Random Notes

Some random thoughts to end the week. You can tell I’m feeling lazy since I stole the title from Rolling Stone.  I’ve kept some of these rattling around in the back of my brain for a bit hoping they’d emerge into full-blown posts. Alas, they’re more notions than full ideas – seeds that haven’t quite bloomed yet.
However, in no particular order:

Love Tom Coughlin‘s quote about water boiling at 212 degrees, not 211, and how that one degree makes all the difference. The physical world is good like that – it won’t lower its standards just because you’re not feeling it today. That is unlike many of us when it comes to how we go abut our business. We need to work to make that one degree happen.

I posted a few weeks ago about a golf magazine’s complete failure at managing their circulation department.  I recently received a “Fourth Notice” from another golf publication telling me that my subscription was about to lapse.   A few problems:

• I’d already sent in a check months ago which they’d cashed
• A quick check to customer service on their web site shows my account paid until 2011
• Their note begins “This is the forth time we’ve written…”.  I’m not making this up.  That’s stupid and careless.  The fact that they guarantee that I’ll play better golf or get my money back is insane.

I watched “Caddyshack: The Inside Story” last night on the Biography channel.  It was a fun watch but what struck me was how often they decided to abandon the script (if they had a scene scripted) and defer to the talents of the comedians involved.  While there is a bit of improvisation is some films, Caddyshack may have been a precursor to pictures that are almost complete improvisation such as the great Christopher Guest series of “Guffman”, “Spinal Tap“, and others.  My point?  Being able to improvise in business is a skill we need to practice.  These guys made a classic film out of a loose script and great comedic skill.  Don’t we wish we could do the same with the day-to-day business challenges we face?

What random thoughts are flying around your head as we end the week?