Net Cotton Content

Fun at Work

I know that most people in this world don't like their lives.

A big problem: they don't like their work. Maybe they don't have any work to do.

They don't get a sense of flow, where their skills and challenges are balanced and ever increasing.

How sad.

I've always liked my work.
I'm lucky that way.

I recognize it's the luck of being born into prosperity, health, freedom, opportunity, education, love and a (usually) positive mental outlook.

Along the way some pretty mundane work has been fun:

When I was painting an endless picket fence on a farm with Don and Duncan, it was fun because we talked and talked (and painted and painted).

When I was an underage beer jockey at a beer drive-thru, it was fun because I broke all records for selling cheap Lambrusco wine. I simply leaned into car windows and asked, "You ever been to Italy? No? Well, here, for only two bucks and the effort it takes to unscrew this cap, you can be in Italy." (Moved a lot of wine. Took a lot of folks to Italy.)

When I drove a cab for Yellow Cab, it was fun. I was offered sex for payment (declined) and other lessons on life from the stream of fares in the back seat.

When I was a newspaper carrier, it was fun. I thought my job was to tell people the news, not just drop it on their doorstep. So afternoon delivery took a little longer than it should. But, in recent years, while taking our children trick-or-treating in our same neighborhood, some of the older residents recognized me and said, "You were the best paperboy we ever had." (No tips.)

And, of course, teaching — and working at Young Isaac — has been fun because of the people I get to work with. And the creative arguments we get to have.

But, shoot.
This SpeakerSite experience is like nothing before.

I am so jazzed about helping others self-actualize. Really, people get to validate their insights and share their experiences.

Isn't that a basic human need of the highest order? Public speaking is living large.

To prove the fun I'm having, here's a video I made in about 60 seconds yesterday. It was in the joyful and creative rush of collaboration with Rob Emrich, the brainfather of SpeakerSite.

When I am really in flow, one "take" is all I need to express my joy.

If you want to see SpeakerSite, just click here on public speaking.

My New Hero

OMG.

Misspent youth can be heroic.

What creativity.

You Are So Full Of Speech

Years ago, if you found yourself out of work, you told your friends, "I'm a consultant." You ordered business cards. A hundred of them.

"Consultant" sounded so expert, so rather-rather, so high-paying and freedom-granting.

But you were a consultant with no consultees. "Big hat, no cattle," as they whisper in Texas when you walk into the bar with your consultant business cards.

After what seemed like a long time — glory hallaluhah! —  a few clients actually hired you to consult.

"Hey!" you exclaimed silently. "My business cards are accurate."

Many Months Pass
Then, over time, you got a new job. A real job. The kind with a bi-weekly paycheck.

How wonderful. If your kids are like mine — addicted to food — then getting that job was critical. (When those kids go into withdrawal, it's ugly.)

But, wait: you also had a consulting client or two. So you became a work-a-day something-or-other and a moonlighting consultant. Why not have a couple jobs?

I have a friend — must remain nameless — who, at his peak, had three full-time salaries being paid him. He was a freelance consultant with three different business (all who knew what was going on). He could get it all done, the smart and lucky chap.

Now We Are Becoming A Nation Of Speakers.
It's like consulting, but it's speaking. Which is a lot easier for some. (And a fear worse than death for most.)

What began as something we do for free, to promote our businesses, started to create ancillary income.

Sometimes, after a speech, you received embossed coasters "as a token of our appreciation."

Sometimes an honorarium. A check you could donate to a favorite charity or favorite gas station.

Sometimes that check looked like real money. ("For speaking?" you thought. "Whoa.")

More than consulting, however, speakers started to think, "I like this." Deep down.

Now, everyone is starting to think, "Hey, I'm a speaker."

Speaking Is Self-Actualization
As Rob Emrich (the guy who thought up SpeakerSite) says, "There is something deep within all of us that drives us to demonstrate our expertise, to validate our experiences. Public speaking is a way to do that."

I wonder if Abraham Maslow was a good speaker?

Everyone's Doin' It
Now, The New York Times reports on how public speaking is yet another industry facing a slump. But in "Speech! Speech! But Could You Please Cut The Price?" reporter Motoko Rich focuses on the high-profile  best-selling authors who speak. (Thanks to Parker for sending me that article.)

