Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Silver Bullet Fables - part 1 - targets

There is this wonderfully persistent idea that keeping your eye on a target and doing whatever it takes to attain that target will give you the best chance of achieving success. Your managers and even your parents may have pushed this approach ahead of doing things in a way that you can be proud of. Achieving the target was all that mattered.

This is the silver bullet approach to managing your life or career and it has an amazing weakness. When you commit to doing everything necessary to achieving a goal or target, you can set yourself up to be despised instead of being admired.

Why? Because the goal can become more important than how it is achieved! Others will only remember that you did not get results honestly.

So much attention is put in achieving goals in business and in schools that cheating or falsification of results is deemed less important than missing the goal.

When a student is not able to learn fast enough to keep up in school, the pressure to show success and to graduate often becomes more than the person can resist and she or he cheats.

When a group in a company finds that a product is not ready to ship and this will cost them bonus money or even cost them jobs, the temptation is to falsify test results, ship the product anyway and leave the problems for others to fix.

Targets are not achieved by accident. They are the result of focused effort and persistence. When the targets become mere statistics instead of real achievements, this opens the door to all kinds of corporate and individual insanity.

Some of you who have been in sales have experienced such extreme pressure to close sales by a certain date that you did whatever was necessary to close the deal. I have watched several companies go under after enough of these unprofitable deals were closed.

I worked for one sales manager who didn't care how many people we upset on the phone as long as we met our quota of orders. The bad word of mouth reports spread so fast that it permanently affected sales.

This focus on a target to the exclusion of the methods used to achieve it results in the discrediting of otherwise good ideas.  The target could be saving the earth or endangered species, but criminal acts or blatant hypocrisy can discredit the entire idea.

Global warming pundits jetting off to Bali for high visibility meetings do more environmental damage than the populations they pretend to be saving.

Candidates for office may justify covering up crimes in order to be elected and "serve" the people. They also rewrite history in an effort to erase earlier viewpoints they now say they never held.

Even retail establishments can place such emphasis on making goals that employees will lie in order to deflect criticism from customers. Try telling the employees at Michaels that their bathrooms are out of paper and see what happens.

Achieving a target in a way that you can be proud of lets you end cycle and move on to other targets. Cheating your way to achieving a target leaves open issues that will always come back to haunt you, even if you go on to achieve nobler things.

If your working life is not what you want it to be, you might see if you are being driven to make targets, "no matter what it takes!"

Thanks to the Applications Team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their version of this classic illustration.

Becoming a four-cat household - day 10

The merger is complete as far as the cats are concerned. Cats pass one another in the hall without a second look. At any given moment there are cats sprawled all over the living room in various states of repose and they interact as if they were old friends.

The turning point occurred a few days ago when Buffy brought in a fully functioning mouse which she let loose. The visiting cats joined in a chase which lasted for about a half an hour.

Hilarity ensued because the cats were not very coordinated and the mouse escaped under the hearth. The chase was a bonding activity and the cats are no longer acting in isolation.

Sherman stayed quite aloof from this circus and watched without joining in. Late that night, I was working away at the computer and Sherman came out and sat quietly by me for a few minutes. Then he darted off and returned with the mouse which he quickly dispatched and left for me to dispose of. He was definitely showing off. None of this fancy footwork and scrambling around like the new cats in the house. He just let me know that he had not lost his skills as a predator even if he is deficient in the feline social skills department.

He stays out of sight most of the time and only comes out for meals and to show off. Last night, around midnight, I let him out in the rain and he was back in ten minutes with a freshly killed bird! Where he found it I cannot imagine.

Meanwhile the more domesticated felines have joined forces to assist Gretchen recover from Bronchitis. I looked in on her this afternoon as she was resting and she had cats snuggled up on both sides. One was Buffy and the other was Marjorie's Black and White cat.

Our cats notice our illnesses and respond by staying close to us until we recover. Having Marjorie's cat participate in this routine was heartwarming, to say the least.

We are all doing our best to get through bouts of sneezing and coughing and pet affection goes a long way toward making life easier.

Cats and dogs offer an amazing amount of personal support when we are not at our best.

Things to be thankful for

Finding someone to share your life with.

Good friends who enjoy helping you out when you need it.

Finding new skills and being able to use them.

Finding a community that is big enough to survive and small enough to get to know everyone.

Being able to share your joy in life with others.

Finding a place where talent is encouraged and recognized.

