Confidence

In the last contact hour of each and every conference, seminar, workshop, retreat, camp, planning session, etc. that I have in the last twenty-five years had the privilege in which to present, where other presenters would schedule a feedback session, I have always found it useful to interact with participants on the topic of ‘Confidence’. Please note; No mention of this word appears anywhere. I would normally start by losing my jacket, fining a position in the center of the group and posing the question, while participants decide how to react and gather themselves, “Do you get it?”

Many answers come at once, most on the topic(s) I have presented on and some, as you would expect, ask for clarification. From these signals, I point to one who asked “What do you mean?” and repeat “Do you get it?” I let the rumbling continue for as long as a minute as participants now turn to each other for help. Then I resume pointing and questioning “Do you get it?” until one participant would stand and ask “Yes! I get it.” Then I ask, “So, can you give it to the others?” This individual is normally one of the fastest thinkers in the room and has already impressed the other participants of such, now I will see how quick a thinker. I remain expressionless and silent. The answer itself does not matter, I time how long it takes for the answer to gain wide spread acceptance.

A Valued Partner

A few weeks ago, a friend and I got an opportunity to spend some time together in a mostly one-on-one social setting, something we did very often but had not had the chance to do in many years. This person and I have amazingly agreed on many topics or at the very least, agreed not to discuss insignificant issues. One topic we successfully seem to avoid is on the value of a spouse. Very few people admit to having selected a partner purely for economic reasons, most confess to being in love but all, in the heat of an argument, will contest financial control. Money is chiefly responsible for the destruction of most committed relationships.

Water Cycles

Water, H2O, Gift of Life, Essential Human Right or any other term commonly used to describe the natural cycle of ice, sea or lake. Surface water evaporating forming clouds, moving to higher altitudes, condensing as rain and maneuvering through the land surface, where it adds to many biological processes and returns to its largest storage condition, ice, sea or lake. Man-made progress has added to the natural cycle of water, for pure convenience (pun intended), capturing rain in reservoirs fed by diverting rivers or drilling well to the water table, treating it and distributing via pumps and pipelines to homes and industries, and in most cases, releasing the waste carrying water back into the water table or directly to the sea.

Invest or Buy

Cash is king in a recession; leveraged to expand its purchasing power can result in long-term wealth creation. Finding oneself with hefty savings in this “re-section or re-cast” (terms coined to address a job-less recovery based on technological efficiencies driving corporate growth) period, can be easily compared to a lottery winner; questioning how to preserve it, how much of it to spend and how much of it to keep.

Make yourself comfortable by satisfying your basic needs. Shelter, the most basic need, does not have to be expensive as you can reduce the operating cost by sharing the expense. Investing in a guest house or renting accommodations can bring in income to offset the expense. The same premises can house a restaurant reducing your food bills. A vehicle sale, rental and repair shop strategically located on the same property will also reduce your transportation cost. And if these and other basic operations are well managed, you can find yourself in a comfortable situation for the rest of your life.

The Next Big Thing

Great business ideas have always made a targeted individual feel special, a member of a select group, standing out of a crowd, ahead of the curve.

Approximately twenty years ago, the Chief Executive Officer of a successful advertising agency asked about the next great trend in advertising, the answer at that time was referred to as Secret Rewards. This was described as a discount or benefit program to win and sustain customer loyalty, with very little promotional cost. It worked in the retail environment by simply allowing a manager to select a particular type of customer and, without fanfare, bestow a significant discount or reward on them. The resulting word-of-mouth advertising led to what is referred to today as Social Marketing. A network of reward based recommendations that reduced the cost associated with direct promotions, media advertising and telemarketing strategies.

Global Growth

Both the G8 and G20 meetings, of the leaders of the world’s largest economies, recently held in Canada, pointed toward ‘Small Business’ as the driving force for growth out of this present global resection. Leaders all called for ‘Small Business’ programs to stimulate economic growth; to create more sustainable jobs, to develop new or lesser developed industries or sectors, to penetrate export markets and reduce import bills.

Destroying Tomorrow

Many countries desperately attempt to inflate or, at the very least, maintain their international credit rating, to access cheaper credit as they borrow to continue to fund current deficits. Not by directly influencing the rating agencies, but by hiding unemployment figures and literacy rates. These actions are seen by many in power as essential, in their short-term thinking, to weather the hard times.

Statistically unemployment can be counted with the use of; the number of persons actively seeking jobs through a unemployment benefits system, a count of new registrants in a national insurance scheme, and/or numbers calculated from business closures and field reports. The delay in data collection can cause significant misinterpretations and its accuracy can only be challenged by auditing, which, in itself, is a very costly and lengthy process. Developed countries have settled on a competitive approach by which Governmental agencies’ data is constantly compared to data derived from economic intelligence units attached to universities or private sector associations.

Hard Times

As major economies’ national budgets try to address existing high levels of debt, brought on by the essential financial sector bail-out and the current unsustainable growth in social programs investment, Governments must facilitate public sector reform. Effecting change toward higher efficiency levels, reducing waste and corruption, while increasing sustainable jobs, changes that politicians would instinctively avoid.

Poor wealth distribution systems have always encouraged people to seek power, political power with control of the public purse, to invest in strategies and programs that would benefit their supporters and keep them in power. Of course, the supporters of the group not in power, wishes to be and many recent elections have brought about that change. Reality, however, brings a different change, change to campaign promises, change in responses from assigning blame to taking responsibility and change from “Yes We Can” to “We are looking into it”.

Inspiring Joe

A recent comment from a regular reader of this column said that the standard of these articles were declining, one would think such a remark brought negativity but quite the opposite, I am pleased to have affected at least one reader. Meeting and listening to people generally as I travel has had a devastating effect on my views as to the future of society, so it is great to hear that my single efforts to educate and inform, to offer an opinion and to provoke thought has been met with some success.

Money or Ideas

Which comes first, Money or Ideas? This common question has always justified hopelessness – a poor person is someone without education therefore with limited access to income (jobs and opportunities) and is trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Here is some money – buy your way out of poverty. This approach has be tried and tested numerous times by well meaning institutions seeking goodwill and publicity, and claiming to be helping, with highly educated and experienced people talking down to and disrespecting the very people they are supposed to be helping up. Micro loans have been seen as a success but this system is widely misunderstood. Gifts and Loans do not help without the guiding support of education.