My Grandfather’s Garage

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By on September 15, 2020

More than a half century ago, at the dead end of a not quite rural road, a garage was built. It was a plain but sturdy garage. Made of concrete block. With a solid concrete floor. And a peaked roof high enough to form a spacious second floor. Perfect for storing planks, loose building materials, and a few other odds and ends that existed in that limbo somewhere between trash and treasure.

It was my grandfather’s garage. My father and his father built it the way you’d expect bricklayers to build something. More masonry, less wood. They used concrete block because it was less expensive than brick. It also took less time and work to build with Continue Reading “My Grandfather’s Garage”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two Wrongs Still Don’t Make A Right

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By on September 8, 2020

I weep for my city. I weep for my country. I weep for our ancestors who worked so hard to overcome the obvious frailty that is all humanity.

I cry for those swept aside by events. My heart bleeds for the bystanders who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. I grow sullen, knowing the damage done cannot be quickly repaired.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of our citizenry that a noble cause has devolved into a self-inflicted chaos. Surely, no one believes it’s fair to punish innocents. Yet, clearly, we enable those who feel justified in doing precisely that.

None of this should have ever been allowed to happen.Continue Reading “Two Wrongs Still Don’t Make A Right”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged , , , ,

Which Way To The After-Party?

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By on September 1, 2020

Following the last show of a performance, everyone involved in the production gets together and celebrates. The “cast party” has long been an entertainment tradition – from high school musicals to Saturday Night Live. It’s an opportunity for all to release the tension and anxiety that comes with acting in front of a live audience.

Other events have a similar tradition. It’s called an “after-party.” As the name implies, it’s the party after the event. Even big parties can have their own after-parties.

If you search “after-party” on the internet, you’ll get definitions galore, references to a video game, and a couple of claims that the first after-party occurred in either 1961 or 1945.

But don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially if it’s something that pops up on your favorite search engine. When it comes to algorithms, it’s “garbage in, garbage out.”

A human search engine (a.k.a., a historian) would immediately look for the earliest recorded mention in the proper context.

A quick review of old newspapers indicates the term was in use by 1903. The Cosy Restaurant, courtesy of E.M. Hegglund, Proprietor, advertised his establishment was “Just the Place for a Sunday Dinner, An After-Party Lunch.” (Pierre Weekly Free Press, Pierre, South Dakota, December 17, 1903, page 7)

Not only that, but a description of the turn of the century happening sounds strikingly familiar.

“After-theater parties and suppers are affairs of long standing, but after-party suppers are rather a recent fad… The scene of the after-party festivities is in some one of the dairy lunchrooms down town, and as the hour chosen is well along in the wee sma’ ones, the young people have the places very much to themselves.” (The Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Indiana, February 7, 1904, page 29).

You know after-parties were a serious problem when, in 1904, the President of De Pauw University issued an edict that said, in part, “On nights when functions or college exercises are in progress girls or boys shall not remain away from their rooms later than 10 p.m. No after-party, after-church, after-service calls will be allowed.” (“No Dances, No Cards, Chaperones Everywhere,” The South Bend Tribune, January 19, 1904, page 9).

Today, the after-party represents a rite of decompression. Following a period of densely packed heightened tension, an after-party gives you a chance to unwind, take it easy, and, yes, bask in the glory of what you’ve just accomplished.

Fate blessed me with the opportunity to have played a major role in organizing national and regional trade conventions. They were fun, they were hard work, and they were quite satisfying. At the end, we all gathered together at some agreed upon spot, sat down, and enjoyed not so much what we had just done (that took time to settle in), but simply that we were done.

To say we were exhausted would be an understatement. Oh, what a relief to know you no longer had to stick to a tight, highly scripted, schedule.

There was one other thing about these conferences. They were all in-person. They were just like every other conference you’ve attended. This made the overall job of the organizers and the attendees easy. Everyone knew what to expect.

In the Age of Covid, there are no in-person conferences. All conferences are virtual.

Virtual conferences are not new. Over the past few years, I’ve attended several. And they have their advantages.

First, you don’t have to travel. That saves you time and money.

Second, you don’t have to stay in a hotel. That also saves you money (and time if you’ve ever had to wait forever for an elevator).

Finally, it’s much easier to multi-task, which includes implementing what you just learned in a session.