I think that big-time speaking is a big-time thing. But little-time speaking — you- and me-time speaking — is another thing altogether.

A fellow called me this past summer. Dave had heard me speak about creativity and he wanted to ask a few questions. Over tea at my home, he mentioned, "I am just burning to talk about why people shouldn't use cell phones while driving. I've researched it and I'd like to educate people."

Dave's passionate and ready to speak. I know there's a ready audience for him somewhere. They just have to find each other.

Then, on the way out the door, Dave asked if he could repay my kindness. "Shucks," I said. "Talking with you is its own reward." (Actually, I don't think I said "Shucks.") "But, what do you have in mind?" I asked, hoping not to receive any more engraved coasters.

"Well, perhaps I could teach your son how to throw a curve ball," Dave said. "When I was in high school, I threw two no-hitters. I can teach most anyone to throw a curve ball with three lessons in one 45-minute session."

Dave is a message looking for an audience.
And, I think, Dave is not unique. Far from it. I think there are hundreds of thousands of us who want to teach what we know, share what we think, inspire with what we believe.

That's why I joined Rob to work on SpeakerSite, our experiment in the democratization of public speaking. To return to microphone to you and me. For more on "Why SpeakerSite?" click here.

Of course, you are warmly welcome to join SpeakerSite, too. Speak up!

Holidays are great downtime for loving your family — and, if you can get away from that ever-lovin' family for even a moment, making a new career move.

The Kiva/Net Cotton Content Portfolio

A week or so ago, I challenged the readers of Net Cotton Content to send money for us to spend on Kiva.com, a global charitable microlending website.

Thanks to loyal and generous readers John, Rachel, Emily, Abbie, and Michelle (and your humble writer for rounding up and paying the PayPal transaction fees), we have loaned $150 — $50 each — to the following entrepreneurs.

Guinea Pigs in Peru!
Our 12-year-old son helped pick this worthy entrepreneur...

Concepción is a 64-year-old married father of four children, who no longer live with him. Only he and his wife live at home.

Ever since he was young, he has worked in agriculture, growing hectare upon hectare of potatoes. However, ever since he noticed that his daughter was prosperous in raising guinea pigs, he decided to enter this field. His daughter then gave him some of her guinea pigs, and he enthusiastically built cages for them.

Now that his neighbors know that he is raising guinea pigs, they order some from him. When his daughter travels, he takes advantage of it, sending her however many guinea pigs she can sell. He also helps his daughter to cultivate her farm.

Growing crops is difficult, which is why he only does it for personal consumption. Raising guinea pigs, on the other hand, is more lucrative. This is his second loan with Microfinanzas PRISMA [the local Kiva partner]. He has made his payments punctually.

With this loan, he will purchase barley for planting, which serves as food for the rodents. He will also purchase fertilizer for his potato farm with the other part of the loan.

Translated from Spanish by Elizabeth Casian, Kiva Volunteer

Concepción has requested total funding of $650. With our $50, he is within $100 of the total amount requested.

Strawberries in Palestine!
Alisa helped select this worthy entrepreneur...

Suzan Hamoudeh is 26 years old, married, and has four young children, all under eight years of age. Suzan and her husband live in a small hut with their children, her mother-in-law and father-in-law, and her husband's two young brothers who are still in school. 

The main source of income for the entire family is a small piece of land on which Suzan grows strawberries. Suzan’s husband works as a messenger in a mail office, but his income is not enough to feed and cloth the entire family.

Suzan is requesting a loan of $1,000 to purchase additional strawberry seedlings in order to expand her farm and thus increase the income she contributes to support her family. She says thank you to all Kiva lenders for their financial support.

Suzan is within $25 of her total funding request.

A Butcher in Azerbaijan!
As a recovering vegetarian, I rather like this fellow.

Djahid Suleymanov (his father is pictured) is married and has 3 children. He is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) from the Armenian-occupied territory of Azerbaijan's Fuzuli town and lives in the Fuzuli region's Bala Bahmanli village. He was born in 1958.

Djahid and his father have run the butcher business for 5 years. Now they need a loan of 800 AZN to buy meat to improve their business.

