In my earlier post (4/25) on designing the 4^th dimension© I shared a bit about the budgets that go into design and construction of physical plants as an insurance to success.   And thus said, the irony that while all this time and effort is spent on building and décor, there is little or no design time or money invested in the insuring the feel of the guest experience or for team members to fulfill the design promise.   This design AND delivery of feel is very doable, without a sales pitch this IS what I and my team have been doing successfully for over 25 years.   Okay, let’s say design and delivery of feeling (choicefully, on purpose) NOT by accident.   Another irony hit me since I’ve been sitting with 10 other ways to have written the 4/25 blog…

Focus today is a quick ahaa on Leadership in the 4^th Dimension.  Leadership absolutely impacts feeling as well as doing and being.   Here’s an example that is more true than not, in 3 parts:

1.            Pondering a piece of equipment, building or structure

As mentioned earlier if we expect equipment, buildings or structures to function well, they are designed, tested, and then built.   Along the way, metrics are defined that support our expectations and quantifiable results.  No news here.

2.             Pondering management

Although not as consistently as a building or structure, managers for the most part are handed guidelines, reports, numbers, standards, budgets to hit.   More often than not, managers are taught (unintentionally or intentionally) to police these metrics, reports and guidelines as policies (get it: Police - Policy)…

The policing habit in managers is not usually their fault.  It is default.   Most companies reinforce policing with some sort of training that focuses more on the results instead of HOW we get the results; more on deadline hours, days and numbers than the ride getting to those results.

3.             Pondering Leadership

Ah, leadership… sadly, all too often Leadership development doesn’t exist.   Whatever leadership “training” there is starts and ends with, “Read the 1 minute manager”; “be inspiring”; “be an active listener!”   Or feedback that goes something like this, “You are not being inspiring!”  

Who moves the needle most?  Effective Leaders.   Who’s mentored, evolved least in small to mid-sized independent companies?  (maybe in most companies) Leaders.

A colleague of mine shared an interesting observation the other day.   “Rudy, time and again I see leaders that are intrinsically really good, others that are not.  What’s interesting to me is the good one’s can’t really define why they’re good, and the bad one’s can’t define why they’re not better…”  

There are tools, actions and ways to teach leaders, facilitators, energy builders to be resolutely excellent achieving and exceeding expected results.  (Yes, Miick teaches/guides and evolves these with our clients).   The path is not magic, it is pragmatic IF you know what to look for.   This essence is leadership in the 4^th dimension©… clearly defining what we want the experience of leaders and team to be through effective leadership… consciously, actively stepping into the habits that serve and just as actively stepping away from habits that do not.   Like anything, those already adept become more so with awareness, those less adept, improve, grow evolve…

The question becomes have you or I even bothered to acknowledge the “space” of leadership and defined the experience we actually want in more than generic terms?   You’re investing in buildings, equipment, capital expenditures.  You invest in training and tool building for managers.   Are you investing in your own leadership?    

If yes, keep going!  If no, begin.  

What are you doing to create and invest in your leaders or the leader within yourself?  I’d love to hear!

There is such a thing as leadership on Purpose!  There is such a thing as working ON PURPOSE!   This work is getting more and more tangible for me and my clients.  Moreso, the concept drives connection with clients, guests and team members alike.   From this connection, oh surprise, sales, management and profits soar!   This week, I’ve been reminded why.  Keep reading.   I offer three parts in this blog: background, meat, and action step.

Background:

Would that I am as eloquent as Fred Kofman in, Conscious Business.  If you haven’t read it yet, please do.    Traveling on planes those sitting next to me likely believe I’m part of Kofman’s (proverbial) choir, marking up most every page with supporting highlights, underlines and notes.    So be it.  

As early as page 9, my brain and vision wander off into years of my experience, my reality, from this excerpt: “Leadership is the process by which a person sets a purpose for other persons and motivates them to pursue it with effectiveness and full commitment.  Leadership transforms individual potential into collective performance.   The leader’s job is to develop and maintain a high-performing team.  Her effectiveness is demonstrated by the performance of the team.”  Kofman goes on, “Anyone who manages people has a leadership responsibility.”  

The last few days I’ve been at an FCSI Americas conference (look it up!).   The conference was filled with top manufacturers, architects, designers and management consultants from across the Americas, Alaska to Argentina. 

