New Heights

In July 2011, my 10 year old son had the chance to climb a public rock wall. While we were standing in line there were other boys around his age pushing and shoving and generally rough housing. Ben, who is meek and passive, was avoiding the mayhem. Though he is physically strong, he tends to avoid pretty much all conflict. I stood by him in line as he shrank from the activities around him. The other boys proclaiming how they will conquer the wall with ease.

When we arrived at the front of the line, Ben was equipped with his gear and helmet along with the three boys in front of him. These four kids were clipped in, faced towards the steep wall and told to go for it. I was surprised as Ben shot up the wall. As I watched him maneuver the wall, I glanced at what was happening with the other kids near him. One never got off the ground. One made it half way. And one managed to get up the wall but with considerable difficulty. It made me smile to know that Ben has the skills, but he chooses to use them when it matters most rather than just talking about it.

I learn a lot from observing Ben. Whereas my confidence is assertive, his is quiet. Where my strength comes from inner drive, his is derived by inner calculation. Where I might run through others to achieve, Ben will steer around them to victory. I like that there is room in this world for all types of winners. For every Muhammad Ali there is an Abraham Lincoln. Each with his own potential to lead to the best of their abilities.

At the conclusion of climbing the wall to the top, not once but twice, Ben humbly offered me a "high-five" as we turned to walk away. And he never said a word. That moment, on that day, Ben's success was not simply a result of his scaling of a challenging obstacle. His success, in my eyes, was the result of giving every effort to reach his maximum potential. It is one thing to talk of new heights, and quite another to reach them.

"Success is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming." - John Wooden

Immersion and Engagement

I recently had the opportunity to watch two movies at the theater. One I walked away from thinking it was excellent, and the other I left thinking it was mediocre. When I thought about why I had these different reactions, I came up with multiple possible considerations. One in particular that interested me was the immersion experience, or lack there of.

Theater is a fascinating engagement model topic and warrants a much deeper study than my own cursory examination. But I would argue that movies have always provided escape through the immersion of the audience. Return of the Jedi opened six years to the day after A New Hope on May 25, 1983, and ushered in the release with it Lucasfilm's new theater sound quality system, THX. Audiences at THX-certified theaters were able to experience the acoustic qualities of the film as the filmmaker intended. The objective was to fully immerse the audience into the Star Wars experience through the use of enhanced audio. Of course audio is only one of the many immersion tactics leveraged by filmmakers. Special effects and video enhancements are obvious choices to include. I am also reminded of the experience of the Soarin' over California ride at Disneyland in Anaheim where the smell of the California orange groves meet the senses of the guests.

All of these examples are intended to draw the audience into a new world and provide the escape necessary to enjoy the experience. At the time of this writing, Gamification techniques for Internet based services are all the rage. They are today's popular method for user engagement. Due to some success, it has become a highly copied model for many web based applications and can be read about in countless books authored more recently than not. But I believe gamification is really only a means to an end. It is a strategy for enticing engagement through a parallel experience. What really should be considered the immersive experience for the audience regardless of the platform. Movies, amusement park rides, and Internet services all share the same need for captivating the user.

The prevalence of tactics becoming common among platforms will require new invention and heights to be realized to continue the same depth of engagement. In my opinion, gaming tactics will peak then give way to another form of immersion of the user into an experience. The objective is behavior modification and user engagement. Perhaps the next generation is a new strain of gaming tactics for engagement or something all together new such as how George Lucas appealed to the senses of his audiences in a new way. Whatever the emerging engagement strategies will evolve to, it will require further immersion of its audience to capture the attention. Otherwise, it will be one of those movies that leaves you wondering if it was worth the price of admission.

The wrong end of the oxen

I once heard a presentation that included a quotation from the beginning of Proverbs 14:4. That proverb reads, "Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but much revenue comes by the strength of the ox". Now, I want to zero in on the first 9 words of that proverb for a minute.

"Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean...."

So true. It is bad enough having to clean up after my dog in my backyard. (Though I confess that is my son's job). I am sure a few oxen in a stable could make quite the mess. But the point of the proverb is that to get to the value of the oxen (revenue) you have to put up with a little poop (troubles). There is a lot of the presentation that I heard that I no longer remember the details of. Except for this one lesson in which I recall vividly from time to time.

Consider this a new way to remember that anything worth having requires effort. If you are willing to work at it, you will reap benefits that you would otherwise not have. Sure, you don't have to keep oxen in the stable. However, when it comes to working in the field, the oxen make it possible to glean rewards magnitudes larger than if you were to harvest alone.

It amazes me how I zip through life at times expecting that things should come so easy to me. As though there is no opposite end to the oxen that I have to deal with, regardless of whatever it is that I may be engaging in. Then when I am faced with life's stable mess, I am surprised and frustrated by it. What if instead I just expected it, got out my shovel, took care of the mess and moved on. No frustration, only an understanding that I must care for the stable mess to experience the power of the oxen. What if instead I met the work with a smile knowing it is because I enjoy the benefits of the oxen that I get to clean the stable.

"Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment"
- Dale Carnegie

Learning Python

My 10 year old son Ben is learning to program. He started lessons from the Internet and has graduated to a Python book. The book is specifically on programming Python for games. Having a game as a goal, makes it interesting for him. From his first program after Hello World! he has been programming simple games.

On one particular occasion, I recall Ben getting really upset because he could not figure out why his program was not working in the way he expected. In this one life lesson, he progressed more than any prior programming lesson before. He had to figure it out. The program wasn't going to fix itself and to reach the goal he would have to put in the effort. In the end, he came to realize that the code he wrote was not exact enough. He missed details that resulted in bad code and the inability for his game to execute. When he got into the details of the code he had written, he had probably 10 corrections to make, whereas he could find none to correct before.

Ben could have given up. And quite honestly, I thought he was going to. He did need some help and encouragement, but ultimately Ben knew he had to work through the problem to get to his goal - a game programmed by himself. If Ben had no goal, he would have swayed from the difficult path and just found something easier to code. To reach a goal is to achieve. However, I also maintain that the simple act of setting the goal is also an achievement. When things aren't executing as you expect, sometimes that simple goal can offer you the persistence you need to push through difficult times.

My son Ben learned more about programming in Python this day than he would have if there were no problems to work through. But what is even more fantastic, is he was exposed to the more macro lesson of only getting to the goal by persisting through the difficulties. It was a good reminder for me.

Used Car Deal

This summer I bought a Volvo V70 car only a few years old for my wife from a nearby dealer. Now, let me first say that my wife tells me there are many blog stories available in this one day of shopping I could share. But rather than go through them all, I am more or less just going to tell you the story for you to enjoy.

Buying a car from a dealer is actually fun for me. I did the research I needed ahead of our excursion so my negotiation would be prepared and we knew pretty much what we wanted. I spent time preparing my wife for her role in the negotiation and how things would likely play out. We checked around online for inventory then we headed out.

Our event took approximately 10 hours. One of the greatest things that made my negotiation easiest was the ability to use a loan calculator on my iPhone. I was able to immediately evaluate every offer and counter offer on the spot. If it didn't get me where I wanted to be, I said no. It was awesome. I was surprised that more salespeople didn't have something like this themselves while we were looking at the cars. I kind of felt like it gave me more influence in the negotiation at that stage.

The hard part for most car negotiations seems to be saying no. I warned my wife about this. We talked about keeping in mind alternatives and that there are many cars out there we would be happy with not just one. But once my wife starting driving some, all of that planning changed a little. She certainly didn't want to walk away and say no. At that point she wanted a car. And I found myself in negotiation with my wife and the dealership. My original plan was to let my wife try to do the negotiation, but I quickly realized I needed to take it over. And as I said, I kind of enjoy it whenever I have to do negotiations anyway so it was probably better for both of us.

So with my iPhone in hand, I hammered out my scenario and prepared my wife that I would walk away without the car she selected if the car dealership didn't meet me there. She readily agreed. Then it all fell apart. They offered $1500 less for our trade in. They were $1000 more on the price than I wanted to be at. The interest rate I was offered was 1.5% more than I thought I could get. The dealership manager said he could not move my trade in for the price I wanted. He couldn't give me the interest rate I wanted unless we bought a new car. And he already discounted the price to cut halfway through his margin so could not go any more. My wife would have signed the deal right there. But we didn't.

One thing I have noticed in my career about negotiations is the influence time has. The more someone invests in the negotiation, the more they are willing to make concessions. We spent another 3 hours at the dealer working out our deal. We drove cars again. Held to our number. Asked for more. When told by the manager he could do no more for us, we went to our car to leave where we were followed by our salesperson, who had about 4 hours invested in us. I have to say, at that point my wife was begging me to just buy the car as we were only $250 away from my number. I said no and was perfectly fine with driving away in our undervalued trade in vehicle.

To make a long story short. My wife was mortified at the end of the day, and probably embarrassed throughout the negotiations. But near 5 hours after our first offer by the dealership manager we drove away in the car my wife wanted. I received the additional $1500 for our trade in to get the full value, I got the additional $1000 off the price of the vehicle we were buying and I locked up an interest rate 2% lower than we started. Now let me be clear, the dealer made their money as well, though maybe not as much as they had hoped. And they certainly wanted me off the lot (they traded salespeople on us several times). In the end, we got a fair deal and they sold a car. When both parties keep working at it, a good negotiation can be reached in most situations.

