But hope is not enough.

It will take more than just hope.  “Hope” can be the battle cry but the cry alone won’t win the battle.  Turning this ship around will take the definition of concrete but achievable goals.  It will take planning.  It will take execution.  It will take leveraging the right experts and networks, organizations and countries to help.  It will take laser focus and surgical precision.
I think Barack Obama and his administration are intelligent, interesting and capable.  But to achieve the stated goals, they will need to define, plan and execute as well as they preach hope, or hope will be all we have left.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

Whenever Clay and I have a conversation, we both get really excited to share our thoughts with one another as we know each side is listening, learning and then building on what was already discussed.  One of the great things about this process is that we are constantly learning from outside influences, and trying to update our thoughts and dialogue with our latest learnings.  We learn from all sorts of sources, be that magazine articles, books or even blogs in our RSS readers (Snarfer for Clay, and Google Reader for me).

So it was with great excitement that I read early Monday morning on December 1, and found a post from Seth Godin explaining that he was offering an Apprenticeship.  When Clay first met me, I’m almost certain that the first words out of Clay’s mouth were, “Do you read Seth Godin’s blog?”  The answer to which was “no”.  Clay then proceeded to make fun of what a luddite I was for the next 10 to 15 minutes.  I, in turn, made fun of Clay’s proclivity to believe what he reads on the internet.  Clay finally got through to me though, and I got an RSS reader and subscribed to Seth’s blog.  

Then Clay and I started talking and e-mailing and IM-ing and g-chatting and meebo-ing and skype-ing and tweet-ing and whatever other cool new medium we were checking out-ing.  In these conversations we noticed a consistant trend of mentioning Seth Godin.  We were talking about the ideas that he put forward, and what the logical extensions of those ideas might be.  We were talking about when he was off his rocker, like favoring pie charts over bar graphs.  In fact, the genesis of Cerebral Element came as we were attempting to further a post of Seth Godin’s and that turned into our designs for foglift.  

So when I woke up on Monday, at 6 am and found the Apprenticeship post from Seth, I immediately texted Clay and told him to checkout the latest post from Seth.  Clay and I have been looking for a while to find an excuse to work less passionately on our day jobs, and more passionately on Cerebral Element, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  You see Seth was offering us the opportunity to talk about ideas and books for 1 hour a day, work for Seth on his project for 4 hours a day, and then work on our own ideas for 3 hours a day.  All this, and it was Free! 

Over the next week or so I worked on my application and Clay worked on his application.  We would constantly cajole each other into getting our applications turned in early, so that we could increase our chances at being picked for the position.  Once we had them in, we were dreaming of heading to New York and teaming up together on a daily basis with Seth and some other Rock Stars  to work on some cool stuff.  We knew that there would be tons of other great people applying as spontaneous groups emerged all over the internet, there was a Ning group started by Matt Cheney, a Squidoo group stared by NJ Thompson, a Linked In group started by David Marquardt, and even a couple of Facebook groups started by Rob Schmidt and Susan Villas Lewis).  At the very least we knew that our ideas would get read by Seth, and that alone would be worth a great deal to us personally.  

This is when something unexpected happened to me, I started asking friends and colleagues to recommend me in the comments section of my application.  I got this incredible outpouring of support from my friends and colleagues, I got words that brought me to tears on more than one occasion.  I also got more laughs than tears which I think is indicative of how lucky I am to have such great friends and colleagues.  I also felt a bit like Hillary Swank when she forgot to thank her husband, as I forgot to thank my mom.  I got a call from her a couple of days later rather upset, and I couldn’t figure out why, she told me that I had forgotten to thank her.  The best four hour conversation I’ve ever had with my mom ensued, and that’s when I knew for me that the application process alone had changed my life.

So dream Clay and I did of New York, and when the announcements came from Seth, we were very excited.  Clay got his announcement first, he was invited to New York for the personal interview session.  I got mine next a very gracious thank you for applying.  For me this was a big moment, as I was able to recognize that I had so many different and conflicting emotions.  I was so excited for Clay, and disappointed as heck for myself, and even a little jealous of Clay.  The great thing about working with Clay is I knew I could just get everything out there in front of him, and that we could talk through it together.

This sparked in me an idea for an Alt-MBA program for those incredible people who like me were unable to get into Seth’s program.  I created this Squidoo page that day, and posted on the Ning site about starting our own.  While I was getting enthusiastic responses from many of the other applicants, Clay was busy prepping for his trip to New York.  We talked a bit after he landed in the wee hours, and I told him to get some sleep.  The next day I texted him good luck, and we debriefed after it was over for an hour on the phone.  

