Years ago I started up a coffee shop with some friends. If someone followed us around and graphed how we spent our time before we opened, I guarantee you the results would make me cry. We pooled the money together and got cracking. We settled the legal structure, secured a lease, bought equipment, installed the POS (point of sale) machines, bought insurance, wrote employee schedules, and on and on. But just looking back, we spent gobs of time thinking and dealing with pieces to the puzzle that were trivial. We spent a lot of time on decorating, planning the music play lists, booking events (bands), and what not. We spent a lot of time thinking about things that weren’t involved with agenda of being profitable. In fact, I can’t think of much we did that was on the profitable agenda. That was a mistake of magnificent proportions. We were more concerned with running a cool coffee shop than running a money making machine. We just bought stuff, set up stuff, planned stuff, prettied up stuff, and the like. We should have sat down with excel and planned out to the penny where money was going and where it was going to come from. That was a huge mistake.

When you choose the fun and interesting agenda over the revenue agenda, you become busy. And for the record, busy is not a good thing. In business, busy should be defined as spending too much time doing things that are not important, and not enough time doing what is important.

So why do we business owners drift towards fun and interesting and away from profit from time to time? For one, fun and interesting is easy, and protecting profits is hard. Turning a revenue stream into a moat takes a lot of work. Just visualize a moat. Remember that thing was not built over night. It probably was a stream a long time ago. But someone did a lot of work to stack tens of thousands of stones several meters high to line the walls around and in inside of it. That moat is a revenue stream all grown up. I believe the business owner’s job is to turn revenue streams into moats.

So with every agenda, you have to ask yourself: is this truly valuable? Will the time invested have a positive return? A perfect example is one of my favorite charities in Houston put on an $11,000 fishing tournament, but only raised $7,000. They flushed $4,000 because they chose fun and interesting over revenue.

For you business owners out there, focus on revenue. Without revenue, you don’t have a business, you have an expensive hobby.

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Certainly, the logo does become the business’s mark as they sign their products and marketing materials with it. But when you are coming up with a new logo, how important are those decisions to shave a corner there, deepen the blue there, or shrink the symbol there?

As an entrepreneur or business owner, logo decisions will be a true test of your decisiveness. Having worked with over a 100 start-ups, I have seen people waffle for days on end over some of the most non-impacting decisions ever known to man. That is the trap; to over think it, and tweak it to the ends of the earth. Often times, it is one of the few creative/subjective processes that one is involved in. Those people usually either could not care less, or worse, are on track to make up their mind right after the second coming of Christ.

Barring any terrible design decisions, here is where I rest on the issue. The value of a logo sits on a continuum between design and perception. On the left side, and early on, the value of the logo rests on the design, and how well it graphically represents the business. On the right side, after business successes/failures, and brand awareness settles, you have perception. The perception phase, which is far longer than the initial phase, depends on the quality of the business. The coca-cola logo would never be talked about if the whole world ignored the soda. The K-Mart logo would not carry its loser value if the business had not inherited its inferior reputation. If Nike shoes were uncomfortable and placed 9th or 10th in people’s minds as the athletic shoe of choice, the swoosh would have a negative perceived value. On the contrary, the swoosh is as cool as it is and carries amazing brand recognition because of the success of the business and the quality of the shoes, not because it is a swoosh.

Do your best to not over think your logo decisions. Focus on the business. If your business succeeds, the logo is good.

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Fame is a drug, but much more like coffee and alcohol than crack. If you take crack, we know exactly what is going to happen to you. If you’re on coffee or alcohol (or fame), the outcome is far more unpredictable. Results vary by individual. But either way, if you get too much of it (fame), bad things will happen. Even Bono sings that no one should be too good at celebrity. And if there ever was a lethal dose of fame, people like Elvis and Michael certainly had it.

But here is my real takeaway from the media circus that is Michael Jackson’s death. If you are a parent, a wife, a husband, or you sincerely love anyone more than you love yourself; pay attention to the fifteen second speech that Michael’s daughter Paris gave at his extremely public memorial service. There was genuine, deep, real, unscripted, sadness from here father’s passing. Possibly unknowingly, she showed the whole world her deepest hurt. If you saw it, and were not even temporarily moved, then check your pulse, the girl lost her father. It is sorrow at its deepest.