The Meat of My Idea:

 A visionary has a concept.  The concept may be a piece of equipment and what it does, a building and how it flows, a business and how it works.   As we all step into the world of experience… there is an art and science as well in delivering experience.  Welcome to what I, and my bud Ken Schwartz, call design and delivery of the 4^th Dimension©.

Here’s the story:  A client comes with an idea, a vision, to a manufacturer, designer, or architect.  The client may be one’s self.  That’s okay.  The point is the first, second, third, “30^th” draft of an idea is done on a two dimensional platform.  Even if the “drawing-rendering” is in 3D, it’s still ultimately created on a 2 dimensional platform. And, I acknowledge thanks to Hollywood and computer technology we are certainly getting close to a 3 dimensional feel while still in what is actually a 2 dimensional realm.   

3rd dimension happens in construction.  In the case of a building we now have 3 dimensions we can now walk around, into and through in real time.  In addition to seeing, we can now feel the experience inside and out, even smell and/or hear.

This is a good place to mention that at the FCSI conference mentioned above, the majority of the audience acknowledged that 3 dimensional design technology can save exponential dollars prior to real construction.  All good.

My point is this: in any business project, clients, any idea generator spends tens of thousands on two dimensional drawings, a rendering to get a feel of what’s coming.   Real money, 100’s of thousands is spent on 3 dimensional construction of a piece of equipment or business concept in order to provide, to offer, to sell the public.   As business folks, leaders, we miss a huge opportunity that ends up being a pittance of the dollars invested thus far.   What’s the opportunity?

The sales team takes the reigns and goes.  We all know what selling is.   And in most cases, we default to what ever the leader or worse the manager in charge provides us in terms of tools, verbiage or more in delivery.   We’ve spent all kinds of design dollars and not actually designed more than by default, the sales experience.   Case in point, want to buy a piece of equipment, you and I get spec’s on performance.   Want to purchase a meal in a restaurant?  The energy of the experience most times stops at the table edge.  The experience is largely up to me and my partner to create our own experience from what we see, feel, smell, hear.    Sometimes a brand goes as far as logo’s or décor or script, sales pitch being a certain kind of feel, the BRAND experience advertised.    

The Action Step: the 4^th Dimension

 Enter the 4^th dimension.   If in a restaurant the energy, outreach, care, connection to you and your party ends at your table edge… the 4^th dimension is the experience of all the space between the tables, the energy of the staff, the sales team, when they’re NOT at your table or talking with you directly.  

How do you get the 4^th dimension?  The 4^th dimension is always there, right in front of us; all around us.   The 4^th dimension is the gestalt of the experience, the whole.   My point?  We can (we do actually) define, train and deliver the 4^th dimension by design.  I don’t mean a script here.  There is an art and science to the 4^th dimension.

Welcome to being conscious and choiceful.  The same effort put into designing the mechanics of a piece of equipment or the swing of a door can be and needs to be put into the design of experience.   In the 21^st century for any one of us to believe 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional design is enough to create awe, is naïve at best.  The big winners will play in, define and refine the 4^th dimension: how we feel, why we feel and that we continue to feel great about the experience of our brand.

Designing the 4^th dimension is tough to do without clear sense of deeper Purpose of your business (your why), without clear sense of Values in action within your business (your how).  

In closing, I’m far more passionate about the 4^th dimension than I realized, and on a far bigger realm.  Thanks to those at the conference for raising my awareness!   Every business has a gift to offer, team members on manufacturing floors can realize this just like line cooks or servers in restaurants.  Heck any job, any work out there.   

The 4^th dimension really is the BRAND experience.   Good time to dust off your Values and put ‘em to work!  

Stayed tuned for more.  In the interim, what do you think about this?  

I wish I was as eloquent as my clients... What a treat to work with leaders creating conscious, choiceful organizations, guiding their companies, "On Purpose".   

All too often in the world of business I hear leaders moan about lack of performance, lack of loyalty, lack of commitment or excellence, lack of work ethic... forget this folks.  Instead provide the kind of leadership that creates loyalty, the kind of brand clarity that provides definitions of excellence and more so, coaches to the positive, providing feedback instead of compliments, coaching effectiveness intead of criticism.   