Clay was actually headed to San Francisco that night, and we had plans to get a drink and celebrate and try to determine the odds of Clay getting accepted.  Clay’s typical travel luck ensued and what once looked like a possible 8:30 pm arrival turned into a 1:30 am arrival.  I groggily picked up Clay from the airport, and drove him back to crash on the couch at my apartment.  Of course with Clay and I we stayed up way too late talking and talking with excitement over his possibilities, what it might mean for CE, and what the announcement I made on Squidoo might turn into.  

After finally deciding we both needed some sleep, I went up to bed around 3:30 and promptly passed out.  Clay on the other hand was so amped from his trip that he decided to log in and check his email.  The next thing I hear is… “Paul! Paul!  I got in!!!!”   (Only somewhere around 3% of the applicants were chosen and Clay was one of the lucky 10 that made it).  There was much rejoicement all around, until we both passed out from exhaustion again.  

So here we are, Clay and I, eached perched upon an opportunity to achieve some miraculous things, all the while keeping our communication open, and our thoughts aligned towards the future of Cerebral Element.  Both focusing on one thing over the next 6 months…

Learning

We only think when we are confronted with a problem.

-John Dewey

Well it seems that Cerebral Element is starting to experience its first real growing pains.  Pains that we didn’t think we would have to worry about until we had a real product.  We’re happy to have them though.  Thanks for all the visits, we increased our bandwidth by an order of magnitude.  Hopefully that wont be enough to last us long.  :-)

Best!

Paul

Now that is the kind of pudding that only $240 could buy

We had the 240, we had to have the pudding.

- The State

Here at Cerebral Element, we’re big fans of low fidelity.  We know that the best way to start something is by sketching it out.  So that’s what we have here, some back of the napkin, and away from the computer sketches of what we are thinking about for Presidential Rubric.  One of the things we like about PR is that it focuses on giving visibility to a bunch of different key metrics. 

The question becomes how best to do that.  Well, it just so happens that my day job comes in really handy for this problem, as I’m currently designing an Analytics package for my company.  So like any good nerd, the first thing I did was to read up on KPIs, dashboards and visualization.  In fact, Clay and I co-presented with Rob Ririe at I-many’s Customer Summit a couple of months ago, and we had a great interactive session discussing the KPIs that are important to the industries we serve.   You can even check out the presentation here.  

Meanwhile I also started to dive into Edward Tufte and Stephen Few, whose work I’ll be profiling in upcoming posts on my blog.  They are two of the leading thinkers in data visualization.  You can see in my notes where I’ve adopted two of their innovative chart techniques to help keep a high data to ink ratio (Tufte’s sparklines and a modified version of Few’s bullet graphs).  

Now for the comedy…  You can laugh at my poor drawing skills, no really I don’t mind.  Click on the image to zoom in further, and if you really want you can zoom way too far in. 

We’d love to get some feedback on ways to improve.  Also take a look at the metrics we’ve laid out, as we think they have some great pieces of information, and if you think of any other pieces of information that are important let us know that too!

Best!

Paul

“Move your feet, box out, take good shots and you can say ‘NEXT!’ “

- Bo Ryan

Bo Ryan knows what it takes

This quote is inscribed on the inside cover of my personal copy of Bo Ryan’s book, “Another Hill to Climb”. My father and I are longtime Wisconsin Badger fans and Dad waited in line for hours at a Bo Ryan book signing to request this specific “Bo-ism” and gave the book to me for my birthday. I just finished it over the Thanksgiving holiday and tonight, I just got done watching Bo coach the Badgers to another amazing last-second win against a tough Virginia Tech team to start the season 6-1.

This quote has dual meaning for me. Ever since my freshman year in college, I’ve been what many people call a ‘gym-rat’, meaning I’ve played a lot of pickup basketball and I’m always looking for the next game. I’ve even been known to recruit a janitor or convince someone who is on the treadmill to join us in order to get enough players for a full court run.

In pickup basketball, the ‘winners stay’, meaning the winning team keeps possession of the court and the losers have to wait their turn to play again after any waiting teams get a chance. Also, the games are usually played to a ‘quick’ score of 11 or 15 points, so the little things definitely make the difference between winning and losing. Players boxing out for key rebounds and hurrying back on defense usually means the difference between keeping the court (and saying “NEXT”) or sitting and waiting.

The quote is also applicable to business …and to life.

“Move your feet” means to always keep moving, learning, thinking and doing. But don’t confuse motion for progress. In basketball and in business, being in the right place at the right time is occasionally due to luck but more often the result of preparation, practice and an accurate prediction of what is coming next.

