I know, the title sounds like the teaser line for the next Dr. Phil show, but that isn't what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about your vendor or supplier relationships. You know, those times when you are the Customer . . .
Recently I was the Customer of 800-CEO-Read's wonderfully cool new service/website, InBubbleWrap. InBubbleWrap is a site that helps publishers and authors spread buzz about their books by giving away those books.
Literally.
Five days a week a new book is featured and some people who raise their hand as being interested in that particular title will win a copy delivered to them, you guessed it, in bubble wrap. (Read my previous posts about the site here and here).
I contacted them through their site to inquire about publicizing my new book in this way. Their site was helpful and told me exactly what I needed to do, including providing them sales copy describing the book. I did all of those things and looked forward to the day that Vantagepoints on Learning and Life would be the featured book.
At just after 10 am my time, the site was updated with my book.
What I saw was an amazing testimonial for my book - and none of the copy I had written.
I immediately emailed the self titled "InBubbleGuy", Ryan Schleicher, to thank him.
Since then we have had several email conversations and a phone conversation. We have talked about ways we can help each other, and it looks like there are other ways we might be able to collaborate, time will tell.
I don't need the luxury of time though to tell you about the relationship that has been built - hopefully this post makes that pretty clear. And to be extra clear, while I loved what Ryan said about my book, this isn't a kudo because he stroked my ego with kind words.
The message to us as Customers is to look for more than transactions from our suppliers - to look for relationships.
The message to us as those serving Customers is to look for ways to create more than transactions - to create relationships.
We can have transactions or we can create relationships. As Customers, one option will provide us services, the other joy. As suppliers, one option will provide us with cash flow, the other with a long term flow of business and a lot more enjoyable work.
The headlines from last year stated - British psychologist calculates "most depressing day" and his calculations came determined that day to be January 24.
Quoting from the article,
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
Do I share this to give us license to feel badly, walk around moping or looking like we just ate a lemon today?
Hardly.
I share this to help us all prove the good doctors wrong today. I'm sure there is some validity in the equation - each of the factors listed could seem to have some impact on a person's mental state - but none of them have to.
Here is my challenge to you.
Make it a great day. Make it a day where your heart and mind and spirit soar.
If the weather is gray and foggy, so what. Are you going to let water droplets influence your day?
If you have already back slid on your New Year's Resolution, that trend can be reversed... starting today.
If you have more bills than you wish you did, don't spend any money today.
When you see someone smile, smile back. When you are in your car, let the person merge. When you think someone is being mean, look for a different explanation. When you feel blue, think yellow. Read a book you love. Watch something that makes you laugh. Serve your Customers with cheer, knowing you can positiviely influence their day by your interaction.
While I could type all day, you get the picture. What am I really saying?
Make a choice.
Make a choice to create a great day today.
Make a choice to make January 24 your best day of the year so far.
It is off to a good start.
Use today as a test case for yourself. After all, if you can make it a great day on the "most depressing day of the year" you can do it anytime!
In a few weeks, a television show called The Secret will premiere. Apparently the people responsible for the show want nothing to be a secret except the content itself.
They have created a well produced online video promoting the show, and are using every possible way to create online buzz and word-of-mouth marketing.
Reader's Digest has told us for many years that Laughter is the Best Medicine, and Norman Cousins talked about his experience with laughter and better health in his book Anatomy of an Illness. Now Japanese doctors and researchers are taking this idea one step further.
They think that laughter may reduce health-care costs up to 30% in the future!
The findings, are scheduled to be published in January by Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, a US academic journal, so I would expect you read and hear about this in other places in the comnig days and weeks.
Many years ago, I learned the power and value of something called a frame game. I learned this from the master instructional named designer, Thiagi.
A frame game is a game that you can load new content or information into without changing the basic framework of the game. All television game shows such as Jeopardy, we'll a fortune, and more are examples of frame games.
Using frame games, intelligently provide us a way to teach and review material. More effectively. The latest fad seems to be Soduku, the game where you use logic to determine where to place the numerals one to nine on many lines within a grid.
