Recently, my thirteen year old brother asked me about a poem he is reading for his 8th grade class, The Road Not Yet Traveled by Robert Frost.

While the poem is ideal, the reality is not as clear as “two roads diverged in yellow wood.”
On my morning commute today, a walk through San Francisco that is full of reminders of homeless and “giving up”, I reflected on my past experiences and what I have enjoyed, such as a leading a group of seniors searching for the next road on their career paths and my love for simply speaking with authority on a subject, because I learn best by talking through things.

I came across this thought as I walked:

To be a teacher is to be a lifelong learner.

In my life, I’ve been very lucky to have teachers and mentors with whom I still keep in touch with. And because my role models have always been teachers, I’ve decided that a good reason for being is to set an example for others, like my brother, friends, family and other people I come across.

A “teacher” is not necessarily someone who works in a classroom, and with that thought, I’ve set my mind to this goal for the week to do the best I can, as to serve others who I can teach and learn from.

This isn’t really “new” news but it definitely speaks to the fact that we’re still in recession. You can easily invest in a big bag of flour (preferably wheat flour for the vitamins) to make this. I got two big bags of quality flour from CostCo for about $10, and I think I’m set for the year.

We did a test at home on this one to see whether it matters if you do knead the bread and the difference is very minimal.

3 cups of flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups of warm water

With clean hands, just swish the ingredients around in a mixing bowl. Leave overnight for at least 12 hours. The longer, the better.

When you are ready to bake, Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Find a bowl made of pyrex or cast iron (cast iron is probably much better) with a lid and put it in the oven. Wait about 20 minutes or until the inside of the bowl is about 200 degrees F.
At this point you can add anything you like to your bread dough. Ground flax, oat bran or your favorite dried herbs is great, and dressing the outside of the bread with extra virgin olive oil will give it a little extra crunch, but the bread is good with or without these add-ins.

When the bowl is hot enough, take some oven mitts and remove bowl from the oven. Drop the dough in. Bake for 30 minutes with the cover on, and 15 minutes without the cover for that golden, crunchy outside.

I’ll post pictures soon.
Reference: NY Times The Minimalist

Well, I’ve been out of commission for a while now, so to speak. I got married which quite frankly threw me off schedule in the blogging world.

Well, while I’ve been away and letting the weeds grow on my blog, I’ve been learning a few important lessons about starting an entrepreneurial venture such as hosting your own wedding. As an aside, it’s almost a logistical impossibility to be both the main organizer of the event and the star of the show, so that’s really where the stress comes in. At some point, you just have to let go and allow the work to be delegated elsewhere. (This is also true for managers of small companies, I believe–you can’t be the one doing all the work and running the operations of the business).

On a market level, though, there is one mantra that wedding vendors want you to believe: Vendors know best and they can influence market prices (in other words, drive UP prices) as they please, because the consumer is most likely not going to protest.

It’s too “risky” to pay less, the vendors will say, on the most important day of your life. It’s a special occasion, a once in a lifetime event, pay them what they deserve to make it your special day. (I call this fear marketing, which marketers shouldn’t be allowed to do. The same goes for other everyday products, such as acne: “if you don’t buy our product, you’re going to suffer with acne for the rest of your life!”) It’s inducing fear into you that your wedding will a) be a disaster or b) be the most amazing time in your life because the vendors have ensured that it would be so.

One word for you: ridiculous. First of all, as a consumer, your first defense against this fear mechanism is research. Especially in a recession, I think you can find that there are many creative solutions to the “traditional” wedding vendor. In the end, it’s the people who are there with you that matter more than the decor.

And negotiate where you can, because they will create all sorts of conditions that lean on the side of creating a false monopoly or oligopoly (that is, where all their circle of friends in the wedding business agree on a set price and then relay that false information to you about how much it will really cost!)

On the marketing side, fear marketing is unethical. In fact, it’s not really marketing. It’s a hard sell, and the same sell a real estate agent might make when they say a house on the market will be swiped up fast by someone else, so you better get it now.

