Category Archives: Personal

What Changes In A Year

Posted on by under Personal, Small Business

A little over a year ago, I left my dad’s business after trying for two years to grow the business. I stayed probably six months longer than I should have. I knew there was nothing that was going to change the outlook. Part of it was I didn’t want to fail. The other part was that it was about family and all the emotion that comes along with that.

That idea of failure is something that I was not able to shake until recently. I think I finally realized that there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome. I did all the things I was capable of doing and it wasn’t enough. Barry Moltz in You Need To Be A Little Crazy says sometimes you will never know why a business doesn’t work. I really identify with that.

When you get past the pain and disappointment, other things start to appear. It is amazing the things I learned in those two years. I needed the transition from GE to small biz world. And what is great in a small business like that, there was nothing I didn’t get involved in.

I purchased everything.
I did quoting.
I collected from late customers.
I was customer service and answered phone calls from the calm and irate customers.
I tracked out quality problems.
I packed parts and arranged shipping.
I ran production when it needed to be done.
I did whatever needed to be done.

I am going to put together a series of posts on what I learned at Sater. I have a list of about five things and I am sure that others will come as I get going. I am hoping there is something I can share with all of you as a result of everything I went through.

I should also say everything has worked out for everyone. My dad found a buyer for the business and they are doing great. These folks that did all of the painting for Sater. Adding a fab shop fit well with what they did and they can now offer a huge package of services to their customers.

I really can’t complain either. I could not have told you a year ago that I would be getting paid to help companies with blogging or that I would be publishing a book. It is really interesting how things have turned out and probably more on the path I should be on…

The Mac is in the shop

Posted on by under Personal

I had to take the Mac in on Tuesday. I tried to do the Tiger upgrade and got a disk error. The only solution was to erase everything and reload from scratch. I didn’t feel comfortable doing that and the Apple Store will do it for free.

I am going to get it this afternoon.

[smiling]

203.

Posted on by under Personal

I got my cholesterol tested today and the overall number dropped almost 100 points.

Here is the comparison:

2/22/05 5/6/05
Overall 297 203
HDL 57 55
LDL 224 129
Tri-Gycl 157 97

How did I do it? I completely changed my diet.

  • I don’t eat any dairy (milk, butter, cheese, or ice cream) any more.
  • I eat alot more fruits and vegetables
  • I try to eat only whole grains
  • I have oatmeal with flaxseed for breakfast
  • I eat alot more legumes, mostly in soups and hummus
  • If I snack, I eat nuts
  • I eat fish once or twice a week

With the shock I had with my original reading, I had no idea what would happen. I am experiencing a similar (and more pleasant) shock this time.

The dietician explained you get the biggest drop in the first month or two and that it continues to fall slowly over the next several of months. I am going to have it tested again in August.

Fed up.

Posted on by under Business Blogs, Personal

I think I am a little fed up with the whole blogging scene right now.

The cover article in BusinessWeek did nothing for me. The cute blogging format, the same stories we all know, Rubel’s first step to blogging sainthood. If I see Stoneyfield Farms get mainstream media ink for their incredible blogs one more time, I am going to scream.

Then you have Scoble deciding to take on Ballmer. Please. Why would he put his employer in a position like that? Either he should have waited 24 hours to see if he still felt strongly or the power of his pulpit has gone to his head.

It may be a little quiet here over the next week as I clear my head.

Don’t worry. I still love blogging. I think it is an incredible tool for businesses. And RSS rocks.

I just need less hype.

Back from a little trip

Posted on by under Personal

We made a trip to the Twin Cities this weekend.

We headed up there to attend a surprise birthday party for my brother. The reason for all the quiet here is that I didn’t want to give it away. My brother was definitely surprised.

Besides the party, we did some shopping, strolled through the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and put up drywall in my brother’s basement.

Yesterday, Edward Tufte was in Minneapolis doing one of his lectures. I decided to take the chance to see him. I really enjoyed it. I will share my thoughts over the next couple of days both here and at the 800-CEO-READ blog.

Nominee for MKE Blog of the Week

Posted on by under Blogging, Personal

It seems A Penny For… has been nominated for Blog of the Week by MKEonline. There are nine others on the list for determining this week’s best blog in Wisconsin. Voting running through April 7th.

