Deal Business Consulting and JD Deal Online Marketing, Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley, CA

No one really knows how an idea is generated.  From out of a mass of white and gray matter called the brain, an idea all of the sudden appears "out of the blue."

Spontaneous idea generation is the mother of creativity.   From the spontaneous idea arise concept, meaning, abstraction and innovation.   That Eureka! moment is so powerful a behavioral reinforcer that once experienced few motivators can pull such weight.

Even though we don't exactly know what generates the spontaneous idea we do have some understanding of what works and what doesn't.   For instance, we know that some cultures are less innovative and these cultures tend to be socially hierarchical and very rigid. 

To be a part of these rigid cultures one must give up a good portion of one's self identity.   In other words, if ma and pa tell you who you must or need to marry then your life will more or less conform to their expectations unless you rebel. 

Rebellion is much less common than imagined.   We humans are a species of sheep.  Very few of us can remove ourselves from the culture that has been ingrained in us since birth.  

One certainly has to give careful consideration to alienating one's family, friends, community and culture should one decide to be different.  

And those that create are definitely different.     

Even those that do manage to escape the rigors of a controlled society find idea generation difficult.   That is because generating ideas requires practice and practice requires failure and often ridicule.  It can also be downright frustrating. 

To be human is to be creative and most of today's creativity is tied to economics.   An idea's worth is what it can be sold for; there are so very few pure thinkers around today.    

One can also make the case that the truly creative are that way because of their obsessive interest; someone like Thomas Edison just had to know.  As neuroscience is beginning to show when one does something out of interest the whole brain dynamic changes and look what Edison accomplished. 

So, there are the two big keys that most creative people have; a mind free of rigid social controls and the unwavering desire to follow one's own interests.

But the real key to creativity and spontaneous idea generation may in fact be the links and associations that our more than 5 trillion neural connections can make if we let them.  That is the big point; if we let them.

There is credible evidence that one can plan or construct his own mind and it certainly might be possible to build in "mental best practices" with every mental game plan.  Maybe even build mental structures that create and promote more neural links.

If this appears too much like smoke and mirrors that is because it is and it may take several hundred more years for we humans to understand these mental dynamics.   What is important to remember is these dynamics aren't optional; it is how our brains are wired. 

Blame all that bad wiring on our ancestral hominids.     

While it may seem our brains are totally out of control and all is chaos that is not quite the case. Rather we must decide what we give ourselves permission to do; fortunately most of us decide not to be criminals!

In essence we must give ourselves "permission" to be creative and take advantage of our 5 trillion neural links.   That's a lot of links.  That's a lot of permutations and combinations. 

Giving oneself permission to be creative is not as easy as it may sound.  Many societies and social networks shun those that do not conform.   To be laughed at and scorned is no easy decision.  To be known as the one coming up with a stream of crazy ideas is not exactly fun either.

On a personal level one might begin to be concerned about their own mental stability when generating a steady stream of original ideas.   That is why many creative people openly admit they are "nuts".

Creativity can't be manufactured but it can be managed.     

So, cultural survival, self interest, self-permission and lots of strong neural links are requisites for creativity but are they the magic formula?  Well, yes and no. 

Yes because if these four conditions do not exist then the likelihood of creativity is diminished.   Conversely, having all four conditions met unfortunately does not insure creativity.  Too bad.

The final condition is practice.  If the innovator ceases to create then the innovation ceases.    After extended periods negative brain plasticity robs poor souls of what little creativity they may posses; once it's not used it shrivels up and melts away.

You know the type; never had an original idea in their life.   

So if you have it, practice it so you hone your skills.   You might think you are crazy and others may think you are crazy but then some thought Einstein was crazy. 

Thomas Edison was called many things besides crazy.  But both were creative because they practiced their art and continually generated ideas even though they were often "crazy ideas".     

The Theory of Relativity and the electric light were clearly innovative works that involved a great deal of creativity.   What is most interesting is considering how there might be a bit of Einstein and Edison in all of us if we just help it get out. 

Think spontaneous ideas and write them down.  Use Twitter or even the backs of napkins or envelopes.  Just remember that it's up to you to get your Einstein and Edison to bloom! 

