Week of September 15, 2008

Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .

 

IN OUR WORLD

 

Due to the fury of hurricane Ike, I had an unexpected week in town.  Though Dallas escaped with nary a scratch, air travel was really disrupted.  The week at home gave me chance to catch up.  A couple of projects that were on the table:

 

• Customize The Architecture of Presentations; I have two clients that will be learning presentation design.   Most bad programs are not the result of a bad presenter, but instead suffer from a lack of design knowledge.  There are core principles that when followed almost always guarantee impact.
• Repeatable Successful Acts:  I designed the introduction presentation to this strategic platform to be flexible to client’s specific needs.  I have three offerings coming up that all will be customized to client’s specific needs.
• Interpersonal Communications:  I have new exercised to integrate into this core curriculum course prior to its offering next week.

 

Agent/manager extraordinaire Chris Ryan will be on the road next week with working with new clients to expand the Creative Ventures sphere of influence.

 

 

 

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

 

Let me see if I have this right.  I mean I want to be sure my creative little brain has its economic hands around our current financial mess:

 

• Credit squeeze is sucking the life out of an otherwise pretty good business environment.  Hey, lots of non financial corporations have pretty strong balance sheets.
• Wait a minute you say, what about energy pricing, the cheap global dollar, global warming, continued housing crashes, all the foreign money in US markets, our aging populations impact on social security and Medicare, and all that other stuff.

 

Here is the reality, at the end of the day what the hell can you do about any of this?  What as an individual can you do but sit on the sidelines and pray that at the end of the tunnel is some economic light? 

 

Remember, we are a nation of business.  We are the most creative, innovative economic machine the world has ever seen and despite the well of economic input drying up, ideas are not dying. 

 

So, back to my question, what can you do?

 

Work on your SKILLS.  Get better at what you do so you can be competitive. 

 

Take classes, read, study, discover opportunities to learn.  In time of global turmoil focus on what you can do.  Focus on your skill sets.  Become a better thinker; jump at the change to improve your communication skills.

 

When the dust settles the economic picture will look different and yet strangely the same.  After the tech and telecommunication bubble burst the landscape was different but had lots of similarity.  Though when financial institutions fail the ripple impact is global, the world will continue to spin, there will just be a bigger wobble.

 

Be ready – Do something that will impact your career – IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS!

 

 

 

ENTERTAINMENT

 

 

MOVIES:  Nothing at the theater that will drag me out to the movies this weekend, though I might head over to the Dollar Movie to catch Kung Fu Panda.  Everyone I know who has seen it has loved it!

 

NetFlix Fans:  Tortilla Soup –   A marvelous film with one of my favorite actor’s, Hector Elizondo, at his best!

 

TV:    The new season of HOUSE MD (my favorite show) started this week and gives FOX a huge night with House and Fringe.  This weekend is both the US Davis Cup team playing Spain and the Ryder Cup for golf. Oh, and the Cowboys play the Packers on Monday night!  Couch potatoes get your beer and chips ready!

 

BOOKS:  The Faithful Spy – by Alex Berenson.  Meet spy, John Wells and welcome to a great read.

 

MUSIC:   I love Peter Gabriel and this is an often overlooked great song.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em7bk_McVHU

 

 

WEB SITES:   Struggling to stay organized in a chaotic world, here is a great blog posting to help you along.

 

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/09/17/how-to-never-forget-anything-again/

 

 

SOUTH OF NORMAL

For those of you who know me, you know I a fitness buff and even though I train like a demon, every once in a while I like a grilled hot dog.

·        69% of Americans prefer eating hot dogs on a bun.

·        7-11 is Americas #1 retailer of cooked hot dogs.  They sell almost 100 million a year (proudly, I have never had a 7-11 dog).

·        $1.9 billion is spent at the supermarket on hot dogs annually.

·        32% make mustard their favorite topping, with ketchup bring up second with 23%.

·        Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan’s hot dog eating contest consuming 66 dogs and buns in 12 minutes.  He won $10,000.

·        14% of Americans prefer corny dogs (reminds me the Texas State Fair is coming up).

Grill a dog before summer is over!

 

 

“When I’m falling, I always know when my feet hit the ground?”

Peter Gabriel

 

Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.