What’s a poor media mogul to do? Well, how about getting behind a new platform? Say one of those cheapie netbooks running an OS we don’t have to pay for, like, say, Google Chrome OS? … Which would you want? A netbook running Windows XP for $400 or a netbook running Chrome with every episode of Lost, you favorite newspapers and magazines for $100 and by the way a monthly subscription fee?

“The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.”

Everyone wants to be successful. Entrepreneurs want successful businesses. Athletes want to win. Engineers want to build perfect solutions.

The problem is that most of us try to be successful through grand strategies and big plays. Entrepreneurs hold off on starting a business until they have that "killer app" idea. Baseball players try to hit the home run. Engineers try to design a solution that will address any possible situation. Meanwhile, another company comes out with a better "killer app", the baseball player strikes out trying to "swing for the fence", and the engineer ends up with an over-complicated solution that has to be scrapped because it doesn't work.

As JD Meier reminds us, the key to winning isn't the big play. The key to winning is to build momentum off a series of small wins. By focusing on small goals, small tasks, and small features, we allow ourselves to adapt to change, to measure tangible progress, and to celebrate successes early and often.

 Gary Vaynerchuck of Wine Library TV:

h/t Jeff Tunnell

The article I'm about to post was sent to me for GameDev.net, but it's not really meant for a site like that. Entitled "McCain the Seagull Manager" and written by Dr. Travis Bradberry, the article takes a look at recent moves by Senator John McCain where he seems to be moving from one crisis to the next, constantly trying to put out fires. As the article says:

He’s just falling victim to the myth that so many managers succumb to these days–that it’s his duty to fly around putting out fires. He thinks he can swoop in on a problem that teams of qualified people have not been able to solve, and drop a magic solution that no one else has been able to see.

Dr. Bradberry calls this "seagull management", a management style of interacting with employees only when a problem arises, making hasty decisions about things they have little understanding of, then leaving others to deal with the mess they leave behind. In his book Leadership and the One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard describes it as "Seagull managers fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, then fly out."

The full text of "McCain and the Seagull Manager" is below:

McCAIN THE SEAGULL MANAGER

When John McCain cancelled Wednesday’s scheduled appearance on the Dave Letterman show to fly back to Washington and tend to legislation aimed at slowing the unraveling US economy, Letterman said he, “felt like a patriot.”

When McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric Wednesday, and then didn’t leave New York for Washington until Thursday, Letterman’s tone changed. “Now I’m feeling like an ugly date,” Letterman said Thursday night.

Most people feel this way when they've just been bombed by a seagull manager.

McCain also said he would not attend Friday’s debate unless a deal was reached on the $700 billion bailout of our country’s sullied financial institutions. Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock you know how that one turned out–McCain once again changed his tune.

Honesty, or at least walking your talk, is not McCain’s flaw here. He’s just falling victim to the myth that so many managers succumb to these days–that it’s his duty to fly around putting out fires. He thinks he can swoop in on a problem that teams of qualified people have not been able to solve, and drop a magic solution that no one else has been able to see.

He dropped something alright.

The University of Mississippi spent millions preparing for Friday night’s debate, and by midday Friday the pressure mounting for McCain to attend the debate finally reached a head. McCain’s campaign released the following statement, “He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Rep. [Roy] Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans." Right.

McCain’s sincere desire to present himself this week as a leader who can solve this country’s problems ends up amounting to a lot of wing-flapping, squawking and even a little dumping, at least where David Letterman is concerned.

John McCain is not alone. Today’s workplace is breeding seagull managers like wildfire. As companies flatten in response to the lagging economy they gut management layers. The remaining managers are left with more autonomy, greater responsibility, and more people to manage. That means they have less time and less accountability for focusing on the primary purpose of their job–managing people.

Seagull managers only interact with their employees when there’s a fire to put out. Even then, they move in and out so hastily–and put so little thought into their approach–that they make bad situations worse by frustrating and alienating those who need them the most. Instead of taking the time to get the facts straight and working alongside their staff to realize a viable solution, seagull managers swoop in at the last minute, squawk at everybody, and deposit steaming piles of formulaic advice before abruptly taking off and leaving behind an even bigger mess than when they started.

According to a recent study published in Human Resource Executive magazine, a third of US workers spend a minimum of twenty hours per month in the office complaining about their boss. The Gallup Poll estimates US corporations lose 360 billion dollars annually due to lost productivity from employees who are dissatisfied with, you guessed it, their boss. And if there’s but one hard truth the Gallup Polls have taught US Corporations in the last decade, it’s that people may join companies, but they will leave bosses.

No one influences an employee’s morale and productivity more than his or her supervisor. It’s that simple. Yet, as common as this knowledge may seem, it clearly hasn’t been enough to change the way that managers and organizations treat people. Few companies recognize the degree to which managers are the vessels of a company’s culture, and even fewer work diligently to ensure that their vessels hold the knowledge and skills that motivate employees to perform, feel satisfied, and love their jobs. Senior leadership in US corporations is unschooled in the profoundly negative impact seagull managers are having upon their bottom line. The very individuals with the authority to alter the course of company culture lack the facts that would impel them to do so.

It’s easy to spot a seagull manager when you’re on the receiving end of the airborne dumps, but the manager doing the swooping, squawking, and dumping is often unaware of the negative impact of his or her behavior.

If McCain’s camp can’t intercept the seagull and change his course mid flight, he’ll spend 2009 back on his perch in the Senate instead of in the White House.

*************

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the president of think tank and consultancy TalentSmart. His new book, "Squawk! How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results," addresses the problem of seagull managers in the workplace and is published by HarperCollins.

I actually used to chat online with cliffski a number of years ago about technology, games, and software in general. He's a good businessman, has had success with Positech Games, and his attempt at gaining a better understanding of pirates demonstrates his ability to use customer feedback to improve his products and business operations. It's just smart business, and the pirates answering his question probably don't even realize it.

Anyway, he received a lot of responses to his question that propagated through the technology and game-playing web world, and he posted his summary and new strategies yesterday.

Having read through the summary of responses and what cliffski plans to do about it, I have to say I'm glad a lot of this is coming to light. While I suspected a lot of the piracy reasoning, the changes he is making to his own business model as a result of this experience are a great start to combat the piracy that plagues the small developer. Unfortunately, it's also a fresh for the games and software industry, but one can only hope others will follow. I know I will when I reach that point.

Best of luck to Positech.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to me. Thanks to everyone who sent the birthday wishes.