“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” – Albert Einstein
Problem: How to handle copyrighted images for this blog.
Avoidance: Use free images from Unsplash.com
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The greatest companies in lousy industries share certain characteristics. They are low-cost operators and penny-pinchers in the executive suite. They avoid going into debt. They reject the corporate caste system… Their workers are well paid and have a stake in the companies’ future. They find niches, part of the market that bigger companies have overlooked. They grow fast – faster than many companies in fashionable fast-growth industries…
Pompous boardrooms, overblown executive salaries, demoralized rank & file, excessive indebtedness, and mediocre performance go hand in hand. This also works in reverse. Modest boardrooms, reasonable executive salaries, a motivated rank and file, and small debts equal superior performance most of the time.
– Peter Lynch, “Beating the Street”
The most efficient route that nature has found from point A to B is rarely a straight line. It is always the path of least resistance. The most efficient way to turn someone’s talent into performance is to help him find his own path of least resistance toward the desired outcomes.
From “First Break All the Rules” by Gallup, Inc.
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When I started a corporate design firm I was determined to go beyond graphics logos and color palettes by fusing strategy content and design to reflect the distinctive corporate voice of each client.
The marketing department of a retail bank asked me to redesign the customer forms – applications, signature cards, loan notes – to reinforce their desired images of global banking leader.
The shock of seeing their installment loan note made it clear to me that design was not the issue or the solution. Riddled with dense legalese, the contract screamed, “Don’t read this!” But it also communicated a great business opportunity.
Here is the original default clause:
In the event of a default in the payment of this or any other Obligation or the performance or observance of any term or covenant contained herein or an any note or other contract or agreement evidencing or relating to any Obligation or any Collateral on the Borrower’s part to be performed or observed; or the undersigned Borrower shall die; or any of the undersigned become insolvent or make an assignment for the benefit of creditors; or a petition shall be filed by or against any of the undersigned under any provision of the Bankruptcy Act; or any money, securities are property of the undersigned now or hereafter on deposit with or in possession or under the control of the bank shall be attached or become subject to distraint proceedings or any order or process of any court; or the Bank shall deem itself to be insecure then and in any such event the bank shall have the right (at its option), without demand or notice of any kind, to declare all or any parts of the Obligations to it be immediately due and payable, whereupon such obligations shall become and be immediately due and payable, and the Bank shall have the right to exercise all the rights and remedies available to a secured party upon default under the Uniform Commercial Code (the “Code”) In effect in New York at the time, and such other rights and remedies as may otherwise be provided by law.
…and here is how we rewrote it:
I’ll be in default:
That was it. We learned a valuable lesson that the content must be questioned first before rewriting.
From “Simple” by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzcorn
“I’m a hot rodder. I’m an innovator. I’m not an engineer. I hope I’m never accused of that, because that narrows your thinking.” -Carroll Shelby
A colleague once said about me, “Not only does he think outside the box, he doesn’t even know there IS a box.”
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Once, I said to him, “Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.” Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, “I’ll prepare a freshman lecture on it.”
But he came back a few days later to say, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don’t really understand it.”
From “Feynman’s Lost Lecture” (about physics classes Feynman taught in the 1960s) by Caltech colleague David Goodstein
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It was July of 1961 and the 38 members of the Green Bay Packers football team were gathered together for the first day of training camp. The previous season had ended with a heartbreaking defeat when the Packers squandered a lead late in the 4th quarter and lost the NFL Championship to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Green Bay players had been thinking about this brutal loss for the entire off-season and now, finally, training camp had arrived and it was time to get to work. The players were eager to advance their game to the next level and start working on the details that would help them win a championship.
Their coach, Vince Lombardi, had a different idea.
He took nothing for granted. He began a tradition of starting from scratch, assuming that the players were blank slates who carried over no knowledge from the year before… He began with the most elemental statement of all. “Gentlemen,” he said, holding a pigskin in his right hand, “this is a football.”
From “Vince Lombardi on the Hidden Power of Mastering the Fundamentals” by James Clear
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