Of course, there are counterpoints. Some people like to travel. Some like the disruption of staying in a hotel (as well as experiencing the amenities that come along with many of our finer lodging establishments). Of course, some just like meeting people face-to-face.

Attending virtual conferences, therefore, represents a trade-off between lower costs/higher efficiencies and getting out of a rut/socializing. You may have preferences that differ from your neighbor. Such is the nature of the freedom to choose.

Yet right now you do not have the option to choose. You and all of us must conduct our conference business on a virtual basis.

This is where the excitement starts.

You see, I just hosted my first virtual trade conference. It was national in scope and lasted two and a half days. Here is an amazing thing I learned that I can share with you.

The most important lesson is that a virtual conference is not an in-person conference. The failure I’ve seen in other attempts enlightened my own efforts.

Here’s what I mean.

Many are too tempted to merely duplicate “brick by brick” all things an in-person conference has. But not everything translates precisely. For example, you can’t give a lively in-person presentation, complete with props and pyrotechnics, in a remote situation. The impact is not the same. In fact, it probably comes off as distracting, pretentious, or, worse, boring.

This is the problem with most webinars. They’re conducted like in-person seminars. Folks, we’re talking two different forms of media here. Why would you think what works in one works in the other? Imagine doing a radio show that expects the audience to see two nearly identical pictures and guess what’s missing in one. That works for TV, but not radio.

Virtual conferences have the power of the electronic engagement. You can interact with your wired audience in ways that you can never achieve with your in-person audience. These are the presentation tools you should explore, emphasize, and exhibit. Leave the fireworks for the Fourth of July.

By this way, the “translation” mistake occurs in arenas beyond trade conventions.

You’ve probably noticed the difference between the recent party conventions as they each tried their hand with remote meetings. One tried to duplicate what had always been done in the past and lost viewership with each succeeding night. The other took advantage of the new media and saw its audience grow each night.

Here’s a place where this matters and it hits much closer to home: education.

On-line learning is not new. It has been around for a while. In the early years, it was nothing more than a professor giving a hour-long lecture – just like in the real classroom. Today, it isn’t anything like that.

As our secondary schools venture forth into the new media of remote learning, teachers and administrators, along with parents and students, will discover you can’t simply overlay the old way of teaching onto the new technology.

I’ve been advising every teacher I know to teach to the computer camera and place your back to the in-room students. Your audience is no longer the physical classroom, but the virtual classroom. The tricks that worked so well within the walls of the schoolroom won’t necessary be as effective in the on-line world.

Learn new tools. Learn new tricks. Be amazed at what it feels like to rediscover your profession.

Do this and you’ll find each day’s lesson is not just a page in the syllabus, but an amazing event.

Now, which way to the after-party?

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life Tagged , , , ,

When Did You Start Your Rosebud Quest?

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By on August 25, 2020

In the opening scene of Citizen Kane, the titular protagonist breathes his last breath. “Rosebud,” he whispers as he releases his last grasp of a snow globe that falls to the floor and shatters.

We then spend the next two hours reliving the life of Charles Foster Kane as reporters vainly search for the meaning of his last word. Why would the world’s richest man, a collector of antiquities galore, a prominent citizen, say “Rosebud”?

What did “Rosebud” mean to Charles Foster Kane?

More importantly, what does “Rosebud” mean to us?

In the interest of avoiding revealing a movie’s ending, I won’t tell you what “Rosebud” represents in Citizen Kane. If you’re one of the rare people who have not seen what many Continue Reading “When Did You Start Your Rosebud Quest?”

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The Dog Days Of Coronavirus

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By on August 18, 2020

On April 21, 2020, the New York Post ran a story titled “Dogs could get extreme separation anxiety when quarantine ends, experts say.” That was four months ago. Back then, we expected the whole matter of Covid-19 to have been a memory by the summer.

We were wrong.

And the dogs of the world rejoice. (For those asking, cats don’t care. If anything, our physical proximity tends to grate on them.)

It’s almost as if this master/pet thing has been turned on its head. The dog is now king of the castle. We humans, mere subjects to his beck and call, perform as trained servants, heeding his every desire.

There’s a reason why writers often speak with a touch of lamentable envy when they refer to “a dog’s life.” It’s a life of ease, a life of contentment, a life humans can only wish they had.