You owe it to yourself and your society.  The bad news is so few of us can actually generate an original idea that we are overly dependent on the few that do.  

The good news is all of us have somewhere inside us that seed of creativity that is waiting to bloom.   What's not to like about that?

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Not sure why your company or business is not performing as you expected? Are you content where you are with "lowered expectations"? What are your competitors doing that you are not? A good business analysis includes management, human resources, operations, sales, marketing and technology. Find out what you need to know and not just what you want to hear from an objective outsider that is not your employee, friend or family. Google the article "The Business Analysis: Why Your Company's Future May Depend on It" for more specifics. Contact Jack D. Deal at 831-457-8806; research blogs at http://www.jddeal.com and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com

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The world is so full of such wondrous things, how can anyone be bored?  --JD Deal

Everybody looks good on paper.  --John Y. Brown

When you begin a response with "no", you place the sales dialogue in jeopardy because the buyer may not be able to see past your refusal.  --Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

With Zen, everyday is a good day.  Without Zen, even good days are bad days.  --Zen Koan

Greed is the evolutionary consequence of the 'hoarding instinct'; a dynamic in the social evolution of greedy humans.  In the very old days those that hoarded for the winter did not starve as readily as those that did not.   This hoarding instinct is a species trait even though most of us don't face daily starvation.  --JD Deal

A leader deals in hope.  --Napoleon Bonaparte

See how true merit in the life of man runs broad and deep, to execute his will, how, like a river, man in varied poise, the greater be the life, the less the noise.  --Octave F. Ursenbach

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we  would find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.  --Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of being, is the only goal of life.  --Robert Louis Stevenson

If you want to succeed in the world, you must make your own opportunities as you go on.  The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find the seventh wave is a long time a coming.  You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until some one comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth and influence.  --John B. Gough

You can always spot well-informed people.  Their views are the same as yours.  --Ilka Chase

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My boss left early today and I had to deal with one big crisis  after another.  I finally told everyone to put their heads down on  their desks until  things straighened themelves out.   

Have you ever considered giving seminars to executives?

Well, yeah.  More managers need to know about these techniques.   --Cartoon strip Blondie by Young

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states.  Andrew Newburg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe which orients us in space.)  The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.  --David Brooks

Patience is not swatting your husband when he refuses to wear his hearing aid.  --Brian Crane in Pickles

Never rub your hashi together as if trying to kindle a fire.  Never point with your hashi.  Or wave them.  Or drum them on the bar.  Do not use them to spear pieces of food.  Never leave your hashi stuck in a bowl of food, particularly a bowl of rice.  --David Plotnikoff in the www.mercurynews.com

The more we do, the more we can do.  --William Hazlitt

The  wave and the sea are one.  --Zen Koan

Just as the Origin of Species reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein's theory of relativity affected  art, so the Revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world.   --David Brooks, New York Times.

When the sky is clear the sun appears, when the earth is parched rain will fall.  He opened his heart fully and spoke out, but it was useless to talk to pigs and fish.  --Mumon

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Need a business plan for a new venture? Do you need a new business plan for financing or just to improve your operations and profitability? Have a custom made business plan,developed just for your company, that will stand out and not be thrown away. Already have a business plan that needs to be updated and upgraded? Leverage all your hard work and make your new business plan shine! Not sure what to do? First make sure your business plan includes your business model, management, operations/production, sales and marketing, technology and most importantly your strategy. Contact Jack D. Deal at Deal Business Consulting 831-457-8806; research blogs at http://www.jddeal.com and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com

