The young man was a sophomore in college. It was summertime. But was he out working or looking for a job? No. He was reclined on the bed eating Reese Cups. His father approached.
A Friendly Father and Son Talk
“What are you doing? You should be out looking for a job. When I was your age, we worked our way through college with summer jobs. Get out and get a job in seven days… or else.”
The “or else” was not specified but was uttered with a vehement voice full of dark consequences.
Five days later the father walked back into his son’s room on a bright, warm, summer day—a perfect day to be outside performing manual labor and getting paid for it; but his son was asleep, yes asleep. The father began the ignition sequence that rivaled a space-shuttle launch, but then… something caught his eye from across the room.
To his astonishment, he saw a big stack of bills—greenbacks, bucks, real money. Not minimum-wage kind of money. The father, suspecting some drug-dealing or criminal skullduggery, reached down and levitated the young man off of his bed in one fell swoop. A near-death experience was impending for the young man.
“What?” squealed the son.
The father held up the stack of bills. “Where did this money come from?”
“Oh, that. I sold a character.”
“What?”
“You told me I had to work. I created a gaming character with some superhero special skills for an online game. That’s my cut after my broker took his 10 percent. It’s $4,000.”
“How long did that take?”
“One week.”
Then it sunk in. His boy was an entrepreneur; forced to be one because he abhorred physical work and low wages. He had created and developed computer characters and sold them. Online, imaginary characters with superhero skills for an imaginary world in which his friends immersed themselves. And, he made more in one week than many people make in a month.
“Ok. I guess that’s acceptable. You can work at home.”
“Thanks, and Dad, you know when you said that when you were young you could work your way through college working during the summer? Well, I did the math. If I could make $36,000 in two months during the summer, why would I want to go to college?”
The yearly tuition for the university that he was attending was $36,000. The young man went on by saying,
“And, I wouldn’t have to take out student loans. You know Jimmy, our neighbor who graduated two years ago with a law degree? He told me he has $75,000 in student loans and can’t find a decent job. He’s delivering pizzas now.”
I know this story because that father was me. The young man is my son. But that story begged the question, why does college cost so much now?
What Happened?
In 1975, the College Entrance Examination Board estimated the average total cost of a four-year public college at $2,679 a year ($11,852 in 2014 dollars). The average total cost of a private college: $4,391 ($19, 420 in 2014 dollars). Fast forward to the 2012-2013 school year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average first-year, on-campus tuition for a public and an in-state public school was $21,700, and for a four-year private school was $43,000. That takes the price of a four-year degree to between $85,000 and $215,000 in tuition alone, without room, board and incidentals.
What is the purpose of higher education? Is it to prepare people for jobs? Prepare them to be critical thinkers? Or, prepare them to be better citizens and students of the world?
From my perspective, it’s to prepare the next generation to move humanity forward; to improve the world. To do that, you have to give intellectual, social and moral instruction to the student, which includes learning how to think critically and developing relevant job skills for today’s employment opportunities. But it’s much more than that. It’s also preserving and protecting current knowledge while creating new knowledge. To quote MIT’s Shigeru Miyagawa[1],
“New knowledge to share and bring to bear against the big problems of the world.”
Losing Focus Costs a Lot
Loss of mission focus is one of the main reasons why college costs so much. According to the 2014 American Association of University Professors Report, Losing Focus[2], from 1978 to 2014, administration positions rose by 369 percent while, during the same period, full-time tenure and tenure-track positions increased by just 23 percent.
Administrators don’t teach. A core mission focus for any higher-education organization is teaching.
Regulation
In fairness to higher-education institutions, a big part of this increase in administrative personnel is driven by government regulations. For example, the special report Compliance at Hartwick College[3] found that it was regulated by 28 federal agencies, 15 state agencies, four local governments and seven accrediting agencies. They identified 247 compliance items that are requested by 36 different entities. This not only requires but also demands, additional personnel and resources.
According to the Hartwick study, the annual cost of all compliances for the College, a small liberal arts school in upstate New York with only 1,500 undergraduates, totaled $297,000, and that’s a small school.
Higher Education Recreation Arms Race
Much of this increase, however, is self-inflicted. How? Former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, commenting on why colleges cost so much, in the US News Today article “Why Does College Cost so Much?” stated:
Part of the problem stems from schools spending money on unnecessary campus amenities to attract students—building student unions and athletic facilities that “resemble country clubs.”
Could Reich be right? A cursory look on many American campuses will reveal perks like rock-climbing centers, lazy river rides, outdoor pools with massive video screens, free movie theaters, on-campus steakhouses, ice cream parlors, massage centers, even water parks, just to mention a few of the latest perks. Did you get that? Water parks?
According to NIRSA, the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, 92 schools reported over 1.7 billion in new recreational capital projects in 2013. How does that help educate the next generation to move humanity forward? Or prepare them for a job or career? It doesn’t. However, it does get the student used to unrealistic spectacular amenities and lifestyles that are subsidized by student-loan debt, which is painless until they leave school.
In what college are athletics and recreation a core mission? Higher-education leaders, in the guise of branding and marketing efforts, say they need these amenities and perks to compete with other institutions to attract and retain the best and brightest. A few institutions can successfully pull this off, but many can’t. This dilutes mission focus and escalates costs. Worse? It causes the very heartbeat of our future (the young students) to take on unconscionable amounts of debt to get a degree from these institutions; debt that will shackle and enslave them for years to come. Some for a lifetime.
Have Costs Really Risen that Much?
A small-business friend of mine, suffering from rapidly rising costs to insure his employees, disagreed with me on the cost of higher education.
Costs haven’t really risen that much over the years compared to other industries. For example, medical-care costs have increased outrageously in comparison to higher-education costs in the same timeframe. I know. I live it every day.