My good friend, David Gibson, in his excellent e-newsletter, Trainers Tips, last week, explained how to combine the concept of frame games with Soduku, specifically to see Soduku for what it is-a frame.
Here is David's wonderful explanation:
A puzzle that everyone seems to be playing is Sudoku, so why not tap into this enthusiasm - but make it subject orientated. Instead of using the numbers 1-9 substitute these for 9 key words/topics from their workshop.
This can then be used as:
Part of the opening to pre-expose learners to content. Here learners can work in pairs or small teams to solve this and introduce themselves to each other. This would make an easy lead into the discoveries they can expect to make during their day.
A review immediately after lunch (or other part of the day) - again learners working in small teams to solve the puzzle. You could also add an element of competition by offering a prize for the first team to successfully complete the puzzle. This could also be a great way to start day 2 or 3 of a multi-day workshop.
As a close. Teams complete the puzzle then choose any straight line and offer one thing they will do back in the workplace for each of the content pieces.
How to prepare your puzzle:
I cheat here. Instead of trying to create the puzzle myself, I let someone else do the hard work for me. I take an easy puzzle from a puzzle book or newspaper (keep to the easy puzzles, after all its content that's important not the solving of a difficult puzzle) and convert it in the following way:
Draw a 9 row by 9 column grid on a piece of paper (or use a 9 by 9 table in MS Word or Excel).
On a sheet of paper write the numbers 1 to 9.
Next to each number, write a topic area or keyword from the workshop content. Let's call this your 'key'.
Using the easy Sudoku puzzle from a puzzle book as a template, in the grid you created, substitute the given numbers from the Sudoku puzzle in your grid with the corresponding content piece from your 'key' eg if the first square in the puzzle contains the number 3 then in the puzzle you are creating, add the word that is number 3 on your 'key' list.
Continue by substituting all the given numbers with the corresponding words from your 'key' list.
At the bottom or side of your puzzle, write the 9 content words so that learners know the content pieces they have to use.
That's your puzzle completed. If you are unsure how the puzzle works, there is an overview on line at: http://www.sudoku.com/
I often tell groups that our ability to choose is one of the things that makes us unique as humans.
Blogger and friend Ken Partain clearly agrees with these thoughts, for he has created a wonderful new blog to give us a suggested choice... each day.
The site is called Daily Choices. Here is part of his description of this blog:
Every minute of every day we are making choices, whether we believe we are or not. We are making choices about what we will wear, what we will do, what we will eat, who we will date, marry, have lunch with, etc. You get the idea.
These choices are the fabric of our lives. These choices are the cause of everything we experience.
Daily Choices were put together to help each person realize a greater degree of wealth, health and relationships. Each day we will present one choice. . .
You may know that last Thursday, January 12th, we ran a promotion to get my book, Vantagepoints on Learning and Life into the Barnes and Noble top ten best seller list. We didn't quite get there as this graphic shows...
But the graphic doesn't tell the full story. If you want to read the full story, check out my post on the Vantagepoints blog.
(If you bought a book in the promotion thank you very much!)
If you are a trainer, facilitator or teacher, I'm guessing the title alone is reason enough to perk up. :)
Published by Zephyr Press, an educational publisher, it has a bit of an educational for kids bent, but do not let that deter you from owning a copy if you are an adult educator, team builder or corporate trainer. The exercises here are well described and very flexible.
Learning is learning - regardless of our age - and this book will help you find engaging ways to build teams and individual confidence - and as the book the promises in the subtitle - build cooperation, communication and creativity.
What corporation doesn't need to improve these skills?
I first introduced readers of this blog to Kris almost a year ago, and since then we have kept in touch. I am please to let you know that if you go to her blog you can get a free copy of her e-book, Ten Minute Tasks.
Lastly, if you want to chat with Kris about creativity or active learning approaches, check out this post.
Two Things to Celebrate... and How They are Related
Posted at 6:30 AM on
First, happy birthday to Ben Franklin (feel free to sing if you wish...) Today would be his 300th birthday.
Ben, as I'm sure you know was quite the amazing guy. Human, and with very human foibles (as with all of us), but one person we can sure look up to in terms of what he produced, how he thought, and the impact he left on the word... still...almost 300 years later.
As a life long learner, Franklin would have approved of the other thing we celebrate today (this week), which is National Book Week. After all, one of the things that Franklin did was establish the first public library (though some dispute this claim).
Thanks to Lisa Haneberg for beating me to the punch in announcing National Book Week (read her post and take her advice).
You can read more about Ben Franklin in many places, including here and here.
And if you really want to connect yourself to the history of Ben and the present of National Book Week, read a book about him this week. I recommend his autobiography highly.
I've talked with Clients and colleagues for years about why we focus on making learning fun when we do training. I've taught trainers and instructional designer how to do it. I've even written about it.
But in the last 24 hours I've been thinking about it in a different way.
In some quiet moments of reflection as we finish preparing for a major promotion for my book, Vantagepoints on Learning and Life I realized something.
I've had it backwards.
Actually, I haven't exactly had it backwards all these years - we still should do what we can to make any learning experience as fun and enjoyable as we can. But it is more than that. We also need to remember that learning we are passionate about is fun itself. It doesn't necessarily require extra help.
You see the work, effort and planning that has gone into this promotion has helped me learn a lot. It hasn't all been easy, but what I realized today is that it has been fun.
Really fun.
Or as my friend Bernie DeKoven says, it has been deep fun.
We are learning beings. I believe that learning is one of the things that truly makes us most fulfilled in life. And fulfillment brings some amazing fun.
We should do all we can to make the learning process more enjoyable and fun. And we need to remember that learning - both the process and the result - is fun itself.
I'm more convinced than ever of the link between fun and learning, I just realize now that the link is stronger than I've always realized.
- Spoil a picnic - Seemingly come from nowhere - Carry way more, compared to their body weight, than we can - Be very industrious (if you watch them closely enough)
But did you know that they can actually teach each other?
Some scientists who have been watching very closely have learned just that.
Here is the closing lines from the article:
"We think real teaching involves a lot of feedback. This is to our knowledge the first example of formal teaching in non-human animals," he told Reuters.
"What's nice about this demonstration is that the ant is an animal with a small brain. The human brain is a million times larger and yet the ant is very good at teaching and learning."
I'd encourage you checking out the whole article on CNN.comhere.
... is the longest I've gone without posting one this blog in a very long time. If you are a long time, regualr reader, I'm sorry.
Actually, I'm sorry for myself, because I get joy and learning from posting here and when I don't, I miss it.
Along with the two keynotes and one workshop I've given since my last post I have been busy finishing up and readying myself for our best seller promotion for my book Vantagepoints on Learning and Life. You can learn more about it on the Vantagepoints blog, or read here later when I tell you more about it.
For now though, I'm back to it.
Don't worry, I've got lots of things I've been thinking aobut and soI hope to be back to "regular blogging service" soon.
I believe that gratitude is one of the most powerful of emotions and mindsets we possess. It can help us change our attitude, serve others better and open our minds and hearts to even greater things.
Beyond the value of gratitude in our personal lives, greater gratitude can make us a more effective leader, a better teammate and more compassionate when serving Customers.
Both my personal feelings and the business realities of gratitude is probably why I was drawn to the Go Gratitude Experiment.
I encourage you to check it out. If you sign up as I did, you'll only be one day behind me as I received my first lesson in email this morning.
January 2nd is Positive Postcard Day - a day established by Stephanie West Allen, a friend and colleague of mine. I strongly encourage you to read the post I wrote about this last year and take part for yourself!
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To provide you with resources, techniques and ideas (and some other interesting stuff) to help you reach your professional potential.
Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential is Kevin Eikenberry’s guide to helping you have amazing success while developing your professional and personal potential.
To provide you with resources, techniques and ideas (and some other interesting stuff) to help you reach your professional potential.
