A random thought from Kerrying On…

When I was a kid growing up my dad always used to tell me he was an entrepreneur—which I looked up in the dictionary and learned is French for “between preneur.” And although I’m not absolutely certain, I’m pretty sure preneur means “jobs.”

From the newsletter article Kerrying On; June 2007
Purchase Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High at Amazon.com.
Get the podcast at Digg or search on iTunes

I often buy from Amazon Marketplace sellers and have always had great experiences until my last order. Beware of the seller named Caiman. I ordered an audio book from them on 10/5. According to Amazon policy the item must ship within two business days. On 10/16 I received confirmation of shipping. When I received the package the shipping box was in fine condition but when I opened it the small audio book box was crushed indicating that it left the warehouse in that condition. I contacted the seller via email and they were quick to send a business reply label so I shipped the item back. Two months later and I haven’t received a refund or new merchandise. I’ve contacted them every week by e-mail (they will not provide me a phone number) only to receive a short email reply indicated I’ll be contacted by the warehouse. So far, no contact.

According to the reviews on Amazon, it seems like 9 out of 10 customers have no issues and typically rate them five stars. However, if a customer doesn’t rate them five starts, they rate them one star! So it is completely hit or miss. For me a major miss!

A clever tip was posted on Digital Inspiration on Wednesday. Interested in reading the most popular full-text Wall Street Journal articles? Simply add this RSS feed to your newsreader and you’ll receive any article that has at least one “digg” by full subscribers. It could be interesting to track the number of articles per day and diggs per article over time to measure the acceptance of the digg concept with WSJ readers.

In this model, the paying subscribers are feeding non-paying subscribers by digging the articles. Interesting concept. On the one hand, WSJ is giving away content. On the other hand, what if there was a way for them to create a feed of other “undigged” articles to encourage non-subscribers to get the full package?

See the full tip at http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/read-wall-street-articles-from-digg-without-subscription/1788/

Cross posted at Thinking Analytically

A few months ago I listened to Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling. In this book, author Stephen Denning uses a fable complete with talking animals to stress the importance of storytelling in our organizations especially in times of significant organizational change. To quote the author, “The ability to tell the right story at the right time is emerging as an essential leadership skill for coping with, and getting business results in, the turbulent world of the 21st century.” On Monday, October 15, 2007 Stephens newest book will be released - The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative. The book has already received great reviews for several prominent people including Reed Hastings (CEO of NetFlix) and best selling leadership author, Jim Kouzes. To promote the book, Stephen is offering dozens of free tools, papers, videos and other bonus items. They will be distributed on a limited basis at his web-site beginning October. Get them while they last.