Well, with some misgivings I commented, on her G+ post, that (among other things) I thought that based on my observations that the K-12 education in our country was “pretty horrible.” I also stated that, “I’ve tried to stop criticizing the education system (not very successfully) because I admit to not having a solution.” However, that didn’t deter the challenge she commented: “I’m still hoping that +Dave Kinnear will give some thoughts on how accountability in K-12 might be accomplished.”

Oy Vey! Me and my big keyboard. Will I never learn? I think she’s not really asking the right question though. I believe most people, even the most ardent supporters of the status quo, agree that there needs to be some accountability. I think the real issue is that we don’t know for sure what or how to measure in order to hold someone accountable. In other words, holding someone accountable is easy: “You will be held accountable to achieve X. If you don’t achieve X there will be negative consequences. If you do achieve X, there will be positive consequences.” What is often difficult is quantifying X, and that is the case here.

Greater minds than mine have been working on this problem, and it isn’t solved yet. Education is a highly complex problem. Consider what we ask our educators to do: teach young people from many cultures, from many socioeconomic backgrounds with widely variable learning styles. And we tend to define success here the same way we define pornography – we know it when we see it but it isn’t formulaic! So this is the height of hubris for me to think I can solve the problem or add anything new to the conversation. Still, I’ve never been one to avoid looking foolish if I have something to say. Therefore, here’s an attempt to speak to measurement and accountability; and here’s the rules I set down by which we might establish some understanding of the process.

The first rule is we aren’t allowed to say “we can’t measure that.” Instead, if it is absolutely, positively necessary we can say, “We don’t know how to measure that yet.” The second rule is we must always question whether something is merely a correlation or perhaps it might be a cause – but we should not assume it’s a cause simply because data seems to indicate correlation. Third, I don’t believe educators are any different or require any special handling from other working professionals. Finally, we have to understand that we will be wrong several times before we get it right and therefore should not expect miracles. Those excoriating folks for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) might want to consider that at least someone tried to do something whether we think it’s successful or not. This is a long time project; we WILL make mistakes and learn from them. And the school principal with whom I discuss these things believes that while not perfect, NCLB has actually moved us forward. He recommends adjusting it, not getting rid of it.

Do we really have a problem?

Depending on who you speak to on this topic (like so many controversial topics), you will hear that we are in dire straits or that things aren’t so bad or that we are the best in the world. And of course, you can find data, blog posts and videos that will support your view whatever it is. So where am I coming from on this? First, I believe in the scientific method of gaining understanding of our material world. Second, I believe we will continue to live into a global economy and will “compete” with the global community. I believe that repetitive tasks requiring low skills will move around the world to find the least cost options; and that is as it should be. So for those of you who are conservative in nature and politics, here’s an article by George Will, US Schools Get Failing Grade. For those of you who are more liberal in nature and politics, here’s an article by Nicholas Lemann, Schoolwork. For those who like statistics, the Broad Foundation has a summary here and of course you can “Google” this topic and find endless resources.

The consensus seems to me to be that we in fact do have a problem. The challenge, of course, is to define what the problem is, find the root cause, and then agree on the approach to a solution. Personally, I believe that too many of us jump directly to our favorite solution without even being willing to look at data with a fresh set of eyes (easy to say, hard to do) to see if our long held beliefs are true. Example: my conservative friends jump right to the problem being teacher unions and tenure for “bad” teachers. My liberal friends always jump to not budgeting enough for our education system driving the best and brightest into the private sector. I suspect both are right in different situations but they will not listen, really listen, to each other. Each believes what they believe, sees what they believe in the data (or assumes data to the contrary is simply wrong and ignores it) and they will not ever try to understand the opposing point of view. But I digress. In my view liberal, conservative and center folks largely agree that we have a problem in K-12 education even if we are still doing fine in secondary education. If the US is going to compete globally by providing mostly innovation, intellectual property and advancing technology then education must be a priority. Not just for those who will go on to secondary levels, but for those who will earn their living by providing services here in our own country. We need educated voters, tradespeople, and professional people so a strong K-12 education is required.

What gets measured gets done.

Is it any surprise that we had a small group – emphasize that, a SMALL GROUP – of educators actually cheating to make sure their students, themselves and their schools look good on the standardized tests? Human nature being what it is we should have expected that there would be some who would game the system. Are we really surprised that we now “teach to the exam” as opposed to working to make sure our students actually learn something. My friend is right in her post – we should not be surprised and we should question the validity of the testing we’ve set up with respect to it being goal achieving.

So what is the goal? I suspect not everyone agrees on this one. Again, speaking for myself, I think that we have to view K-12 education as having two goals. One is to prepare students to go on to a trade, or vocation. Not everyone can or should be expected to go on to secondary education.  So one education path has to be to prepare students to leave high school and “go to work,” and the second is, of course, to prepare students to go on to the university/college system. The end goal is productive, engaged citizens.

What does success look like? To me, the important thing our K-12 system has to provide is the foundation for students to continue learning and be productive throughout their lives. That requires some foundational education in math and science and communication skills. Success isn’t necessarily every student getting a passing grade. But success is making sure each student is as prepared as possible to be a productive citizen; even those students with special needs. How would we measure that? We’d want to know the dropout rate for K-12. We would have to track students after high school to see if they are gainfully employed, earning a living wage. Perhaps we’d want to know about how long they stay in one position and if they are providing for dependents. I suspect social security, unemployment figures and census data would be mined for that information. We seem to have plenty of those measurements around.

What next?

