Happy Monday from England!

I'm feeling guilty at my patehtic lack of entries on our Synergy Blog for the last month so here is something to think about

Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.

====================================

Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates.

Candidate A - Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B - He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C - He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

====================================

Pretty interesting isn't it?

Makes a person think before judging someone.

Never be afraid to try something new.

Remember: Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic!

BrandYou 50 Reminder

Picked up the second copy I kept on my book shelf of Tom Peters BrandYou 50 to give to my daughter Carolyn. She is a senior in high school (yes, and fighting senioritis). She is faced with her decision as to where she will go to school next year. Needs to make her final decision/deposit by May First. (I wonder how many high school seniors are making a "Mayday" call right about now?) But the decision is larger than where she will go, it really sets her up for what she will do, be, work, etc.

 

What is a "Carolyn Sherlock"?

 

Not an easy question for someone not yet 18. Sometimes not an easy question for someone older, especially these days. The life we thought we knew is changing in front of us.

 

Where will we be in five years? A ridiculous question!

Where will we be next month?

 

Hence finding this in the intro of BrandYou 50 gives it additional poignancy:

Brand You is as personl as it gets. Brand You = Who You Are. Perhaps, then, you'll be surprised at how often we get to say; "Get together with a number of your colleagues to consider..." Well, Brand You is personal... but it is also a Team Sport. The team, this time, is probably not your formal work group. Instead it's a Collection of Kindred Spirits... Brand You Wannabees, as I often call them in the book. That is this "stuff" calls for lots of chewing over. And, we've learned in our training programs, such masticating is immeasurably more effective when a small group of Brand You Seekers gathers together, formally or informmally. Hey, for many/most of us this is pretty frightening --- if ultimately liberating --- stuff. And frightening stuff goes down better with a support group. 

Hmmm...

 

Ho'ohana Online Community

Team Synergy

Norfolk County Pacers.

 

About the only passion I have currently not covered with this support group of kindred spirits is poetry. And this of course, this recognizes that the close inner circle of family and friends is already present and accounted for.

 

What about your support?

Are you in good company?

 

 

Technorati Tags : TomPeters, Ho'ohana, Synergy, Pacers, passion, poetry

 

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Simple Steps are the Best Steps

It's been a while since I've posted to the Synergy weblog, as I was waiting for the "perfect" bit of inspiration, or the "perfect" quote, or the "perfect" moment of clarity.

Guess what?

It never happened.

I decided to dip my foot in the pool, and look for something less hard. Something I could do! So I checked out my teammates' sites.

Rosa reminded me to "read short and deep." Like Rosa, I love to read, probably too much. But I haven't done much lately, because it's taken too much effort, and frankly, I haven't had it. So short and deep works for me. Thanks Rosa!

But I needed more. I need some...simplicity. Trevor's new site is just what I needed: it's simple and sweet. Check him out!

And then I found these 2 little quotes that summed up simplicity for me:

"It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Ozarks by Hines

kindness to one's self and all that lives is the most powerful transformational force of all." - David R. Hawkins

Keep preaching the need for simplicity Trevor. I need it to remember that it's the little things that make it great, NOT the big ones! Thank you for that reminder!

On to Steve Sherlock...Steve shares an easy thought, Songs on the Road. 2 songs that hit him on his drive. That's not too hard to think about. I love music, and Passionate Kisses is a good song that often hits me too.

And I kept going...

I visited Troy Worman, and while I knew I didn't need to wait for permission to succeed, I remembered that he wrote a manifesto that MUST be written, about the simple folks, like me, who need to "blow shit up!" Troy NEVER waits for permission to succeed, he...just...does!
Simple really...Thanks Troy!

And then I remembered I haven't visited Felix Gerena over at Brand Soul in a while, but I did remember he had a manifesto, just like Troy is going to have. (I usually just read the RSS feeds, but I don't click in much, sorry). So I stopped in, and then a quote on life that Felix posted hit me like a ton of bricks:

Life is half mastery, half mystery.

Stop here. Half mastery, half mystery. Mystery solved now, for me! Or should I say, mystery solved for me, for now! Thanks team for sharing your powerful messages with me.

Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org


Technorati Tags: simplicity, orbit now, managing with aloha, steve sherlock, brand soul

Podcasting for Beginner's

For anyone thinking about creating a podcast and worried that it might be too geeky to get into, rest assured, it does not seem impossible. I just read this article (thanks to Mike at ?IC@TomorrowToday.Biz ) and it sounds pretty doable.

I plan on trying sometime soon and when I do, I'll provide some more experiential feedback. In the meantime, have at it!

Technorati Tags : podcasting, blog., blogging

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Peanut Butter Wiki

Call me crazy but I love peanut butter. Actually I like it better with marshmallow fluff in a New England creation called the fluffernutter, but that is getting away from the point.

Yes, Steve what is the point?

How about a wiki that advertises it is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich?

Got to be a good one. I mean, a peanut butter sandwich. How easy can it get?

Go see! Check out Wesley Freyer via Alan Levine on the pbwiki

You've waken my appetite, I think I'll make a sandwich just in case....

learning
wiki

Wicked problems

 

From Adam Richardson at CPH127 comes this full posting and good comment trail on wicked problems:

Because they are so difficult to identify and define, wicked problems tend to go unaddressed, even if there is an underlying sense that something needs to be done (though about what exactly no-one can say).

