For a Million Bucks Could I Play ?

With the Olympics in full swing (I do love the Olympics) I had an idea to offer an opportunity to be part of the Olympics. How you may ask? Well there are about 100 countries that are invited to the Games that have only a few (like 5 or 6) competitors. One could offer a country a sum of money, (a lot) that money going towards helping in training some of their own citizens to be part of the Games. In turn one could become a citizen of that country and then train anywhere they want for the next 4 years, to be on that countries team. Yes this is commercializing the Games, but that happened when we let pros in the games like the NBA. Think of the fun it would be to go to London and race with the best in the world (not win by a long shot) and hang out to say, “Yes I was an Olympian”. Who knows one could also make some big bucks or even do a movie or TV show about it. Watch for my add “ Be part of the Olympics for only $19.99 plus training and other expenses, not to exceed one million dollars per person.

Face it

I had to publish this great photo I only wish it would have been my idea to take this picture. I have a poster from a Japanese advertisement that has just the face of a girl, the detail are so vivid you can almost touch her skin. Ideas like this are original each one, you may disagree with me but lets look at the idea of the parachute…. Leonardo Da Vinci had an idea for one later in the late 17th century someone made one that worked, later in the 20th century the par-a-foil worked much better each idea is original yet they all are parachutes. The same with the photograph it might look like some other work you may have seen; yet it is original. All ideas are original because even if they are copied they come from a new place (may a bad one), you; your history, your views, your frame, your thought etc.

Jaws 4?

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” I have been working on a screenplay for a play on Jaws, called Chum. It would not be a comedy like all the spin-offs have been lately; it is a true horror movie. It would have all the fun little references to the Jaws movies, such as “That’s some bad hat. . .” and “We’ve got to get a bigger boat”, etc. The idea is to make a movie about sharks that would be scary but would help people understand about how important sharks are to sea life and the environment and not just man-eating killers that they are made out to be in Hollywood. The evil killer would be …. (You will have to see the movie) …

Pride

I remember when I was a young man I went into business with a friend to clean yards. (Evergreen Gardening) It was hard work because we really cleaned the yard up so it would be easy to be maintained. We took pride in our work and we knew that if we did a great job we could do more jobs and spend less time doing it. I work now in a manufacturing environment and I saw a team of production workers have their pride taken away from them just for the sake of production. They were complaining about the quality of the product and that they were not up to standard, yet they were told to just do the job and keep the line running. How does quality stack up to quantity? Does quality outweigh quantity in the long run or does quantity out rank quality?
Sometimes I wonder about the shops in China that produce tons of stuff. Do their employees have pride in what they do, or is it just about the numbers? The question is, as people in general couldn’t we all just take pride in our work and what we do? I know if the goal is to produce the cheapest thing there is, I would want to take pride in the fact that I could produce the cheapest thing. So how does this pride thing work? Is it pride in the quantity that can be produced, or is it in the quality of what is produced? Is it apples or oranges? Can’t it be both quality and quantity? I am sure it can be because people who have a stake in the product (their pride) will do the extra to always have the best, not just the most. The real goal should be to keep pride in the work place and our homes. Teach it to the next generation, as the great generation taught us.

What is the world coming to?
Is gas going to be $6 a gallon? Maybe we would come up with other ideas for fuel or maybe we would start to use what we have in our own country. On the other hand, change is going to happen with us or to us.
As my best friend Bob said to me many times, “Just find a way to make money by yourself, then you do not have to worry about what happens." If more of us would think about that, more innovation would take place. The rise in fuel cost impacts everything, and so does the weather. Just ask the folks in Iowa. We can't do much about either one. So maybe we could be innovation explorers. Space does not need to be the last frontier.

The adoption of new employees is what they need to call the recruiting process. Yes, adoption. You know buying someone for your family that you do not produce yourself. It is cheaper to get employees than to adopt. (My neighbor just adopted two children and it was much more expensive than the cost of recruiting an employee) It sounds crude when you look at it as a family, yet in business it makes real good sense. To adopt someone and not recruit, is to say you want that person to be part of the corporate family.

When I was a hospital administrator in California I had to find a new Director of Nurses for the hospital. This was going to be the most important person on our team to assure the best care for our patients and the best success for our hospital. I interviewed way too many people, and it was very hard to find the right fit (the supply of good nurses was short and the cost to find a good director was very high.) When I found the right one out of Nevada, I treated her as family. In return, she was a great Director of Nursing and she sent me a magnificent Grandfather clock, which I still have in my home, as a gift for the kindness I showed her in the hiring process. Now, I did nothing extraordinary. I just made sure she was happy in her new home, our hospital. The same you would do for a child if you adopted them.

Later, as Director of Sales for a large corporation, part of my responsibility was to recruit the sales staff for jobs that were commission only, a very hard sell. I always looked at the as to how they would fit in the family, so to speak. Many times my superiors would say just bring in a dozen or so and let the fall-out do the work. That was the way they had done it in the past.

Would you do that to your family if you were thinking about adopting a child?
“Yea, I would like five kids and have them live with me, but I only want one. I want to see which one fits our family best and then I will send the rest back.”

So why don’t corporations look at the same process of recruiting as adoption? Is it the cost? Or the investment if the fit is not just-right, or the time involved in making the right choice? I am sure there are lots of good companies that do view the process as adoption. Many more need to take a look at the process and see if they want to adopt, or just hire?

( The boys in the picture are my twins. If you want to adopt one let me know I have two... and in three more years they will be teenagers and you might get both of them for free)

Time and money, that is what the world runs on most days and it seems that there is never enough time or money, so why does the world run on something there is never enough of? Maybe it is like gas, we know there is a better way to do things but right now we will pay $4.00 or more a gallon to do it. And we know it will run out some day. Idea, view the time money thing as it really is, there is always the same amount of time every day and money is just a thing you print if needed so it can not be that important. Yea right... money is very important, but it should not be the key focus of all decisons.