The short answer is yes CSR matters and no it isn’t enought to just employ people and earn a profit; and it never really has been otherwise. The truth is that now there is more transparency (like it or not) around what companies and business owners are doing. And there is obviously much discontent over the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” or, if you will, between the 1% and the 99% to use the now quite ubiquitous rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street Crowd.

I’ve noticed an increase in the number of business speakers who are “pitching” employee engagement as a critical discipline for the coming year. Why? Well, for one thing, as the economy improves, we will need to do more to keep our key employees. If you’ve had to cut back on wages, bonuses and benefits, you may want to do whatever you can to restore those wages, bonuses and benefits. If we are not able to do that for profitability and cash flow reasons, then we will need to find other ways to encourage employee involvement in our enterprise. Green Research found that 80% of major corporations are planning to invest significantly in employee engagement in 2012. According to Gallup, 86% of engaged employees say they feel happy at work compared to only 11% of those employees who feel disengaged. So what does this all mean to the company? Companies with high levels of employee engagement saw increases in their bottom line. Towers Watson calculated improvements on average of 19.2% for engaged organizations and a decline in bottom line results of almost 33% for those companies scoring in the lower levels of employee engagement.

One of the ways employees feel engaged is if they are allowed to volunteer their time for causes they support. Many companies are finding ways to support their employees by giving them time, or allowing them to “earn” time that they can volunteer for an appropriate charity organization. Some companies are even exploring the idea of partnering with a not for profit organization and giving their employees an opportunity to volunteer, raise funds, etc. The Social Enterprise movement is pairing for profit businesses with not for profit businesses so that there is a cross-learning opportunity. The not for profit organization may have some great ideas for employee engagement since they spend much of their time getting volunteers energized around a mission. The for profit company can share best practices for containing costs, continuous improvement of processes and managing the paid staff properly. It is a win-win situation in most cases.

As social media continues to grow (businesses are finding the new Google+ to be a great platform) and mature, businesses are finding that they have no choice but to be catering to their customers who often use these platforms almost exclusively. These tools are also used by the consumer to determine the quality of the vendor they are considering. They look for referrals and/or ranking by their friends. They do not believe paid advertisements. Companies have to be involved with the social media sites if for no other reason than to know what is being said about their brands and to know what is going on in their community. The social responsibility part of all this is to make sure that the company is engaged in the community.

The National Association of Corporate Directors sent out a Public Company Governance Survey and found that the highest priority at 72% of the respondents was strategic planning and oversight while only 2% put CSR at the top of their priorities. This suggests that many boards will be working to catch up to their more nimble and media savvy competitors. If the trends in transparency, CSR and employee engagement continues, then we will soon find that “good business” is not only the norm, but a requirement to compete.

Harvard Business School defined entreprenuer this way: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”- Howard Stevenson

I was reminded of this several times this past month. First, over on LinkedIn, one of the groups I frequent posted this great article from Inc. Magazine. It’s an interesting read.

Entrepreneurship is creating something out of nothing. And of course there has to be a fair amount of leadership quality in the entrepreneur, at least in the beginning. Besides this article, I was reminded of the “entrepreneurship puzzle” as I worked with a colleague on his business idea presentation for his peer advisory board. That, in turn reminded me of the success gained by one of my UCI mentees in starting his own business. These two gentlemen are very different in training and background. Yet they both have the desire and the drive to build their own businesses – “without regard to resources currently controlled.”

The sometimes puzzling thing about those entrepreneurs who jump into things – like young kids jumping into the summer swimming hole without first looking to see what is there – is what motivates them to do so in the first place. And as Eric Schurenberg mentions in his Inc. Magazine article, Stevenson stated that “The entrepreneurs I know are all different types. They’re as likely to be wallflowers as to be the wild man of Borneo.” I agree. The personalities of the business founders with whom I work are very different. And their reasons for jumping into the entrepreneurship swimming hole varies as much as their personalities. Yet one thing seems to be common – they have an idea for a product or service and they are willing to “do what it takes” to get that idea off the ground and into the marketplace. They don’t seek risk, but are willing to evaluate, mitigate and live with the risk. And some pretty much do jump into the swimming hole without looking – though that is by no means a requirement for success; or failure. A solid well thought out business plan is always useful when properly understood and implemented.

