Our oldest kid graduates college tomorrow and this line's been running through my head the last few days,
Make a little, sell a little.
Some 3M honcho used that line many years ago to describe the way his firm does business and it's always made a lot of sense to me.
You make a little something. Then you sell a little something. And you do that well countless times over decades, you're going to be successful like 3M.
This other line also has been rumbling around the last few days,
If a truck's hauling it, a salesman sold it.
A friend told me he saw this line on a bumpersticker fixed to a truck rolling along the highway once. It makes a lot of sense to me too.
I look at all those trucks out on the road every day and they remind me someone, somewhere, sometime made a sale. Otherwise those trucks wouldn't be out there.
Maybe this graduation season makes me think about pithy sales lines because our oldest kid's going to be put on full-time as salesman for The Quiet Company. And because I'm rooting like hell for him and his dreams. And because of that famous line in Death of a Salesman,
A salesman has got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
Actor-lawyer-economist-comic Ben Stein once wrote "lawyers and doctors and dentists and politicians and accountants and actors -- all of us sell something, every day and every time we meet someone."
Here's to The Class of 2010! A new crop of energized salespeople long on hope, with a swatch of economic stimulus in their bag. How great is this!
Class is over but here's to more learning, listening and dreaming.
Congratulations Class of 2010. And, yes, congratulations son! Mom and I are thrilled at the life you are leading and the choices you've made.
GOOD LUCK as you make a little, sell a little.
--tim
twitter @tjmorin
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Joy Ride
Mom turned seventy in 2005. She wasn't a thing-person. Didn't want stuff for her birthday. Particularly a special birthday like seventy.
All she asked from her kids was time, to be with each of us.
"You pick when, where, what we do," she said. "All I want is to be with each of you one-on-one, however you want to do it. Doesn't matter to me. As long as we do something before I turn seventy-one."
Mom gave us a year to think of something, some way to specially mark her seventieth birthday, to specially mark her.
Seemed to me Mom deserved something more special than a couple hours at a Starbucks chitty-chattin’ over a latte or going to Perkins for a plate of pancakes or even high dining at some fancy chop house for surf-n-turf.
Seemed to me seventy ought to be marked with a road trip. A special road trip. Yes, a joy ride. One Mom would never forget. One I'd always remember too. Maybe even a road trip that matched life itself insofar as this joy ride would "carry with it a modicum of risk", to quote a line from the Dustin Hoffman movie LITTLE BIG MAN, one of my favorite films.
Mom gave my siblings and me a year to come up with something. Anything. She didn't care what it was or when. She just asked me to make it happen before she turned seventy-one.
No problem. Piece of cake. "How hard could this be?" I asked myself.
It took me eleven months to figure something out.
Something more meaningful than Starbucks or Perkins. Something surprising. Something that wasn't thingy. Something she'd never done or would never do. Or could say to Dad "I got to do this with Tim and you've never done that."
"How hard could this be" turned into near impossible. And I damned near ran out of time.
---
Saturday in February, early February, almost one month before time was up and I'd turn into a pumpkin, I picked up Mom for our road trip.
The day was February cold, with early morning crackling air, clean cloudless winter blue skies, the sun bright as though it was sitting right on top of planet Earth. Perfect road trip conditions.
First stop was sixty miles west of Minneapolis. In the middle of nowhere, in late winter. I was taking Mom to see something she'd never seen before. A wonder of the world. In our backyard. No one else in our family had seen it. We were going to be the first Morins to say we've been to this place, to a holy land of sorts.
"So, where are we going?" Mom asked.
"First stop, Darwin,"
"Oh. What's in Darwin? Where is Darwin?"
"Darwin's an hour away. Something you've never seen. At your age, you need to see this."
"Okay then," she said.
And we made way to our first stop, Darwin. Mom and her oldest kid. Visiting and riding the open road on an early Saturday morning, sun-soaked, empty, two-lane U.S. Highway westbound for Minnesota's rural winter wonderland.
---
"YOU'VE! GOT! TO! BE! KIDDING!" Mom couldn't take her eyes off of the thing as we got out of the car. The thing was sitting inside a large weather-protected see-through, clear square case; an oversize, upside-down highball glass.