A 1,122 Percent Increase
That perception is out there. Costs have risen, but not that much in comparison to other industries, especially medical-care costs.
That perception is wrong. According to the National Center for Education Statistics[4],
The price of college tuition (indexed) and fees have exploded by more than 1,122 percent since 1978.
The cost of medical care rose less than 600 percent in that same timeframe.
The cost of an undergraduate degree is 12 times higher than it was in 1980.
Costs have increased dramatically. It’s inarguable. But it’s also inarguable that the successful future of not only America but humanity itself is built on the foundation of education. A college education is costly, but it also changes your life forever. Whether you’re a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, a police officer or a business owner, education moves you forward through life—economically, socially and (hopefully) morally.
Student-Loan Debt
Access to a college education depends on affordability for the majority of Americans. But with costs so high, how do you pay for college? Student-loan debt—a lot of it.
That’s why out of 71 percent of all students graduating in 2013, 1.3 million carried approximately $33,000 in debt[5]. Student-loan debt (as of 2014) exceeds $1.2 trillion. It has more than tripled since 2004, is more than all of the U.S. credit-card debt combined and is the highest form of consumer debt second only to mortgages. This debt ends up being long-term, and on average, it takes:
20 years to pay off undergraduate-degree loans and
23 years to pay off graduate-degree loans
The Demons of Debt
During the writing of the book ““Margins and Missions… Not Moonshots: Pathways to Better U.S. Higher Education,“ I spoke with many recent college graduates. Almost all (except students from wealthy families) were shackled with out-size, long-term student debt. Many had monthly payments of over $1200. That’s equivalent to the payment of a nice three-bedroom house in the Midwest. Many were not working in their desired field or making the salary they expected because of the recent economic maelstrom and recession. But that debt is still there. Those payments, though they can be deferred, do not go away. They stifle, they suffocate, and they metastasize.
When the baby-boomers got out of college, they had very little student-loan debt. They went to work, moved out from their parents’ home, rented apartments, bought cars, started families and purchased houses. That consumption helped fuel the growth of the U.S. economy.
Student-loan debt seriously curtails new and recent graduates from doing the same. The rate of home ownership is 36 percent less among those currently repaying student debt, according to the One Wisconsin Institute[6], and their data suggest that student-loan debt reduces new-vehicle spending in the U.S. by $6.4 billion yearly. Student debt also diverts funds away from retirement, new-business startups, and other consumer purchases
People with serious student-loan debt also struggle emotionally and socially. Here are a couple of comments from people I spoke with:
I met the girl of my dreams. What’s she going to think when she learns I have $100,000 in student loans? That’s a long-term noose around my neck. Will she dump me? I would if I were her.
and
I’m 35 years old, and over half of my monthly pay goes to student-loan debt. I’m never going to be able to afford a house or a car.
Student-loan debt has driven people to contemplate and even commit suicide. In C. Cryn Johansen’s article, The Ones We Lost: The Student Loan Debt Suicides[7], she chronicles several heartbreaking student-loan-debt-inspired suicides. People heavily indebted with no jobs or low-paying jobs who see no light at the end of the tunnel. They see no way ever to work their way out of debt. It crushes them.
A Stark Reality – the Dark Demons of Debt
The American future depends on pursuing the American dream. That American dream is fueled by and built on education—especially higher education. But access to higher education depends on affordability. College is not affordable for the average American family. It costs too much. The only way to gain access for most is student-loan debt. If student loans weren’t available, over 70 percent of Americans would not be able to attend college. Access would be limited to only the very wealthy and the elite few that earned scholarships and grants enough to pay for it.
The extreme amount of current student-loan debt shackles and enslaves people for decades. Instead of pursuing the American dream, these student-loan debt holders become economic slaves with their future potential being sucked out by the dark demons of debt. Their consumption power—the ability to buy houses and cars, start businesses and other consumer purchases—cannot fuel future economic growth for America because a great deal of that money goes directly back to the banks.
These dark demons of debt are the Achilles heel of a growing, thriving American economy.
The Solution?
I’m writing this as a parent. A parent concerned for this and future generations. When I see a truck barreling down the road and getting ready to run me over, I’m savvy enough to get out of the way. The student-loan truck loaded with demons of debt and dire consequences is barreling down the road at all of us.
For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.
– H. L. Mencken
The answer is simple; getting to the answer is the problem.
It’s a Little Stickier Than That
These issues—accessibility, affordability, and debt—are a complicated web of intricately linked issues that have to be addressed with a fierce, focused, multi-pronged attack, much like cancer or the Ebola virus. First you isolate and contain, then treat, ameliorate and finally eradicate … as much as possible.
During the writing of this book, I had the opportunity to speak to many higher-education and business leaders. Some of the best and brightest. Many pointed to possible solutions to the student-loan and college-affordability problem. Here are some solutions that seem to have immediate and impactful potential.
Debt: Loan Forgiveness
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program[8] is intended to encourage people to enter and work full time in public-service jobs. People in the program may qualify for “forgiveness of the remaining balance of their Direct Loans after they have made 120 qualifying payments on those loans while employed full time by certain public-service employers.”
But why only public-service employees? Who pays for that forgiveness? The taxpayers and private enterprise of course. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The government is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, not of the people, by the people and for the government people. This program should apply to all people in student-loan debt programs. If you are employed and make 120 qualifying payments on your Direct Loans, the remainder of the balance should be forgiven. I suspect that taking this action would also substantially change student-loan debt issuance.