It is no secret now that Michael was routinely taking drugs that doctors now say created the perfect storm for the event of his death. I can not imagine that anyone is shocked to learn there was at least some substance abuse in his fame filled life. But I feel confident if Michael could have seen the sadness of his children, family and loved ones, (but primarily his children) at his own memorial service, he would have quit those drugs cold turkey, and never looked back.

I can’t think of anything that I wouldn’t stop doing (or start doing) to ensure that I never have to see my daughter Ava go through that kind of pain.

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Torture is frying someone’s hands over fire. Torture is dripping water on someone’s forehead in the desert until they die. Torture is beating someone to death’s bleeding edge. Torture is cutting off private parts, or fingers, or whatever. The history of torture is way, way, way way way more severe and permanent than pouring water down someone’s nose.

So the question is: is water boarding torture? It causes no long term damage, and it doesn’t kill, or leave scars. The victim completely and totally recovers from the experience. So in the words of Dennis Miller, perhaps its heaven sent.

I just find it interesting that right now, there are US troops abroad killing the enemy. Shooting them, blowing them up with bombs, destroying buildings, you know... all out no holds bar war.

But in Cuba, they just poor water down captured terrorist’s noses. So are we saying that it’s okay to wipe them clean off the face of the earth with superior fire power, but not okay to poor water down their nose? I’m confused.

And now Gitmo is supposed to close. And the million dollar question is: where do we put the captured terrorists? The obvious solution has been overlooked for too long. Many people suggest you can’t just take them back to where they came from, they’ll become terrorists again. Sure, history has certainly proved that true. I say send them back to the war, where they came from. But instead of dropping them off at the city center, where they can be welcomed home by their terrorist buddies, just drop them off in the middle of the battle field... say... a half a click (0.3 miles) from a marine base. I mean, if we have to close Gitmo and send them somewhere, back to war is the only logical answer. Unless they are insane (which unfortunately is highly probable), would they not beg to go back to Gitmo?

I just find it fascinating that generally speaking, it seems that so many people have a bigger problem with water boarding, than killing the enemy in battle.

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Naturally, that’s easier said than done. But it’s definitely easier that finding some car czar that has a magic wand to waive and fix all the problems of the auto industry. But on a side note, the thought of some government appointed person to oversee the Autos has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. That person doesn’t exist. And you can’t have some outsider telling you how to spend your bail out dollars.

But I digress. Here’s my suggestion: Disappear for one year.

Support current warranties, repairs, and yadda yadda yadda. But for now, and at the least; stop making stuff that isn’t competitive. Bolt the doors. Go into deep R and D. For one, the media will go nuts because they won’t know what you’re up to. Spend a year thinking, researching, prototyping, and stop making all the same old same old.

For years, we have watched the American Autos go BACKWARDS. They have been sitting around the boardroom thinking, "Hey, what worked in the 70s?... Lets make that again. And what was that one car that was popular in the 80s? Let’s do that again." It’s regression at its finest.

Now, you might be saying, what about all the union workers, and all those jobs? Well, if the autos stay on the track their on, then they will all be unemployed anyway. Wage cuts are a way better option. Massive unemployment is already the probable case scenario. It’s time stop making crap just so you can employ people and start looking long term towards, "What can we do to get a competitive edge?" Now, I’m not literally calling the product crap, it’s not; but it’s seems like they have 15 brands of cars that are the same ol same ol, producing ridiculous volumes of brands and cars and nothing is sticking. That’s a lot of crap. So stop. Spend some time thinking, and come up with something (like the mini-van) that will be a game changer. Tweaking one curve of the fender to come out with next year’s model has got to stop.

Americans don’t need a cooler looking car, and we don’t need to relive the muscle car days. We don’t need a 3rd cigarette lighter under the rear passenger seats, and more gadgets and options that will break in 2 years anyway. We need fuel economy, safety, performance and reliability. Is that so hard?

Now, you want the easy road to profitability? Just kill off every model except the overgrown black SUV’s. We all know those things have sold like hot cakes, and still are.

On a side note, I watched a discovery channel special on aircraft carriers the other days. An American aircraft carrier only has to fill up once every 24 years. So if I’m supposed to believe that an American made 97-thousand TON boat can run on fuel so that it only has to fill up once every 24 years, but the best GM can do is make their Hybrid Tahoe achieve 2 more miles per gallon than it’s gas guzzling non hybrid counterpart, you’ve got to be kidding me.

