Hey, gotta a few minutes? The incredible force of consistent action.

   If you ever decided to join a gym, and were a little too "excited" the first day, you have probably experienced the difficult reality that you can't change a few years of idleness with an hour of spirited exercise. Not to mention discovering muscles you had forgotten about.

   A better, longer lasting approach is to bring new habits into your life that are a change, but not such a dramatic one that you may not stick with it. Because sticking with it is what will get you to your goal. 

   It could be writing for ten minutes, or walking around the block. Pick something you won't need to do much to put into your schedule. Something "bite sized" that moves you toward your goal.

   Just be sure that whatever it is, you do it every day, without fail for about a month. By then you'll be on cruise control. It will be automatic. While you may not achieve your goal in that month, you will likely have made progress toward it. You can always upgrade your efforts as you go along. But just keep at it.

   Excitement is no match for persistence in achieving goals

   Best wishes! This approach has worked for me, I hope it works for you too. 
 

Goals should be like bread. Baked fresh daily.

   Hi there!

  Forget about what happened before, start fresh now...

  Here are a few tips on making something happen in (the remaining nine months of) 2014. 

  Some folks will disagree with my suggestions, but tough tiddliwinks.

  How to set goals, the quick version:

   1. Keep it simple, measurable, and in spite of the "soar with eagles" chatter, within reasonable grasp. Complexity messes up your thinking, measurement is essential, and by finding some things you can get done with a modest effort, you can always reset your target with the confidence gained from round one.

   2. Find a way to give your goals some synergy. Losing weight? How about a 5k run as another goal? The training will help with your other goal of losing weight. Losing weight will make running easier. Or if you want to read more, then add joining a book club. You get the idea. 

   3. Write it down! Commit it to a friend! - Everyone says this. Why? Because it works. Writing it down makes you internalize it. It's harder to forget. If you put it somewhere (like your calendar) it will keep staring you in the face. Good. Tell a friend too. They can also stare you in the face! If you have someone who will give you a friendly nudge, take advantage of it. Big help.

  4.  Don't be too rigid. Things go wrong. Adjust and move on. Rigid thinking is what puts goals on the shelf for another year. Relax a bit and if something goes wrong, dust yourself off, adjust and keep plodding along. You'll make it!

   5. Whatever you do - this is critical. Have fun. The more fun your goals are to reach, and the more fun you inject into the mindset, the more likely you'll make it happen. Fun: have it!

   Get your PEN and PAPER. Make it happen. Don't clean a drawer. Don't have a bagel. Move your life in a better direction for (the rest of) 2014. 

   Have fun. Really. Lot's of fun.

   Happy (almost) New Year.

OMG - It's 2014 and I don't have any New Years Resolutions!!!

  Hi there!

  Here are a few tips on making something happen in 2014. Some folks will disagree with my suggestions, but tough tiddliwinks.

  How to set goals, the quick version:

   1. Keep it simple, measurable, and in spite of the "soar with eagles" chatter, within reasonable grasp. Complexity messes up your thinking, measurement is essential, and by finding some things you can get done with a modest effort, you can always reset your target with the confidence gained from round one.

   2. Find a way to give your goals some synergy. Losing weight? How about a 5k run as another goal? The training will help with your other goal of losing weight. Losing weight will make running easier. Or if you want to read more, then add joining a book club. You get the idea. 

   3. Write it down! Commit it to a friend! - Everyone says this. Why? Because it works. Writing it down makes you internalize it. It's harder to forget. If you put it somewhere (like your calendar) it will keep staring you in the face. Good. Tell a friend too. They can also stare you in the face! If you have someone who will give you a friendly nudge, take advantage of it. Big help.

  4.  Don't be too rigid. Things go wrong. Adjust and move on. Rigid thinking is what puts goals on the shelf for another year. Relax a bit and if something goes wrong, dust yourself off, adjust and keep plodding along. You'll make it!

   5. Whatever you do - this is critical. Have fun. The more fun your goals are to reach, and the more fun you inject into the mindset, the more likely you'll make it happen. Fun: have it!