Inspiration doesn't happen by itself.  Sense of Purpose, use of Values in pragmatic ways is a potent business model....  Here's an example:

Offered below is an excerpt from a weekly team member offering, penned by Wildflower Bread Company's Founder & President, Louis Basile:

Follower or Fan?

I was listening to our Easter service and a part of the sermon resonated with me regarding the Wildflower Brand.  At Wildflower we have become accustomed to talking about and referring to both customers and Breadheads that love what we do and stand for as “fans” of our Brand. 

I would like each of us to consider that while being a fan of our Brand is good and surely something we will celebrate each and every time that happens both for a customer and Breadhead; the real connection and ultimate honoring of our Purpose and Values is made when we create followers of our Brand.

In order to help clarify this distinction I first went to the dictionary and found the following definitions. Before I share the definitions with you I discovered that when looking for the definition of fan in the context we are using today that it was the third listing after the common noun definition of fan, as a mover of air and then fan as a verb, the act of moving air.  After my third attempt I found the following definition of fan in the context that I was searching for and it is as follows:

• An enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator, an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit).
• The first known use of the word fan in this context was 1682.

Compare what you have just read to the following definition of a follower which when I searched for the definition listed below was the first definition listed:

·         One in the service of another, one that follows the opinions or teachings of another, one that imitates another, one that chases.

·         The first known use of follower in this context dates back to before the 12^th century.

Reading on I found the following synonym discussion as it relates to the word follower (related words are adherent, disciple and partisan meaning one who gives full loyalty and support to another. Follower may apply to people who attach themselves either to the person or beliefs of another, Adherent suggests a close and persistent attachment, Disciple implies a devoted allegiance to the teachings of one chosen as a master, Partisan suggests a zealous often prejudiced attachment.

As I concluded and I hope you do as well the word follower, at least from the definition of the word, has a far long lasting, richer history that makes a deeper rooted connection.  As I continued my research on Follower vs. Fan there is truly a definable and measurable difference between a follower and a fan.  I came across a piece written by Brad Lomenick – On the Journey, “Follower vs. Fan” and he puts forth the following thoughts:

Follower vs. Fan…is there a difference?

• Followers are committed. Fans can be fickle.
• Followers trust their leaders. Fans trust their leaders only when it benefits them.
• Followers want a vision. Fans want a show.
• Followers ask “what have I done for you?” lately. Fans ask “what have you done for me lately?”
• Followers are in for the long term. Fans are in for the short term.

Are you a follower or a fan?

Wow! Re-read the five bullet points above and let them resonate for you…be aware of how you are feeling and the range of emotions that occur when you truly are a follower of something, someone or anything. 

The power and intrinsic value of creating something so special that it resonates with both customers and Breadheads that they become followers is both exhilarating and daunting at the same time.  However, the long term overall benefits, both personally and professionally, in creating a lifetime journey that is accompanied by Followers vs. Fans is something that I hope that everyone who is a part of the Wildflower family aspires to create.

I was not sure where this topic was going to take me or my what my thoughts were going to be when I heard this last Sunday. However having sat with this all week and putting my thoughts in writing I feel a great sense of commitment and pride to lead the Wildflower on purpose using our values to ensure that my actions and decisions create new followers of our Brand every day.

Thanks for being a follower…….

On Purpose Guided by our Values,

Louis

  Find us on Twitter l Facebook l Yelp

Wildflower Bread Company

7755 East Gray Road

Scottsdale, Arizona 85260

Work - 480-951-9453 ext. 202

Fax     - 480-951-9464

Cell    - 602-723-3423

lbasile@wildflowerbread.com

www.wildflowerbread.com

What a gift received this morning from one of my manhattan clients!   The coaching call was to support exec team impact by the leader.   The gift came for both of us, like a thousand lightbulbs lit at the same time, "I'm aware of my resistence to talk about what I need to do differently."  

Breakthough in the moment!!!  

Likely if you're reading this, you've read somewhere else that people simply do not change; perhaps even, "people "can not" change."   The caveat is unless they, we, choose to.

Conscious choice is a lovely thing.   I can not change anyone; however I can choose my own behavior, my own actions, my own habits... by choice.   I can be aware, I can work to shift my habits into ones that serve, and maintain those habits that do serve...  the real issue is whether I am awake enough to notice.  

The worlds of fashion, sports, education and some others, seem to get this.   However, business as a whole, seems slow to take up this possibility.  It is much easier to simply point my finger at everybody else.  (As long as I'm numb).

