MidasNotes: Rob Slee's comments on the Nation Link to Rob Slee's comments on April 5, 2010

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MidasNation Founder Rob Slee is widely recognized as the country's foremost authority on the capitalization and financial management of privately owned companies. And that is just the beginning. Read Rob and other Midas Managers' views on marketing, operations, skill leverage and the legal and economic environments affecting private business.

Following is the 27th Note from MidasNation, written by Rob Slee: April 5, 2010:Positive Deviance for All The word deviant gets a bad rap.We tend to associate it with its adjective form:devious.And devious always has a negative connotation.But deviants come in positive forms as well.Strictly defined, deviants differ from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society.I say that Midas Managers are positive deviants.Let's examine this further. A while back I met a crazy man who reminds me of myself.His name is Marshall Thurber, and he founded The Positive Deviant Network.This Network has many of the same goals as MidasNation - in that it desires to leverage positive deviance.Marshall believes that positive deviants possess the following seven characteristics:

1. Passion
2. High Moral or Social Purpose
3. Seeing Holes vs. the Net
4. Moving Towards, Not Away
5. Rapid Cognition
6. Checking the Edges
7. Low Regard for Social Convention

It reminds me of Midas Managers. A few of these characteristics require further discussion. 

High Moral or Social Purpose Midas Managers are driven by more than just money.Don't get me wrong, we all are interested in making money - but we don't worship it or define ourselves by it.It's just a way to keep score.Rather, we want to leave a positive legacy for future generations.And MidasNation provides the platform to do just that.

Moving Towards, Not Away Midas Managers have a positive relationship with failure; it's just part of business life.What's important is what comes after failure.Positive deviants get back in the game and correct what failed.After over 9,000 failed attempts to create a light bulb, an associate asked Tomas Edison how he could keep going after all his failures. Edison looked at his associate in disbelief, "I'm not failing; I'm successfully finding what doesn't work."

Low Regard for Social Convention Most Midas Managers have felt ostracized from the norm their entire lives - especially in their families.I tell people that if you're doing extraordinary things, don't expect everybody to understand it.People judge other people by their own abilities.So when someone tells me (and it happens daily): "That can't be done!"I immediately recognize what they're really saying is: "I can't do that."Positive deviants have the internal strength of purpose to do their own thing.

In Watts Wacker's book, The Deviant's Advantage, he points out that there is a very predictable process with anything new. It always starts at the Fringe, then moves to the Edge, and then to the Realm of the Cool, then to The Next Big Thing and, finally to Social Convention. Not everything that starts on the Fringe makes it to Social Convention; however, everything that is at Social Convention was once on the Fringe.

MidasNation is somewhere between Edge and Cool - heading quickly toward becoming The Next Big Thing.

What's really Cool about the Nation is that we've learned to convert positive deviance into Value Architecture.So in other words, the benefits of positive deviance can be taught through mentoring.Anyone with the desire can modify their behavior and become a Value Architect through this program.

So Positive Deviance for all!

- Rob Comment directly to Rob at R.Slee@midasnation.com

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Letter From Marshall and Jan (February 28)

Last night’s healing session was just that.

After the call, Jan looked at me and said, “I want to live.” Until that call she had been very despondent. Thank you for this. It is a close to overwhelming as I have ever been.

Jan is in surgery as I write this. They are not addressing the cancer just the blockage. The idea is to remove the pain, get her strong and then look at the options.

For those of you who missed last night’s healing session, there is another one this morning at 9:00 AM Pacifictime. I would appreciate it if as many of you as possible would get on that call.

With deep love and gratitude,
Marshall

Click here to listen to a recording of the February 27th Healing Call (MP3 file)

Our Healing Messages for Jan

So many wonderful people are sending their positive energy to Jan and Marshall at this time. Many of you would like to send her a well-wishing message, and this is a way for you to post it. Please feel free to "comment" below with your message for Jan and Marshall.

First of all, let's talk about blogging. This term has been used widely to describe a trend in the way web site owners communicate with their visitors. Here is the technical explanation for what a blog is:

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)

Currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

(Source: http://technorati.com/about/)

The reasons why blogs have become so popular are many. I think there are two main reasons why they are so popular:

1. They give the (dynamic) 'unofficial story'. Instead of a static web site that is rarely updated by the owner, blogs opened up a channel where the right type of employee (like a product reviewer, op ed writer, technology geek) could have a more informal / 'intimate' experience with web site visitors.

2. (because of number 1) marketers have learned how to use blogs to make money. Consumers looking for a good deal and/or the 'real scoop' on a product could do research much more easily by looking through blogs than by reading specs directly from a manufacturer's web site. So, companies with products to sell thought: "ok, let's get someone to talk about our product informally and refer consumers to our site. In return, we'll pay them a commission for each person that either comes to our site to look, or to buy." It wasn't long before people with basic knowledge of how to post on the internet began to embrace the opportunity.

A blog is basically a public journal. If a web site visitor wants to comment on this public journal, they must register to be a user of the web site (not just anyone can post comments...in other words, users must submit their name and e-mail to the web site owner).

Here is a good example of a blog by Malcom Gladwell: http://gladwell.typepad.com/ You'll see that for each 'posting' there are comments from users.

Now, let's talk about Internet Forums:

An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as Web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, fora (the Latin plural) or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum)

Forums work a bit differently than blogs. For one, forums are typically a product of an online community as oppposed to a blog where a site owner wants to influence thinking in a more top-down fashion. For example, imagine a community of poker players. The assumption with a community is that other people within the online network of members have both questions and answers for each other, that can be supported by the members. In other words, if I want to learn how to bluff better, I can post a question like this: "I know how to play the game really well, but I never win big pots because I have too many 'tells'. What are some ways that I can learn to bluff better?" Other members with card-playing experience can then offer their opinions on how to bluff.

• In the case of forums, 'posts' are generated by questions from people in the community.
• In the case of blogs, 'posts' are generated by an author that has something to say / teach / present.

Finally, let's talk about online social networks.

A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.

^{(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities)}

There seems to be a consensus that the best-known social communities were accidental. In other words, someone set up the software online for people to create a profile (Myspace, Friendster), 'connect' (chat / message / share) with other members, and meet new people - then the idea took off like an epidemic The concept evolved a bit with Facebook.com, where now it wasn't so much about meeting new people as connecting with people you already knew.

In the case of the Positive Deviant Network, we already have a (private) social community. The value of an online community would be:

• members can create a detailed profile for view by other trusted members (not public)
• members can search for other members by geographic proximity or other details (schools attended, books written, etc.)
• members can learn from one another through blog postings
• members can ask for help with business, personal, spiritual and other types of projects via a forum
• audio, video and other documents can be posted by members for review by others through the above methods

As a note that belongs in this discussion, there is a substantial difference between this network being private vs. public. We can certainly use a public blog outside of the private PDN network to present thoughts about books, events, etc; which could be a good marketing tool for Powerful Presentations, SS21, Money and You, etc. A word of caution: blogs should be updated often if they are intended for marketing or any other useful purpose. There are many dormant blogs that take value away from their 'causes'... The reason I bring this up is to make a point about keeping priorities straight. It seems to me that the first priority is creating and maintaining the space for PDN members. Future priorities may come out of PDN member's individual initiative to create and maintain a public blog on their own (and with help from PDN'ers) for specific areas of interest.