My wife said if we look, the salesperson probably wrote their own blog the next day and would be telling a different experience. It would be interesting to read that one. She also said after reading my blog entry, it sounded more mild than it was. As I mentioned, it was pretty obvious the salespeople and manager wanted me off the lot. The manager, after handing us off to another salesperson, made every attempt to avoid us. I don't know if he was worried he would have to give up more or what, but he steered far clear of us until we signed the papers. There was a document fee of $10 that the dealership forgot to tell me about. Both my wife and the dealership were visibly concerned that I was going to walk away due to that $10 when they told me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out $10 in 1 dollar bills and told them I didn't want to finance that. I thought it was funny even though I kept a serious poker face. No one else did, in fact they all looked at me in shock. So I put the money back in my pocket and said it was ok, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When we finally got into our new car to drive off, there was a vehicle warning light about a bulb that had just burned out. The salesperson was calling the manager over to help but he refused to come over. I think he was exhausted with us.

Finally, I should add the detail of the story that I purposefully wore my black t-shirt that said, "No, I will not fix your computer..." that day. I think in some small way wearing a shirt that said "no" on it helped send a message that I wasn't going to easily say "yes". I can't quantify it, but I would do it again next time I go shopping for a vehicle.

I don't know if this was a helpful blog entry or not, but it was sure fun to write.

Ropes Course

I have this really awesome team at work that works for me that typifies the 'work hard, play hard' attitude. I will leave the ugly work details out of this blog entry. But the play hard part of our propensity brought us to a ropes course at Colorado State University on September 2, 2011.

The first thing I need to say is, being that high off the ground is a great equalizer. It just doesn't feel natural. So anyone who pushes beyond what they believe their limits may be deserves applause. Everyone on my team did just that and we all walked away from the day learning more about ourselves and our team.

The two things I personally had to muster the courage for was a leap of faith and a blindfolded walk. I did the blind fold walk first. It was 28 feet in the air. I climbed without sight and transitioned to a small platform. From there I blindly stepped off onto a telephone pole that I walked horizontally across until reaching the other side. Little did I know that the horizontal pole I was walking on tapered thinner as I walked! The leap of faith I had to climb a telephone pole that was about 16 feet high. I stood on top of it and launched myself out to catch a trapeze bar.

I am happy to say I was successful in all of my challenges and required a little more from myself than I would have imagined. That is the thing about team building. I had people on the ground encouraging me and helping me go farther than I would have on my own. I was genuinely happy for each person on my team who achieved and accomplished throughout the events of the day. Too often companies don't remember the importance to let teams achieve together outside of the workplace. My team was already a good team, now they will be even better.

I wrote this blog today only as a reminder that even during recession-like times, an investment in people can give the biggest returns. Sometimes I think we lose sight of that. September 2, 2011 was not one of those days. Not all team building has to cost money. We did a geocaching challenge in the Spring and once a quarter play a board game instead of a staff meeting, both of which cost us virtually nothing.

So what's next? Well we have talked about white water rafting, trap shooting, ghost hunting and snowshoeing. If any of that sounds like fun, get your waivers signed and do some real team building with your own teams. There is no better way to build trust in the work place than having someone hold a rope that will keep you from a 30 foot fall to the ground.

September 11, 2001

On Tuesday September 04, 2001, I was on top of the World Trade Center. I recall looking down at the Statue of Liberty and commenting to myself how small it appeared, knowing how large it is. I was staying in a hotel next door as I was traveling for business. I recall putting my back against the side of the building on its corner outside and looking up to experience vertigo, one week before the tragedy of the day we know as 9/11.

It could have been me.

I have not returned to New York since that time. Though I don't talk about it much, I don't know if I could easily visit the city again. The height at which I stood on the top floor of that building and the lasting imprint it left in my mind would make it difficult for me. I recall people joking in the lobby of the World Trade Center about bombs. I think of the security guards in the building who would be there a week later. I remember the awkward silence of the elevator ride to the top. When the silence was broken, it was with a nervousness not typical for a simple elevator ride.

My kids in school had an assignment this week which included asking my wife and I about September 11, 2001. For the first time in 10 years, I watched a video online of the tragic events that day with my children. My wife and I could barely watch it, and she left the room. My children are distanced from the tragedy of that day, while for us it remains very real. We remember what we were doing that day. My son was barely 5 months old and my wife held him in her arms while she saw the events unfold over the news. I was again traveling on business, fortunately within driving distance of our home this time. I walked down into the hotel lobby where people huddled around a television viewing the shock of the towers falling in disbelief and trying to sort out what it meant.

The fallen heroes of that day test my own grit when I consider their bravery. Would I have run into the building to save others or would I run away seeking my own safety? Would I give my own life for that of a stranger who happened to be in the World Trade Center that day - a stranger that I know not if they are good or bad? Would a cry for help be enough to motivate me to run inside a collapsing building, not knowing what other threats might still exist or even what these events all meant? Today, I honestly do not know the answer to these questions. Tomorrow, I hope to never have to answer them.

It is often repeated "Never Forget" when it comes to that day in U.S. history. Though it is not an all consuming thing for me, I don't know that I could simply forget. When I think about that day, I am haunted by how different things might have been if terrorism had selected 9/04 instead.

So this morning I ask my self one question. Am I living a life worthy of being saved by one of 9/11's fallen heroes? Because it could have been me who needed them.