Month: October 2013

Why your big ideas should be in a box

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forces beyond our knowing

Potential entrants become competitors unless you can customize the product and / or service you are offering to get them to become buyers and hope that your suppliers don’t lose the desire to go to the factory warehouse every day.

And then tossed out like the garbage floating around (like that plastic bag in American Beauty)

make a powerful point

Michael Porter is famous. Never heard of him? If you’re a strategy wonk you have — likewise an entrepreneur, a business school grad, or a business leader. Ohh, that Michael Porter.  The Michael Porter who is most cited author in business and economics. The Bishop William Lawrence Harvard University Professor Porter. The father of modern strategy. He published his seminal work, Competitive Strategy, when he was 33 years old in 1980. It’s now in its 60th printing in English and translated into nineteen languages.

His real genius was that he was able to reduce the concepts and ideas contained in his 397 page, 2lb, 1200 plus word tome into one simple picture, with 5 boxes, 5 arrows and a few words. It’s on page 4, blandly titled Figure 1.1, Forces Driving Industry Competition.

I wonder if he hadn’t drawn those boxes and arrows if we would have ever heard of…

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Integrity is more important than politics!

katherinewalker1 Comment

Well said. I would add the caveat (as you have implied): I have nothing agains people and their heartfelt convictions (my addendum) unless those beliefs harm or endanger another person. My sole concern is that these convictions do not KNOWINGLY or UNCONSCIOUSLY cause harm to others. I am willing to examine 98% of all ideas (except _____ fill in the blanks: I know my cut-off point and it has to with abuse/torture of others and just plain good ole stupidity).

brucegoewey

Whether political or religious. I have nothing against people and their heartfelt beliefs,  My sole concern is that these convictions do not harm others. I’m willing to examine most ideas. In politics, in particular, no one group has a monopoly on finding practical solutions for difficult problems.

However, there are ideas that must be avoided. Consider Nazi Germany In the nineteen thirties.  Joseph Goebbels, (the German Minister of Propaganda from 1933-1945) said ““Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”. It was a technique that worked pretty well in Germany up until the time that the Nazis lost the war.

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You can never go home again

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time warp
time warp

And yet, that is what consumes the half life of my brain.

Seeing Metaphors

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This is a great post that requires more time and thought than I have right now. File in the perennial revisit section of your ongoing get to later idea box.

make a powerful point

We usually think of metaphors as ways to use the spoken or written word. Take, for instance, clinical psychologist Susan Silk and mediator Barry Goldman’s useful guide for providing comfort in times of tragedy. They called it “the ring theory of kvetching.” That’s a linguistic metaphor.

Of course, metaphors can be visual, as well, and there’s a range of ways we use them on slide decks, websites, and publications.

Illustrating linguistic metaphors

When Silk and Goldman talk about their “ring theory” (which also boils down to a catchy aphorism, “comfort in, dump out”), they probably illustrate the linguistic metaphor with something like this very clear diagram that appeared in the newspaper:

At the center of the ring is the sick person, and the concentric circles represent groups of people with varying degreees of intimacy. (This particular illustration was done by Wes Bausmith for the LA Times.)

Someone may…

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Transition Zone

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Prep is last minute late night semi half assed for the idea that it is – needed to work in off-time and end up hiding out – what is that ?

Continue reading “Transition Zone” →

dia reax

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trying to get any good cohesive writing in 1-3 places as storylines, dialogue or scenes

"Me" Decade

–But everything you told us is lies…

–That’s because you couldn’t stand the truth.

(BAD grammar and incorrect case, intentional.)

Why would you give away the ending except to just mess with someone, intentionally? I don’t like that, I don’t like that all.

The flu shot controversy scares me for other reasons. I don’t really think anyone like the CCD, FDA or CIA cares about our health, so that whole effort could just be a secret tactic to poison us over time or at least, create a reliance on vaccine, disseminating a mass opiate salve to any thoughts of uprising.

Dialogue as revenge or purging makes me thing that I don’t want to spend any last days on this planet being sick. Hence, the flu shot controversy. An unknown serum with lack of background backup information pods, easily accessible and user-friendly. My problem with the President: seems to ignore the…

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In Defense of Lying

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I love the notions put forth here and the minds it attracts.

Accismus

Every year, my company has its grand meet-up, and everyone must give a 4-minute “flash talk” on any subject.

This year I spoke on my wish that more people would lie more frequently. Lies are nearly always more entertaining than the truth, they are often less awkward than the truth, and lying creatively probably staves off Alzheimer’s for the liar. If you don’t often lie, give it a try!

Here are the slides from my talk:

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