Debt: Loan Refinancing
Current student-loan financing terms are all over the place. In many instances, student loans cannot be refinanced, and people are stuck with high-interest rates. This is unconscionable. We must do everything we can to help people who are shackled by these high rates and high payments. It’s a drag on the economy, and it affects everyone—except the banks.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has an idea to address this issue. Her bill, S. 897, wants the Federal Reserve System to give student-loan borrowers the equivalent to the interest rates at which the federal government provides loans to banks through the discount window operated by the Federal Reserve System. That rate currently (2014) is less than one percent (0.75%). This would make a drastic difference to cash flow for student-debt loan holders.
Debt: Radical Loan Forgiveness
Another option is a radical reset. Wipe out all student-loan balances and start from scratch. The government bailed out the banks from collapse in 2008, so why can’t they do it for the student-loan victims? It’s radical no doubt, and it needs study. But, think about it—what do you think would be the impact of freeing up people with draconian student-loan payments? They would start purchasing houses, cars, other products and assets and even start new businesses.
Is this a good idea? Not sure. But can you see the possibilities? Maybe even a variation of this radical approach by forgiving portions of the debt for some types of purchases. For example, a 2013 housing-market survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that nearly half of all surveyed cited student-loan debt as “a huge obstacle to home ownership.” One Wall Street firm recently proposed that a large portion of someone’s student-loan debt could be forgiven if the person purchased a house. That would change the debt into a productive form of debt instead of a destructive drag on the economy. Surely there are some smart, innovative financial thinkers out there who can solve this issue.
Debtor’s Prison or Bankruptcy?
Under the current federal law, federal and/or private student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Banks love this. They say it keeps interest rates low. But for some people, it traps them in lifelong debt with no chance to ever dig their way out.
It’s the modern-day equivalent of a debtor’s prison.
Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate panel on education, proposed H.R. 3892 in the 113th Congress (2013-2014), which removes educational loans from the list of debts that are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. This would also bring sanity back into the loan process. Loans would be looked at closer if the banks knew that there was a risk of them not being paid back.
That is common sense.
Cost: Tuition Free
Germany now offers free tuition to all students—national and international. Why? Mainly because they think it is socially discriminatory to charge tuition. Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a Hamburg senator, said that tuition fees were “unjust” and that “they discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high-quality standard free of charge.”
This, of course, seems desirable but almost too good to be true.
However, there is a significant difference between German and American universities. German universities don’t have all of the perks, amenities, and recreational options that some American institutions do—some might say that “…you have to work in school to get a degree, not lounge around in water parks watching movies.”
Germany isn’t the only country, though. Finland, France, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, and Brazil offer free or almost free tuition for students—even Americans.
MIT’s OpenCourseWare and Intellectual Philanthropy
I’m an advocate of MIT’s OpenCourseWare and its mission of Intellectual Philanthropy. OCW has power, resources, and presence to make a real difference in the world.
OCW publishes virtually all MIT course content and makes it widely available (mostly free) to the world as a permanent MIT activity that they call “Intellectual Philanthropy.”
At this writing, MIT OCW, which is one of the most widely used educational resources on the Web, has:
2206 courses online
602 MIT faculty contributing
Over two-million visitors per month
10.3 million monthly page views
Over 200-million visitors since inception.
Over the past ten years, the program has generated some dramatic usage numbers, including:
43.5 million iTunes lecture video downloads
48.6 million YouTube lecture video views
18.5 million downloads of course-content .zip files.
A voluntary effort of the MIT faculty, OCW is one of the largest intellectual philanthropy efforts ever by a higher-education institution. The OCW site includes materials from five Nobel Prize winners and 44 MacVicar Fellows—professors who are recognized by the Institute for their outstanding contributions to MIT undergraduate education.
The ability to access MIT courses is an amazing learning resource. The only downside is that enrollees don’t get credit for it… yet. Maybe someday. But, if you need to stay up with the latest and greatest in your industry—or ahead of it—this is the place to start, and you will incur no student-loan debt.
Continuing and never-ending learning is now the norm for our world. MIT OCW is the very first place that I check when I want to track down and learn “knowledge to bring to bear against the big problems of the world.”
The $10,000 Degree
The academic paper[9], “$1 Trillion and Rising: A Plan for a $10K Degree” by Anya Kamenetz, focuses on reducing the costs of a degree with a six-step plan to get to a quality $10,000 college degree. The steps include:
Reduce non-teaching personnel and restructuring the use of teaching personnel.
End the “perk wars” (already discussed in this chapter).
Focus on graduation, not enrollment. Focusing on graduation completely changes the cost equation.
Dramatically increase blended learning with the use of MOOCs, but also integrate these technologies to not only increase productivity but also to free up faculty to provide intensive, one-to-one teaching and mentoring.
Streamline offerings and charging $10K for BAs in the top 10-12 fields of study. Eighty percent of undergraduates choose from approximately a dozen fields of study, yet a top-tier public university offers around 250 fields of study.
Rethink the college architecture into smaller units. The paper suggests a framework of cohort colleges, adult online universities, flagship campuses and micro/popup schools.
While some of these suggestions may be controversial and radical, some are changes that are long overdue and would reap immediate results.
Having the great opportunity to perform, compile and edit many of the interviews in this book, some other ideas with great potential have surfaced. A few are listed below.
New Sources of Revenue—Universities need to find and free up new revenue streams instead of relying on tuition increases. Simplifying operational and institutional complexity issues alone could save hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. Here’s one example. Colleges and universities invest $92 billion in research and IP and only generate a 1 percent return[10]. Surely we can do better.
Costs—A former president of Ohio State University once stated:
I readily admit it, I didn’t think a lot about costs. I do not think we have given significant thought to the impact of college costs on families.
An Entrepreneurial Mindset—We need to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset that’s focused on better serving students and fulfilling the core institutional mission. If an institution is run with an entrepreneurial mindset, there will be plenty of focus put on costs. Colleges and universities cannot deliver on their stated missions without margins, and there can be no margins without accountability and a business mindset.
