A report from The Financial Post – telling us that social networking is going to be the next big thing for everyone – some interesting numbers, some interesting anecdotes.
Personally – I think we’re going to be flooded with social networking in the next year – but at the end of the day, one or two sites will come out on top – not necessarily myspace or facebook though
just my two cents 
Advertising firm JWT predicts that one of the top trends of 2008 will see blue replacing green as the color of environmentalism, social conscience, and all-round niceness.
I don’t – but what the heck, give it a read anyways.
1/3 of the female population would start a business if it wasn’t for the fear of failure.1
Fear of failure?! What is this about? Women are the most powerful creatures on earth. Women are the creators of life! They actually grow human beings in their bodies and then extract them through the most painful way possible and they’ve been doing this since the beginning of time! Historically, it may have been the men that went marching off to war but it was the women holding everything together at home – and today we’ve evolved to where women march right beside men on the battlegrounds. Women handle and control crises every single day. Can it be possible that fear of failure is holding women back in the business arena?
Fear is a powerful force and we have to acknowledge that the fear of failure can be crippling. Nonetheless, one of the first things to be noticed about true leaders is their utter lack of fear – at least on the outside. Summoning up the courage to let go of our fears must be the first real move to greatness – shedding all the pettiness that surrounds us and taking that first step forward. When we realize that fear is the greatest dream killer known to man and when we realize that the worst that can happen is that we fail is when we will start opening doors. Remember, failure is only failure if you accept it as such.
The world won’t end if you don’t succeed the first time. You got up when you fell off your bike and you got another job after you were fired (because we’ve all been fired somewhere along the way) – life goes marching on so it’s time to get in the parade. Thinking that dreams don’t come true or that great things don’t happen to normal people is just a cop out as well. Coco Chanel spent many years in an orphanage after her parents died. She started designing her own clothes simply because she couldn’t afford to buy any – the rest is history. Oprah Winfrey was raised by her grandmother in a house without plumbing. Today she has a personal fortune estimated at more than half a billion dollars. If success can come to these women, why can’t it come to you?
If you’re unhappy with your life, there’s only one person who can accept the blame and you look at them in the mirror every day. Choice. You choose where you are in life. If you don’t like your job – leave. I don’t mean walk in and flip your boss the bird but take some time, seriously analyze where you want to be in this world, how you can get there and then DO IT. Realistically, we only have 80 good years on this earth – you might as well be happy with them because the effects of stress and depression will cut 15 –20 years off of what little time we have.
Most people look at successful people and think “that could never be me” – Why Not? Muhammad Ali – the greatest professional boxer that ever lived – do you think that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth? No – he had to fight the U.S. Government, and the boxing associations to realize his dream. He had mouths to feed, he went broke but he still persevered to become one of the most beloved figures in history. You have to realize that he started with nothing but talent and a dream and he made it work. Martha Stewart was a housewife; Oprah Winfrey a weather girl, Emeril Lagasse worked in a Portugese bakery in Massachusetts. None of them were born wealthy and they aren’t any different then you and me – they just stayed on course, never bending and worked endlessly towards their own dreams.
Of course there will always be bumps in the road but : “Failures are the highway to success and the mistakes help us learn how to succeed”[1] Remember – your life, your responsibility, your choice – the buck stops here. Use these stories as a leadership lesson plan and begin to live outside your comfort zone. Use the story of a successful restaurateur in your city and use it as a leadership lesson plan – it’s not just the famous who are successful, there is success around us everyday – learn from it.
It’s 6:00 a.m, the alarm is buzzing in your ear and it’s time for the games to begin. You run down to the kitchen, throw the coffee on and start running around the house waking everyone up. Back to the kitchen to put the bread in the toaster and pour the milk over the cereal. The shower starts in the bathroom and the fight is on – “ HURRY UP – it’s my turn!” bang bang bang. “I need to get in there too!” bang bang bang.
Up the stairs you go, break up the fight and start the bathroom line moving. You promise faithfully that some day soon you will build another bathroom in the house, but for today, everyone needs to get along. Damn – is that the toast burning?
Back downstairs to the kitchen, scrape the black off the toast and onto the table it goes. It’s now 6:30 a.m., you have a splitting headache and you just want to go back to bed. Unfortunately, you have a meeting at 8:00 a.m. with your biggest client and you know that the pile of paper on your desk could kill someone if it ever collapsed. Deep sigh.
It’s your turn in the bathroom and you now have 20 minutes to get ready and out the door, if you dry shave your legs and let your bangs hang down to cover your unplucked eyebrows, you should be able to make it. There’s not a minute to waste. You run out the door, screaming good-bye to everyone as you throw on your shoes. Out the driveway you fly just in time to hit the traffic jam that will allow you to crawl all the way to work.
It’s only 7:15 a.m. Imagine what 2:30 is going to be like
At a hospital the relatives gathered in the waiting room, where a family member lay gravely ill. Finally, the doctor came in looking tired and serious.Surveying the worried faces, the doctor said, “I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news. The only hope left for your loved one at this time is a brain transplant. It’s an experimental procedure, very risky, you will have to pay for the brain yourselves.”
