Creative Mind Consulting

Giving to Others - the Holiday Edition

In the spirit of the season, I thought I'd list as many ideas as I could think of for helping others this holiday season. There are many families and individuals struggling this year...sometimes reaching out to them with a kind word or thoughtful gesture is the most important thing you could possibly do this year.

And - if times are tough for you and your family, finding little ways to help others can lift some of the gloom and dark feelings. 

I'll add more as I think of them or find inspiration....

Feel free to add more good ideas in the Comments section!

Ways to Help Others

1.  Donate food to a local drive or food shelf

2. Buy a fresh wreath from the local Boy Scouts and give it a friend who's cutting back this year

3. Offer to drive an older neighbor to the doctor's office or Christmas service at church

4. So many ways to help your local schools....

• Call the administration and offer a scholarship to help kids who need help affording to play sports, go on overnight field trips to the state capitol, or choir concerts
• Offer to buy art supplies or band instruments
• Donate vintage clothing to the local college's theater department
• Offer to speak at the high school's career day

5. Band together with 5 other families or individuals, contribute $25 a month and help pay the utilities for a struggling friend or church member

6. Bake a yummy plate of slice 'n bake cookies for a friend who's feeling down or lonely

7. Load up a grocery store gift card with enough funds for a week (2 weeks, a month...) and have a local pastor or religious leader give it to a family who's struggling

8. Buy several bags of pet food and again, contact a religious leader to find out who could benefit

9. Partner up with colleagues and fill a Christmas wish list from a friend who's struggling

10. If your church, religious community or local shopping center offers a "giving tree" or "Angel tree", pick a tag for a teenager. Charity groups have the most trouble filling those gift requests.

11. Invite a friend, or another family to share Christmas dinner

12. Go it alone, or partner with friends, to make a car payment for someone in need

13. Take it a step further and help buy a used car for a family or single parent in need. There are a number of charities who offer such a thing, and it's a huge step for the person for whom lack of affordable transportation is a barrier. 

14. Offer to share rides to sports practices with the parents of your child's teammates

15. Purchase a membership in a local professional association for a colleague who wants to join (or renew), but can't afford the fees. Touch base with the chapter president or executive director to find out if there's a need.

16. Offer to trade services with friends. Trade professional services (accounting vs.computer help) or personal ones (change the car's air filter vs. house cleaning).

17. Buy a resume review for a friend, or offer to review it yourself if you have an eye for that sort of thing.

18. Help a colleague keep their professional edge - buy them a yearly subscription to a professional magazine or journal. 

19. Do people clamor for your famous holiday mint brownies, turkey spice rub or chocolate-dipped pretzels? Let your kitchen do the talking when it comes to holiday gifts. Package homemade creations with fun papers, ribbons or tags for a personal gift without spending lots of cash. Share the love with less fortunate friends, church members or colleagues. 

20. Offer to shovel the walk/snowblow the driveway of someone who's sick or older. Or - just get there first with snow blower for your neighbors and be their Secret Santa. 

There's 20 to get you started!

Two Exciting Presentations Upcoming....

Just finished preparing presentations for two upcoming conferences -

"Lessons from History: Ethical Leadership" for the

American Institute of Architects 2009 Minnesota Convention

and

"Using Incredibly Useful Free Web Tools to Maximize Your Training Mission" for the

the American Society for Training and Development 2009 Regional Conference

Really looking forward to both. Here's the text of the workshop bulletin for the architect's conference:

Just as ancient structures or historical buildings inspire current design trends and architectural constructions, historical characters have much to tell us about modern leadership and ethical behavior under difficult circumstances. By looking at several key Revolutionary War leaders and the challenges they faced, we take away insights that inform our relationships with colleagues, building partners and clients. This program will emphasize four key concepts underlying ethical leadership development: casting a vision, character formation, overcoming adversity, and continuous learning.

The intersection of leadership, history, technology, social media and democracy is a fascinating, and I hope to do more exploring in this area.

"Brainstorming for Business" ideas...Short run Magazine Publisher

Continuing our series about great business ideas for the times we live in....

I found a great link yesterday (credit: Lifehacker) to a web site called MagCloud. While the newspaper business is spiraling down, down, down...it doesn't mean the print industry is dead. Far from it - but personalization offers a new way to reinvigorate the publishing industry.

MagCloud takes magazine publishing to a whole new level...or down to the individual reader...depending on your perspective.

