Happy New Year

I was reading the material I placed on the right side bar. The selection is scattered. However, I do believe that many of the principles in marketing can be used in education or communication. Many of the different interests I have are integrated subjects. This basically each discipline has its own terminology but the ideas from each are very similar.

Take education and business for examples. Who is responsible for the day-to-day runnings of a school? A principle. Who is the same in business? The CEO. Both have different titles, but roughly the same meaning.

Now we're talking!!!

"Recognize that the quickest way to encourage a top performer to start looking for a job elsewhere is to tell them: 'there is nothing that you need to work on.' Based on our database of over 4 million leaders, the highest ranked behavior of our top performers is a commitment to self-improvement. These people want -- and need -- to learn and grow."

This is the advice Marshall Goldsmith received from Howard Morgan when he sought the answer to giving feedback for top performers. This article appears in the Harvard Business Online site and will capture more visits from me.

This issue really goes back to the philosophy of work. A good worker wants to succeed and develop skills. Work is not a grudge with a paycheck. A question I propose to others is, "Why work?" The general answer is "For money." I think money is important, but this should be the secondary reason for work. The primary reason is personal growth, development, and fulfillment. Work should help us have a joyful life, not a life of stress and angst. Remember, a person works many hours in his lifetime. All this work for money? Not for me.

Great leadership quote

"Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings." Dante, The Divine Comedy

Dante is all about leadership. The Divine Comedy is the story of a dream which Dante is led by Virgil through Hell and part of Purgatory. Dante journey goes through Heaven as well but Virgil can only lead him through part of Purgatory.

Dante found a jem of leadership. Through the character of Virgil, Dante shows that a leader should know his limitations and boundaries. If you reach a point where you met the end of your boundary, call for help. A manager, colleague, or a great book can lead you to gain more for the position or situation.

I like libraries...and bookstores

I like books. I enjoy surfing the internet for information, however, I cannot write in the margins. When I read, I want to annotate so that I can retrieve the info I read quickly. Plus, this is one of the best ways to remember what I read. If you want to remember what you read, simply make notes of the material. Is this highschoolish? No, it is making use of the way brains are setup.

Regardless, I love libraries, books, and bookstores. I can spend hours in bookstores, it is simply interesting. Count me as a Gen Yer that uses technology AND reads books, even at libraries and bookstores.

"It was truly surprising in this survey to find the youngest adults are the heaviest library users," Rainie said. "The notion has taken hold in our culture that these wired-up, heavily gadgeted young folks are swimming in a sea of information and don't need to go to places where information is."

Visit your local librarian. They have a degree called "information sciences." If they do not know an answer for your question, they will be haunted until they find out where to get the answer. Once again, find the right person to do the right job.

Dropping names

Courtesy of Tom Foster's blog, Managment Skills Blog, a link to Big Ideas to Big Results. The reason I mention this is because BIBR drops the name Warren Bennis. In the study of leadership that would be the equivalent of saying "Yea, my buddy Joe Montana" in football speak.

It is really cool when a person mentions that his colleague is one of leadership's top thinkers. After Stogdill, Katz, Fiedler, there was Bennis. Look for him and the other two B's, that is Burns and Bass. This trio have a lot of thoughts on Transformational Leadership or Full Range Model. A good source for transformational leadership is the book with the same name in the list worth SCIMming about.

Go to the masters

Iinnovate is a website produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business students. They interview entrepenuers and leaders of organizations. Those interviewed offer free advice in the interview.

Like anyone else, I live on a budget. I cannot afford the top conferences, so I substitute with things I find within my budget: gradute studies, books, blogs, life experiences, conversations with successful people. I can afford Iinnovate's seminars/interviews 7 days a week and hear chats with different founders and authors without paying a dime.

Many experts love offering advice, if you need to take your expertise to the next level seek the ideas of those who are known for doing well in the field.

Joining a social/business internet network may help. Some ideas: Linkedin and Spoke. Just email me if you would like to join Linkedin, I can send you an invitation and you can get started with networking. My email: scimming-AT-gmail-DOT-com.

Follow the leader

Sometimes leadership is organizational, meaning that it is not a particular person noted to be a leader. In this case, once again, Rackspace provides one of the best service level agreements, "Rackspace Guarantee: Upon experiencing downtime, Rackspace will credit the customer 5% of the monthly fee for each 30 minutes of downtime (up to 100% of customer's monthly fee for the affected server)."

Imagine that if you were a customer in a different industry. Pretend you have a cell phone. It goes down or drops a call and you see the bill subtracts a percentage for the inconvenience. Pretend you send children to school and they experience down time in the classroom, then imagine you receive a percentage tax break or tuition break.

Godin would probably say that Rackspace's Fanatical Support is part of its marketing whether or not Rackspace is seeking this.