This has bothered me all weekend.

I believe that most positive change comes from optimists building what they believe is possible. (Have you ever worked with a pessimist trying to build what they believe is impossible? It makes for a long day.)

Could it really be that the the U.S. is depending on 22% of the population for that optimism? Maybe that is enough in Ayn Rand’s world , but I like the odds when more folks are on board.

So this evening, rather than thinking about how much I enjoyed watching Mr. Burns drink a Coke during the Superbowl, I’m thinking about what is the American Dream. The study by Context-Based Group softens the blow a bit by indicating respondents felt the meaning of the American Dream might have been hijacked by materialism of the past few decades – so maybe it is not dead, maybe it is changing.

What is the American Dream?

For me, the answer is personal but I think rings true:

The opportunity to better myself as I choose and establish a launching pad so my children will have even better opportunities than I.

There is no question that the recent financial upheaval has shot a few bullets at people’s ideas of betterment.

• The idea that Wall Street can make everyone rich.
• The idea that we all can borrow ourselves to riches.
• The idea real estate always goes up.

Good bubbles to pop in my opinion, but when did the American Dream become only about wealth.

Maybe the American Dream has been lost because we fear for our children.

• The threat of Global Warming.
• The threat of pollution driven illness.
• The loss of good jobs.
• The burdon of debt on our government and us.

And yet we live in amazing times.

• I carry a phone with more computing power than Dick Tracey or Flash Gordon every dreamed of.
• Anyone can open a shop and be selling products internationally in the space of a day.
• I can listen in to courses at Stanford, Northwestern, and Harvard. For free.
• A 7 year old can make a big difference by riding his bike 5 miles and raising £72,000 for Haiti.

The tools of betterment and more are available more widely, across more socioeconomic groups than ever before. It seems that anyone can change the world.

So if the American Dream was to consume till we drop – Good riddance.

If the American Dream involved success without hard work – I’m glad we’re waking up.

If the American Dream is the chance to do something extraordinary no matter where we are in life — Then sign me up.

I think the American Dream can be as alive for my children as it was for me.

But only if we believe. (Shall we clap? Will Tinkerbell live?)

What does the American Dream mean to you? (And is it Alive or Dead?)

I’m not usually one to point out spelling mistakes (glass houses and all) but this sign was pointed out to me by my lovely wife during a quick stop in Peoria the other day to see my son perform in the All-State Honors Band and I figured I would share.

Even in today’s wonderful world of spell check, misspelled or misused words are all around us. I usually gloss over it. Poorly executed marketing is a depressing thing to see.

But here we have the former offices of a Private Detective Agency. The sign had been there a very long time. Covered most of their window.

And the question that comes to mind is what the heck are they going to be able to find if they never noticed the missing ‘E’ and ‘L’ on their own sign.

Poor marketing execution often indicates other details are being missed as well.

The number of patents involved at IBM is a simply mind-boggling 4,914. That’s over 13 patentable inventions a day. Not a bad brain trust.

But what caught my eye was a paragraph at the bottom of the story:

As a defensive measure, the company also published details on almost 4,000 inventions in a publicly available company journal last year.

By publishing I believe they ensure that no one can patent the ideas. Since many companies are racing towards the same goal the prospect of inventors stepping on each other’s toes is not far fetched. The value of publishing trade secrets outweighed the negative impact of letting folks in on what they were doing. I’m sure the published advances had less strategic or economic value than those that were patented, but it still does seem to go a bit against the grain of corporate secrecy one has come to expect.

The shelf life of a corporate secret has been greatly diminished over the past decade.

Patents have real economic value but bringing an element of open innovation to the table can also have its own significant value. In this case preventing the patent process from slowing down development of other initiatives by both IBM and their competitors.

As children most of us were thoroughly trained to censor our thoughts before letting go with the ridicule inducing comment. (The Cubs are going to win the pennant! – ah, some of us never learn.) This sometimes serves us well. In the world of ideas it can be deadly.

Ideas are fragile things in business. Any number of stray comments, poor politics, and concerted efforts at logic can drive a good idea (and it’s conceiver) into the mud. Problem is, most of the tools we use early on to sift through ideas are little more than personal opinion. But decisions must be made and so politics end up playing a very large part in determining what ideas receive funding and what don’t.

