Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Coming to you live from San Francisco, The City by the Bay. This beautiful city remains one of my favorite places to visit in the world. Though I have an insanely busy schedule, I still enjoy being here. Walking to meetings with 3 different clients is a treat!
Had a fantastic day of meetings where I had the honor of introducing the Repeatable Successful Acts platform. Judging from the response this strategy received immediate traction and I hope to have the opportunity to drill down on the idea and get into quick and impactful applications.
To give you at taste of the insanity of my regular schedule, let’s look at Tuesday:
- 3:30 AM start to the day with email response and clean up.
- 6:00 AM to 9:00 workout.
- 9:30 – 10:30 client conference call.
- 11:30 – 1:00 PM Sprint like a “bat out of hell” to a lunch presentation on the Elegant Simplicity platform.
- 1:00 PM – Apologize to the group for having to sprint out of the meeting upon the completion of my program, BUT, I have a 3:00 flight to San Francisco.
- While waiting to board my flight I run into my British clients who through the sheer coincidence of a small planet, are heading to San Francisco also. We visit about the impact of the work we started in 09 (they showed me their notebooks and they were using the Elegant Simplicity forms for their meeting planning – a sure sign of my ideas gaining traction).
- Take a 3 ½ hour flight to San Francisco.
- Rush to the hotel and change for a client dinner from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.
- Return to hotel to answer email and watch a House MD re run.
Ta – Da !
The weirdest part is I am totally at home in a day like that! I actually love it.
Next week will have a quick trip to Houston, but most of it will be building upcoming programs.
Thanks to almost 300 of you who have asked for my movie list. What started out as a joke almost 10 years ago has now turned into something of value. I wonder if I can deduct the cost of movie tickets???
THE ANNUAL TOP 10 AND BOTTOM 5 MOVIES OF 2009 LIST IS READY TO ROLL. SEND ME A NOTE AND I WILL GET YOU A COPY
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Chris Ryan (my managing agent) recently shared with me a meeting he attended where one of the speakers had just returned from touring Asia and had some observations to share with the audience. Chris thought they were interesting and he gave me the low down.
The speaker said that while we are watching TV, using social media instead of working and allowing entertainment to replace productivity the world is kick our business butt. HUH? WHAT?? Put the brakes on those thoughts. I said, hmm, interesting perspective, but kind of WRONG.
How about a few facts?
SOCIAL MEDIA
Though we are the leaders in the innovative fields of constant connection, we are not even the key player. QZone, the Chinese version of Facebook is way bigger and more active. They already exceed 200 million unique postings per month compared with the 175 million of Facebook and are growing at an almost exponential rate. This is not a productivity anchor, but instead a staggering business opportunity.
TV
We waste our lives watching TV and the rest of the world is working. Here are the hours of TV watched per country according to Neilson Ratings;
- United Kingdom – 28 hours per week per individual
- USA 28 hours per week per individual
- Italy 27 hours per week per individual
- Ireland 23 hours per week per individual
- France 23 hours per week per individual
These numbers are impacted when I watch a House MD marathon.
Thing about this – most of the other worlds TV sucks and their still watching almost as much as we are.
The entertainment industry is approaching $500 billion in business.
PRODUCTIVITY
Using a study by the Boston Globe dated 12/31/08 and the United Nations Study dated 1/31/09 here are some interesting facts;
- The United States is second to only Norway (hey, what else is there to do in Norway).
- We achieve more in an hours work than any country but those damn Norway folks.
- We LEAD the world in overall labor productivity.
- Divide the GNP of a nation by the number of people employed and factor in wealth created per hour worked and compare us to the 27 European Union Nations, Switzerland and Japan and guess what. Yep we are #2 next to those pesky Norwegians. Damn, I better start a Norway study.
So, I’m not sure what the speaker was talking about, but if you simply THINK you can tell when something doesn’t sound right. So, THINK!
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: : The Book of Eli – First fun looking movie of the year. Why is our future always depicted as a bleak, ravished world (except for Star Trek).
NetFlix Fans: The Brothers Bloom: Quirky but really fun.
TV: Yahoo, new season time. New House episodes, the Human Target on Fox this Sunday night looks entertaining. NFL playoffs are raging. The Simpson’s 20th anniversary show was hilarious and drew 14.6 million viewers. American Idol is still going strong. It was the most non-sport watched show of the season.
Wait a minute, maybe we do watch too much TV.
BOOKS: I, Sniper – Stephen Hunter brings back Bob Lee Swagger for a new adventure. If you are not acquainted with Bob Lee start with the first book – Point of Impact.
MUSIC: I have been listening to Greg Trooper lately and really like his sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRHi_X87V0
WEB SITES: Looking for someplace to find real statistics. This is a good source.
SOUTH OF NORMAL
Since I spend a ton of time on the road and most hotels are kind enough to put a newspaper (remember what those things are?) on my door every morning, I get to see lots of colloquial news. I, like Jay Leno, enjoy the occasional headline, so these are from only ONE WEEK of travel:
- Washington Blood Mobil Offers Beer to Blood Donors – way better than a cookie.
- Surgeon General Benjamin Wants A Healthier USA – Shocking!
- Turkish Camel Wrestling Outlawed – There goes my reality TV idea.
- Chefs Create Largest Dish of Hummus – This is news worthy?
- Boy Recovering From Chopstick Removed From Brain – I was at a Chinese restaurant recently and saw a guy really struggling with is chopsticks so I understand how this happened.
- Country’s Only Hippo Escapes From Zoo – Those hippos are stealthy little critters.
I kid you not, all of these from one week of reading!
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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