Being able to pause in the headlong pursuit of future goals and to realize that we have accomplished what we set out to do in many areas.

The pastel drawing of this charming young couple was created by Karen Sewell. I created the custom frame. It is absolutely incredible to be part of a community where this type of creative activity happens every day.

I am very thankful for all of this and for the support and encouragement of my readers.

I hope that all of you have things to be thankful for.

Becoming a four-cat household - day five

We have temporarily merged two households to facilitate step-daughter Marjorie's relocation to Floyd County. In the process, we have become a four-cat family unit and are being entertained by the political machinations that take place among the cats in our now extended family.

Our cats were initially quite apprehensive about the change, as you can see. Sherman who is normally the alpha male of the household, hides behind his sister in this photo and has been quite inconspicuous since the other cats arrived. He doesn't handle change well.

We kept the cats separated for the first two days except for brief moments when they could see each other under our close supervision. This, of course, piqued their curiosity about each other and seemed to minimize the threat of takeover by the "new" cats in the area.

Now we are allowing the cats to roam freely and they are beginning to interact on a more frequent basis.

The natural leader of this feline community seems to be Marjorie's black and white cat which is twice the size of any other cat in the group and fortunately is very placid.

He is the 800 pound gorilla of this household and is cheerfully inquisitive about everything in the house including the other cats.

As a result of his overwhelming size and amiable disposition, there is very little hissing and spitting as is the case when there are equally matched contenders for leadership.

The group dynamics have shifted considerably since day one. The black and white cat goes anywhere he chooses and is interested in everything.

Sherman, our black cat, and Marjorie's gray kitty have become relatively invisible, coming out only to eat. They are not in contention for leadership in any capacity.

Buffy, our cream-colored cat, is definitely scheming to take control. She is one of the smallest cats in the group. but she has a strong personality and a strong resolve to control her environment. She makes no overtures to the larger cat, but makes it come to her and then she ignores it pointedly. As a result, the black and white cat finds her indifference interesting and she is beginning to exert control over it.

She is using her personality to dominate rather than strength and she will probably succeed. She was quite successful with this approach with Doug Thompson's cats when we stayed there during the 2005 holiday season.

Cat behavior is this kind of situation is so similar to employee behavior during a corporate merger that it is worth observing. Which role did you play in the last corporate merger you were involved in?

Boosting personal productivity with the right tools and enough storage - part 1

Productivity is my number one concern even though I am well out of corporate life, because there is never enough time to get everything done that I need to do.

Obtaining the right tools takes more than money. You need to find a tool that will actually save you enough time to justify its purchase.

In order to make that judgment, you might want to do the task using cheaper alternatives until you can clearly evaluate the value of purchasing the "right tool" for you.

For example, last year I justified buying an electric log splitter on the basis of safety and 7X production over manual log splitting. I split logs manually until I clearly saw the need for more firewood in less time with less risk to life and limb.

This year, I finally justified a lawn tractor and dump cart for moving firewood and garden supplies around my property. I had put it off for two years based on the cost involved and I was amazed that my productivity and my willingness to do onerous chores went sky-high.

Moving unwieldy pieces of construction debris, concrete blocks, or bags of topsoil is no longer a chore to put off until better weather. The tractor and dump cart make short work of such chores. They inspire me to improve my landscaping efforts and to put in order where none existed before.

A side benefit in having the right tools for difficult jobs is that I have no difficulty in enlisting help from volunteers. Family and neighbors enjoy doing cool stuff with the right tools!

This year I also invested in a computerized mat cutter for my framing business. It took an enjoyable, but painstaking task of hand cutting mats and changed it to a more profitable activity with many additional options for creative expression. I can create mats of considerable complexity in less time than I could cut a simple mat before.

I love tools that work well, but it is a matter of balancing the Gee-Whiz factor of something new and shiny against the inexorable need to make tools pay for themselves. Some dandy new tools, especially software, have such a steep learning curve that you will spend more time learning to use the tool than you will save with it.

We have five computers in our household at last count and every one of them is the lowest cost solution for a particular set of problems. Hardware is so inexpensive these days, usually about $500/unit that it almost makes sense to add another system to the network rather than upgrade to a high-end system.

Access and usability, not ownership, is the key as far as I am concerned. Renting instead of buying may work out best in your case, but there are other options such as co-ownership or borrowing with an agreed rental and repair agreement.