What is next is hard work analyzing all the data we have in various places, looking for patterns and correlations with how our young people are educated. Once we have a sense of how to define success and how we might measure it, we can then begin looking at what causes success. It might be things like parental involvement in the education of their children (PTA, parent/teacher nights, etc.) We might measure results on the standardized tests too of course, and we would modify those tests as we gained knowledge of how effective they are in measuring progress to the end goal. We’d also want to know how expenditure per student affects the end goal. That measurement might be broken down to show how the expenditures on administration, teaching professionals, facilities and material affect the end goal so that we can adjust budgets to put scarce resources where they belong. We’d like to know how many days the students attend school. To satisfy our curiosity about questions such as whether or not unions help or hinder, we might gather statistics about the difference between results from non-union schools versus schools with unions and see what the numbers might reveal (I have no real opinion on this other than the standard complaint that it should be easier to make structural changes, reward performance and to let poor performers go.) Remember, I started out cautioning about simple correlation versus root cause for the results, and I’m aware that all of this is complex and will require a lot of time to break through our preconceived notions. I also believe we will need to try things so we can measure the effects. Making changes and seeing that the intentions are actually carried out in good faith will be a challenge.

Accountability

Once we have established the metrics and understand what causes good education, then we have to be willing to pay our teaching professionals wages and benefits which will attract the best, brightest and most committed people to the profession. We would have incentive programs that reward the actions needed to achieve the goals – and we presumably now have measurements for those actions. In return for competitive compensation packages, the professionals will have to live in a meritocracy – just as in the private sector. There can be no guarantees except that all personnel are treated fairly as they perform – from the principal right on down to the first year teacher and of course staff as well.

Holding ourselves responsible and being held accountable by peers and leadership isn’t anything new to most people. When the result is unpleasant many people want to blame something or someone else rather than accept that they might not have lived up to clear expectations. Yet we have no hope of improving things if we don’t hold the professionals responsible for education of our young people accountable. If we haven’t done a good job at defining what success is and developing ways to measure it. That needs to be corrected.

In every company I’ve worked for I’ve had some element of my pay and measurement of success which was not totally in my control. That was considered a team effort. For our teaching professionals, there will be an element of their success which is beyond their control – perhaps a student who will not or cannot learn in the classroom environment. It is highly likely that such a student will be offset by one or more who are outstanding students and will make even a marginal educator look pretty good. It evens out over time and if the measurements we devise are reasonable, the teachers will fall into ranks that are pretty accurate to their actual performance. It’s the same in any meritocracy – imperfect but highly functional.

Bottom line

In my eyes there is room for hope that this isn’t an insurmountable task and I think there isn’t anything I’ve mentioned that is new. I’ve seen most of the above suggested measurements as well as others in various different places. The educators with whom I speak claim that such measurements are being made, new ones proposed and tried and that many teachers are supportive of the efforts. There may be some report or study that brings all of these concerns together, but I have not seen one. We have to define success, agree on how to measure it, agree on what actions are needed to achieve it and then treat teaching professionals the same way we treat other professionals and hold them accountable for mutually agreed upon goals and measurements. These goals are often called SMART goals in that they are Significant, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. We can achieve such goals for our education professionals. We just have to do it and be willing to pay for the personnel that demonstrate they can make the grade.

Here’s a disclaimer: I get that what follows is a rant, pretty much like spitting into the wind. Still, I’m going to say it anyway and get it off my chest because I’m frustrated. What got me started on this (again) is that lately, within the last month or so, I’m seeing more crap in my inbox than ever before. That highly technical term “crap” is defined as unsolicited advertisement. I attribute this new surge to two separate, yet related causes. First is the sad, unethical move by LinkedIn. By now you know that they pulled the ultimate Facebook, clueless and stupid move of sharing our profile information with third party companies (read that advertisers) and did not warn us ahead of time in clear easy to understand ways that they were going to do so. Consequently, that information was shared before the alarm went out and we had the opportunity to go in and opt out of the program. I no longer trust LinkedIn, they have become evil by not being sensitive to their customers/clients. What makes me even angrier about this betrayal is that I pay for an upgraded account at LinkedIn. They get money out of me already AND they violated my privacy.

What makes this similar to the clueless folks who then took advantage of that situation and started “pushing” their stuff into my inbox is that both they and LinkedIn are desperate. LinkedIn because they are now public, have to kowtow to the quarterly earnings god and so need to make sure they swell the ranks of the advertisers. The advertisers are also desperate because the economy is showing distinct signs of slowing down again, consumers are still keeping their wallets shut and companies continue to sit on trillions of dollars and not spending much at all. Between them, they may have (personally I believe they have – might be wishful thinking though) shot themselves in the foot on this. The model has definitely changed – consumers pull information and do not pay attention to, appreciate or trust information pushed on them.

My unofficial survey of the business owners, executives, service providers and other consumers in my network shows that targeted advertising that is presented in venues they frequent is quite acceptable. That is, they are willing to trade off sharing information that allows providers to display advertisements to keep the free services and sites they use free. However, they do not appreciate the concept that the information about them is public and anyone who wants to can harvest it and sell it. They believe it’s their information and they should control how it is shared. Many opt to NOT get involved with social media because of that. However, many (maybe even “most”) have put their information on LinkedIn because it was a “professional” web site. That makes the LinkedIn decision to be sneaky and evil that much more disconcerting to them. Disappointment is the only polite emotion expressed, the rest were a lot stronger.

So what can we do about all this? Probably not much. Still, I’ve started the process of closing down my Facebook account in favor of Google+ because at least for now, Google seems to have figured out the “sharing” thing. They achieve a good balance of showing me targeted ads while, as far as I can tell, not giving my contact information to advertisers. I haven’t seen any clues of that happening yet. And like the others, I’m fine with seeing targeted ads on all my free Google stuff – GMail, Reader, Docs, Voice, Chrome, etc. I want to keep things free so I’m willing to see those “pull ads.” We can go as far as some of my colleagues by refusing to put any information on the internet – some are down right paranoid. That doesn’t work for me, it seems to work for them.