The downside of voting is that you have to provide your email address. I am not thrilled about that.

I hope you’ll still consider voting (Mom, that means you 🙂 You can click here to vote.

P.S. They have a directory of Wisconsin blogs called 1000 Voices.

Tools of the Trade

Posted on by under Etc., Personal

You don’t hear people talk much about what makes a good physical environment for doing business. And I mean everything from the chair you sit in to the lighting over your desk. I think it also includes things like the stapler you use and whether or not you have photos of the family.

I posted a couple of posts on the subject over on the BizLinkBlog. Kevin Kelly had great post on how to create marker boards walls and Mike at Rohndesign talks about his obsession with pens (the comments show it isn’t just him).

So here is the potential meme:

Describe your office however you like. What the room like? What furniture do you have? What is sitting on your desk? What works and what doesn’t. I think we take for granted this space that we spend alot of time in.

Here is my shot at it:

I work out of my house. My office is on the first floor of our home. It has a large window looking out onto the front yard. The opposite wall has a built-in bookcase nearly full (big surprise). The carpet is the same beige as most of the house and the walls are white. The final object of note is the large orange recliner in the corner where my black lab sleeps most of the day.

We have three tables that make up the work surfaces in the room. There is one in the middle of the room that I work from. It is covered with galleys, audiobooks (I just got a huge box from Random House), and magazines. The space left is just enough for my Powerbook and wireless mouse. I know I need to get a handle on the clutter.

The other two tables sit behind me in an L-shape. They hold three printers, the old PC, and more books, magazines and bills. I am thinking about removing two tables from the room because they pretty much act as clutter accumulators.

Outside of stamps and envelopes, I don’t use much else. I keep a pen and notebook handy for taking notes on calls and keeps to-dos, but I am inconsistent with their use. The next personal book I am going to read is Getting Things Done. Too many people are talking about it to not check it out and try it out.

What is your space like?

Stories We Tell Ourselves

Posted on by under Marketing, Personal

I have been thinking alot about Seth Godin new book All Marketers are Liars. He has a blog devoted to the book and the lies we tell and are told.

Another anecdote from the visit to the dietician is about milk. Most people think they are doing very well for themselves when they switch from whole milk to 2% milk.

Whole milk is 4% milk.

Did you know that? I had no idea.

And more so, I have no idea why I never questioned it.

Working on the Right Thing

Posted on by under Management, Personal

I visited with a dietician on Friday. I was searching for advice on how I could reduce my cholesterol. I am just not keen on taking drugs for the next 50 years to solve this problem.

Cholesterol is a leading indicator for developing heart disease. It is cholesterol that attaches itself to the walls of the arteries, calcifies, and forms plaque. It is restrictions in the arteries that causes heart attacks and strokes. So the relationship has always been:

Treatment -> Reduce Cholesterol -> Reduce Heart Disease

Heart disease and cholesterol have become permanently bonded in the public conscious. The trouble is that some treatments for high cholesterol don’t necessarily show reductions in the occurrence of heart disease. My dietician says drug therapies can be used to control cholesterol, but they have never been proven to reduce your chances of having a heart attack. That really struck me.

Statins -> Reduced Cholesterol ? Reduced Heart Disease ?

We talked alot about the Portfolio diet. This is range of foods based on the Mediterran diet. It has lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and fish. What is significant about this diet is that it has been studied and proven to lower the chance of developing heart disease and heart related incidents.

Portfolio Diet -> Reduced Heart Disease

I think there is a corollary here for business. Companies often develop measurements to track success. These are often internal measurements meant to promote certain behaviors in the organization. I think often companies don’t research and study what (if any) impact these measurements will have on their goals. They don’t appreciate the systemic issues surrounding their overall goals.

I have always thought that on-time delivery was one of these types of measurements.

Eliminate Causes of Late Deliveries -> Improve On-Time Delivery -> Improve Customer Retention (Happier Customers)

You can definitely make a strong case for correlation between on-time delivery and customer retention. Customers won’t put up with bad promises for very long and take their business elsewhere if they have to.

When people start to look at the causes of late deliveries, they see all sorts of things. Typos in the order taking. Freight company takes an extra day to get it there. Material shortage. Change from product development group. Failure in quality testing.

