A Little More on NSDateFormatter

NSDateFormatter (as mentioned previously) is tremendously handy.

Unfortunately, it is rather sparsely documented.

I’ve had the opportunity to use it in a number of different projects; however, in each one, I’ve had to use a bit of trial and effort to actually get strings to decode into a valid NSDate object.  All the while wishing for better documentation.

Today, I ran across this blog post that does a good job of consolidating format strings for NSDateFormatter in one place.  I thought about adding my own comments to this post, but I believe the original does the topic enough justice.  Check it out, then see my version of a helper function which I use in the TweetPhoto iPhone App.

If you plan on writing an iPhone interface to any of the Social Media APIs (Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.), you’re gonna wind up (at some point) needing to implement some helper function for NSDateFormatter.

Troubled Times

I don’t need to tell ya – times are tough.  All over.

Every day, I talk to friends who have been with their current employer for ten years or more, either on the hunt for a new job or fearful that their job is in jeopardy.

Friends with a wealth of experience – smart, loyal, dedicated to their professions.

All fearful of the uncertainty the future holds and what this will mean for them, and for their families.

It’s been said – a recession is when someone you know loses their job; a depression is when YOU lose YOURS.

I think it’s fair to say, that for most of my contemporaries – that is, folks who came onto the job market in the early 1980s – this is by far the toughest job and economic environment we’ve faced in our professional lives.

And no one really knows where the bottom is, or where the next shoe will drop.

I’ve been doing what I do now for about 25 years or so.  And doing so as the head of my own company for the past almost thirteen years.

Even in good times, the fear of failure has been a tremendous motivator for me.  In one sense, it has been my traveling companion for many years.  I say that like it’s a bad thing; it’s not, really.  It’s simply the way it is.

I’m just used to the fact that unless I’m out there selling every day, that unless I am constantly marketing, if I don’t show up consistently, if I don’t grow continually, if I don’t execute each and every time…  I’m toast.

But for a lot of my friends, friends who have been with maybe one or two employers their entire professional career (don’t laugh – it USED to be normal), this is probably the most stressed that they have ever been.  Ever.

I really struggle for words of comfort to share with them.  Words with meaning and solace.

And I guess, my only useful advice, is that every day you gotta get up, and DO.  Do something constructive.  Network with friends.  Use slack time to learn a new skill.  Go out on a limb and take on a project WAY outside your comfort level.  Build something on spec.  Mentor someone.  Talk to a counselor.

DO.  SOMETHING.

No one is immune to this market.  And I honestly gotta tell you, not a day goes by that I’m not worried that things can totally go to Hell.

But it doesn’t rule my business approach, and it doesn’t rule my reason, and it doesn’t rule my judgment.

It simply makes me aware that every day I need to be generating the maximum amount of value in everything that I do, so that I can keep doing what I do, the way I want to do it.

Or else.

And that is motivation enough.

Building Trust and Authenticity – While You Sleep!

When we watch a television show regularly, or listen to a favorite radio personality, we internalize a connection. We come to know these people superficially, perhaps even a little about their background and families. But over time, even though we may never meet them in person, we do believe we know them on some level. Stalkers of course take this internal dialogue to a dangerous level but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

What comes to happen over time as we have these internal dialogues about the people we see and hear all the time is that we begin to form a picture of how trustworthy they are, how authentic or true is the picture we have of them versus the works and deeds that we are able to see them do when they are not in front of a mic or camera.

For example, this week we got to see Michael Phelps smoking a bong. Not quite the narrative that all of us have been fed by the media since China this summer. Trust has been broken and more than a few people now question how authentic the story line about Michael really reflects the person behind the image.

In out interactions on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter we have similar interactions with our online communities – though we may not consciously know it or even think about it. Fred Wilson had a post today about how important it is to have a consistently identifiable avatar across your online presences.  Why is it important?  Because it helps people construct that internal image of who you are (or at least, appear to be) over time, using a familar and easily recognizable touchstone.  It helps build your virtual bank of trusty personal capital.

Online, it’s much harder than in real life to verify how authentic the image projected by a person or company is versus the real entity behind the image.  Ultimately, it comes down to performance – how consistent are the messages coming from you online, do you do what you say you will do when you say you will do it, is your work consistently high quality, can you work a process to a successful conclusion.

You have to do something – positive or negative – in order to give others something to compare their internal dialogue of who you say you are to something more approximating who you really are by how you perform or what you do.  Whatever that happens to be.

But the operative word is “Do.”

I am a noisy friend to have online.  It’s on purpose, and has a reason.

The reason is this – my clamor will help someone visualize what my thought processes are, how I go about conducting business, and what my reputation is online.

And their internalization will either incent them to make a real personal connection with me at some future point – personally or professionally – in a way that has more impact than some schticky spiel about getting rich while you sleep.

Working on AHA, But not THAT A-ha

Working on this one:

American Heart Association Start! Walking Application

NOT this one:

I’m not a Joiner

I’ve never considered myself much of a Joiner.  You know – member of this society, chairman of this committee, blah blah blah.

At least, by temperament.

In actuality, I have joined quite a few things in my life – and one way or the other usually seem to wind up in charge, or at least, responsible.

So I either have a huge case of Denial or the Universe has a perverse sense of humor.

Or maybe I really am a joiner and just can’t bring myself around to that fact.

Being a joiner isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself.

I think my reluctance to be a joiner stems from my extreme dislike of bandwagon jumpers.  You might know them as Dallas Cowboy or Miami Dolphins fans from the seventies, Bruce Springsteen fans from the eighties, Nebraska fans of the nineties, or Patriots / Bosox fans today (alternate reading: Mass-holes).

Being a joiner (at least to my mind) meant that I had to own all the baggage of whatever group I was joining – fraternity, church, team, choir, family – and I tended to miss the real advantages that group membership could bring.  As they say, Membership has it’s privileges.

I’m still really ambivalent about commiting to a new group, even today.  Not because of fear, but because I cannot say no… and tend to get myself overcommitted, over-churched, or simply overwhelmed.

I’ve gotten much better in my old age.  My “no” really means no, and my “yeses” are made with more enthusiasm and optimism for what the new opportunity will bring.

But just don’t call me a joiner.  Because I’m not.

New NHL All Star Game Facebook Application

Vote for your favorite Detroit Red Wing in the NHL All Star Fan Ballot

I know, I know.  But business is business.

Facebook App Here and Voting Here.

Communication Non-Starters

Nice to meet you!  Would you like to get married?

Sounds silly, right?

Except that is exactly what happens whenever someone with a bullshit title like ‘life’ or ’success’ coach connects to me out here in the wilds of the internet and immediately starts spamming me with their snake oil hokum.

Look – you want to sell me something?  Fine.

But the way to do it is not to go all “Billy Mayes” mere seconds upon connecting.

You only come across as a douche.

If you want to connect and start a dialog, I’m all ears.  I may – or may not – buy into what you’re selling.  But at least give me the chance to catch my breath before jamming your spam into my inbox, wall posts, and statuses.

I don’t believe in “The Secret”, Santa Claus, or Multi-Level Marketing.

I do believe in great ideas, executed upon, with detail and care.

Everything else is just noise.

Initial Take on LinkedIn’s New Applications? Disappointing

LinkedIn’s new Applications offerings are – in a word – disappointing.

Seriously – THIS is what took nine months to roll out?

Go big, or go home.

Being Cool

A recurring theme the past couple of weeks for me as I sit in on phone calls and meet people in meat space (i.e., the real world) is the notion of catching fire, being viral, capturing cool.

Guess what?

A couple of middle aged guys sitting around on a conference call ain’t gonna produce it.

You can’t dictate it.

You can’t borrow it.

You can’t buy it.

It’s not something to check off on an RFP / RFQ / Scope of Work or Proposal.

If you find yourself in a committee or group discussing how they can be cool or viral or popular, it’s time to move on.  Because it will never happen.  Let me repeat – It.  Will.  Never.  Happen.

Here’s why.

The cool people are cool.  The un-cool people are not.  That’s it.

I’ve never met Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates, or Donald Trump.  All three are mega successful, but of the three, Steve is cool and Bill and The Donald are not.

Cool is a state of being.  It IS being.  It belongs to the poets, the creators, the doers.

I have seen incredibly cool stuff created by people of all stripes, regardless of means.

The one thing that sets them apart is that they are the doers.  The risk takers.  The contrarians.

They get the joke.

They are the people creating the gap that everyone tries to leap.

And they never, I repeat, never, are asking how they can be cool.  They just are.

So, if in your heart of hearts, you still really want to be cool, what do you do?

Conceive.  Create.  Execute.  Don’t ask how – just do.

There is an old poker truism, that when you sit down at the table to play and you can’t spot the sucker, it’s you.

Cool works inversely the same way.  If you think you are cool, you probably are not.  Maybe you were at one time.  But in most cases, it has a definite shelf life.

Let’s review a few pop culture cases to illustrate.  Many of you will disagree, many of you will agree, but the list will be informative just the same:

Michael Jackson: very cool in 1983, definitely uncool today.

Billy Joel: very cool 1975-1982, definitely uncool today.

Madonna: very cool 1983-2001, and still a force to be reckoned with.  Not cool, but points for trying.

High School Musical: Cool, but wearing thin.

The Band: Cool then and cool now.

Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Carole King: Cool then and cool now.

Glenn Frye: Cool with the Eagles, kinda a tool now.  Don Henley: Cool with the Eagles, cool with his solo work, comes across as a tool in interviews.

David Byrne, with or without the Talking Heads: You have to freakin’ ask?

Peter Gabriel: See entry on David Byrne.

David Bowie: Cool then, sold out in 1985, and really, coasting ever since.

Tom Hanks and Ron Howard.  Old Skool cool and cool now.

Van Halen: OMG.  Game changers in 1978, punchlines now.

Robin Williams: Funniest person I have ever seen in person, not cool now.  Replace “Robin Williams” with “Jim Carey” and you still get “everything gets old the upteenth time.”

See any patterns?

It is very hard to stay cool, to remain relevant, over a period of time.

It takes persistent effort to continually renew, to continually create, to continually grow to remain relevant.

Relevance is the real essence of cool, because everyone wants to be loved, admired, liked, wanted, to belong.

And you will never get that on a conference call.

I Paid Some “Stupid” Tax, So You Won’t Have To

You guys know what “stupid” tax is?

It is something you pay – financially, emotionally, professionally – to learn a life lesson the hard way.  Up close and personal.

I attended a local small business summit this past Friday.  Let me just say, right off the bat, I made several very good connections there, and met some people really doing great things.  In fact, these were the reasons I decided to go in the first place.  So, conference cost = money well spent.

The “stupid” tax came a little later in the morning.

For anyone that ever attends a conference with professional speakers, here’s the scam “business model.”  Successful, highly acclaimed motivational speaker speaks, provides video where he has spoken before, provides testimonial to the fact that he / she knew nothing, came from nothing, and became a jillionaire.

You with me so far?

At the end, they make a pitch for their book / work book / two day seminar / exclusive access to their sole ownership of the “secret” (fill in whatever secret you wish to learn here).

I’ve been around in business for 25 years, and the only thing that changes is the names on the fliers and the flavor of the secret (E-Myth, Tony Robbins, Ogg Mandino, Robert Schuler, Rich De Voss, … like I said, pick your flavor).

I generally avoid such things like the plague.  However, at the urging and invitation of a friend who put this together, I decided to attend because I recognized it as a great opportunity to plug back into a professional community that I had been physically absent from (and it was).

Like a good attendee I picked what break out sessions I would attend.  I chose one on marketing in a slow economy.  Hey – could be useful, right?

The session was led by Tony.  His talk was the same talk I’ve heard a few hundred times before, but he did grab my interest when he started talking about things that I knew to be true; that you had to capture attention, capture a person’s time, and be authentic.

He also used real world examples from his personal life in his examples during the talk: meeting Gene Simmons, how his kids got cards from one of the local eateries, yada yada.  How he had to do so many of these speeches to keep the animals fed back home (pets, too, not just the wife and kids).  You know – that authenticity thing.

What engaged me was that I could relate to having to work hard – and let me be honest here.  Tony wasn’t the greatest speaker in the world.  Not the worst, but I bet almost everyone reading knows someone in their organization that could give a better presentation.  But I could appreciate someone trying to make it in this business (events, event speaking, hawking your wares) and he seemed like an authentic guy.  Maybe he is.  Maybe he isn’t.  I don’t know.

Anyway, he must have interested me enough to decide to buy a book.

So, after he finished, I start walking up to say thanks for the session, but the guy had sprinted to the vendor hall across the foyer to start selling his books.  OK.  He’s here to sell books.  So, I follow him to his booth, say thanks I’d like to buy a book… and he asks me if I’d mind going back across the hall to pick up his bag containing his DVDs or CDs or whatever.

Sure.  No skin off my nose and I can definitely use the exercise.

I come back and buy the book.  Twenty bucks.  Signed with a smiley face.  I shit you not.

What did I expect?  A reduced rate?  A free book?  No.  Maybe some engagement beyond a freakin’ smiley face perhaps.  Anyway, this neither broke the bank or really got my nose outta joint.  I stuffed the book into my swag bag and went on to have really a great day making contacts, listening to a couple of other people talk about how they have the unique secret to business success, and had a beer at the end of the day.

So – where did the “stupid” tax come in?

When I got home to start reading the book – his latest, apparently – the first 26 pages are testimonials and “About the Author.”  Hmm.  I thought this book was about “saving me time and money and from being a marketing victim”?  This wasn’t looking good.  I was hoping to find “proven ways to crank up sales immediately and make your marketing sizzle” but I was seemingly spending a lot of time getting to page 1 of content.

OK… enough “About the Author”… what’s next? “Testimonials Capture Minds!”  Shit.  Another testimonial?  Three more pages of crap I care nothing about.

What’s next? “A Note to the Reader.”  Are you freakin’ KIDDING me?  Four more pages telling me what a great guy Tony is.  So far, Tony has only blown a lot of smoke up my ass – for twenty dollars – and I’m beginning to get this sneaking suspicion that the only thing that I am about to learn this afternoon is that even old hands can get roped in by a good story.

Not wanting to think the worst… I read on.  Four pages of Acknowledgments.  You know, I’ve actually read Anna Karena a couple of times – no mean feat – and Tolstoy didn’t have four pages of acknowledgments.  I knew I was in trouble.

Just beyond the acknowledgments was a three page in-your-face hard sell of buy crap from Tony.  Dan Brown and Patricia Cromwell at least have the good sense to at least let me READ what they wrote  before asking me to buy the next thing from me – at the END of the book.  It was then, I knew I had been had.

So, 42 pages later I get to the cover page of what I thought to be the beginning of “content.”

Instead, ten pages of “what this book is and what this book is not”, some stats from the SBA, and a quote on page 7 (page 49 for the math challenged who actually counted the unnumbered pages) that “Filler is not permitted.”  WTF was the preceding 48 pages?  The only “authenticity” I was feeling was the authentic sense that I had taken one to the shorts.

Needless to say, I decided at this point that I had just basically paid some “stupid” tax.  Or, as they say in the Marketing Game, the “one time sale.”

Now, gentle reader who has stayed with me so far, let me give you some REAL marketing gold:

• Do what you say you will, how you say you will, when you say you will.

Tony isn’t the first bullshit artist I’ve ever met, nor the worst, nor the last.

He is simply in the bullshit business and was good enough on his game on a particular day to get me to buy $20 worth of his bullshit.  Congratulations.

So, in order to turn this into a positive learning moment, I offer up the following:

• If you say Filler is not allowed, don’t offer up filler as the first thing your reader sees for 48 pages.
• Nobody gives a shit who you are.  They care about what have you done.  About what you can you.  About how is that applicable to me / the people you wish to reach.
• Authenticity comes with being authentic.  It is not a patina to be put on, but a state of being conferred by others upon us by how we act and are.  It comes by relationship and not by proclamation.

I offer up one last story, not related to this petty little transaction, but pertinent to the conversation.

Years ago, my father in law who was from a very small town in Southern Illinois, traveled to Chicago for perhaps the first time ever.  Almost immediately he was sold three pairs of socks from a guy on the street.  When he got back to where he was staying, he found that what he had indeed bought was only the TOPS of three pairs of socks.  And to this day – seventy years later – he still jokingly (?) refers to “Dirty Chicagoans.”

Tony may be a marketing genius.  I’ll never know, because I feel like I just bought the tops of three pairs of socks from a guy on the street, when I should know better.

A short follow up word: Seth Godin’s book “The Dip” is 70 pages – soaking wet, cover to cover – and is 1000 times more substantive than the time waster I bought.

Google it, go buy it, read it (easy to do in one sitting).  You will prosper more than I did Friday.  That is my final gift to you guys on this beautiful Sunday.