How to move my team?  How to move the system, the company?   Welcome to individual choice.

Core questions come to mind:

What is it I want?  What is it we need?

What is it I need to do?  Differently or the same, to support the "we"?

Conscious choice, awareness is core to anything beyond raw luck... 

The old saying, "There's no I in team" isn't always true.  Without conscious high performance of each "I" and even more so, in the ongoing question, in this instance, what IS high performance for the team?... only comes from high level, conscious choices by each individual, each "I".  

Thanks Manhattan!  

The wizards at Inc. Magazine posted a great article on Martin Luther King this morning.  Terrific acknowledgement of King's birthday, and an offering of continued gifts we all get from great leadership.

The link is here, I'll let you read it yourself.

The point?  I watch a lot of leaders attempt to hide their emotion, deny anger or frustration, even deny celebration or right things done right.   The Inc story here offers the reader, yes, each of us, to acknowledge the emotion.  THEN choose behavior that moves your team or brand or self forward.  

This skill of "stepping into what I feel" owning the feeling without getting hooked by the drama of the emotion, or the angst or short sightedness of an emotion, negative or positive, can support each of us to stay in balance and lead from inspiration and awareness instead of simply being "emotional" with any sort of "negative connotation.  

I'll stop here.  Celebrate the day today, clear vision, the ability to move people, even a nation, from clarity through the ability to own feelings instead of deny or denegrate!   

Here's to greatness!

http://www.inc.com/hitendra-wadhwa/great-leadership-how-martin-luther-king-jr-wrestled-with-anger.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+inc/headlines+(Inc.com+Headlines)

There are three parts to this story.  Background, a moment of truth, a bigger truth.  

Background: Just a few days ago I was in Seattle being driven from downtown back to the airport. My driver, "Thomas" was from Ethiopia, in the US for the last 13 years... 

Thomas shared with me a story of his uncle, already in the US begging Thomas' father to allow his son to come to America.  Long story short, the father said yes in the midst of civil war that still rages on.   Thomas is from a small tribal village, to get to a city was a three day walk.  The first time he ever used a phone was 13 years ago, when he called his uncle in the US.  Figuring out how to use the phone is its own story.  Thomas, laughed at himself when he told me this story, he shared, "When I heard my uncle's voice, the first thing I asked him was, how many camels and goats he had."  He went on, "My uncle didn't laugh at me.  Instead there was a very brief moment of silence and my uncle simply responded with what sounded like a smile on his face, "You will have much to learn here Thomas, and all will be well." 

A moment of truth:  Thomas could not get in to the US directly. As a refugee, he first needed to move to another country to gain access to the US.  Once here, the learning curve was steep as you can tell from the story of the phone, camels and goats.   At this point, Thomas and his uncle are teh only two of his family to be in the US.  Thomas is eloquent.  He shared with me he's working on his US citizenship.  It's clear in his dialogue with me that he knows more than most folks I speak with about how and what the governing body of Washington DC does (or has more recently been the case, does not do.)   And more so, I was struck with how easily Thomas drove the black suburban in heavy traffic and in the rain to the airport.  The act of driving itself, using turn signals, flipping on windshield wipers without thought, in flow.   This is a man that only 13 years ago, had not used a phone or been in a car, yet knew more about camels than I ever will.

A bigger truth:  I found myself learning alot from this driver in the 30 minute trip.   He shared with me his experience of promises unkept by our nations leaders being not so dissimilar to promises unkept in his home nation, rations with united nations or red cross logos stamped being sold in stores instead being provided with the original intention of provisions for those starving.   

Thomas mentioned a driving force in both nations, greed.   As I listened, my learning was enlivened by something I've been writing about for the last few months, the balance between the "I" and the "We".   

No doubt our amazing country was founded on freedom for the "I"... and that "we" as nation are free (defining free is another topic)... 

What I learned from Thomas was simple reiteration, like a village, WE live in a country that is far more complex than it was 300 years ago, far more crowded than it was 300 years ago and in a world that is equally more complex and crowded.   Seems to me that WE have to figure out how to balance the "I" that is so dear to each of us with the "WE" that is soooooo critical for all of us to not just survive, but to thrive... 

Thanks Thomas.  Who knew?  If I/we stay conscious and awake, there is learning everywhere.  And its critical to remember that as crazed as our life and our country is in many ways these days, we still, certainly have a ton to be thankful for.