So how do you deal with such intractable problems? In my AWF talk I followed the theme of the conference - work and play - by using sports analogies to identify a number of capabilities and states of mind that are valuable in addressing wicked problems. These are:

• Having wide peripheral vision to spot opportunities and threats at the edges
  Using pattern experience to sense the shape of wicked problems before hard proof is available
• Treat solutions as questions
• Have a high panic threshold and don't be tempted to "tame" the problem prematurely
• Treat wicked problems as a full contact sport - get the whole system in one room and hash it out, and stay close to your customers

 

Food for thought here. Much of this I like. Especially the analogies.

 

Read the full posting. Check out Adam's blog for the follow-up postings.

 

 

Technorati Tags : wicked, problem, solution

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For the book writer

For the writer with a goal to put together a book, you might want to check out this new site: Blurb. I found this via eHub, a creation of Emily Chang and a very good source of new tools for all kinds of things to do.

 

I check it periodcially and this one caught my eye.

 

Others that did in the visit today were

Ziemeer - Jan from Amsterdam has made "a spoof of the million dollar homepage by giving free publicity to the sites we like."

 

StikiPad - A hosted wiki solution that gives you an easy way to organize and share information with others.

This one, StikiPad, might be good to explore as an addition to what we have here at the blog Synergy or on our individual blogs. While the blog format is good for enabling our conversations, to have the ready reference for all the items in our subject areas does not always fit well in the blog format.

 

I am going to start to play with this one to see how it could work. I like the wiki concept and am fearful of the wiki abuses (as made public by events at wikipedia and the failure of the wiki by the LA Times). (Well, I might go slowly on this one. I just signed up for an account and the "free" portion does not provide a lot of the basics I think I would need from the wiki to really test it. I am blogging on a zero dollar budget for the time being.)

 

Food for thought to start this weekend.

 

 

Technorati Tags : books, writing, tools, wiki

 

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Don't Wait for Permissio to Succeed!

Don’t Wait for Permission to Succeed! The Manifesto is the running!

Check this out. My manifesto is up for vote at ChangeThis. Goto ChangeThis and vote for me! You can vote once per day per computer through March 18, so vote often and tell your friends.

Thanks!
Troy

3 questions

Tom Peter's new cool friend, Patricia Ryan Madson, was interviewed by Cathy Mosca and during the interview, this stopped me:

... it's a meditation form in which you ask and answer these three questions: "What have I received from others? What have I given to others or given back to others? What trouble and bother have I caused them?"

Yes, these are good questions to think about. Deeply!


learning
life

The birds are fine

The birds are fine
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

I remembered to fill the bird feeders yesterday, so while the blizzard does its thing today, the birds are gathering. Taking turns on the feeders. Some spilling seed to the snow for others to gather and share.

Kind of like blogging isn't it?

Someone starts with a posting. It gathers readers. Some gather a seed and fly away. Some comment and the conversation continues.

The Change Business

From Jennifer Rice at What's Your Brand Mantra? comes a great question:

None of us should be in any business but the change business. We must not only keep up with the facts of change, but also (and perhaps more importantly) release our death-grip on the way things are right now. It's completely futile. Is your business structured for flexibility and change? Are you?

Read the remainder of the posting here.

Your Good Name

From the Greg Greenway concert this weekend, another song where the lyrics are sticking with me.

 

Shakespeare asked "What's in a name?". Greg answers.

 

My Good Name
     from Greg Greenway: Live

When I first started out, I kind of floated around.
I thought it might be better somewhere else
'til they dragged me out.
I was mistaken.
Then they gave me my good name.

They sent me off to school, when I could talk and move around.
I thought that they were joking when they said
shut up, sit down.
I was mistaken.
I barely escaped with my good name

I fell in love, like people do.
They said, "Do you want to be happy?"
I said, "I do."
I was mistaken.
I barely escaped with my good name.

My good name, it's all I've got.
Says who I am, says who I'm not.
When I leave this world,
I will escape with my good name.

I went to see a banker.
I need a loan to get clear.
He said, "Man, you've got nothing."
I said, "That's why I'm here."
I was mistaken.
I barely escaped with my good name.

Got a job pretty easy.
All the bosses at the top
said forget what you're hearing,
keep buying that Enron stock.
I was mistaken.
I think they escaped with my good name.

Chorus

What have I learned from the school of hard knocks?
Of all your possessions, everything you've got.
Don't be mistaken.
All you've got is your good name.

Chorus

© 2003, Sheen of Heat Music, BMI
music and lyrics by Greg Greenway

 

And the chorus lingers long after the last note is played:

My good name, it's all I've got.
Says who I am, says who I'm not.
When I leave this world,
I will escape with my good name.

 

What is your name?

 

 

Technorati Tags : GregGreenway, passion, trust

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It was a quiet week...

Garrison Keillor begins his News From Lake Wobegon: "It was a quiet week..." and then of course we find out it has been anything but!

Just like his closing lines where he proclaims Wobegon to be a place

"where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

Things are not always as them seem to be.

You can't tell a book by its cover.

Still waters run deep!

I could continue alone but what's the fun in that?

This was all prompted by the fact that Team Synergy's blog was QUIET this week.

And I am (actually was) partly to blame for that. But now it is the weekend.

Time to regroup, refresh, avoid the Super Bowl preparations (after all the Patriots are not going so what is all the fuss about?) and getting something going.

Like my wife has woken up (yes, I am the early bird this morning) and we are going for a walk.

Catch you all later!


I know it hasn't really be that quiet this week... you all must be coming up with some dandy stuff!