• Short run magazine publisher

If you've ever wanted to publish a magazine, MagCloud offers you that creative opportunity. You upload a PDF (so, you'll need to create the PDF in another program) to the site, and they take care of the rest. According to their web site, they don't charge anything to upload and create the magazine - payment comes when the copy is printed (or "purchased").

They use HP Indigo technology, so every magazine is a print-on-demand gem. You pay .20 per page, so a 20 page issue will set you back $4.00 plus shipping. You can have them shipped to you, or let your customers go to the site and order for themselves.

Some brainstormed ideas for using such a great concept....

• Job seekers - create a printed portfolio of past work, for networking, conversation-starting, or to showcase your experience as the final interview draws near
• Small businesses - have multiple product lines? Create one magazine per product. Use it to complement existing marketing materials, or use as a stand-alone tool. This would be a great reason to update your materials regularly ("a new issue every quarter")
• Musicians - create a "fan-zine" you pass out at concerts
• Schools - use as a resource for student projects
• Seminar leaders - use as a shiny marketing piece...or produce and sell to complement existing products

Want some more ideas on how to use this, or other cool web tools? Let's get together and schedule a Brainstorming for Business session for yourself or your team.

Innovation trickling up?

Now here's an interesting idea....

We typically think of "innovation" in product development as a "first world" tool or strategy used by big companies...which may in time trickle down to smaller populations or countries.

This article published recently in Business Week online (March 11, 2009) highlights a different phenomena - companies pioneering innovative efforts in smaller markets or emerging nations, and then moving those innovations to the larger, richer nations.

There is a great advantage to such a process - consumers and companies in the "first world" are hungry for bargains as the recession grinds on. Instead of starting development in an advanced nation and passing along "yesterday's models" to second and third world nations...this model turns that process on it's head.

Companies are turning product development upside down, and customers across the developmental spectrum benefit greatly by such an approach. Newer, lower cost products (and services, for that matter) with just the essential features - not all the bells and whistles.    

How can you apply such an approach to your company? What are the essentials your customers need, and how you can you provide it without the bells and whistles? What if you spin off the bells and whistles into individual products or services? If you as the question "what's the ONE thing my customer needs today?"...what is the answer?

The ultimate "Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover" moment....

Wow - this is an amazing video clip:

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle, age 47, from a small town in Britain, has one of the most incredible singing voices I've ever heard. In a recent episode of "Britan's Got Talent" she blew away the entire audience, including the notoriously acerbic Simon Cowell.

It was so poignant watching, because here is a woman who has been pursuing a dream for over 30 years...and in one shining moment you can see a whole new life has just unfolded in front of her. Her voice, and her story, touched me deeply.

Tired of the job search? Solo-preneurs unleash their creativity

Great link on Twitter over the weekend - with a New York Times article about laid off workers around the country starting their own businesses.

PDF here: Www-nytimes-com_2009_03_14_technology_start-ups_14startup-html_n3jxa4az .

The best line of the whole article for me, came from  Mark V. Canice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco.

Mark V. Cannice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco, calls the phenomenon “forced entrepreneurship.”

“If there is a silver lining, the large-scale downsizing from major companies will release a lot of new entrepreneurial talent and ideas — scientists, engineers, business folks now looking to do other things,” Mr. Cannice said. “It’s a Darwinian unleashing of talent into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

I like it. "Unleashing talent" sounds so dynamic! That's what happens in a free market system, and we will all be better off for it.

 

A small gramatical rant...put "me" where it belongs...second, not first!

OK, I must vent.

Am I the only person left in the United States of America who understands that the proper use of "me" in a sentence is in second place??

I want to smack the next person I hear who says "...me and Bob...", or "...me and my friends are going to the movies ...." Or even worse (if possible) "...me and him." I'm going to crack a molar grinding my teeth trying not to snap back "Who? Who did you say was going?"

I hope every teacher in America stops their class dead in its tracks, embarrassing each and every student who opens their mouth to make such an ignorant comment.

It's on t.v., on the radio, in my kid's conversations with friends, with waiters and other service personnel...etc., etc. What used to be a sign of poor education (and pity) or poor taste is becoming mainstream. What is going on?!?

Is it a sign of the increase in "Me, Inc." we see in society? Is it a young person phenomena? More fabulous role-modeling by overpaid and under-talented entertainers? General 'cluelessness' about proper grammar and what might quaintly be called "good manners"?

