Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Ahhh, I had a full week at home. Hard to remember when that happened last. I’ll bet the folks at American Airlines were wondering where the hell I was.
This week gave me a huge chance to get caught up on projects that are currently active and provided me with a great opportunity to work on a couple of ideas that I have been playing with.
- RICH MEDIA: Colton and I are putting the finishing touches on the 5 news videos we recently shot. The idea of doing mini-videos, no more than 3 minutes long, for a product, idea or new program is going to be huge with my clients. It is simple, inexpensive and has a completely free distribution system – the internet!
- NEW WEB SITE: All the content is done. On Monday John and I will start on the beta design. It will be ready to launch by the beginning of the 3rd quarter.
- NEW PROGRAMS: I am in the process of translating the strategic platform on Personal Branding into a 1 to 1 ½ hour multimedia presentation. The new TRENDS program is completed and I have performed it a couple of times already. Let me know if you want any additional information on them.
- EDUCATION UPDATES: I just finished a revision of my Presentation Skills Workshop. I have added new exercises designed to help participants gain the skills necessary to advance their ability to create traction for their ideas.
Next week I am off to Orlando to work with the Repeatable Successful Acts platform.
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
I thought I would scatter shoot on some of the things I thought were interesting in the recent news:
- APPLE: I wish I could stop writing about these guys, but they keep performing like Hercules. The first quarter financial results are enough to make your head spin:
- Sales surged 131%!
- Profit rose 90%.
- 49% increase in sales.
- They had the best non-holiday quarter ever.
- None of this counts the iPad impact
- Yes, I must disclose – I am a share holder, but holy geez, even if I wasn’t it is still mind blowing!
- OUCH: Well, despite our technological wizardry, it turns out we are still at the whim of Mother Earth. The Iceland volcano (I will not even attempt to spell the town as I have no idea where some of the accent symbols are on my keyboard) has grounded air travel in Europe causing the airline industry to take a $1.4 billion hit. I liked the one reporter who asked; “when will it stop erupting?” The guy said; “why don’t you go up there and stick your head in and let me know what you think.”
- QUICK HITS: Yahoo’s 1st quarter earnings only tripled, sorry. It was the first upward movement for them in a year! Harley Davidson shares were up 7%. IBM beat the heck out of Wall Street analyst’s projections. Coke’s 1st quarter earnings were up from a year ago thanks to over sea’s growth.
- PAYBACK TIME: GM paid back the money it borrowed from both the US and Canada, plus the vig. It added up to about $8.1 billion. Then they invested back capital at its facilities in Detroit and Kansas City. Remember those pundits who said we would never see a dime of the money back? Ooops, I think I may have been one of them.
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: The Losers. Can it be true? Two comic based action movies in a row.
NetFlix Fans: Box of Moon Light: This is one of those tiny little movies that most people have never heard of. You will love it! It is wonderfully odd and quirky.
TV: I am going to miss the Sunday night airings of LIFE. It was a spectacular visual journey!
BOOKS: The 5 Rules of Leadership – Ulrich: This is an interesting book that uses exhaustive survey study to condense a leadership model into 5 areas; Strategy, Execution, Talent Management, Human Capital Development and Personal Proficiency.
MUSIC: Here is Canadian singer/songwriter Matt Mays live on the great music station Q. Sorry about the SW Airlines commercial, but YouTube needs to make some money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZkjd3TLIRc
WEB SITES: Really good stuff!
SOUTH OF NORMAL
I originally wrote something really smart about simplification in this space, but then saw this video posted on FaceBook and thought, aw, to hell with the smart stuff!
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/04/intoxicated_coachella_attendee.html
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
Leave a Reply