404 Not Found (I must keep looking)

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I suffer from Half-Heimers. My wife says I can’t remember half the stuff she asks me to remember.
Not all. Just half.

For example, I forgot what I was going to blog about today.
So today’s blog po404-foundst is my 404 not found post.

I hope the subtle humor is not lost on you.

The 404 Not Found error message is ubiquitous and annoying enough that several creatives have graced the interwebs with their clever 404 pages.

 

 

I’m sorry. My brain did not find today’s post in its memory banks.

Please return to our home page: geewhiz.wordpress.com/ and give my brain another chance.

White Cane Safety Day

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October 15 is White Cane Safety Day. So what’s the deal with the white cane?

I collaborated with the Society for the Blind to understand.

See what’s possible at vspblog.com learning-how-to-use-white-cane

Braincalming. Not brainstorming.

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How many times have you been coaxed into participating in a brainstorming session? Did you feel that the results warranted the investment of time, energy, resources, people?

This post at The Heart of Innovation proposes a concept that contradicts prevalent thought: that braincalming rather than brainstorming produces results.

I love this extract:

“Every wonder why so many people get their best ideas during “down time” — the time just before they go to sleep… or just after waking… or in dreams… or in the shower… or in the car on the way home from work?”

Check out their post

…a Perfect Meeting?

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team-work-520x317
Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. If used intelligently, meetings can help to share sensitive information face to face, discuss and gather information, educate and motivate, direct and decide. But if not managed correctly, meetings can kill productivity, waste valuable resources, or demotivate employees.

Read Matthew Hussey’s post: “7 Steps to a Perfect Meeting” and see if there are suggestions you can use.

Why? Because I want to help stop diabetes

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For years, I’ve ridden the Tour de Cure, the fund-raising bicycle ride to benefit the American Diabetes Association. I’ve ridden for a coworker’s son, my supervisor, my mentor, my wife’s friend, and others.
TourdeCure-teamVSP2

But this year, I learned my own brother has been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. Now this fight got personal.

Maybe you know someone affected by diabetes. Maybe it’s your family member. Maybe it’s yourself.

I’m riding again to raise awareness. To fight. To Stop Diabetes.

Join my team and ride. Sponsor a rider. Or share our links to raise awareness among your own circle of friends.

http://main.diabetes.org/goto/vspglobal 

Red or white bullhorn?

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“Why are we asking the blind woman whether she wants a red or a white bullhorn?”bullhorn

That strange phrase woke me up one night. I had just suffered through a nightmare where a team of coworkers were arguing over a bullhorn, whether it should be red or white. A lot of money and time was going into that argument.

Then I blurted out “why are we asking the blind woman whether she wants a red or a white bullhorn?”

And woke up with a jolt.

Do you find yourself going down a path, stopping at a fork in the road, debating the decision, only to stop and ask if indeed you’re even on the right journey?

This innovation geewhizdom was inspired by a bullhorn.

Proper Product Placement Produces Publicity

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You’ve heard about product placements in TV and movies. Now check out proper product placement in social media and blogs.

As one of thousands of volunteers for Junior Achievement, I receive a volunteer package with instructions, curriculum, classroom materials, and a few brand items.

That includes this banner that volunteers hang in the classrooms.

JA-photo

I happened to shoot a selfie holding the banner to include with other photos I submitted to Junior Achievement.

Lo and behold. Junior Achievement used that photo in their Facebook post for National Volunteer Week.

Facebook Post by Junior Achievement of Sacramento.

Blood, Sweat, and Gears

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Health and wellness. Bicycling. Fresh California air. Gorgeous spring weather. The Northern California foothills.
Put them together for an event: the Tour de Cure, cycling to raise awareness for the American Diabetes Association.
The ADA schedules Tour de Cure rides all across the US, and this May, I ride with my “Blood, Sweat, and Gears” teammates.
IMG_8272
This year, we set a goal of 20 riders, $5,000. With the ride just around the corner on May 4, we thank you in advance for helping us reach that goal.
Please follow our team’s progress, join our team, or sponsor a rider.

The Burning House

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burning house book image“If your house was burning, what would you take with you?” Thus was born one of the most inspiring web sites I’ve started following, TheBurningHouse.com. by Foster Huntington.

The site has inspired me and countless others to take stock of what’s important in life.

Assuming all people and pets are out safely, what would you take from your burning house?

Socialcast to the rescue

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Social networking exploded at my workplace with the recent soft launch of Socialcast.socialcast logo
As an internal-use-only social networking tool, Socialcast opens up a conversation space that knocks down territorial walls, expedites knowledge sharing, and builds community.

For example
Just this month, our mobile clinic team began sharing their experiences on the road as they serve various communities, the underserved, the uninsured, and victims of natural disasters. Before, attempts to communicate back to us at corporate consisted of emails with attached photos that bogged down servers, created duplicate copies, and often missed entire departments of interested audiences not served by the email sender.

Now, they post a quick update on Socialcast, add a photo (linked to, not copied a gabillion times), and subscribers immediately see the update.

Resistance is futile
Yes, we do have resistance to this tool. I’ve heard “geez, not another site to go to. I already read email and our intranet.” Or, “I don’t get Twitter and I hate Facebook.” And I understand those fears. Continue reading →

Caine’s Arcade – a boy and a dream go viral

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Imagination. Innovation. Incredible power of social media.

A 9-year-old boy in Los Angeles with a big dream and tons of creativity spends his summer building an arcade out of leftover cardboard, hoping customers to his dad’s auto parts shop will stop and play.

But in this day of online shopping, his dad’s customers shop by mouse click, not by foot.

No one stops to play.

Until one day, a customer shopping for a car door handle stops to play, buys the fun pass, and becomes enamored with the boy’s imagination, innovation, and incredible execution.

That customer, Nirvan Mullick, dreams another big dream, and the rest of the story is how videos go viral.

Watch.

Postscript: More than $100,000 has been donated to a trust fund for Caine’s college education. Imagine the technological wizardry to come from this boy’s imagination.

Perfectionism is killing me

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I’m a closet perfectionist. It’s in my DNA.

The danger of perfectionism is that nothing gets completed. Sure, I get work done, but that often leads to me tweaking and refining and perfecting and revising and reworking and never reaching the point where I am satisfied.

Because I’m shooting for the perfect, when I should be shooting for the good.

Funny thing is I just read about it in this post by ProBlogger Darren Rowse, “Perfectionism: the ultimate time drain?”

You should have seen how much angst I put myself through just getting this post started, written, and finished.

There.