Cancering - Better Thinking

Learning from history, I am often enlightened by how redefining a problem can lead to a relatively easy solution...even after years and years of fruitless work.

John Battelle, a social media pioneer, pointed to an article redefining how we can think of cancer, featuring Danny Hillis, who has previously figured out some important things, like how to do parallel processing to extend the power of computers.

Read Cancering and be glad.

Comments welcome.

Talk Your Business coming October 4th at 40 Plus!  www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership.

McCaw Values

On the LinkedIn McCaw Alumni group, Viki Andino asked for the McCaw Values from the wallet card. Jan Albert and over a dozen others responded.

Choked me up. Took me back to the Huey delivering the cell site on Mt. Tamalpais. Those values are still worth keeping today.

Best use of LinkedIn Groups I've seen. Too good to keep inside the group. Thanks!

Our goal is to establish our company as the premier convenience communications1 company in the world. To do this, we must earn the continuing loyalty of customers by providing them with network service systems which they acknowledge to be of superior value in a way which is profitable to us, thus creating long-term rewards for our shareholders and employees.

Therefore, we will:

 1. Hire and develop great people (it's  the most important thing we do). Decentralize  and empower them to make decisions, but  balance this to take advantage of our strengths.

 2. Stay close to our customers. Listen  to them and care for them beyond their expectations.

 3. Provide superior network service systems of the best quality, as defined by the  customer.

 4. Pursue excellence in all we do. It helps  make customers happy and gives real meaning  to life.

 5. Keep it simple. Focus on results (satisfying  customers), not on form (administrative processes).  This will be especially important as we grow.

 6. Run lean (but spend wisely to achieve our  goals and values).

 7. Be humble. It helps keep an open mind, a  caring attitude, and respect for others.

 8. Be a team player. Teams are more  powerful than individuals.

 9. Employ good judgment. It makes  empowerment work.

 10. Keep our promises. It builds precious credibility.

 11. Consider the future (with an eye on the  customer). Be flexible and open to new ideas  and change. Be respectfully irreverent, questioning established ways, the "impossible," and  things that conflict with our goals and values.

 By doing the above, we commit to becoming the world's premier convenience communications: company.

Comments? 

"Talk Your Business" coming October 4th at 40 Plus!  www.SalesLabDC.com/leadership.

Over-Optimized

If the right 20% effort gets you 80% of the result, what does 80% effort get you?

If it’s a piece of metal twisted back and forth, you can get two pieces, disassembled.

If you are navigating a big enough ship into a wharf, you can get a mobile wharf…just before beachfront parking.

I am reading that if your immune system doesn’t have enough real work, it can over-optimize your body, creating auto-immune diseases.

And as Dan Hurley chronicles, the cure could be eating some parasite eggs to stop the over-optimizing and give your immune system something real to work on. 

Two under-appreciated metrics of  project communication are How Much? and When?

Please leave comments of your best over-optimization experience.

Our next programs are Wednesday, September 15th, How To Get More Value From Your Existing Resources, Mount Vernon – Lee Chamber of Commerce - Alexandria, Virginia, and Thursday September 16th, Championship Leadership in Resource Constrained Markets, Intelligent Office - Rockville, Maryland. Details and reservations at http://www.saleslabdc.com/leadership