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can culture and ethncity be an obstacle to creativity and innovation? why is it that the U.S. is more innovative than Japan and Europe? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal are insults remembered longer than injuries? why does ego seemingly insist on dwelling on that which we have no control? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal the world is filled with such wondrous things, how can anyone be bored? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal now wondering why the business owner I spoke with yesterday is sliding downhill yet has no marketing plan; reactive vs. strategic? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal politics, education and religion have this in common: they are from the past, antiquated and increasingly irrlevant in modern life... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal Krishnmurti spoke of the fragmented life, that is doing/working at what you really don't want to do, how does this affect brain chemistry? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal thinking about how a free and inquiring mind cures all ills and how it's odd that by typing this in here it will pop up somwhere else, no? about 9 hours ago from web
	jackddeal trying to figure out why anyone would want to be doing this and what are the advantages and disadvantages, is what I'm doing important? about 16 hours ago from web
	jackddeal thinking about the relationship between attitude, behavior and technique as it relates to sales success and good mental health about 16 hours ago from web Advertisement: Got a business problem and can't figure it out? Are your competitors always a step ahead of you? Is your company strategy worn, tired and ineffective? Are you beginning to wonder about your business model? Is your Sales and Marketing Plan old news? What are you missing out on? Find out what you need to know and not just what you want to hear from an objective outsider that is not your employee, friend or family. Contact Jack D. Deal at 831-457-8806

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In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms, I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholics and Protestant relations with the Jews.  In the process I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic church.  --John Hagee

I burn the books in my bag.   But the verses written in my guts cannot be forgotten.  --Zen Koan

What is really going to help McCain win Hispanic support in November is  the same  thing that has earned him so much of it up to now.  It's called character, and Hispanics -- like many other Americans -- may not always be able to define it.   But they know it when the see it.   --Ruben Navarrete, Jr. from the San Diego Union-Tribune

I'm always ready to learn, but I don't always like being taught.   --Winston Churchill

On the whole, the cost of designing and building a school, say a three-story junior high school in Mexico City, is only about 5 percent higher.  You don't necessarily design a building to avoid collapse , but design so that it's a survivable collapse.  You want large voids so they can be accessed by rescuers.  --Ben Wisner

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk  his well-being, to risk  his life, in a great cause.  --Theodore Roosevelt

More than 1,000 California properties were foreclosed upon each weekday in April, setting a bleak new record for the state's troubled housing market, while foreclosures in Santa Clara County surged 585 percent from a year earlier.  --Sue McAllister in the www.mercurynews.com

We confess our little faults only to persuade others we have no great ones.  --La Rochefoucauld

Business is solid at Wal-Mart while other competitors are hurting.  But it is a bad barometer for  the U.S. economy, that even though Wal-Mart is king  of  everyday low prices, shoppers still have to buy less and shift to more cash than credit.  --Burt P. Flickinger III of Strategic Resource Group.

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Never stop exploring.   -- Anonymous

Courage does not consist in feeling no fear, but in conquering fear.  He is the hero who seeing the lions on either side goes straight on, because there his duty lies.  --Saturday Magazine

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. --Josh Billings

Look and see with your own eyes.  If you hesitate, you miss the mark forever.  --Zen Koan

When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on them and improve his conduct.  When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.   --Dendo Kyokai

We make our own fortunes and call them fate.  --Benjamin Disraeli

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California today will propose borrowing against future state lottery revenue to help close a $15.2 Billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year.  --Juliet Williams of AP

If you meet a fencing master on the road, you may give him your sword; if you meet a poet you may offer him your poem.  When you meet others, say only a part of what you intend.  Never give the whole thing at once.  --Mumon

A REAL prospect is Ready to buy, Eager for the outcome your product/service/idea offers, At this time, interested Listening with a  desire to a buy a product like yours.  --Sue Hershkovitz-Coore

It is only through labor and prayerful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.  --Teddy Roosevelt

Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste  of life lies in the love we have not  used, the selfish prudence that will risk  nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.  No  one ever yet  was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime "let out all the length of all the reins."   --Mary Cholmondeley

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Need a business plan for a new venture? Do you need a new business plan for financing or just to improve your operations and profitability? Have a custom made business plan,developed just for your company, that will stand out and not be thrown away. Already have a business plan that needs to be updated and upgraded? Leverage all your hard work and make your new business plan shine! Not sure what to do? First make sure your business plan includes your business model, management, operations/production, sales and marketing, technology and most importantly your strategy. Contact Jack D. Deal at Deal Business Consulting 831-457-8806; research blogs at http://www.jddeal.com and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com

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It's not just that we aren't on the same page.  We're not on the same book.  We're not even on the same side of the library.  --Hillary B. Price in "Rhymes with Orange".

Society affect to estimate men by their talents, but really feels and knows them by their character.  --Henry David Thoreau

What are you doing?

Throwing away some of our money. 

What? 

Chill out. This is "disposable income".

Glenn McCoy in The Duplex.

According to the new report, Jackson reviewed the records of actress Farah Fawcett on 104 days from July 1, 2006 to May 21, 2007.  She also looked at the records of pop  star Britney Spears, whose medical files have  been viewed inappropriately by dozens of other UCLA workers,  according to the report.  --Charles Ornstein of the LA Times on snoops in UCLA medical files

Every child saved with my help and help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a  title to glory. --Irena Sendler who saved an  estimated 2500 children during the Holocaust as quoted by Monika Scislowska of  the Associated Press

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.  It will  lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render  deformity itself agreeable.  -- Addison

I am unique.  Where else will you find a woman who grew up in East LA, had a top 10 hit in her teens, trained boxers with her father, went undefeated in four fights of her own, drove a truck for Fedex to make ends meet and attended college to become a "woman cop"?  --Ersi Arvizu from the '70's band El Chicano

Procreation is a biological  act involving choice, chance and other factors, not the simplistic "God's will".  People should at least take responsiblity for their actions, not blame their misguided irresponsibility on God.  Especially in light of the overpopulation of the 21st  century,  such ignorance is practiced  under the guise of religion is simply shameful.  --Rev. Ernest W. Cockrell

I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears.  I will not permit eight long  years to pass without serious action on serious changes.  --John McCain

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Got a business problem and can't figure it out? Are your competitors always a step ahead of you? Is your company strategy worn, tired and ineffective? Are you beginning to wonder about your business model? Is your Sales and Marketing Plan old news? What are you missing out on? Find out what you need to know and not just what you want to hear from an objective outsider that is not your employee, friend or family. Contact Jack D. Deal at JD Deal Business Consulting 831-457-8806.

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The wretch enjoys a moment's  relief when the mystic chord is  temporarily slackened by a neighbor's fall; but his agony immediately begins again, for he anticipates another twitch as soon as the fallen is restored to prosperity.  --W. Arnot

If we started eliminating prospects based off of accusations that college players have taken money or gifts, there wouldn't be anyone left to draft.   --ESPN

How many planes can you fly on?  How many pairs of shoes can you wear? --Robert Morse on 'Say on Pay' compensation for corporate executives

It's been said that freedom is participation in power.  By that definition, how much power do we have?  We've been stripped of it. --Ralph Nader

They can  cover more ground than you can in your car, so unless you know you are  moving away from the tornado the best thing you can do is find a strong structure. --Andy Foster, National Weather Service meteorologist.

Here's a painless way for Cabrillo Junior College to save money: Quit sending glossy schedules to every mailbox in our area.  I constantly receive two copies due to an unused address in my home.  Is is too much to ask that interested students go to the campus and obtain a copy?  --Steve Bankhead of  Watsonville quoted in www.santacruzsentinel.com

The rise in oil  prices isn't the result of runaway speculation; it's  the result of fundamental factors, mainly the difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. --Paul Krugman, New York Times

What I spent I lost, what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.  --Addison on a graveyard epitaph

France consumes only half as much oil per capita as America, yet the last time I looked, Paris wasn't a howling wasteland.  But the odds are that we're looking at a future in which energy conservation becomes increasingly important, in which many people  may even -- gasp --take  public transit to work.  Paul Krugman, New York Times

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Jack D. Deal's article "Why Cold Call Techniques are Outdated" was featured on the homepage of Helium.com, a competitive writer's website.   His business article "Effective Business Writing" has been voted number one in its category on Helium.com.   Deal is the owner of Deal Business Consulting and JD Deal Online Marketing in Santa Cruz. 

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Posting about 30 million ads each month; Craigslist is an abiding source of misery for the newspaper industry.  Scott Duke Harris in the www.mercurynews.com

At investment conferences, people keep asking ...how are you going to make lots of money?   And we say,  'hey, not interested.'  Because once you are living well, and maybe providing for your future, what's the point in more?"  Craig Newmark of www.craigslist.com

If she hadn't opened the door with a knife in her hand...she'd still be alive.   Mike Gilbert on O.J. Simpson's  alleged confession.

It really snowballed.  I know  this doesn't bode well, but Obama  is like a cult.  --Ana  Yang

Obama's claim to being a uniter, reaching across the table and ending the war,  was never visible in his short congressional history, but his ego allows him to act as if it did.  --Linda Sides

Our patent system faces increasingly complex applications, which is why -- despite significant productivity initiatives -- the patent office currently has a backlog of  760,000 patents and the average  patent exam takes 31 months. --Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Commerce

If China ever were to become a truly free political system, it might actually become more and not less aggressive.  -- Joshua Kurlantzick in the LA Times.

The only truly legitimate reasons for government regulation of any business are to protect the public  from dangers to  health and safety or fraud.  But those  who want to legislate their competition out of business constantly misuse those principles.  --Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee

Legal process  outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian  business.  It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs -- from low end, back office service functions to high value skilled legal work.   --Rama Lakshmi of the Washington Post

True courage is the result of reasoning.   A brave mind is always impregnable.  Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins; and a just sense of honor and of  infamy, of duty and religion, will  carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.  --Jeremy Collier

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We can bring together a large number of skilled lawyers in no time at one-fifth the cost. --Srinivas Pingalli of Quattro on legal outsourcing to India.

Residents say children as young as 12 have been recruited by child labor rings, equipped with fake identification cards and transported hundreds of miles across the country to booming coastal cities, where they work 12 hour shifts to produce much of the world's toys, clothes and electronics.  David Barboza of the New York Times  in Liangshan, China.

In some  cases, generals' names were scribbled onto boxes of foreign aid before being distributed.  --Associated Press on the relief efforts in Burma. 

We stand in our own shadow and wonder why it is dark.  --Zen Koan

Fortunately, with ongoing and new technological advances of viewing and researching brain function, scientists have learned that the brain is not fixed in form and  function -- but can heal and mend itself as it helps improve its owner's quality of life.  --Offra Gerstein in the www.santacruzsentinel.com

"But what would become  of this place after my memories faded?" he wonders.  Without memories to give life to the artifice of Second Life, how would  this digital facsimile sustain him?  Unless maybe, "after my 'first life' memories were gone, I would no longer miss what I'd lost."  --Frazier Moore on switching to a virtual reality. 

Courage is resistance  to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear.  --Mark Twain

A growing number of businesses and organizations have taken the hint and began setting up their own presences on  Twitter.   JetBlue, for example, answers traveler's queries and warns about weather-related delays.  --Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post

There are very few things in this world worth having that can be had cheaply.  What we have come to call the strenous life is essential to all  acquisition.  One cannot get  his living for the asking;  he must work  for  his living.  --Francis G. Peabody

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What smart stores are doing is creating a new store experience --both online and off --so you are not just a merchandise retailer but an experience retailer.  It's all about what you can do to do to set yourself apart. --Craig Johnson

Researchers say blocking pleasure, especially the way the obesity drugs do, might take the fun out of many things, not just the harmful substances and behaviors these drugs target. --Marilyn Marchione  of  the Associated Press.

Obama will  never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers.  --Maureen Dowd

Powerset won't actually search the Internet.  It won't even search a subsection of the Internet.  Instead,  it  will try to  demonstrate the  potency of its natural language search technology by focusing on Wikipedia and Freebase.  Elise Ackerman  of the www.mercurynews.com

Permaculture gardening is an integrated approach, plants, animals, and nature work together to support a multidimensional ecosystem.  In other words, you're working with, not against, nature.  --Fran Sorin

Happiness follows sorrow, sorrow follows happiness, but when one no longer discriminates between happiness and sorrow, a good deed  and a bad deed, one  is able  to  realize freedom. --Dendo Kyokai in the Teaching of Buddha.

I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about  to eat cherries, that they might look  bigger and more tempting.  In like manner, I make the most of my enjoyments, and pack away my troubles in as small a compass as I can.  --Robert  Southey

Let's face it, your look and feel is sad and tired. You need an update and an upgrade. You need a new look and feel; maybe even a new you. In today's modern world being yesterday is so very yesterday. The bad news is that like your granma said now is not the time to be shy. The good news is technology and leveraging that technology can take you from vintage to fringe even if you are shy. Besides, what's to like about looking like everyone else? Contact JD Deal Online Marketing and  at 831-457-8806 or jddeal@jddeal.com.

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Business Software Applications Analysis

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It's not that AT&T is a small company.  Neither is Yahoo.  My webhosting says AT&T Yahoo, so that should make matters simple.  My monthly billings are exquisitely accurate as any charge possible anywhere throughout the AT&T Yahoo mega system finds its way to my invoice.

Be that as it  may the blog  was  down and no amount of fidgeting or rebooting would help.   The problem had to be on the computer cloud side, that is, with the website software and not my harddrive. 

The first call got me to AT&T but no website.   They gave me a new number.  The next call made me listen to all the options before making my selection.   This was obviously some techie's whopper idea of the week to reduce mis-categorized inquiries and make us have to listen to all the options.   'If you have webhosting and are a Red Sox fan, press 9.'

"Wrong department," replied  the pleasant voice on the other end, "why did they give you that number?" 

"Great question," was my reply, "it would have saved me time if they would have just told me first up they were giving me the wrong number.  Could you please forward me to that number?"

"Sorry, sir," was the reply, "we can't do that but here is the new number."  This was sure disappointing.  My AT&T Yahoo bill is all connected but the rest of  the company is not.  As it turns out neither could even forward calls internally.   The menu maze was obviously an obstacle course to weed out  the weak, frail and mentally challenged.   

Ten minutes later: "Yahoo," said the voice. 

"Great," was my relief, "my blog is down."

"Can you get into the control panel?"

"Yes, but not to post new entry or entries.   An error message comes back."

"Give me a few minutes sir and let me  check  it.  Please hold"

Now we were getting somewhere.   What is amazing is how many departments in AT&T Yahoo  have something to do with websites but not the website itself.   My suspicion was most staff were in marketing and sales.   

15 minutes later came the reply.  "Sir, we are getting error messages too but it looks like it's on the  software side.   There doesn't look like there is much we can do..."  Pause.

"Golly, maybe I was hoping for a little too much; afterall, it's  your software, your webhosting and it is technically beyond my capabilities to troubleshoot your software."

"Good point sir.  I'm going to speak with my immediate tech supervisor and get his opinion.  Please  hold."

So far so good though to some it might look otherwise.  They acknowledged there was a problem and they can duplicate it although initially it was unclear just whose respsonsiblity this was.  They must get thousands of  calls from buffoons that can't push the right key; at least on their AT&T Yahoo internal customer routing software  program they would not put me under the 'buffoon' category.  At least not yet.   And ten minutes later:

"Sir, we are looking at shutting down the site and restarting it but we want to make  sure we don't lose your data."

"Thanks.  It means a lot to me.  That and the fact there are hundreds of thousands of words and that blog mean a lot to me too." 

"Sir, we can't determine why you are having this problem from where we are.  Can I have your user name and  password?"  Sure.  Why not?  The good news is even they have trouble hacking into a site they host.  Ten minutes later.   

"Sir, this is an engineering problem and we are forwarding it to them for review.  Please stay on the line and we appreciate your patience."   Sounds good to me as we are only into this process a bit over an hour and what the heck could be more fun that doing  this? 

"Sir, the engineering department said they can see no quick solution and will open a case number.   Your case number is 6542345.   Let me also get your phone and email address as well so they can get back to you.   It might take 24 hours."

"My phone and email?  You folks sell me both, you should have some record somewhere." 

"Thank you sir and they will  be in touch with you."  And there it sat.  Me with a case number like it's some trial or deposition.   There were two things that were abundantly clear to me at this point in this tech troubleshooting process. 

The first  is that even if AT&T and Yahoo are world class companies that does not necesarrily mean that they can communicate with each other about things other than my invoice.   The second is that  Yahoo is a company that the week before had turned down an offer of a $45 billion dollar buy out by rival Microsoft.   Go  figure.   

But no worries.   The engineers were hard a work looking into my problem.    With positive signs like a case number hopefully they were beginning to realize it was their problem too.    A half  hour later I checked back on my email and nothing.   On a hunch I tried my blog and "voila!" ; it worked! 

So you may be thinking this guy is a whiner and why does he need a blog anyway?   Good  points and you may in fact be right.  But you miss the point.   You see,  my experience  proved that AT&T and Yahoo are in it for themselves and collecting my money is their first priority.   As true blue capitialists, they feel that getting my money is at times more important than my having a meaningful experience when dealing with a techie issue. 

So in fact one comes to the conclusion that the company cultures of Yahoo and AT&T are so unidimensional that they will never change and were it not for their people, they would crumble into digital cyber dust.   What saved me were the string of polite, knowledgable employees that despite the absurdity of the systems they were working under, were able to work around that and get my problem solved.

But that still does not explain why Yahoo did not take that $45 billion when they had the chance.

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It wasn't worth living without my kids.  I had a big mental breakdown.  --Dolores Quinones' reaction when some of her 18 children were placed in foster care.

The U.S. uses about 21.5 million barrels of oil every day.  If lined up in one gallon cans, this daily usage would  completely circle the earth over six times.  Gary Riggs of Long Marine Laboratory www.ucsc.eduBa

There's a lot of hot air and arrogance in the business we all would be better off without. --Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital on venture capital. 

In  Santa Cruz we  like to think about ourselves as wonderful, enlightened people but we're just like anybody else. --Simba Kenyatta i the www.santacruzsentinel.com

Babies born to mothers in prison generally are better off staying with them.  --Mary Byrne

Obama's problem with Rev. Wright back then wasn't that he was too radical but that he was too bourgeois.  Obama says he told Wright at their first meeting that he worried "tht the church is too  upwardly mobile."  --David Ignatius of the Washington Post

At Kleiner, we're trying to watch out language. --John Doerr

Realize that those repeated assertions do impact yoiur view of yourself, create a downcast emotional state that may easily lead to behaviors that will only confirm your erroneous view of yourself.  --Offra Gerstein

We're all frustrated because the average time to liquidity for a venture-backed company is now seven years. --Pascal Levensohn of Levensohn Venture Partners

Chinese entreprenuers are every bit as intense and every bit as ambitious as the very best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.  --Jim Breyer,  Accel Partners as quoted at www.mercurynews.com

In China you have an economy that has the ability to move goods around cheaply.  I'm certainly not in Shanghai for the air.  --Gary Riechel, Qiming Venture Partners

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Even virtue is more fair when it appears in a beautiful person.  -- Virgil

Grandfather dies, father dies, son dies -- this is good fortune.   --Zen Koan

To be effective in a short innovation cycle,  you cannot just be sitting at your desk.  --Matthias Graf  of Google.

Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks. --Charles Dickens

The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.,  --A.C. Benson

We recall today with shame that 75 years ago -- not just here in Berlin but in all of Germany -- tens of thousands applauded and cheered as the books of Erich Kaestner, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Kurt Tucholsky and many others were thrown into the fire by students. --German President Horst Koehler

The great danger of unemployment insurance is that people are paid to be jobless.  -- Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post

The authorities cannot figure out who are the parents of these children, not only because the mothers and children are uncoperative, but because the incest is so convuluted that it would take a flowchart to begin to unscramble the mess.  --Laina Farhat Holzman on fundamentalist Mormon cult in Texas

A lawless person is never free.  He is a victim of his own unaccountable impulses and soon a slave to his bad habits.  --George Walter Fiske

This is going to require some either bold actions by management to change the direction of the business here shortly, or there's going to have to be some other strategic direction.  --BMO Capital Markets analyst Rick Weinhart on Circuit City's financial woes.