In this political season, there is much talk about the particular brand of capitalism in the U.S. Who creates jobs? Is it the small businesses and start-ups or the more established firms? Who are the “good guys?” Captains of industry with their out sized compensation or the entrepreneur earning less than his/her key employees? As usual, there are lots of numbers being quoted to make points on all sides of this argument - an argument which I think is pretty much a moot point. History does not support business being stagnant with the existing players being the only players moving forward. Someone will start new businesses with disruptive technology and the business scene will again shift to create new opportunities for many – including employment. The question will always remain, in my view, How will the workforce evolve to match the new requirements for employment? Who will start the next “big thing?”

One can imagine that entrepreneurship itself will begin to fill the gap on how we as individuals can continue to grow our knowledge and skill set through new an innovative ways of learning. All of this will, of course, continue to be painful and we will have the usual suspects claiming that all businesses eventually become corrupt and those who claim the only way to save our economy is to completely turn the business community loose, without constraint. And as always, the truth will be in the middle somewhere. My sense of things is that we almost have it right today. If we keep entrepreneurs in mind as we formulate policies and regulations so that many new businesses can start and fail and flourish, then we will hopefully have the boiling up of change and new services that we need for a vibrant economy. If we continue to learn from the companies who game the system and plug the holes in regulations, then we will avoid some of the excesses creating havoc now and in the future.

The goal is to restore and maintain the consumer’s confidence that there is a level playing field for them and that someone “has their back” when it comes to “fighting” large corporations. The Occupy Wall Street movement is sending a strong message to the captains of industry and politicians alike – they perceive that the playing field is no longer level. The vast “middle class” is finding their stagnated purchasing power and stunted upward mobility is no longer acceptable. We need to remind ourselves that it makes no difference what we might think, as long as the perception is what it is, then that is the reality for a large number of people. We ignore it at our own peril.

So what are we doing to re-think our approach to the business climate? Will the old models and political party dogmas solve today’s problems? I think not. What if we decided that despite economies of scale we better serve people if we make sure most companies remain “small.” I’m not suggesting government mandate this, but rather that businesses change their models on their own. What if those businesses who might need to be large – telecommunications? Power generation? – found a way to truly serve individual customers as though they really mattered, and found a way to more reasonable executive compensation? Perhaps changes along those lines would go a long way to obviate the need for revolution of the people or intervention by the government. Too much to hope for, I suppose. But then, we could be the change we want to see in the business world and it is the small business, the entrepreneur that is best equip to make the necessary adjustments. That’s a grand idea!

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.

Who is wise? What are the characteristics? Who are the folks we think of as mentors, mensches or crones? Who do we think of as wise leaders? Certainly not all leaders in business, politics, education or other organizations are wise. It seems that today, precious few really wise people are engaged in public life. Or maybe they are just overshadowed by those ideological folks spouting out widsom they gained over the weekend – or through the latest polls.

Wisdom then is not a prerequisite for leadership – although it does seem to help to have some. Wise people do not always have a formal education – although it seems to help to have some. Wise people do seem to have a lot of experience and knowledge, so they tend to be “older” rather than younger. Still, I often say that a young person is “wise beyond their years.” What might that mean?

Here’s what I’ve noticed with regard to wisdom.

Humility: People I consider to be wise, that is having gained wisdom, do not consider themselves particularly wise. They are humble. With wisdom comes a profound humility. I have never heard a person whom I consider to be wise to ever state that they have wisdom. They are usually embarrassed when someone calls them wise. They do not flaunt their knowledge nor do they insist that their view be accepted as the correct view. I rarely hear a wise person state something as “THE” truth. So being wise is NOT believing that one is wise or possesses the truth.

Experience: As I think of the folks I’ve referred to as wise, almost all have wide experience in the world and so they are generally older in years – but definitely not calcified in their learning or thought processes. They seek new experiences and new knowledge and do not confuse knowledge and/or experience with wisdom. They do not let their experiences determine their future, and they do let their knowledge and experiences evaluate risk levels. So being wise is NOT considering that learning ceases when school or employment ends. Wisdom is NOT synonymous with knowledge.

Practical: Wise people connect the dots, they see the big picture. They see both the forest AND the trees. I have heard this referred to as “common sense” by some folks. I think what this means to many is that the wise seem to be able to take an abstract concept, theory or proposition and apply it in a practical, action oriented manner to our social construct. So being wise is NOT viewing things in isolation without considering the context.

Thoughtful: It seems to me that those I consider wise rarely if ever make quick decisions or take quick action. They think about things. If they do seem to make a quick decision, I usually find out that they had prepared for this particular decision well in advance. Or perhaps I will find out that they had a well thought out process for weighing the circumstances and context in which they find themselves and used that process efficiently to reach what appears to me to be a “quick decision.” In actuality, it was not reached without forethought. So being wise is NOT making snap decisions or “shooting from the hip.” Being wise is NOT engaging in “group think.”