If you want revenue, you have to make something that people want to buy. I don’t know how any company can go on employing tens of thousands of people spinning all their wheels making a product that isn’t competitive, while executives fly around on private jets begging for money.

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Point 1

The bail out is not the American thing to do, it is the stupid thing to do. As an American (company, businessman, entrepreneur, or otherwise), you can not go on year after year making a product that your American consumers are buying less and less of. That’s not American, it’s foolish. America is an innovation powerhouse; (businesses) get on that train or get left behind.

Point 2

Point 3

The economy is down, and it’s hit my business too. People are spending less, paying invoices slower, and everything in between. Should I line up and ask the government for money? No! You, me and anyone else with a business has to adapt, not whine off crying to mommy government saying give me money, or jobs will be lost.

Economy or not, if you aren’t making product people want to buy, your business will decline; it is as simple as that. All this lining up for the bail out buffet is absurd.

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The negative side for me is the lesson of responsibility. If I tank my company from personal greed and/or stupid decision making, no one is coming to my rescue. I believe at the heart of the credit crisis, mortgage write downs, and other financial collapses is personal greed. And I’m not really hypothesizing here either. There are several cases of a new CEO coming into leadership with a company and in just a year or two they wreck the company having created such a golden parachute in year 1, that the fines and firing that will take place in year two are simply a quick way out, where they can wash their hands of it all. And after all of it, they still have gobs of compensation they created and approved for themselves in year 1. So in those circumstances, there is no accountability.

There is one positive I see with the ridiculous rescue plan. Individual investors like myself can take heart of a certain stability of the markets. I can now throw my money into 10 baskets of good companies, and feel assured that if I picked industry leaders, my money is safe with a higher probability of positive return. With the example of the bail out, if things get bad enough, the government will step in and inject cash to fix the potential recession times. So my fear of my investments tanking, is much less. Sure it’s now more of a fixed game, but we are forced to play the game with the rules at hand. It’s not just supply and demand anymore. The market won’t simply correct itself anymore. The market will correct its speed bumps, but if there’s a road crater, it’s government to the rescue. The big picture is kind of crappy, but we the individual investors can play this game with the new rules.

And here’s a side note on the mortgage crisis. Everyone has been playing a ruthless game of blame for sometime now, and that’s really a rope that has no end. There are so many people at fault, you can’t just say it’s the crooked CEO’s, or the predatory lenders, or the dumb people who didn’t read their contract and signed mortgages that are way over their pay grade. You can’t say it’s the real estate investors that spiked up a market so full of hot air that it was bound to deflate. Again, greed is at the forefront of the fault.

Greedy home buyers wanted to get in huge houses with little down, and then bet the farm that their over sized house would appreciate and make them gobs of money. How many millions of people want(ed) to make their millions off real estate? When board games are sold in stores about the industry, that’s a sign of a bubble I would say. Lesson learned, the housing market doesn’t always go up. But then again, no market does.

Then you have the mortgage industry. In this industry there are zillions and zillions of bees swarming around fishing out the next origination fee. They place a loan, and at minimum they get a point. We’ll call it a point, because it sounds a lot better than saying you’re going to finance an extra $1000 over the next 30 years so I can put that $1000 (1% of the loan) in my pocket right now, for placing your loan. And that’s only on a $100,000 home. The national average is around 200K per home, which makes that one point yield a quick bee bonus of $2,000. Do you think any of these bees might present a not so good situation as great if they are a signature away from a quick $2,000? Many of these bees cared not about honest, ethical, situation appropriate loans. They would just push and fix and sell (which is the industry word) things until they could get their "point" on your loan. And because of this behavior, most of these people aren’t working anymore. The days of those points getting passed out like bubble gum are over.

The end result, definitely not laissez-faire. I don’t even know if there is a French economic term to describe our current economic state. Some are saying it’s the United States of France; not from an ownership point of view, just from an economic governance point of view. That phrase certainly sounds strange, so even if it is accurate, I can’t really buy into it. Never the less... and for now... long live the mostly free markets.

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http://www.socialmedia.biz/2008/08/google-cache-on.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/27/sports/OLY.php

Now if I could only find some credible sources to explain the idiocy of the judge�s inconsistent method of scoring and the new gymnastic scoring system.

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