Many times we merely drudge through our day only to be awakened by a random thought or insight. Below, you will find my thoughts and insights.

The content will be random (because my brain rarely stays on topic), but will mainly pertain to Spiritual Issues, Leadership, or Marketing.

Share your comments. Share the blog with your friends. Share your random thoughts and insights as well in the comments section.

New York Times Charges Web Readers

It’s been a long time coming ladies and gentlemen.  The newsprint companies are beginning to shift from squirming from thethought of changing with technology to floundering as they suffocate from the lack of water… err, I mean, revenue.

If the sleek and slim, narrower new look of your favorite newspaper has made you smile at the thought of them growing an environmental conscience, I’ll burst your bubble now.  Newspaper companies aren’t going green.  They’re going BROKE.  Very few people realized the push late last summer and fall for a Washington bailout of newspaper companies.  Yep, they too have jumped on the bandwagon.  Check out Reuters.com and TheHill.com for more info on that.  This whole, “newspapers are a staple of American society” argument is crap.  Timely and accurate news reporting is a staple of American society.  Not the fact that it’s printed on cheap paper with ink that gets all over your dress shirt.  Heck, I’m glad people realized that timely and affordable transportation was more important than keeping all of the buggie manufacturers from changing their business, or we’d still be scheduling a stage coach instead of hailing a cab.

Though some newsprint companies such as the Houston Chronicle have dared to dabble in the world of Internet marketing in order to evolve with the people that feed them, most have stood firm.  Years of being admired and controlling entities in their communities have emboldened many newsprint organizations with the foolishness to forget that though they may influence local perception for a while, ultimately, the people they serve will decide where they will turn for information.  Slow to grow is now causing many of the once prestigious companies to grasp at any hope of revenue.

In an effort to continue the old world way of requiring the reader pay to hear the news, the New York Times announced yesterday a plan for charging frequent readers of their website.  I can’t wait to pay a fee to surf through the NYT site rather than simply conducting a search on Google!  Whatever.  Hey NYT, how about this novel idea, instead of charging me to read your crap, write something that will cause me to come back tomorrow along with all of my friends that I forwarded your link to, give away some papers or market yourselves on the web in such a way to build traffic to your site (free to the user traffic).  Then, when enough people are coming to your site on a regular basis, charge advertisers for the opportunity to appear in front of your audience.  I know, I know… it sounds weird but believe it or not, that’s how thousands of people across America do to make their living every day.  You might have one problem though.  The web produces completely transparent and track-able results for advertisers, so, you’d have to deliver something worth while if you took that approach.  Since you’re highly unlikely to produce a product that will cause a substantial gain in your site’s usage, I’d suggest you go ahead and gouge the few loyal readers you have left until you drive all of them off and ask for more government money or go away.

Oh, and about that going green thing.  So much for Obama pushing for “green” companies.  What industry is more damaging to our environment than the one that makes its profit by distributing more heavy stacks of paper that need be wrapped in plastic and flown or trucked to every corner f the country using trees, ink, petroleum products for plastics, diesel & jet fuels.  All so that the majority of their product can end up back in a landfill without even being read.  And don’t tell me it’s being read.  If it were, the companies doing this, wouldn’t be going broke.

No Excuses… Inspiring

I had a chance to talk to a group of high school students a couple of months ago and one of the things we discussed was how important it is to take responsibility for yourself and not to make excuses.  Most of us have some trial or another in our lives but those who become successful and make an impact on their lives, their communities and others around them, are the ones who don’t make excuses.

Thanks to my friend Vince Parker for turning me to this ESPN video that I just had to share with you too.  Here’s two high school seniors who’ve refused to make excuses and who have and will continue to inspire and impact everyone God places in their path.

Pants On The Ground

Thanks to American Idol for bringing this guy to national television.  I hope I’m as cool, energetic, and flexible as this guy when I get to be his age.

He’s here to tell the younger generation that they look like a fool with thier pants on the ground.  I’ll be downloading this from iTunes as soon as I can find it.

Pepsi Pulls SuperBowl Ad

Frito Lays, parent company of soft drink giant, Pepsi announced it will pull 2010 SuperBowl Ads after a 23 year run in order to do what?  Focus on web based marketing.  That’s right.  You always wanted to market your business where all the big boys were, well now you can.

