U.S. Cellular has instituted
No Email Fridays.
Exactly what it sounds,
no emails allowed to be sent or received
on Fridays.

Excuse me?

A phone company cutting off communications?
All because an executive
doesn’t understand how to manage
his own email?

Here’s the thing,
“forcing” people to communicate
YOUR way
means that less people will communicate.

If that’s what a communications company wants…

A local department store was going out of business,
inventory being sold off.
Some treasures?
Choose Life tees from the Wham era.
Original bell bottoms.
LP’s.

As a consumer,
I found it interesting.
As a businesswoman,
I found it sad.

This inventory,
a shirt here, a belt there,
all came with ongoing costs.
Warehouse space, insurance expenses,
someone having to move it.
It contributed to the department store’s failure.

Obsolete inventory is not free to keep.
If it doesn’t add value to your company,
get rid of it.

Sexism still exists in business,
especially the higher up
in the corporate rankings you move.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing
for the savvy businessgal.
Sexism, as with any ism,
is weakness
and weaknesses can be exploited.

It is very easy to manipulate someone
when you know what
their hot button is.
An obvious example of this
is the 2 on 1 pitch.
A male buddy and I
will walk into a pitch to a sexist V-P.
The male buddy will pitch
my preference,
I’ll pitch the alternate
(I always give execs a “choice”).
An easy sale.

In May’s Men’s Heath,
FBI Profiler John Douglas shares a brilliant way
to test a job applicant’s integrity.

“Employees are 15 times more likely
to steal than customers are.
So set up an integrity test.
Leave a file marked “confidential”
on the waiting-room table
or a $50 bill under a magazine.
Then ask the receptionist
to watch if he bites.”

Well worth the $50 lost.

After working through yet another long weekend,
I got accused by a former coworker
(whose BBQ I dodged)
of being a workaholic.
I prefer to call it passion
(and smart evasion tactics).

I don’t work for work’s sake.
I am, actually, quite lazy.
I work because I am passionate
and have purpose.

Working on my projects makes me happier
but overall,
workaholics are no happier
or unhappier
than the average person.

If you look at the twenty questions
of whether or not you are a workaholic,
it is all about balance
and purpose.

When you throw a knife,
the impulse is to put everything you have
into it.
A mistake.
If you overextend your arm,
you can damage your joints
and
you won’t be able to throw another knife
until you heal.

The same thing happens in business.
If you overextend your money, time,
or other resources on a specific project,
these resources will be unavailable
for other opportunities.

That could be good,
or bad,
depending on the results.

Think before you put 110% into anything.

You’re told you have to downsize
your department/division/company.
Who do you let go?

Harvey Mackay in We Got Fired! advises
“When a smart boss fires someone
the first question they should ask is NOT:
How do I feel about this person working for me?

The first question they should ask IS:
How would I feel about this person if
he or she were working for my competitor?”

He also points out that the
“best time to hire people is during a downturn
when everyone else is firing them.”

I remember my first kiss.
I remember my first boss.
I know I will always remember
my first fan letters
(from my first novel).

Nothing is ever quite like the first.
If you can be part of that first,
you, your product, your company
will be remembered forever.

How to do that?
Seek out the new
and then
support it.

Today is my one year blogoversary
on this new domain name.
(As some of my readers know,
I guest blogged for a few years
on the now defunct Road To Forbes domain.)

What have I learned over this past year?

The blog business has gotten tougher.
It used to be that you could write some posts,
ping technorati, and
watch the traffic come in.

Not any more.
Too much competition.

This is a normal part of the product cycle.
Usually around this stage,
you’ll see a clear split
between the have’s and the have not’s
traffic-wise.
Eventually the gap widens so much,
it becomes a barrier to entry.

I was part of a discussion
on the future of writing.
One author said straight out
that if the future of writing was advertising,
she wasn’t interested.

Hold up.
Wait a minute.
You don’t know what the “advertising” deal is,
yet you’ve already excluded yourself
from that conversation?
Dumbness.

Even if I didn’t want to go that route,
I’d still like to hear what my competition was doing.
Keep open to ideas
and yourself part of the conversation.