Another thing I do, although it takes some time, is I put any advertiser with whom I have no account and who sends me an unsolicited e-mail on a black list on my server so that nothing else gets through from that account and/or IP address. I also report them to the national blacklist services. I tend not to do this with newsletters that follow the rules on opt-in. I simply unsubscribe from any that use PHP List, Constant Contact or one of the main newsletter services. I do that because done correctly, newsletters are providing useful information, not pushy selling. I actually stay on some of the ones that show up because the authors “get” that they need to be providing useful information, not selling or advertising. If the newsletter has a “call to action” (buy my stuff) I immediately unsubscribe. It’s getting easier and faster to blacklist accounts and IPs so I am doing a lot more of that. I hope you will also take the time to learn how to blacklist advertisers and to actually do so. In the long run, you’ll be helping them to learn how to change their business model to one more appropriate to the new world – pull information.

Some suggestions for marketers and advertisers. Stop it already. You are killing yourself. Put your effort into being sure that when I want your product or service I can easily find you. Make sure you have useful information that informs me rather than tries to sell me. Be truthful about what you say. Cut the hype and stop the e-mail blasts. Don’t try and find me and sell me. I’m not buying. If you try and sell me, especially through push techniques, I will do everything I can to make sure I never knowingly do business with you. I’m also one of those people who send any prepaid envelopes included in unsolicited mail back to the sender with their own crap in it.

Things have gotten bad enough and desperate enough that I now get sniveling pleas to buy from some clueless folks using a form on my website (soon to be removed) meant for sending me information IF you want to have me contact you or set up a meeting. The same is happening on my blog were idiots from the fake drug and porn purveyors actually take the time to go through the “Captcha” in order to leave their links and elevator pitch in a comment – which of course is never approved so it’s a monumental waste of time for them.

To my way of thinking, there is an even bigger concern than the frustration of a good thing (e-mail, blogs, websites) being ruined by those who, as always, spoil things. The legitimate businesses behind these activities are demonstrating that they have yet to figure out that things have permanently changed and that their old tactics, business models, products and services must also change if they are to survive. What are you doing to change the way you serve your customers? Are you still pushing stuff on them? Are you still paying for print advertising? Are you still training your sales people to sell instead of build relationships? For a shrinking minority of products and services that are truly commodity and simple, some of the old tactics may still work. But even there, I don’t need you or your telemarketer trying to push me to buy. I’ll just go to Amazon and get what I need. So, you’d better be there and you’d better be very visible. Your website had better give me valid information if I need to do some research and you’d better show up in my Google search otherwise, you lose.

And then there’s the sun. We haven’t paid too much attention to it until lately. But now, we are learning a great deal thanks to the many orbiting satellites we put around it to study as much as we can about the life of the sun. And that causes us to “connect some dots” with the effects here on earth. Did you know, for example, that you get more vitamin D into your body from 10 minutes in the sun than you would get drinking 200 glasses of milk? That’s a good thing, right? Well, yes except for skin cancer, so now we shoo our kids out of the sun or slather them with cream to block out the harmful rays which also blocks out the vitamin D. But the sun doesn’t really care what we do, and neither does the universe.

The Sun's Heartbeat

Did you know that the sun has cycles? Yes, it has a regular cycle, that scientists have been following for more than 250 years. The cycle is 11 years long. And those cycles have (until now) dominated the earth’s weather patterns. Well, to be precise, there are four factors that dictate our earthly weather: 1. Our own atmosphere, 2. the Sun, 3. El Nino cycles and 4. Volcanic activity. Scientists have figured out the model using all four factors and have very accurately accounted for our weather patterns. Luckily, the sun has been very quiet as we built carbons in the atmosphere, thus giving us a bit of a break in global warming. The question is what about the next cycle? If it is a normal peak, we will see the warmest temperatures ever recorded by man. If it is a “wimpy peak,” we will get a continued break in the global temperatures. One way or the other, neither the sun nor the universe cares about our comfort.

Finally, here’s a bit of information that really stopped me in my tracks (literally, I stopped running so I could go back and listen again). Science has proven that life has been on the earth for about 4 billion years. The sun should be relatively unchanged for another 5 billion years or so. However, the sun also increases its temperature by 10% every billion years or so and has ever since it was born. That means that in about another billion years, even without making any drastic changes, it will increase the temperature on the surface of the earth to about 700 degrees F. Life as we know it, and perhaps all life period, will no longer exist. That means life on earth has lived out about 80% of its allotted time – assuming we humans don’t kill ourselves in some other fashion first or speed up this demise by continuing our irresponsible activities. All of a sudden, the business and life “problems” I deal with seem pretty puny. So, as I said, the universe is indifferent and knowable. Sometimes the knowing gives comfort and insight into life here on earth. Sometimes the knowledge gained isn’t all that comforting. But it does help to put things in perspective!

But having gained knowledge – whether about our universe or ourselves or our social/business situation – is only the beginning. We need the wisdom to act according to that knowledge and our best guess about how we might “shape the future.” To bring my favorite saying down to earth, “nature is indifferent and knowable.” The earth doesn’t care if we make it – and may, if anything, have a tendency to want to see us gone because we are very disruptive. And when it comes to our businesses, “the markets are indifferent and knowable.” And competitors may have a tendency to want to see us gone.