As we swim through the muggy summer air of the Dog Days of August, we might imagine these extended Dog Days of Coronavirus.

(Incidentally, the original source of the term “Dog Days” comes from ancient times and refers to the reappearance of the star Sirius – the “Dog Star” – in the night sky. Sirius is the brightest star. Ironically, we more commonly associate it with the winter months, when it shines brilliantly just below and to the left of Orion’s feet. Yet, to get to that prominent place in the frigid nights of January, it must first rise in the pre-dawn hours of summer. That event marks the beginning of the Dog Days. Sirius, by the way, lies in the constellation Canis Major, Latin for “Big Dog.”)

Wally is no different than any other dog. Except, maybe, he can talk. He hasn’t talked for some time, however, perhaps because he’s got nothing to say. I mean, why bother talking when you’re completely satisfied with life.

Don’t get me wrong. Barking and talking are two separate things all together. Barking is a form of play. It’s instinct. It’s just something dogs do. Sometimes with purpose. Sometimes for no reasons whatsoever.

But forget about the barking. It’s not at all about the barking. It’s about the bonding. These months together have only strengthened the bond that already existed.

We only think of this bond from the point of view of the pet. “For most dogs, the attachment they feel towards their owner is fundamental to their well-being,” says John Bradshaw Ph.D. in an article he wrote nearly ten years ago (“The Bond Between Pet and Owner,” Psychology Today, November 19, 2012).

But the bond between a dog and his master works both ways. This is because dogs can talk to us as well as listen to us. Bradshaw explains dogs have “a unique sensitivity towards human body language, gaze and gesture.” This helps them understand us more so than other pets. It’s what builds the mutual bond.

It used to be, on weekends, Wally wallowed in Nirvana. His humans stayed at home (for the most part) and even when they went out for Church, to run an errand, or to visit someone, the separation was short, sometimes shorter than a nap.

Now, everyday is a weekend. Everyone – except his one and true master, Betsy – is working from home. Funny. This reaffirms his earlier understanding that Betsy is the master of us all. Everyone else – me, Peter, Cesidia, and Catarina – are his peers.

If not his servants.

When Wally wants to go out, we take him out. When Wally wants to eat, we give him food (although less people food than before). When Wally wants a belly rub, we give him a belly rub. When Wally wants to bark, he barks no matter how much we insist he stop.

So, the dog is the master.

And that comforts us humans. For the needs of the dog now represent the pleasant baseline of life. They have become a routine we can rely on, something we can effortlessly perform. More important, we can derive immediate satisfaction from them, knowing and seeing the intended recipient gleefully accept what we offer.

Perhaps, then, we are living the Dog Days ourselves. Maybe we just don’t realize it.

What happens next?

Eventually, the day will come when we return to an activity level approximately what we’ve done in the past. We will leave the home more frequently and for longer periods of time.

With this in mind, the New York Times attempted to rewrite the topic addressed earlier by its metropolitan rival (see “How to Help Your Pet With Post-Quarantine Separation Anxiety,” August 8, 2020). Unfortunately, this article fails to differentiate between dogs and cats in the manner that the Psychology Today article explains. It also makes the same mistake as it merely repeats the prejudicial point of view.

This equation – this bond – contains two balanced sides.

Yes, our dog may pine away, alone, waiting for our return.

But what about us?

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5 Reasons You May Be On The Cusp Of Success (And Not Even Know It)

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By on August 11, 2020

Look around you. Now, more than ever, the world teems with constant change.

Some succumb, consumed by the cascading chaos.

Winners smile broadly, delighted by the array of percolating opportunities.

“Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?”

This is the question every budding entrepreneur asks. It is the wrong question.

Imagine

Wouldn’t you benefit more if, before beginning on your entrepreneurial journey, you knew what talents successful entrepreneurs possess?

Rather than first asking if you have them, you’d be much wiser to ask what they are.

Before answering that unasked question, behold the very first lesson. It’s a lesson you should carry with you at all times. It reveals the ultimate axiom, the rule that will forever guide you from any precipice that threatens you.

More than some mere flimsy shield, it will act as a protective bubble surrounding you in all directions. Carry this bubble with you on your every move and you will find success more often than not.

