Acting Corporately, Not Locally

One of the most important things in business is knowing your customer. If you don’t know your customer, you can’t possibly meet your customer’s needs and expectations. And if you’re new to the market, it’s even more important to study that market before you dive in head first. Unless of course you’re Martin’s Food Markets.

Richmond, Virginia is what I would call the biggest small town you’ll ever encounter. We are used to things being the way they are and we don’t like changes much. The announcement of the sale of Ukrop’s to Martin’s Food Markets, which is part of Netherlands-based Royal Ahold NV, brought on what has been characterized as the “Ukropalypse” by locals.  While some folks seem lukewarm about the change or simply don’t care, others have mourned the loss of yet another Richmond business being sold.  Concerns have been voiced about the Ukrop’s involvement in the local community.  Initially those concerns were allayed by Bobby Ukrop’s statement that the family would remain involved locally.  Unfortunately, the Ukrop’s can’t guarantee that the stores will remain supportive.

This week, at a time when the Girl Scouts have already placed their orders for cookies, Martin’s advised that the Girl Scouts were no longer allowed to sell cookies in front of the stores which still carry the Ukrop’s name.  It has been reported that up to half of the sales of Girl Scout cookies in this area are made from those store locations.  The troops can’t cancel the orders.  But the chain has said, “Oh sorry. It’s against our long-standing corporate policy to allow sidewalk booths.”

It seems that Martin’s has failed to gain an understanding of the importance of Ukrop’s involvement in and support of local charities, events and organizations. Either that or the E-Suite has the attitude that it’s their way or the highway and the opinions of shoppers in Richmond don’t matter to them.  That could be a rather fatal error in judgment.

Richmond isn’t like any other market.  We’re fickle.   And if you make too many changes or discount our opinions, you’ll find yourself looking for greener pastures.  If Martin’s continues to disregard the differences in this demographic in deference to their “corporate policies” it may be a rather rough transition into the Richmond market.

We can all understand corporate policies.  Many of us live within such constraints.  So while the policy is irritating, the more troubling thing is the timing of the enforcement of the policy.  It is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of the Ukrop’s traditions and it isn’t very “Richmond”.  Leaving the Girl Scouts hanging out to dry without any consideration for the impact on the local troops is a red flag to those who doubt the sincerity of statements by the Martin’s mouthpieces who seem to want us all to believe that we’ll be happy with the sale of a Richmond institution.

Actions speak louder than words.  While Ukrop’s embraced our concerns and supported our community, Martin’s actions have told us that their policies are more important than our concerns and community.   At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if Martin’s opens on Sundays and sells beer and wine.  If Martin’s continues to show that they don’t care about the local area, the rabidly loyal former Ukrop’s shoppers will shop elsewhere.

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I do not believe in New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t had any for as long as I can remember. This year is no different.

Resolutions usually fail because people think they need something major like a new year in order to make changes in their lives.  If you aren’t resolved and committed to the change it doesn’t matter that it’s a new year. You will likely fail.  I also believe that incremental changes are often the best way to make changes. You just sort of sneak in the changes over time so that you don’t realize you’re changing and don’t fight the changes.

As far as the Geek Household, we are always adjusting and tweaking things on our gadgets, our computers, our vehicles and even in our lives.  We periodically stop and take a look around at the landscape and say, “Hey, Hon, don’t you think this would look better over here?”  We view our lives as iterative and we are always working to make our lives better.

Subracting the Negatives

We’ve been overwhelmed for a while.  We are always going somewhere, doing something, playing catch up.  We never seem to have enough time to get things done and we are always exhausted.  In the fall some things happened that made us take pause. These weren’t major life-altering things, but they were turns in relationships – business and personal – that shook things up a bit and forced us into a cycle of evaluation.  It seemed more than coincidental because we weren’t likely to make any changes to what we were doing unless we were forced to do so.

A few weeks ago we heard from a friend we hadn’t spoken to in a while.  James recounted one of these situations to him and our friend said, “Nothing like addition by subtraction.”  Lightbulb moment.  We realized then that we were definitely in a cycle of ending relationships, getting rid of the negative, in order to have more – more time, more energy, greater focus on more important and fruitful endeavors.  Addition by subtraction.

So now what?

Our 2010 is not scripted. We don’t have an grandiose plans or major projects on the horizon. It’s looking like a house-cleaning kind of year; a transition year, I suppose.  We are eliminating all the negativity that we’ve been dealing with and emphasizing a lot of positive things that have been languishing.  We have given far too much energy to the negative and focused too much on dying relationships, dying partnerships, dead ends and things that have just outlived their purpose in our lives.  2010 will be a year in which we simplify and refocus on the things that matter.