   Get your PEN and PAPER. Make it happen. Don't clean a drawer. Don't have a bagel. Sit down and move your life in a better direction for 2014. 

   Have fun. Really. Lot's of fun.

   Happy New Year.

Outrunning the Monster...

  My parents were sticklers for punctuality. So as a kid, I concocted a motivational game to get myself home on time. I would imagine a huge, ugly monster chasing me through the streets of Akron, Ohio. I'll never forget that adrenalin-propelled rush of nearly flying over the pavement, feeling the monster's hot, rancid breath (I think it may actually have been the tire factories) while sprinting just ahead of his moldy grasp.

   Over the years, my monster has provided the motivation I've needed not only to succeed, but to thrive in the business world. He has served me well.

   His dogged pursuit is responsible for both my vocation and my avocation. The hairy beast chased me through college and graduate school, and finally into entrepreneurship. And I'm still running, but now for fitness; and not in Akron, but St. Petersburg, Florida.

   When I decided to start my own private-investigation firm in 1996, the monster breathed the specter of poverty. My new wife and I were living in a small apartment, whose rent, like everything else in our lives at the time, was paid by credit card. The monster helped me chase after business just to make sure we could eat and keep gas in the car and a roof over our heads.

   He also spewed the foul odor of self-doubt. I often lay awake at night wondering how a guy like me could possibly presume to run a business, especially against older, wiser (I thought!), and more experienced competition.

   But as I ran faster to escape the monster's clutches (he now sported a cheap, private-eye trench coat), I found myself learning a lot about how business operates. One particularly revealing lesson was that my "competition" was really only a little more gifted than my monster.

  For the most part, private investigators were what they always had been - retired police officers, special investigative unit (SIU) guys, or insurance adjustors. They often worked alone, used manual processes, and for sales collateral brandished their business cards.

   So while they clung to their Sam Spade model (and, for the most part, still do), I decided to innovate. While they snoozed between cases (feet up on the desk, of course), I learned about my marketplace - the claims and risk professionals who were purchasing investigative services. With the monster ever in the wings, I talked to people, read the trade journals, and found out what they really needed from an investigator.

   Then I decided that when fighting monsters, there is strength in numbers. So I took on partners, then employees. Every year, university criminal-justice programs were turning out legions of bright, energetic graduates, hungry for their first job and looking to learn the ways of surveillance. Why not hire them, pay them a decent salary, and teach them the ropes?

   And in order to keep my new employees working, why not find innovative ways of generating more business - by using what I had learned about our market, exhibiting at trade shows, producing sales literature that worked, by advertising, and by constantly generating new ideas for promoting the business? And why not self-publish a helpful booklet for clients about how surveillance works?

  We also made a commitment to using the hottest technology to run the business. (The monster was using none.) We outfitted our field investigators with the latest in video and wireless technology, trained them in its most efficient use, and sent them forth to generate revenue.

   But the real coup d'etat was the Internet. Our business is surveillance, which generally means video tapes accompanied by written reports. Our clients are claims and risk-management professionals, who spend entirely too much of their time on the telephone with claimants, physicians, attorneys and others.

   What better way to make surveillance information available to our harried and phone-weary clientele than to offer it on our secure Web site for them to peruse at their leisure - not only written reports but video snapshots and actual streaming video of the surveillance as well? Why rattle them with even more phone calls when e-mail and our Web site can provide them exactly what they need in a concise form, exactly when they need it? Why force them to store videotape cassettes when we can embed the video into the on-line record?

  Since we implemented the technology and juiced up the marketing, the monster has been quieter. He's not gone; in fact, I still hear his grunts when I look at our Web site and see how much remains to be done.

   And poverty is no longer the issue. The business, which now has grown to 85 employees, generated $4.1 million in revenues last year.

   But of course all those great investigators need to be paid, the office rent is due every month, and the technology doesn't come free.

   Where are my shoes? I can smell that ogre's breath right now.

(This was written by Robert DeRosa and myself in 2000.)

Don't Waste Your Effort...Really, Don't!

