By now some of you have seen and heard me on the news and morning radio.  I love living in Western Washington and I love my company and the people I work with, our employees are amazing.  The 'world is flat' and our company employs many people outside of Washington, and it isn't a stretch to relocate our corporation to another state if the taxation becomes too onerous or discriminatory.  Tax codes should be uniform in the sense that if we vote for an income tax it would apply to everyone not just successful business persons.

Link to King5 Story and Video:
http://www.king5.com/news/local/WA-Senate-leader-suggests-income-tax-referendum-86416972.html

Many public state employees do an amazing job every day. State Agencies provide needed services and necessary programs for the citizens of Washington State. Many of them have worked to implement Technology Solutions that drive down costs and streamline access to these vital services. Raising taxes on only a few people who have worked hard to achieve the American Dream isn't the answer.

Drive common sense cost savings measures.  One idea is to implement Check21 throughout state agencies.  The State writes off $100K+ every year in bad checks received from the public.  Check21 eliminates this. At Target, when you write a check, they scan it and hand it back to you.  They know immediately whether or not it's a valid check and if the funds are available.

Many other success stories in government cities, counties and state agencies that cut costs and improve services are overlooked.  One example can be found by viewing this video case study from The City of Oakland: http://www.youtube.com/user/ImageSourceInc#p/a/u/5/05rUSQZUXEM

I urge state lawmakers to look toward innovation and not at business owners’ wallets.  Together we can make a difference.

I have been hosting some Social Media training for our employees at ImageSource.  The feedback and adoption has been pretty good, but there is the common initial pushback – “I don’t have time for this” or “I can’t read this twitter stuff” and there are privacy concerns about having work bleed into personal.  While I understand the initial pushback, I am working hard to dispel some of the uncertainty about the tools.  We are using Wordpress for blogs, twitter for micro-blogging and we have a couple of Fan sites on Facebook

Curtis Silver posted a great blog September 2009 on the subject of FUD and Social Media

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/09/social-media-fighting-the-fear

I am starting to get through with some of the basic concepts and upside that Web2.0 tools provide.  Especially with the Sales staff who I am working to convince that their personal BRAND as a Professional and our Corporate BRAND is something to be proud of and to share without the limitations of time, geography or traditional marketing costs and boundaries.

›          We will use it to build relationships

›          We are creating brand awareness

›          We are positioning ourselves as experts in the industry

›          We can more easily network with other industry professionals

›          We build trust with our customer partners

›          We can have multiple, quick, conversations and corporate updates

We have been using the following graphic as a way to articulate how the pieces fit together.  Websites and metadata / tagging driving search engine optimization with the help of our blogs and tweets.  Also publishing video using YouTube and Ustream.  We are using URL shorteners / shrinkers to save space in blogs and twitter messages.

If you’re a company that is interested to get a similar movement started but don’t know where to begin please feel free to contact me via http://twitter.com/shadrachwhite and follow the twitter list http://twitter.com/#/list/shadrachwhite/imagesource see how we progress in our efforts.  The more activity you see the more successful we have been in getting people on board.

I asked if I could look at it, I expected to read somthing from a purely technophile perspective. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a religous publication. It was published as a guide to using Social Media in a positive and meaningful way. I think this is an important mesage for young people as too often these technologies are perverted and used to hurt or exploit.

I am looking forward to hosting an Executive roundtable in Newport Beach, CA. next week, http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=801360 hope to see you there.

I spent a day in San Jose and met a very interesting and intelligent Chief Information Officer.  In a phrase ‘he gets it’.  I was actually surprised, quite frankly, at his progressiveness and acknowledgement of the change in information technology, workforce and the opportunity for efficiencies.  He knew content management, workflow, social media, and the importance of handhelds.  Hell he even understood the death of email as a platform.  He had ideas, fresh thinking and he was over 30, Awesome I say!

In an institutional role the climb is definitely uphill.  Anyone would have a myriad of naysayers creating roadblocks to change and progress.  This didn’t seem to torpor this leader; he knew how important it was to get solutions to old business paradigms implemented.

My hat is off to any leader that understands the old guard is to be lauded but not institutionalized or accepted as the norm.  I applaud this movement forward, especially in an a recession that demands economy of effort and service.