"Damn, look at that thing. It's huge," I said.
A little sign-post out front simply described the obvious,
"The World's Largest Ball of Twine"
A wonder of the world.
First time anyone in our family had seen it. Now Mom and I were here. Finally here. First stop on our road trip, our joy ride, in celebration of Mom's seventieth birthday, two explorers orbiting a large sphere of tightly wound skinny rope.
Best of all, it was just Mom and me. We had the place, this shrine, to ourselves. Just us. In early February in Darwin, Minnesota there were no long lines to see The World's Largest Ball of Twine. Imagine that. Not another soul anywhere around. As if the town of Darwin was packed up and launched on a moon shot for the winter.
"Damn that thing is big," I said.
"Yah," Mom said. "Whoever would've thought....Why would anyone ever think to... What do you suppose moved a person to do this?"
Around and around and around we walked. Just Mom and me. Shaking our stocking caps stuffed full of our heads as we gazed at that thing.
It is, for the record, the dumbest thing you ever saw. A big damn ball of twine. It is the kind of thing that should've made its way into that goofy movie, FARGO.
"Phffffffffft....." Mom said, looking at me. "You, you, you, where do you come up with these things?"
"I was thinking of taking you here or going to Starbucks or Perkins. Hope this was okay."
"I can go get coffee and pancakes anywhere."
And with those words, we were underway again. In the car, heading east toward home, the joy ride resumed. A big damn ball of twine like the western sun fading in our rear view mirror.
Heads kicked back. Mouths wide open. We were riding a current.
Like it was heaven on earth, or something.
Of course it was.
We'd just seen the world's largest ball of twine.
---
"Now where?"
"The airport," I said.
"Airport? What's at the airport?"
"Airplanes."
"Smart aleck."
We're going to Memphis, I told her.
"Memphis? What's in Memphis?" she asked.
"Ducks."
"Ducks? What ducks? Judas priest. We're going to Memphis? To see ducks?"
"Beats going to Starbucks."
When you're on a road trip with your seventy-year-old Mom that's now turned into a joy ride because you'd just seen the world's largest ball of twine, where else can you go? How do you follow that experience?
You fly to a place where you can watch a parade of ducks march in formation every morning and every night at a hotel in Memphis. Naturally, this is what you do with your seventy-year-old mother after you've seen a big damn ball of twine. Yes, you fly nine hundred miles away and nine hundred miles home so you can tell loved ones upon your return that you saw some ducks put on a parade.
And this is precisely what happens at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis. A bunch of ducks. Maybe a dozen or so. All lined up single file, parading daily.
They parade into the elevator, up to the Peabody rooftop when the day begins. And they parade down from the rooftop in the same elevator, then out of the Peabody Hotel when the day is done.
Every day hundreds of people gather to watch this parade. Just a parade of little, waddling ducks. No marching duck bands. No clown ducks. No ducks on tall stilt-legs. No Shriner ducks on weaving motorcycles. Or Queen ducks on flowered floats.
Nope. None of that. It's just ducks. In a line. Single file. Waddle, waddle. Quack, quack.
Then, in less than five minutes, or maybe it's more like one minute and five seconds, or it's some teensy timeframe you really don't want to quantify because you'll feel like a dope for spending all those hours and all that money traveling to this quack-brain place with your seventy-year-old Mom, why, before you know it, the thing is over. And the ducks disappear into the night.
Waddle, waddle. Quack, Quack.
People come from all over to watch this and only this, a dozen quacking ducks. People like Mom and me. People who have nothing better to do than take time for themselves, to be with loved ones or friends, and go on a joy ride. Those ducks and these people don't do this once a year or once a month. They do this every day. Twice a day. The ducks and the people show up. Ducks and people, like Mom and me, on a joy ride.
What a road trip this was turning out to be. Riding a couple of roads-less-traveled with my seventy-year-old Mom.
Who knew how we'd get on covering America's mid-section when the day began?
But here we were, the two of us, enjoying this offbeat trek; Mom, at seventy, keeping pace, loving every minute of a day no one else in The Peabody Hotel, nor in all of Memphis, nor in all the world could claim that day. Mom was the only seventy-year-old human alive right then who'd spent this day, on a joy ride, taking in a big damn ball of twine and a bunch of ducks in a parade.