Ideas that at first seem terrible, yet stick, came to mind following a tweet from Nate Towne (@fancy_lad), a favorite follow from Milwaukee.

Yes, a yodeling pickle seems very much the definition of a terrible idea. Logic indicates that pickles do not yodel. At best they crunch.

Enter Archie McPhee novelty maker. And the Yodelling Pickle is born. Doing reasonably well I assume. Ranked #1 Amazon noisemaker #3780 Amazon toy.

Rather respectable for a Pickle.

The Yodelling Pickle is deceptively attractive for a novelty company. Unexpected. Maybe viral. It reminds me of my own family’s favorite dinnertime device – A pepper grinder in the shape of a chef who yells “You’re Breaking My Back” every time pepper is ground. (Encourages extreme pepper use on the plate next to you. You’ve been warned.)

Obviously the Yodelling Pickle would be a terrible idea for GM. For Archie McPhee it is so delightfully terrible it has raced around the strategic track right back to brilliant.

Filtering through ideas has a lot to do with context.

It’s been my experience that companies with strong product development pipelines have three basic things in common. They know what they are, they know what they want to be, and they make clear decisions about what to pursue with their resources. Less waffling. More impact.

This is true about individuals as well. The more talented you are the more decisions you have to make about what you are not going to be. No decisions, no focus.

In the forward to Kevin Maney’s Trade-Off, Jim Collins describes a key conclusion Maney made “about the best people he’d covered:

“They have the courage to make rigorous choices. They don’t delude themselves into thinking they can do everything, so they focus on only what they can do with great distinction.”

To me that is a powerful paragraph. I think it plays as well for an organization as it does for an individual.

Are you focused on ideas that will maximize your impact or are you waiting for something else to make those decisions?

Do you hear the call of the Yodelling Pickle?

Disclosure Policy – This site uses Amazon Associates for links to Amazon.com.

A key component of creativity is recognizing when an idea that is working in one place might have application in another. (Like when Wilber twisted the tube box)

This came to mind while watching Leo Laporte interview Ford CEO Alan Mulally at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Mulally came to Ford from Boeing where he helped design the first digital cockpit on the 767 and a number of aircraft after that. At the time some wondered what an ‘avionics guy’ would be able to do for the ‘car guys.’

Laporte: “So how much of your background at Boing informed this? Because you have a digital cockpit right here.”

Mulally: “…A very important thing is that the pilot has complete situational awareness. All the data has been simplified so they know exactly the most important things so they are not sorting through the data they are now managing the driving experience. Yet they have to have access to all the communications, the navigation, to guidance, the control, the entertainment…. This is exactly what we are now doing with Ford.”

At the CES Keynote he unveiled recent advances with My Ford Touch (Which includes Ford Sync) – Ford’s entertainment/information system which competes with GM’s ONSTAR. An interesting difference in focus is Mulally’s desire for My Ford Touch to be an interface that gives access to evolving technology while keeping driver focus on the road.  A willingness to open up the platform as well as utilize the owners cell and entertainment devices seems like a broader more powerful vision than what ONSTAR now promises.

The differences add up when you look at published reports between this year’s Ford keynote and last years GM CEO Wagner keynote. This year Mulally spoke Ford products coming out this year while much of what Wagner spoke about appears to be years off. GM’s response to My Touch Ford is also interesting: GM’s product is considered better because you might loose your cell phone in an accident. GM appears to see ONStar as little more than a safety feature, while Ford sees their alternative as an overall cabin experience. I like the way Ford seems to be moving. (Disclosure: My mother-in-law spent many years working in a Ford plant. If she doesn’t hold that against them, neither will I.)

So the bike shop was instrumental in getting us off the ground in the first place and now the cockpit returns the favor by providing lessons that improve safety, focus and entertainment for the driver. Cool.

The relationship hasn’t improved since Chicago Parking Meters have been ‘upgraded’ over the past year with space age technology and higher rates. Most retailers understand that parking is one of those critical things you don’t want customers thinking about. You want them to just feel like it will be there, not some barrier to entry. I blame the meters for the loss of my favorite store, Cut Rate Toys. Don’t mess with a man’s toy store people.