The family members sat silent as they absorbed the news. After a great length of time, someone asked, “Well, how much does a brain cost?”
The doctor quickly responded, “$5,000 for a male brain, and $200 for a female brain.”
The moment turned awkward. Men in the room tried not to smile; avoiding eye contact with the women, but some actually smirked. One man, unable to control his curiosity, blurted out the question everyone wanted to ask, “Why is the male brain so much more expensive?”
The doctor smiled at the childish innocence and said to the entire group, “It’s just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the price of the female brains, because they’ve been used.”
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
You know that your ideal life does not include working 18 hours a day – 7 days a week. You also know that to start making the necessary changes in your life, you need to build a real support network. But you also need to make some real structural changes to how you handle your day. You need to change the way you think.
You might actually end up being very surprised at how much physical energy you’re going to have to exude just to put your brain waves on a slightly different path. Not because what I’m telling you is difficult, but because North Americans have been programmed that the only way to be successful is to work non-stop. The real hard truth is that in reality, the truly successful people simply do not work every second of every day. How could they when they’re always in the newspapers and magazines playing golf and going to parties? They know how to set up barriers between their personal and business lives and they know how to use their down time for rejuvenation.
Here we go though – I’m about to pull out hose two dreaded little words – you know the ones – time management. Do not immediately scroll past this post! I know that this phrase sends visions running through your head of yuppies with sweaters tied around their neck and releases the blocked out memories of long, boring seminars and endless piles of daytimers and colour coded calendars.
The problem with time management though is that it became an industry onto itself that the message was lost in all of the marketing. The message itself is important though and the implementation is actually quite simple. I’m going to present it to you short and straight because it really isn’t difficult to master and the lessons you will learn will truly enrich your life.
The first lesson of the day is:
Not today, not tomorrow, not next year – there is never going to be a moment when you’re going to sit down and think, “Gee, I have nothing to do”. You own your own business and that’s just the way things are. Finally realize that it’s o.k. if everything doesn’t get done. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen if you don’t finish all of your invoicing today or don’t send out all of your company Christmas cards? The world is not going to end if you don’t get everything done, because if it were, it’d all be over by now.
So you now have a new mantra:
“It’s o.k. to leave things for tomorrow”
“It’s o.k. to leave things for tomorrow”
“It’s o.k. to leave things for tomorrow”
Good air in – bad air out
Seriously though, get used to running that thought through your head because as an expert multitasker, there’s a small drop of masochism in you that actually enjoys the drive of 16 hour days and full pots of coffee – but it’s time to let go before you have a caffeine overdose.
Second Lesson of the Day
Remember Perfectionism does not equal profitability
Do you really need to colour code your files?
There was a very lovely lady who ran a very clean office. There was not a paper or paperclip out of place. Every label for every file folder had to be typewritten and no letter was to leave the office until reviewed by her. Every invoice was filed in triplicate and there were signs posted around the office giving instruction on how to make the coffee, how to organize the supply cabinet and how to keep the bathroom clean. If ever a piece of paper was accidentally filed under “halo” instead of “haley”, there would be a full-blown hour long meeting reminding the staff of the importance of organization and the file clerk’s work would be monitored for at least a full week afterwards.
Yes, you could definitely say that there had never been a more organized office in the history of offices. This lady worked every day from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (never venturing out for lunch), as she developed new spreadsheets, new forms and new procedures for keeping the office spotless.
The only problem was (other then driving her staff insane), that even in her world of perfection, the business wasn’t growing. She had the same clients for years and would occasionally attract a new client from the phone book ad but even though she was excellent at maintaining the status quo, just imagine what she could have done with all of that time she spent micro managing. She could have been circulating business cards at chamber of commerce meetings. She could have been attending tradeshows and she could have been taking the time to research potential new markets. Instead, she worked incredibly hard to reach a plateau and then she stayed there until she finally retired. If her energy and dedication had of been focused on growth instead organization, she could have been huge.
Remember that book – don’t sweat the small stuff – well this is it. Having the most organized desk this side of New Mexico isn’t going to make you a million dollars. Having your pens colour coordinated in their holders isn’t going to help either.
Let’s stick to what is actually important
I woke up a little late last Wednesday, threw on my clothes and ran out the door. The shirt was one of those
silly designer ones with the tag showing at the back, so when someone at the office asked me if I was wearing my shirt inside out, I laughed and said “No, that’s the way it was supposed to be!”
At around 10:00 a.m., I went to the bathroom and as I was washing my hands, I looked in the mirror and saw the seams running up and down the arms and neck.
Oh my god-my shirt was inside out!
I didn’t know what to do. If I turned it right side out, then everyone would realize that not only was I wearing my shirt like a three year old, I was too stupid to look down when it was pointed out to me!
So there I sat for the rest of the day, with my shirt inside out, as if nothing was wrong. I stared everyone directly in the eye when I spoke to them and pretended I was Jennifer Lopez making a fashion statement.