   Once upon a time I swam for the Miami-Dade Community College swim team. Perhaps a better way to phrase it, they didn't prevent me from practicing with them. That said, I was decent enough, and was fast enough to stay out of their way. It was a point of pride with me that I was there, and I trained HARD!

   You might think I would have developed a bit of insight after having to learn how to swim properly at the age of 23. Previously, I couldn't even get my face in the water. But a few sessions with a friend that had a swimming background put me on the path to swimming quasi-normally.

   One week we "hosted" the University of Miami swim team, as their pool was being renovated. This was a great opportunity as UM had some potential Olympians on their team. Swimming next to them was going to be a treat. A chance to measure oneself against greatness. Well, after a brief comparison I was ready to drop the idea of measuring anything.

   The first time I set off next to one of the team, I was dumbfounded. Was the guy being pulled by a jet ski? I redoubled my effort. This made me marginally faster, and massively exhausted. He, on the other hand, appeared to be having a nice leisurely dip. ARRGGGHH. My only hope was to be less embarrassed over a short distance. So much for training HARD.

   Had I been wasting my time? No, I had gotten much better than before, and the training had made a difference. But, if my goal was to diminish the gap between myself and the UM swimmers, I knew pretty much instantly that MORE TRAINING was NOT the answer.

   This leads me to my point. Effort is great. But effort without great technique can be wasteful, and potentially damaging. Too often the standard motivational cry is to TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT. Good luck with that. My experience is that while clearly motivation is important, as you approach higher levels of competition, how you try is likely more important than how hard you try.

   When you want approach the top of a sport or field of endeavor, pretty much everybody is motivated. In a swim competition you need only look around the pool to see that everyone is very fit. Past that point the biggest differences are down to technique.

   To improve myself I solicited a member of the UM team to train me. While I never got anything close to good enough to compete with them, I made amazing progress in improving my own times. To do this, I had to take a step back and evaluate my approach. By being objective, I knew I was in very good condition, had an excellent diet, and was putting forth an tremendous effort. Trying harder would have been pointless.

   Thus, when I say "Don't Waste Your Effort" I mean it literally. Put forth an effort, absolutely. But be sure you are putting forth the right effort. In a race, nobody cares about your horsepower, they care about your speed. By putting your effort to translating horsepower to output, you won't waste your effort. You'll get more out of doing less.

   That's the right way to apply effort.

Reflections on the "The Show Me State" by Seth Godin

   As always, an interesting post from Seth. Thanks!

   Thinking about the post, and relating it to my own experience I came away with an example which reinforces his message, and to some degree expands on part of it.

   The major point or critique is a reflection about people's desire to sample rather than savor things, so they can race off to the next thing. Or conversely, having gathered some information about it, flutter away without really trying it at all. There is a lot of misplaced risk aversion encased in this phenomena.

   With deference to people's need to maximize their "time", I think it is pretty good to have some experiences that suck. If you are really out there living every now and then you're going to have a bad experience. Awesome!

   What? Crap experiences. Delete, Esc, Ctrl-Alt-Del. Help!

   Yep, you need to have some sub par experiences, or if you are massively anal about your time, settle for something distinctly average. These are the palate cleansers that allow you to discern the flavor of your next course, of that next grand experience. And usually, bad experiences end up being great memories. 

   My wife and I were traveling with my three kids (11 year old triplets at the time) through Jordan. We flew into Amman, and then headed south through the desert toward the Dead Sea and a small city called Kerak. Being guilty myself of trying to endlessly hedge my bets with research, I had found recommended accommodation in the Lonely Planet Guide at the Cairwan Hotel. When we arrived, it didn't look too promising, but I thought, let's do it! My enthusiasm was short-lived.

   Wow! There was an apparent rat infestation, as evidenced by some amatuer scatology. The beds were probably comfortable when the three wise men stopped by a few years back. The decor was other worldly. In an effort to ensure we would get the full effect, there was a wedding going on in the hotel bar during the night of our stay. Mayhem ensued. In short, it was really really BAD. 