So what matters? Family first.  To us family includes our close friends because family isn’t blood; family is love.  We are focusing on our relationships because life is fragile.  We only have one chance to do this thing called life.  No one has a headstone that says, “Wished he had spent more time at the office”.   We will share life with those we love before all else because at the end of the day those relationships are vital and worthwhile.

After that our focus is on what comes next for our business.  We love what we do but we need to rethink where we are going with our business.  In the end little may change, but we have to look at everything before deciding.

We don’t plan to take on anything new because that would cloud where we are going. We have some personal projects to work out and a few others that need to be flushed. Other than that, we just want to enjoy our time together.

Happy New Year to all who happen upon our happy little virtual home.  May your 2010 be all that you dream and all that you desire.

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A decade is ten years.  So any ten consecutive years can be a decade. This makes the decade known as the 80’s possible. W00T!

But when we’re talking about decades in terms of the calendar, we need to start with this one simple fact: There was 1 BC and 1 AD, but there never was a year 0 in between the two.  The decades in terms of the calendar era (the year numbering system used on the calendar) began in 1 AD and (wait for it) ran until 10 AD.  The second decade began in 11 AD and ran until 20 AD.  And so on and so on and…

So if you’ve done the simple math any 1st grader could manage you realized very quickly that all this bruhaha on every show on television right now about 2009 being the end of the decade is pure idiocy.  Seriously.  Some math-challenged individuals saw fit to call 2009 the end of the decade because they were short of material or needed ratings or needed to find some sort of significance to another day passing by that is arbitrarily the end of a duration of time known as the calendar year.  It irritated the hell out of me in 1999 when everyone was calling 200o the beginning of the new millennium. Um, no. The new millennium started in 2001.

Ten years later I was suffering through broadcast after broadcast full of blabbering about the end of the decade when I saw this from Martin Polley:

Aha! So I’m not alone!

But we’re right. Seriously.  You do the math.

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And in the spirit of sharing, I would like to share this wonderful video from the A cappella group Straight No Chaser.

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I sat on his knee and learned to drive, twisting and turning the wheel as he held me close easing the pedal down just enough to coast the truck forward.  When it came time to honk the horn, he told me to honk his banana nose.

I squinted my eyes, raised an eyebrow and wrinkled my nose, skeptical that his nose could make a honking sound.

“It will honk, piccolina!”

“Noses don’t honk.”

“Principessa!! Squeeze my nose!”

I reached over and pinched his nose.

“AAhhhhhhhhh OOOOOOhhhhhhhgah!”

I gasped, eyes widening.

“Ahhh Ahhh Oooooohhgah!”

“I told you it honked!”

I squealed in delight as we “drove” from one end of the driveway to the other. My grandmother thought he was crazy.  I thought that he was the most amazing man in the world. He was my personal hero – my grandpa – the soldier, the cement mason, the family man.  And I adored him.

My grandfather was fiercely proud of his heritage – Italian by birth and by name, American by choice and by grace.  He served in the Army in WWII.  He was a military man like his father before him who came over on the bigga bigga boat from the Shoe in the Ocean to have a better life.  My great grandfather came through Ellis Island and fought in the war in order to become a citizen.  He was passionate about his adopted homeland and about the opportunities that came with hard, honest work.

I come from a family of servicemen, including my uncles who were in Vietnam and my brother who was in Germany.  James’ father was an Army man.  We are proud of them, of their contributions and who they are to us and to this nation.  They are the ones who stood for, who fought for what so many of us take for granted.  By choice or by draft, they served because they believed in this land, our founding principles and a hope in a future filled with freedom and opportunity.

Every day men and women leave their parents, their siblings, their spouses and their children to serve.  They sacrifice so that we can vote, debate, protest and breathe the sweet air of freedom.  We owe them a debt of gratitude for their service that cannot be easily repaid.

But heartfelt thanks go a long way.  Take a few moments today to reach out to soldiers and their families.  Even the very small, “Thank you for your service” goes a long way to those who serve even those who would rather there was no need for soldiers, guns and wars.

In fact, if you really want to show your appreciation, carry that thankful attitude into tomorrow, next week, next month.  Carry it with you wherever you go so that when you see that soldier at the bus stop or in the airport, you can extend an unexpected, “Thank you for serving” long after the flags have stopped waving and the crowds have gone on to shopping for Christmas.

Never diminish. Never disregard. And never forget.

I love you Grandpa. Thank you for your service.  Thank you for your strength. Thank you for your guidance, humility and honor.  And thank you for making me see the value of my heritage, my freedom and my nation. I miss you.

Your principessa,

Shell

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Sarah was excited about helping her mother prepare Thanksgiving dinner.  She watched as her mother cut both both ends off the ham before putting it in the pan and then into the oven.

“Mom, why did you cut off both ends of the ham?” Sarah asked.

“That’s the way my mother always did it, so that’s how I do it.” said Sarah’s mother.

“But why?”

