Rothacker Reviews

Where Were You?

Where were you?  Where will you be?

I'd like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms and keep it company
I'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills "Ah, peace throughout the land"

(That's the song I hear)
I'd like to teach the world to sing (that the world sings today)
In perfect harmony

I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony

I'd like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves

Quick, what's the brand associated with this song?  Quick, where were you when this song was being played everyday on TV and radio?

I was in high school.  For me, this song brings back an era, not a specific time and event.  When I sing the song in my head today it touches on nostalgia, catchi-ness and brings me back to a time frame that today, my memory is fuzzy of.  I vaguely remember the song getting burned out.

This is a shame.  I wish for clearer memories - especially when set off by such a vivid trigger such as this song.

Twenty years from now, I'll be writing here of Vertigo, U2 and the iPod.  For the last six months or so, this song has been the ringer on my phone.  And I can, with clear head, see the black-silhouetted dancers and the neon colors.  But will I remember this era?  Will I associate it to a place?

I have a better chance today because I journal.  The key for me is to make specific entries now that are related to this commercial and tune.

Hello, hello... (Hola)
I'm at a place called Vertigo (dónde estás?)
It’s everything I wish I didn’t know
Except you give me something...
I can feel, feel

Where are you now?  Where will you be?

Warrior Skills

Why must it take the skills of a warrior to obtain and retain customers?

I had an opportunity five years ago to take over a consultant's business.  The target market in this industry was less than five percent of the entire industry.  The actual users of this gentleman's service and others like him totaled less than one tenth of one percent.  I had asked my friend how did he do what he did?  To be on the road over two-hundred fifty days a year and maybe score a couple of new customers.  But mostly, how did he deal with all of the ignorance and resistance?

He said, "David, you've got to get in the ring and knock them upside the head. You have to battle and pound sense into them."

My friend loved that part.  He lived for the battle.

I am sure that it helps to be passionate about what you are selling.  For me, I long to sell a service or product that folks take delight in, that folks love to buy, that doesn't involve big corporation, that doesn't involve me conforming, that doesn't involve me dressing up like a monkey - where I can just be myself.

Here is a little story that involved me years ago, working in the aforementioned industry.  We had a customer who for years experienced extremely uncomfortable areas in his home that no other company could remedy.  We proposed a solution that he said was the equivalent price of taking his family of four to Disney World.  Comfort or Disney World?  This customer and his family chose to remain uncomfortable.

I just don't have the strength, stamina or will power to battle prospective customers.

Here is proof that this goes beyond my industry and actually inspired these words.

The Inside Advantage

The Inside Advantage by Robert H. Bloom with Dave Conti

Bob Bloom was once US Chairman and CEO of Publicis Worldwide, as in advertising firms, BIG advertising firms.  One might think, "how could Bob relate to my company and its whopping seventy-five thousand dollars in sales?"  Bob is of the age and comes from the era where folks from different class and management levels did not associate with each other.  After reading The Inside Advantage however, I get the feeling that Bob would be open and share with others - even if they migrated to the round-table from the levels of subterranean management.

This point is important to me.  If the author is an arrogant snob, I don't care how poignant his message is, I have no use for him.  And I suspect that nearly all Gen X and Y'ers along with a few Boomers feel the same way.

This book is about growing your business.  Bob hooks me on page one.  He says that it is likely every company has at least one underutilized strength that can be the centerpiece of a powerful growth strategy.  This fact so resonates with me.

Now, pull your chairs in a little closer and listen up.  Or, put another log on the campfire and tighten up the circle, because Bob's discourse is conversation over lecture.  In the rest of the book Bob describes The Growth Discovery Process.  It is very simple, clear and not only pertains to both large and small companies, it pertains to the individual entrepreneur.  Basically it involves identifying:

Who is the core customer?

What is your uncommon offering?

How is your persuasive strategy different from others?

Own It! is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and make it well known to your core customer.

The Inside Advantage is a no-brainer for companies of all sizes.  Reading along though, I couldn't help but to think, if applied, how Bob's strategy could help those of us with personal Web sites.  Think about asking these questions with your site in mind and ideas that you hadn't thought of before will come forth!