While the politicians in Washington DC played their silly games with the debt ceiling – perhaps permanently destroying faith in the American experiment or at least our credit ratings – the markets did what markets do without regard to what we might want. Link the shenanigans in DC with the global debt crisis and you have the perfect storm for a very permanent and painful change in our business models. It remains to be seen what the citizens of the world decide to do with their respective governments and economic systems. Yet, we as individuals can hardly just sit around and wait to see what transpires. Complaining won’t help. Screaming obscenities at the TV won’t help although that does seem to make one feel better! So what should we do?

I’m going to suggest that we take a hint from our scientists. First, I’m going to do my best to find out what’s so. I’ll use data, observations, experiments and see if I can understand at least a little bit better this complex, interdependent economic system we’ve set up. We can’t go back, so we have to figure out how to go forward. I’ll build a theory and see how that works first to explain what I’m observing now and then to give me some hints about how to chart a course to the goals I set.

So far, here’s what I think is so:

• The economic models of the past are no longer working to predict our markets
• Consumer activity will be generally less than it has been
• Industrialized countries will experience the most pain as they adjust to de-leveraging/deflation
• Lower levels of growth are in for most developed countries
• Developing countries will require skill at not letting their economies become over leveraged
• Countries no longer have time, resources or the need to fight wars (but some will be stupid and engage anyway despite the broken model!)

There are, of course a whole bunch of other major things to add to the list, such as demographics, technology advances, etc. This list is one that addresses the complaints or statements I hear about “getting back to normal.” From what I can see – ain’t gonna happen!

Despite this list, I am optimistic that we will actually figure this all out, and more people will be living better lives in many countries than are now enjoying such a life. The pain will be the adjustment for those who have enjoyed privileged places up to now. Don’t get me wrong on this, I’m not saying America’s best days are behind her. Not at all. I am saying it’s not at all unlike what happens in individual countries as technology “kills” one industry displacing workers who have to either re-invent themselves or slip into poverty and despair. Some people never stop weeping and wailing, but most pick themselves up, find out what is so, decide what the will do about it and take action. I think the developed countries will, by and large, do just that. And so will our companies. We will re-invent ourselves. But first we have to admit what’s so. Scientists do that on a regular basis, but it is slow going.

Neils Bohr said that “Science progresses one death at at time.” Old theories, old models die hard. I’m not wanting to hasten my own demise, so I will accept the new ideas on how business needs to adjust rather than stick to my old, comfortable ideas. How about you? Are you leading your company to new ways of looking at the way business is done? Are you actively changing people’s world view? Are you seeking new data? Trying new things out? How will you take advantage of the globalized changes taking place?

The dwindling allure of building factories offshore

One has to wonder why this is such a “surprise” and so newsworthy. I guess it’s because we are looking for good news, ANY good news to give us some hope that the country’s economy is truly on a sustainable upward trend. Back when we were belly-aching about the auto industry losing its edge, there was a lot of discussion about how the foreign auto manufacturers seemed to be doing just fine using American labor and manufacturing right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. So as labor costs increase in the developing economies and the cost of transportation continues to increase, we are sure to see movement of manufacturing to be closer to the markets served. The US won’t be left out of this continuing trend.

While manufacturing may still continue to lose jobs to productivity increases and may also find some industries just simply won’t be able to compete with manufacturing offshore, the trend to losing jobs to off-shoring should decline. However, it is doubtful, to say the least, that the U.S. will ever go back to being a premier manufacturer. What concerns me most is not the continued erosion (if you’re a pessimist), nor the slightly improved trend to competitive manufacturing (if you’re an optimist). What bothers me is that we are not investing in the education of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Nor are we willing, it seems, to guide young people who will not attend college to solid careers in a trade. It will forever frustrate me that consumers will pay huge contracts to sports celebrities (read Moneyball to figure out how illogical we are about that market) who arguably do not contribute to anything except the advertising industry, consumers and shareholders allow outrageously large pay and bonuses to poorly performing CEOs and taxpayers agree to move tax dollars into providing cushy jobs , health care and retirement packages for politicians and public employees while ignoring investment in the very things that will make our economy thrive now and in the future. The good news is we live in a country where we can all choose to do these things. The bad news, in my mind, is that we as a society do choose to do them – or allow them to happen!

The loss of manufacturing is to me a red-herring. The real issue is much larger. What will America do to play in the world economy? What are we doing now to make sure we are ready to assume that place and compete successfully? Our multi-national companies will figure out the best way to manufacture. They will figure out how to minimize the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis on their supply chains.

Feel free to leave a comment on how you see our country surviving in the global economy. Since the global economy isn’t going to go away then we can’t set up trade barriers to protect our companies. If we cannot “unilaterally” play in the global market, then what do we do to make sure we add value?

Clayton M. Christensen is a recognized leading thinker around the topic of disruptive innovation. His landmark work, Innovator’s Dilemma,” and the many HBR articles on the topic of innovation has demonstrated his deep knowledge of how things are “shaken up” in our businesses and economy. He has applied the same systems thinking approach to the healthcare industry in our country and has outlined his findings in “The Innovator’s Prescription, A disruptive solution for Health Care.” I have not yet read the book, but it is certainly on my list. Mainly because this topic keeps coming up in my circle of colleagues and there seems little chance that one side will find anything good to say about the other side’s point of view. So I’ve been thinking about this topic for some time now.

Then this morning, on my jog, I was listening to a podcast and the interviewer was speaking with Clayton about his recent health problems (let’s be honest, health crisis!) and what he had experienced in his own personal interaction with the healthcare system. As usual, Christensen pulled it all together and made a cogent case for why no approach being discussed (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan) is going to solve the problem. In fairness, when pressed, he stated that he believed the present legislation is a step in the right direction to make sure we don’t leave folks behind while we get on with “blowing up the present system” and putting in place what is needed going forward. Also when pressed, he stated that the Ryan plan was not going to work. His reasoning was simple – the market modularizes the services provided, optimizing each “subsystem” in the healthcare system and thus makes the overall system totally un-optimized.