Here’s the hard part. You can’t see this bubble because, well, it’s a bubble. It’s normally transparent. You can’t tell if it’s there or not.

And neither can your enemies. Yet, they’re always poking and prodding, testing to see if the bubble is there or not. If they feel resistance, it’s there and they back away. If they don’t sense your protective barrier, they know you’re fair game.

What’s the axiom? What creates this bubble of protection? What is this first and most important lesson?

Your Ultimate Axiom: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.

Repeat it five times. Memorize it. Write that on the back of your hand. Do whatever you have to do so you will always remember it.

You must maintain the discipline to never forget this rule. For the moment you drop your guard, the bubble evaporates.

And your enemies will seize you.

Be warned: Entrepreneurs have plenty of enemies. These enemies don’t just take the form of competitors. They could be regulators, service providers, or even family and friends.

The enemies aren’t just people, either. There’s the enemy of time, the enemy of talent, and, of course, the enemy of treasure.

As an entrepreneur, you will often find yourself in a race against time. The clock is ticking to be the first to the market, to capture the market before the phase passes, and to give you enough lead-time to move on to the next step.

Careful planning can minimize the enemy of time, but it always lingers, ready to pounce at the sign of weakness.

For some entrepreneurs, treasure will always represent an enemy. Money can unfortunately handcuff those with capital-intensive ideas. Those who seek to run before they walk must also confront the monetary barrier.Fortunately, in many cases, you can easily brush aside the enemy of money. It’s often a simple task to find suitable low cost (or no cost) substitutes. You can even scale back your roll out so your venture can fund itself.

Why depend on the kindness of strangers (banks, angel investors, and crowd-sourced funding) when you don’t need to?

Ah, but what works for money fails to work for the enemy of talent. Specifically, it’s the capacity of talent that you must realistically address.

Notice the word used is “capacity” rather than “lack.” You may have unlimited talent, but you can only juggle so many things at the same time. For this reason, you do need to rely on others. There’s just no other way around it, unless you accept that your business will never amount to anything more than a hobby.

Some talents, however, supersede others. These are the innate talents all successful entrepreneurs possess to some degree. These are the talents that answer the question you didn’t know you didn’t know you should have asked first:

Question #1: What 5 Traits Must Every Successful Entrepreneur Have?

If you ask any successful entrepreneur, they will agree on one thing: you need to demonstrate a practical stick-to-it passion in order to build a sustainable business of any size. This eclipses all else.

“To succeed in business, the more important question to ask is, are you resilient, resourceful, and relentless?” says Julie Bee, President and Founder of BeeSmart Social Media and Lead From Anywhere in Charlotte, North Carolina. “You’ll need to have those three characteristics to succeed.”

These traits don’t just drive your business ambitions, they steer every facet of your life. As a result, you can tell right away if you’ve got what it takes – at least from a practical standpoint.

“In my experience,” says Ratna Singh, CEO & Founder of CAR.O.L, in London, England, “determination and grit are the most important attributes needed to succeed, and you’ll know if you have these by the way you run your life – from the way you cook to the work you do.”

Here’s the thing: even successful entrepreneurs can’t avoid the Ultimate Axiom. They may feel these down and dirty characteristics may have been responsible for their success – and they wouldn’t be wrong – but they also enjoy the benefit of personality traits that lie deeper within them. So deep, in fact, it takes a trained professional to see them.

Are you a trained professional? Probably not.

But don’t worry. You’re in luck. Researchers have already identified these traits. Some have even developed an easy way for you to test yourself on them.

In 1991, Sally Caird, then of the School of Management at Open University Business School, published the results of her study on entrepreneurial traits. “Testing Enterprising Tendency in Occupational Groups,” (British Journal of Management, Vol. 2, 177-186, 1991) tested business owners-managers, teachers, nurses, civil servants, clerical trainees, and lecturers/trainers.

Caird sought to measure the key differentiating characteristics that separate entrepreneurs from everyone else. She concluded “key enterprise characteristics may include:”

  • A high need for achievement;
  • A high need for autonomy;
  • Calculated risk-taking;
  • An internal locus of control; and,
  • A creative tendency:

The data “reveals that business owners-managers have higher average scores than every other group for all measures of enterprising tendency.” Caird does suggest “the test may be biased in favor of business owners-managers, given that it was developed from information on entrepreneurs.”

While other research does cite Caird, the bulk of the academic efforts seen to have focused on other measures, most notably “The Big-5 model.” This is described by Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Tina Xu (“Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, December 2017) as:

  • Openness to experience: describes the breadth, depth, originality, and complexity of an individual’s mental and experimental life
  • Conscientiousness: describes socially prescribed impulse control that facilitates task- and goal-orientated behavior
  • Extroversion: implies an energetic approach toward the social and material world and includes traits such as sociability, activity, assertiveness, and positive emotionality
  • Agreeableness: contrasts a prosocial and communal orientation toward others with antagonism and includes traits such as altruism, tender-mindedness, trust, and modesty
  • Neuroticism: contrasts emotional stability and even-temperedness with negative emotionality, such as feeling anxious, nervous, sad, and tense

Various studies have yielded differing results with different levels of significance regarding the Big-5 model. Kerr et al cite this as well as “the overly general nature of these macro personality traits, such that they cannot easily predict situation-specific behaviors of entrepreneurs.”

For this reason, and because her traits are somewhat intuitive, it makes sense to focus on Caird’s five personality traits.

What should you do now that you know the five “key enterprise characteristics” of successful entrepreneurs?

Find a way to rate yourself in each of these five categories. Then you’ll be ready to see what experienced entrepreneurs have to say about each of these talents.

Posted in Business Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the (Summer) Evening

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By on August 4, 2020

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It was about thirty years ago that I threw in the towel. After a little more than three decades of roughing it without central air conditioning, I broke down.

I have to admit. There’s something sweet about swimming in the hot muggy midsummer air. Like the reassuring aroma from your mother’s kitchen, you can smell it. Like the snuggling comfort of your favorite blanket, you can feel it. Like the glittering neon signs of the exciting night, you can see it in the twinkling above.

Yes. All the radiating vapor creates waves of transparent turbulence, only visible through Continue Reading “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the (Summer) Evening”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Yes, Your Community Matters, Too

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By on July 28, 2020

If this were a Saturday matinee cartoon, we’ve come to the point where Popeye, upset at his inability to escape from the suffocating arms of the evil bully Bluto (a.k.a., “Brutus” in later versions), exclaims to the cheers of his admiring and sympathetic audience, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands not more!”

Yes, we’ve reached our “Popeye Point,” as Karl Albrecht called it in his 2011 article in Psychology Today. Albrecht describes this as the moment when we reach that “primal, visceral, life-changing decision.” Here’s his explanation of the metaphor:

“Popeye (the sailor man) [is] a good-natured, easy-going guy who tries to get through life as peacefully and cheerfully as possible. In the animated cartoon episodes, his emotional fortitude is always being tested by mean, nasty, abusive people around him, some of whom like to whale on him physically. At a certain point in each episode, he Continue Reading “Yes, Your Community Matters, Too”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘The Coming Thing…’ Thoughts on Turning 60

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By on July 21, 2020

OK, OK, so I admit it. This is a vanity post. I’ll be writing to you this week (and, it turns out, next week, too) in an unusually personal fashion.

Next week’s column (which was bumped a week for this week’s column) will make more sense. It’s written in a true “drama in real life” fashion. Oh, you needn’t worry. There’s very little real drama in it. But it will hold together in a way the following potpourri of random thoughts won’t.

Don’t mistake me, though. There will be portions of this mishmash very alluring. Some of it may even elicit the thought, “I’m glad someone finally said that.”

And with that, here we go…Continue Reading “‘The Coming Thing…’ Thoughts on Turning 60”

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It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing

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By on July 14, 2020

This is going to sound like it’s coming out of left field, but it isn’t.

It is somewhat related to this day in history (July 16th).

No, it’s not that it’s the day after my birthday. It’s the anniversary of the liftoff of Apollo 11. Man’s landing on the moon should be the greatest case study of inspiration, project management, and engineering. It already stands as the greatest achievement in the history of mankind.

Think about the above paragraph as you read this column.

Now, on to the real story.

Again, it’s going to sound like I’m coming out of left field, but don’t give up. Keep reading and the dots will coalesce into a constellation that makes it all clear.Continue Reading “It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing”

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