There is something so pure about helping someone without expecting something in return. Maybe it’s sharing something you have excess of: time, money, material possessions. Simply having the excess does not mandate that you “help” someone. There needs to be kindness in the mix as well. The topic I would like to explore today is kindness being the ultimate currency.

People have already explored the notion of karma. Various religions explore this concept under the category known as grace. Although karma and grace have one primary difference in that with grace there is an element of forgiveness rather than a tit-for-tat.

It’s interesting to me that this concept is covered both secularly and religiously, but it does take a lot of courage to lead with the kindness card. Especially here in the north east, it’s very easy to lead with the “tough guy” card.

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As the summer sights, smells, and trends in business make themselves known - I would be remissed to mention the effects that mother nature have on personal emotions. For those of you who know me (in real life) emotion is not my strong suit. There is not enough space in cyber land to dedicate to this topic, so I shall try my hardest to stay “on brand”.

This weekend I had the opportunity to stay at a friend of mine’s summer haven of loveliness in Montauk, NY. I call it summer haven of loveliness - because the view, the surroundings, the people I met were truly inspiring. Located just 117 miles away from the hustle and bustle of New York City, I felt like I was on another planet - and no, there were no drugs involved.

Firstly, let me give credit where credit is due, it was not my house. It was www.bryanthatcher.com and www.lmichaels.com summer home. Many of you might know or have seen Bryan around the web 2.0 scene as CEO of www.empressr.com. He is a busy guy, but also a very centered guy with a very grounded sense of priorities. He invited me to their home in Montauk, NY - “because you need to slow down and relax”. That is exactly what we did.

I took the train to Montauk (actually a different town closer to New York City) - but Bryan picked me up, and we went to some other party, then we after that party, we went to the house. I arrived, and there was a bed made, sheets on the bed, and just the most inviting setup on a guest bed. For those of you who know Laura, you wouldn’t expect anything else - the attention to detail was impressive. But it didn’t stop there, I woke up, not to the sounds of an alarm clock, or the wake up call from the faceless, nameless person that is just doing their job in a hotel, but the sound of waves. WAVES woke me up. That is how close we were to the beach.

I spent a great deal of time on the beach over the course of the weekend, and each time, I was amazed at how much power was in something so beautiful. I tried to surf (operative word there is tried). I tried to boogie board (operative word there is also tried). There is something so accepting of beach community. The people there were so helpful (after they stopped laughing at how badly I was tossed by the waves).

I think every entrepreneur needs to have an experience that can serve as a source of inspiration. Experience something that is powerful, natural, and friendly. For me, this experience at Montauk will serve as one of those photo albums in my mind I reference when I’m going through a particularly tough time, or when need to summons my creative juices, I can think about the waves, the ocean, and the hospitality of Montauk, NY.

The challenge I have for entrepreneurs who have “made it”. Are you a source of inspiration for someone else?

Edit 7/17/2008,12:12pm EST: It has been brought to my attention that the facts in this article are not entirely true. I did also spend some time on the porch of Steve and Regan Michaels of www.fusebox.com. Their hospitality on the porch was second to none. No one makes a lemonade quite like Steve. In fact, in the spirit of total honesty, he is looking straight down the barrell of taking on the likes of Snapple with his lemonade mix, stay tuned for Steve’s Lemonade A’ Rama ‘09.

Bistronomics.

If you are like me, this term is a new term for you. I learned about this term on Saturday. In New York City. I was at dinner with about 20+ people. Some of them I knew for a while, others, not so much. We had a great time. Conversation, food and wine flowed. Laughs, smiles, connection, reconnections, promises of future contact and networking love was spread around.

This table was so large that I didn’t know the person to my right, nor the person to my left. These are actually my favorite types of dinners, because I have the opportunity to learn about some other people, and saves me from having to hear the same stories over and over (my friends are great, but I have heard their stories already

Then the bill came. And as you would expect, people threw in what they thought they owed. And were already discussing what the group was going to do next: split up, move to some other venue, go to sleep. The night was ours!
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The scenario is all too familiar isn’t it? You have done what seems like ages of research to purchase your latest toy. Digital cameras, plasma TVs, shoes, backpacks - we are a consumer society. But we have the internet! We are “in theory” an educated consumer society.

Then we order the product. But have we researched the warranty? What happens if something goes wrong? In my previous posting I talked about nickel and diming. The concept I would like to introduce today is warranty. Again, I believe that people in general mean well. They like pleasant experiences. Pretty simple right? When unfortunate stuff happens to them, they want to vent, and they want to feel
safe.

I think that responsible companies want their consumers to feel safe. That is why they offer warranties. Now some of these companies are running a balancing act between nickel and diming and offering warranties. What I mean here is the notion of “we will cover this, but not that”. And for the most part, the decision is up
to the consumer to consider if that segmentation is “fair”. Continue reading

As an entrepreneur, there are many things that jockey for your resources. I have already spoken about this a bit in a few of my past articles. CEOs who focus on the right variables at the right time and produce the right results are rewarded. They are rewarded by personal satisfaction, their customers, their shareholders, and the venture capital who believed in them.

