THE PHOTOBLOG OF A FOUR YEAR OLD

Hi, I'm Elise. I'm 4 years old and my mom let me have the digital camera yesterday while we were driving in the car. This is what I came up with!




Note from dad: "Oh crap. She has my big toe..."

BOOKS

Awaiting the delivery of a couple of new books I've ordered:

Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea by Seth Godin and...

Bird by Bird : Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott.

Seth Godin is a great writer on the topic of marketing. Check out his blog here. He's one of those people who is great to read for a little "outside the box" inspiration.

I was introduced to Anne Lamott by hearing John Ortberg mention her name over and over, so I finally decided to order one of her books. If she's good for John, I'm sure she'll be good for me. (Not that I'm comparing myself to John - by ANY means.)

I recently restarted (for the 3rd time) reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The book has been #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list for 59 weeks now. There's a lot of controversy surrounding the book and maybe if I can sit down and focus on reading it I will one day find out why.

What are you reading right now?

I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU

Dear Weebleland Readers: It's honoring and comforting to know that it makes a difference when I don't post for a day or two. Fear not - I haven't forgotten about you... More to come shortly.

In the meantime - click on some of my links! There are some great sites worth checking out.

Later...

THEOOZE ANNUAL BLOG TOOLS ROUNDUP

Jordon Cooper has written an excellent article on blogging over @ The Ooze. It's a great summary with reviews on several blogging platforms.

Thanks Coop!

Link

SHINE, DON’T SELL

I had a meeting this morning with a woman representing a parachurch organization who wants to partner with our church on a project. The meeting started with her pulling out a bunch of charts and statistics and reading each one verbatim.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz……..

I interrupted her.

“This is all great information, but you don’t need to “sell” me – just talk to me. Tell my why you believe in what you do.”

It kind of threw her off at first, but then she began to just talk. The “script” was thrown aside and I finally begin hearing something interesting. She became excited – and it was obvious that she believed in what she was saying. And it was then that I took interest.

Sometimes we oversell our ideas. I used to do it all the time when I was in sales. We oversell because we really want people to “buy into” what we have devoted our lives to. We oversell because we are afraid of rejection so we think that if we just keep talking or throwing out stats and charts that people will hopefully believe what we are saying. After all, we want people to know that we’ve done our homework.

But more effective then “pitching” an idea is letting your passion and belief in the product/organization/etc… do the selling for you. Tell stories. Share why you believe in it. Discuss why you have sold your life out to it. Tell stories. Did I already say that? Stories have the ability to cast vision in an incredible way.

Shine, don’t sell. Nothing wrong with charts and stats – but nothing will impact your audience or market more than “eyeball” time and belief in your product.

THE THRILL OF DEFEAT

The June 2004 print edition of Fast Company arrived today. There is an article in it entitled, “The Thrill of Defeat” about the folks over at Pfizer. The article headline states:

“Every leader and every business faces setbacks: they’re the price of ambition. If you want to know how to persist in the face of failure, ask the folks at Pfizer who spend entire careers doing just that.”

The article is about – failure. The article points out that:

“Pfizer spends $7.9 billion on R&D. But 96% of its efforts end in failure – and most researchers never work on a winning drug.”

Imagine working for months or even several years on a project that will more than likely end in failure.

How do you keep people motivated in that type of environment? One gentleman named Peter Oates has spent 19 years on Pfizer’s diabetes effort. He says that the “scientific efforts” he gains there sustains him through repeated disappointments.

Nancy Hutson, the senior vice president of global research and development focuses on these four things in helping her team succeed:

1. Offer support
2. Put people first
3. Celebrate small victories
4. Instill leadership

Good advice to us all - facing failure or not...

FESS UP...

People must have a need to get things off their chest. Group Hug is a website (warning: there is some weird & freaky stuff on here certainly not endorsed by myself) that allows its users to "confess" their sins or faults to the world. So far, over 69,000 confessions have been made to the site.

There are some "rules" to follow. From the site:

"...the purpose of this site is not to tell funny stories or be as vulgar as possible. the point isn't to get a thrill on posting lies about you and your livestock. the purpose, if there is one, is to offer a little bit of relief from your conscience. this web site is not a message board or an open forum. we'd love it if you would cooperate just a bit."

I guess it just goes to show that some people still have a conscience and need to clear it from time to time. Is this the latest in e-psychotherapy?

Gotta go - confession time...

BULLET IN MY HOTDOG

Apparently a woman in Califorina was eating a hotdog from Costco and while eating it she bit into a bullet. She later complained of having stomach pain and they found another bullet in her stomach.

Lesson? Don't take such big bites of your hotdog - that way you don't miss a bullet.

Link

STRESSED?

Popping bubble wrap seems to do the trick. Let out some of that afternoon aggression here!

(thanks to pomomusings for the link.)

FACE LIFT

i know - it's weird. looks a lot different. i'm playing around w/ a new look. feedback anyone? i still have to figure out how to get my links on here.