Act Now—The time to act is now if we want to save the future of the U.S. higher education system. We need to help universities find and free up new revenue streams and resources, reduce support and administrative costs and streamline their complex organizations. Also, we need to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset that’s focused on better serving students and fulfilling the core institutional mission.
We can fix this. We must fix this. Our future depends on it.
The B2B Complex Sale. Mysterious. Ethereal. Shivers the timbers of man and beast alike (including Marketing and PR people). It has ended the career of many a person. Sent many a company down in flames. Healthcare reform? Bah… that’s simple. Not even close to a B2B complex sale. But what really is a …
… COMPLEX SALE?
In a nutshell, it’s this. The complex sale typically refers to a high-value purchase $150,000 and higher, involving a buyer’s committee consisting of anywhere from 10 to 25 people … or more. The sales cycle is frustratingly long – anywhere from 12-36 month. Worse still it involves multiple decision-makers, all with different viewpoints, agendas and radically different and annoying personalities.
IT’S A SCIENCE–IT’S AN ART
To win at the complex sale, one must be a storyteller, master tactician, strategist, cajoler, evaluator, philosopher, psychologist, bean counter and techno-geek.
I spent a week of intense education on the topic of “complex sale.” It was tough-taught by a serious taskmaster with an honest determination for me to learn. What I took away is this … it’s complex. But not really. It’s all about people – people trying to solve a problem and you enabling them to pay you to help solve that problem. It’s also all about connections. Connecting the wants/needs/desires of the technical and business users with the Big Kahuna’s (C-leader$hip) vision and interests.
COMPLEX IS PRETTY SIMPLE
Now I have it all figured out. It’s simple. Watch closely as I skillfully take apart the most difficult of adversaries and personalities in a B2B tech complex sale.
IT DIRECTORS & CIO’S (AKA UNDERCOVER PHYSICISTS)
Physicists are incredibly brilliant and deviously clever people. They can convince you that the word “impossible” is basically “relative,” and you believe them. They can convince you that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then they invent the word “tachyon,” which stands for a hypothetical, supraluminal quantum particle that never travels SLOWER than the speed of light. When it loses energy, it travels FASTER, and it makes complete sense when they explain it. You believe them. Yes, physicists are brilliant. Clever. Deviously so; much like IT Directors and CIO’s.
They’re the people paid to make sure everything you do (relating to technology, which is just about everything right?) in your business works smoothly, quickly and cheaper. Cheaper, that is, than it did in 1980. And they do it. They’re a very important player in any complex technology sale. You need to know they’re ultimately in the money – they report to the CFO or CEO. So if you need something that is crucial to your operations – like a brand new Mac Pro to run your in-house video-production center for your corporate PR, Sales and Marketing function – you’re going to have to convince (tangle with) them. I’m using this apocalyptic need for a Mac Pro simply as an illustration, because the total value it could DELIVER would be – in the complex sales territory – upwards of a couple hundred thousand dollars. .. conservatively speaking of course.
ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Not only are typical IT directors brilliant, clever and devious, they insist on you jumping through IMPOSSIBLE hoops, which are not really relative; things like filling out a cost-justification form and answering questions like, “What the ROI be?” and “How long will it take?” They’re not like normal people. I mean “cool, quick, awesome, we can do sweet videos on it for everyone” just doesn’t cut it with these blockheads. Even when I told them it took three days and 22 hours to edit a 30-second corporate product video, they STILL asked those inane questions about ROI and cost.
So you have to tell a whale of a story rivaling the biblical creation to convince these strange personalities that lead IT departments. It has to be Simple, Memorable, Accurate, Repeatable and Totally off the hook. (There’s an acronym there I think.) And it needs to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince them that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to the new Mac Pro they will be soon be gladly approving. (There’s an acronym there too I think, but I’m bold enough not to point it out.)
SOCRATIC GOLDILOCKS-ESIAN STORYTELLING
That’s where Goldilocks comes in. Makes perfect sense to me. So tag along for an intellectual ride nonpareil.
IT BEGINS
If I told you that right now you were traveling at 1,000 mph, you’d think I’m nuts, or drank too much last night … or both. You’d be right. You’re not really traveling at 1,000 mph, You’re …
… SPINNING
at about 1,000 mph. That’s the rotation speed of the earth. If you’re on earth right now (and hopefully you are if you’re reading this), you’re actually spinning at about 1,000 mph. That rotational speed happens to be not too fast, not too slow but just right for life to exist on earth. Much faster and severely violent weather and apocalyptic storms would reign – and life wouldn’t. Too much slower and one side of the earth would be Hades hot, the other Antarctica cold. It’s just about right.
What if I said to you right now, wherever you’re located, you’re …
… TILTING
at 23.5 degrees? You’d think I’m nuts, disoriented, drank too much … or all three. Well in fact, you are; 23.5 degrees is the “Obliquity of the Ecliptic.” That’s a high falutin’, scientific gobbledygook word (much like “seamlessly integrated” and “leading provider” in business lingo) that means “tilt” of the earth axis. Tilted much more or less would leave the Earth unstable – make it wobble – and the earth could tumble, making life impossible and most certainly making for a WILD RIDE in the process. Sounds like a movie to me. It’s just right.
And what if I said to you that you’re not only spinning at 1,000 mph and tilted at 23.5 degrees, you’re also traveling through space at …
… 66,000 MPH
That’s 18 miles per second. And at that 66,000 mph, we have a dancing partner – the moon. And that moon is not too big, not too small, but just the right size to stabilize the earth’s rotation and keep it from wobbling too much – and so life exists. In this earth-moon, boot scooting solar, two-step boogie, the “dark side of the moon, which we never see, also helps shield the earth from comets and meteors.