Fixing any one (or all) of these things will improve the delivery metric. I would make the argument that none of those fixes really improved your customer retention. You simply improved a measurement.

Eliminate Material Shortages -> Improve On-Time Delivery ?Improve Customer Retention (Happier Customers)?

You have to look at the company on a systemic level. If you want to improve on-time delivery, you need to get your lead time to as close to zero as possible. The whole company has to change the way they do business to enable that change. Product Design. Factory layout. Vendor Quality. The systemic improvement in performance will undoubtedly improve customer retention.

Reduce Leadtime -> Improve Customer Retention (Happier Customers)

To bring it back to the cholesterol story, in some ways, people are fooling by taking medication. The need to take a systemic approach to their problem. They to stop smoking. They need to exercise. They need to change what they eat.

So, measure the right thing and figure out the rights things to impact the measurement in business (and in life).

My Health, Trust, and the Drug Industry

Posted on by under Personal

Last week, I was told my cholesterol was 297. By any measure, it is too high. At my tender age of 33, it is downright dangerous for my long term health.

I am going to go the route of most and try to control it with diet to start. It will be interesting to see if some changes can make a strong enough impact. Looking at what I eat, I am not confident that diet alone is going to do it.

That leads me to an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. The latest major study on cholesterol shows benefits to getting your LDL below 80 (webmd definitions here, and mine is 207 btw). The way it was done in the study was to prescribe aggressive doses of medication. The study was funded by Pfizer and the experimental group was given 80 milligrams of Lipitor versus the control group that got 10 milligrams.

The total group size was around 10,000 people and:

“In the study, 80-milligram patients reached an average LDL of 77, compared with 101 for those on 10 milligram. All patients were started on 10 milligrams before they were assigned separate doses and all started the study with average LDL of 98. After 4.9 years, 10.9% of patients in the 10 milligram group and 8.7% of patients at the 80-milligram dosage had suffered a major event, such as a heart attack, stroke, or death from heart disease. That means a reduction in risk of 22%”

From a public health standpoint, that is a big deal. There are two more large studies that plan to be published in the next year that are trying similar treatment. The are most likely going to confirm what has been found.

The study showed a small increased risk of side effects – including liver inflammation – at higher doses. This is a problem with medication now and it is not a surprise that a higher dosages causes more problems.

This is what caught my attention. There was a small increase in death from noncardiac causes among the 80 milligram patients. The researchers say it was statistically insignificant, that each death was looked at, and no pattern was found.

We heard a similar story with Vioxx and now I have a hard time trusting what the drug industry these studies have to say. There is too much money at stake. There are now multiple cases of drugs showing increased risks and patients not being informed until after there are widespread problems.

I just want an honest assessment of the risks I am taking if I need to start taking one of these medications.

When You Know It’s Over

Posted on by under Business Media, Personal

The bizblogsphere is full of talk about brands and the relationships they build with their customers. I think there are few brands that achieve the level of truly influencing your life. For me, Fast Company magazine was one of those brands.

When I started reading FC in 1998, it was a breath of fresh air in the corporate life I was living. They were talking about innovative ideas and the interesting people putting them into practice. I could not wait for the next issue to come in the mail. When it arrived, it stopped everything and read it from cover to cover. Reading the magazine planted the seeds for what I has happened since in my work life.

To celebrate their 10 year anniversary, the magazine is looking back at the big issues of the past. This month, they examine the Tom Peters’ “The Brand Called You” cover. The piece is titled “Me Inc.: The Rethink” (you can imagine where this is going). Writer David Lidsky and FC says Brand You was a great idea that never happened and it was a questionable idea to start with. In the list of greatest hits for Fast Company, I would put this article at #2 behind Free Agent Nation.

I feel Fast Company doesn’t stand for what they use to. They even seem to be distancing themselves from some of the things in their past. I think John Byrne and G+J wants Fast Company to be a business magazine reporting about interesting companies and telling stories others won’t. That is great, but that not what made me fall in love with the magazine.

I want the Agenda.
I want the Passion.
I want Fast Company when it was out to change Your Life.

I think we have both changed and it is time for us to go our separate ways.

Thanks for everything.