Great thing is, that unlike a SuperBowl Ad, web marketing is completely scalable to your target market, budget, and geographic target.  Plus, chances are, your company can maneuver positioning easier than the global giants giving the little guys the advantage.

You can check out more about it here:  http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4751415

Blending In is Bad Advice

My Step Father was a pretty good guy.  He was a much older gentleman (old enough to be my grandfather) who fought in the second World War.  After the war, he was stationed in the last US Horse Calvary unit, which patrolled the US / Mexico border.  My mother met him when I was in junior high school and he was a breath of fresh air who shared tons of advice with me during my teenage years before passing away when I was 22.

He was a really sweet guy with a big heart but would love to stir things up by saying stuff that would shock people or catch them off guard, coming across as the crotchety old man or a little bit loony.  Like the time my brother was visiting during the holiday season with his 3 sons who were wrestling around on the floor and the youngest, named Keith was struggling to participate while holding onto a handful of candy.  When Dad convinced him that he could trust Poppy to hold his candy while he played.  While Keith was busy being pinned on the ground by his brothers, Poppy ate all of the candy.  Just to see the 3 year old’s reaction.  We would sometimes go to the mall with my mother and sit on a bench cracking jokes as we did some people watching.

Some of the advice he gave me sank in right away, some took years before I would look back and understand with clarity.  Some of the advice were words to live by but unfortunately there were times that as I look back, I see that he was way off base.  Today, I’ll share with you one of those misses but will share some of his wisdom in later posts.

When I was a junior in high school, I joined the US Army Reserves and left to spend the summer between my junior and senior high school years in basic training.  Before I left, Poppy gave me some advice.

He reminded me that when I was in basic training, the best thing to do was blend in with the crowd.  “Don’t lag behind. Don’t blaze ahead and draw attention to yourself.  If so, that will make the next 8 weeks the most miserable you can imagine, he said.  Just blend in and get through it.

Wow was he way off.  Unfortunately, this was advice I took at the time and for the next several years.  Blending in and settling for mediocrity.  I never was the bottom feeder but many times, I held back the reigns and was afraid to stand out.  Though most of us haven’t been actually given this advice by their father, many people unconsciously settle for mediocrity every day because their scarred of standing out and being exceptional.

Being exceptional may be painful, hard, tiring, sometimes frustrating.  But then again, so is parenting.  Or most anything worth while.  Don’t settle for blending in.  What do you have that’s different?  Whether it’s your looks, knowledge, quirky talent, or something others would consider a struggle.  Don’t smother it in order to blend in.  Exploit it and stand out from the crowd.  Use it as your advantage.

10 Reasons to Try Something New Now

  1. Start-Up costs are low and negotiable.
  2. Low overhead  (technology has made the in-home office acceptable and efficient).
  3. Potential clients are seeking opportunites.
  4. Your audience is looking for something new and fresh.
  5. Chances are that your current situation is volatile anyway.
  6. You can be the hero when you’re the first moving forward.
  7. The best customers will be the first ones captured.
  8. The leftover customers are the biggest pain.
  9. Your competition is waiting.
  10. Next year, month, week, or tomorrow may be too late.

Don’t Miss This Bus

So a new year has begun and most people have made their resolutions (and many of them have already been broken). So, is yours still going strong. I have another challenge for you.

I happen to have couple of friends who’re currently wrestling over the decision of leaping from the assurance of a bi-weekly paycheck that a corporate job brings and venturing on to try their hand on their own. Though they know they have much needed products and services to offer and can offer them with a far higher level of service than their competitors. They’re just scared. The thing is, it’s not just these individuals that are battling this. On what seems like a daily basis, I meet business owners and decision makers that know what steps they need to take in order to bring their company to the next level but want to “feel out” the market (aka until it’s too late and be the last to join in) before making a move.

Don’t wait. It’s easy to use things like a recovering economy as an excuse to sit back and wait. Waiting and scoping things out may seem safe, but, the safest thing is to take action. The most risky thing to do now is to wait on the competition to get a head start on you.  This economy is a ticket on the bus ride of opportunity.  If your competition is already in the game… you’ve missed the bus.

Crying Blizzard… err, Wolf

I got upset at the local weather coverage during a snow storm last week. The local weather forecasters had been warning the locals of a coming snowstorm, and when it came, people were right in the middle of their holiday travels.  As car after car, was left stranded in the road that the 3ft snow drifts that 50mph winds blew up, I heard news personalities one after another say something like “I don’t understand why people were out when this came through.  We’ve been warning that this storm was coming, all week”.  What!?  How dare you!?