Way better than a half-caf venti latte at Starbucks or buttermilk pancakes at Perkins.
---
It didn't take long for the ducks to finish their parading and go packing for the night. Then it was early evening. Mom and I walked across the street and along a narrow downtown alley to grab supper.
Cold Budweiser beers, iced all day in big metal buckets, and a couple racks of baby-back ribs from the Rendezvous Rib joint in Memphis. People all over the world love these ribs. That's why its website boasts "hogsfly-dot-com" in its address. This place ships its ribs anytime, anywhere. Absolutely, positively. Not much risk in making that claim, I suppose, when FedEx is based nearby to help the hog butcher meet his customers’ next-day, barbeque demands.
Mom and I loved the ribs. We loved the ice cold Buds. A great way to finish off Mom’s seventieth birthday road trip, a joy ride of huge balled up twine, marching ducks, ribs and ice-cold Buds at a place where hogs fly.
We returned the following morning and as I dropped Mom at home, just before she got out of my car, she pulled something from her purse, a tightly wound brown paper sack.
"Open it," she said with a slight smile and some mischief in her blue Irish eyes. "It's for you. I want you to have this. So you will remember our time together."
How thoughtful! A small gift, a surprise souvenir from Mom.
A pair of boxer shorts. From The Peabody. A color photo of a duck, one of the Peabody Marching Ducks, stamped on the rear-end. Under a headline that reads, Butt Quack.
I don't talk much about my underwear. But these under-shorts deserve a word. I wear these boxers still, many years later. I wear them fondly. There are no other fondly worn undergarments stuffed in my dresser drawers.
Indeed, this undergarment is special; oh my, how magnificent these Butt Quack shorts.
Boxers with a happy, parading duck stamped on the rear-end. From Mom, with love. Just for me, her fifty-two year old son. Now, a special memory.
I imagined, when this road trip was approaching, that I was gifting Mom at a special moment in her life. And while that was true, by journey's end, it had also turned out that Mom was the one who really gifted me.
I received a cozy forever memory from Mom, the two of us, together in the current, on a silly delightful joy ride in life that has remained a snug undergarment, a warm lining offering comfort and tranquility, that I will wear the rest of my days.
I know this.
I have underwear to prove it.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
All she asked from her kids was time, to be with each of us.
"You pick when, where, what we do," she said. "All I want is to be with each of you one-on-one, however you want to do it. Doesn't matter to me. As long as we do something before I turn seventy-one."
Mom gave us a year to think of something, some way to specially mark her seventieth birthday, to specially mark her.
Seemed to me Mom deserved something more special than a couple hours at a Starbucks chitty-chattin’ over a latte or going to Perkins for a plate of pancakes or even high dining at some fancy chop house for surf-n-turf.
Seemed to me seventy ought to be marked with a road trip. A special road trip. Yes, a joy ride. One Mom would never forget. One I'd always remember too. Maybe even a road trip that matched life itself insofar as this joy ride would "carry with it a modicum of risk", to quote a line from the Dustin Hoffman movie LITTLE BIG MAN, one of my favorite films.
Mom gave my siblings and me a year to come up with something. Anything. She didn't care what it was or when. She just asked me to make it happen before she turned seventy-one.
No problem. Piece of cake. "How hard could this be?" I asked myself.
It took me eleven months to figure something out.
Something more meaningful than Starbucks or Perkins. Something surprising. Something that wasn't thingy. Something she'd never done or would never do. Or could say to Dad "I got to do this with Tim and you've never done that."
"How hard could this be" turned into near impossible. And I damned near ran out of time.
---
Saturday in February, early February, almost one month before time was up and I'd turn into a pumpkin, I picked up Mom for our road trip.
The day was February cold, with early morning crackling air, clean cloudless winter blue skies, the sun bright as though it was sitting right on top of planet Earth. Perfect road trip conditions.
First stop was sixty miles west of Minneapolis. In the middle of nowhere, in late winter. I was taking Mom to see something she'd never seen before. A wonder of the world. In our backyard. No one else in our family had seen it. We were going to be the first Morins to say we've been to this place, to a holy land of sorts.