“Take good shots” means you have to take shots in the first place. Take chances. Take risks. But be selective and know your strengths. For a 6’8” power forward, a good shot is probably a drop step and a bank off the glass from two feet away from the rim. For a 5’9” point guard, a good shot may be a wide open 3-pointer from 21 feet out. Good shots are different depending on an individual’s strengths.

“You can say NEXT” means you win. In basketball, it means you won and get to play the ‘next’ team that’s waiting. In business, maybe it means you vanquished a competitor but more likely you were able to realize a level of success and you get to tackle your next idea or challenge.

Bo Ryan knows success. Before being head coach at Wisconsin, he paid his dues for over 25 years. From 1984 until 1999 he coached UW-Platteville to a 352–76 overall record, a winning percentage of 82%. Ryan guided the UW-Platteville Pioneers to four national championships in 1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999.

Bo Ryan’s tenacity, work ethic, perseverance and longevity is something that Cerebral Element hopes to emulate.

Someday, we plan to say “NEXT”.

You can get everything you want at Alice’s Restaruant,

Walk right in its around the back,

Just a half a mile from the railroad track,

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaraunt,

At Alice’s Restaurant

- Arlo Guthrie

Happy Turkey Day everbody!  We here at Cerebral Element are thankful for many things this year.  One of the first is to all the great people at Accenture who helped to bring us together so that we could start this great adventure.  Our thoughts and prayers are with those that are involved in the current situation in Mumbai.  We’re highly grateful that we live in a society tht allows us to persue our dreams.  We’re thankful to everyone who has given us an opportunity along the way, and for those that stuck with us through thick and thin, we are very grateful.

To our parents and grandparents, we wouldn’t be here without you.  To our brothers Brian and Tim and… Brian and Tim, thanks for keeping us grounded and sane, and for all the good times.  To the Cabinaterians, thank you for keeping us engaged and involved.  To the poker game buddies, thank you for teaching me not to shake when I had a big hand, and the power of a check-raise on the flop for a free card on the turn, and all the cash – we couldn’t have funded this without you guys.  To Paul Straw, a big thank you for all your help with the graphics, you’ve definitely moved us forward a great deal.   To Brie and Yuri, thanks for everything, you’ve done more than you know, and we appreciate every bit of it.  Thank you to everyone who has fought for our opportunities, we recognize that freedom isn’t free.  

Thank you, yes you, for reading this, and continuing to support us, you mean the world to us.

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness. 
-Sidney Poitier

Whether this venture makes it or not, we know that it will in large part be to random chance as we are both big fans of Taleb.  That does not mean that luck won’t favor the prepared, but we go into these ventures knowing that each is likely to fail.  This is the beauty of a free market with low barriers to entry.  Lots of ideas coming to the market for it to decide which idea is best and to reward the winners.  We are smart enough (from being fans of James Surowiecki) to know that we are dumb enough to take on great risk of wasted sweat equity to attempt each of these ventures.

I give each of our ideas a (random swag) 15% chance of becoming something of value that allows us to quit our day jobs and work on this full time.  I do think that in general our ideas are well thought out and that we come to them after some deliberate thought about what could work to solve the current problems in the market place.  

The point of this post is really to let you know that we are not afraid to fail.  We know that it is likely that we will fail many, many times.  However, we will do it on our terms.  We will fail with dignity, forthrightness and without attempt to hide our failures.  Most importantly though we will fail while having a great time.  We are dedicated to making work not seem like work, so that even when we are trying our hardest we remember to laugh and have a good time.  Should we succeed, all the better.  I do think we are very creative, intelligent, capable, rational, and dedicated.  These are great attributes for those starting as entrepreneurs.  Hopefully random chance will favor us.  

I think our position can best be described in poker terms.  Pocket Aces are only 28% to win a hand against a table of nine pre-flop.  That’s where we’re at right now, we just want enough luck to get through the river without folding or losing all of our chips.

Invest in yourself...

“The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realisation for many people…… Just imagine you’re 16 and I was going to give you a car of your choice today, any car you wanted to pick. But there was one catch. It was the only car you were able to have for the rest of your life. You had to make it last. So how would you treat it?

Well, of course you’d read the owners’ manual about five times before you turn the key in the ignition. You would keep it garaged; any little rust would get taken care of immediately; you’d change the oil twice as often as you were supposed to – because you would know it had to last a lifetime….

Then I tell the students you get one body and one mind. And it’s going to have to last you a lifetime so you’d better treat it the same way. You’d better start doing it right now because it doesn’t do any good if you start working on it when you are 50 or 60 and the little speck of rust has turned into something big… The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be.”

