Ripple Connection Question of the Weekend

Well Memorial Day is upon us! Our first real holiday since Christmas and New Year's and I for one can't wait to get my weekend started. How about you?

Since Memorial Day is here it also offers an opportunity to connect. That's right....spend some quality time with your family and get a real update as to what is going on in their lives, get out and talk with your neighbors, strike up a conversation at the community pool or just go spend a lazy morning at (where else?)....your local java joint.

Bottom line, just do something!

Okay with that said....here's this week's Ripple Connection Question:

What do you plan to do to make this Memorial Day Memorable?

If you care to answer the question and leave a comment we would love to hear your answers!!!

No matter what you do this weekend have fun and be safe.

Ripple On!!!

Steve

Last Day of School

Today is my son Zach's last day of school. As of 2:45PM this afternoon he is officially sprung! He will no longer be a second grader but will be officially a third grader. He has barely been able to contain his excitement for this day and of course for his summer to begin. Oh how I remember those days!

I think as a kid the last day of school was just about the best day on the kid calendar, other than Christmas. I remember spending months and then days counting down to the final bell. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.

Yes sir those last few weeks counting down to the end of school were some of my best memories. The teachers seemingly remorphed back into cool people and were nice to everyone....even the bad kids (no admission of role assumption there; implied or otherwise). The homework dwindled off and our final classroom days were spent doing mindless puzzles, word games and watching the last of the stupid made for school movies on Davy Crockett and Benjamin Franklin. Anything to fill the time as that clock clicked ever so slowly to that final bell.

The last day of school had this incredible buzz to it I recall. Waking for that final day was no problem as I literally remember springing from my bed with baited excitement (my son on the other hand still slumbers upstairs). Walking to school the air seemed just a bit cleaner and the sun so much brighter. The bullies who otherwise staked out territorial lay in wait spots had long since abandoned their posts and safety had returned to some of the gazelles....errr I mean kid-herd. Walking into the classroom for the last time was amazing because the crappy posters and retarded artwork that had litered the walls previously were now gone and revealed pleasant welcoming walls that seemingly said "sorry to see you leave but don't let the door hit you on the backside when you go."

Yes the last day of school was the first day of adventure; at least it was for me and my buddies. No more pencils, no more books, no more disapproving looks (hey I am poet and didn't even know it! Ms. Holman my fourth grade teacher would be proud). Yes kid-life officially could begin and school was but a distant memory as the seemingly year-long prison sentence was temporarily suspended for my mandatory furlow.

Yes my son should be excited as summer is finally here. Oh to be a kid again....

Ripple On!!!

Steve

Where Are The Better Birds Feeding...I mean Networking?

I learned something about birds.

The more bird seed you put out the more birds you attract. You get all kinds of birds; the pretty ones and the ugly ones. They come with regularity and they squawk and chirp as they battle to get their fair share of seed as you sprinkle it around your yard. They hang around and wait for you to put the seed out and they consume it with measured precision until it is all gone. This pattern continues for the first couple of weeks and then something changes.

Something quite remarkable happens....

The volume of birds drops off. You can literally put out the same amount of seed out and the pretty birds who weeks before were fighting to get their fair share against the ugly birds don't seem as interested. The ugly birds still show up with regularity and eat the seed off the ground until their bellies are full but they no longer have to do battle with the blue jays, the cardinals and the rest of the pretty birds. Seemingly overnight, the pretty birds have gone elsewhere.

Why?

Surely they are still hungry right? It isn't like they don't need to still eat right?

The pretty birds come in and feed but they don't do it with the same intensity. They seem to have grown accustomed to the fact that the bird seed will be there; it will be there this morning, this afternoon, tomorrow or next week. It is readily available so they don't need to worry about it being there when you first put it out. Why fight with the grackles and mean birds when they can simply wait and feed when they want to; likely when you aren't looking. Or worse they simply go somewhere else where there is less hassle.

Well if you enjoy watching birds like I do this pattern is a bummer. You miss out on seeing the pretty birds because they are putting their time in somewhere else and all you are left with is the ugly birds. And lots of them.

How do you solve this? Simple; put out less seed. Find the better seed that attracts the best looking birds and put that out. Change the feed pattern. Don't just throw the seed on the ground where the crap birds tend to hang out but put it high up in feeders. Make em work for it. Watch what happens.

Scarcity is a marvelous thing. Put the right seed out and in limited quantity and the pretty birds reappear and will battle, I mean battle to earn all the seed. The ugly birds are lazy and go for the quick and easy and don't seem to like this aggressive new approach of the pretty birds. The ugly birds don't want to have to work for it so they won't. They hate the hassle! Problem solved. Pretty birds regain control and the lazy ugly birds looking for the free easy meal move out.

Networking is sort of the same way. How many events do you go to that you see the same people over and over? In Austin there is literally so many networking events that you could literally eat and drink you way through the week, every week. Problem is that the ugly birds ummmm I mean power networkers know this and they are there with plates in hand and mouths open picking and pecking their way from connection to connection and from event to event.

The results....the pretty birds....ummmm I mean the quality connections....don't spend their time swooping in...I mean attending these events. They spend their time somewhere else. Why do battle aka spend time with the crackles of the networking world when they could be spending and investing their time somewhere else.

Your challenge is to find out where the better seed is. Find out who is changing the game by charging more for their events to attract the right kind of birds...I mean people. Find out who is booking the better venues...holding the better formats....creating more opportunities to for the pretty birds...I mean better connections....to hang out and feed without having to battle.

Make sense?

Ripple On!!!

Steve

What Will You Do At 92?

Last week on the CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman profiled Nola Ochs as part of his Friday Assignment America segment. Nola Ochs is mother, grandmother, great grandmother and as of last Saturday the oldest person to finish college. She is 92 years young.

I felt inspired by Hartman's story of Ms. Ochs. It seems that Ms. Ochs started taking correspondence courses back in 1972 after her husband died. This past year she decided to kick her studies into high gear and finish up her degree so she decided to mosey on up to Fort Hays State University grab a dorm room and finish what she started so long ago. What makes this story even cooler, is she would finish up and graduate with her granddaughter Alexandra.

To read the story and watch the video of last week's segment, click here.

What do you plan to be doing at 92?

In a time when people work to quit working, Ms. Ochs stands as a definite example that life and learning certainly doesn't end when the retirement party is thrown and your desk is taken by someone else. No, in fact I believe that very possibly that just might be when life actually begins.

How many of us fixate on retirement and the day we don't have to go to work anymore? How many of us have visions of playing with the grandkids and piddling in the yard? Though I submit those are all very worthwhile ways to spend your time I suspect that achieving more, learning more and being more might just be as rewarding....if not perhaps slightly more rewarding.

Rather than looking at being 36 and over a 1/3 of my life being over, I think it might be more appropriate to wonder what I will be learning, who I will be advising and just how inspiring my actions might be in 56 years. What about you?

Thank you Ms. Ochs for inspiring me and creating a Ripple in Austin, Texas. I hope our paths cross at some point in the future though I understand you may be busy. Ms. Ochs starts course in July to begin working towards her masters degree.

Ripple On!!!

Steve Harper