"So, where are we going?" Mom asked.
"First stop, Darwin,"
"Oh. What's in Darwin? Where is Darwin?"
"Darwin's an hour away. Something you've never seen. At your age, you need to see this."
"Okay then," she said.
And we made way to our first stop, Darwin. Mom and her oldest kid. Visiting and riding the open road on an early Saturday morning, sun-soaked, empty, two-lane U.S. Highway westbound for Minnesota's rural winter wonderland.
---
"YOU'VE! GOT! TO! BE! KIDDING!" Mom couldn't take her eyes off of the thing as we got out of the car. The thing was sitting inside a large weather-protected see-through, clear square case; an oversize, upside-down highball glass.
"Damn, look at that thing. It's huge," I said.
A little sign-post out front simply described the obvious,
"The World's Largest Ball of Twine"
A wonder of the world.
First time anyone in our family had seen it. Now Mom and I were here. Finally here. First stop on our road trip, our joy ride, in celebration of Mom's seventieth birthday, two explorers orbiting a large sphere of tightly wound skinny rope.
Best of all, it was just Mom and me. We had the place, this shrine, to ourselves. Just us. In early February in Darwin, Minnesota there were no long lines to see The World's Largest Ball of Twine. Imagine that. Not another soul anywhere around. As if the town of Darwin was packed up and launched on a moon shot for the winter.
"Damn that thing is big," I said.
"Yah," Mom said. "Whoever would've thought....Why would anyone ever think to... What do you suppose moved a person to do this?"
Around and around and around we walked. Just Mom and me. Shaking our stocking caps stuffed full of our heads as we gazed at that thing.
It is, for the record, the dumbest thing you ever saw. A big damn ball of twine. It is the kind of thing that should've made its way into that goofy movie, FARGO.
"Phffffffffft....." Mom said, looking at me. "You, you, you, where do you come up with these things?"
"I was thinking of taking you here or going to Starbucks or Perkins. Hope this was okay."
"I can go get coffee and pancakes anywhere."
And with those words, we were underway again. In the car, heading east toward home, the joy ride resumed. A big damn ball of twine like the western sun fading in our rear view mirror.
Heads kicked back. Mouths wide open. We were riding a current.
Like it was heaven on earth, or something.
Of course it was.
We'd just seen the world's largest ball of twine.
---
"Now where?"
"The airport," I said.
"Airport? What's at the airport?"
"Airplanes."
"Smart aleck."
We're going to Memphis, I told her.
"Memphis? What's in Memphis?" she asked.
"Ducks."
"Ducks? What ducks? Judas priest. We're going to Memphis? To see ducks?"
"Beats going to Starbucks."
When you're on a road trip with your seventy-year-old Mom that's now turned into a joy ride because you'd just seen the world's largest ball of twine, where else can you go? How do you follow that experience?
You fly to a place where you can watch a parade of ducks march in formation every morning and every night at a hotel in Memphis. Naturally, this is what you do with your seventy-year-old mother after you've seen a big damn ball of twine. Yes, you fly nine hundred miles away and nine hundred miles home so you can tell loved ones upon your return that you saw some ducks put on a parade.
And this is precisely what happens at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis. A bunch of ducks. Maybe a dozen or so. All lined up single file, parading daily.
They parade into the elevator, up to the Peabody rooftop when the day begins. And they parade down from the rooftop in the same elevator, then out of the Peabody Hotel when the day is done.
Every day hundreds of people gather to watch this parade. Just a parade of little, waddling ducks. No marching duck bands. No clown ducks. No ducks on tall stilt-legs. No Shriner ducks on weaving motorcycles. Or Queen ducks on flowered floats.
Nope. None of that. It's just ducks. In a line. Single file. Waddle, waddle. Quack, quack.
Then, in less than five minutes, or maybe it's more like one minute and five seconds, or it's some teensy timeframe you really don't want to quantify because you'll feel like a dope for spending all those hours and all that money traveling to this quack-brain place with your seventy-year-old Mom, why, before you know it, the thing is over. And the ducks disappear into the night.