Djahid needed $1,000 and our $50 completed his request. He is now fully funded. Off to the beef market!

Djahid's repayment schedule is 12 monthly payments, starting with $83.34 due January 15, 2009.

I'll keep you posted on what I hear from our micro entrepreneurs.

So, here's the first update
While I was typing this post, other donors made separate gifts. Now Suzan is also fully funded.

Please remember: these are real people, living valid lives, in color.

Happy yet?

Thanks to Stephanie for sending this item from The New York Times.

It describes the behavior of happy people. Of course, they don't watch as much much television as less happy people.

You expect that sort of message from me by now. But, here: now you can read it in the Times, "What Happy People Don't Do," By Roni Caryn Rabin.

Cause and effect are uncertain.
Therefore, possibly, the cause is television and the effect, unhappiness.

So what are you going to do?

Isn't it worth a week without "the wretched stone"?

I am your strange taskmaster

Seems like I keep asking you to do things.

What am I? Your significant other?

You're thinking: "Artie, if I wanted a(nother) spouse, I'd go get some new stink, list myself on match.com — where their tagline says "It's okay to look"™ —  and shake my cheeks in the saloons."

(Note to match.com: change tagline to "Better than shaking your cheeks in saloons."™)

I guess I just think more of you than that.
So here's a short run down of today's To Do list, which you can snort-ignore-click away:

1. Visit SpeakerSite and sign up. An online social network, SpeakerSite is a new community of speakers. Do you have a passion or a purpose that you want to share? Want to do a little (more) pubic speaking? Complete a free profile, so you can offer your message to the world. I will work to make it valuable for you.

(It's still in beta. Feel free to suggest how to improve it. I'm all ears and fingers, which means, poetically, that I will listen and type. And, with "listen," we still find ourselves in the realm of metaphor. Dang. For sticklers: I will read and type.)

2. Dig for dough in the couch cushions and send it to the Send Money/Feed A Blogger tip jar on the left sidebar, before end of day Saturday. All monies collected by the end of the week (5:11 p.m., Saturday) will be used to fund micro entrepreneurs on kiva.com. And I will report on their progress over time.

So far, donations range from $3.75 to $100. To be candid: one of each. So, actually, it's not much of a "range," is it? Throw anything from $2 up and we'll have a real range.

Together, we are Net Cotton Content.
Whatever that means.

Onweird.™

When MBAs Mate

Listen.

We met in an MBA program.

Was it love at first sight?
Yeah, yeah. Sure. Sure, it was. Whatever.

We were two MBA candidates. What do you think?

I'll tell you this. It was no acquisition. It was a merger of equals.

And more than a pooling of assets. We combined balance sheets.

That's true love, MBA style.

So What?
Here's what: now I teach business students.

But I don't want the students to apply their lessons only in business.

Of course, the skills developed in B-school are useful in B. That's the whole idea.

But the skills developed in B-school are also useful in M. As in Marriage.

Where is this going?
Surely, we — as the faculty of the next generation — can do more than stand by while our students learn how to spend 14 hours of day at work, and 4 minutes a day (if that) at work on their marriages.

Don't we want them to get rich — not lose half their assets in one day in divorce court — and then leave their fortunes to their alma mater?

Is there truly nothing we can teach them?

So I want to teach a course called...

Avoiding Asset Split: A Spousal Recruitment and Retention Program (for MBAs in Heat)
On Saturday evening, I presented this idea in the keynote speech at the closing dinner of the Nationwide Insurance/OSU BizQuiz, a national gathering of 200 or so of the top business school undergraduates at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

Want to hear it? Click here to download the audio file.

Enjoy, you lovebirds. And may you multiply, compounded annually.

Understanding the World's Complexity

Thanks to John Huston for bringing this to my attention. You've never enjoyed a presentation on statistics like this.

I've always thought that, here in the United States, we live in the "developed, industrialized world." Same with much of Western Europe, parts of Asia and some other lucky places.

And I've always thought that there are other places that aren't so lucky. They are the "developing world," the place we're not supposed to call "the third world."