My dealings with the wedding industry got me thinking about how people fell for Madoff and for the subprime mortgage scheme. (Not to mention that neither is good for the overall well-being of the community that participates in the economy.)

Maybe, we just have become lazy about thinking critically. There are so many possibilities rather than what the market wants to tell you is the ONLY possibility. Is this because people have become accustomed to following the flock in exchange for more comfort, convenience or some other type of instant gratification? I think it might be, but you can certainly disagree.

What are your thoughts? Who is to blame? The consumer? The marketer?

I thought this would be a really cool way to start a conversation and get your thoughts on different kinds of language or techniques to manage clients. We all have to do this. At the risk of exposing “secrets” here are my thoughts.

Communicating timelines
1. Never tell a client you are working on a project for another client that is causing you to be late. Best to say, based on what is happening internally…
2. Language to push back: “given our current deliverables”

Example: Given our current deliverables and what is happening internally, we should be able to submit this to you by XXX date.

Negotiating on timelines or managing expectations
Use the Time-Quality-Money rule.
1. Money: Push back based on budget agreements: “Well that may not work with the current budget that we have agreed on. Bringing up the timeline would require a $xxx budget, but what we could do is A or B.”
2. Quality: “Well, such and such would usually take X days/weeks to complete to get to the quality that you are asking for, but we could possibly give you XXX to meet your requirement.” (List Pros and Cons of doing it each way, and be clear about what could suffer by shortening the timeline.
3. Time: If the client sets an earlier deadline and you suspect they may not review it right away, find out what their schedule looks like as well. Will they be able to review and give approval on the deliverable? If not, negotiate for a more realistic deadline.

When Obama came into office, many Americans and non-Americans celebrated. But these are proving to be tough times nationally and across borders. Let’s not forget the swine flu pandemic, the temper tantrums of North Korea dictator Pyongyang and the effects of the American economy Americans and non-Americans.

Despite all of these things, the Obama administration continues to pour money and invest in political agendas such as science, a national health care plan, financial bailouts that have long term, uncertain ROI during a time where money supply is short and interest rates are low.
True, a former lawyer is no businessman, but it seems that we need to have business-minded people working in government. People who can work in a non-profit world but also understand how to work a balance sheet.

While I consider myself fairly liberal as a resident of the SF Bay Area, I think Obama may be thinking of too many ways to spend money that we don’t have, instead of developing programs that pull on current and limited resources. He needs to think more like an entrepreneur and less like a large corporation.
That means:
- evaluating resources.
Today I heard on the radio that Obama is creating urgency around the healthcare issue. Is he acting with business sense or acting rashly?

In terms of the health care system, are there any current running health care programs that serve those who need health care but do not have access to it? And are there existing programs that advocate for preventative healthcare? This is what the government should support rather than a overhaul and development of a national healthcare system. We may admire our neighbors to the North for their national healthcare (anyway, it’s targeted at getting people to stay healthy, not treating sick people) but we’re just letting politics get in the way. And we are a tax-minimizing country as well.

- Talent. Obama’s cabinet has talent, but where is a certified public accountant when you need one? A CFO?

How else could the government be more efficient? Chime in with your thoughts.

I got this e-mail campaign sent to my mailbox. It was a little weird. Do you want me to Fan your Facebook page so I have a chance to win money? Or because I am really a fan of your company?
Back to basics: Social Media is about groundswell support, not top-down marketing management.

What could they have done instead? It depends, but let’s say the goal is to share information so that they position themselves as not just the “Job Shop” but also the Job Experts.

They could…
encourage their employees to pro-actively work inside of Twitter with a goal to do outreach to their Twitter community, maybe by offering useful advice on jobs that are available.

They could create the Facebook Fan group so that people can share their tips and tricks on job hunting, and Job Shop could post their helpful hints on how to work with temp agencies (including themselves).

Bonus: You should get a more engaged community and it’s less likely that someone will join your “Fan Page,” take the money and run and forget about it.
OK, I get it though. If someone joins your Fan page, then maybe their friends will see their status. But you certainly won’t get advocates rooting for you, which is a double plus.