Waddle, waddle. Quack, Quack.
People come from all over to watch this and only this, a dozen quacking ducks. People like Mom and me. People who have nothing better to do than take time for themselves, to be with loved ones or friends, and go on a joy ride. Those ducks and these people don't do this once a year or once a month. They do this every day. Twice a day. The ducks and the people show up. Ducks and people, like Mom and me, on a joy ride.
What a road trip this was turning out to be. Riding a couple of roads-less-traveled with my seventy-year-old Mom.
Who knew how we'd get on covering America's mid-section when the day began?
But here we were, the two of us, enjoying this offbeat trek; Mom, at seventy, keeping pace, loving every minute of a day no one else in The Peabody Hotel, nor in all of Memphis, nor in all the world could claim that day. Mom was the only seventy-year-old human alive right then who'd spent this day, on a joy ride, taking in a big damn ball of twine and a bunch of ducks in a parade.
Way better than a half-caf venti latte at Starbucks or buttermilk pancakes at Perkins.
---
It didn't take long for the ducks to finish their parading and go packing for the night. Then it was early evening. Mom and I walked across the street and along a narrow downtown alley to grab supper.
Cold Budweiser beers, iced all day in big metal buckets, and a couple racks of baby-back ribs from the Rendezvous Rib joint in Memphis. People all over the world love these ribs. That's why its website boasts "hogsfly-dot-com" in its address. This place ships its ribs anytime, anywhere. Absolutely, positively. Not much risk in making that claim, I suppose, when FedEx is based nearby to help the hog butcher meet his customers’ next-day, barbeque demands.
Mom and I loved the ribs. We loved the ice cold Buds. A great way to finish off Mom’s seventieth birthday road trip, a joy ride of huge balled up twine, marching ducks, ribs and ice-cold Buds at a place where hogs fly.
We returned the following morning and as I dropped Mom at home, just before she got out of my car, she pulled something from her purse, a tightly wound brown paper sack.
"Open it," she said with a slight smile and some mischief in her blue Irish eyes. "It's for you. I want you to have this. So you will remember our time together."
How thoughtful! A small gift, a surprise souvenir from Mom.
A pair of boxer shorts. From The Peabody. A color photo of a duck, one of the Peabody Marching Ducks, stamped on the rear-end. Under a headline that reads, Butt Quack.
I don't talk much about my underwear. But these under-shorts deserve a word. I wear these boxers still, many years later. I wear them fondly. There are no other fondly worn undergarments stuffed in my dresser drawers.
Indeed, this undergarment is special; oh my, how magnificent these Butt Quack shorts.
Boxers with a happy, parading duck stamped on the rear-end. From Mom, with love. Just for me, her fifty-two year old son. Now, a special memory.
I imagined, when this road trip was approaching, that I was gifting Mom at a special moment in her life. And while that was true, by journey's end, it had also turned out that Mom was the one who really gifted me.
I received a cozy forever memory from Mom, the two of us, together in the current, on a silly delightful joy ride in life that has remained a snug undergarment, a warm lining offering comfort and tranquility, that I will wear the rest of my days.
I know this.
I have underwear to prove it.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
Friday, April 30, 2010
Trust Me
I ask that you trust me.
Will you?
I hope so. Someday.
But only when I earn it.
Same goes with you.
Ask me to trust you and I will. Someday.
When you earn it.
'Trust me' doesn't square well in our drive-thru-grab-a-burger culture. To earn your trust I'll do two things,
Go slow.
Be honest.
In other words, earn it.
Smart people say we live in the attention age.
I say we live in the distortion age. A moment when truth struggles amid spinners, dissemblers, liars.
Big government wants my trust. Its done everything possible this century to crush my belief.
Big business wants my trust. There's a new GM ad where the CEO swaggers about his shop floor bragging he's repaid taxpayers in full, ahead of time and with interest.
First time I saw this ad was during MEET THE PRESS just minutes after a leading US Senator declared GM would never repay all it owes. Trouble buying the word of a car pitchman and a politician on a Sunday morning news show? No news there.
My Church wants me to trust that Jesus walked on water. Really? It'd be neat to ask the Pope about that.
Oh, wait, that won't work. I trust him and his boys as much as big government and big business honchos.
How about Joe the Regular Guy? He wants to rant about how great or how crappy the big health care bill is. He wants to use up my time and hold my trust reciting talking points he boosted from some talking TV talk show head. Sometimes I am Joe.
This is my favorite question of 2010,
"Have you read the whole health care bill?"
If so, you've earned my trust and you can use up my time. If not, please stop talking at me.
It's been a quiet spring. I wonder.
Will you trust me? Will I trust you?
Hope so. God help us.
Until we earn it.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
Will you?
I hope so. Someday.
But only when I earn it.
Same goes with you.
Ask me to trust you and I will. Someday.
When you earn it.
'Trust me' doesn't square well in our drive-thru-grab-a-burger culture. To earn your trust I'll do two things,
Go slow.
Be honest.
In other words, earn it.
Smart people say we live in the attention age.
I say we live in the distortion age. A moment when truth struggles amid spinners, dissemblers, liars.
Big government wants my trust. Its done everything possible this century to crush my belief.
Big business wants my trust. There's a new GM ad where the CEO swaggers about his shop floor bragging he's repaid taxpayers in full, ahead of time and with interest.
First time I saw this ad was during MEET THE PRESS just minutes after a leading US Senator declared GM would never repay all it owes. Trouble buying the word of a car pitchman and a politician on a Sunday morning news show? No news there.
My Church wants me to trust that Jesus walked on water. Really? It'd be neat to ask the Pope about that.
Oh, wait, that won't work. I trust him and his boys as much as big government and big business honchos.
How about Joe the Regular Guy? He wants to rant about how great or how crappy the big health care bill is. He wants to use up my time and hold my trust reciting talking points he boosted from some talking TV talk show head. Sometimes I am Joe.
This is my favorite question of 2010,
"Have you read the whole health care bill?"
If so, you've earned my trust and you can use up my time. If not, please stop talking at me.
It's been a quiet spring. I wonder.
Will you trust me? Will I trust you?
Hope so. God help us.
Until we earn it.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
Friday, April 23, 2010
You An App Yet?
I don't have a bank anymore. Nope. I have an app.
New York Times used to be my morning newspaper. Not anymore. Now it's my morning app.
Seth Godin? Once upon a time he was a great blogger. Now he's a great app.
Is your business an app yet?
Even better, anyone in your business an app yet?
If I was a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a sales guy, a customer service rep, a member of Congress, or anyone else who has a brain and uses it at work, I'd turn myself into an app asap.
If I was a doctor app I could scale myself and help people with daily health tips all day and all night.
Who knows how healthy my patients would be if my daily doctor app made a house call on their hand-held device asking "So, what did you eat today?" Or "How did you exercise today?" Or "How much you weighing these days?"
If I was a lawyer app my best counsel to the best questions people asked at my office each week could be posted and available.
Imagine containing the knowledge of our complicated legal system AND the expensive billing rate of your lawyer in the palm of your hand someday.
And what if teachers and professors were all apps with daily lessons for students at their school, and the school at the next town over, and maybe the next state over and even the next country over?
Forget tight budgets. What school administrator's going to lay off a teacher who's an app?
Sales guys and customer service reps as apps would be a dream come true for people about to buy or who just bought your product. Customers and prospects always need more info.
If everyone in your sales-and-service force became the go-to apps in your industry, what's the competition going to do? No telling how how sales will grow when you've made each of your sales and services reps' into idea and knowledge apps that are infinitely scaleable and uniquely personal.
Oh, and how great would it be if everyone in Congress was an app? Wouldn't you love the chance to delete your Congress-person when he or she got buggy?
We'd all be a lot smarter and way more productive if we could extend and monitor ourselves, and analyze our interactions as an app.
Imagine all this thoughtfulness available and delivered to dozens, hundreds, thousands of people wanting, needing to tap into each of our unique gifts.
Imagine all the valuable information that forms around you the app, and your community.
If I was starting a business today I might start The App Shop. Like the Apple Store, The App Shop would be a place you'd walk into. Where you could find smart people behind the Human Bar to give you a helping hand when you wish to be an app for this or that.
Smart people say we've entered the knowledge economy.
I wonder if becoming an app is the smart way of setting up shop these days.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
New York Times used to be my morning newspaper. Not anymore. Now it's my morning app.
Seth Godin? Once upon a time he was a great blogger. Now he's a great app.
Is your business an app yet?
Even better, anyone in your business an app yet?
If I was a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a sales guy, a customer service rep, a member of Congress, or anyone else who has a brain and uses it at work, I'd turn myself into an app asap.
If I was a doctor app I could scale myself and help people with daily health tips all day and all night.
Who knows how healthy my patients would be if my daily doctor app made a house call on their hand-held device asking "So, what did you eat today?" Or "How did you exercise today?" Or "How much you weighing these days?"
If I was a lawyer app my best counsel to the best questions people asked at my office each week could be posted and available.
Imagine containing the knowledge of our complicated legal system AND the expensive billing rate of your lawyer in the palm of your hand someday.
And what if teachers and professors were all apps with daily lessons for students at their school, and the school at the next town over, and maybe the next state over and even the next country over?
Forget tight budgets. What school administrator's going to lay off a teacher who's an app?
Sales guys and customer service reps as apps would be a dream come true for people about to buy or who just bought your product. Customers and prospects always need more info.
If everyone in your sales-and-service force became the go-to apps in your industry, what's the competition going to do? No telling how how sales will grow when you've made each of your sales and services reps' into idea and knowledge apps that are infinitely scaleable and uniquely personal.
Oh, and how great would it be if everyone in Congress was an app? Wouldn't you love the chance to delete your Congress-person when he or she got buggy?
We'd all be a lot smarter and way more productive if we could extend and monitor ourselves, and analyze our interactions as an app.
Imagine all this thoughtfulness available and delivered to dozens, hundreds, thousands of people wanting, needing to tap into each of our unique gifts.
Imagine all the valuable information that forms around you the app, and your community.
If I was starting a business today I might start The App Shop. Like the Apple Store, The App Shop would be a place you'd walk into. Where you could find smart people behind the Human Bar to give you a helping hand when you wish to be an app for this or that.
Smart people say we've entered the knowledge economy.
I wonder if becoming an app is the smart way of setting up shop these days.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
Friday, April 16, 2010
Moral Compass
Some guy I know said the other day he was looking at a new job. Sounded like a plum assignment with a cool firm on a growth shot.
"So what's your take?" I asked.
"Some guy said the CEO has a weak moral compass. I can't get that thing out of my head," this guy said.
Ooohhh...
Tough thing to take in a rough economy.
"Great gig. But how do you sign up for a place where the leader has moral compass issues?" he said.
Simple question. Should be a simple answer, right? But, oh my, what a tough call in a double-digit jobless economy.
Good thing that thing stuck in my friend's head. That's what poet Jim Moore says,
"Love the thing inside us that feels no need to move."
There's no shortage of stories on the 10pm TV news and sports these days featuring honchos and hotshots guided by a weak moral compass. Guys who ignored that thing inside.
Before I sign on to follow, fan, friend, adore someone maybe it'd be a good thing to ask,
"Which way's the moral compass pointing here?"
Mine. And the other guy's.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
"So what's your take?" I asked.
"Some guy said the CEO has a weak moral compass. I can't get that thing out of my head," this guy said.
Ooohhh...
Tough thing to take in a rough economy.
"Great gig. But how do you sign up for a place where the leader has moral compass issues?" he said.
Simple question. Should be a simple answer, right? But, oh my, what a tough call in a double-digit jobless economy.
Good thing that thing stuck in my friend's head. That's what poet Jim Moore says,
"Love the thing inside us that feels no need to move."
There's no shortage of stories on the 10pm TV news and sports these days featuring honchos and hotshots guided by a weak moral compass. Guys who ignored that thing inside.
Before I sign on to follow, fan, friend, adore someone maybe it'd be a good thing to ask,
"Which way's the moral compass pointing here?"
Mine. And the other guy's.
--tim
twitter tjmorin
Friday, April 9, 2010
Receive
“Our ability to love well is directly related to our ability to receive love well...”
