Hola and thanks for reading.

FYI I’ve decided to switch up my online identity and therefore, this blog is dying … to be reborn in a remix mashup of all my blogs together at last in one spot. All new posts will live at Sparkplug 9.

Thanks so much for reading, and please join the party at the (slightly) different address.

Tags: sparkplug9, john koetsier, bizhack, EOL

I recently received a promotion, and I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a manager versus a leader, what kind of leadership I want to provide, and what kind of a leader do I want to grow to be …

This is tough stuff, and I’m pretty sure I have a long way to go. But I think the critical piece is summed up in this advice that I found on PositiveSharing (the chief happiness officer’s blog):

A leader is best when the people are hardly aware of his existence,
not so good when people stand in fear,
worse, when people are contemptuous.

Fail to honour people, and they will fail to honour you.

But a good leader who speaks little,
when his task is accomplished, his work done,
the people say “We did it ourselves.”

The person who said that lived 2500 years ago in China: Lao Tzu.

Tags: leadership, office, work, lao tzu, john koetsier

Pickthebrain has a post on selling yourself.

I can personally attest that, after getting the qualifications and knowledge you need to succeed in your chosen field, being able to “sell yourself” is the most critical part of professional success.

The highlights:

• Be Sold on Yourself
• Have a Saleable Package
• Be Positive and Enthusiastic
• Be Real and Authentic

I’d have to say the most important one, though, is not there. To me, it’s that day in and day out, you have to work hard, put your best foot forward, make those around you look good, and not care (too much) about who gets the credit.

Tags: success, business, life, john koetsier, pickthebrain

. . . Excel help than Excel.

Every single time I need to find out how to do something in Excel, I try to figure it out from Excel help. Search usually gets me nowhere, but sometimes gives me a clue what I should actually be searching on. But the help I usually get is not very helpful.

So I turn to Google, and usually on the first page of results, using the search terms that make sense to me (an admitted Excel weenie, and proud of it) I find the answer.

Isn’t that bass-ackwards? Shouldn’t the best source of information about your product come from your company?

Tags: google, excel, help, john koetsier

I just got another LinkedIn connection request this morning. Every one has a little LinkedIn fact at the bottom, like this:

Fact: 3,414 CEOs use LinkedIn every day

As you know, since you’re a smart denizen of the blogosphere, whether something is a fact or not is a function of what kind of statement it is … not about whether it’s true.

So here’s my version of that fact:

Fact: 3,414 people who claim to be CEOs use LinkedIn every day

That’s much better. None of the CEOs that I know personally have anywhere near enough time to be obsessively checking LinkedIn every single day.

What about you?

Tags: linkedin, connections, john koetsier

So, Universal wants to invent a new model for music sales:

Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest record label, is looking to mobile hardware makers to foot the bill for a free music subscription service for buyers of a certain mobile phone or music player, The Telegraph reported Saturday.

Think. What does a model where you buy a piece of music-playing equipment and then the music itself is free remind you of? Oh yes, radio!

Hmm … so they’re trying to reinvent radio here? Nice “new” model here.

I wonder what other parts of the radio experince they’ll try to replicate? The lousy music choice? The annoying DJs? Maybe. But there’s another piece of the radio universe that I predict will come along with the “free” music, if this model actually makes it out the door.

Advertising.

That’s the only way there could possibly be enough revenue in this ridiculous model to support a continual flow of new music. But isn’t the 20 minutes an hour of radio advertising one of the reasons we bought iPods in the first place?

No worries. As Dr Phil would say: this dog won’t hunt.

PS:

Why are the labels so fixated on hardware revenues? They are constantly complaining about the money Apple makes on the iPod … but they never complained before about not getting revenue from radios and stereo equipment. If only they would fixate on being best at what they’re supposed to do: find and promote great music.

Tags: labels, music, industry, ipod, apple, MP3, player, john koetsier

Well, I’m unhappy to report that Second Life is just as big a pain in the you-know-what as my first life.

I’ve had an account for years, but haven’t used it much. However, now I’m doing a paper for my master’s program in educational technology, and thought I’d get back in for some hands-on research.

Only problem? Bugs, bugs, bugs.

After downloading and installing a fresh client right from the Second Life servers, I’m told during start up that I need the latest version. Clicking the download update button crashes with an unknown error (twice) … so now I’m re-downloading Second Life … all 90 MBs of it.

Fun, fun, fun. If this wasn’t for a good cause …

Tags: second life, bugs, first life, john koetsier

Today’s quote of the day:

“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.”

- Michael Pascal

(From the introductory session of a lean “rapid improvement event” that we’re doing in my company. “Lean,” by the way, is a version of the Toyota Production System.)

Tags: quote, michael pascal, john koetsier, lean, tps

This is bloody amazing:

(Saw it here.)

Tags: iphone, easy, user-friendly, baby, apple, john koetsier

OK, I’ve moved my OPML to Google Reader from Bloglines and I’m going to give it a shot.

Based on the last 15 minutes use, it’s probably going to stick.

We’ll see …

Tags: google, reader, rss, bloglines, feeds, john koetsier