- Warren Buffett

That quote was true when Warren Buffett said it and it’s still true today.  In these tough economic times, there is still an investment that has as close as you’ll get to ‘guaranteed’ returns.  Yourself.

Start a blog on a topic you’re passionate about.  Take free classes from MIT! or free online classes from HP.  Learn a foreign language or how to play an instrument.  Learn digital photography.  Learn how to design web pages.  Edit a Wikipedia entry. Learn how to cook your favorite dish from your favorite restaurant.   Help cure poverty in the developing world.

There has never been a better time in history to do any of these things.  It will expand your mind and your marketable skills.

And the best part is, other than some investment of your own time, you can do any of the things above for FREE………which makes the return on the investment all but guaranteed.

Release.  Rotation.  Splash.

- Craig Kilborn

That’s right we’ve taken our first steps towards world domination, as we now have a splash page up for Beer Optometrist on the good ole World Wide Web.

Big thanks to Paul J Straw (known to his friends and enemies alike as Po Stro) for all his help creating our first icons and trademarks for us.  Paul S has also helped us push forward on many of our ideas, giving great insights for many of the projects and features that we have here at Cerebral Element.  I love having interactive sessions with Paul, as he is most definitely the funniest person I know.  You can read Paul’s random musings on his blog BXI9.  If you like the work he’s done for us or just want to grab a beer with a stranger in Raleigh, you can contact him directly at pjstraw@gmail.com.

-Paul (P)

1) Go to the Apple store and ask a couple simple questions

2) Go to the Verizon store and ask a couple simple questions

3) Go to Chipotle and get a steak bowl with hot salsa

Apple gets it

Store #1 – Apple

6:28pm – I arrived at Apple.  The store was busy.  I was greeted immediately by a nice woman holding a clipboard, who referred me to another nice gentleman who graciously and patiently answered all of my questions.  I was satisfied and walking out of the Apple store by 6:36, a total of 8 minutes later.

Ratio of ‘active’ Apple employees to ‘active’ Apple customers – about 1:2.  There were Apple shirts everywhere.

Verizon doesn

Store #2 – Verizon

6:50pm – I arrived at Verizon, already dreading the experience.  My Dad is moving to Verizon and I am helping him research which basic Verizon handset would serve him best and wanted to ask a knowledgeable salesperson.   Me, I’m happy with my iPhone and not familiar with Verizon’s lower end, basic handsets.

The store was not very busy.  I was again greeted immediately by a nice young woman holding a clipboard.  That’s where any similarities to the Apple store ended. After being notified that their “systems were down”.  This meant the touch screen that you use to put your name in the queue wasn’t working, which is why “Sarah” was holding a clipboard.  She took my name and I browsed the phones on my own for a good 15 minutes.  The one salesperson on the floor was helping one customer for this whole time and the other 3 Verizon employees were behind the counter, ringing up apparently very complicated transactions.  After another 10 minutes, I asked Sarah where I was on the list and was informed the same three people were still ahead of me.  At this rate, it would be well into Obama’s first term before anyone could answer a few simple questions about Verizon’s basic handsets.

After another 10 minutes, I asked Sarah again.  Her reply came out the same as if I had pulled a string in her back, “You see…our systems are down.”  I understand that, Sarah!  THAT’S WHY YOU’RE HOLDING THE CLIPBOARD!!!  IT IS NOT WHY THERE ARE NO SALES PEOPLE TO HELP ME.

Ratio of ‘active’ Verizon employees to Verizon customers – about 1:12.   Other than “clipboard Sarah”, one sales guy on the floor and three employees behind the counter.

7:30 – I told Sarah she could take my name off the list and left Verizon, very frustrated (yet again).

Chipotle gets it.

Store #3 – Chipotle

7:45 – I walk into my local Chipotle and order my favorite, the steak burrito bowl with hot salsa and guacamole.  There were two people ahead of me in line but I almost never stopped walking until I had paid for my bowl.  Three people assembled my bowl.  One bagged it to go.  One rang me up.  Total time in line – about 46 seconds.

Ratio of ‘active’ Chipotle employees to Chipotle customers – about 5:1 for each person who passes through the line.  I couldn’t imagine a more efficient process.

My experience has been very similar at many Apple stores, Verizon stores and Chipotle’s.

As I sat and enjoyed my burrito, I remembered that my experience had been the same in the past at not only these stores but other Apple, Verizon and Chipotle locations.

How can some companies consistently just “get it” and others don’t?

If Verizon didn’t have such a good wireless network, I wonder if they would be bankrupt?