The Podge of Hodge and Bits of Tid (July 09)

Here is the assortment of happenings and thoughts from July that didn't make it to a post.

ONE:  Rehobeth Beach vacation. It was great. We went with Becky's sister's family as we typically do. Beautiful (almost perfect) weather. Maybe the best weather we've ever had.  Fireworks on the beach for 4th of July. I walked miles every day. Read a lot. Did some runs. Good food. Grotto's Pizza bianco style!  By the way, where we were on the beach, it was quite "uncrowded."  Very nice.

TWO:  Coldstone Ice Cream. This was the first time I ever tried Coldstone. It was quite good. So good, I had to go back again. What they do in concocting a peanut butter ice-cream experience should just be illegal. However, my friend Todd McDaniel still makes the best ice cream in York County. 

THREE:  And one more food item. Darden Restaurants is the world's fastest growing casual dining experience. 

If the name Darden isn't familiar, well then, these probably are:  Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Long Horn Steakhouse. All are in the Darden family.  

What do you guys think of any of those places? Apparently millions of customers really like them.

FOUR: I read a great article on the future of the book industry in Fast Company July/August 2009. The focus was on Amazon.com and what they are doing with Kindle... but they also looked at Google's plan and wondered what Apple is up to.  Here is what I came away with. The book industry is going to radically change. As much as I hate to admit it, books printed on paper are going away.  

How about any of you readers?  Are any of you using Kindle or any kind of eBooks?

FIVE:  Words and more words.  I've said on this site before, the English language has over 1,000,000 words. An educated person knows abut 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 different words in a given week.

SIX:  And speaking of words and reading. Less than 50% of Americans read at least one novel (or) short story (or) poem (or) play in a given year!

Check out this website on illiteracy (can't read) and aliteracy (won't read).  How aliterate are you?

SEVEN:  Here are some websites to check out:

TED Ideas Worth Spreading is one I've talked about before. But it has a great collection of short talks on all kinds of subjects. I've watched a bunch of them this past month.  Really good stuff.  You can download them for watching later if you like.

ePinions.com is reviews on everything you ever wanted. It is a huge site but pretty well organized.  If it is, it has been reviewed.  Hey, that could be a new philosophical trend. I exist, therefore I am reviewed.

Audible.com is a site for those whose learning style (or whose circumstances require) audible learning. They have lots of resources of all kinds on audio. There is a monthly membership fee for this. But if you are in the car a lot . . . if you use your iPod a lot . . . audible learning may have some good resources for you.

The Motley Fool  is a website devoted to stock investing and the giving of advice for doing well in it. I just love the name. I assume it is a play on the old rock band, Motley Crue.

The Presentation Zen website is a top shelf source for those who want to spend time working on their skills in presentation and in the realm of power point or keynote.  The book is very good also.

EIGHT: July was a crazy good month for music. Check out the Music in the iPod column for new stuff I was listening to.  Right now, I am listening to Paco De Lucia, Live in America.  He is a very good flamenco guitarist. 

I also did a  FACEBOOK note asking for favorite songs that had the word "summer" in the title. What a fun discussion that was. Then my friend Josiah burned me a CD with 20 of those songs. Sweet sounds of summer.

NINE:  Michael Jackson!  Wow!  Talk about being inundated with his untimely death.  I think this is the perfect example of our celebrity obsession. It just want on ad nauseam.  And I was struck by how much people ignored the elephant in the living room. I guess you don't want to talk bad about the deceased. But the weirdness dimension of Jackson was danced around adroitly.  (Adroit -- that is not one of my normal 2,000 words in a given week.)

Yes, we did go out and buy two of Jackson's CDs. He was an incredible performer and writer.

And what did you think of the news coverage?  Too much?  Not enough?  Just right?

TEN:  Shopping.  This one surprised me. Women account for 80% of all purchases made!  I didn't realize it was that high. It was also fun reading about the psychology of sales and marketing as it is applied to men and women in The X and Y of Buy.

ELEVEN:  TV ads. Here is another one that surprised me a bit.   In The X and Y of Buy, there was a statistic that said the average American is exposed to 294 TV ads per day. That seems high. But, of all those ads, only 10-20 produce any kind of brand awareness for any particular watcher. 

It makes me realize that when stuff is constant . . . we really have to work to stand out.

TWELVE:  The spoken word.  I'm sure you already know this, but I ran across it again and thought I'd repeat it. The average guy is good for about 7,000 words a day. The average woman goes almost three times that and settles in at 20,000 words per day. I suspect that I go somewhat above the 7,000 words a day.

THIRTEEN:  Sad thoughts.  When women think sad thoughts, she has eight times the brain activity as when a man thinks a sad thought. I think I must be about half way between the average guy and the average woman.   And crying - - - one of the socially unacceptable responses. For men it is anathema! And for women (in the work world) it is virtually off limits too.

What do you think about crying? Should it have the stigma it does? If you are going to cry, what will make you cry? And what about men crying? 

I watched the DVD movie, Tuesdays With Morrie . .  . and boy were the tears flowing, not only for me, but for a bunch of guys.

FOURTEEN:  Power Point Presentations.  I recently read two books on Power Point (from hence on PP, by the way, maybe "hence" is another one of those 20,000 words). Presentation Zen and Slide:ology. In many ways they affirmed that I have been intuitively on the right track in using this tool. But they also showed me how much more can be done. After reading those books, I am glad I am not in the world of business where bad PP abounds.  And then, I happened to be in a training situation where the organization is an outstanding one, but their PP presentations were examples of "how not to do PP."

Have you ever had the experience of "Death by Power Point?"

FIFTEEN:  And finally, a few words about athletes.

The July 27th issue of Sports Illustrated had a great article about Tim Tebow (Gator quarterback and highly committed Christian). It was quite inspirational about this young leader's faith and character. 

And the story of Ben Roethlisberger and the civil suit brought against him for rape was all over the news. Ben denies "sexual assault against the woman" and will go to court to fight that charge. I assume he is innocent until proven guilty. But, what was very interesting is that nowhere did Ben deny knowing the woman or having sex with her. He just denied that it was non-consensual sex.

And one more quarterback to mention - Michael Vick. 

I was listening to the Colin Cowherd radio show on ESPN.  Colin reported that on the night he was out of prison, Vick spent the evening at a strip club.

Colin said it this way. It is not that Vick can't do that. It is not illegal to do that. He can do it. But should he do  it? Is it wise and prudent to do it Does it help his severely tarnished image by doing this? The answer is obvious.

Quarterbacks are some of the elite athletes in all of sports. They are almost uniquely positioned in roles of leadership. And as Google has said:  "Privacy is dead. Get over it."

And that's all for the Podge of Hodge and Bits of Tid for this month.

Tomorrow . . . the monthly quotes.

Brian Loquacious Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International