(If you want to make a difference with under-resourced micro-entrepreneurs, there are still five days left in the Net Cotton Content/Kiva Challenge.)

This video, featuring Hans Rosling at TED, teaches otherwise — and does so with an extraordinary lesson on statistics.

Don't worry that you haven't seen the earlier presentation he gave (and mentions).

Oh, and this is even better: click here for the hi-res version. (It's very visual.)

Start-Up

Want to start the new year with a business plan in your hand?

Here's a way.

Next month, I'm teaching in Otterbein College's MBA program: five full-day sessions on entrepreneurship.

The class features a parade of entrepreneurs who will drop in, describe their companies and — this is the best part — describe a challenge each has faced. Plus a banker will come by to talk about what funders seek in entrepreneurial businesses.

During four days in December, we will learn by debating the real-life challenges of real-life entrepreneurs. And everyone will work on a business plan to present at the last class in January. (For those who don't have a business idea, my friend Ryan Vesler will be there the entire time with his Homage Clothing. If you want, you can write a business plan for Homage.)

Here's a schedule of the activities and readings. It's still a working draft.

Join The Fun
You don't have to be a full-time Otterbein student. But you do have to be approved by the administration. To enroll in the class, click here.

Here's the official news release from Otterbein, lest you think I'm pulling your leg. 

However did this happen?
After this summer's speech on creativity at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, CMC's president Shah Hasan (who just happens to be the director of Otterbein's MBA program), laid a trail of Rolo candies all the way to Westerville.

I teach for Rolos — quite possibly the world's finest candy.

On Apologies

True story.

A friend teaches pre-school.

Recently one of her charges refused to share a toy with another child.

To remind her to share, the teacher spoke gently, firmly and privately to the unsharing little girl: "You remember the beginning of the year? We all agreed that we would do something. Do you remember what it is? We even signed a contract about it. It start with 's' — ssh, ssh..."

The little girl burst into tears and said: "Shorry!"

Uh, you're close. And, perhaps, you're even better than right.

Apologies are best when offered unconditionally.
You can tell when you're hearing a false apology. Politicians have diluted the form.

False apologies are conditional. The condition is your stupidity. It sounds like:

I'm sorry that your stupidity led me to make an innocent mistake.

Of course, here's a real apology:

I'm sorry for my mistake. If only I'd known more, I wouldn't have done what I did. I won't do it again.

It's hard to offer an unconditional apology, because our mistakes are usually innocent, without evil intention. But, as mistakes, they end up being perceived as wicked.

Still, we have a choice. We can apologize. Or we can debate where the blame is to be placed and who had what intentions.

I always prefer the first choice. Sometimes, however, I wallow in the second choice — feeling hurt myself — until I snap out of it. And then I apologize.

Sometimes, I get all the way to and through the apology. Sometimes, I fail and just walk away.

When we apologize, fully and sincerely, that's class.

What If Your Apology Is Not Accepted?
Often the other person is wallowing in blame-assignment and intention-assessment.

He's not yet interested in resolution. He wants to debate.

Sometimes, he'll debate with harsh words, written IN CAPITAL LETTERS for your ease.

"YOU ARE AN IDIOT," he writes, identifying the problem.

Next: assessment of of intentions. (This doesn't go well for you either.)

An ancient tradition: if you refuse my apology, I'm to come back and apologize again. If you refuse me again, I'm to return yet again. That's three sincere apologies. If it gets to the third apology, I hope you accept it. Perhaps I've reached true sincerity and expressiveness.

However, according to tradition, if you reject all three of my sincere apologies, you know what? It's no longer my problem. I'm done. Now it's your problem.

To engage in the debate is futile. An old friend taught me: "Don't wrestle with with pigs. Everyone gets muddy. And the pig likes it."

True Apologies Have Three Aspects

1. Your apology is sincere (without conditions).
2. You stop doing whatever you are apologizing for. The tradition suggests that the apology is not genuine until, when faced with the same opportunity, you don't repeat your misdeed. (For example, Mr. Madoff would have to have another opportunity to steal your money — an unlikely situation to be repeated — and he would have to act differently.)
3. You repair the damages. (To be sure, sometimes, the injury is beyond repair.)

Anything less is lip service.

Shorry!