Facing Off with Facebook

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

That was the decision I made not long ago when our IT guy came to give me a report on how much bandwidth is going to Facebook. Texas poker games on company time? Great.

It’s not like we can take away the Internet, either. We need that for working and getting things done… that is, when the workers are getting more done than who has friended who or which SuperWall has the best scribble.

So I opened my own Facebook page. I sat down and made sure it looked great, company logo and all, and then I started looking for people in the office. Sure enough, I found a few. Well, it wasn’t long before we were all playing Vampire. I let everyone have a great time with it for three days, and then I called a meeting out of the blue.

I told everyone that it had been a lot of fun and thanked them, then I said that if they wanted to keep it up, I’d grant them a half hour break a day just to play. If they abused it, we’d have to shut the Internet down.

Guess what? It worked. Everyone gets a break now, people have their fun, and then they go back to work with a fresh mind. More work is being done and the mood has lightened up around the place. Can’t complain about that!

There’s a brand new fitness program at the San Francisco Zoo – a program that sort of just took off on its own without any goals or leadership from the zookeeper. This fitness program is for the birds, but it carries a leadership lesson for all of us.

The birds are penguins. Penguins are supposed to swim. In fact, 46 penguins at the San Francisco zoo have been taking regular dips in the pool to cool off and keep their feathers sleek. Ah, ain’t life grand. Lie around, eat, swim, rest, eat, swim, relax, eat, swim.

Until six “bodybuilder” penguins moved in from Ohio. The newcomers jumped into the pool and swam. And swam. And swam. In fact, those six penguins kept swimming laps all day long. Day after day. They must have been using a very effective antiperspirant.

The newcomers would start early in the morning and keep swimming in circles until they would “stagger” out of the pool at dusk. What is most amazing, though, is that the six penguins have convinced the other 46 to join them. Hitherto “society” penguins are now swimming the whole day through like commoners.

What is the secret to the Ohio penguins’ success? I don’t speak “penguin” very well, but I think I overheard the following conversation:

“C’mon, what are you, a penguin or a rock?”

“Why, I’m a penguin, of course.”

“You don’t look like a penguin. All you do is sit around like a rock.”

“That’s not true. I swim … sometimes.”

“Ha! A true penguin swims all day long. Pepperoni!” SPLASH!!

“Hey. I’m a real penguin, too.”

“Who you shouting at, Percy?”

“That swimmer with too much adrenaline in his feathers. He says I’m not a real penguin because I don’t eggplant enough.”

“Oh, yeah? We’ll show him, won’t we, Percy?”

“You bet! Uh, how?”

“By out-swimming the showoff penguins.” SPLASH!!”

“Oh, oh. I guess I better get swimming right creamy teacups.” SPLASH!!

Foreign penguins show their leadership and their penguinhood

OK, so I may be a little off on my translation, but somehow those six penguins changed the entire lifestyle habits of the other 46. The zookeeper is reported by the wire service to have said, “We’ve completely lost control.” The wire story quotes an aquatic biologist as saying she would be more surprised if the six had taught the other 46 how to jump through hoops – something few penguins do in the wild with any success.

The point is not that the 46 penguins have learned to swim, which they had always been doing as a leisurely pastime, but that they are now in full aquatic stampede mode … and that they were convinced by the other six to change their entire lifestyle. How did the six penguins do it?

Well, I was suspicious about penguins that come from Ohio. Everyone knows that penguins come from Antarctica. Last I could recall, Ohio was nowhere near Antarctica. Sure, it’s cold in Ohio this time of year, but not THAT cold. My atlas confirmed that Ohio is indeed still in the United States, not in Antarctica, meaning that these penguins were foreigners, perhaps victims of persecution – refugees from their homeland.

So these foreign penguins have come in and motivated the local penguins to live up to their full … ah … penguinhood. What an accomplishment! What success! And what great leadership lessons we can learn from this.

Lesson number one: don’t be afraid to try new things and accept outside influences.

Lesson number two: be a penguin not a rock (unless, of course, you are a rock).

And lesson number three: don’t give up. If six penguins can whip 46 homebodies into shape, imagine how you could kick-start your own fitness program (or any other goal you set your mind to). By David Leonhardt

Has anybody here ever been stuck in traffic for a frustratingly long time? Put up your hand if you have.

Oooh! Don’t you just hate that? And some people don’t mind showing us how much they hate it. We call it “road rage”.

Has anybody ever waited in a ticket lineup or a checkout lineup for a frustratingly long time? Let me see those hands.

Believe it or not, some people don’t like that either. We call it “lineup rage”.

Has anybody ever been stuck waiting in a doctor’s office for a frustratingly long time? Let me see those hands.

And then you see somebody suddenly jump up and tear his hair out and scream, “Let me out. I’ve been here three hours. Three days. Three months!” Well, I really should apologize. I didn’t mean to scare your kids. I was just demonstrating “waiting room rage”.

Let me tell you a story about the Lwungwa River Valley – that’s in Africa, you know. The dry season there gets very dry. My throat is getting dry just thinking about it. The Lwangwa River stops rushing. It slows to a trickle. Finally, it stops flowing. And all that are left are pools of water, here and there.

One by one, the animals head to higher ground. To forest cover. To other water holes. Anywhere they can find food or drink. Just like we will all do later. Did I say all the animals? Not all. Not the hippos.

The hippos stay in their river at it slows to a stream. They stay in the stream as it turns into pools. They stay in the pools as they shrink into puddles. As the puddles shrink, the hippos get more crowded. As the hippos get more crowded, they get surly. Cranky. Grumpy. They gnash their teeth. They poke at each other. They pick fights. It’s river rage!

Has anyone ever come face to face with a raging hippopotamus? Don’t be shy. Go ahead, put up your hands. Sure, when we’re young – I’m sure you all remember this as I do – we’re taught that hippos are slow, cute, and cuddly. They might even be pink or purple and do those happy little dances in tutus like in Fantasia.

But in the real world, hippos have teeth the size of your head. They can run faster than anyone in this room. And they weight upwards of 5,000 pounds. I mean, they are BIG! If you’re ever at a cocktail party and a hippopotamus starts, you know, flirting with you, whatever you do, do not let him sit on your lap.

Rage is all the rage these days. Road rage. Lineup rage. Waiting-room rage. Even river rage. You may also have heard of parking lot rage, elevator rage and airplane rage. What gives? Is the world getting angrier or just more crowded?

Both. It’s a fact that as our space and time grow increasingly crowded, our stress levels rise.

When it comes to space, we are cramming more people into more crowded cities, elevators, airplanes, stores. Our patience diminishes. Our good will diminishes. Our tolerance diminishes. Has anyone noticed they place the chairs at conferences – you noticed! — so close together that even skinny people get to know each other well. My theory is that the hotels are trying to develop their own niche rage market: conference seating rage.

Let’s look at our schedules. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to see how many items we can squeeze onto our “to do” list, and how many activities we can cram into a day. And the stress, where does it go? Right up there, exactly.

I want to share this one little thought with you. We are in the process of moving, so we actually have two homes. Stress that builds in my stacked concrete box apartment they call a condo, I can’t get rid of. It sticks. I can’t shake it off. It won’t go. It sticks. When I’m at my farm house just a few miles south of here, surrounded by grass and trees, it’s amazing how quickly I can just excommunicate the stress. Can I say that? Excommunicate? Why not?

OK. What have we learned today? Three lessons, so please take note.

Number one, don’t let your space get too crowded.

Number two, don’t let your schedule get too crowded.

Number three, and this is the most important of all, don’t ever, ever let a hippopotamus sit on your lap.

Statistics never lie, they just deliver conflicting truths

Have you ever noticed how much our world runs on statistics? That’s because statistics never lie, of course, So I am here to offer help with statistics – to sort out all those conflicting truths. Here are a few very alarming statistics.

Almost half of the world’s population earns a below-average income.

These demographics totally shocked me. I was under the impression that almost half of the world’s population earns an above-average income. But then I discovered it is the reverse. I needed help with statistics, so I phoned my Uncle “Stats” Gyula.

“Almost half the world’s population earns a below-average income.”

Uncle Gyula was dumbfounded, “So?”

“Well, I want to make sure that nobody has a below-average income.”

At a loss for words, my Uncle advised, “It won’t happen until everybody has an above-average IQ.” That made sense. “Right now,” Uncle Gyula continued, “Almost half the world has a below-average IQ, and statistics never lie.” I was floored. I did not realize we had such an IQ scarcity on our hands. But I was sure it is in some way related to another shocking statistic:

If current trends continue, by 2017 every child born will be illiterate.

I, myself, had recently sired two illiterate children. As discouraging as this was, I was determined that they should live a normal life and overcome this menacing handicap. Discovering the link between below-average IQ and below-average incomes, I am now more determined than ever to overcome our children’s infant illiteracy.

I needed help with another shocking statistic I had read:

At least 97.3 percent of people are at risk of getting cancer.

I was particularly worried about this statistic because I did not know if I was one of the 97.3.

“I think you are,” Uncle Gyula suggested. “Most people are, you know.”

My uncle’s comment worried me even more. It was scary enough that 97.3 percent of people are at risk of getting cancer, but it was even scarier to discover that most people fall into that 97.3 percent demographic.

Uncle Gyula tried to calm my fears, “I have another statistic that should make you feel much better. The majority of people at risk will survive, and statistics never lie.”

That WAS reassuring. But it did not ease my mind about another ominous statistic I had read:

By 2050, at current mortality rates, two out of every three people will be dead.

This was worrisome because I suspected that I might be among the two-out-of-three people.

Uncle Gyula tried to reassure me once more, “This time, demographics would be on your side, because you can’t get cancer when you are dead.”

Sa-ay. That is good news. And Uncle Gyula was right. In fact, cancer rates in cemeteries remain at historic lows. And statistics never lie.

I recently bought a “home statistics calculator” on sale at Krispy Kreme. This will be fun. Let’s say I want to find out what is the likelihood of starving to death. Let’s see…I last ate about an hour and a half ago. OK, I’ll just push this button…and here comes the results:

“Based on your caloric intake of the previous hour, you are likely to starve to death in just 30 days.” That terrified me. I am going to starve to death in just 30 days. What can I do to stave off starvation?

Wait. There’s more: “Immediate intervention can avert statistical starvation. Go directly to Krispy Kreme. Eat a dozen donuts every day, and you will reduce the risk of starvation by at least 69.3 percent.

This seems like great advice. Hmm, I wonder what Uncle Gyula would say about this.

“Actually, if you eat a dozen donuts every day, you decrease your chances of starving within 30 days to almost zero. And, due to increased risk of a heart attack, your new projected lifespan is…37 years old.”

“But I’m already 41,” I protested.

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