Many people are clueless about how to use Twitter. While there are many blogposts out there on how to use Twitter, here’s my version of why anyone would join the micro-conversation.

Between a bottle of Heinz Ketchup and Safeway Ketchup of the same volume, the only difference is the price. The number of ingredients are the same.

Between a bottle of Safeway Ketchup and Safeway Organics Ketchup, the difference is in the number of ingredients. Safeway Organics Ketchup only contains Tomato Concentrate, Sugar, Salt, Onion Powder and Spices, all of which are organic.

Both Heinz and regular Safeway ketchup have 10 ingredients and both contain corn syrup. (I hate corn syrup.)

Safeway Organics Ketchup has less ingredients and yet it costs $1.00 more than Safeway Regular Ketchup.

So, Heinz should probably start making Organic Ketchup and charge $1.00 more than their regular ketchup brand.

I decided to start numbering these.
There is a lot of talk about self-branding, but I have to say that anyone who makes a career out of being a self-marketer should get an ego check.
That includes Guy Kawasaki for making this very typically cryptic, eccentric comment recorded at the Wall Street Journal in regards to promotions on Twitter: “If I do it, it’s clever marketing. If it’s done to me, it’s spam”

But, it is also true that part of Guy Kawasaki’s persona is that of an author and an artist. Also, what he says about Twitter is very true. We like to hear ourselves talk.

In any case, anyone who chooses a career as first a “self-marketer” and second of some other profession should consider taking lessons in modesty. I think.

I’m working on yet another post on networking and job-hunting, so stay tuned.

Some very strange things have been bubbling up in my mind since re-reading Jostein Gaardner’s Sophie’s World and listening to NPR on the weekend.

If you don’t know Sophie’s World, it’s a book that tells a story about philosophy and questins whether humans really exist or if we just are cheating ourselves into thinking that we do.

You might wonder what this has to do with being a marketer. I have recently come to the conclusion that lot of a person’s consciousness nowadays has to do with being a consumer. Living in one of the richest countries of the world, we are trained from birth to be consumers.

You could even go as far as saying that we are brainwashed into overconsumption. It becomes a mindless habit and it doesn’t matter whether you may have lots of money or a little money in the bank, a lot of marketing has created us into impulsive, needy little consumers that enjoy and crave the thrill of buying.

Why do we choose one soap brand over another? Probably because you’ve seen some kind of promotions about it, seen the brand being advertised during your favorite sports game or you have a friend who has talked about the benefits of the brand.

There comes a point when we must realize that actually our needs are imagined needs dictated to us by advertising, the news, our friends (viral marketing)…all these things have been put into place to increase our level of consumption. And better yet for marketers is the consumer’s propensity to buy on impulse.

Starbucks is the paramount example of the impulse buy phenomenon. You could go in for a simple cup of coffee, but that may not be enough. Why not have your milk steamed for $2 extra and while you’re at it, add in some syrup so you don’t have to add sugar yourself? And on top of that, pack on some more calories with a piece of Reduced Fat Cinnamon Coffee Cake.

After all, Starbucks is just there to make sure that you get your usual cup of joe so that you can be more productive that day.

(But they don’t tell you that they make an incremental profit off of you because your $3.20 latte is priced just right so that you won’t think twice about buying one every day and at the end of the day, those baristas aren’t really treated as well as they say they are, because it’s still the corporate guys who make the big bucks.)

Of course, I use Starbucks as an example because they have done a phenomenal job of marketing to their target audience. I just question more whether the regular consumer really wants that Latte or they start to buy them, simply because Starbucks has become an integral part of their regular everyday life routine.

I am a marketer so it is funny for me to be so cynical, but recently, with the recession, people losing their homes, and all sorts of problems with debt, I’ve been really considering what I see and hear more closely.

So, while shrewd marketers out there are pushing your buttons to get you to make the impulse buy, think first, then act.

Do you really believe in what you are buying?
Was it a calculated, planned purchase? Do you really need yet another item to decorate your living room and add to your collection?

Because while the media is telling you that you need what you buy, it’s questionable that those items that you buy define who you are.