And what if I said to you, that as you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees and dancing a 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon, we have a big brother watching …
… JUPITER
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its diameter is 10 times larger than Earth and is over 300 times the mass. Jupiter’s gravitational pull is so great it’s like a mega dark side of the moon. It attracts comets and meteors away from Earth and hurls them out of the solar system. If Jupiter was much bigger, Earth would be hurled out along with them. Much smaller, and Goldilocks would be blasted with comets and meteor boulders from space – and that would just not be right.
I’m about done. (Am I working hard for the Mac Pro or not?) Two more things. If I said that you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, while doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over you, that none of that matters. No, none of that would matter at all if it wasn’t for the …
… SUN
Does it get any better than the sun? Free energy. Free light. Life-giving heat to ensure oxygen and water. Would hanging out at the beach even be the same? The sun is at exactly the right size and distance so we can listen to our iPod’s and whine about not having a Mac Pro while we sun ourselves at the beach. Any bigger or closer and we’d fry. Any smaller or further away and we’d be lifeless remnants memorialized in icicles.
EARTH MOON SUN BOOT-SCOOTING BOOGIE
So, spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over and protects while the free energy, light and warmth-giving Sun nourishes life.
But none of that would really matter if we were off by ….
… ONE PART
If the expansion rate of the universe was changed by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, faster or slower, life on earth would not exist. Not too fast. Not too slow. Really, really, really just right.
Amazing. Bumfuzzling. And … cool. But none of that matters either if we were off …
… ONE INCH
If a measuring tape were stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the force strengths of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) and the tape was moved one inch in either direction, life on earth would not exist. One inch? Not too big. Not too small. But exceptionally just right.
THE END … SORTA
Before I wrap up with my call for action, here’s a slight comment on the story facts above. It could never sell in Hollywood. Or TV. Why?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” – Pudd’n Head Wilson (an intellectually astute and under-appreciated philosopher)
SO ABOUT ALL THOSE FACTS AND THE MAC PRO – MY CALL TO ACTION
Dear Omnisicent, Omnipotent, IT Director:
If you take that very same measuring tape, stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the allocated, amortized total cost of a Mac Pro, BUT immediately take advantage of the video value it can provide to the company … life would not only exist on earth (and my cube) better and faster, but also at prices that are at least 13.7 billion years old. Imagine, we could deliver some pretty cool and sweet looking 21st video products. So let’s do it.
THE REAL END
I wanted the pitch to be simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it needed to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince him that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to him authorizing my new Mac Pro.
I think it was. I’m sure he understood. He approved the requisition. But he did it in terms that were simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it added value, was statistically unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to me.
He put the Mac Pro on layaway for me and scheduled payment terms in one-inch increments stretched across the unfathomable expanse of the universe. Then he sent me a personalized and heartless email to tell me when to expect it.
It’s on my calendar to be picked it up in about 13.7 billion years (more or less).
###
RELATED LINKS
If you want more info on the “Goldilocks Universe” check out:
How did you do? What did you do? What did you do that really mattered?
Have you even thought about it that way? Or …
WERE YOU JUST TOO BUSY?
Have you considered how precious and fleeting each moment is?
How each breath extending our existence is an amazing blessing on this blue-green magical orb called earth?
An earth that travels through space at over 1,000 miles per hour and moves around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour?
Or did you have…
TOO MUCH TO DO?
Too much to do to stop for the wonder?
I did. I know. Sad. Yes.
AND…
Have you considered that if the expansion rate of the universe was changed by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, faster or slower, life on earth would not exist?
TOO MANY EMAILS
Or did you have too many e-mails to think about that?
My inbox was pretty much always full. Now my mobile text message box is too. Hold on … Pinterest is pintering me. Instagram is Instagramming me. And crap… the new social media networking app Plague is plaguing me.
TOO MANY TOO MANY’S
And Twitter tweeting. Facebook Fb’ing. LinkedIn linking in. GooglePlus plussing.. StumbleUpon stumbling.
And all the while, a world of wonder, magnificent and magical, motors on – with or without us.
There are just way too many too many’s.
A REALLY BIG INCH
Did you know that if a measuring tape were stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon indescribable gazillions of inches) representing the force strengths of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) and the tape was moved by just one inch in either direction, life on earth would not exist?
TOO MANY MEANINGLESS MEETINGS
Or were you too busy to think about that because you had to prepare for another meaningless meeting?
Too busy here – too many meetings. Too many meetings that had no meaning.
DID YOU KNOW?
Do you know what would happen if the cosmological constant (the energy density of space) was not tuned to one-part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion (10 followed by 120 zeroes)?
Life on earth would not exist.
TOO MANY PETTY WARS
Or were you too embroiled in petty internecine political turf wars, in business and life, to consider that?
I was too embroiled.
A LIGHT YEAR
Is about 5,865,696,000,000 miles (give or take a couple thousand).
AND A LONG MINUTE
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty – that’s 21 children dying every minute, a child every three seconds. And worldwide…
10.6 million children died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
EVER THINK ABOUT THAT?
22,000 children under the age of five – 21 each minute – die every day, mainly from preventable causes. And 1.4 million children a year die from lack of acces to safe drinking water? Water?
Sadly, as a credit to my self-absorbed selfish selfie inhumanity, I haven’t. That’s a truth that burns.
And,
“They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” – Unicef
THE UNITED STATES OF SELFIES
But sadder? We who have the most don’t even think about it. We whine, complain, argue, fight, gossip. We waste time taking selfies. Selfies at home, selfies in the resturant, selfies driving the car, Selfies, selfies, selfish selfies. But we don’t really think about how blessed we are, how precious and fleeting life is. How, like 2014, is almost gone, we soon will be too.
