Who are your VIPs?

Last Spring, I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Brian Callahan, the Director of Fun at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. Amidst a number of entertaining and enlightening anecdotes about the company and its history, Brian made an insightful statement that struck me as applicable beyond business. He had been asked by another member of the audience to define what makes a person a VIP for New Belgium. Brian replied, "[A VIP] would be someone who can influence sales." He elaborated on what that meant, as far as business, but that initial sentence resonated with me and I considered its implications.


Image source: eventwristbands.com

We, as individuals, are each the product of our life’s manufacture. We build and advance ourselves as we strive to reach for goals and connect with people. Considering that perspective, one might say that many of our interactions in life are opportunities to market who we are. I don’t mean that to say that we are selfishly promoting our “product” (self) in competition with other “products” (other individuals). What I mean is that each new interaction is our way of presenting our product and how it might integrate with the current scenario or individual.

If who we are is our life’s product and new scenarios are our opportunities to utilize -- or at least better understand -- our product, then I posit that our personal VIPs are those individuals who can influence those sales opportunities. VIPs help us by providing feedback about our product. VIPs tell us about features we may have overlooked or that we underestimate. VIPs communicate with others about our utility and, as a result, provide new markets in which to promote and understand our product.

We share a bit of ourselves with every person in our life. The individuals we meet in life each have a different perspective on who we are. Some individuals have earned titles of trust: “friend”, “lover”, “companion”. The individuals who help you find new opportunities to understand and improve who you are “very important people”. Some people come into your life simply to make a transaction; to receive some specific use from your product or service in exchange for some specific use of their own product or service. Those people are merely customers and consumers. The people who form lasting relationships with you, bond with you, and feature you as a valued part of their life are “very important people”.

So, who are your VIPs?

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States of America. A day when many people spend some time with -- or at least thinking of -- the people they care about most in life. As you consider the influences and significance of the people in your life today, pay special attention to your “very important people”. Who is it that has special understanding and access to the true nature of who you are? Who promotes you, uplifts you, and encourages you to explore new possibilities? Who gives you goals to aim for and benchmarks of growth? Who values you more than just a transaction of interaction and utility? Who wears your brand, talks about your achievements, and visits your events as if they were their own? Who provides constructive feedback to you, about both your successes and about your opportunities for growth?

VIPs can influence your sales. Therefore, put special attention into the people who will improve and build up who you are. Recognize and acknowledge your VIPs. Connect with them and tell them “thank you” for being very important people in your life and for helping you to discover, explore, investigate, and promote who you are as a person and connecting you with opportunities in life.

Why I hate Daylight Saving Time

In a matter of hours clocks across the United States of America will be "wrong" by an hour due to the onset of Daylight "Saving" Time¹.

The advantages and disadvantages of Daylight Saving Time have been debated at length for nearly one hundred years. We've all heard the legend of the great inventor and founding father Benjamin Franklin decreeing DST to benefit agriculture across America. (Really, I think he just didn't like the night life in Paris and thought he'd go about suggesting a shift in behavior by having them "use more daylight". ["Benjamin Franklin: America's Inventor" - HistoryNet])

Daylight Saving Time didn't come into recognizable use until the first World War. During which much of the world's energy was spent on lighting (with fuel which could be put to better use in the war). A fact which really can't be used with current arguments for DST. Lighting is a small fraction of our modern day energy usage; instead, heating and cooling systems make up the biggest portion. Resulting in the following scenario today:

With DST, people return with an extra hour of sunlight. An hour during which homes would have cooled further. Once individuals enter a warmer house, they crank some cold air out of the cooling systems.

So, much for energy savings. You see, they didn't have electricity sucking HVAC systems back when they started this DST thing. Don't worry, though, some would have you push your evening plans out an additional hour if you were so concerned about coming back to a warmer house. (The same hour DST took away.)

Ignoring the involvement of energy companies, there are many industries which claim a benefit from DST. Tourism, sports, and retail; to name a few. Customers of these industries consume more of their products and services during the daylight; if they can catch a few more customers after the workday is through then that's money in the bank. That's not a bad thing for those industries to want, so I don't fault the efforts to take advantage of the time change. It does mask the larger issue, which started DST in the first place.

The idea of Daylight Saving Time is to make the most of the hours of daylight available during the Summer. That's fantastic! Unfortunately, people use DST as a crutch to hobble a few days of good feelings out of "more" daylight. You've heard this before, but I'll say it again: If you want more daylight, then use it when it's there. Consistently. I'm definitely not going to do what Ben Franklin did and tell you how to spend your day though; in fact, I'd rather point out a consequence encountered when using DST.

Tomorrow morning, you are going to feel like crap. You're going to wake up, look at your clock and think, "What?! It's ??:??. How is it so late?!" That feeling of panic is not only because of DST (just as little as that feeling of rest in the Spring); it's because you got an hour less of sleep. If you don't like that feeling, then you should consistently try to get an extra hour of sleep. DST "takes" away an hour of night for most people; moving that darkness from the evening to the next morning. Personally, I think it's your choice to define your sleeping habits as you want. Additionally, I don't think there should be any attempt to dictate whether you choose to play during the day or night. In 1779, however, Ol' Ben thought he knew best and suggested Paris "early to bed and early to rise", but we both know that sometimes more excitement can be found after dark or in sleep.

---

¹ Technically, my clocks are all either radio clocks [wikipedia] or using NTP [wikipedia] and, therefore, set the time automatically according to either the radio signal being broadcast by WWVB [wikipedia] here in Fort Collins, Colorado or the NTP server wwv.nist.gov hosted by the same.

Fort Collins has been Street Viewed

Yipee! It appears that Fort Collins has finally been given Google Street Views in Google Maps. I've been looking forward to the addition of our fine city to Google Street View ever since the feature was first introduced.

Here's a description of Google Street View from the Wikipedia article on that subject:

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps introduced in 2007 that provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level.

So, jump on over to Google Maps and check out Fort Collins, CO! (The location I've linked is atop Horsetooth Reservoir - quite a beautiful view from there.)

Fort Collins CityWorks 101

Minutes ago I received an email confirming that I have been accepted into Fort Collins' CityWorks 101 program. The CityWorks 101 webpage describes the program as follows:

City Works 101 is an eight-week program, which will give residents a behind the scenes look at running a city. Participants will see first hand how the City makes decisions, allocates funds, and provides services.

I applied almost a month ago, having forgotten to do so when I first heard about the program last year.

I was beginning to worry that I had missed my chance or hadn't been accepted into the program. Now I am exuberantly excited to have a chance to learn about and get "behind-the-scenes" of the city I've learned to love and respect: Fort Collins, Colorado.