Flexible: I do not know anyone who is wise who refuses to change his or her view in the face of data and/or evidence demanding that they do so. They are not casual about this, they are deliberate. Yet they refuse to avoid data that may disprove their view. That is sometimes disconcerting for me. When I speak with my mentors and they have changed their position on a particular topic, I usually am taken aback. Wait! You said capital punishment is justified in some cases and now you are saying you cannot find justification in any case? What made you change your mind? The wise are not afraid to be different from others. So being wise is NOT holding on to a view without challenging it periodically. Being wise is NOT conforming to others.

Self-knowledge: The mentors in my life know their fundamental organizing principles or values. They can, most often, eloquently express their value system when asked to do so. They can explain how they have come by those principles and rarely are they “given to them.” By that I mean, they have developed their own principles from deep examination of what works for them and what seems to best model how the world and people around them really work. Being wise is NOT leading an unexamined life.

Somehow, the wise people in my life – the crones, mensches and mentors – leave room for wisdom. That is to say, they clear their heads. They really listen and observe newly. They do not let past experience determine what they are seeing or hearing now. The wise leaders take the same approach that Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes, they “Listen, Learn then Lead.” They take risks, but not unevaluated risks. They learn from failure and are not afraid to chance failure. They are not afraid to take action.

When I consider someone “wise beyond their years,” I believe I’m expressing that a young person, even with limited experience in life, has figured out that they don’t know everything, that they can listen, learn then lead, that their view of the world isn’t the only view and that they can and should take the time to consider before they choose. They also get that they can choose and will have to live with the consequences. They accept responsibility and are willing to be held accountable for their choices. They will only become wiser as time goes on because they “leave room for wisdom.”

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.

But if you’re not a technologist, a geek, who really enjoys learning about new smart phones, fancy tablet computers, the latest in computer technology and software development, then how do you decide where to spend your limited attention span and what do you outsource to your “IT expert.” This is no different than other decisions we make as executives or in our personal lives. I alternate between being disheartened over some of my colleagues and friends who simply refuse to learn basic “stuff” to marveling at the “85 year old senior citizen” who takes adult learning classes on basic computer proficiency. They do their e-mails, they may even blog, they have their cell-phones (maybe even a smart phone) and they enjoy using the internet to search for items of interest or purchase books. At the same time, they refuse to give up their newspapers and prefer to call when they can. I say, good for them.

Still, we (meaning all of us, elder, youth, overly casual and paranoid alike) are also targets for the unscrupulous “low life” spammers and scammers. We don’t use passwords that are secure, we write things in obvious places because we forget, we don’t take the time to learn and we sometimes abrogate accountability instead of delegating responsibility when it comes to security.

What started me thinking about all this was the latest report from M86 Security Labs. Read it,it’s pretty scary. Also, last week I started getting e-mail from a friend that I just knew wasn’t from him. His e-mail account had obviously been hacked and now all his contacts were receiving pleas to send him money to get out of England. Since I had just met with him, I knew it was a scam. This gentleman loves to learn, he’s in his late 80′s, is pretty good with internet research and a very intelligent guy with mostly all of his marbles! Yet he fell prey to a phisher. My Dad, same age, will never fall prey to this kind of thing. He won’t have a computer in the house. He barely can use a cell phone (but has to because he won’t pay for a land line and a cell, and the cell was most convenient when he was traveling). He tries and often fails to use his new big screen TV (which remote do I use?) and has no intention of even trying to figure out anything else. Which guy is taking the right path? Both of course. But one can communicate with his grandchildren on Facebook and the other has to sit and wait for the phone to ring or have a compelling reason to initiate the call himself.

So here’s the rub. If you use technology (and I believe you miss a great deal if you don’t) then you also have an obligation to learn the basics and also learn the things necessary for security.

Once you decide, when on the savanna or in the city jungle, that there is danger and you take action, that certainty is very useful. In our personal lives and in our business lives, that certainty locks us in, closes our minds, and keeps us in a box. The thing that is important to understand here is that we reach this “certainty” prematurely, before all the facts are in and considered. Ted Cadsby, corporate director, principal of TRC Consulting, calls this a “speed-accuracy tradeoff” that is no longer necessary. He says that, “. . . there is an antidote to premature certainty: Adopting a mindset of ‘provisional truth.’ ”

What “provisional truth” means is, simply put, we must think of our explanations of how things are as hypotheses, or theories which we always try to disprove. We have to look for evidence that our hypothesis or theory doesn’t “hold water” in a given situation and is therefore incomplete or perhaps even just wrong. This concept is important and we may be able to understand it at an intellectual level, yet when it comes to being skeptical of our own conclusions, assumptions and certainty, we seem to have blind spots. I know I do. And since my awareness has been raised, I am noticing this same “Neanderthal Certainty” in my fellow travelers. It takes mighty effort on my part to not only be skeptical of my own certitude but to suspend judgment for those who (it’s now so obvious to me) are trapped in their own certainty. Once we believe we have figured something out, we want it to be done. Yet, in our very high-speed and complex world, we more than ever need to embrace provisional truth.

This is not new thought in the sense that we have pretty much always expected our scientists to have skeptical, provisional truths. We want them to continue to find out how well their “theories” actually describe the material world. Yet we seem to often eschew that same method, that skeptic’s model, for ourselves and our businesses. The jump to certainty feels natural and good for us. We don’t often stop to think about this unless someone or something makes us do so.

I have often been that person who states what in reality is an opinion with such certitude that an inexperienced person would take what was said as irrefutable fact. I don’t do this on purpose. It happens because I study something that is complex and boil it down to what I think “the answer” is to “what is so” and then embrace that certainty. It’s a relief to be certain. I don’t have to deal with the “lost feeling,” or the “fear of the unknown” if I just make myself certain about the way things are.  Worse yet, it then becomes hard (impossible?) for me to see the evidence that points to there perhaps being a more complete answer or even a better answer. When I believe it I will see it – whether it’s there or not!

There are several good books that I’ve been reading to help me along with these thoughts. Brain Rules, by John Medina, The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer and Brain Bugs by Dean Buonomano. What these and other books, articles and documentaries has shown me is that truly there is no other way to make sure I continue to grow and learn than to recognize that my experience of the world is through the faulty set of senses and meaning making machinery of my brain. Socrates laid this out for us a long time ago: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And what we now know is that when we let the brain lock itself down with certainty rather than provisional truths, then we cease to continue examining life, learning new things, seeing the material world in new more insightful ways and approaching other humans with the attitude of “I will learn from every person I meet.”

I hope I am no longer the person you meet who seems to be certain that they know the way things are. I am working to embrace the uncertainty and mystery, to live with provisional truths. I will take what I can for verified models of what is so and build on them with the understanding that they might not be perfect and could be refined. I will remember that when we were struggling for survival back thousands of years ago, an uncertain Neanderthal was a dead Neanderthal. But that today, a homo sapiens who practices certitude is a close minded homo sapiens and while s/he may not literally die from this condition will likely live an unexamined  life and s/he may make poor decisions. I get that such a life is not worth living. I also get that personally, I will not be anywhere near perfect in keeping my resolve to live with uncertainty in the big things. I will falter and slip into  the comfort zone of certainty when I shouldn’t. As long as I catch myself (or you catch me!), I will be fine. Of that I’m well, almost certain!

As we furthered the conversation, it seemed that we are actually seeing pretty much the same trends. Business in general (it’s certainly different for each business depending on size, industry, etc.) is sitting on a fair amount of cash that has been accumulating over the last several years. Lack of confidence in the economy means that folks would naturally save in order to be sure survival has maximum opportunity – cash is king! At some point, however, maintenance, improvements, capital equipment, new software and implementing business process improvements can no longer be deferred. What my colleague and I are seeing is that some folks are finally “pulling the trigger” on projects that improve productivity and reduces costs.

There was no discussion that business is picking up for his customer’s customers. That is, demand is not growing (or shrinking for that matter), but is holding steady. Yet to stay competitive, keep a reasonable margin, the whole supply chain is having to reduce costs and one way to do that is investing in infrastructure and improved business processes. Luckily, my colleague is in that very business, so he gains from this slow growing trend of putting in that investment.

Where are consumers in this picture? I think, on a small scale, they are doing exactly as small and medium sized business are doing. The consumer is fixing the things in their homes they need to fix. They are repairing cars rather than simply going out to purchase a new one. They are paying down debt. They are investing in a child’s education where they can afford to do so.

Where are you and/or your business in the supply chain? Do you know what your customer’s customer needs? What will you do to be ready if demand for your product or service is going to be at this low level for the foreseeable future? Or, if demand picks up, are your operations ready to handle the load? Did you let too many employees go to ramp up? Should you hire full time or part time employees? Are there new opportunities for you to fill a need? Assuming we continue to “bump along the bottom” in economic terms, how will you structure your business to survive and thrive?

Lots of questions and very few answers. But then, that’s part of what leadership is about. Knowing which questions to ask, developing a compelling vision for the future and enrolling others in that vision is what makes you a great leader. So how will you get from where we are right now to developing that new vision? Who will help you develop that vision and who will you enroll? This is definitely the right time to re-invent yourself and your company. It is a matter of survival for some!

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?

Personally, I’m thinking the answer is yes, even at this early stage of development. Well, okay, perhaps with the exception of LinkedIn. First, this is truly a beta release and is also being released in viral fashion. Presently, one can only join G+ (shorthand for Google Plus or Google+) by invitation. For awhile, the invitations were shut off due to the flood of people wanting to join. Having said all that, here are some more thoughts on why this might be the next big thing for a useful Social Network site.

1. Google seems to have learned from Facebook missteps. You have simple, easy to understand control over who sees what. You get honest “warnings” when you change sharing on a post. They allow you to export all your data – it is after all, your data. Use the “data liberation” link to download your data.

2. Circles. Thank Googleness for circles. Finally, this asymmetric approach to the site makes me really appreciate the “do no evil” approach. Unlike other sites, you are able to limit who sees your posts if you want to do so. You create circles of people just like you do in your “real life.” There is your circle of friends at work, or those at your place of worship, or your professional SIG, or your neighborhood. You get to choose who goes into what circle and they only know they’ve been added to a circle (not which one or what you call it). You can put a person in more than one circle, and you can post to more than one circle, to individuals or to “public” where all the millions of people on G+ can see what you’ve posted if they want to do so.

Your posts can be short (like a tweet), long like your blog and can contain photo, video or links. I hope that Google continues to improve the “blog” capabilities of G+ and if they do, I may well simply close down my existing blog in favor of having everything in one place.

3. Filtering. Circles can be used to filter the stream of posts you see on the home page of your G+ account. So if you’re in a hurry and want to see what your circle called “Colleagues” or “Mates” has to say, you can simply “click on that circle” and that will filter the stream to only posts from folks in that circle.

4. Hangouts. This is really cool and I can see myriad uses in business and family life. Simply put, this is a video conferencing application that allows up to ten folks to be “in one hangout.” Several colleagues have already started collaboration hangouts with their co-workers “upstairs,” in the “next building” and “up North.” Amazing. And I can see how we might use this to plan our next vacation plans that require coordination with my sister in TN and my brother in FL. Awesome!

5. Sparks. This is very interesting. I use Google Reader to aggregate my blogs and Google News to filter my news. Sparks may be an interesting filter for articles on specific topics that “feed my insatiable curiosity” and “spark ideas” for blogs and other articles I write. I’ll have to work with this some more to see how the algorithm works before I pass on the usefulness for my work. But it sure looks interesting at the moment.

6. Photos. I was surprised and pleased when I installed the G+ application on my Droid X. I stopped during a run (yes, I use my Droid as my mp3 player too, and I carry it running for that as well as emergencies) to take a compelling picture and when I went to G+ for other reasons saw a notification that new photos had been uploaded to my “private” folder. I had done nothing except take the picture! From my private folder, I could chose a whole bunch of options including sharing the photo. Such fun! No fuss, no muss, it just works.

7. Chat. Nothing much “new” here except the integration of chat with the hangout. It makes things easy for direct messaging even in the hangout.

So what needs to happen? G+ is in beta and still limited. Once it’s established and Google is satisfied that it has “shaken out” they will open it up to the public – speculation is “soon,” whatever that means.

1. Establish a culture or etiquette for the G+ world. That will evolve and it looks as though it will be more “serious” than other Social Media

2. Make room for businesses to participate in a serious, non-selling fashion.

3. Put more “Blog” functionality in the posting capabilities (things like “save as draft,” additional links, photos and “schedule post”, etc.)

All in all, I’m very impressed with this last attempt by Google to get into the fray on Social Media platforms. I find G+ WAY more “sticky” for me than either Facebook or Twitter (which I hardly ever read, I only schedule posts that are helpful to others). And to be fair, I only usually read Facebook and Twitter stuff on Hootsuite.

For now, G+ is not going to ease any of my Social Media work. In fact, it will likely cause more work for me since I now want to spend time there! However, as things progress, and if they go the way I believe they will, I will likely drop Twitter and Facebook for business, pare Facebook down to only family and a few friends and extended family.

I’ve read on several posts that “pundits” are claiming that businesses can safely ignore Google + for a year or so. I do not agree. As soon as businesses are allowed to participate, you had better be paying attention and evaluating what’s going on. Businesses were very late to the Facebook and Twitter game and have been “poorer” for their hesitation and skepticism. Don’t repeat that mistake. Get involved much sooner rather than later.