What happens when your priorities are out of order? There are no road signs to indicate the proper decisions. The sky doesn’t come falling down. I believe the most dangerous thing about not having your priorities straight is that there are not warning signs. And the most dangerous outcome is not realizing your full potential and experiencing partial success.

As brutal as it might sound, I wish an invisible hand would reach up and just slap me when I focus on the wrong thing. Staying true to the nature of this blog, I am going to give you a personal example.

I travel a fair bit, and today, I saw this. Take a look at this picture. We have all used one of these (I’m giving some of you the benefit of the doubt here - but we have all SEEN one of these, right?

To me, this represents a dismal, borderline inexcusable sense of priorities. Let’s zoom out and take in the environment. To minimize the heckling, I resisted from taking photos of the inside of the men’s bathroom. This picture is the sink of the men’s restroom in Terminal B of Rochester Airport. There were several of these sinks beside each other. Something on the order of 3 or 4 of these sinks.

Let’s talk about some of the elements of this picture.

1. The electrical outlet
2. The water faucet
3. The soap dispenser

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I have gotten feedback on the length of my postings.
This one doesn’t need many words.

I came across Jack’s story today as I was researching my next blog entry. I scrapped any notion that words would convey what this video already does.

I don’t even know this family. But I sure would like to be able to pick up the phone and tell them… “hey, my friends and I were thinking about you, is there anything we can do?”

Please contact me if you want to help out. This is not a solicitation. Just putting it out there.

You know what I mean.

50 cents for some extra blue cheese with your chicken wings. (insert bar name here)

10 cents for a photocopy at an internet café. (insert café name here)

1 dollar to receive a fax. (just about every hotel chain)

5 dollars for a snack on an airline. (Northwest airlines)

9.95 for internet access (just about every hotel chain)

The list seems never ending.

Now what about the other end of the spectrum?

Freshly made chocolate cookies for everyone! (Midwest Airlines)

Return whatever you want, whenever you want to (Nordstrom)

Whatever. Whenever. (W Hotel)

Gets tiring trying to keep up with the fine print. My suggestion in this article is - Don’t do it. Real simple.

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Most of us know this phrase. The phrase we are screamed as we were riding our bike down the street. And we finally figured out how to balance ourselves on the bike. At which point, we look around feverishly for our mom, who is busy doing something (because she was just happy to get us out of her hair for a bit). Yelling for her to look at us while we rode our bike. We knew what she would say. Something to the effect of “That’s really good. Now be careful.”

This effect speaks to a concept I wanted to write about today. Validation. Some people need validation - from parents, peers, colleagues. Some people crave it. I wanted to visit three aspects of validation today - the authorities that we seek validation from, the mode in which we seek validation, and lastly, the underlying reason why we need validation.

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If www.please.com or www.thankyou.com is available, or for sale, please let me know. I would like to purchase them. I’m putting it out there, and I’m pretty serious about it. I would like to own these URLs. Why you ask? I don’t want them for commercial purposes. I want to create one page on each of these sites. That say - Yes. You. Say Please. and Yes. You. Say Thank You.

Background point number 1:

As many of you know, I travel a fair bit. While 90% of it is for business purposes and 10% of it is for pleasure, that breakdown actually has little bearing on the fact that 100% of the time, I’m a human being. And I’m not alone. So are the people behind the ticket counter. So are the people making sure that my fellow passengers and I are safe. And you know what? So is that person running the vacuum as you are on that all-too-important phone call that you wish everyone would quiet down so you could hear. All of these people are human beings.

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I think we’ve all heard of it. In many different forms, you’ve heard it. Phrases rationalizing why some people seem to coast through life, and others seem to hit their heads against every single wall, physically or imaginary. It is my belief that decades ago “old boys” clubs facilitated resolutions of issues. You needed a loan, you called your buddy. You needed office space, you called someone else.

In this age, with globalization, the breadth of skill sets and contacts that your “old boys” club would need to possess seems unimaginable. How could you possibly golf with all of the people that you might need to lean on? How could you possibly have dinner with all of those people? Simple answer, you can’t.

In this age, your network is only as solid as your reputation. There are many indicators of your reputation. While there is an anonymity that some people enjoy on the internet, most people spend significant energy trying to overcome that anonymity. Making sure their myspace.com page has “friends”, followers on twitter.com, the articles you write are “dugg” on digg.com.. many many indicators.

But what about those people who aren’t the popular kids? Are they going to need to wait till all of the players are picked for the internet-kickball team? Absolutely not. My suggestion is quite simple to implement. No magic really. Do something nice for someone.

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