The bottom line is that if you are not getting all of your tasks and chores done, are there tools which will boost your productivity enough to offset the cost of these tools? If that is not possible, have you looked at resetting your expectations?

Once you have the tools you need to get things done quickly, you will run into the other big barrier to production which is lack of space. That is deserving of a separate article and will be published as Part 2.

Gone in Nine Minutes - the future of moving is here

Moving containers take a great deal of stress out of moving and they offer the potential for saving money at the same time. PODS stands for Portable On Demand Storage.

In a recent example of a PODS move from Charlotte, NC to Floyd, VA, this PODS container was delivered by truck and was placed in the townhouse driveway in less than ten minutes.

A day later, all of the furniture from the two-bedroom townhouse was loaded into the container by trained professionals in three two hours and the homeowner locked the container. There was no messing around with inventory lists and box counts. The owner's stuff goes in the container and it is locked up, period.

The next day the fully loaded PODS container was picked up and removed by one driver. Here is the slide show of the PODS container being picked up and removed in nine minutes. Turn on the captions feature on Flickr to get the full effect.

Compare this to the extreme circus of traditional moving company activities. In a traditional move, a huge van pulls up and blocks the street for several hours while a crew of people cram your possessions around or on top of somebody else's household furnishings.

The driver is making an inventory list and giving directions while workers carry boxes, lamps, and furniture on to the truck. Near the end of this activity, workers are creating and sealing boxes for all the odd things that are left over, like your golf clubs and the weed whacker and the left over skate boards. (All in same box - marked with a cryptic number)

When you are given the box count, it is a miracle if the count means anything to you and you hope that it is complete. You sign the inventory anyway and hope for the best.

When a moving truck arrives at your new home, it is a different truck and your household possessions have been rearranged and crammed in around somebody else's possessions. You can tell because they loaded your furniture into the side of truck "A" and they are taking your furniture out of the top rear of truck "B".

Your furniture has been piled high on top of other people's furniture and they have to hand your furniture down piece by piece in 108 degree weather. They are passing your heavy living room furniture down ten feet while hanging off the back of a van with no lift gate and no ladders.

Images of unloading a Mexican bus come to mind while this is going on. The only difference is there are no crates of chickens.

Four hours later when the dust clears, you find that some of your possessions are missing  and you start negotiating with the driver to get the situation handled.

Container moving offers a great deal of flexibility and it does not hold you hostage while movers madly scramble to unload a truck and get your furniture placed in inclement weather. If your new home is not ready, you can store the containers until you are ready to unload them. If they get delivered and the weather turns inclement, you leave the containers sealed until you are ready to unload them

I have written about SmartMove which neighbor Tom King and I have used successfully. Their smaller containers offer a little more flexibility in tight situations and steep driveways, but the delivery and pickup of five containers took an hour versus the 9 minute pickup I witnessed with this recent POD move made yesterday.

See the images on Flickr to get the full significance of what this new container moving system can do. From the arrival of the truck and its driver, to the departure of the truck, driver and POD container, it took only 9 minutes from start to finish!

That's hardly enough time to drink a cup of coffee! Compare this to your last move...

Feline organizational structures revisited

Watching groups of cats reorganize their social structures is a fascinating experience. When different families and their cats move in together all sorts of changes occur and the experience is much like what happens when companies merge.

The existing social structure is broken as participants struggle to find new allegiances in the combined group. The pecking order is realigned. Some cats will go invisible. New champions will arise. Others will sulk.

If any of you have ever been in a company that has been acquired, you  already have some idea of what is going to happen. Changes will occur that no one expects.

We are about to merge two households far a period of several months. The most challenging part of this merger is that we are adding two full-grown cats to our existing two-cat household.

This is not our first time merging households with cats. In late 2005, Gretchen and I and our two cats were invited to stay with Doug and Amy Thompson and their four cats while our house was being completed. I wrote several posts on the event.

We all survived and were richer for the experience. This time around, our cats will be the home team so it will present a different set of problems for them.

I expect to have updates on this event real soon. The new cats and their owner arrive this weekend.

Welcome to Floyd!

Floyd Building Department Helps Homeowners

Anyone who has applied for a building permit elsewhere is in for a pleasant surprise when they get to Floyd County, Virginia. 

Jimmy Whitten and his staff are a huge asset to Floyd homeowners dealing with the myriad requirements that come with building or remodeling a home. When you apply for a building permit in Floyd, you know immediately that these people are here to help you!