   My kids were nearly as aghast as I, having stayed in their share of comfortable surroundings. But this place ended up being the ice water to before our return to the sauna. Our next stop was a two-story, three bedroom suite at the Movenpick Hotel in Aqaba on the Red Sea. 

  The contrast was to be savored. Every detail was richly magnified. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it without the "bad experience", but the bad hotel served as a framing experience for the good one. 

  We have repeated this experience somewhat by having deliberately reduced our travels to allow for some breathing, for some normal life. Without that, the experiences fold together like food in a blender. I might know it's there, and I can taste it, but the flavors overwhelm each other. Thus, the experiences are diminished.

   There is no short cut to enhancing experience. When you have a bad experience, or a bland one to give it context, you come away with much more. Whether it is a lesson, a book, a course, a hotel stay or a meal.  

   So, don't try to live life as a series of straight lines always seeking the shortest route. Meander, let some things go wrong. Give yourself the benefit of context. It will sharpen your mind, and separate events into discrete, more pleasing occurrences. 

   In short, context gives you the ability to see just how incredible life is. Enjoy it.

   

The 10th Anniversary of my Financial Freedom Looms! #BLOWOUT #FREE #PRIZES #CONTESTS -

   Sept 10th, 2003, is a date I won't forget. I was nervous as hell. Heart palpitations, hand wringing, you name the nervous tick, I was on top of it! It got so bad, I called my doctor and explained that I was probably dying of a heart attack. He was not persuaded, and told me to calm down. Ha! If it would have been that easy, I'd have done it from the start. OK, I guess I was being slightly hysterical.

   As evidenced by this and other posts, I made it. But in spite of the work and effort that went into growing Omega Insurance Services, it all seemed unreal. Less than seven years before I was designing my logo in Word while I made sales calls from the kitchen table off a rental apartment. So this day was truly dreamlike, with me mentally waiting for the alarm to go off.

   Obviously, that did not happen. We convened in a boardroom, in an atmosphere of absolute levity, and signed the final documents. The "transfers" were made into my accounts. Wow. While a myriad of things led to that moment, that was the finish line. The moment when everything actually changed. A bizarre mix of elation, sadness, exhaustion and a burst of energy seemed to inhabit my body. All the while I continued making all the appropriate noises, "great to be on board, and "this is going to be awesome" (it was already pretty awesome). Poker face central.

   Fortunately I was saved by a party we were throwing. Nobody, outside a few key people, knew what was happening, a party seemed a good way to "cushion the shock".It did, in part, do exactly that.

  Which brings us to the impending 10th Anniversary, and the "virtual" party we'll be throwing to mark the occasion. And in the spirit of open disclosure, there is a major book promotion for "Alphabet Success" at the heart of the festivities.

   The questions most of you have been waiting for are: 1) What are you giving away? 2) What are the prizes? and 3) What are the contests?

1) We are giving away free copies of my new Kindle book, Alphabet Success from 12 midnight Pacific Time to 12 midnight Pacific Time on September 10th, 2013.

2) The prizes include: 20 - $25.00 Amazon.com gift certificates, and $1,500 in cash prizes. That leads us to our final answer...

3) I'm not saying. The day of the event we'll be interacting with people on Twitter (@alphabetsuccess) and LinkedIn. Primarily the former. It will be a little like a radio show. We'll make an announcement, and something will be happening that you need to respond to in real time. For example (a good one, wink wink) you might need to be the 8th person to retweet a given Tweet or comment on a LinkedIn message. But there are plenty of other methods that will be employed to give out cash and prizes, but we're not saying until the day of the event. For the purpose of clarity:

The contests will be conducted on September 10th, 2013. With the exception of one contest for which the winner will be decided later. The times will include a bit of September 10th around the world, since I have followers in pretty much every time zone. I'm going to try to online for as long as Red Bull and adrenaline will keep me in the game, but we may hit some down time due to my human form.

Will it be fun? Yes  Do you need to buy anything to win? Absolutely not!

For more information, please contact me at tim@alphabetsuccess.com

Let's Party Like its 1999!!! Be sure to invite the right people...

