Bellingham Looks Like A Fun Place To Mountain Bike

The Limit from Transition Bikes on Vimeo.

Long Live Long Rides

There are after work rides - the chill kind, fun, relaxing. And there are AFTER-WORK RIDES - hurting, powerful, stress relievers!!! I had the later kind yesterday... Long rides refresh the soul, like that of ocean waves at night. There is a beyond we cannot see, but contemplation forces us into places of our mind where we wrestle with devils, or sing with angels. Only a long ride (hike too) will do this.

New trail for me - Deer Creek trail in Crested Butte. I left from the Brush Creek parking area and rode the loooong climb up to the junction. Instead of a ride back down through Gothic, I rode back down the ripping single track. This view caught my eye... More to come!

At the top of Deer Creek Trail in Crested Butte
LONG after-work ride! 

Just like skiing, there is something about shredding through Aspen trees! 

I Don't Really Care, Never Really Have, So Stop Bothering Me

A personal brand is probably the most important thing to manage. Call it reputation, but I like the concept of a brand better. A reputation is only connected to the people you know, or have worked with. A brand can carry well beyond that.

It is sensual, visual, emotional and also part of your reputation. In any brand development program, one must be careful to only expend resources on the target markets that truly matter. If money or time is expended on the markets that don't matter, you've truly wasted your time. And there comes a critical time in a brand program whereby you might get this reaction: I don't really care, never really have, so stop bothering me. OK, big clue your personal brand is under attack! Run! Flee! Don't turn back! You're focusing on the wrong target market here, and they've let you know. But.......

The funny thing is that it is so hard to hear this, and we fight it. As a sales rep, my greatest weakness is that I try to win each and every deal. Sorry, can't help myself. However, I've learned to temper this. Not that I'm hearing the words I Don't Really Care, Never Really Have, So Stop Bothering Me but I need to have these as an internal barometer. Choosing the wrong target market, the one really doesn't want you or your product/service, will damage the brand development we are all working so hard to manage.

The Core Attributes Of Your Brand - Risk Taking

One question: what does your solution offer that I, as your customer, will risk my money or time on? 

Of all the questions you ask yourself, this is the most important... It requires maniacal focus to then deliver on this, which gets really tough - feature creep, what the marketing team thinks is cool, customer demands on the project, etc. But any other focus is a waste of time, so ask yourself: what problems are your customer trying to tackle, and why will they take a risk (with you) to solve that problem!

Winterpark Opens June 15th!

For those of you itching to get your FR/DH ride on, Winterpark is one of the best options out there. The snow is slowly melting off the high front range peaks (a late April/May snowfall kept things wet here, which is good), and when it does it's time to get on the bike to shred.

The Idea Of Thinking More

We are all thinkers, don't you think? Well that's the topic for this blog...

• A few of us have an idea that was carefully crafted by our frontal cortex after hours or weeks or months of analysis. 
• Some of us had a spark of creativity that lead to thinking about an idea. 
• A lot of us have an idea/thought that generated itself from an action by someone else and we moved on it. 

In either case, thinking is what generated the idea or action. But when you pull back and consider the actions you usually take, did you really think through them?

The book Paid To Think by David Goldsmith posits that leaders need to be thinkers too! What!? Imagine that... I particularly liked his rif on the Pareto principle (80% of gains are generated by 20% of the effort - 80/20 rule). Goldsmith argues that many times our Systems and Structures generate 80% of the gains with 20% of the people being valuable, and the leaders are a subset of the people. He goes on to ask, what if you lost your computer and access to all data for a month? In other words, your systems were down. You'd do what then? Goldsmith says, THINK! Perhaps you could think through a way to improve your systems, so you computer doesn't go down!

Goldsmith's principles go far beyond the business world. In our daily lives, can we truly measure the value of thinking before we act/speak? I'm so guilty of this, that it pains me! Just THINK about the simple actions that could brighten someone's day? I mean, what if you truly thought of that when you acted out each moment? Would that make your life better or more challenging? Not that you have to change the outcome of their direction in life, just make it happier when around you. Thinking does this.

Is Anyone Else Noticing Google's New User Experience?

Google is certainly stepping up their connections to the conversation, or at least that's how I'm interpreting their rush for new design. I'm a sucker for a great user experience, and they wins they have on me are:

• If your email chat contains more than one person, you can see their Google plus profile pic or symbol embedded in the icon to the left of the email preview. 
• Google continues to use motion in their gmail experience. Archiving is easy by swiping the content from one side to the other. Undoing this action is just as easy. 
• Did anyone notice that it seems faster? 

What I like about all of this is Google's commitment to making my work/life easier. What's more they seem to be making a strong push for social here. Let's face it, eliminating chat for hangouts was a brilliant idea! Keep it up Google!