Which sets the scene for my latest run in with a parking meter.

My lovely wife and I were set for a romantic evening thoughtfully concocted by the kids. Dinner and a show. Just the two of us.

We arrived at the restaurant early, so had a chance to scout parking options. Garage, pay lot, valet, and wonders of wonders, a street space right next to the entrance.

I’ve not used the new street meters often. Only once actually. I’m more of a subway kind of guy when it comes to going downtown. But tonight was special. Which would indicate the correct, romantic choice would have been to use the valet. However, as my lovely wife LaVonn has on occasion reminded me, my ability to think romantically appears critically impaired.

Some of you will understand, this was street parking right in front of the restaurant. The holy grail of Chicago parking. Something I could brag about over wings and beer. (Again, remember, romantically impaired, OK?)

We pull up. Unfortunately, the meter for the space was half a block away. No problem. My loved one waits in the car and gets the full impact of the door side space while I gallantly slide through the 5 degree, slightly icy weather to the meter.

The meters now take credit cards. Good deal. Pumping quarters has become a hassle since rates went up. Back when I was a kid my dad had a gadget that only makes sense when your thinking quarters and meters. A small parking meter timer attached to his keychain about an inch across and all dial. Like a pocket egg timer. Made with springs, gears and a bell in the days before we discovered the transistor. Until his business could afford a monthly space, he parked on Lower Wacker where quarters would buy you a few hours at a time. Trick was you had to get back down to feed the meter or tickets would sprout from your wiper blades. Set the timer to go off with time to get down to the space and away you go.

A marketer thought of that. “When a watch simply isn’t enough…”

The credit card slides into and out of a slot. It goes difficultly. Like it needs oil.

I push buttons. There are several.

Nothing happens.

I try again, however, this time pulling the credit card out required my gloves come off – holding them in my mouth – and use of thumb and index finger of both hands. I gag on my gloves. I yank. It takes several tries.

I push buttons.

Nothing happens.

Now we are at a point dear reader, where, as a male, I needed this parking meter to work.

Parking on the street. Bad idea. Fine.

Walking half a block to get a spot right next to the door. Bad idea. Fine.

Letting the lovely wife wait in the car while I wander off on a lonely downtown Chicago street. Bad idea. Fine.

But going back, starting up the car, and pulling up to the valet at this point is distinctly unacceptable to my admittedly testosterone addled brain on this fine romantic evening.

I try again. This time there is a click.

I am excited.

I push buttons.

Nothing happens.

I grab the card with near frozen fingers.

It does not move when I grab it with one hand.

It does not move when I grab it in two hands.

It does not move at all, Sam I Am. I believe I’ve hurt my hand.

(Pause. Fight Panic. Resume.)

I read the instructions.

…

Yes, the instructions confirm that I should not leave my credit card in the parking meter slot. Had to check, you never know.

I walk back to the car, visions of the romantic evening declining into calls to credit card companies, funny looks from the lovely wife, and a trip to the valet. Yes, even I can see when things are going bad.

Distinctly unacceptable. This is a ROMANTIC evening. Must Fix.

“Sceuse me my dear. Must fix the parking meter. Slide aside a second while I grab the pliers.”

This is not something my wife wants to hear. Ever.

The meter surrenders without a fight when it saw I was armed.

A quick yank.

I push buttons.

Score: Man 1 – Machine 0. It gives up a small receipt indicating my 2 hour victory. I set my iPhone timer ap. Ain’t progress something?

I slide back to the car.

“I have fixed the parking meter.”

I am a hero. (Again, addled non-romantic mind. Don’t forget.)

Gather lovely wife on my arm as we slide ten steps to the front door and go on to enjoy a lovely dinner at Cafe Pazzo. I recommend the duck. Fabulous.

So, if Wilber and Orville had decided to open a different kind of shop to pay the bills, let’s say a bakery for example, would they have flown today in 1903? (That would be December 17th, 1903)

“While most engineers assumed that a successful aircraft would need to be inherently stable, as bicycle builders the Wrights made their living building vehicles that were inherently unstable.” NOVA Wright Brother’s Flying Machine (Currently on Hulu.com)

The bike shop turned out to the the perfect training ground for the first successful aeronautic engineers.