   "...Party over, oops, out of time." That was my 1999.  Omega, my company, was about to grow well over 100% in revenue, coming in around $1.2M for the year. We'd only started in October of 1996 with a credit card and an idea. It was a bit like running fast downhill, sort of a controlled fall. Or, at least you try to maintain that illusion of control so you don't crash and burn.

   As the year had begun I found out my family (spouse and I) was also about to grow by over 100%! Triplets were on the way. Certainly exciting news. Something that required some thinking considering the demands of the business, trying to occasionally exercise, and have some semblance of a personal life.

   So I did what any business school, professionally-trained accounting and finance graduate would do when faced with a multidimensional complex problem. I pretended it wasn't actually happening.

   On August 3, any hope of maintaining my "bubble" was burst. Three very small and noisy creatures emerged from my wife. They were tougher than any client. Terrible communication skills. Either quiet, or screaming. Unable to form consensus, one would want food at midnight, another at 2am, then - (why not) 4:15am as well. Home became a nightmarish parody of a B&B with 24-hour room service, and some extraordinarily demanding celebrity clientele.

   Meanwhile the company kept pumping along. Growing in leaps and bounds, though much more civilized than home. People that were selected for their ability, and their ability to work together. It was an essential element of keeping the place together. There were so many people squeezed into the office that one person had to accept that the coffee machine would be on their desk. The head of IT shared an office with me. When I say we were "in it together" it is quite literal.

   You may be asking, "Why didn't you get more space?". A great question. We were trying. Boy were we trying. But it was "dot-com" days. Everyone was partying like it was 1999. Except the dot-com people often had VC money and a bank line. We had a credit card, a factoring company, and a balance sheet that would have embarrassed the Zimbabwe. Thus, the reception from potential landlords was less than welcoming.

   We finally did get more space. We finally found a landlord that would take us in. The kids finally started sleeping through the night. We got rid of our factor and found a bank that would lend to us. We even had a break room. Sometimes I'd just splash out like that. Even had free coffee. That's just how I roll.

   We partied like 1999 all right. It was non-stop insanity. By the end of the year we were less than four years away from being sold. It wasn't on anyone's mind. There was no time for big "end game" thinking, we were in triage mode. Not to mention we'd begun development of some cutting edge technology for the investigative world which we'd launch around the kids first birthday. (see link at bottom of page)

   Looking back, that was a defining time for me, and most of the people at Omega Insurance Services. Many of whom I still maintain contact with. We had a fantastic team, and we did amazing things. It was inspiration, adrenaline, camaraderie, and some organization tossed in where needed to fill the gaps.

   Many of those people have gone on to pretty awesome things. There were quite a few entrepreneurs in the pack, with several people starting firms within the insurance industry, and others going off into unrelated fields. It was, as I mentioned, an extraordinary group of people. I'd love to tell you I did it. That it was my incredible genius that made it all possible. But that, my friends, would be a lie.

   Like all successful parties, it takes a great group of people, with the right chemistry to make for a memorable evening. We did party like it was 1999, for about seven years.

   Luckily I sent the invitations to the right people.

   The kids are soon 14. That project is ongoing.

    Alphabet Success, your personal step-ladder to success.  To buy, click here. 

Need a Little Inspiration...?

Many people think the hardest part of anything is finishing. Not true. Most people never get started.

What is also true, is that the second place most plans fall apart is when they face adversity or failure. Usually this is not an issue of the plan itself, but rather the determination of the person trying to implement the plan. Things rarely go the way we want in life. It is easy to be battered into a sort of incremental submission.

Personally, I think that happens to an awful lot of people. Most kids I grew up with, and most I meet today have big dreams, big plans for their future. But somewhere along the line, they get the fight beaten out of them. It could be a parent who tells them to get “their head out of the clouds”, or it might be friends who, while well intentioned, don't want to see you leave them behind. Even for those with the courage and resolve to overcome the “battle” with family and friends, get ground down by circumstances, and one too many failed attempts at their dream. Eventually, they get so “worn down” that success looks like paying the bills and hanging onto the job they hate.