A foolish man always thinks only of the results, an is impatient without the effort that is necessary to get good results.  No good can be attained without proper effort, just as there can be no third story without the foundation and the first and second stories.  --Dendo Kyokai

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We want to target the smaller companies about to make a jump in size.  We're not going to get Sun or Cisco to move here, but we can go after  the faster  growing companies that are about to move away.  --Matt Shelton of JR Parrisish Commercial Real  Estate in making an appeal to the Scotts Valley City government to subsidize real estate advertising quoted in www.santacruzsentinel.com

I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself. --Goethe

It takes only weeks to strip down our constitutional freedoms  when we are concerned about our safety, but more than 18 years about regulating a business? --Busy Burr in the www.mercurynews.com

Memory is not wisdom;  idiots can by rote repeat volumes.  Yet what is wisdom without memory?  --Tupper

There's only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle.  Negotitating the terms of Hillary's surrender.  After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping the country for Obama, denying with utter conviction Replublican charges that he is the out of touch, latte sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign.  --Charles Krauthammer in the www.nytimes.com

Funny how the populist politicians want to keep the price of gas high; who do they think high gas prices affect the most?  -- JD Deal

Before you give up hope, think back and read the attacks that were made upon Lincoln. --Bruce  Barton

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Posted by Jack D. Deal at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can always do a quick Internet search to learn more about customers, and this is sometimes a good idea.  Practically,  however, researching every business or consumer you call may not be a smart use of time.  --Sue Hershkowitz-Coore

Man's nature is like a dense thicket that has no entrance and is difficult to penetrate.  In comparsion, an animal is  much easier to understand.  --Dendo Kyokai

If you want to be miserable think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you and what people think of you. --Charles Kingsley

To find yourself is to lose yourself.  --Zen Koan

Clear writers,  like clear fountains, do  not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound. --Landor

The cynic is the one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  --Oscar  Wilde

Read the best books first or you may never have a chance to read them at all.  --Thoreau

As  one grows older one is more impatient with subterfuges and shams generally, and increasingly desirous that the "last run" at least should be free from them.  The world is apparently so confused that the least one can do for it is to keep one's mental integrity and to hold honestly to such poor wisdom as one has been able to garner along the way.  --Jane Addams

In the world of nature there always exists an appropriate order and everything has its own function.  If this order is disturbed, the functioning is interrupted and the whole order will go to ruin.  --Dendo Kyokai

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Publishing Online

• Location: Santa Cruz
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Public Relations

• Location: Santa Cruz
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marketing Online or Internet Marketing

Reply to: serv-6726914@raigslist.org
Date: 2008-05-08, 6:05AM PDT

You might have a solid traditional marketing plan and are doing all the right things efficiently and effectively. Yet quarter after quarter you are noticing that as benefits diminish costs rise. You might find yourself beginning to ask questions like "If no one uses phone books what good is a Yellow Pages ad?" Clearly the new marketing frontier is online and across vertical and horizontal markets companies are using the Internet to promote their products and services as well as find new prospects and potential customers. New technologies are allowing smaller companies to compete in new marketplaces. To see how an online marketing can fit your company's strategy reply to this ad or contact JD Deal Online Marketing and Zuniweb.com at 831-457-8806.

• Location: Santa Cruz
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 672691

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Advertise Online or Online Advertising

Reply to: serv-672676869@list.org
Date: 2008-05-08, 5:45AM PDT

Radio, TV, and print advertising keep costing more with declining results. Humans under 30 don't use phone books and besides in five years phone books will be obsolete; look at the bright side, a least no more expensive Yellow Pages ads. So just how will your potential customers and prospects find you without newspapers and phone books? Why is online advertising booming and newspapers are downsizing? This isn't a trickle trend it's a tsunami. Use online advertising to leverage your marketing budget and improve your marketing ROI Return on Investment. To see how online advertising can best fit your marketing strategy contact JD Deal Online Marketing and Zuniweb.com at 831-457-8806 or reply to this ad. Be sure to include your URL or website address with your online advertising inquiry.

• Location: Santa Cruz
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 672676

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)