The leap concerning stability -

…led to a focus on control -

…onto a critical insight about wing warping which came when Wilber reached for a cardboard box containing an inexpensive tire tube.

From giving a box a helical twist to steering a biplane.

Serendipity.

But as with all serendipitous moments (and most instances of luck for that matter) the inventors had to put themselves in the right frame for inspiration to strike.

Which brings me back to the power of Need, Structure and Serendipity when it comes to personal creativity.

The Wright Brothers were pursuing flight. They knew the research of the day, figured out where others were going wrong through a progressive series of experiments, and ingeniously transfered skills learned from the bicycle trade.

Their bike shop paved the way for their flight shop.

So with the new year approaching I think it could be fun to think about ways to enhance our chances for big serendipitous moments – Personally, professionally and businesslly. (I know, I know, businesslly is not a word. But if you know what I mean maybe it is now. We’ll see.)

Any pointers you’d like to add to the discussion?

Photo: First flight December 17, 1903 from Wikimedia Commons

Being caught up in a situation that someone wants to change is a stressful exercise.

It’s easy to forget how it feels to be in the other persons shoes.

It’s easy to become entrenched, watch only the facts that you care about and ignore all others.

Denial comes in many forms and can infect both the agents of change as well as immovable blockades.

While change sometimes occurs by blasting through an immovable blockade, it more often succeeds by finesse. Discovering mutual goals. Mitigating painful repercussions. Finding third paths.

I wanted to share Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s recent blog over at the Harvard site. “Four Tools For Defeating Denial” covers some important ground on how to ensure you don’t take shortcuts towards change that defeat your ultimate purpose and ensure that your movement towards change is based on solid ground. From Dr. Kanter:

Fact-based management is lauded as the best way to run any organization, and I generally agree. But answers will never come directly from analysis. There is always judgment and politics. When facts become subject to interpretation, or when science is discredited, then denial grows beyond garden-variety change resistance. All that remains is leadership. [Emphasis mine]

I ask, simply because I’m regularly looking over my shoulder at middleman status myself.

If you’re not being pushed into middleman status by technology, then it could be your customers and suppliers who put you there.

Paranoia reigns. Sorry.

This is not a new state of being. Walmart began its attack on independent distributors (middlemen with warehouses) ages ago wiping most of them out. They are so efficiently tied into their supply chain now that orders sometimes bypass headquarters and go straight to factories. (Headquarters as middlemen, who’d of thunk it?)

In the print industry process middleman felt the pinch. First typesetters went, followed by color separators. As newspapers are fast finding out, the entire printing process is being pushed to the side. Moving news to eyeballs quickly means that in some places even editors are seen as middlemen now.

Middlemen. They start as facilitators but become blockages between producer and end-user.

This quarter’s pricing war between Amazon and Walmart indicates that traditional retail warfare has gone virtual big time. While the demise of retail has been predicted since the dawn of the internet age it is surprising to think that even the most efficient big box retail set-up could end up looking like a middleman. Best Buy has been prepping by branding their physical service presence (There’s a reason for our bricks and mortar, parking space for the Geek Squad!). Sears may be finally realizing the power of their old service reputation (probably too late) with the introduction of The Blue Service Crew. But the battle for market share on-line will drive business away from local distribution points that are simply way-stations between UPS shipping points. So when will Walmart buy UPS…or build their own?

Publishers are middlemen, standing between author and outlet. Used to be a reason for that, but with consolidation Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Walmart will move more towards direct control and exclusive deals. Publishers end up looking more like booking agents. That cuts into fees.

Google and Microsoft are even in a bit of a middleman fight themselves. The new tools and offers from Google are a direct attempt to slice Microsoft’s technology out of the information stream between consumer and Google Ads. (And yes it’s also a push to remove Apple’s tech as well.)

So if some of the worlds largest companies are being put in the position of middleman, what’s a poor old soul like me to do?

The question to be asking is: “Where do I add value and why am I interesting?”

I still remember the day I looked up at Hallmark and most of the administrative assistants had disappeared. Secretaries became middlemen. Assistants became middlemen. (While most of them ended up in better jobs, it happened all too quickly by my mind. But then again I still have a portable typewriter sitting around.)

