I visited the Apple Store in Easton yesterday and promptly fell in love (or some approximation thereof) with the MacBook Air. It is light, has a brilliant screen and is not flimsy at all. It is way short on memory and battery power but it would make a cool $1800 toy. Having said that, I love this video, especially since I work at my desk on a Dell very similar to the one in the video. And I wouldn’t mind having one of those envelopes. Enjoy.
I am looking for a hosting service for my blog. I am very happy with the WordPress set-up but the free blog client is very limited as to what you can run in your blog (AdSense, plug-ins, etc.). So, since I own my domain name I would like to move the blog somewhere with a little more freedom while keeping the WordPress template.
Any thoughts on who is good for this? I don’t want to spend a ton of money but am not opposed to a monthly fee. Please speak up in the comments. Thanks.
This is just a short post to check in with all my readers. We are in Pataskala, Ohio tonight (well, four of us are) after a long day of quizzing and a fabulous meal with the quiz staff. I am speaking at the First Apostolic Church of Pataskala. Becky has to teach at home so she is not joining us. Really looking forward to service tomorrow but right now I’m looking forward to getting some sleep. I’ve gotten 4-5 hours per night for the last several nights as we’ve been so busy with work/church stuff. I have another leadership post I’ll put up the first part of the next week and more on viral marketing as well. Thankfully, I should be home most of next week.
One of the groovy things about my job is that I get to travel. Often, if a case I’m working on is heating up (or on fire), I get to travel to the same place a lot. That would explain why I am in Pittsburgh for the third time in two weeks. Fortunately, Charity and the blossoms decided to accompany me on this little junket so it’s good times all around.
Food note- We had dinner last night at Six Penn Kitchen which is downtown across the river from PNC Park and adjacent to Heinz Hall. The food, in a word, was incredible. They feature organic and locally grown food. We started with appetizers of wings (which had a wonderful charcoal grill taste) sea scallops and Charity had the tortilla soup. For dinner, Charity had a deconstructed rotisserie chicken and biscuits and I had pork shank with sauerkraut bacon mashed potatoes. Neither meat dish required a knife as they were so tender. Michael had a very good grilled cheese sandwich and Gabrielle had the best macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted. Let’s just say we don’t use Gruyere and Fontina cheese in our mac and cheese at home. For dessert (Oh yes we did) Charity and I spilt a burnt almond vanilla torte and the blossoms went with the white chocolate Oreo pie. Good Times!
We are again staying at the Marriott City Center which is a great place. Traffic was a little goofy last night because the Penguins were home was night and the arena is across the street. This morning, I am finishing up a couple of projects before heading out to meet with the family I’m working with on this challenging case (can’t be all play and no work). Every else in the room is snoring as I write this (at about 6:30 AM). If I get done in time, we’re going to take the kids to the Pittsburgh Zoo before coming home.
The US Secretary of Defense has ordered a complete inventory of all nuclear weapons and materials. You know, just in case there are some hiding under the couch. The money quote:
The order comes in the wake of the discovery last week that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.
You know, I came to Pittsburgh and forgot to pack my hair gel yesterday. I don’t feel so bad now.
No, I am not talking about a sickness but rather how something spreads on on the internet. Allow me to elaborate. As of last week, the highest number of visitors I had to my blog in any one day was 133. Not bad but nothing to get excited about. Then I put up this post of a little girl singing the Lord’s Prayer. That post itself, as I write this, has been viewed 1,011 times (including once while I’ve typed this paragraph). The vast majority of inbound links are from email servers which tells me that folks are copying the link and emailing it to their friends. As a side note, my highest daily visits now was yesterday (GMT) at 463 views. 418 of those views came directly to the Lord’s Prayer post. Right now (10:01 PM EDT) I have had 93 views with 87 coming directly to that post, mostly from email servers.
The most clicked on post in this blog is this one with the little girl singing the Lord’s prayer. So far, over 200 people have hit that link (I mean, she is really cute). The second most popular link in this post I did a few months ago on followship. I’m going to add a few additional thoughts on to that post.
I’ve talked to folks I have worked with, both in business and in ministry, and it appears (and I agree) that I am a follower/leader. Specifically, I try to lead from the middle. As I previously mentioned, every leader must be a follower. He must be accountable to someone from whom he has derived his authority. I know of men who are great leaders who, the moment you meet them, their personality takes up the room and you can sense their greatness (I’m not being facetious here). Kenneth Haney is one of these type of men. He’s a visionary and whatever room he’s in even if he isn’t in charge he’s in charge (I hope that makes sense). I am not that kind of leader.
My leadership style is to surround myself with folks who complement my weaknesses (as they are many). For instance, the Sunday School Secretary here in Ohio was a Youth President for the ALJC some time ago. He is very strong at running youth camps. For this reason, I am completely hands off when we go to camp. I don’t feel, just because I’m the director, that I have to be hands on in-charge when there is someone far more capable of doing the job. Ditto for any number of things be it (in the church realm) leading service, doing promotion or whatever. In the business world, I am more of an operations type guy. My business partner is the perfect yin to my yang. She is a rainmaker, a marketer with an immense number of connections in her Rolodex. My job is to make sure the bills get paid, the email works properly and, in summary, make sure the trains run on time. In both cases, because we have complementary strengths, we become accountable to one another to complete the task. Leading by following.
Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book, Team of Rivals, explain how Abraham Lincoln did much the same thing. Take folks with varying strengths (and even agendas) and put them together. While it appears Lincoln had lost his mind (keeping his friends close and his enemies closer) he in fact build a strong team by not having to be the “alpha dog”.
Bottom line, every leader (not named Jesus Christ) is accountable to someone. By understanding this we become better leaders. The saying is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is one pitfall of leadership. I’ll discuss others in a later post.
While I work on a couple of marathon posts on the leadership/followship topic, allow me to steer you to a couple of items worth your review.
I read this wonderful essay by Paul Graham yesterday. I could put in my two cents worth but I think his analysis is spot on. I am biased as a small company co-founder and someone who has working in small companies for the last three years.
Finally, there is this nugget regarding working at home. I would amen all of it except I don’t have the discipline the author does regarding “getting ready for work” in the morning. I usually do that around noon.