Christensen, who has long dealt with diabetes, found himself at age 55 unexpectedly dealing with a series of other health crises – heart attack, stroke, detached retina and several other issues. His experience in the healthcare system worked for him and he could see first hand how it was also not working for others. While he had already been working on his book before being stricken, this experience helped him solidify and express his concern for disruptive innovation in the healthcare system. What he found was that only those who step back and look at the whole system have come even close to understanding the issues, let alone solving them.

Christensen held up Kaiser Permanente in Northern California as the right model. Because Kaiser controls the whole system for providing the services, they can optimize and provide cost savings over the long term. They can force communication about what is needed for each patient and care regimen and follow up to make sure things are done right. The example he gave was that children in the Kaiser system are given treatments to seal their teeth. There are essentially no cavities when the teeth are sealed. This has been known for a very long time. But your dentist will likely not recommend such a treatment simply because they make their money on fillings. Kaiser can say, “no, we are going to save money in the long run by preventing decay in the first place.” There are many more examples of why health care, rather than our present system of sick care, makes sense in keeping costs down. We will not, however, see a move to that system if we simply tinker or let “markets” determine costs. Christensen worries that by taking the first step in the process with PPACA, we will ossify and further embed the present system – which is dysfunctional from a cost containment point of view. What is needed is disruptive solutions, and they will be hard to implement as long as this is a political issues. With both sides calling names and vilifying the other side, we will make no progress.

Back in 1873 Mr. Sholes was trying to solve a problem. He had a vision of making a machine that would allow an individual to type directly onto paper – yep, the typewriter. His problem was that the type bars had to be arranged to avoid “clashes.” His solution, ubiquitous to this day, was the “QWERTY Keyboard.” I think we’ve all grown up with it. And while there may still be many folks in areas where typewriters and PCs are not used, those of us who live in the so called “developed countries,” cannot escape his rather elegant design. Elegant in that it neatly solved the problem of the day. We have not been able to overcome the entrenched design even as the original problem it solved has long ago become a non-issue.

So now you get where I’m headed. Like many if not all of you, I grew up with the QWERTY Keyboard. It started in high school and became totally ingrained in my world when I hit college and learned to program on the card punches in the computer center and to type my papers on typewriters. (Do you know what a card punch is? Do you know what a typewriter is?) I even recognized how important typing was going to be and took a class to learn proper techniques. I don’t think twice about using any such keyboard and long ago became what some people call a “touch typist.” I think what that means is I use all fingers and do not look at the keyboard when typing (except I’ve never been good at the special characters, the number row or using a 10 key without looking). In the good old days, I typed as quickly and as accurately as most secretaries or executive assistants. I’m not quite so good these days since I do lots of other PC work such as spreadsheets and filling in web based forms. But still my typing skills stand me in good stead these days.

Enter the now very popular tablet PCs with their great multi-touch screens and virtual keyboards. Still the QWERTY layout, but now on a glass screen with no tactile feedback and no way to rest your hands lightly on the keys as one often does with a mechanical keyboard. I tried (not very long, admittedly) to use one of these tablets. I also use a blackberry storm with a virtual keyboard that I can manage because it has some tactile feedback and I only use it for very short typing tasks. Yet, I like the idea of having a small portable device that is “always connected” and has a screen large enough that I can do meaningful calendaring. My phone doesn’t cut it when I’m trying to see possibilities for meeting with my clients. If I have any significant calendaring task, I wait until I’m at my PC.

So, after hemming and hawing for a month or so, I finally made the decision to go with a Netbook. The brand isn’t important to the discussion, it is the concept of having to live with a design, and for me the mechanical keyboard was the clincher. Once I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to live with a virtual keyboard, the solution had to be to either get an external keyboard (bluetooth keyboard is possible with the Apple iPad and I suspect the slew of tablet computers coming out will have a similar solution) or not get a tablet. The thought of carrying around the accessories brought me to a halt. So, here I am, typing happily away on a very nice Netbook that is continually connected to either 3G Network (WWAN) with a carrier I love (Verizon) or to any available wireless local network (WLAN ).

Some day I may see my way clear to have a pad computer. But for now the combination of virtual keyboard and being tethered to AT&T made picking up the first really viable pad computer a non-starter for me. So I am parking my big, heavy 17″ full keyboard (including a 10-key) and powerful Toshiba Laptop (that also serves as my desktop) on the desk and carrying a very capable HP Mini 311 11.6″ netbook with a 92% keyboard. Still have to get use to the smaller keyboard but the learning curve is not steep and I have the same wonderful tactile feedback. For once, I am not on the bleeding edge. I must be getting old.

The business lesson for me here is one about which we all dream. Back in 1873 a gentleman created an open sourced design called the QWERTY Keyboard. It is still ubiquitous today. Who among us would not want to invent such a product? Who would not want to have their invention be a world changing design that despite the original reason for the design disappearing, lives on because of all the human investment in familiarity? Maybe the thumb typist and the “two-finger hunt & peck” typists will be able to overcome the need for the mechanical keyboard – yet, it is hard to imagine we will start using another layout even though we no longer worry about key jams.

I’ve learned that I can do without constant internet connection – since at Dad’s apartment (Rutland Place – Independent Senior Living) there isn’t any readily available. He has no use for computers, the internet or e-mail and doesn’t even want to attempt to understand “that stuff.” He marvels at what his “kids” do with all the technology, but it isn’t of any interest to him. So I’ve been able to survive with fairly lengthy stretches with only phone connectivity (hours at a time until I reached my sisters fully wired home where we’re staying).

