Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

header image

Ethics / Trust

Success Will Come From Relationships You Build With People

by

Dave was the fifth of twelve children raised during the Great Depression. His father worked at a sawmill and was a part-time basket weaver.

Dave had some problems: He was a stutterer, he had epilepsy, plus a learning disorder, all of which prevented him from graduating high school until he was 21. How do you like Dave’s chances in life so far?

But Dave was a good employee: first a Fuller Brush salesman and next a route man for two bakeries. Then, with all of his personal challenges, he purchased and successfully ran a restaurant and a grocery store.

Remember Dave’s father’s part-time basket weaving? Well, he started selling baskets: first from his father’s hands, and later from Dave’s factory. Oh, that’s right. You didn’t know Dave had a basket factory. Well, it was the basket factory Dave sold his two very successful businesses to buy. Turns out Dave had serious entrepreneurial sap rising in his bark.

Dave’s friends, family, and bankers were incredulous. Why leave a successful and sure thing to make baskets? By the way, they knew Dave didn’t know anything about how to make baskets himself. Would you have invested in Dave?

We now know that Dave also had vision. He envisioned a world that would need baskets – lots of baskets. And Dave Longaberger wanted to fill that need. [Continue Reading]

It’s the Digital Age – Ethically Speaking, Things Here Are Different

by

As arrogant occupants of 21st-century Earth, who can rightly boast of creating exciting innovations, like the computer, talking paint, and the margarita blender, it serves us to believe we’re also the more enlightened generation.

But honesty demands an acknowledgment that contemporary applications of wisdom, morality and ethical behavior are in fact derivative of concepts first proposed long ago by the ancients.

Consider the 10,000-year-old Chinese wisdom, I Ching, The Book of Changes. Then there are the 5,000-year-old Upanishads from India. And of course, the new kid on the block, the four-millennia-old Mosaic Laws (Thou shalt not …). Indeed, no wisdom is handier than that of King Solomon, from the first millennium BCE in Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms.

It must be noted that much of this awesome introspection and self-awareness was first contemplated at a time when receding Ice Age glaciers were still carving Scotland’s Loch Ness and the Great Lakes of North America, on the threshold of the written word.

Alas, ethically and morally speaking, we moderns are merely the new models, not necessarily the better ones. Hold that thought.  [Continue Reading]

When The UGC Says “Nu-uh,” You’ve Gotta Problem

by

Once upon a time, but not that long ago, a brand message could be successful even if it was close to a work of fiction. 

Created by Madison Avenue wordsmiths, copy for an ad or brochure was crafted to manipulate and motivate using puffery, a legal term referring to acceptable marketing exaggeration. And most of the time it worked. In fact, generations of consumers allowed themselves to be manipulated by puffery that became part of the soundtrack of our lives. Here are three Memory Lane examples:

“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.”

“Put a tiger in your tank.”

“The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Here’s a local example: “Largest inventory in the tri-state area.”

Since the release of the Internet for commercial use in 1993, the 10,000-year-old Age of the Seller paradigm has shifted in favor of the Age of the Customer. The primary differentiator between the two Ages is control of the information, which your customer now co-owns, including the truth about your products, services, and marketplace behavior. This customer control is derived in part from something called User-Generated Content, or UGC. [Continue Reading]

Avoid Scurvy And The Kraken With Professional Vitamins

by

For centuries, prolonged service at sea resulted in ancient mariners contracting a malady called scurvy. Those so afflicted bruised easily, had joint pain, gum disease, tooth loss – you get the picture.

By the 18th-century, researchers discovered that eating citrus fruit, like lemons and limes, would prevent scurvy. Of course, you already know the active ingredient in this “remedy” is vitamin C, found in the ascorbic acid delivered by eating those fruits. But I betcha didn’t know ascorbic is Latin for “no scurvy.”

An unfortunate reality that small business mariners experience on their marketplace voyage is a condition I’ve named professional scurvy. This malady doesn’t cause your teeth to fall out, but it does produce symptoms like high levels of negative energy, low levels of performance, and an easily bruised ego resulting in an unfortunately high rate of professional shipwrecks.

The good news is, similar to the clinical kind, professional scurvy can be cured with a supplement I call Professional Vitamin C. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’ve identified four of these. And you should be pleased to learn that, like limes and lemons, these marketplace nutrients are low-hanging fruit. Here are the four Professional Vitamin Cs, followed by a bonus nutrient.

[Continue Reading]

As The CEO, You’re The Futurist Of Your Company

by

“For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy

Was America’s 35th president encouraging each of us to be a futurist? Some people dismiss that term as pretentious and stuffy, but as a small business owner, holding that attitude will hold you back. Because as the CEO, being the futurist of your company is your most important assignment.

To be a futurist, you don’t need a fancy education, nor do you have to be a genius. Futurists aren’t inspired by God, they’re not clairvoyant, psychic, or have ESP. But they do look at the world differently than everyone else. Futurists see things others don’t because they’re looking for those things.

Perhaps it will help to introduce the product of a futurist, which is foresight. A futurist’s job is to deliver foresight to an audience. As a small business futurist, your audience is made up of four groups that need to believe in your vision for the future of the enterprise: family, employees, customers, and bankers – in that order.

[Continue Reading]

What’s Latin For Delivering On Digital Customer Expectations?

by

Why do we put locks on exterior glass doors? Why would a business extend credit to a customer with merely an illegible signature on a purchase ticket? Why do we make promises to customers based on the future performance of vendors?

Yes, there are laws and consequences that address missteps or misbehavior in all of these scenarios. But are those elements really what make us extend and expose ourselves?

Post hoc is Latin for “after the fact.” Laws, regulations, contracts, and other such elements are part of the post hoc process when Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall. They remediate, redress, and reconcile – after the fact. But as important and effective as they may be, they’re not really what drives our behavior.

[Continue Reading]

Categories

Archives

Share this page with your friends and followers