Message to Dan Coats, Sen (R) Indiana

Dear Sen Coats,

I learned today that you may filibuster legislation that regards imposing new restrictions on the sale of guns.  I am in favor of reasonable limits on the sale of guns; for example criminal background checks, waiting periods, demonstration of proficiency, mental aptitude, etc.

Please allow a vote on this legislation to proceed to the floor of the Senate.  I believe our nation deserves a vote on this critical issue.

Also: the pull-down list under 'Subject' didn't include Gun Control.  I selected 'Health Care' as a last resort because in my view when people die it is a Health Care issue.

People are fat in this country because of the abundance of cheap food at more outlets, at more times of day, that satisfies every appetite with maximum convenience.  I believe deaths due to guns may be explained the same way.  Make guns more available and more people die - make guns less available and fewer will die.

Thank you,

Kim Brand

Startup advice delivered by Pillow Logistics

One of the great things about being involved with the Business Ownership Initiative and Julie Grice, our executive director, is the great contacts I make.  Wednesday night I sat down with George Pillow, founder of Pillow Logistics.  An Indianapolis business success story.

After a couple+ beers I don't trust my memory to recall everything he said, but here is the gist of it - like getting an MBA in a bar (which happened to be The Columbia Club!)

Accounting.  You must understand numbers.  On your feet in front of a customer and with your accountant, bankers, employees and alone when you are thinking about what to do next.

Networking.  You must constantly make connections and seek relationships that can spread your message.

Marketing/Communications/Sales.  You must learned how to speak with everyone from the board room to the shipping dock.  The first impression you make is what you say and how you say it so don't blow it.

Friendship.  You must adopt a curiosity about people and friendliness that deepens the relationships you share.  While I was sitting with George he made a point of greeting every person in the room by name.  Dale Carnegie said: "There is nothing so sweet as the sound of a person's name to them."  In a competitive world of noise and distraction you need more friends to amplify your results.

George acknowledged the help of many mentors.  Among them Mickey Maurer, Cambridge Capital Partners and Jean Wojtowicz in particular.  He also the critical importance of the small business loan provided by Lynx Capital to get him started.

Finally, despite his success, George remains humble.  He said there is always something to learn, thanks to be paid to someone who helped and gratitude acknowledged for the community which makes personal success possible.  Most of all George told me, he credits his mother for the guidance and counsel that got him through the hardest times.

We all start small - and if we grow up tall it's most likely due to the care and nurturing of our first friend: our Mother.  George said that his Mother was his best friend.

I wrote a CV a while ago that quoted Rousseu and tried to capture the reality that I'm not that smart the way many people think of smart.  I'm not dumb either in the same way.  Like this blog's subtitle describes: People are Polynomials.

So I ran across this great video by Neil deGrasse Tyson that explains how each person is unique, has a mix of talents and should celebrate that.  He says: the world would be a better place if people focused on their talents and not try to fit the mold or fulfill the job descriptions imposed on them by others.

This is also the message of 'The Element," a wonderful book by Sir Ken Robinson that takes up the same subject.  Finding, and being 'in,' your element is the most important mission you have in life.

Another Indianapolis Rotary Club Invocation, delivered 10/16/2012

My son was married about a week ago.  As a matter of some coincidence, they chose to be married at the Speakeasy - a place connected to our speaker's businessincubator.  I hope it works as well for young couples as it does for young businesses.

The occasion of their marriage offered me time to reflect on love.  Of all the emotions it is the most difficult to explain.  The Apostle Paul wrote: "For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love."

I've set many goals in my life and achieved some success, but the achievement of which I am most proud is being married for 37 years.  A life of love shared with my wife.

Our love has changed through the years - the Greeks were the first to determined there were four types of love.  And I believe you can find all of them on display here today at Rotary:

Affection: We meet every week, sharing greetings, genuinely interested in listening to each other and doing business on the square.  You may not think this is love but of the four kinds it is the most natural and widely experienced.  An affection for nature, a cause, and a curiosity is love.  What soul could thrive apart from that?

Friendship: The old saying: "Make new friends, cherish the old.  One is silver the other gold" isn't an old saying here.  It's a part of our four way test; a pledge we make not to Rotary . . . but to each other.  Friendship is Chicken Soup for your soul. When you greet each other today consider it an opportunity to create a friendship that could last a lifetime.

Romance: Part nature but to this engineer's mind mostly mystery.  Easier to witness than explain; in full view at my son's wedding and - at my wedding and at your wedding.  Romance allows you to fall in love but land on clouds.  Romance is rewarded with caring, acceptance and fulfillment - so why don't we have more of it?

Charity: We gather today under a banner of service above self.  Unselfish love focused on bettering the world - but at the same time - ourselves.  Anne Frank said: “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

So be more in love today...practice all the different kinds: Affection, Friendship, Romance and Charity.  There probably isn't enough love in the world so commit yourself to making more of it today.

From Frank Zappa via Gregg Keesling:

Do what you wanna

Do what you will

Just don’t mess up your neighbor’s thrill

And as you pay the bill

Kindly leave a little tip

And help the next poor sucker on his one way trip

Why [great] newspapers must survive

It struck me today why newspapers must survive and it was a bit surprising.  (Isn't it wonderful when you can be surprised by your own ideas?  As if they came from another person!)

Browsing the pages of the NY Times it occurred to me the exposure to information in a newspaper is nearly random.  I know the Times has a liberal bias.  I know the 'Book Review' section is about books.  So the exposure may not be truly random.  But the discoveries on each page are somewhat unpredictable and the field so wide that I find myself stumbling into new matter every time.  It is almost like a voyage of discovery into uncharted territories.  Like Darwin trolling the inlets of the Galápagos Islands.

Perhaps this simply discloses my sheltered, naive and uninformed existence.  But the Internet has made search so effective and efficient that it is hard to stumble across information unintentionally today.  Every key word your look for is in the results.  But what if other ideas, tangentially related or unrelated, in the general area or far flung, are interesting too?  How do you expose yourself to that?

Whether intentionally or not, newspapers are the way to do that.  Maybe they shouldn't be called newspapers anymore.  News is something the Internet can deliver faster and cheaper.  Maybe they should be called Random Information Delivery Vehicles or Curated Collections of Loosely Aggregated Facts and Opinions.  Those monikers don't exactly flow from the tongue ;)

In any regard, Newspapers should spoil us with surprises and keep us curious about random facts and figures, stories and insights and delicious details that aren't immediately useful for a long time.

Thanks!

As reported on the IN Secretary of State's website, my candidacy for IN House District #53 resulted in 23% of the electorate voting for me!  That's a real bite out of the total votes cast 22778.  

My opponent would have otherwise run unopposed.  He is a good man and does a good job for our district.  BUT: the monogamy of ideas presented in a one party system is unhealthy for Indiana.  Nature loves experiments and diversity.  So should out political system.

I was impressed by the impotence of big budget political campaigns at the national level.  Billions of dollars could have been so much more productively spent.

Stay tuned to these pages for my plans concerning upcoming elections . . . THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

My new favorite author: Steven Strogatz.  He joins a select few who have written books that I want to be buried with. (In case you are curious: Taleb, Kahneman, Mlodinow . . . maybe a few more.) What an amazing title:

The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math

Life is over when the plates stop spinning.  Until then, my advice is to keep as many as you can from breaking!

I'm running again!

I'm happy to announce my candidacy for Indiana House of Representatives.  However, there's a twist!

Indiana redrew the House districts last fall and changed the borders for what had previously been District 53.  I now live in District 88!  But that detail was apparently overlooked by everyone involved in the acceptance and review of my application to run.  Oops!

Curiously, I learned about the change from an astute reporter for the Greenfield Reporter: Maribeth Vaugh.

In an e-mail exchange with one of the Co-Directors of the Indiana Election Commission I learned that if I won my race - now against Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma - the House would need to vote on what to do with me.

I am running to give Indiana voters a choice.  My business experience, leadership experience in several civic organizations, engineering education at Purdue and Libertarian philosophy qualify me to ask for your vote.  In an election year marred by unprecedented political acrimony, a third party candidate will be more than a vote for 'None of the Above.'  Hoosiers are tired of politicians who cling to anachronistic party positions and eschew collaboration.

We live in a time of unprecedented complexity and change.  Politicians that exploit the electorate's fear and confusion and promise a return to yesterday's bromides aren't just out of touch - they are insulting our intelligence.  More importantly: they are wasting our time.

You may not agree with my positions - you may not believe a third party candidate can win.  But think for yourself this Fall.  Consider the title of one of my favorite author's books as it applies to your choice: 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There.'

Feel free to contact me with your questions.

For the curious, I have posted several Press Releases and my Curriculum Vitae here.

Press Release - August 26, 2012
Press Release - August 15, 2012
Press Release - July 20, 2012
Press Release - July 19, 2012
Response to IN Right To Life Questionnaire

As if we needed further evidence that the Internet is making us stupid and anti-social . . . here comes Newsweek blogger Tony Dokoupil to remind us just how far we have fallen from interactive human beings to bots craving bandwidth in his article: Is the Internet Driving Us Mad?

The future of education

I've had the pleasure of meeting other people who are passionate about education.  But there is a persistent planning paradox that envelops the education community.  It is so hard to do anything and reform takes so long.  That is why I think this man is the future of education.  He didn't need a budget, a committee, a degree or pedagogy.  He just started.

Another Rotary Invocation

I always try to deliver a non-religious invocation but which is none-the-less spiritual.  This time I spoke about keeping a gratitude journal.  I first learned about keeping a gratitude journal from a great book I found in the U.K. named: Help! by Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Guardian's "This Column Will Change Your Life" column.

My research dug up lots more about gratitude journals...among then a few gems from a University of Miami professor, an article from Oprah's website and an article from Wikipedia including a quote from a 14th century Dominican priest I used to wrap it up.

Here is the invocation:

I’m not a psychiatrist, but I believe that at the core of many (if not all people) is a nervous, selfish, worried little child who is afraid he or she will lose their stuff or that some other kid will have more stuff or that some act of fate will take their stuff away and they will be left with less stuff or worse: no stuff at all. These fears turn us into greedy, envious, anxious adults with less capacity for hope or love or charity.

So I’ve discovered a happy trick you can play on that child. Record your blessings in a gratitude journal – write them down like in a diary. Charles Dickens wrote: “Every day reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. Recording five a day keeps depression away.

So my advice it to keep a gratitude journal. Keep foremost in your thoughts that which you are thankful for, grateful for and in love with. Tell the little kid inside you to scram.

A 14th Century Dominican priest once said: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.” 

You can Google “Gratitude Journal” for more.

Support Wikipedia

If you support open access to information, support Wikipedia

The Names Game on Inside Indiana Business

Inside Indiana Business featured my Names Game iPhone app in a short segment presented on WFYI in Indianapolis, the public television channel in Indianapolis.

Gerry Dick is a great host of the popular local television program that features interviews with business people from around Indiana.  It was an honor to be on his show!

Here is how Inside Indiana Business described the game:

NEW APP AIMS TO IMPROVE NETWORKING 

Hoosiers Produce iPhone Game 

If you need help remembering names of business connections, and Indianapolis entrepreneur has an app for that. Kim Brand has co-developed Names Game, which incorporates Facebook and turns name and face memorization into an iPhone game. Brand recently discussed the idea to launch the app during and appearance on Inside INdiana Business Television.

I'd like to give credit for the software development for the game to John Holtkamp.  John is a talented programmer and has been a valuable partner throughout the process of launching my first iPhone app.  His experience and insight belie his youth!

Business Ownership Sales & Marketing Links

I am proud to be on the Board of the Business Ownership Initiative.  At this time in a poor economy, entrepreneurship will be one of the principal drivers of prosperity and job creation.  I'm glad to play a small part in the economy (aside from owning three businesses.)


Meanwhile, I present short seminars to BOI clients on Sales and Marketing.  There are millions of resources on the web - the vast majority are free.


I collect the information I present primarily in two places:


My Entrepreneurship Wiki is located here (which is hosted for free by PBWorks - a WONDERFUL resource.)


My Entrepreneurship Bookmarks are located here (which is hosted for free by DELICIOUS.COM - VERY COOL!)


Check them out.  Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Cosmic matter distribution & talent diversity

The distribution of talents in a person may be compared to the distribution of matter in the universe.  We have gotten much better at visualizing this matter over time – and a person gets better at recognizing what he is good at as he gets older.

This picture sums it up:

We start off with talents that are fuzzy.  Some boys are good at sports.  Some girls may be good at music.  Either sex may have talents commonly associated with the other.  I believe the brain is predisposed to some talents at birth, but that doesn’t preclude learning to be better at anything.

The point is that as we get older we figure out where our talents lie.  We accept that we are naturally good at some things and, while we can develop a weakness into a strength, there are so many areas where we are just naturally better; Why invest the energy to do so?

Recognizing and accepting ourselves as who we are simply acknowledges this prenatal organization of brain stuff.  We ought to consider it a gift.

Schools simply reflect society’s priority to develop general individual utility for the sake of general prosperity.  In an increasingly interconnected and complex society, the role each of us play can be more granular.  Unfortunately it is not economical for schools to produce individualized curricula – so we settle for generic education ill suited to the individual talents of students.

Perhaps in some enlightened future educational system we will enjoy new capabilities being developed in pharmacology: to custom engineer drugs to suit the unique characteristics of human molecular architecture at the DNA level.  Some education leaders are advocating the same for schools.

As the noted education expert Sir Kenneth Robinson has criticized: The principal organizing characteristic which determines the education of our youth should not be their date of manufacture.

Advice

The late Richard Holbrooke used to give the essential piece of advice for a question-driven life: Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around.

How has the Internet changed the way you think?

Just yesterday, my son asked if he should take Huxley's Brave New World on a flight with him to Los Angeles.  The book is a dark portrayal of a dystopic future.  I guess the questions and my mood made be a bit more sober than usual.

Then, a friend (Bruce Frank) was reading from a compilation of articles published on Edge.org which answered the question: "How has the Internet changed the way you think?"

Here is my response...

The ability to connect 24/7 with media has affected everything.  I'm sure a book could be written, but in a sort of recursive way (like the way Escher painted,) the answer is 'infected' with the Internet.  Like defining a word using the word.

The first thing I did was Google it.

I read an article recently that claimed one of the changes is the way we remember information.  Why do you need to remember anything if you can find the answer on your mobile phone?  I used to pride myself on my memory of clients' phone numbers.  I can honestly say I don't know my mom's phone number: it's in my cell phone along with (I was aghast to learn when I backed it up) 900 other contacts.  HOW CAN THAT BE POSSIBLE?

And why would kids want/need to learn anything?  They all have iPads (or will) and the answer to any question will be delivered by Google.  And if Google can't find it - how important can it be?

What about spelling, grammar or punctuation.  Seriously, when I'm texting you and using Ur, 4, 2, sup? and :) to communicate, who cares about apostrophes, possession, conjugation or tense agreement?

You've all chided me for my multiple e-mail addresses.  I recall creating them.  Each was an escape from the torrent of messages.  It used to be Spam.  Now, the Spam is gone - but the torrent remains!  Good messages from important people I should read, file, respond to or just think about.  It's like getting 50-70 pieces of mail a day!  How can you deal with that?

The Luddite movement responded to the onslaught of automation with violence.  John Henry supposedly died competing with a machine.  And now Chess and Jeopardy are proving that machines are as smart as they are strong.  No less, the Internet?

Of what use are humans?  To keep the lights on?

Otto Wichterle, my new hero

This guy beat the odds, kicked their ass and invented something hundreds of millions of people use - but you don't know him.

I volunteer at Business Ownership Initiative in Indianapolis, an SBA funded Womens Business Development Center. We help mostly women and minorities start businesses.

When I counsel these startups I try to convey what it takes to be successful starting and running a business. Persistence is at the top of the list. (My favorite quote on the subject is from former president Calvin Coolidge.)

I always enjoy using examples from history of scientists or entrepreneurs who exhibited remarkable persistence to become successful. There are many. Today's news media too often makes success seem like it comes out of a microwave.

I came across this story about Otto Wichterle, the inventor of contact lenses. His picture spoke to me: It was like: "I kicked their asses, and I can kick yours too!" I LOVE THAT IN AN ENTREPRENEUR!

But unlike The Donald, this guy had a brain.