ONE SIMPLE QUESTION
And in the end, would it’s almost over, when that last breath is staring down our windpipe how we will we answer this simple question, ‘what have you done that mattered?’
Have you thought about that? I have. And found myself wanting. But…
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
So fast.
Another year past.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
2014 almost gone.
2015 soon upon.
John Lennon wrote a song about this 43 years ago called “So This Is Christmas.” The lyrics were both timely and timeless.
TIMELY
They were turbulent times. Times much like today. Differing only in the increased speed, ferocity and utter destructiveness with which things happen. These times I mean. Not then.A sad commentary … we should be better. Get better.
TIMELESS
The lyricsof “So This is Chrostmas” transcend time. Race. Creed. Sex. Religion. Age. Not many do. The words are a calling to stop, reflect, consider, act, and hope … hope for a better future.
2015, the road ahead, beckons.
Many will come.
Many will go.
You? Me?
Who ever knows?
For you … I offer best wishes. Now, listem. Think. Reflect.
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS – WARNING – GRAPHIC IMAGES
So this is Christmas And what have you done Another year over And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas I hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young
So this is Christmas A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas For weak and for strong For rich and the poor ones The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas For black and for white For yellow and red ones Let’s stop all the fight
A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas And what have we done Another year over A new one just begun
And so happy Christmas We hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
War is over, if you want it War is over now War is over now
That was advice given to me long ago on how to properly prepare and give a business presentation. Quite possibly the worst business advice I have ever received. The “watch the boss” advice, however, seems to be set in stone for new people coming up the ranks in business. There’s not a lot of time, money or effort invested in training people internally on how to give presentations. It’s sink or swim … and the sinking can get pretty ugly.
WHAT I WISH I’D LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN – BUT NOT FROM MY BOSS
Having seen hundreds of business presentations and given a few myself, there are a few things I wish someone would have taught me in kindergarten. Seven things or “New Rules” of business presentations to be precise. I pass these on to anyone new to the dreaded gauntlet of the business presentation or any grizzled veterans who want to walk on the wild side and shake things up.
THE BASICS
Structurally there are two completely different parts to every business presentation – composition and delivery.
1. Composition – is creating, organizing, formatting and structuring the ideas, information, insights and imagery. It’s hard work and hard-thinking.
2. Performance– of the presentation is an attitude, mindset, vision and problem-solving stage performance. It’s hard work, hard-thinking, and should inform, educate and if possible, entertain.
ARE YOU A CAESAR?
Great presentations meld composition and performance seamlessly – like Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar.
Every great presentation I’ve seen states a specific problem, the implications of that problem, then provides a pathway to resolve the problem – and reap the attendant benefits. Simple as that. And as complicated as that.
OR A FLYING STINK-O-POTAMUS?
Image by Ben Heine
If a presentation doesn’t state the problem, then provide a vision of a future with that problem solved and the benefit to be expected, it will never be great … or even good.
A presentation that fails that basic but singular task is typically referred to as “A Flying Stink-o-potamus.” Sometimes the “f” is left off the word “flying.”
The seven “New Rules” I propose below mostly involve the composition part of the presentation. If you’re fairly new to business and business presentations, or just don’t want to walk in the same old corporate presentation-crapola anymore, these rules will help set you apart quickly. Might get you fired – but you will be different.
THE SEVEN “NEW RULES” OF BUSINESS PRESENTATIONS
1. NEVER COPY YOUR BOSS
Bad idea. You know why? Because he copied his boss. And his boss copiedhis boss when his boss was copying his boss back when copying included using scribes and hieroglyphics. Back when a tablets were made of stone. Copying your boss is unimaginative, sycophantic and boring. It’s easy though – and that’s why it’s still the number source of bad presentations. Still… NEVER copy your boss. Think for yourself.
* There are some exceptions to this rule – like if your boss is Ron White (the comedian).
“The average PowerPoint slide has 40 words. In some presentations, Steve Jobs has a total of seven words in 10 slides. And why are you cluttering up your slides with too many words?”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
40 words per slide? That flabbergasted me. I’ve never seen less than 75. Carmine must not get out much.
But that rule needs updating. Use no smaller than a 50-point font and strive consistently to use a 60-point font. If you do that you’ll automatically comply with New Rule Number 3.
Try squeezing a lot of 60-point font words on one slide. You’ll see what I mean.
4. BAN ALL BULLET-POINTS
Ban it. Beat it. Bash it. Just don’t ever bullet-point it again.
This is an all-out call to ban the bullet-point. Many a good presentation has been bungled by bilious bullet-points being bandied about in a baffling badinage of balderdash. Really.
Step out of the crowd. March to the beat of your own bullet-pointless presentation. Step out of dark and into the light.
Ban the bullet-point. The world will be a better place!
5. TEXT COLOR – BE CONSISTENT
If your text starts out white – keep it white. Don’t have multiple colors of text throughout the presentation. It’s like reading a 3-D rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir. It’s distracting.
Okay, this is a pet-peeve of mine, other people might not mind reading a rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir, but it is distracting to me.
6. USE VIGOROUS LANGUAGE
I cribbed this from Hemmingway’s Four Rules of Writing. What is vigorous language? Action-oriented. Imperative verbs. And try not to use “ing” words (gerunds), or minimize them as much as possible.
EXAMPLE:
Instead of “creating” use “create.” Instead of “going” use “go.”
A little thing … but it will make your presentation stronger. It works.
“Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” Hemingway said in 1940. “I’ve never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them.”