I am deeply, thankful for you, your time, your energy and care.   I and WE are critically important!

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is no longer such a thing as common sense.   Get over it.  So, the clearer you are about your expectations, the clearer you are.  I recommend you be resolutely clear.  Although you believe what you’re thinking is obvious, it’s not.   You want high performance?   You’d better define what high performance means.  And by the way, you’d better be explicit! 

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”  - Peter Drucker

At a time when we’re all being called to move faster, make quicker decisions, one of the most courageous acts I experience these days is my clients making the conscious choice to slow down to speed up.   “Anytime we hear anything smacking of jargon we hit the pause button,” says Chicago land restaurateur, Nick Sarillo.   “For us, jargon means words like “professional”, “excellent”, “great”, “clean”, “great attitude.”   Nick continues, “My team’s trained now to stop when ever someone tosses out an adjective or noun as a “truth.”  For example, in any given situation, what does “excellent” mean?   Excellence is redefined hundreds of times in our company.  Excellence is explicit, rather than implicit in each task.  This act of definition, challenging as it is, has created an outcome for us of shared definitions.  Ownership attitude develops within our company as “I” statements and becomes “we” statements.  We actually create common sense by working from multiple definitions to one shared definition.”   The outcome of all this effort on the part of Nick and his team is an explicit Culture internally and an explicit Brand Experience focused externally, for customers.   Instead of employees sitting waiting to be told what to do, team members take an active role in actions that improve guest experience and profitability all at the same time.  

The outcome I’ve seen at Nick’s and over the years in hundreds of cases, is the nuance between Figure 1., struggling with performance due to “what ought to be common sense” and Figure 2.  Working with shared definitions of excellence that are explicit!

Figure 1.  Depending on Common Sense

Figure 2.   Shifting from common sense to explicit shared definitions of excellence!

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.   Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!” - Goethe

Goethe’s famous quote is one of my favorites.   Thus, supporting clients to turn dreams into achieved goals in a milieu of industries and industry segments has been a wild and amazing ride.   At the same time, I’ve not experienced the process (dream to tangible goal to measurable success) to be so urgent, so tangible or more pragmatic than in the last two and half years thanks to the horrific economy in which we’re all in the midst.

From experience then, Figure 2 integrates powerfully with Figure 3.   Being explicit with attitudes and actions, choices made and behaviors observed, A+ performance evolves and grows.   What would have been an A+ candidate a year ago wouldn’t even be even make the team this year.    Let’s go deeper.

As you look at Figure 3, the leader and leadership team are on display!  If common sense is dead, so too is the old leadership axiom, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  From all I can tell these days, behavior is everything and talk is cheap.   And, “Behavior is everything” seems to be more-true all the time.

Here’s how Figure 3 works:  The decision is made, “We’re going left!” (note the direction of the horizontal arrows).    The 1% column at the left of the bell curve is that segment of your work force that simply and resolutely follow, “Yes Ma’am, I’m headed left!”  If tomorrow you said, “We’re headed right,” these folks would be at your side.   

The next column over, 14% of your work force are typically what would be called, your “players.”   With shared, clear reasoning, they are with you, moving clearly and doing all they can to support you moving “left” as diligently as possible.  The clearer YOU are, the more effective their work and focus.    (This is where figure 3 aligns with figure 2 strongly.)    At column 3 you have 35% of your work force.  These folks are watching you closely, ready to go into drama because you switched course or didn’t do what you said you would.   This 35% of your team are what my colleagues and I call, “wind checkers”.   “Wind checkers” are exactly that.  Where the wind blows is where they’ll go.   And if you said you’re headed left and you go right, you’ll hear about it from this 35% of the staff.   Note that with this 35% you have critical mass, 50% of your work force at any given time.    And from here this model gets interesting.

On the backside of the critical mass line is another 35% of your staff.  If the column left 35% is checking the wind for a couple weeks to see if you’re really serious about what you said you were going to do, this group is watching diligently for months.  They are checking for the slightest wind movement in any other direction and they’re ready to pounce on any miss step.   Usually these folks are not looking in a mirror, that is, they don’t really pay attention to themselves, these participants are ready to blame anyone or anything else for any possibility of disbelief that “We’re going left!”