This is a line Paul Coutinho SJ, the Jesuit priest and author from India, said to me the other day.
Oh my!
How foreign this idea. How counter-cultural. An eastern thought from an Indian Jesuit for me, a western fellow.
If that thought is true, maybe this one is too,
Our ability to live well is directly related to our ability to receive life well.
“Receiving’s not a guy thing,” I said to Fr. Coutinho. He chuckled a bit.
I wasn’t joking.
I’m built to give, not receive. How much of my day is spent giving, delivering, providing? Like most guys, that’s my typical day. On the other hand, how much of my day is spent receiving? Little, maybe. None, probably.
Ours is a noisy, busy, distracting world. Full of doing, going, getting, grinding. Maybe there’s a new way to think here; about living closer to this word, receiving.
What if I make a habit of asking myself and others, "So, what have you received today?"
During last week’s ramp-up to Easter, my mind kept thinking about that "washing of feet" scene in the Bible. I've never thought much of this scene before. It's kind of gross, frankly. Two guys, two thousand years ago. Arguing over whose going to wash who's stinky, dirty, worn-out, gross, desert feet.
But the more I replayed that scene, I saw a big lesson, one that reflects Paul Coutinho’s words to me.
The One who’s beyond this world, Jesus, lays a simple yet profound message on one of his guys, Peter. Brother, quit arguing with Me. You need to give it up. You need to let Me wash your feet. You need to RECEIVE Me.
I'm a lot like Peter. No one's washing my feet. Yuck! No one's touching my gross feet connected to my gross hairy legs and my gross slightly paunchy body and my gross everything else.
You see where this is going?
Maybe Paul Coutinho’s words are an important present-day invitation to a guy, who's working to balance being a decent husband, dad, son, the kind of invitation that’s been handed out over the ages, even way back to a guy who happened to lead a bunch of apostles, an invitation that guys like me have had immense trouble embracing over the ages in our busy, noisy, distracting world of We the Living.
Maybe it’s an invitation to let it go. All of it.
Maybe it's time to learn how to receive.
Maybe it’s time to let Life wash my feet.
This is a line Paul Coutinho SJ, the Jesuit priest and author from India, said to me the other day.
Oh my!
How foreign this idea. How counter-cultural. An eastern thought from an Indian Jesuit for me, a western fellow.
If that thought is true, maybe this one is too,
Our ability to live well is directly related to our ability to receive life well.
“Receiving’s not a guy thing,” I said to Fr. Coutinho. He chuckled a bit.
I wasn’t joking.
I’m built to give, not receive. How much of my day is spent giving, delivering, providing? Like most guys, that’s my typical day. On the other hand, how much of my day is spent receiving? Little, maybe. None, probably.
Ours is a noisy, busy, distracting world. Full of doing, going, getting, grinding. Maybe there’s a new way to think here; about living closer to this word, receiving.
What if I make a habit of asking myself and others, "So, what have you received today?"
During last week’s ramp-up to Easter, my mind kept thinking about that "washing of feet" scene in the Bible. I've never thought much of this scene before. It's kind of gross, frankly. Two guys, two thousand years ago. Arguing over whose going to wash who's stinky, dirty, worn-out, gross, desert feet.
But the more I replayed that scene, I saw a big lesson, one that reflects Paul Coutinho’s words to me.
The One who’s beyond this world, Jesus, lays a simple yet profound message on one of his guys, Peter. Brother, quit arguing with Me. You need to give it up. You need to let Me wash your feet. You need to RECEIVE Me.
I'm a lot like Peter. No one's washing my feet. Yuck! No one's touching my gross feet connected to my gross hairy legs and my gross slightly paunchy body and my gross everything else.
You see where this is going?
Maybe Paul Coutinho’s words are an important present-day invitation to a guy, who's working to balance being a decent husband, dad, son, the kind of invitation that’s been handed out over the ages, even way back to a guy who happened to lead a bunch of apostles, an invitation that guys like me have had immense trouble embracing over the ages in our busy, noisy, distracting world of We the Living.
Maybe it’s an invitation to let it go. All of it.
Maybe it's time to learn how to receive.
Maybe it’s time to let Life wash my feet.
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