I’ve learned that the VA has more forms than “Carter has little Liver Pills.” Despite the fact that the forms are available on “fill in pdf documents,” they are still asking for redundant information on multiple forms. I think it’s great that they have gotten to the point that they are willing to use pdf and the internet so I can find the forms, but I’m wondering about the database and why I have to keep entering the same information over and over. Especially, since we are without internet at Dad’s place, we filled the forms in by hand. The other question I have is why they need to be mailed in instead of submitted on the internet. Government moves slowly, especially when jobs might be eliminated or changed. Yet these forms gave me an excuse (why do I need one?) to ask questions of my father that I had never asked about before.

While filling out the forms, I have had the sad revelation that I was basically oblivious to what was going on in my childhood. I don’t recall almost any of what Dad shared (although he did little sharing according to the collective memories of the children) and I had to ask a whole lot of questions to fill in the many forms. Somehow, I judge that I really should have known many of the answers to questions like – in what city and state were you born, what high school did you attend, what was your mother’s maiden name (! I didn’t recall it until he told me and then realized I knew it). My wife knew more about my family than I did since she spend many hours with us as a teenager (we met in junior high school). Many men of my fathers generation shared very little and are fiercely independent. Still, my wife knew things I didn’t know because she cared and was interested in the people side of relationships – she is genuinely interested.

I learned that this man, who was always robust, intelligent, careful and dependable was no longer robust, had grown careless and a lot less dependable even though he still maintains his intelligence for the time being. It was a shock to see the man on whom we all depended be the one depending on us. The man who seemed to have a mind like a steel trap, frequently can’t find the words he wants or remember telling that story five minutes ago. The man who was the epitome of self-discipline now cannot make himself accept limits or take medication as prescribed, etc. I could not help but see my future in my father’s present.

I learned that there are kind people in this world who will take care of those in need; Who will be patient and compassionate; who will be understanding and willing to provide tough love when necessary. I learned, from my father’s relationship with his cat, that regardless of how tough and independent you might be, you need someone to care for and someone who cares for you. I believe that without his cat my father would have died of lonesomeness years ago.

There are mentoring and leadership lessons for me in this time I’ve spent in Tennessee. Speaking for myself, I know that I have to be much more present to the people in my life. I tend to be in my own head a lot. Outward focus would have meant that I would likely have known a lot more about my father’s life than I do – I would have asked the questions much earlier than now. I will work to make sure I push on that growing edge of my life while not diminishing my joy of being alone with my own thoughts.

The compassion I see in those around my father these days (new friends and non-family members who work at the independent living facility) is not what I had thought or expected to find. It is authentically focused on my father’s best interest so it isn’t simply “helping” him out. The staff exercise tough love and therefore it isn’t always pleasant for him – he rebels, he is too independent and refuses to accept “welfare” in any form. Leaders of today, like the staff here, are not afraid to tell the truth as they see it (allowing for the fact that their view is not necessarily reality, just their reality); but they do so while authentically having the other person’s best interests at heart.

I think this trip has given me a new view on “Management By Walking Around,” and “Leading by Example.” With respect to MBWA, I would not walk the corners simply to see what’s happening with an eye towards correcting, improving or even simply trying to find someone doing something right (although I’d still do lots of that). I would take that opportunity to be authentically interested in my employees; find out something new and personal about their lives, what they are dealing with and how they are getting on. Why? Because in watching the staff at Rutland Place, observing the folks work at Southwest Airlines on the flight home and watching many of the passengers flowing through the airports at Nashville and Los Angeles I could see the difference in the way people responded when there was genuine interest and caring on their part. Things just worked better then, and seemed to me to be much more productive. Those who were only inwardly focused and self-interested did not seem to be having a particularly good day.

One big lesson for me is that I use technology and “connectivity” as a way to “stay in my head.” It can be more than that if I choose to let it be AND I will learn to not be so connected all the time. Oh, it’s easier, my PC doesn’t much care if I have it’s best interest at heart – although, being just a smidgen superstitious, I do speak nicely to it. Yes, this trip has made me rethink some of my interaction with the people around me. It has made me recognize my own mortality (that’s a good thing) and given me a new desire to up the anti on the interpersonal focus. Thank goodness for that – if I didn’t have growing edges to push on, it would all be over. How about you? How might you improve on your “outward focus” to enhance your own life and the lives of those around you? What should your employees know about you? What should you know about them? What do you want your grandchildren to know and say about you?

Why? Well, there seems to be a lot of discussing, complaining, opining and shuffling of feet and very little action on the business front. Businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars. Banks are sitting on trillions of dollars. Consumers are sitting on what few dollars they can gather and have pushed the savings rate up to 6% or so. Consumers like businesses are paying down debt. Everyone seems to be waiting for the Government or someone else to make the first move.

Source: UK Output, Income and Expenditure statistical bulletin

Normally, that kind of debt reduction and savings rate would be great; now it is troublesome. And Antony’s view on all this? “What’s new? I’ve had to deal with thin margins, challenging employees and slow markets for most of my professional life.”

I agree and can see his point. Many, maybe most, of the executives I speak with are waiting for the consumer to begin buying again. The U.S. economy is based on consumption – I’m told that until recently about 70% of GDP has been consumer activity. They are worried that this might be the “new normal.” And they aren’t sure what to do about that. It messes up their business model.

By some standards, the British economy has been in the slow growth mode for many years now. Certainly it has not boomed like some other economies. Antony pointed out that what we are shocked to see in our own economy has been close to the norm for him and his peers in the British economy as well as some other European economies. So he doesn’t quite get the problem with the American executives. Complaining, opining, discussing and shuffling feet doesn’t get results. Actions get results. And while many companies have done a fine job at controlling costs, they are totally lost on how to increase the top line. Selling doesn’t work in this economy, it seems to just make people angry and in no mood to buy.

So what do you do next? Maybe hire someone who’s been through the mill already. Someone who knows how to build a company on thin margins, low revenue and poor capital environment. After this recession, we may have some pretty talented executives who figure it out and manage to get their companies to grow. We have already lost a whole bunch of companies and watched assets decline. On the other hand, to get through this and thrive, maybe we need to find folks who have had to deal with this kind of economy before.

That kind of talent is difficult to find. Many of our executives have never seen times this tough before, and I’m sure they never want to see them again. The large, international firms can surely find talent. They have folks who have lead big divisions in struggling economies abroad. But what about the small to mid-sized business; one that cannot call on a deep bench with long experience in struggling economies? Well, maybe you should consider hiring one of those “gray haired guys” that have at least been through the seventies. Or maybe you should hire a Brit.

And I have just about always been at the bleeding edge of technology. From the time I stumbled through the wrong door at college and wound up outside the computer center (with all its punch cards, plug-wire printer boards, high-speed chain printers, and IBM 1620 – boy does that date me, eh?) to the present when I just about salivate over the latest in PCs, Smart phones, tablet computers and what’s going on over in the bio-tech field. I love it when my Scientific American and Technology Review magazines show up. So as you might guess, I have for many years had one kind of so-called smart phone or another. I even started with the old PDA that simply was a calendar/contact list/note folder and fancy calculator that synchronized (painfully) with my PIM – which has almost always been Microsoft Outlook.

My “Apple-head” friends will love this story and will believe they definitely would never have had this problem. They might be right, but who knows for sure? Anyway, I don’t have an iPhone and will not have one as long as it is tied to AT&T. In my opinion, that was a very bad decision by Apple. I almost never have a dropped call, almost never have a “dark spot” in coverage and personally have never had a bad customer experience with Verizon. I have had all of those negative things and more with AT&T, so they won’t get me back any time soon.

However, my latest smart phone is the Blackberry Storm. I love it – when it works. Which it mostly has, up until this past Friday (8/6/2010). Some many months ago, my original BB was acting up. The screen would not always connect and I’d have to pull the battery to reboot the danged thing. Annoying. So I took it to Verizon and in typical fashion they worked hard to try and get the silly thing to fail so they could easily give me a new one. It wouldn’t fail for them, so they offered that they would give me a new one if I wanted, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to extend my warranty period. I took the new phone anyway. They made sure the data was backed up, deactivated the old device, activated the new device, made sure that all was working as it should and wished me a great day. And so it was. And even as I went to China with my BB, I didn’t lose connection, never lost an e-mail and had a fabulous experience with carrier and device. Until Friday.

That phone is the only phone I have. If it doesn’t work, I don’t have a “phone.” I can and do use the PC and VOIP to make calls, so I am not limited in outbound, but incoming is another problem for friends and clients. So I was pretty concerned when, after hanging up with a friend, my phone wouldn’t disconnect. It was hung up. So, on to one of the more annoying thing about this phone, to really reset it, you have to pull the battery and then wait for a very long boot cycle. It wouldn’t boot. Nothing. Not even a sign that it was alive. New battery and AC adapter didn’t help. Off to the Verizon store. But I figured it was “big bucks” time.

But no. My friends at Verizon tried everything to get that silly phone to boot up and determined it just wasn’t going to happen. So they said, “hey, nobody should have to put up with this. We have one of these in stock so we’ll just replace it for you.” Same drill as before, and I walk out of the store with a new phone, a smile and a genuine love of the good folks over there at Verizon. Happy camper.

Until I get home. Score so far? Verizon 1, BB – 0. I was feeling pretty confident that I’d be back up and running in a short time. Why? Because my life for the last 15 years or so has revolved around a Personal Information

Where do People Read their Mail?

Manager (PIM) on my PC. For the most part that has been Microsoft Outlook. And all my contacts and appointments, tasks, notes you name it, are in Outlook or on the PC. And my BB synchronizes with Outlook. So no worries, right? Well, not quite. I’ve been using Microsoft Office 2010 for many months now (full disclosure, I am a registered Microsoft Partner). And I’ve had no trouble synchronizing the BB with outlook. BUT – it turns out there’s a bit of a quirk here. The folks at RIM, for whatever unfathomable reason, have not updated their Desk Manager software to work with Office 2010. Don’t get me started. I have no idea why they have been dragging their feet on this. Outlook is still (I believe) the most used desktop e-mail client (although Gmail is catching up as being the place where folks like to go). How could RIM not be prepared for the new Outlook? Anyway, apparently, as long as one had their BB syncing with Office 2007 and then upgrade to 2010, things would continue to work – for that device and Desktop Manager configuration. So imagine my surprise when nothing would synchronize! Disaster! Hours later, after uninstalling and re-installing software, I took to the blogs and found out about this shameful laps on RIM’s part. I could have saved time if I wasn’t so damned independent and insist on “doing it myself.” Score? Verizon 1, BB 0, RIM minus 10.

The blogs save the day though, and a company whose software I’ve used before and pretty much trust. So now, there’s the round-about way to solve my problem. It’s simple (kind of). Purchase Companion Link which will talk to Desktop Manager and also talk to Outlook 2010 – they were up to speed during the beta phase. Then the DM talks to the BB so all is well. Except one thing, no amount of finagling, tweaking, registry edits, uninstalling or reinstalling would get the DM to accept the add-in from Companion Link. More hours lost.

Back to the blogs. No real help. Over to Companion Link’s website and Viola! There it is. Simple. Get Companion Link for Google which will sync my Outlook 2010 with a Google Calendar. Then Google has a free software to sync my BB with the Google Calendar – AND, it will synchronize contacts as well. Score? Verizon 1, BB 0, RIM -10, Google 1 and Companion Link 2. But security is now a big concern.

This is what I love about technology. It is an incredible time saver. Right! When it works it is, and I’m sure I’ll be fine once I get over the hump. It seems like I go through this about once or twice each year. But this year, it’s been twice in the last month. First my PC had a hardware problem that looked all the world like it was a computer virus problem – I lost a weekend there too, until I finally figured out that it HAD to be a hardware problem. This past weekend it’s the phone. But consider what this has forced me to do – put my head in the cloud.

Yep, I’m writing this post on my Ubuntu machine (my son would be so proud), while doing my mail in Thunderbird, while keeping track of my calendar with the Lightning Add-on which synchronizes with my Google Calendar with the “Provider Add-on” and my contacts which synchronize with the Google Contacts with the Zindus add-on. All of which are based off my PC and Outlook and now sync with my BB. So while Outlook may be the “center of my Universe” for the moment, I am very much at the mercy of the cloud, Google and the clever guys who keep all this stuff in sync. I’m not as far along as some in this regard, however, even for me at this point Google handles: my voice mail, back up for e-mail, 80% of my searches, SEO, document sharing, calendar sharing, news gathering and blog reader. Yikes! They’ve got me! I wish I had chosen the red pill. I’m too far down this rabbit hole!

So now what I’m thinking is why am I doing all that stuff? Why not just move on to the cloud by ditching Outlook all together – I can use the new Windows Live Computing space for the usual office documents and can certainly migrate to another PIM. It’s pretty scary though. Office is so well integrated that I find the thought of working with all the various add-ons and then not being able to easily share with others to be a concern. However, Microsoft had better be, and I believe they are, looking at all the new ways that folks can find to connect and share. The next step for me might be to explore some more of this alternative, open source software including the work Microsoft is doing in the cloud as well.

Meanwhile, I have to get back to work. Not only have I lost the weekend, I spent time venting on this blog. I know that means I’m procrastinating for some reason. I better find out what and why. I’ll bet there’s an app for that.

—————————————————————————————-

8/11/2010 PS: As if to rub salt in the wounds, after spending additional hours cleaning up contacts so that they transfered in the manner I needed between the three applications (Outlook to Google to Blackberry) I started my PC only to find a download for the new Desktop Manager 6.0 which reportedly will now sync directly with th BB. I’m probably not going to bother since now I’m all set up for moving to an Android phone!

What I think is that many of us in business are not really in touch with the people. The average person is seeing their “hard earned” wealth and ability to earn a living greatly diminished while the investment bankers are doing just fine. They see bankers not lending while their small business is starving for cash. They see that they can’t find jobs while labor unions strike at Boeing. Big government, big business and selfish unions are not on their list of favorite people these days and neither are people who make it too obvious that they are among the “elite.” Not surprising that a recent poll by Jan Norman over at the Orange County Register lists Politicians and Salespeople as the least trusted professionals.

Here’s what’s different now. First, if the politicians are reading things right, you have one strike against you in the court of public opinion if you have a business that’s doing well and you indulge in conspicuous consumption – I don’t think it matters if you are private, public, for-profit, not-for-profit, large or small, you had best show humility and gratefulness. Blaming others for making things a bit tougher isn’t going to help, and if you try and justify your position (I employ many people, if I do well, they do well. How will I pay their benefits? etc.), you will be seen as a whiner.

The second thing is that today you WILL be transparent whether you like it or not. Many if not most employees and customers are well connected through the internet. Remember the video that went viral about United breaking a customer’s guitar? It cost them big time. It won’t matter to me if you’re large or small, I now have a way to “pay you back” if you are rude, indifferent or give me poor service.

I caught a bit of the news recently and the witnessed spectacle of the executives of BP, Transocean and Halliburton all pointing fingers at each other. No one wanted to take responsibility, because of the legal implications I suppose. But the public will not bother with that, they’ll just see some very wealthy individuals ducking responsibility for a very bad environmental accident. Just like Enron, WorldCom, Wall Street Bankers, individual traders and Krogers, these guys don’t want to own up to the fact that they blew it. What’s worse is, they won’t be able to hide what they did wrong. We no longer control the media, and neither does the traditional big media.

So what does all this mean? To me what it means is that there’s a pretty good chance that the politicians are reading the electorate correctly and are trying to gain points for the upcoming election cycle. If that’s true, business people will not help themselves by also pointing the finger at others. Instead, we should be making sure we are not being casual about customer service, quality of product and service, delivering what we claim, cleaning up our advertising, making sure we are really adding value – all the basic stuff. If you are doing that, then good for you and keep it up, maybe even raise the bar now. If you aren’t really doing things the right way, you might want to think about what it will feel like when (not if) your customers/employees find out.

It doesn’t matter if we are right. It doesn’t matter if the present administration is making things harder for us or not. It doesn’t matter if customers are being “unreasonable.” It only matters that we continue to survive, thrive and continue to do good work. For that we need to own that right now at least big business, and perhaps all business, has fallen out of favor due to the greed, lack of ethics, lack of leadership and being totally tone deaf when it comes to what the electorate is seeing and feeling. Those same negative characteristics are being ascribed to the politicians themselves. Those same negative characteristics may be what makes them right about siding with the electorate “against” business. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel fair. But it is the way it is. So the question for businesses of all sizes may well be, “Do you want to be right or effective?”