Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Yes, I know, it’s been a while since my “weekly” blog has been posted. My travel schedule has been insane with 8 cities in the past 2 weeks. Despite my best efforts, bad hotel internet or flight delays (yes, it’s true, airlines have flight delays) I just have not been able to keep up. My feet touched terra firma yesterday and I have a chance to muse once again!
- My two 2011 strategic platforms – The Opportunity of Meeting and Dazzling Blue are gaining momentum way ahead of my intent! The major article that appeared in the Dallas Morning News had an unexpected focus on Dazzling Blue which moved that idea, the difference between ordinary and extraordinary to the race track and two existing clients decided they were tired of getting so little out of their meeting strategy and wanted to mine the opportunity they forgot was there.
- Repeatable Successful Acts keeps rolling along as a bigger primary sales strategy tool for my clients. I have just completed adding three key RSA’s to the actual sales process for a client and am getting ready for a series of RSA road shows.
- My Simplicity program is attracting more opportunities on the presentation side of my business. It’s hard for people to see the core opportunity that exists in simplify strategies without taking them on a journey that sets the idea in context. Presentations are about “idea context”.
Next week continues my journeys as airports and hotels return to my daily life.
I love the fantastic and privileged position I have to share ideas!
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Let’s spend a little time on energy.
There are many physics laws that govern all types of energy and I’m sure you’re not interested in returning to those dreaded days in high school physics (unless of course you are a physics geek like me), BUT I want to spend a little time on energy and why it plays such an important part in your business success.
I want to deal with good old Sir Isaac Newton and one of his laws of motion, in fact his first law that basically says:
In order for the motion of an object to change, a force must act upon it. This is also called “inertia” or, an object will remain in either motion or rest until acted upon.
Bottom line – In order to change something, that something needs ENERGY. So, ergo, a new idea, a change in business strategy, a commitment to innovation or creativity needs energy. You have to put something into to it to get something out of it.
This law is one of my main points of strategy around any strategic launch for a client. You must commit energy or resources around the idea if you want to see traction and thus impact.
Corporate energy can take lots of forms – a team assigned to an issue, dollars allocated to a new sales idea or simply a commitment to communicate the message followed by a strong level of action.
Any way you cut it ask yourself this one question before embarking on a new idea:
“Can I define the energy needed to make this happen and once defined can I allocate it to the idea.”
Without an answer to that question the likelihood of your idea becoming reality is about as good as sitting and looking at a boulder in the middle of the road and willing it to move!
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Super 8 and Green Lantern: Since I missed a couple of weeks I thought I would give you a couple of choices – First, Super 8; this is the best of the summer movies – PERIOD. Green Lantern is fun and full of excitement.
NetFlix Fans: Second Hand Lions: A truly wonderful family movie!
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TV: New Stuff for the Summer: If you are late to Game of Thrones, too bad. It’s really good stuff. USA Network has re-launched a number of its great shows like Burn Notice, White Collar and Covert Affairs as well as introducing two new shows next week – Suits; about an ultra-brilliant guy who never went to law school but passed the bar on his first try. Sound way cool.
BOOK: Surviving Your Serengeti – Swanepoel: Another one of those business parables. This one deals with wild animal analogies. Kind of fun and interesting.
MUSIC: I wish there was a better version of this song on the web, but it is one of my favorite by Colin Hay. Thanks to Wayne, my friend in San Francisco who a few years ago re-introduced me to Colin Hay!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgizT2om-4s&playnext=1&list=PL6B4BA848A3B692A1
WEB SITES: Do you get confused at the department store? Here is a one stop place for you.
SOUTH OF NORMAL
Just in case you were forgot about Anthony Weiner!
Congressman Anthony Weiner’s resignation today was triggered by a Twitter mistake last month that he admitted to making.
The New York Democrat tweeted a rather unstatesmanly photo of himself to an admirer. But instead of sending the link to the photo in a private “direct message” to the woman on Twitter, he published it on his main Twitter feed. He’s far from the first to do so – Twitter’s direct message and public post input fields do look a lot alike.
The only sure way to keep electronic communications from falling into the wrong hands is not to send them at all. For most people today, that’s not a practical option. But you should always consider the risks of sending a message meant for private viewing over the world’s biggest instant-publishing medium.
1. Don’t DM anything you wouldn’t want public. It’s simply too easy to type into the wrong box on Twitter, posting a public tweet that others can see in seconds. Some reporters avoid the risk by asking people who “DM” them—Twitter slang for a direct message—to switch to e-mail instead. Sure, you can also send an e-mail to the wrong address, but it’s harder to do by accident.
2. Don’t presume protected tweets will stay private. Twitter gives you the option to protect your main Twitter feed, so that only your approved followers can see what you tweet. But because tweets are short, and contain only text instead of images and video, it’s easy for someone to manually retweet your message by cutting and pasting it into a new, and public, tweet of their own. They may not mean you harm, but an offhand joke meant for a few close friends can become an inexcusable offense if seen by others. And if you’ve got enemies, it’s possible they were already following you before you turned on the Protected Tweets option.
3. Turn on Twitter’s secure connection option. Weiner claimed early on that his Twitter account had been hijacked by a hacker. He later recanted, but it can happen. By default, Twitter sessions aren’t encrypted the way online shopping purchases are, which leaves them vulnerable on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in particular. You can enable encryption for everything by going to your Twitter account’s settings and turning on the option to “Always use HTTPS.”
But again, that won’t save you if you type into the wrong box.
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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