If you're in line at your local take out place and you see the young person behind the counter snap their head back sharply, beware. I might have heard one "...me and her..." too many!

The "Innovation Heat Map" and several implications

Found an interesting post on Twitter today - McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum recently produced an "innovation heat map" and it is fascinating.

The higher the circle and the further to the right, the more innovative the city/region/country. A key ingredient to their analysis is the number of patents issued. While not the sole indicator of innovation, it isn't a bad start.

The largest circle is labeled "Silicon Valley" and by all the calculations used by McKinsey it is the world leader in innovation. As noted by Om Malik from Gigaom yesterday, the conditions and intangibles that created Silicon Valley are quite unique.

He notes that "nowhere but in Silicon Valley is it O.K. to fail." So many successful start up team members have start up failures under their belts...that it becomes a condition of their success. Many of the rest of us not in Silicon Valley should take that message to heart!

Also - Silicon Valley isn't about government-provided jobs. While some grants may involved with some start-ups, for the most part it's actually about watching capitalistic wealth-creation in action.

If you want to see how dollars are created out of thin air (and hard work, and intelligence, and technology, and planning, and...well...you get the idea) become a student of the Valley.

It's nice to see our own Minneapolis-St Paul area not terribly far behind, and clustered with other U.S. cities like San Francisco and Boston. One of the reasons noted in the study for flourishing innovation is the wide availability of talented people. It is the single common factor across all innovative cities/regions/countries - and our metro area is well-known for the depth of talent available.

Another interesting observation - the next wave of innovative companies/products/services isn't coming from Europe. Look at the circles. Not only do they face the pressures of aging populations, for the most part they do not have governmental or regulatory structures that allow innovation to flourish.

The chart itself notes that the far right corner is considered the "dynamic ocean" and further states that this area consists of large and vibrant ecosystems with continuous creation and destruction of businesses large and small.

"Creation and destruction of businesses...." The heart of the free market economy. With all of the associated pain, heartache, frustration, unpaid bills, and risk.

Memo to the Obama administration - look at the chart. Please. In your haste to recreate the United States as a socialist paradise, you're forgetting a few things. Like, where is the money coming from to support all of your spending? You're in the process of trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Luckily, I don't think that the American people are going to follow the Administration too far down that path. Our country was born in rebellion and a desire to be free. It will take a while, but most of us like geese and golden eggs. We don't want all of yours...we just want the opportunity to earn a couple of our own!

Steady On, Americans....

Count me among those who have decided to really limit their t.v. news consumption these days (to my husband's irritation at times)...and coming from a news junkie, that's a big switch. Maybe it beats yelling at the box, which I have a tendency to do - depending on the political persuasion of the person talking on screen.

The doom and gloom of the networks, both nationally and locally, is suffocating. Times are tough...I totally get it, but you'd think that we as a nation had never experienced suffering or sorrow at any point in our past. I've yet to hear a reporter or talking head remind us that as Americans we are capable of facing and overcoming a wide range of difficulties.

Ask your parents or grandparents what life was like in a REAL depression. Not that we couldn't head in that direction (a possibility that is more likely with all the nonsense in the "stimulus" package...like "Buy American" provisions that could touch off a global trade crash), but for the most part we need to grit our teeth and ride it out for another year or so.

Much good will come from this time, if we are open to learning from this experience.

Capitalistic economies are inherently subject to booms and busts. While painful, the busts in particular help to reallocate capital, resources and talent. Some of the companies that have failed (Circuit City, Linens and Things) were indistinguishable from their competitors, and coldly enough...did not deserve to stay in business. They created no particular positive memories for their customers, and failed to offer a unique shopping experience.

Painful, yes - but the people who worked for those companies can go on to use their talents and experiences to benefit other organizations, and other customer groups. *They* are the treasures hidden from view behind the corporate labels.

When I look at people on LinkedIn for example, I'm struck by the incredible diversity of backgrounds, experiences, certifications, projects, living locations, etc. What an amazing pool of talent (both employed and unemployed), waiting to be discovered and put to use through the capitalistic system of business creation.

As large businesses are destroyed, smaller businesses rise up to fill the gaps. Many people looking for work will end up with small to medium size organizations...rather than go back to the giants. This move can offer increased flexibility, creativity and responsiveness to customers - as well as the ability to use a wider range of an individual's gifts and talents.

As Americans, we have a long heritage of facing adversity and overcoming big challenges. Our current situation is no different. We dig in and stand strong when times get tough. This too shall pass.