Here’s some background on this:

Here in Oklahoma, we are either blessed or cursed (depending on how you look at it) with a climate that calls temperature, wind and precipitation change in the blink of an eye.  Because of the crazy weather pattens in the state, many of the nations top meteorologists seem to be pulled to the area like bugs to a porch light in the summertime.  This also causes extreme competition among the local news stations in covering the “big story” which is quite often, predicting the next huge shift in temperature.

Every winter, we hear of the “winter storm of the year” only to receive a light dusting of powder which melts upon touching the warm brown grass.  Later in the winter we’ll usually get a good icing or two but just enough to make driving on the nearest expressway seem like navigating an obstacle course with a greased shoes.  Year after year, time after time, we’re warned of the coming winter wonder land and parents empty the local hardware store of every sled, slide or anything that looks like it has a chance of gliding on powder. Then, they are usually left trying to empty their refrigerator ice maker for enough frozen stuff to make a respectable snowman and pulling each other on the sled over the dead grass and mud.

So, time after time.  Year after year. These talking heads get everyone fired up and empty the store shelves of groceries for nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Sure, they predict their share of “big storms” but it’s because they say everything is going to be a big storm.  Then they act as if the public is incompetent for gambling against odds worse than winning the next power ball lottery.  Hey weatherman!… Ever hear of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?  When you cry “storm” only as a false alarm, 20 times per year, I have a little bit of a hesitation when you say once again that we’ll have a large accumulation of snowfall.

It’s fine if you get then wrong.  Even if you’re wrong more times than not.  But realize that your turning every cool breeze into an award winning story caused many people to doubt you and be left on the side of the road in the cold.  And, don’t blame them for doubting you.

Feeding Kids During School Break

Making a difference is something we can all do.  Yesterday, a small group of people made a difference in the lives of 5 families with young kids who struggle to eat during times that school is not in session.

After contacting a local elementary school and speaking to their school counselor, it was apparent that there was a great burden on the hearts of some of the teachers for the children in their classes.  You see, Edmond OK is thought of by many to be a relatively wealthy area and thus, people send any assistance they may give, to other areas and ignore the struggling individuals in their own back yards.

I sent a brief email out to about 50 people a few days ago about an idea I had.  Maybe, we could raise enough money to feed 3 families through the Christmas holiday school break.  Kids who rely on school lunch programs, wouldn’t need to worry about how their tummies would be filled while others were attacking piles of gifts like lions on a fresh kill.  Boy did the recipients of the email respond!  In a matter of hours, $350 was raised to provide food for the kids in need.  This will make sure they have some basics to provide nutrition for the two and a half weeks that school will break.  Though many are from great families that are falling on a rough time, some of these kids may fend for themselves, so, easy to prepare and providing nourishment was the focus.

Oatmeal, peanut butter, canned vegetables, bread, cereal bars, cereal, apples, oranges, mac & cheese, pancake mix and much more was provided to 5; yes 5 families very quickly.  The picture below shows the items in the identical packages that were given to the families of these children.  Great news too.  the total spent was around $250, so, that means we have a head start on the next long weekend or school break.

After doing this once, we now know that about $50 will provide one of these packages for one family.  If you’d like to take part, please contact me through the email on this site.  Money isn’t the only function here.  There are many ways to help.  We hope to help many more families for spring break and could use some help with everything from shopping, to packaging and delivery.

PIC-0047

Search Engine Statistics

Who gets the bulk of searches?  See for yourself.  Nobody has been able to gain ground on Google in the last couple of years and I doubt they will anytime soon.  Looks like Yahoo! lost a little ground to Bing but that won’t last long as people are finding out fast that Bing sucks.

comScore Core Search Report
June 2009 vs. May 2009
Total – U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity Share of Searches (%)
May-09 Jun-09 Point Change
Jun-09 vs. May-09
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google Sites 65.0% 65.0% 0.0
Yahoo! Sites 20.1% 19.6% -0.5
Microsoft Sites 8.0% 8.4% 0.4
Ask Network 3.9% 3.9% 0.0
AOL LLC 3.1% 3.1% 0.0

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