The helpful attitude of the Floyd County Building Inspection Department is evident from the minute that you walk in the door and meet Dawn Underwood. She is the person you meet first and she is a huge help in navigating the many details that have to be handled.

Jimmy is the Building Official responsible for the Building Inspection Department. He is certified to do electrical, plumbing, and mechanical inspections and has been doing inspections for most of his adult life. A Building Official generally oversees Building Inspectors, but in Floyd County, Jimmy Whitten does it all.

He has an open door policy from 8 to 9 in the morning when people can come in and ask questions or discuss problems.

This is especially valuable for the do-it-yourself homebuilder, but I had a experienced contractor working on my house who spoke approvingly of this practice because he said this enabled him to keep up with changes to the building codes and figure out a solution to any problem.

Jimmy also does house plan reviews in which he goes over the house plans with customers. Other places offer plan reviews, but they are done when the customer is not present.

For example, someone wishing to build a straw bale home would find that there is nothing in the code for a straw bale home but there is provision for alternate building methods. Working with Jimmy Whitten, a builder of such a home would find that there are approved ways to meet all requirements using performance-based building codes.

There are all sorts of alternative methods available for home construction including cord and cob houses. Whether it is an  original architectural design or a plan from purchased over the Internet, Jimmy, as the Building Official, makes sure that the final result is a strong, safe and waterproof home that meets the codes in every respect.

Jimmy has also made sure that the current building codes are kept on file in the Jessie Peterman Library so that anyone who wants the information can go to the Library.

If someone wants to build in Floyd County, they can find the entire permit application on the County web page http://www.floydcova.org/ and can download it and fill it out before submitting it. The application includes vital information on recent code changes, what the building inspection will cover and how to get electric service from AEP..

In addition, the County web site refers customers to www.iccsafe.org, the website of the International Code Council  which is a master reference for all aspects of the International Codes, including performance-based building codes which deal with alternative materials, design and methods of construction.

Michael Yon captures a joyful moment of history

Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

Michael wrote:

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Infantry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)

Michael Yon is making this photograph available to media outlets, such as print publications and cable and television news broadcasts, at no cost for a limited period of time. For more information, please contact his web administrator here.

There has been so much unrest in Iraq, that it may take years to reestablish stability, but every journey consists of small steps such as this one. I am grateful to Michael for being there and reporting what he sees. In my opinion, he manages to capture the humanity and inherent decency that underlies all social situations, however awful they appear at first.

Michael Yon is entirely reader supported. If you find his dispatches informative, you can visit his website and sign up for his dispatches

Follow the Ad Money...

You have probably noticed that newspapers and magazines are dwindling away.  My guess is that advertisers are turning increasingly to the Internet to reach customers.

Even in my quiet corner of Floyd County, Virginia, I am seeing some evidence that advertisers are getting increasingly serious about advertising on weblogs.

I received an email yesterday from an Online Marketing and Advertising Executive who is interested in placing an advertisement on my Making Ripples site - payment up front and an annual renewal.

A year ago, I would have jumped at the chance, but not now.

I used to get these emails from assistants and interns in advertising departments and the ads would be placed for one month at a time, so I can see that more importance is being placed on Internet Marketing and the competition for space is heating up.

Unfortunately for the advertisers, I am rethinking my whole approach regarding advertising on this weblog. I have experimented with Google ads and space ads for almost a year and I don't think the income makes up for the negative impact on the aesthetics and the effectiveness of this weblog.

I know there is a place for ads on the Internet and I will accept ads on my more commercial websites as I find a way to do that without impacting my own message.

I will also continue to place links and ads on this website for people who have supported me or who have a product or message that aligns with mine.

I feel that content is paramount on a weblog and that anything that detracts from the presentation of the content is contra productive.

I have watched blogs that followed the path of becoming ad income producers and they become almost "content-free" except for snippets of posts from other websites. They become less interesting as the percentage of fresh original content decreases.

I think that "fresh original content" will continue to generate traffic and I intend to continue providing that for the foreseeable future. It seems to be the best way to keep in communication with readers and share my ideas with them.

The big problem for advertisers will be in learning how to tap into weblog traffic by producing relevant copy that will be read.

I think that mass media has become a world unto itself and increasingly out of touch with reality so readers are finding less and less to be interested in. The results are already coming in as can be seen below.

From the Editor and Publisher comes this gem published November 05, 2007 8:10 AM ET:

Many Top Papers Take Big Hits

NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains.