P.S. Keep this in mind when you cast your vote next year.

Life lessons from Hannah Montana

I know, I know. Not the type of person you'd expect to learn life lessons from, but certainly better than Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or any of their ilk. As a program on the Disney Channel aimed primarily at your impressionable teenage girls, the show does a great job of trying to reverse, or at least balance out, some of the nasty images that teens are exposed to from the mass media. In songs like Nobody's Perfect, Make Some Noise, Old Blue Jeans, Life's What You Make Of It, and True Friend, pre-teenage and teenage girls (and anyone else who listens) can learn how important it is to be true to yourself, to repel the peer pressure, to stand up for what you believe in, that you can make a difference in the world, to cherish your friends, and to accept mistakes, learn from them and move on. These are the tings I want to instill in my kids. I love that my daughter, and even my youngest son, not yet 4, knows the lyrics to these songs and can sing along in the car. And, so far at least, the actors in the show seem to be as clean as the characters they portray.

The mass media is all about sensationalizing failures and either making fun of people who make mistakes, or promoting ridiculously unhealthy habits and body styles. Disney is still known as a family-friendly station (radio, TV, movies, music, electronics, communications, and entertainment in general) and I hope it stays that way. As they continue their migration from just trying to entertain the very young to older and older teens, I hope that their clean public image and reputation continues. Their wildly popular, and very chaste, High School Musical series is proof that, while sex does sell, you can still succeed by limiting those sales to those old enough to understand.

Another, earlier song called Who Said, talks about not letting other people dictate who or what you can be as a person. Another very important lesson, not only for our nation's youth, but for us "older generations" as well. We're not done living yet.

Rock on Disney!

SHOCKER!

When we were exiting the Corbin concert last week, the attendants were passing out free tickets to the Detroit Shock WNBA playoff game this weekend. We were pretty tired after the concert and were planning on taking the weekend to recuperate with some much needed sleep... But... Because we had so much fun at the last game we went to , we decided to go again.

We had something like 11 tickets between my wife and I so we decided to invite my mom, who had gone with us to the last game, and one of my wife's friends and her daughter and daughter's friend.

My wife went to cash in our vouchers for real tickets and when she returned, she was carrying BOX SEAT TICKETS -- on the FLOOR. Ok, we're not a very sportsy family, but this was gonna be COOL! :-) Apparently the box had been reserved for a different group that had cancelled and the ticket agent just gave them to us! Snooze you lose!

The kids got thunder sticks (inflatable tubes that you smack together to make noise). The box had two couches and carpet. We were 4 steps up from the floor and about 30 feet back from the boards. A little closer than the nose-bleed section we were at the first game.

This was a televised game on ESPN and my daughter got on the center scoreboard camera twice (and thus, likely televised!) dancing and smiling away. She was also flirting with the DJ Announcer who was right beside us. At the end, she actually went over to get his autograph and he gave her his arm sweat band too. Not quire Corbin Bleu, but she was very excited.

The Shock won 77 to 63 against Indiana after leading by about 20 points the whole game. Not quite the nail biter the last game was, but very fun nonetheless.

Not a bad afternoon for just $10 in parking!

Seeing Stars

I blogged a while ago about the tickets that my daughter won for the Corbin Bleu concert from Radio Disney. Well Thursday night was the concert. She was out her mind with anticipation. She was screaming into her hand, jumping up and down and in general, freaking out like a star-struck teenager (she's not quite there, yet). And Corbin wasn't even on stage yet! My wife had playfully reminded her as we were walking into the theater that she was breathing the same air as Corbin and that just took her frenzy to a whole other level.

At one point, I asked her why she was so excited. She said that this was the first time that she was going to be able to see real stars in person. I gently cradled her head and pointed it toward the sky and said, "every night dear..." She just laughed and uttered some "Dad, you're so weird" quote that I guess I should start getting used to.

Also at the concert was the 12-year-old winner of the first season of America's Got Talent, and a singer from some Nickelodeon show we didn't know (he reminded me of the Monkeys) and then the concert was capped by Aly and AJ, another Disney pair.

We all had a lot of fun!