“I don’t know.  You should ask your grandmother. “

Sarah walked out of the kitchen to find her grandmother.   “Grandma, when you prepared ham for baking, why did you always cut off both ends?”

“That’s what my mother always did it,” said Sarah’s grandmother.

“But why?”

“I don’t know why.  She taught me to cook and I have always done as she did.”

Sarah was even more perplexed by this.  She found her great-grandmother in the living room and asked her.  “Great Grandma, when you prepared ham for baking, you always cut off both ends.  Grandma and Mom do the same thing but couldn’t tell me why.  They said they do as you did.  So I’m wondering, why did you cut the ends off?”

“Well,” Great-grandma said, “when your great grandpa and I were young, we only had one pan and the pan was too small.”

Do you know why?

So much of what we do as designers and developers becomes habit.  We do much of the same thing day in and day out, driven by process, influenced by experience.   There is a great deal of comfort and safety in process.  It allows us to control our development.  It allows us to review and create repeatable events and reusable deliverables.  It helps us become more efficient.   But it also strangles us and encourages the use of blinders.  Process can hinder and hamper and kill your projects.

Too much process is a bad thing

In an effort to become efficient, we have created a culture of non-thinkers and non-questioners.   We do things because we were told to do it a certain way or because that’s how it’s always been done.  While I am a big proponent of process, I am not a proponent of blind process.  Blind process is what happens when we rely so heavily on templates and the expected workflow that we forget to analyze, discern and improve.

No project is exactly the same as another.  No client is exactly like another.  No two needs or requirements are exactly the same.  The business need behind a technical requirement may be different which would require the implementation to be handled uniquely.  The audience may be different, requiring special handling or treatment.  If we rely on our repeatable processes and templates so heavily that we forget to think and envision and question, we are cheating ourselves, our clients and the audience who will be using the product, the website or the application we are creating.

Don’t get stuck

It’s important to question the whys and hows to make sure we are considering all options.  Processes and templates are tools meant to assist, not stifle.   The way it has always been done is not a one-size-fits-all solution.  Sometimes the reasons have changed or technology has progressed.  Perhaps there are ways to solve business problems or design solutions  that weren’t considered or weren’t possible in the past.  Even if something was determined out of scope, out of consideration, outside the realm of the possible, revisiting those whys is worth at least a passing glance.

Challenge the idea that it has always been done a certain way and get to the reasons behind the whys.  And if your pan is still too small, it could be time for a bigger pan.

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I just wanted to write a few lines to let you know how much I love. The one thing I know in my heart is the little things people take for granted each day, are the things I hold dear to my heart. With that said, here are some of those little things.

1. I simply love you with all my heart. Not a day does not go by that I’m not thanking God for the blessing of you in my life.I fall deeper in love with you with each moment that passes by.

2. I adore you. You are so beautiful and honestly, from the bottom of my heart, are more beautiful with each passing day.

3. I appreciate you. From the tasty lattes (yes, they are better than Starbucks) you make in the mornings for me to the little things you say to encourage me when I’m not feeling my best or tackling a stressful project. Thank you baby. And by the way, when you make special dinners……. WOW!

4. I admire you. You have a heart for people and want to help those in need and you are not afraid to stand up for those whom many would look down upon. With We Can Share, I know there will be many people who will benefit from the caring heart that you have. T2 is already taking a lead in this project. It’s because of you he has the heart he has for people.

5. You are simple, unequivocally, without a doubt…. oh heck, I’ll say it. I love being around you, just because of who you are. I’m unashamed to let folks know how I feel about you, how I adore and love you. Call it spoiled with love, because that’s not a bad thing, but such a good feeling to have that I can share my love….my life…my heart with you.

Shelly, these are only a few little things to let you know you are loved beyond measure by me. You are missed when we are apart. I look forward to when we are together each day, each night, and when we wake up beside each other in the mornings. I am a blessed man.

You…are…the…love…of…my…life.

James

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In order to emphasize the importance of learning to give to his peers, our middle son is launching a new venture – WeCanShare.org – a not-for-profit entity that leverages the power of community to help others in our area.

We are helping him with all the paperwork, forming the board, filing for non-profit status as well as doing what we do best – creating a website for the organization.  But make no mistake, he is the young man in charge of the organization.

We will be launching the new site soon, along with a blitz of information locally to get this party started, so to speak.  So stay tuned, particularly if you are in the Richmond metro area.  Good things are coming soon from WeCanShare.org.

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I roasted a pie pumpkin yesterday after cutting it into large chunks, tucking cloves of garlic in between the slices, drizzling generously with olive oil, and adding a little sea salt and pepper.  I cooled it overnight in preparation for making the risotto today.

I don’t often cluck about what I cook, but I must say that this is absolutely fabulous.  I need to write down the recipe to share on the new blog once it goes up.  But for now, I’m sharing the pictures below to keep you anticipating this recipe.

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