7. NO CORPORATE GOBBLEDYGOOK VISUALS
Do not use stock photos. Smiling faces of corporate fakeness. This is hard, I know. It’s ingrained in the business culture as much as corporate gobbledygook, which continually invades good clean page space with too many words drained of meaning. A lot of small-to-medium size companies don’t have access to great visuals so they buy into a stock photo subscription. Do the best you can with what you have.
Try to use brilliant, mysterious, evocative images that stun … and know that these can also be simple and stark, as long as they catch the eye and further the storyline of your presentation. Where can you find such images? However, if you want to check out some free to do whatever you want with images that are pretty exceptional try Unsplash.com. Others you can check out include Flickr’s Creative Commons, Comfight,Stock.xchange, and FreePixels.
8. USE THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATIVE LIMITATION
Limit yourself so you can grow. Both creatively and intellectually.
Robert McKee, Hollywood screenwriting guru and bestselling author of the book STORY, and I discussed the principle of creative limitation in “A Simple, Timeless Tale” interview.
“The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it. But creative limitation means instead of doing something the easy way, you do it the hard way. You take a method that is much more difficult to accomplish. As a result in your struggle as a salesman to accomplish the presentation in the form of a story, you are forcing yourself to be creative. The more difficult you make it for yourself, the more brilliant the solutions you will have to come up with or you fail. And when you come up with brilliant creative solutions to the presentation, the results for the people, for the audience, are stunning.”
FORCED FREEDOM
These “New Rules” for business presentations force you to become more creative in your presentations.
They free you to simplify.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci
They free you to beautify.
They free you to amplify.
These New Rules can be the canvas you paint your presentation on to deliver the message any audience really craves which is …
“Make me dream, Touch me, Comfort me, Amuse me, Make me laugh, Make me weep, Make me shudder, Make me think.” – Guy de Maupassant
An anonymous informant in the U.S. Department of the HHS (HCDOP division) just leaked a top secret memo to me. Looks like there’s some deep-thinking going on in Washington about how to get out of the current healthcare reform mess. Of course I don’t want this site to become another Wiki-Wacky-Siki-Dikki Leaks but I have to pass this one on.
No editorial needed … the memo speaks for itself.
DEPARTMENT OF THE HHS (HCP Division) OFFICAL MEMO
Priority 1 Comm
522 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3542
In a cost-cutting & revenue enhancing move to address the sub-optimal Affordable Care rollout, and to come up with a workable solution for the perilous shortfalls in Social Security, Healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, the EPA, the Post Office and every other government entity, the HHS will soon announce a stunningly innovative new program called …
CASH FOR CODGERS
The CASH FOR CODGERS program has been combined with a revivified and re-instituted CASH FOR CLUNKERS program.
CRUSH AND COMPACT
Anyone can participate – the program only requires that a person turn in any codger (over 55-years-old) into any local government-owned car dealership. Codgers will then be packed into perfectly good clunkers, crushed and compacted.
BAD PR POSSIBLE … IF NOT COMMUNICATED WELL
This program may impact the used car market (slightly) and organ donations (not much though, who wants a codger organ?) but is quickly projected to pay off the national debt and balance the budget … in as little as 100 years (unless the Republicans cave again and give us 200 years to pay it off).
BE ON YOUR COMMUNICATIONS “A” GAME
When communicating the details of this program please be on your “A” game and emphasize the positive points;
HELPS THE YOUNG – takes the healthcare tax burden off the young
BALANCES & ERASES – the budget & deficit
ELIMINATES – crazy codger drivers (maybe “eliminates” is not the optimal word.)
GREEN! Gets gas-guzzling clunkers off the road
JOB CREATION – for the auto industry
REDUCES HEALTHCARE COSTS – the elderly make up the preponderance of excessive healthcare costs, after all, they are old.
AVOID THE SCOUNDRELS IN THE MEDIA
Do not get in arguments with the scoundrels on the right, the middle or anyone paying taxes (working). They will portray it as Orwellian. That’s so 1984 – our opposition is laughingly bereft of good ideas or constructive criticism.
LIMBAUGH, BECK, PALIN RUBBISH!
Worse, Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck will make it sound like a socialist political agenda. Sarah Palin, that cold-hearted demon woman from the land of ice and oil, will say it reeks of death panels. Be assured … there are NO DEATH PANELS! RUBBISH!
DON’T BELIEVE IT?
Just turn your codgers into the local car dealer and they will be crushed and compacted. No panels involved. Much more efficient than death panels.
And if they survive the crush and compact? They will be sent to the local VA Hospital. Need we say more?
EXTRA INCENTIVE
If you turn in a codger AND a clunker before the December 23, 2014 Affordable Care deadline you will be eligible for a $65,000 cash rebate and two months free healthcare premiums.
ANY IDIOT CAN BUILD A WEBSITE
However, you will have to do this through your local car dealership because the HHS website (https://www.healthcare.gov/) still isn’t working properly.
“We know, any idiot can create and launch a professional website – but we’re not just any idiots. We’re the government.“
The HHS website is projected to work smoothly by 2024 so be patient. No need to hurry. Besides we outsourced the rest of the new website to Iran (another secret government deal – but don’t tell anyone) and the Moohlas committed to a fully-fuktioning website by early 2024. This is a historical moment in international relations for the US. You might want to add that to the positive unique selling bullet-points of the Cash for Codgers program above.
SUPER EXTRA INCENTIVE FOR TEABAGGERS AND/OR LIBERTARIANS
And, if you turn in a codger, a clunker AND a TEA BAGGER (or Libertarian if approved by the local IRS office) you will get an immediate $65,000 dollar rebate (payable to “cash”), one year healthcare premium rebate, and carte blanche food stamps for 10 years.
BUT WAIT!
There’s more! Free cellphones, every month of the year for the rest of your life! (limited to unlimited minutes.)
BUT WAIT … THERE’S MORE!
If you’re actually employed, we will, in addition, throw in unemployment and disability benefits. I know that sounds stupid but …. (http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/12/12/sheila-jackson-lee-calls-unemployment-benefits-working-men-and-women) – it’s the new American dream!
Besides, working for a living is highly over-rated.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE MORE
And when you, yourself, turn 55-years old (official codgerdom), if you turn in a codger, a clunker, a Teabagger AND a Libertarian, you will be exempt from ALL Cash for Codgers requirements (until 60-years-old – it’s in teh small print).
More details to come. Keep on “need-to-know” basis. We don’t want this to get the shellacking the Affordable Care website took simply for not being clearly unclear.
For more information contact the Department of the Posterior at 202-224-3542.
I received an e-mail from a reader espousing the benefits and yes, even absolute necessity, of using PowerPoint slides during sales presentations (see see below).
“Steve! No way you can give a sales presentation without PowerPoint. Business people expect it … demand it! You must be a marketing bonehead!
Obviously the reader doesn’t know me.
Do I look like a marketing bonehead?
But, the vehemence and hard-core fanaticism of the reader’s comments (which I do not include here due to my civil nature) made me rethink my position.
That’s right. I might quite possibly have been wrong. As hard as that is for me to admit, it’s true. I’m flip-flopping. With a slight qualification.
If you can pass the PowerPoint Presentation Proof-of-Pudding Test below, you are one of those rarefied elites.
A superhero among PowerPoint presenters. (That includes anyone that uses PowerPoint slides to present an argument or presentation of a project, business case, or intelligent information.)
A Business Presentation Without PowerPoint Slides?
Can you really give a business presentation without PowerPoint?
Maybe.
Depends.
Probably. But only if you can pass the Proof-of-Pudding test.
Dare you take the PowerPoint Proof-of-Pudding Test?
The next presentation you give or attend, take note of what occurs after PowerPoint slide number five is swiped/swished onto the screen. Unless you really are “da man,” the Steven Spielberg of the sales presentation, 99 percent of the people in attendance will fall into one of the following disruptive descriptive categories:
1. The Mighty E-mail Master Multi-tasker (MEMM)
The MEMM reads their e-mail on desktops, smartphones, laptops, PDAs, or wireless (or all three at the same time) during your presentation. He looks up occasionally, feigns interest, may smile on the rare occasion and spews a few meaningless corporate acronyms to let you know he’s in the room, then … puts his head down, empties all e-mail folders – including sent, draft, and trash – and proceeds to the nearest online sports or horoscope web page.
*A special note on the MEMM. MEMMs tend to be the most vociferous critic of the presentation after you leave. They can clearly and concisely detail the flaws in any presentation to which they don’t pay attention.
2. The Diligent Dutiful Drone (DDD)
The DDD stares, smiles, nods, drinks, and laughs on rare occasions (keep your distance … could be flatulence) and most closely resembles a display-case manikin. What’s nice about the DDD is:
A. They smile and make you feel a little better about yourself, and
B. They have ZERO influence.
They don’t want to be there.
• You’re boring.
• You’re lying.
• They know it.
But, they’re masters of the art of being actively employed while daydreaming.
3. The Game Player (GP)
A real classic. I like him. Type “A” introverted extrovert. Flips open the laptop, occasionally tries to hide online game-playing activities, but goes to no great effort. Looks up every five to seven minutes and convincingly nods understanding of complex technology, processes and people issues. Has canned industry-analyst quotes or research that is prattled off machine-gun style in the blink of a PowerPoint swish. The GP can typically play between three to five online games at one time, within communities ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 users; answer all attacks; and defend and super-power-pack energizing, life-protecting, virtual-shield questions via Instant Messenger (IM) in less than one second. Very efficient.
4. The D*mn Data Destroyer (3-D)
The 3-D may smile occasionally and has insidiously iridescent eyes and a serial-killer smile that yells, “What lie are you telling?” The 3-D exuberantly researches each fact you use in your presentation and typically has between 800 to 1,000 search engines at his disposal intelligently configured to automate the process of destroying your credibility. His success rate is over 90 percent. Keys to look for: Sometime after PowerPoint slide #10 of your presentation, if he has failed to find a factual misstatement, his eyes turn a glowing red and some spittle or drool visibly emanate. Steer clear … 3-D is extremely dangerous.
5. The “ME-ME,” or the “I’m Much Too Important to Be Here”
The most irritating of presentation attendees, ME-ME, answers all e-mails, never looks up, never pays attention, and takes all cellphone calls while in the meeting. The only courtesy extended to you is turning around backwards to bend over while talking to the auto-repair shop on the cellphone. Sometimes ME-ME even stoops to feigning a cellphone call by testing the ringer … “Sorry, I have to take this very important, business-critical call.”
WARNING! ME-ME is just as dangerous as 3-D. To be able to pull off this offensively rude behavior, ME-ME actually has some power and/or authority. Me-Me is predisposed to not liking your presentation most probably because it wasn’t a ME-ME idea.
Therefore it stinks.
And so do you.
You recognized the categories didn’t you?
Didn’t you?
You did?
You flunked.
But that’s okay. Everyone does. It’s the nature of the business presentation.
However, have you given a PowerPoint presentation presentation without seeing one of them?
If so … YOU ARE ELIGIBLE FOR:
PASSIONATE POWERPOINT PRESENTER’S HALL OF FAME!
Currently there are no members …. you’d be the first.
If you flunked the test …
Do the PowerPoint Punt!
Throw your 58-slide, PowerPoint presentations and reverse-flash, creative swipe/swish, corporate-acronym gobbledygook out the fourth-story window.
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee