Life's Short. Live Better.

Teranet - National Bank Housing Index - Canada

I've followed Standard and Poor's Case-Shiller index in the US for some time now, but never really knew there was a similar style index developed in Canada until recently. The "House Price Index" was developed by Teranet in conjunction with the National Bank of Canada. 

The idea is that the traditional 'average sale price' measurement can be skewed by markets such as Vancouver/Victoria and Toronto where values are substantially higher than the rest of Canada. Interesting to see how high and early (2007) Calgary peaked.

 

Steve Jobs Presentation Secrets

I just picked up a book by Carmine Gallo, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" . Nancy Duarte recommended it in her blog.

I love the opening quote: "A person can have the greatest idea in the world -- completely different and novel --- but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter" ---Gregory Berns I can relate to that quote.

The older I get the more I realize, ideas "are cheap".

Execution is everything. In order to execute great ideas, we need to be able to effectively communicate them to people. We need to be able to rally our employees and team. We need to get them passionate about what we want to do. We need to communicate our vision to our customers, clients and all stakeholders.

Easy to say, hard to do. The subtitle of the book is "How to be insanely great in front of any audience". That would sure help. 

BC Budget Visualization & Graphical Processing

You can download this tool to make these visualizations. Processing.org

BC Budget Visualization Tool from blprnt on Vimeo.

And... Tweets where one "just landed" based on where their Twitter account is registered.

Just Landed - 61 Hours from blprnt on Vimeo.

Insurance... Fear of Loss VS. Planning to Make Great things happen

We are really good at planning to make sure that all sorts of terrible things don't happen to us, or our families. It's classic "fear of loss" mentality.

• Life Insurance. Benefits us when we die. Necessary, but hard to enjoy it.
• Health Insurance. Benefits is when Sick. Ditto.
• Fire Insurance. Benefits us when house burns down.
  
• Earthquake Insurance. Benefits us when the earth cracks and our home falls in.
  
• Liability Insurance. Benefits us when we screw up.
• Dental Insurance. Benefits us when we get our teeth kicked in, or have cavities.
• Auto Insurance. Crash, and you're covered.
  
• Theft Insurance. People steal our stuff, and it's replaced. Grrreat.
  

What about the rest of the time? Why don't more people plan to make sure that good things happen each and every year of their lives?

How about Lifestyle Assurance. That's what over thousands of our owners at Aviawest and Parkside Victoria Resort & Spa have bought. It's a lot more fun than the ones listed above and even makes financial sense. But that's for another post.

Netflix Culture

Our Director of IT, Erik, put me on to a Scott Burkun blog post about Netflix's culture. By coincidence I also heard a feature on NPR this morning about Netflix. What's the big deal about Netflix?

I've personally never used the service, but know they rent DVD's via mail. $8.95 a month, for all the DVD's you want.

Netflix is one of those Dot.com's that didn't go broke. They generate over $1.4B annually in revenue. They have 7 million members and 2000 employees.

Netflix has a strong culture which is well articulated and apparently, well executed. This culture drives their growth can relate many aspects of our company, Aviawest, to the Netflix culture and values.

We're working on improving the manner in which we articulate our values and culture.  Netflix sure does a good job at that. It's 128 slides below, but well worth it.

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

Cornerstone Senior Mgmt Outlook on Business

Read the Cornerstone Senior MGMT outlook. 

Future of Business

Click on full screen for better viewing. Some interesting insights and predictions from Ross Dawson on the future of business.
The Future of Global Business: Implications and Opportunities

View more presentations from rossdawson.

Virgin - Richard Branson on Successful Business

Sir Richard Branson has a new book called "Stripped Bare".  Here's a short video clip of him on his fundamentals for business, courtesy the Globe and Mail. I like his style, direct, simple no BS.

Getting things done...and the Mail Monster

Most of the free world has now heard about David Allen's book - GTD - Getting Things Done. The idea is coming up with a system to process what Allen calls "stuff" - basically anything that comes into one's realm physically or psychologically - in our minds. He talks about "open loops." Ah yes...when we wake at 3am and can't get back to sleep because our mind is running. Get the book, it's good!

Here's good advice on how to deal with copious amounts of email. - from Merlin Mann of 43 folders.

Be an Innovationalist

A colleague of mine sent me an article on how business needs "innovationalists". It rang true with me. Most are OK with the status quo.

Why rock the boat? Why make the extra effort?

It takes extra energy, risk and there's a good chance for failure.

Without innovationalism/ists we'd all still be living in caves. That's good enough reason for me.