STRATEGY CENTRAL

Sunday afternoon.  63°F and cloudy with a chance of a shower.  I’m not entirely sure that means the same thing here that it does in other parts of the country.  Here it means that it will look like it could rain…someday.  It does rain in So Cal…just not very often.

Today was a good day.  A lot of fun getting the Red Chili Sauce ready for tomorrow night’s dinner: Chicken Chile Rellenos from A Cowboy in the Kitchen: Recipes from Reata and Texas West of the Pecos.  Let me tell you, this cookbook is the real deal.   Some of you have noticed from my About page that I love a good salsa.  That’s really just part of the picture.  I love the kind of food that includes a salsa and the Chicken Chile Rellenos served on a bed of the Cow Camp Creamed Corn is so good!  Wish you were here…tomorrow night!

They’re everywhere…the armies of "no".  Amazing how prolific they are .  They can arise out of nowhere and put the cabash on cool stuff.  They’ve got lots of power…when you let them play.  Great post today over on Marketing Profs Daily Fix.  What are the "armies of ‘no’"?  The official definition is that they’re "all the extraneous people who are called on to weigh in on the
latest marketing campaign, regardless of their having any actual
expertise in marketing."  But I’d like to expand it to say, they’re not just in marketing!  They’re in our world too!

Be sure and go over to Marketing Profs to check out the whole post.  Good stuff.

I’ve often talked about the fact that there is no problem-free.  But other than making a list of the problem sets and then choosing the set of problems you’d rather have, one of the best "look at it from another angle" examples I’ve seen in a long time is the idea of a ghoti.  What’s a ghoti?  It’s another way of looking at things.  Tripped across it today over on Marketing Profs Daily Fix.  Check this out:

Ghoti’s not pronounced like it looks.  It’s actually an alternate spelling for the word "fish".  The

• GH makes the F sound, like it does in the words lauGH or enouGH.
• O makes the I sound, like in the word wOmen.
• TI makes the SH sound, like in the word naTIon.

What’s it got to do with problem-solving?  Well, when you first look at ghoti no one pronounces it like "fish".  And when you first look at many problems they look like they can only be understood a certain way.  But it’s really a matter of perspective.   And in the words of Alan Kay, "perspective is worth 80 IQ points."  Want to get smarter?  Learn to look at things from a different angle…a new perspective…a ghoti.

Thanks to Paul Williams over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix for the idea.  It’s a really good one!

Yesterday I was working on what is an important idea: Do you know where you are…really.  And it is really important.  Earlier this year I wrote about getting from here to there, kind of using the metaphor of having a destination in mind when you enter the mall.  You stop at the Directions sign at the entrance, find the little star that says "you are here", and then figure out how to get where you’re going.  So far, so good.  Only one problem.  What if you’re looking at the map and the star is in the wrong place?  Or if you’re looking at a little red star that some kid stuck there as a prank?  How’s it going to work out?

The problem we’re all dealing with has to do with how accurate our understanding is of where we are really.  And by that I mean what is true about the things going on in your life.  All of us have things that inform how well we do at what we’re trying to do, how we get along with people, how well we stay focused on the task, how well we communicate, etc.  It’s very difficult to actually know where you are.

So…how do you figure it out?  I think there are several important pieces.

• You need to do some hard work to personally understand your capabilities.  For example, you might work your way through Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham.  That would set you on a good path.  You might take an inventory like  the Myers-Briggs or a DISC Assessment.  You might just begin to do some thoughtful reading, such as Steve Roesler’s Thinking About a Mid-Career Change?  Work in this area will help you begin to understand your wiring.
• You also need to take advantage of the input of people who know you well.  Feedback from this group is very important.  In fact, without it you’re much more likely to think you actually understand where the red star is.  And be wrong.

So, how do you activate the second step?  Tomorrow.  Come back tomorrow.

Here’s the question: Do you know where you are…really?  I’ve been thinking about this for the last week or so.  Here’s the thing.  Unless you are able to figure out where you really are, you’ll never really have a chance of making it to where you could get.  Ever.  Without a clear understanding of where you are (what’s true about your life, your current situation, what your true capabilities are, etc.) you’ll have no way of understanding the degree of difficulty getting to where you want to go.  You’ll have no idea what strategies will really be required to move you in that direction or keep you on that path.  It just won’t happen.

So here’s the question: Do you know where you are…really?

Tomorrow I’ll talk about what I’m doing to figure out where I am really.  Come on back.

Sunday afternoon.  4:55 p.m. Standard Time.  63°F.  Doobie’s Toulouse Street keepin’ me company.  Good times.  Say what you want…and maybe you were never down with the Doobies…but they still make for a great time on the patio.  Toulouse Street is pre-Michael McDonald, a little less soul, a little more rock and roll.

One of the most consistent sites out there for help in improving online communication is Church Marketing Sucks.  A very direct name.  Not a lot of subtlety, but very accurate.

Today’s post, Lessons in Not Sucking is a very good example of the work they’re doing.  The key for me?  The part about the call to action.  I’ve got to get better at it!  Far too easy for me to see the application in what I’m reading, feel the mini-rant coming up from the depths, and then let it go at simply reporting the concern.  I need to go one step further and talk about how to change what needs to be changed.  That’s the action step for me.  What’s your step?  Take a look at the article and let me know!

One of the best tech companies (from the standpoint of user benefit) is 37signals.  Jason Fried is the founder.  They’re the guys that gave us Basecamp, Backpack and Highrise.  All three are awesome tools that make my life so much easier.

Here’s a great interview with Jason Fried.  Fascinating stuff.  Full of great quotes.  I talked about him in an earlier post on the Enemies of Mediocrity.  This is the interview that the quotes came from.