How The Fed Spends Our Dollars

In case you're wondering the six (6) segments are:

1. Social Security
2. DoD
3. Unemployment / Welfare
4. Medicare
5. Medicade
6. Interest on the Nat'l Debt (first orange section)

Easy to see where the cuts need to be made.

Data Content '10, Philadelphia, PA Oct 26-27

http://www.infocommercegroup.com/conference/

I'll be on a panel discussion next month talking about new revenue opportunities for those firms employing online ad rev / lead gen business models.

Seven Things to RE-THINK to help launch new ideas

We've all experienced the frustration of a great idea - or at least we thought so - that went no where on your team, firm or even family. The following includes a good check-lick of things to "re-think". Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is " ... doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different [better] result."

Below are the Seven (7) items from the "Leading Blog" to rethink.

1. Re-think complexity. We create complexity by over-analyzing our situation; creating issues where there are none; forgetting our purpose. Complexity obscures the issues. Keep the issues as uncluttered as possible.

2. Re-think systems. Tenaciously grasping the old ways of doing things just because that is what you have always done, can stop the flow of ideas and innovative solutions and lead to hopelessness.

3. Re-think ego. Our ego frequently keeps us from exploring new ideas. We keep retrying to work the old and deceive ourselves into thinking we’re making progress when all we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.

4. Re-think boundaries. Think bigger. Think interdisciplinary. Growth often involves blurring boundaries to open your mind to new possibilities.

5. Re-think reactions. Repetitive reactions are the result of ingrained patterns of thinking that we have hard-wired into our brains long ago.

6. Re-think failure. If you’re afraid of being wrong, embarrassed by failure or paralyzed by insecurity, you will never find the solutions that lead to meaningful growth. Failure provides the nutrients for growth when we respond to them positively.

7. Re-think success. Know what success looks like. How will you know when you have arrived? Muddy expectations lead to exhaustion and defeat before you even get started.

10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly

Brian Taylor

Enlarge Image

By Michael C. Munger

Most academics, including administrators, spend much of our time writing. But we aren't as good at it as we should be. I have never understood why our trade values, but rarely teaches, nonfiction writing.

In my nearly 30 years at universities, I have seen a lot of very talented people fail because they couldn't, or didn't, write. And some much less talented people (I see one in the mirror every morning) have done OK because they learned how to write.

What I have tried to produce below are 10 tips on scholarly nonfiction writing that might help people write less badly. Here's the list of 10 tips.

Digital vs Traditional Media: a solid read from Greg Satell

"An Industry at War with Itself

Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The digital world is a collection of unhappy families, mostly because everybody is confused. With some many ideas flying around and so much money at stake, who wouldn’t be?

Problems are poorly defined and solutions are untested. Technologists want to build cool stuff, marketers look to fill consumer needs and finance people want to see a profit. Who’s right? Well, companies that lose money on lousy products that nobody wants don’t last very long. People with different perspectives and varied skill sets need to learn to work together,

Having spent ample time in both digital and traditional media, I find the digital world no less myopic, but far less integrated than established industries. I would suspect that the companies that will survive are the ones that manage to find a common purpose long after the high growth phase has extinguished itself."

Check out the rest of Greg Satell's solid read on Digital Tonto.