Move over another column, 14% are actively plotting, never really satisfied you’re changing anything… they’ve been with you for years or have been doing the same job for years and “know how its done.”   You have nothing to tell them they don’t already know.  This segment of your staff is likely digging heels in as you work to shift performance.   Last column right is a bomb building 1% that is still around, really, I’m not sure why?  Are you?    If wind checkers are the middle columns of varying degrees and equal +/- 70% of your team, this extreme right 1% is actively encouraging drama on a daily basis.  Most anything other than positive energy and you have this 1%.  

The ultimate irony, even in bad times, is that most of your managers are spending time trying to coach and convince the 15 – 50% on the right hand side of the bell curve to please join in the new direction.  

Let’s tie the beginning and end of this column together.   If I and we are resolutely clear about where we’re headed AND in slowing down to define excellence in each step along the way three things happen:

1.     The process of definition becomes a skill set in itself and the process gets faster and more efficient.   So two outcomes occur: we have common definition AND we get to definition faster.  To use a high-speed metaphor, we learn to build the plane as we’re flying it safely.  

2.     Performance becomes exponential figure 2 comes alive.  At the same time, we are so clear about our performance that the wind checkers and bomb makers in figure 3 opt out on their own, because we are so clear about what excellence is and is NOT, those players on the right of figure 3 have no energy, they simply drop off.

I invite you to pay attention to jargon and define what you mean by excellence or professional.  When you find yourself using the term common sense for something you’re thinking write down the phrase, thought or action.   Take the time to experiment and actually find out if you have shared definitions.   My bet is that you will not as often as you do.  Getting to a shared definition of “excellence” (or any other term you want to explore) will sharpen the tip of your “arrow” no matter which direction you’re headed!  

Figure 3.   Clear performance expectations, leadership behavior: Beware the role of the “wind makers” and the “wind checkers”

What I'll share here may sound like a story about me, it is not.  It IS a story in support of celebration and acknowledgement of Steve Jobs and Apple; mine, like millions of folks, is also a story of change and evolution... and likely a thanks to Jobs... 

In 1986 I headed to grad school.  The reasons are irrelevant.  I'd already proved myself in the world of work as a young consultant with a strong positive track record.  It made sense to go to grad school.  No big deal.  Except, I was expected to have ALL my work turned in typed.  The data is this: I had no idea how to type, and I'd never even conceived of taking typing in high school, god forbid. 

Simultaneously the impact to me of having to type was exacerbated by something that was both tragicially hip and cutting edge; a thing called a "computer lab" was in place.  This lab was for the grad students only.  Wow, for a guy that barely made it through high school, now somehow in grad school there is a new thing available only to the "elite", a computer lab.  What was in place for us in this computer lab?  At the time, IBM was too big to put anywhere except in a warehouse. The computer lab was full of desk top computers: Apple IIE's all there for my (and our) personal unlimited use.  

My first experience was frustration beyond belief; then not so slowly excitement.   Cut to the chase, at first I wrote everything by hand and then transcribed to the computer.  At first I spent hours typing, really hours correcting two fingered keyboard stroking.  As months evolved I watched myself began to edit my hand written words as I read them typed.   I spent 12 hour days in the computer lab teaching myself to type and to learn this new apple thing-a-ma-gig computer thing.  And late night over a glass of wine with friends I could laude "using a computer."... 

By my last few months of grad school, I'd come to working about 75% in handwriting then transcription, with an amazing 25% of free flow thought through my fingers on the computer.  I made so many mistakes and lost SO MUCH DATA along the way.  And the joy of saving all my data on a 5.25" floppy disk was so amazingly cool... 

Cut to the chase, by 1996 I was typing by touch easily and "thinking" out loud on my keyboard as often as on 8.5x11 paper.  By now I am thinking more effectively (most of the time) on the keyboard than on paper.  And I'm typing this very second on a macbook pro; I've talked and texted today too many times to count, on my IPHONE; and when I ride my road bike, what inspires me is music playing through my IPOD...

This week my clients have counted on reports, comments, support and forms sent through and by the tools invented and evolved over a very fast 26 years.  26 years.  Thanks Steve!  Thanks Apple team... 

To my clients, friends and colleagues... thanks for your patience with my on going learning and excitement stepping into the new... we are blessed.   My best and blessing to the Jobs family and the family of Apple.