First time I heard the concept I dismissed it and belittled its importance.  But watching “What the Bleep” and particularly the Love Crystals changed my mind.

I don’t want to get all Yoda on you, either you have an open mind or you don’t.  I was skeptical, but have an open mind.  If you feel that that isn’t you then perhaps you should stop reading.

So have a look at the site http://thxthxthx.com by Leah Dieterich.  Basically she writes a daily “thank you” to whatever is going on in her life.

I know it’s a little ironic, but I can’t remember for the life of me who recommend I read it.  If it was you, thank you!

Rock on!

“Deliberate practice” is the stuff of champions, more important than innate natural talent, and entirely within your control.

And then finishes with:

Focus on the task, not the outcome. Intrinsic motivation is the best and most powerful kind (and also what leads to external rewards).

Very clever indeed!

Her writing is very much focused on becoming a better writer, but I love how you can apply this to many other areas of your life…

What does it take to become a great violinist?  A great basketball player?  A great parent?

Rock on!

To summarise, Seth suggests that regardless of what you do (crystal clear instructions, ALL CAPS) 2% of people will still stuff it up!

He finishes with:

Technologists hate this choice, but it’s true. We have to plan for human failure and part of our job is to have the resources and back up to allow these people to remain in our tribe even though they’re unable to follow a simple instruction.

To me, you can read this one of two ways.  Put your Microsoft hat on.  Windows Vista has 15 different ways to turn off the machine.

Now put your Apple Mac, iPhone or Facebook hat on.  What is the 2% there?

How do they plan for failure?  What does “failure” mean for a Twitter user?

The difference here is that the “barrier” for use is so low (open a web browser, make a phone call, update your Facebook status).  2% for a Facebook user seems very very high…

Who was he?  He was the dude who figure out that you will save lives by washing your hands before assisting mothers giving birth.

Seth goes onto give examples of Galileo, txt’ing while driving and appreciating expensive wine as ways in which human nature is happy to be ignorant to the most basic human facts.

What basic fact have you ignored today?

I certainly embrace the whole Anthony Robbins process, but at times feel that as a product, they fall short of expectations.

While I am sure that numbers were low, I still think It will be VERY expensive for EmpowerNet.  Certainly any event I book through them I will

Prepare for the talk by taking pictures of each person. If they’re shy, you can even do photographs in groups of two or three. Good photos, clever photos, funny photos… photos that are interesting are best.

Then, create a new presentation. Put each photo on its own slide, preferably with a well designed ID below it (it should be on a black box, with a nice sans serif font reversed out. Like you see on cable TV news.)

String one after the other. Build a dissolve transition between each one. Program it to put up a new slide every two seconds–don’t go too slow!–and to loop the presentation.

Ten minutes before you’re due to start, while everyone is finding their seats, run the presentation. It’ll cycle 5 or 10 times before you start speaking. When you get up, start your presentation and just dive into the meaty stuff.

I have been to so many events like this where they thank the dog, thank your mum and then thank you the attendee…

A much better solution!

FOUR-FOOT DIAL SHOWS PHONES MYSTERIES

The intricacies of using the dial telephone come easily to students at a western secretarial school, where a four-foot dial was recently rigged up to explain its mysteries.

Not a dummy, the big dial actually works. It is connected with two telephones, an amplifying apparatus, and a loudspeaker. When the instructor dials a number, the loudspeaker reproduces, so that all may hear them, the typical sounds that will be heard; and the instructor explains to the pupils what they mean.

I love it!

Everything new for a while…

To summarise:

Ramit goes to a coffee shop that has free wireless.  At 11:30am, the waiter announces to everyone that the internet is going to be switched off.

At that point, some grumpy customers have a moan that they purchased all this food to do some work and now they can’t.

At the end, Ramit asks “What would you do?”

My response on these types of problems is always “how will this impact me (or my business) in 6 months time”

Certainly in Australia, wireless 3g cards aren’t expensive.  I’ve been to a few Gloria Jeans where they advertise free wifi.  For whatever reason I can never get it to work and have given up trying.

I always will use my 3g card.

So what would I do?  I certainly wouldn’t make the announcement to everyone like that.  But also I wouldn’t just plug in a $100 dlink wireless hub either and tell everyone to “enjoy!”

I think if your point of difference in a coffee shop is free wifi then you should convert to an internet cafe!