But that isn't always how the story ends.

In April 1961,  I arrived, at least in breathing form, here on our lovely planet. Unlike many people, there were much more than two people involved in my continued existence. My biological parents, who put me up for adoption, my parents who three short months after I was born took care of me as their own, and the nuns of Our Lady of Victory, who though I don't remember them, handled the three month gap. Given my lack of self-sufficiency at that point, I thank them all for getting me started.

One of my mom's favorite stories was about the ride home from the orphanage to their home in Akron. Mom had on a pearl necklace which apparently I fiddled with constantly. She always mentioned that, as well as the fact that I laughed quite a lot. That latter part hasn't changed much over the years.

You may wonder, well this is all a little interesting, but not really what I showed up for Tim.

The back story to my adoption is a tale of remarkable determination and grit.

You see, my adoptive mother could not have children. Now that, is not, in and of itself, especially unique. Many people adopt children for the very same reason. But my mom found out about her inability to have children the hard way.

My mom was pregnant four times before she tried adoption. All four were either stillborn or died shortly after being born. That alone would have put most people in a mind to forget the whole idea. Not my parents. Her and my father looked into adopting at a local agency. If they could not have their own, they would adopt a child.

Of immediate concern to the authorities was why this woman, my mother, was unable to have children. They came to the determination that, after a few tests, she had a blood disease or abnormality (later learned to be Lupus). Upon reaching that conclusion, they decided to reject my parents application to adopt as my mother was seen as “high risk”. OK, this is about time to say, well, maybe we can get a dog, or a couple of them even. Not my mother.

Afterward they had a lengthy chat with their family physician. He was aware that my mom had something wrong with her blood. But he nonetheless suggested they conduct another blood test, just in case they'd missed something. He took my mother's blood and sent her and my father home.

In the meantime he did something which can only be described as beautiful, reckless and amazing. He also took his wife's blood, and sent it for testing in lieu of my mother's which he knew would never pass testing. His wife's blood was fine. But since it was submitted with my mother's name, she was now “fit” to be an adoptive mother. At least according to her blood.

Fearing being called out locally, they headed to another adoption center they had heard about. There they found a receptive audience who agreed to put them on the list. In those days it was a list you actually were likely make it through, as adoption was not nearly as widespread as it is today. Their name accepted, they headed back to Akron to wait.

In what I have to guess was late June or early July of 1961, they got a call that the adoption center had a baby available. They were warned, that the child had “large eyes”. Undaunted they made the trek to the center and had a look at the “Big Eyed Baby”, and yes that was me.

We never chatted about it, but apparently I was insufficiently “Big-Eyed” to prevent them from saying “sure, we'll take that one”. A couple of weeks later in mid-July, they once again made the journey from Akron to the adoption center. This time they had something to take home. That being me. Yahoo!

That was incredibly lucky for me! If they had not gone through all those trials and tribulations, I might have ended up virtually anywhere. Instead I had an incredible set of parents who, in spite of my efforts to the contrary at times, managed to turn me into something resembling a normal human being. And apparently I sort of “grew into” my eyes.

Thus, in part, as with most success stories, a big part of mine was a matter of incredible timing, luck, and maybe even “big eyes”. But the absolutely biggest part of what got me into a position to succeed was my mother and father's determination to just keep looking. If they had given up, I may never have been afforded the opportunities which came to me later in life. In addition, that attitude of determination was infectious. Obviously not inherited genetically, I developed a tenacity that has yet to leave me.

The quotes, the one liners, all the cliches about “staying the course”, well they are true. Occasionally someone gets remarkably lucky, but more often, failure is the road you will be driving on far longer than you want, if you hope to succeed. Now, you better be adapting along the way, and learning from that failure, otherwise you’re not a failure, you're a fool.

Failure is the road you will travel to success. Just be sure to take the correct exit. If you have trouble finding it?

Just Keep Looking.



 Alphabet Success, your personal step-ladder to success.  To buy, click here. 

Way to Go Microsoft! (and other tech companies).

   In a NY Times article today, it was outlined how Microsoft is now restructuring to be more like Apple. Hmmm...that's interesting. Microsoft (up 28.45% over 12 months) is playing follow the "leader with Apple (stock down 27.12% over 12 months. What? Hey, they're flying off a cliff, let's go too....Bon Voyage.

   Microsoft has been the company that Apple never managed to be. Apple had a great last run under Jobs and he made some amazing contributions before he left us, and that effect seems to linger a bit, but I would say the party is over for Apple. They turned a tech company into a consumer products firm with the hip factor of a night club. That's great. But as someone who lived in South Beach for ages, it isn't a model you'd want to count on long-term. Fashion is fickle. Very fickle.

   Why not give in on some non-core businesses where they have been banging their brains against the wall to the tune of billions? I know search is important, but I think Google has pretty much ended that discussion, at least as far as Microsoft's own internal development potential is concerned. An acquisition - maybe, but I think they are in a vapor lock on internal development.

   Moreover and more importantly, Microsoft can, with a modest effort, hang on to their highly profitable desktop/laptop OS ad infinitum. (or at least for a very long time). Why not focus on integrating some of their "old" Windows 7 software into a increasingly faster and faster, as well as more stable platform. People thought I was nuts when I was scrambling in December to latch onto a couple of high powered Windows 7 64-bit laptops. Why?

   Because I knew they were playing the "let's fiddle with the interface"game with Windows 8. Sure enough they blew that to pieces.

   This brings me to my central thesis.While I know that there are a never ending array of new tech products coming to market offering yet another alleged incremental benefit, those benefits are starting to seem mighty thin. It seems to me that perfecting execution of what they have been offering is a far superior and profitable plan. In addition, it would allow third-party developers to actually catch up, and clean up their offerings.

   My dream? An actual interconnected world where I can easily interact on my TV with my PC and Phone. Some of this is available, but much of it is still subject to painful "not as advertised integration". With every iteration of the "better interface" comes a host of bugs, and connectivity issues. Not to mention trying to figure out where everything went from the former interface. Phone, PC, tablet, the issues remain the same.

  Why does any of this matter? I'm just a retired business guy, albeit only 52. Well, I was one of the first to buy a PC when they came out at in the 1980s. People actually came to see my double 5.25" floppy system from Radio Shack. Wow. Then I did the unthinkable and got a 20Mb hard drive. A Ferrari at the time.

  I understand technology. Maybe not as a programmer or system manager, but it isn't scary to me. When something new arrives, I like to see what it has to offer. In short, not a Luddite.

   But there is a MASSIVE wave of baby boomers who will be wanting to use the internet, and their PC etc. and there is a pretty substantial amount of revenue there. Will  someone wake up and realize that they view the PC about the same as a screwdriver. It is a tool. The problem is it is a tool that keeps morphing into something new, and their desire (anecdotal but likely true) to continually adapt to new is fading. Steady and reliable is going to be BIG.

  So instead of launching Windows 8, 9 10 or whatever, try making 7 as elegant as possible. You can charge people an annual subscription for ongoing support and development of that program and my guess is that they'd jump on it. If Microsoft wants a new division, I suggest LEGACY OPPORTUNITIES. Yes, keep innovating, but remember that folks are (even some much younger than me) getting weary of learning a new phone, a new OS interface. Just make the one you have UNBREAKABLE. The profit in this will far surpass the continual effort to develop a system that will have great specs. If memory serves, that's rather the point of running a business.

  Improving, and streamlining existing OS code and apps isn't nearly as sexy as launching a new "idea' (with the shelf life of raw chicken in the jungle). But it is a puzzle as worthy of figuring out as any. And I'll stand by my assertion that it is a much more profitable path to chase. Any takers out there in Techville?

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   Not much to add. "Alphabet Success" by Tim Fargo. Download it at Amazon.com

  Oh, and do me a "solid" and pop a nice review in there after your done gaining your new "super powers".

  Contact me at tim@timfargo.com or tim.fargo@yahoo.com

   Happy reading!