By Scott Westerman
“Rewarding relationships are hard work, sometimes joyful, sometimes frustration and always in need of attention. But the best ones are well worth it!”
For those who don’t know, Twitter.com provides a 140 character platform to tell the world what you’re doing. Over time, it has evolved into the heartbeat of the Internet, a headline service where news breaks first, and a thermometer that takes the Twitternation’s temperature on important issues of the day. (more…)
By Scott Westerman
“Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views.” – Mary Schmich
It was somewhere during the mid-1980s when our company became hip to diversity. In those days, diversity was all about removing barriers for women and “people of color”. (more…)
I had the pleasure of meeting Jason Dorsey this week. He’s crafted his personal brand as “The Gen Y Guy”, an expert on the attitudes and energies in the hearts and minds of the kids that the world has tagged as Generation Y.
If you’re a baby boomer, you probably have scratched your head in wonder as you’ve watched your Gen Y kids grow up. Just as children of the 60s frustrated their Greatest Generation parents with our love for the Beatles and non-conformity, this next generation is giving their parents and bosses similar headaches.
But that need not be the case. Carl Liedholm has been teaching economics at MSU since 1965. I ran into him at our celebration of the Wharton Center’s partnership with the Traverse City Opera House. He says that student attention spans in the late 60s and 70s tapped out at around 50 minutes, the typical class length of the day. Today, Dr. Liedholm reckons that he has to shake up his presentation every nine minutes. It’s not because Gen Y is afflicted with an epidemic of ADD. It’s because they process ideas much more quickly than the rest of the world.
Want to get a feel for how Gen Y MSU Alumni are taking the ball and running with it? Check out DetroitSpartans.com.
Jason Dorsey has made a career out of studying the nuances of Generation Y. He shares his insights in his latest book, “Y Size Your Business“. His speech was the highlight of a recent conference of alumni association executives (yes there is a conference for EVERY profession). It was the highlight of the event.
By Scott Westerman
I recently found the new FordTaurus presence on Twitter. In a heartbeat, you can tell that it’s a bot, populated by a PR type. This surprised me.
Since my hero, Scott Monty, has become a poster boy for enlightened corporate social media engagement. I initiated the following conversation. (more…)
By Scott Westerman
“Competition is .. not an act of oppression or abrasion – I’ve worked with my best friends in direct competition.” – Diane Sawyer
One of my earliest football memories is being a boy scout usher at Michigan Stadium on the day when Michigan State came to town. Then as now, the U of M regular season was a run-up to the Ohio State game and Bump Elliot, Bo Schembechler, et al, always hoped that they could escape their encounter with the Spartans of East Lansing to prepare for the annual event that often determined who would go to the Rose Bowl. (more…)
None of us has gotten where we are solely by pulling ourselves up from our own bootstraps. We got here because somebody bent down and helped us. – Thurgood Marshall
For my friend, Frank Eliason, the four words “How can I help” transformed him and in the process, also transformed our concept of exceptional customer care.
At the time, we both worked for Comcast. The sheer size of the company and the hundreds of thousands of transactions it generates each day inevitably throw off hundreds of unhappy campers. As the guy who lead our CEO’s escalation team, Frank dealt with the angriest of the angry. (more…)
By Scott Westerman
Scott’s First Leadership Maxim – “Any unresolved team member issue becomes a leadership issue.”
I vividly remember the first time I fired somebody . (more…)
By Scott Westerman
“Imagine yourself as if you already were what you potentially could be. Demonstrate it to others every day and you will become that person.”
The Snyder/Phillips Gallery sets the standard for residence hall dining at Michigan State University. With food stations named New Traditions, Latitudes, The Berg, Ciao, The Brimstone Grille and Bliss, you immediately get the sensation that this is no ordinary culinary experience.
Whenever I have visitors on Campus, I try to put a SnyPhi meal on the schedule. And on the rare occasions when I eat lunch alone, I love to bask in the energy that emanates there. (more…)
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? …. I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Abraham Lincoln
January 27, 1838
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