When I walked through the door that night, Kevin said : Hey, your shirt’s on inside out!” I thanked him for his quick observations and went on to tell him the entire story.
His response?
Why don’t you go in tomorrow with your pants on your head and say you saw it in the latest Vogue magazine! “
I just love the support I get around my house.
Needless to say, I can never wear that shirt again.
I was working with a client, expanding out his business idea, when I realized that with a slight twist, it could be promoted as an environmentally friendly. He actually told me that he didn’t think that investors would be interested in a Green project – that they wouldn’t think it was profitable.
I was surprised that anyone still thought that way. Green is good – Green is beautiful – green in the project means green in the bank – and anyone who doesn’t realize this by now is completely naive.
57% of Americans are very concerned about the environment and billions are being spent every year finding answers. Venture capital investments in alternative energy, biofuels and clean technologies, jumped 44.4% in 2006 to $884 million[1].
Citibank has committed $50 billion to environmental projects in the next 10 years, IBM is spending $1 billion on energy efficiency, and Wal-mart has implemented a new Lifestyle section of their store to bring affordable, environmentally conscious goods to the consumer.
“The message from Wal-Mart today to the rest of the business community is there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy. We will find the way not only to reconcile (those), but to find new profits and new opportunities as we do the right thing.”
-Al Gore
Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, their interest in the environment signifies that eco-friendly is no longer the industry of tomorrow, tomorrow is today and today can be utilized for profit – because no matter what, Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart and they’re always focused on the bottom line.
“Now, mainstream giants in markets spanning consumer products, banking, airlines and chemicals have sweeping programs to shrink their companies’ impact on the environment – and cash in on consumers’ desire to go green”
- Paul Davidson, USA Today
Solar power, human power, wind power, these are not dreams of the future any longer; they are available now. I’ve worked on several exciting projects recently and when you work the long term numbers, the revenue potential is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Many, many years ago, I was in some University class, giving some speech, on something or another, and I 
was discussing how women control the finances at home, but weren’t taken seriously in the financial world. My instructor, who had always been something of a chauvinist, stopped me and asked me for a source “on that fact”. I had been stuck in several classes with this guy and I really disliked him, and I was quite annoyed that he had interrupted me – so I told him to open his eyes and look around at the world if he needed a source. Probably didn’t get an A on that one.
I come from a long line of alpha females and it was just common sense to me that women control the checkbook – and I have finally been vindicated. The word is out. Of all the money spent in all the homes across the country – women make 80% of all the final buying decisions.
“Who’s the apple of marketers’ eye? It is not free-spending teens or men 25-50. Its women, thanks to their one-two punch of purchasing power and decision-making authority. “
-Business Week
Now, of course, everyone is jumping on the skirted bandwagon. NBC got into the game in 2005 when they paid $600 million for iVillage. . Today they have 16 million unique visitors and an Alexa ranking of 1657, making it one of the top destinations for women online. It’s an eclectic mix of news, information and forums, which is kept fresh daily and has been for the past 10 years. The company generates over $100 million in advertising revenues from brands like Dell, Fido, Tide and Lipton. I don’t mind iVillage – they get a little pushy sometimes with the email offers – but not too bad.
There’s also Cafémom.com, who launched in November 2006 and claim 2.1 million unique and 99 million pageviews last month – They picked up $5 million in funding in August 2007 but it seems to me as just a huge jumble of blogs and discussion groups with no order – I’m not saying that there aren’t some good groups there – but I saw a lot of spam – a lot of groups with 1 member and a lot of complaints about “bashing”. It seems to be a little out of control. I did find it interesting to read quite a bit of discussion about “no men allowed” on cafemom – when the entire thing is owned by two men.)
Now I’ve run across momlogic.com– They’re the new guys in town, with Big Daddy Warner Brothers footing the bill. They’re doing a news feed in blog format – with an odd discussion forum/wiki kind of thing. The news feed definitely has its good days and its bad days.First time I visited their site, they has one blog about maxim’s supermodel picks, the next one was about sex, but with a picture of a sexy blonde woman biting a pair of underpants, and then another one about picking out video games – didn’t seem to quite fit with the “mom” demographic. However, their original content is usually good, they’ve had a few really interesting interviews, and they have a nice layout with some good colors and designs. Their discussion forum is difficult to navigate though – they’re using wetpaint – needs some design work
Consumers are demanding healthy choices, “fresh” is the new buzzword and they’re putting their money where their mouths are. In the first half of 2006, the restaurant industry reported a growth of 50% in healthy choice menu items. The foodservice market for organics in particular appears to be growing at a rate of 20 percent annually, keeping pace with retail sales of organics, which have grown at an average of 18 percent since 1997.
With nearly half of organic food sales now coming from mainstream retail outlets like supermarkets, grocery stores, and warehouse clubs, we can see that consumers are regularly choosing organic when the choice is available. The pattern crosses all age groups with nearly 30% of 18-29 year olds, 30% of 40-49 year olds and 23% of 70 +, using organics. US sales of organic foods are expected to almost double this year.