I participated in the 2010 Rosenquist Vala Memorial Giant Slalom alpine skiing competition over the weekend.

It was held at Crystal Mountain, WA.  http://www.psna.org  I had a really great time, met some great people and I got a really nice hat for competing in my Division (Div. III) on Saturday.  You get 2 runs one run in the morning then everyone breaks for lunch while they reset the course for the second run.  The divisions are broken out into men’s and women’s age brackets, I was the youngest born in 1970, the eldest racer was born in 1937, yeah that’s right I was racing women and senior citizens.

But seriously these guys and gals can ski ‘fast’, really fast, I learned pretty quick that some of these racers are always club favorites for fast times down the course:

·         Willi Schmidt in the Men’s Division 10

·         Kanut Olberg in Men’s Division 9

·         Todd & Grant Haugen in Men’s Division 4

·         Craig Reninger Men’s Division 7

The ladies are fast as well some were fasters than me, including:

·         Tracy Gibbons Women’s Division 4

·         Tamara Lauba Women’s Division 6

·         Robin White in Women’s Division 3 (not faster than me :)

These are just a few of the racers who ripped down the mountain all told 60 racers  showed up on Saturday according to my calculations I finished 19^th overall.  Not too shabby for my first time in a race course in 25 years.  We were up on the mountain as 7am to start setting the course, those of us that showed up early got a lift on a sled driven by Tom one of the many volunteers who make this happen, much thanks to everyone who volunteered.

Sunday was the second day of competition and Darren Postforoosh who didn’t get a full weekend pass from the boss (read wife) showed up and beat me on both GS runs, props to Darren and his buddy Sam who was also very quick in Men’s Division 2.

The USSA Sanctioned Masters program is open to anyone and is newly expanded to include younger skiers, masters from ages 18 to over 80 compete on the same runs used for World Cup events. Slalom, giant slalom, super G and downhill are all included in the 200-plus races in this seasons schedule. Masters series are conducted within each of the eight geographic divisions of USSA including Alaska, Central, Eastern, Far West, Intermountain, Northern, Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain.  In addition to divisional competition, there are opportunities to compete on a regional, national, and international level. The USSA Alpine Masters Program is just one of the participants in the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) International Masters Cup (IMC) in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.  The highlight of the race season in the USA concludes with the USSA Masters National Championships.  This year it is being held at Sun Valley Resort in beautiful Ketchum, ID.

I am not sure how many races I will be able to attend, balancing work and family around skiing weekends isn’t easy.  I do know that it’s well worth the time spent for me it is a great release and it puts me in my favorite place on the mountain going fast.  The camaraderie is excellent and CMAC is a great family organization plus you can’t beat the feeling of speeding through the gates its exhilarating, especially if you haven’t done it in a long, long time.  The competition is good and everyone wants to win, but the feeling of just being at the mountain and going through the process of setting the course, slipping the run and pushing yourself is the best part.  There are clubs peppered all over the US, Canada and Europe, I joined the local club Crystal Mountain Alpine Club ,CMAC for short.  If you have ever raced in your youth or are just interested in pushing your skiing skills I recommend checking into a local club in your area.

Planning and goal setting is a popular activity this time of year.  Personal resolutions and career planning are important activities that most successful people do regularly.  First it is important to define the ‘I’ and the ‘BE’.  Is your ‘I’ just you or does it include those around you who would be affected by your planning and goal setting.  For instance immediate or extended family, coworkers, friends, employees, employers, etc.  Second you must define your ‘BE’.  Is it emotional, physical, psychological, financial, geographical, etc.  Both depend on what your current state of being is.  You could be planning to get in shape, have a more fulfilling job or personal life, generate more business, work less hours, take a vacation, buy a new car, go to school, graduate, etc.

Whatever or wherever your planning and goal setting take you it will start by committing to the tasks and work that it will take to get there.  There is a tremendous amount of opportunity out there, if you really want to take advantage of it.  My planning and goal setting for where I want to be in 2015 revolves around my family, my business, my personal well being both physical and mental and my financial future.  I will turn 45 in 2015, my kids will be 16 and 10 and I know better than to say my wife’s age.  Five years goes by fast, if I want to reach my goals I better get to it.  Good luck to all of you out there planning the days, weeks, months and years to your NYE 2015.  I plan to #CRUSHIT

Fax machines are the Folgers Crystals of business equipment.  Sure you can make a quick cup of coffee but it tastes like wet cardboard.  Lower quality and lower price generally deliver lesser results.  Most people would gladly choose a fresh ground Cup of Joe over freeze dried coffee crystals.  If given the choice to watch the Super Bowl on a 19” Sony Trinitron with rabbit ears vs. a 50” flat screen with HighDef satellite, I am confident you would choose the latter.

Yet in 2010 people still considered faxing to be a standard business communication device.  It reminds me of those old tape recording message machines everyone had in their homes, “wait for the beep”.  Does anyone still use a modem, what happen to baud rate?  Believe it or not there are still some old antiquated technologies like this in use today for various reasons.  The old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” definitely gets too much mileage, the fact is if it isn’t broken taking a baseball bat to it might be a good idea.  Complacency is the Sith Lord of Innovation.  Everyone from the Feds, to Big Banks, Insurance Companies and Automobile Manufacturers still rely on facsimile to conduct critical business communications in a 21st century business world.  The image quality is poor, document security is questionable, there is no audit trail, the transmission speed is slow and the act of faxing is time consuming.

Last week my local gymnasium, The Valley Athletic Club (TVAC) sends me a snail mail (US Postal) letter asking me to update my billing records with their Accounting department.  It was your standard 20th Century paper form, printed on pretty colored paper with nice little fill in the blanks for my name, credit card number, exp. date, etc.  The minute I saw it I knew what it would say, “Please complete the above information…blah, blah”  Then BAM there it was “Please fax it to 360.555.1111”.  At least they asked for my email on this form, maybe there considering joining the Internet revolution that happened a decade ago.  I have received these forms for the last 6 years about 4 times a year.  That’s 20 forms that I have filled out with the same information, albeit changes in the CC# or exp. date.

So there I was sitting productively at my desk and what do I have to do, get up and walk down the hall to the ‘copy’ room and fax this form.  Tic, Toc, Tic, Toc….my fingers wrapping on the edge of the fax machine waiting for that familiar ‘’eeeennnnhcrrrrrrwhhhhzhhheeee’, knowing now that my fax communications had ack’d and nack’d, I return to my desk with the paper form.  I pick up the phone and call the accounting department at TVAC to make sure someone has received my fax containing my personal information on it.  After confirming the receipt of my fax, I promptly shred the paper form.

Talk about Flintstones

the whole process took about 15 minutes of my time.  This is the best case scenario, if it required a re-transmission or I got a voicemail then that time could be as long as 30 minutes to an hour of total time.  That’s my time, what about the accounting department at TVAC, they now get to enter my updated information in their billing system and then probably file the paper form in a filing cabinet.  Wow, efficient….NOT!

So we have 20 forms over my membership tenure at 15 minutes a pop, if I get paid $35 an hour that’s $175 worth of my time.  I should get a month’s free membership next month.  The real killer is for TVAC after all I’m only one member.  They likely have to do this fax dance hundreds of times a month.

The example above is small, when you apply the same basic script to the Mortgage industry, Healthcare or the Federal Government, the lost productivity amounts to billions of dollars wasted every day.  Fax machines suck.

Desktop scanners capable of capturing, connecting and sharing information digitally have been around for a decade, yet day after day faxing, always faxing.  Smart internet forms can eliminate the need for the paper form all together.  I have a hundred examples I could share of the complacency and waste that plague business today.

They all have the same common theme “Well, we have always done it this way”.

I did not know the Officers or their families personally.  It seems though that each of us in the South Puget Sound and around Western Washington had a connection to the officers through mutual friends or family.  Conversations on the subject with coworkers and friends usually turn a leaf or two that holds a connection.  My thoughts and prayers have rested on the children that will spend their first Christmas without a loving parent, not knowing why bad things sometimes happen to good people.

I encourage anyone who can to donate to the Lakewood Police Independent Guild http://www.lpig.us/

O Gentle Presence, peace and joy and power

O Life divine that owns each waiting hour,

Thou Love that guards the nestlings faltering flight!

Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye

Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:

His Habitation high is here and high,

His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy