Whose fault is it? Doh, it’s mine.

I am glad Lance pointed the spotlight right back at us voters on this major issue. Usually, I believe that the body politic is culpable for many of the ills of its political world. Who else voted these people into office? The demand from constituents for money and services doesn’t balance well with the concern of government overspending. We want everything for nothing.

The currency of politics

That said, I think the solution to this money in politics issue has a lot to do with politicians and less so with voters. Sure, we select the people who govern over us but these officials lack one specific trait that is keeping the money in politics problem from getting solved. They are not willing to fall on their own sword for the good of the whole. Power is the currency of politics. Money is only a means to acquire political power. Politicians who have the political power to effect change in this arena have that power because they are good at getting the money. They’re in a pickle.

Expecting a politician to cut off his or her means for acquiring political power because it would be good for the whole is like expecting Wal-Mart to stop accepting money for purchases in its stores because they’re hurting society with all of that revenue they’re generating. Uhhh…not going to happen. Likewise, when politicians are faced with doing anything that would undermine their power they just can’t do it and expect to stay in the game.

Fall on thy sword

That’s why we should be looking for politicians that truly don’t care about staying in the game. Could Wal-Mart change the world by providing health care benefits to all part-time employees, requiring suppliers to use best green manufacturing practices, forcing China to dramatically improve human rights conditions in order to be a trade and labor partner and paying middle-class wages to all of its employees? Of course it would change the world. The impact would be incredible. Then once they ran through their cash reserves they’d go out of business. President Obama recently told Diane Sawyer that he would “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” Who knows where he’ll go with that but to me that looks like the beginning of willingness to fall on one’s own sword for the good of the whole. Better to do what is right and lose political currency even if it means leaving the game.

Learned: Slow down to speed up. I’ve learned this before but there must be some loose ends in my memory synapses. I recently made some staffing changes and in my haste to get them rolled out I failed to completely loop in all of the people directly impacted. Now I’m cleaning up my mess. One day slower is sounding pretty good right now.

New: the iPad photo flip orientation is geek candy. The iPad video demos this  at the 3:12 mark. Say you’re looking at a photo and want to show it to a friend in front of you. Just flip the iPad end-over-end so that the display is now facing your friend. The software flips the photo into the right orientation. (Okay, so you could just spin the screen around on a vertical axis but that just isn’t as cool). I’d love to be a fly on a wall in the product development meetings at Apple. “Duuuude, that is sooo cool!”

Fire in the hole…

Something Learned: There are no guarantees in email marketing. Two weeks ago an email send was wildly successful. A week later an email send to the same list doesn’t perform nearly as well. The difference? Email #2 has a subject line that pops and the theme is centered around how to get a $1500 tax credit. Sounds terrible, right? Well, there’s a fine line between an email subject line that grabs attention and one that gets  an eye-roll and marked as junk by users. I’m returning to useful content and away from salesy marketing speak. Lesson learned email world.

Something New: LinkTrust has a per-call tracking feature on their affiliate management platform. This was news to me even if it isn’t new. What isn’t news or new is that pay-per-call served online will be a huge growth area for local advertising. Online marketers have scale and reach, consumers want to qualify and then connect directly with providers and SMBs want their phone to ring.

HelpHive is a home services professionals referral network for consumers. They incorporate standard directory-style features like business profiles, ratings, reviews, etc. But the unique feature is that community members can see if people they trust in the community have referred home service pros like plumbers and painters. It’s great know that a roofing contractor has 4.4 stars. It’s even better to know that a co-worker and a cousin recommend him.

Ideas4All says they are building the global brain. Users post ideas and problems and on which community members can vote (good/bad) and collaborate.

PolicyPitch is kind of like the Ideas4All for the world of public policy and grassroots organizations. Local policies and ideas are voted and commented on. Users then use the site to share their idea with their network, raise money and manage volunteers and campaigns.

Yext is a directory of SMB’s. Nothing new there. Their innovation targets the businesses advertising on Yext and its distribution partners. Yext has pay-per-action platform where phone calls from consumers are recorded, transcribed, analyzed and then delivered to the Yext advertiser’s inbox. The advertiser only pays for calls that the platform determines to be relevant. Yext’s Co-Founder and CEO recently presented recently at TechCrunch50.

MeritBuilder is coming out of obscurity at a good time for job seekers. At MeritBuilder users can manage their personal brand by sending and receiving kudos and logging professional accomplishments. The result is portable personal brand that you can share with prospective employers or new bosses. A leg up in this tough job market should be well received.

It has been things like bringing on big clients with big coverage and big budgets; innovation that leverages existing deal flow and existing clients to repackage products or create new ones; landing page optimization/testing; etc.

The common denominator has been utilizing what we have. I’m becoming a big believer in the power of looking for the gold nuggets that are already within reach. Rather than building a dam, diverting water to a potential gold field and panning for a few precious flakes.

I know my neighborhood pretty well and I keep finding gold in my backyard. I’m sticking close to home.

2. Don’t delegate the delivery of bad news. The best way to communicate that you understand that you’re giving bad news is to do it yourself. If you’re not there, something else is more important. Similarly, don’t minimize the impact bad news has on people. You may have worked through all the business justifications in your head and on your spreadsheet but that doesn’t make the bad news suck any less for the people receiving it.

3. Ask people to sacrifice. It’s inspiring to see people rally around a common cause. When everybody is sharing the burden (i.e. pay cuts across the board) the coming-togetherness will happen (that is, unless, your employees don’t like you or their jobs – see #5).

4. Get back to work. If you’re a good leader most people will follow your example. Our mothers were right; an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Get busy and get your teams busy – you and they will feel better.

5. Be a good leader before you need to be a good leader. Treating people with respect, being transparent, being the example, being consistent…all the hallmarks of good leadership will pay you back in spades when it’s crunch time and you need the team on your side. You REALLY need your team with you when times are tough. Anybody could make money when the economy was on steroids – even bosses who had employees who loathed them. Try hitting a homerun because the economy sucks and you have to when your employees don’t like working for you. Just like you should save money for a rainy day, good leaders are good in the up times so that they can be good in bad times too.

I was skeptical of how much I would enjoy a full day of lock, stock commercialism at SeaWorld. Watching my son grin ear-to-ear as he saw sea turtles for the first time or when he played in the water fountain and kept screaming repeatedly out of excitement…that was a lot of fun.

My favorite post so far is about an article entitled “12 Ways SEO is Like Bacon.” Where else will I find multiple loves of my life?

1. Married.
2. Tickets to the Obama swearing in ceremony (That just happened yesterday – the getting part, that is. The asking happened a few days after the election. The waiting part happened in between).
3. A raise (There was a lot of working hard that happened before this one. I didn’t mosey into my boss’s office, kick up my feet and say “Hey, times are tough at home. I need more money.” I’ve been on the receiving end of that rationale before believe it or not).
4. The biggest sale I’ve ever closed.
5. The smallest sale I’ve ever closed.
6. Every sale in between.
7. Every sale I’ll ever close in the future.
8. Married. (moved to #1 after feedback from my wife).
9. A killer upgrade at the THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay.
10. A spot as a columnist in a local business periodical.
11. A big partnership after getting flat out rejected several times.
12. A lower interest rate on my mortgage.

1) Have this philosophy: Don’t do stupid things. Hire smart people. Then…

2) Don’t do stupid things

3) Hire smart people.

Examples of this not happening:

1) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (allegedly)

2) This pizza delivery guy

Examples of smart people ruling:

1) Google

2) Obama transition team

3) A lot of the sites on this list. Two years old but amazingly accurate today.

Don’t do stupid things. Hire smart people. Rule. Questions?