“Once again, we eat the sowing seed.” I am attributing this quote to popular astronomer and author, Carl Sagan when asked to comment on NASA budget cuts during the recession of 1972. Whether it was Sagan or not is not the point– the point is “the eating of the sowing seed.” What is the sowing seed? It is the seed that is held back for replanting to grow future crops. Without “sowing seed” there is no future crop to harvest because those seeds weren’t planted. In Sagan’s illustration, we were eating for today what should have been planted for tomorrow.
NOW/TODAY is the time to build relationships with your customers. Consumers and businesses are tightening their belts and their budgets, but marketers need to look at today’s recession economy as an opportunity. Now is the ideal time to ramp up your efforts and build stronger relationships with your customers. (more…)
A friend of mine looked at me one day not long ago as I dragged in my daily five or six pounds of mail and said, “You and your media.” He was referring to my daily dose of magazines and newsletters that flood into my “snail” mailbox everyday– a heaping helping that at one time, required me to “make time” to get through it all.
But– as I often say and people often hear but don’t really hear AND I find myself saying more these days– “The simple truths are the greatest truths and things need to be a lot more simple.”
So, I have considerably cut down on the unending flood of literature that I used to think I needed to get through a week, month, quarter– whatever. And I look a lot more at what’s around me and at the simple things we often overlook. Let’s look at one very simple thing now. (more…)
As an adjunct faculty member of the University of South Carolina’s School of Mass Communication and Information Studies, I am constantly interested in and involved with my students and the way they receive and disseminate information.
Also, being a journalism major myself, I am keenly interested in how social media is being used to report the news. (more…)
I’ve heard–and agree that the gap between expectation and reality is called disappointment. In the world of critical thinking if that gap is about something important to you and the gap is big enough to matter then it’s also a problem. The challenge in some situations is knowing when you should settle for disappointment or accept the situation as a problem you want to try to solve.
With all the writing and commentary on our new President-elect, we are reminded daily that forty years ago a sniper took the life of a man who refused to let discrimination and bigotry remain a lingering disappointment–he embraced the civil rights of all Americans as a problem that needed a solution. A problem he wanted to solve. While in many ways and in many places, that problem is still painfully alive 40 years later, Martin Luther King’s enduring efforts to address the deep issues–the root causes of inequality and injustice give us a model of persistent endurance and relentless determination that other problem solving initiatives should follow.
Today is a good opportunity for you to look in your world and ask yourself, “What disappointment am I accepting that needs more than a sigh–it needs a solution?”
Don’t settle for disappointment when you can have a problem–a problem that’s dying for a solution.