But it’s one thing to write this, and another to live it.  How am I doing? Great question. I’m figuring this out as I write it:

I am a Father… B

I am a Husband…  B

If you didn’t notice, Amazon and Macmillan Publishing have been having a hissy fit over the price of books. Because of this argument, Amazon pulled all the books published by Macmillan off of their virtual shelves, with no announcement or reason made public.

I’d recommend you read John Scalzi’s most excellent post for the details. Since he lays this weekend’s events much better than I can, I’ll take it up a level and talk about the e-reader in general.

If the arguments against the e-reader sound familiar, it’s because they are. Everyone is trying to do with books what Apple did with music. Create a great device, put up a walled garden, and control all rights and access to that product from the inside. It was a bad idea with music, and even worse with books.

What can happen when you “buy in” to a Monopoly?

1) Your purchases can be revoked, at any time, without your permission. Overly dramatic? Nope. Amazon did this with – of all books – 1984 by George Orwell in July of last year.

2) You are locked into one store. - So Kindle owners starting this weekend, and continuing at the time of writing this, cannot buy any books from Macmillan Publishing, or subsidiaries. If you want to read anything from them on your e-reader, you are trapped. You paid upwards of $250.00 and still have to buy a big chunk of pulp to read what you want.

3) You are subject to being “released from support” – There will come a day when every e-reader out there reaches an end of life. What happens to your e-books when that happens? Will you have to repurchase them all? will you have to do an “upgrade conversion” to the next iteration of hardware? What if the company you contract with for the e-reader pulls an Enron and implodes? Since they are no longer around to manage the books’ digital rights, your unit just might become a doorstop.

4) Monopolies create price inflation – Your e-reader can only get books from one source. What’s stopping the e-book distributor for charging over fair market value for your book? What’s stopping them from keep raising that price?

Artist's rendering of Jeff Bezos

I’m not trying to pick on Amazon. It’s just that they are working their way down this list of hypotheticals and turning them into realities. They’ve completed items one and two. They are working on four, and three is yet to be seen.

An e-reader is an idea who’s time has come, but this device has to come from a third party, and has to be able to accept and read e-books from multiple different stores, and in a standard format. It must work with libraries and allow for lending. Until that device happens, which is looking less and less likely, I’m staying away.

Creed

I shall only exist once, and for a very limited time. I can choose to plod along my in life or I can choose to enjoy and make a difference in the world. I choose the latter.

I am a Father

• I will ensure my children are provided for. This includes clothes, food and shelter, but intangibles as love, education and principles.
• I will provide structure and discipline to them, empowering them to be successful in their lives, and giving them the skills to live those lives how they wish to live.
• I will teach my children how to think critically, how to question the world they live in, and how to find the answers to those question
• I will be healthy in order to pass on my wisdom for as long as possible

I am a Husband

• I will ensure my wife is provided for. This includes clothes, food and shelter, but intangibles as love, education and principles
• I will receive the love of my wife with open arms. If I need more, I will ask for it.
• I will explain my principles to my wife, and expect respect of them.
• I will operate as a team with my wife, ensuring our home and family is a sacred.

I am a Provider

• I will provide for my family. I will strive for a cup that runs over.
• I will diversify. I will harvest more than one source to provide.
• I will be free of the chains of debt. I will pay myself first. I will use debt as a controlled leverage tool only.
• I will take the steps needed to empower myself to these ends.
• I will be healthy to ensure my family and causes are provided for for as long as possible.
• I will die self-sustained.

I am a Thought Leader

• I will be a role model to people. I will establish my principles, communicate those principles, and live by those principles
• I will work within my communities to affect positive change.
• I will “sharpen the sword” and maintain my position as an agent of positive change.
• I will train the next generation. I will empower them to advance their principles so that they too can become thought leaders
• I will define and refine my beliefs. I will work towards eliminating cognitive dissonance.

I am a Difference-Maker

• I will make a difference in my communities. I will make the greatest contribution where my influence is the greatest
• I will value people over corporations, and neighbors over populations
• I will strive to eliminate problems. I will invest in stop-gap solutions only if solutions in the root causes is being advanced.

I am an Adventurer

• I will experience life in the fullest. I will venture out of my comfort zone often.
• I will enjoy the fine things in life. I will be unapologetic for doing so.
• I will seek out new adventures. I will use the wisdom gained to increase the impact of my other roles.
• I will embark on these adventures. I will invite others along, however will not require their participation

It’s Chris, my friend, and former High school classmate. “Scott McCloud died.”

It takes my brain a couple seconds to comprehend this. That name is familiar. Oh, our Journalism teacher. The nostalgia hits.

McCloud, Scott G., 64, Richland Twp., died Mar. 16, 2009 at UPMC, Pittsburgh. Born Dec. 30, 1944 in Windber son of the late Herbert and Leona (Gindlesperger) McCloud. Also preceded in death by father-in-law Orville Pauley. Survived by wife Dr. Carol (Pauley) McCloud, mother-in-law Elizabeth (Jones) Pauley, Windber, aunts Donna Park, MI, and Elsie McCloud, Pittsburgh. Scott was an English and journalism teacher in the GJSD for 28 years. He was a well-known radio personality who announced for WCRO and WKYE. At Scott’s request there will be no viewing, visitation, or service. Arrangements by Meek and Dalla Valle Funeral Home, Inc., Windber.

It’s 1990…

My junior Year, Scott McCloud came to Johnstown High school. He was technically an English teacher, but this was just one stop on his many varied carriers. He was a DJ for WCRO and WKYE in Johnstown, PA. He seemed to know someone in any business in Johnstown.

Scott came to JHS, and with plan in hand, built a student journalism department. And, much like I experienced later in life, the early years of this department was much like it’s professional counterparts. Wild, untamed, and effective. 

I’m not sure how I got involved with it, but when the boxes of Macs arrived, I was un-boxing them and setting them up. We worked layout, wrote stories, and edited our work. Students roamed the halls with expensive SLR (single lens reflex) cameras in hand, taking metric tons of photos.

I wasn’t the best student. I was bored in school. My circadian cycle almost guaranteed I took a nap in trigonometry every day. And, when other teachers let me slide, he challenged me. And he did it by trusting first.

He had no reason to trust me. But he did. Even to the point where he would give me his car keys at lunch to drop off the negatives at the developer. He had to know I was going to get lunch while I was out, didn’t he? Probably. 

One time I broke his trust. looking back I don’t remember what I did, but I remember the pained look on his face, and I know I never wanted to do that again. I didn’t hurt a teacher – I hurt a friend.

Fast forward 3 years.

It’s 1994, and I’m out of school. I’m back home, in Johnstown, and have nothing going for me. I use Mr. McCloud as a reference, and land a job as a clerk for the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. It was a shot in the dark job, and and it beat flipping donuts at Dutch Maid. 

Couple years later, I’m at the TV station (WJAC-TV). Once again his name graces my resume, and once again Mr. McCloud’s silent hand gently glides me into a better job. 

The Big Shift

It’s 2000. The “dot com” bubble is in full effect, yo. I’m in Columbus Ohio, and within 4 days of moving I find a job. 

“So, you used to work as a reporter?” my interviewer asked.

“Yes, it was a great job, but the hours were hard, the money was poor, and I experienced a couple of incidents that scarred me.”

“What’s it like to be on TV?” 

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be on TV much fixing computers, but I’ve demonstrated an ability to write, and, as you know, communication is such a big part of customer service.”

Bingo. I have the job. And who can indirectly be thanked? Right again.

Back to the present.

Chris and I talk for 45 minutes. “When was the last you saw him?” “How long was he sick?” “Have you heard from any of the other crew?”

Do you remember this. Do you remember that? It floods back in laughter. 

I think Mr. McCloud would want to be remembered with laughter, but if he doesn’t mind, I’ll always remember him with something more.

There's a lot of passion in this little box

For Darlene Jones, baking isn’t just a business, it’s a family passion.

“The shop went up for sale, and at the time it was in the Busch center, which as you know is an industrial park now.” Darlene said. “It was a tiny little place, kind of dark. But they had the recipes, so when I walked out, I said to my husband I WANT It. ‘What?’ my husband (Herb Jones) said to me? I said ‘I WANT it.’   So we went into proceedings to buy the company, and then I came right up here and started designing the store.”     

Designer cupcakes are one of the stores specialties

Attention to detail can be found in all the sweet treats

Now my kids are all interested. My boys are baking for their families, and my daughter is now my general manager of the bakery, and she’s in charge of all the design. It would not nearly be as much fun without her. All my employees, all the girls up here, all the girls in the back, they have passion. Everything they make is wonderful. They really have that same drive that I do.”

I really don’t want to rely on other people’s content too much on this blog, but this video really stuck a chord inside of me.

There really is two types of failure. One is eluded to in this video by Honda Performance Engineer John Kessler:

“Failure is a byproduct of pushing the envelope….When you fail, it’s not nessarilly looked at as a bad thing as long as you learn from it, and make something positive out of it.”

It’s such an important point, but buried deep in the video (check around 2:56) Push the envelope, never make the same mistake twice.

The other is when you don’t do what Mr. Kessler suggests, and make the same mistakes over and over. You can see this at all levels of business. That’s a bad failure. 

It’s the company that only wants to protect market share. It’s the Vice president only looking towards the next quarterly report. It’s the department just trying to get through the year. It’s the individual rushing to clear the assignments. 

If the proper time is not given to any of these, you have failure.

Even in the soulless world of business, there are cosmic forces at play

Let’s be honest from the start. Business is about making money, and the more money you make, and the quicker you make it, the better you are doing. Sometimes, however, in that rush to the bottom line, the people you end up trampling is yourself. Funny little story…

A couple years ago, we did some cost analysis, and determined that a function of our business we were outsourcing could be done cheaper inside. We drew up the business case, crunched the numbers, and generated a plan. One little thing – we didn’t bother to tell our vendor until we executed the cancellation. 

This left them in a bit of a lurch. They had a number of customized consumables on hand, and although the loss of business wasn’t enough to really hurt them, it was big enough to put a little pothole in their financial forecast. 

Legally, we were well within our contractual rights, and the end-game transaction was done on the “up and up” and without problem. Everyone remained calm and professional, although one could tell on the phone calls that the friendship was strained.

Fast forward a couple years, to present time. Things have changed, and we find ourselves in a place where we have toonce again, go to this vendor to assist us. This time, however, the conversation has taken a different tone. 

“Well, why are you not doing this work yourself?” asked the sales guy, “We know you can, you did it before.”

“We are out of capacity – this is new work, and we can’t take it on with the existing equipment.” state I.

“How do I know that a year or two down the line you won’t drop us again?” 

Well, here’s where I switch the subject to the technical. Truth is, there’s no saying we WON’T dump them again. The conversation continued, and he is digging up the numbers for us (after all, even if short term, it IS new revenue)

Looking back, it would not have hurt us to give them a chance to come back with a better price. If they couldn’t, then they would have probably understood why we were departing, and likely let us go with their blessings. They might actually respond to future inquiries like a long lost friend, instead of a jaded lover.

We didn’t do that then, and I wish we did.

Lesson learned.