We have all heard the saying; “A Penny for Your Thoughts.” Yet we also suspect that you get what you pay for and indeed a penny will not buy you much these days. In fact, there is serious consideration going on to ditch the penny all together, of course if they do, it will cause sellers to round up and that means inflation of about 4.9% as everyone rounds up to the nearest five cents. Is America ready for inflation, well apparently the Federal Reserve is quite and some say overly concerned about it.
This brings me to my next point, and that is that a penny for your thoughts is not a fair deal for anyone, so how about a buck or two? Ah ha, now we are talking. Well, you can send me the dollar later, right now I wish to tell you some of the thoughts going on at the Online Think Tank right now. Some of our discussions this week have included books that we have read and some of the comments about their content.
So let us begin with one of the first selections shall we? “Eyewitness Books - Trains” by John Coily, 1992. This book takes us from the very beginning trains through the steam engine age and in diesel trains. In the book, we see trains from the 1800s, all the way and until those in the 1980s and 90s, including the bullet trains. One has to wonder how come the United States does not have any bullet trains like Japan, France, the UK or Germany? Recently, the state of Florida turned down a bid to put in high-speed rail from Tallahassee to Orlando, from Jacksonville to Miami, and that line connecting to Tampa Bay, Florida.
The reason he appeared to be due to the fact that the terrorists had come from Florida. A high-speed rail would be a perfect opportunity for an international terrorist to disrupt transportation. Nevertheless without high-speed rail, we are overt jamming our freeways with automobiles, that cause pollution and traffic congestion, which destroys quality-of-life. Has come a long way with their trains in the late 1990’s they had 7000 steam engines, 4700 diesel trains and 12 under electric trains. Today, they even had yet powered trains, which are able to go over the high mountains.
Another book, we read was “Better Change - Best Practices for Transforming Your Organization” by Price Waterhouse, and the change integration team, 1995. This book was written before the buzzword “change management” came to the forefront. It seems however, that much of what is talked about has been rehashed into popular business management articles in the present period.
It is interesting to see how the methodology and best management practices or BMPs on change management has in itself changed over the years. Not all of the techniques that were considered state-of-the-art back then would be considered the best way to create change in organization today. Of course, we should leave this up to the consultants, professionals and MBA professors to decide. The truth of the matter is that today, organizations must stay livable and quick in order to compete in the high-tech world of the information age. Take a company like Google or Apple or even Microsoft and watch how fast a change. It is enough to make your head spin, unless you’re one of those with the Edison Gene (ADHD).
The next book, our team members looked at, at The Online Think Tank was “Physical Geology” by Esther and Sherwood Tuttle and Stephen Carey. What we found interesting about this book was that it corresponded to another project we were working on, determining how safe the giant Chinese dam project really is. Building a dam on a foundation of limestone is not such a bad idea, but only 75% of the Chinese dam project is built on top of limestone and the rest is built on shaky ground that cannot support the weight of all that water.
Why does mankind have to keep learning from current period mistakes. When history has already shown us, what happens when we negate the reality of geosciences? The Online Think Tank, the leaves that the giant dam project in China is a disaster waiting to happen. And although we do not like to predict such huge engineering disasters, it seems inevitable to deny the truth. Isn’t that what happened in New Orleans, when the levee broke? Don’t answer that, as this article will be filtered from the Chinese approved Internet web sites -just pretend we did not say it?
Another interesting book we read this week was “How to Find and Buy Good Software - a guide for business and professional people - an Eight Step Failsafe Procedure.” By David Bonner and Jess W Curry, 1983. For such an old book, it is amazing how much great advice is within these pages, in fact, if more companies would take the advice that was written in 1983, perhaps they would not have so many IT system failures.
For instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation spent over $500 million on an IT system that did not work. That is pretty serious considering that the FBI is to protect the American people from international terrorists. Company spend hundreds of millions of dollars on software and IT work, and much of it does not work all that well.
The next two books we read were about public speaking, and effective speaking. The first, “Public Speaking for College and Career” by Hamilton Gregory 1987. Among some of the valuable topics within this book were questions such as; why do some speakers succeed and others fail. What does it take for effective communication, and why these speakers not listen? How do you get rid of nervousness, and how do you reach the audience.
It also talked about finding a central theme, finding materials, supporting the idea with visual aids, and the body of the speech, as well as the delivery. These are things that all public speaker should know whether you are a beginner or an expert. Also in the book were introductions and conclusions, outlines, presentation speed, and the various types of public speaking, such as special speeches, speaking to groups and the art of persuasion.
The second book was; “The Challenge of Effective Speaking.” By Rudolf F. Verdever, 1973. This book dealt with effective speaking, dealing with background noise, listening for ideas and meaning, and the fundamentals such as organizing a speech, voice control, articulation, body language and analyzing the audience. It also warned about the best methods for inventing new words and for testing the logic of your speech, prior to delivery. Why is public speaking so important? The answer is quite simple, and that is because every concept needs a spokesperson and no matter how good your ideas are or your advice is; none of it is of any value unless people know about it. If you want to change the world in a think tank, you need to understand good public speaking.
Additionally, just because you can say at does that mean you are inside your customers had or that anyone is really listening. Last, the next book, we read was “Getting inside Your Customers Head - Eight Secret Rules on Selling Your Competitors Do Not Know” by Kevin Davis, 1996. This book talked about the value of branding and how to forgo the traditional sales approach, and how to win without competing on price - for a think tank, this is very important because many times, you are not selling anything, but rather introducing an idea or a concept and you have to sell it.
I would like to conclude this dialogue with one other point of contention and that is; a penny for your thoughts is too cheap, and although a dollar is an extremely good deal, it is indeed still 100 times the price of the competition and there is a reason for that at The Online Think Tank, Sincerely, Lance.
L. Winslow is an Economic Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entrepreneur http://www.worldthinktank.net Currently he is planning a bicycle ride across the US to raise money for charity and is sponsored by http://www.Calling-Plans.com and all the proceeds will go to various charities who sign up.
Tags: fed, high-speed, inflation, Leadership, management, selling, serious, speaking, think tank, trains