On one other note.  Good, clean design and graphics enrich my reading experience.  I love what Bob does with the graphic of a combination lock throughout this book.  It begins on the book's cover.  He then dedicates a single page graphic to identify each of the four questions.  It is simple, it is attractive, it is in black and white and it is very cool!

Here is a free e-book download of inspirational quotes from the folks who are helping Bob out.

Design: I Like That!

Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind chiseled away a few layers of built-up callous from my mind.  As children we were devoid of callous, free to play and imagine till our little hearts were content, or at least till mom called us in for dinner.  Dan re-introduced me to the concept of design - one that had been calloused over by school, adulthood and jobs that sucked the spirit and life out of my body.

I do believe that folks who were right-brain dominant growing up were oil and the rest of us were water. We tried to impose our rules of callous, but their slopes were too slippery and we merely fell by the wayside.  They evolved and we became calloused-over androids.  Well, that's a bit harsh and over exaggerated.

So, I'm b-boppin' around now getting in touch and jiggy with my new found inner design side.  I like design.  Then I realized that everything from the universe to a paper clip is designed.  "Holy anxiety Batman."  Time to calm down.  Time to try and reconnect with feelings, however fleeting and whimsical they might have been, about things that had caught my fancy.  Two themes registered.

The Art of Communication - For the last twelve years I have been infatuated with how people communicate.  I like watching commercials, I read all junk mail, I love to review ads and I love reading magazines and books.  I also love to watch and listen to people.  How do they express themselves?  How do they convey their point?  As far as design though, it is both the graphical and contextual parts of communication that I am attracted to.

Stuff - Mostly from the industrial side.  I include furniture and home furnishings with this.  What really makes my heart skip a beat is stuff that is new, different and can make our lives easier.  The Dutch Boy easy pour paint can that came out around 2002, comes to mind.  Imagine, all of those years that we used those standard-slop-paint-over-everything paint cans. 

Both themes revolve around things that are different.  I trudge the world in the cement shoes of status-quo.  How liberating then to cross paths with products designed by folks who are trying to invent a lighter weight shoe that looks good!

I haven't been trained in design, engineering or architecture.  I am not qualified to look at an item and say, "this is good design."  But I can look at an item and say, "I like that!"  And for me I am grateful enough to be able to do that, grateful for less of a callous build up.

"David, why don't you play a little longer.  We've got microwave ovens now.  We can reheat your dinner."

The Purpose

...he stood in awe, in awe of what went before, of what is now and of what will be.  A secret glimpse into a window, a vista into time.  The Universe's mechanisms reveal crystalline order.  And the white lights reveal Symphonic Orchestration.  The paper blows from the table onto the floor - as it was meant to be, as it had always been meant to be.  His glimpse comes and goes within a fraction of a second.  It comes and goes a fraction of a second before he steps into an eternal black hole, a hole that runs from reality.  His glimpse reveals an eternal sense of Purpose moving forward on the train of Faith.  How could he give up if the Universe never gives up? 

The ant brings her food; the teacher attempts to advance her student's knowledge, the waves lap at the shore.  Everything moves forward.  He moves forward.  It had been nearly thirty years since he almost stepped into that black hole.  Indecision, not-knowing and confusion meet for coffee every day.  Once ensured that their collaborative effort for the day is in place, they knock on his door and step right into his life.  He boards the train of Faith, taking sword, steel and pen to the fight.  At day's end his mind and body ache, he is battle-weary.  But he never gives up.  He lives.  He moves forward.

He knows that the Universe's Purpose unfolds before his eyes every single day.  He knows that if he never gives up; that one day he'll catch the train he was meant to be on...because as it has always been meant to be, it will.

Inspiration by Terry Starbucker.

Independents Hall: Co-working and Beyond

Here is a link to one of the best About pages I've ever seen.  Alex Hillman explains what co-working is, what  Independents Hall is, how it originated, who is involved, where they are going and what has inspired them.  Masterfully succinct.

My first reaction to Independents Hall was, "young, hip, freelance-type-computer-dudes gathered together in a cave grooving with a pict."  For the sake of accurate disclosure, that truly was my very first thought, but only for a second.  Then I thought this is a brilliant idea and fruits of the cross pollinating type of atmosphere have yet to even be imagined. 

Then, at the fifteen second interval of my thinking, I thought of my dad...

My dad is seventy-seven years old and has been a Wally-Mart Greeter for twelve years.  Prior to that he spent forty years in large grocery store management and worked in that business for over fifty years.  He is a gold mine of retail store management.  Early on at Wally-Mart he tried to offer advice but got the what-does-that-old-man know vibes.  So he shut it down and did something for the very first time in his life.  He punched in and he punched out - with no value given in between other than to hand out carts and to be friendly.

How many folks are out there in our workforce today like my dad?  Walking gold mines just waiting to be harvested.

So, at the forty-second interval I thought, wouldn't it be cool if some old dudes could hang out with some young dudes at places like Independents Hall?

I've had this story in the stable for over a month.  After reading Lost Knowledge by Dave Simanoff of the Tampa Tribune I had to open the barn door and let it out.

What's Your Design? A Sense of Place

What's your design?  Who is the person that you are today? 
What's your design intent?  Who is the person that you will be tomorrow?

We can define our design by way of our culture, family, education, work, friends, spirituality, leisure activities, sense of place, mind, body and soul.

A Sense of Place

A sense of place is our connection to the land.  We make this connection by what we see; by what we smell; by what we hear; by what we taste; by what we feel; by what we know; and by what we can know.  A sense of place becomes a living and breathing part of us when we become aware that it is there.  It has been with us our entire life.  As a kid did you play: On ballfields, in the woods, in a tree house, on the playgrounds?  As you became older did you: take picnics, go hiking, ride in a boat, cut your grass, paint your house...did you, do you, get in a car, plane, train or bus and go to work?  You've always been out and about the land. 

A sense of place develops when we connect our awareness of the land to our senses and mind.  Do you remember as a kid visiting your relatives on the farm?  Do you remember the smells in the air... of the grass, animals and woods?  Do you remember the 49 Ford parked out behind the chicken coup?  The mouth-watering taste of Aunt Emma's biscuits and gravy?  The whistles from nearby trains?  The smooth and worn down surfaces of Uncle Bob's rocker?  Folks on the farm lived a simple life.  You went back home, back to school and thought about the simple life.  After ten summers of visiting a part of that simple life was a part of you.  A part of Aunt Emma and Uncle Bob's land was inside of you.

Or maybe you lived on a farm and visited with Aunt Anna and Uncle Bill in the city...

A sense of place is embedded in the design of who you are.  You've only to reconnect.  And when you do, you'll be one step closer to creating a sense of place that you will enjoy in the future.

Drink deep of your environment and surroundings today.  Take pictures.  Journal notes on your sense's experience.  Research who and what used to occupy the land you are living on.  Understand that you are an important cog in an eternity of those who've been privileged to use the land.  Care for it, engage in it and leave it a better place for those who will follow you.  To design a sense of place that you will one day look back upon and cherish, is to develop and hone a sense of awareness today.

Writing: On Our Muse & Success

Nine-year old Jimmy stood fast, ridged and still in spite of the waves from the sea of awe that bashed his knees.  For in front of Jimmy and ten other lucky kids stood Mickey Mantle.  Mickey was schooling the boys on the art of hitting a fastball. 

Can you even begin to imagine what a kid, who loves baseball more than anything else in the world, would feel like in the presence of a Mickey Mantle?  I can't because I've never been in this position.  But I have this insatiable appetite to be schooled in the art of writing and therefore, stand fast, ridged and still before the pages of certain authors who write about writing.  Put Julia Cameron in front of me and I would stand fast, ridged, still and be drooling at the same time.

I'd like to share some thoughts from two books on writing that I am reading at this time.  The first is Zen in the art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.  I cannot recall the last time that I became so captivated with an author by just reading the preface in his book. 

Ray devotes a chapter to keeping and feeding our Muse.  Our Muse is fed from our experiences.  Rays says:

For it is is the totality of experience reckoned with, filed and forgotten, that each man is truly different from all others in the world.

What this says to me is that each and every person on this planet has the ability to make a unique contribution.  Some writers will write and we'll learn of their contribution.  But what about the rest of us who write?  Does this not present billions of gold mines to be prospected from by those who wish to know their fellow man a little bit better?

The second book, Writing to Change the World, is written by Mary Pipher.  Here is what Mary has to say about success:

We all work within constraints that define us, hinder us, and teach us what we need to know.  Success means we have done our best.  We have not squandered our gifts or ignored our responsibilities.  We have given our time and talents to help others.  We have used our freedom to free someone else.  Success is not fame or awards; it is having our ideas discussed by other people.

At first I became mesmerized with this last sentence.  As a writer, I was not sure there could be a more poignant definition of success.  And then I thought about the combination of these two thoughts from these two different writers.

We have given our time and unique individual talents to help others.  We have used our unique individual freedom to free someone else.  Success is not fame or awards; it is having our unique individual ideas discussed by other people.

Fifty plus year old Davie stood fast, ridged and still in spite of the waves from the sea of awe that bashed his knees.  For in front of him stood Julia, Anne, Natalie, Carolyn, Brenda, Dorothea, Gabriele, Joanna and Roy...
 

Books: Decorate With Them

Is there anything in this world more reassuring, more relaxing, more calming and more friendly than row after row of books stacked neatly on shelves...in your own home?  I think not.

Steven Heller writes an essay at Design Observer titled, Decorative Books: The End of Print.  Part of Steven's article deals with digital media replacing print.  This is a concept that my brain cannot process.  Print will never die.  Therefore I choose to ignore anything (not that Steven postulates this concept) said to the contrary.  The rest of Steven's work, along with reader's comments, is interesting and thought provoking.

A link provided by commenter M. Kingsley brought the whole concept of decorating with books into perspective for me.  I must warn you, the link that I am about to place here is not for the faint of heart.  It is sacrilegious and when I have finished writing I am going to register a formal complaint to children services in the town of the writer.  Link.  If this is not one of the most irreverent things you have ever seen, then you are lacking in the department of soul.

And soul is what this is all about.  If you display books that you've read, that you've dog-earred, that you've spilled coffee in, that you've high lighted, that you've written in, that you've caressed and smelled, that you've clutched close to your chest and wept over, that you've lost yourself in, that you've found yourself in, that you've written to its author, that you've treated as a friend, then your home has soul.  If you display books that you've bought for the sake of displaying, then the books do not contribute to any shred of soul that could be found in your home.

How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors

How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors, edited by Dan Crowe with Philip Oltermann.

In an effort to answer such questions like, "what gets writers high? and where do writers get their ideas from? and what keeps writers going?" editors Dan and Philip sent out the following inquiry to authors:

Dear Writer,

Can you think for a minute about which object, picture, or document in your study reveals most about the relationship between living and writing, and then send it to us?

Sixty-seven authors respond.  Now, if you "need input," need to have your brain stimulated on an intellectual level with the author's contributions, don't buy this book.  Consider what Amazon reviewer John Page, has to say:

This is one of those books that have been ruined by an over-zealous art director. It's presentation was so overwhelmed by color, fonts, meaningless images and the like that you have fight to hear what it is saying.

The excess of art is so distracting that I wound up annoyed to the point of returning it. If I could just get a pdf of the content I would be happy.

Mr Page's response is a bit limiting.  It's like going to a chic type fashion show and making the comment, "sheesh, all the frills, lace and silk, I could just go to Wally-Mart and buy me some clothes."

How I Write is designed by Frost Design.  The artwork and design in this book are the perfect complement to the author's response.  To read and partake in How I Write is a journey into the world of what could be...most especially to those of us who write. For me it's not so much a window into the lives of successful authors and longing for their brains, imagination or lifestyle.  No, it's a window into possibility.  The possibility that a sentence, paragraph or graphic might illuminate my pathway for another step.  The free prize inside is that while you're riding along on this pathway of discovery, you're riding along in a Bugatti.