What if the next big idea is how you can be replaced by 30 lines of code and an Erector Set?

Good life requires we push paranoia to the back seat, but what to do? Hide the idea? Avoid the inevitable? That usually doesn’t end well.

There’s a reason the marketing expression “Cut out the middleman” still tends to work.

If you see middleman status coming, then you can see where the functions you provide will be absorbed. The answer may be to sell your company into an organization that is vertically integrating. It may be to shift your customer base to individuals who can’t get access to the replacement technology. It may be to expand into areas around your current skill set. It may be to close up shop and go home (a bit defeatist I know, but it’s always on the table).

The key is: You are in a great position to see how you will be replaced. Use that knowledge to supercharge your radar (as Bill Welter says) to see what is on the horizon and face it head on.

“Organizations tend to evolve in ways that are inherently resistant to entrepreneurship. Yet Entrepreneurship is instrumental for ensuring the long-term sustainability of any enterprise.” (Properties of balance: A pendulum effect in corporate entrepreneurship, Michael H. Morris, Jurie van Vuuren, Jeffrey R. Cornwall, Retha Scheepers)

Whether you call it corporate entrepreneurship or individual creativity, it is difficult to drive behavior that challenges the status quo, questions existing procedures, or increases personal risk.

“More fundamentally, fostering corporate entrepreneurship becomes problematic if company executives do not know what they are trying to achieve.” (Morris, et al)

Finding balance in large organizations is difficult at best. The larger the group the further removed any single individual is from the source of cash flow, from the feel of customers, from the pulse of technological change. (You know, the smell of the sawdust, the feel of the earth type stuff.) The meaningfulness of any individual change can then be questioned. The rewards of putting one’s neck on the line more elusive.

Research on risk taking tends to show we are much more willing to seek out risk to avoid a small loss than a get a small gain. (Post on this at Blogging Innovation by Steven Shapiro)

Morris summarizes an architecture of balance for an organization that wants to encourage entrepreneurial creativity. It covers conflicting dimensions that must co-exist along the lines of strategy, culture, structure, control, and HRM. In the end it seems encouraging entrepreneurship can be a lot like the ying and yang of corporate structuring, or the spaces between being and nothingness.

It made me wonder, where the heck is economic recovery going to come from if large organizations find it so difficult to change direction.

Then I became distracted, by pig farming.

Walter at Sugar Mountain Farm has taken on a vertical integration project that flies in the face of some preconceived notions about scale and the general momentum of the ag industry (at least from what little I know about it).

I can’t remember when I started following Walter’s blog. But I’m a regular visitor as he describes life on a family pig farm where they are in the business of “certified naturally grown, humanely raised, pastured pigs raised on pasture, hay, whey and other good foods in the mountains of Vermont.”

On Sunday he announced:

“We are building an on-farm slaughterhouse and butcher shop located on our farm so that we can get our pork to customers’ fork.”

First – Gotta love the motto.

More to the point – Building an on-site nano-slaughterhouse goes against the long term trend of ever increasing scale in the agriculture industry. From reading Walter’s post I also get the impression it could go against the pre-conceived notions of some of his customers and readers as well.

But if you want to get inside the head of an entrepreneurial thinker, read the post.

His expansion has good cash fundamentals. (Ground floor entry for any new idea)

But it also provides leadership in areas as diverse as animal care, bio-security, supply chain management, quality control, and improved product.

And his resourcefulness in executing the plan is a perfect example of cardboard creativity at work. A business ecosystem that includes customers pre-ordering to lock in supply (providing funding), extended payment terms from builders, and his family’s own sweat and tears.

The post is long, but in my mind worth the read. Better than many business plans I’ve read over the years.

In the age amazing success stories like Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, H-P, Intel and other high tech franchises, it’s easy to think that the payoff for being an entrepreneur is vast riches.

And, yes, some do hit the lottery.

But for most, being an entrepreneur is as more about a lifestyle and making a decent living than striking it rich.

Of course, we can dream.

I’ll leave the final word to Walter:

“This, of course, does not include any charge for our labor but this is a farm and farmers don’t get salaries or hourly wages – we get the satisfaction of working outdoors in the beautiful country weather. Preferably before the snow hits the concrete.” (Sugar Mountain Farm Blog)