To All Our Friends & Colleagues, Near & Far....

A Christmas Screensaver for You from Gitanajava Productions LLC
(right-click, open to full-sized view, then d/l to your device.)

Happy Christmas & Merry New Year! 

أجمل التهاني بمناسبة الميلاد و حلول السنة الجديدة

Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo! 

¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo!

חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr! 

สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส และสวัสดีปีใหม่ 

С наступающим Новым Годом ~ С Рождеством Христовым 

Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou!

BTW, Gitanajava Productions also designed and decorated the tree portrayed in this screensaver -- that's enough 3" tied-them-ourselves-bows and strategically placed candy canes to cover an 8' foot tree from top to bottom and all around, with no bare spots.

Make Yourself Merry!

I was looking for something evergreen, but phresh, to kick off my Christmas.  Thanks to friends at Google-Plus, I found just what I wanted, Sean Quigley's Little Drummer Boy.

You'll like this video so much, you'll want to own a copy -- buy Sean's work at www.cdbaby.com/seanquigley.  Follow him at Twitter, too -- @SeanQuigley204.  This guy is good.

The Coffeehouse Blues

Gitanajava = Gypsy Loves Coffee

(The original Rajah Coffee label was designed by Henri Meunier, 1897,

find it at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rajah-coffee-ad-1897-henri-meunier.jpg)

(This post was originally written, published, and distributed under the title The Coffee Canticle in December 2008.  Although the coffeehouse in question has long since passed on to the celestial heights, the thoughts and sentiments about what remain the same.)


Starbucks #6262, alias Lower Greenville Starbucks, officially closed 2 PM, Friday 19th December 2008.  Even before the farewell party ended at 6 PM, the guerrillas from Starbucks HQ arrived.  While the corpus delicti was still warm, they began taping sheets of brown butcher paper across the windows:  pulling the shroud tight.


When is a cup of coffee more than a cup of coffee?  What recombinant DNA transforms a mere java joint into a legend?

Buried Treasure, Part 2

5 Steps to Creating a LinkedIn Recommendation
To view full sized, go to http://tiny.cc/Endorse

In the original Buried Treasure article, we discussed the professionals' methods for requesting, shaping, and leveraging effective recommendations from colleagues and clients.  However, in my perfect world, I would have preceded that instruction with tonight's post and asked this crucial question --

Happy Thanks Day!

To all our friends, colleagues, correspondents, readers, and especially to our family scattered near and far, we're sharing two free screen savers/e-cards for the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. -- it's nigh upon us -- Thursday, 24th November 2011.  Both cards contain a special menu to help you celebrate the holiday with elan and cheer.

Un-occupy Gmail, Part 2

Since noting our strong objections to Google/Gmail's latest shenanigans in yesterday's post, Un-occupy Gmail, we're discovering other voices critical of their heavy-handed redesign.


Scott Wilson sees the Google/Gmail re-design rationale "shaping up to be an unmitigated disaster".

Un-occupy Gmail

If Necessity is the Mother of Invention, Who's Baby's Daddy?

Why We Won't Switch Voluntarily to the New Gmail UI

Over the past week or so, we've read all the blogs, news, and comments about the roll-out of Gmail's new look.  In the pursuit of truth, justice, and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, we even tolerated a couple of videos, and this is what it comes to:  until the G-men force us to change to the new look, we'll skip it.  It can roll right past us, thank you.

First, the "new and improved" Gmail UI is rife with advertising distractions.  The subtle "oh, by the way" is bye-bye.

Mercenary vs. Missionary....

Don Quixote's Windmill Adventure, by Dominica Alcantara
Find it at Fine Art America

On a Quest or For Sale?


A recent New York Times article recaps the failings of Netflix and CEO Hastings during the hasty and ill-considered move -- now aborted -- to divide the company and its customers into two camps with the creation of Qwikster.  How Netflix Lost 800,000 Customers and Goodwill, does more though, perhaps unintentionally:  it brings to light an interesting phrase delineating two principal entrepreneurial styles, the Missionary versus the Mercenary.

Forgotten Heroes, Abandoned Children, Devalued Seniors

1 of 5 prototypes for Stony Mountain Ranch logo & bizcards.
See them all at http://tiny.cc/STONY

The Challenge

What do the following people have in common?

• Aged-out foster children
• Military veterans returning to civilian life
• Devalued seniors

Happy All Hallow's Eve, Everyone!

To see original image & download as your holiday wallpaper, go to
http://tiny.cc/Spoooky

See you on the patio - boo!

In Pursuit of Defining Yourself...

Senorita La Tinta, a/k/a Miss Inky, taking her photo opp

I was not looking for anything remotely like Ken Robert's essay when I stumbled across it in one of those blessed web serendipity moments.  La, la, la, la-lah, I was skipping along the 'net path, gathering posies, en route to some somber research for a client.

For we RPISH* entrepreneurs and contrarian thinkers wrestling the challenges inherent to re-structuring ourselves and our work, the scant few minutes it will take to read "We’re So Ashamed of Changing (This Is Why We’re Crazy)" at Ken Robert's blog, Mildly Creative, will be minutes well spent In Pursuit of Defining Yourself.

While you're there, check out KR's self-description, too.  If Ken's blog is food for thought, his About page is the whipped cream and cherry on top.  Read and ponder, Unicorns, read and ponder!

Appearing Soon at a Theatre Near You

In a day or two, in consideration of that whole re-structuring topic, we will return with some ponders.  Stay tuned!


*RPISH = Round Peg In A Square Hole

See you on the patio!

Buried Treasure

Not long ago, I wrote a colleague, the former chief exec of a client organisation, asking for his recommendation.  We have a sound, genial professional and personal relationship, and we have communicated regularly by phone and email since parting ways a few months ago.  Although we didn't get the happy ending we strove for throughout our last adventure, I was proud of the exceptional effort and dedication we had given.

I'd spent four years nurturing the growth of his organisation, first on a pro bono basis, and when the small but feisty nonprofit hit a sizable financial and regulatory speed bump in late 2009 and the crisis took on life-or-death dimensions in early 2010, I stepped in as full-time formal consultant to him and the wounded organisation.  I liked these people, I liked their organisation, and I wanted success for them.

Don't Be Afraid of the Kid in You!

I don't care what anybody says, I like the Teletubbies.  I also dig Schnuffelbunny.  I'm a happy subscriber of Peter Rabbit and the rest of his posse, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Squirrel Nutkin, and Hunca Munca.

I've never needed an excuse to enjoy a retreat to childhood joys and fantasies -- when I was up to my eyeballs in the nightclub business and then later, music management, marketing and distribution, it was a welcome relief to arrive home in the pre-dawn hours, just in time for the local broadcast of Teletubbies.  Just the same, I'd like to thank my niece and nephew in Germany for sharing the welcome news of their soon-to-come baby.  If I need it, I have a cover story for why I'm singing the Schnuffelbunny song.

When you find yourself mired in cynicsm and the weariness of grown-up responsibilities, sing the Schnuffelbunny song to yourself, my friend.  It'll do you good.

See you on the patio!

Bring Down Your Wall!

Building the Berlin Wall, August 1961

Don't you hate it when you read an article, blogpost, or book you know you shoulda-coulda written (but didn't)?  Yeh, this is one of those times for me.  I hope you'll permit me a short ramble, fellow entrepreneurs.

Today, I came across a nifty CNET article by Dennis O'Reilly, How to Use Powerpoint Effectively.  I started kicking myself.

Lotsa Communicating, But Less Connecting?

This image courtesy of Steve Kryger, CommunicateJesus.com

During the Get Javanated! workshops I conduct for entrepreneurs' groups, I use a chart not dissimilar from this one discussed a year or so ago at Steve Kryger's church marketing blog, Communicate Jesus.  Customised to the special needs and challenges of each audience, I also include an additional building block:  blogs.


The best blogs can be superior  communication tools, with a level of intimacy and authenticity varying by how well the blogger at the hub performs his/her role as presenter and moderator.  Readers' comments and interchanges with the blog author and one another act as the sine qua non of how successfully this momentary intimacy is consummated.

To extend your thoughts re people feeling more lonely than ever despite today's Social Media Wonder Tools, consider what Wayne Cordeiro, senior pastor of New Hope Church, Oahu says in a talk entitled "People Hiding in Plain Sight" (the vidcast version at  http://www.enewhope.org/videob... shows the title as "Hidden in Plain Sight").

In a pair of sermons on Social Networking delivered 11th April 2010 (BFF - Best Friends Forever, Pastor Elwin Ahu) and 18th April (Hidden..., Cordeiro), Cordeiro and Ahu re-define and most importantly, re-direct, listeners' attention to the fact that digital communications -- Facebook, Twitter, texting, et al. -- are most successful when --

• (A) we remember the tools are meant to serve us and our needs for friendship and community (fellowship), and
• (B) we use these tools with forethought and intentionality.

"In this socially connected world, *people* are still not connected....In this world of social connectedness, it [social media] can never become a substitute for F2F, face to face....I want to challenge you today, when you see this social networking increase...use it to motivate yourself to go face-to-face with people."

New Hope's well-designed website contains a wide array of digital media -- livecasts with a chat room enabling viewers to ask questions and offer comments; downloadable vidcasts, podcasts, sermon notes, and newsletter; a journalling process for personal faith-building and to share as devotionals through "Doing Life Together"; a "prayer wall"; and "iNeed", their own online classified ads (imagine a scrupulously cleaned-up Craigslist!) -- plus, thoughtfully deployed social networking, New Hope Oahu could be held up as a model for the faith community of a church who have adapted well to modern realities. But, as Cordeiro and the pastoral staff consistently point out, the tools and toys would be hollow and meaningless without "'ohana".

In Hawaiʻi, 'ohana is family - extended, adopted, blood relatives, or anyone sharing fellowship in Christ with one another for an hour, a day, or a lifetime.  And when you have 'ohana, there are connections, face-to-face and heart-to-heart.  The Social Media Wonder Tools are there to serve the spirit of 'ohana by building and connecting the New Hope family.


When you and I review our own whiz-bang technomarvelous tools, let's do a reality check:  what spirit are we building?  Are we deepening and strengthening our connections or are we just beating our drums louder and longer?


Just asking....

See you on the patio! 

Simplicity, Simplify: A Marketing Lesson from the Toybox

 Simplicity, Simplify

A few years into my brilliant marketing career, I learned an important lesson, albeit from an unexpected source.  A six year-old boy taught me how too many choices and too little opportunity to filter one's options can overwhelm and even disable the buying decision.

Kahve: The Joys of Java

"Ca Phe Sua Da" on the verandah

Vintage Coffee Packet Label

The Coffee Tribe

Once upon a time in the U.S., a "good cup of coffee" had less to do with the coffee's roast, grind, brew or flavour, and everything to do with the beverage being hot, plentiful, and cheap. 

Big Biz on a Bev-nap...

Business negotiations are happening around us all the time, often when we're least aware of them.

A naive entrepreneur or wet-behind-the-ears business person might expect Big Deals to happen in elegant board rooms over glossy conference tables or over five-star dinners in exclusive restaurants.  They might wrap up there, they may be feted there, but Big Deals begin in discreet places  -- on the patio of the local coffee house or during happy hour at the inauspicious hotel around the corner, over a greasy breakfast at the truckstop diner or while leaning against the car boot, at the ninth tee or between rounds at the dart tournament.

Depending on the deal and the deal-makers, the more's at stake, the lower a profile is wanted for those "agreements in principle".  Many the bargain has been struck during a smoke break in the parking garage.

Open All Hours

We're Open All Hours. . .or as long as there's coffee.

The downside to being an entrepreneur:  yes, you name your own hours (hah!), but the shop never really closes 'caz it's Open All Hours in your head.  Gotta love it.

If you're an entrepreneur, small business owner, SOHO, freelancer, or contractor:  what's your downside?  Keep it decent.

Can You Hear Me Now? Intentional Listening.

Vístanme despacio que estoy de afán.

Dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry.

(Loose interpretation - Do your best and carefully, even more so
when you're down to the wire and running out of time.)

The Miraculous Melrosas High Wire Bicycles

Have you ever seen the circus act with the unicyclist crossing a tightrope hundreds of feet in the air?  Silly hat on his head, balance pole in his hands, and rising precariously from his shoulders and stretching upward beyond the spotlight's reach, a human lattice-work of more acrobats in more silly hats.  One missed cue, one miscalculation and spangles splattered across sand and sawdust.  Thankfully, long before donning his silly hat and climbing to the high wire, the unicyclist rehearsed, exercised, sketched, studied, imagined, trained, prayed, and prepared, prepared, prepared.

  

Few of us who work in the arts and entertainment arena are privileged to work in a proper circus, yet we face long years of preparation and our own peculiar dangers.  One of those dangers is when we're on a high wire and don't realise it.  In my case, I fell off my high horse, landed a black-and-blue bruise to my conscience, and barely kept my silly hat.  I learned something important about myself and about doing business though.  It all began innocently enough...

Get Javanated Friday - Free Screensavers for Bizfolk

(To save, right-click or control-click, open to a new window, click again to enlarge.

Review image, then add to your picture management application. All images are watermarked.)

It's Friday -- Get Javanated!


Friday:  ramp-up to the weekend, exit ramp from the week past, day to assess what's done and ruminate over the untidy leftovers, tinker-&-tweak day for entrepreneurs and bizfolk.  One part reflection to two parts reassessment, plus a dash of recovery.  Add ice, shake, strain, and shoot.

The Accidental Entrepreneur: Thoughts on Risk, Success, & Failure

Shout out to...

..the rockin' Plan Fund crew:  new-ish Exec Director Jeremy Gregg, Neil Small, Senior Loan Manager, Marisol Montoya, Office Manager, and the rest of the gang.  Plan Fund is a jaw-droppingly amazing MFI (a nonprofit micro-funding institute) built loosely around the Grameen model.  Their motto, "Capitalizing on Character" sums up their ambitions and accomplishments well.

Unlike the venerable and stodgy fleet at the Small Business Administration, with its Small Business Development Centers (SBA spin-offs) and SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), Plan Fund works with a special breed of entrepreneurs some sources refer to as Accidental Entrepreneurs, others call them "under-served."

The Feds are like a fleet of ancient battleships creaking along with the best of intentions, not very fast and they don't easily navigate a sudden change in market direction or technology:  they aren't built to meet the intense, multidimensional needs of any entrepreneurs but those whose future success is fairly obvious, easily attainable, headed for mega-growth, and can be more-or-less traditionally financed.

Plan Fund, however, is a speedy and nimble PT boat, armed with micro-loans based on

Images = 1000 Words?

"Four Roses" Whiskey for a  Perfect Manhattan - artwork by John Falter -

the original 1942 magazine spreads also contained compelling text.

(Click to enlarge image - it rocks.)

Commercial Artwork Speaks


With the advent of the Industrial Age and the inventions of chromolithography and offset printing, many artists we value highly now first developed their distinctive styles as commercial artists, supporting themselves by designing advertising posters, packet labels, greeting cards, magazine and book illustrations, even toys and board games:  Parrish, Erte', Cheret, Lautrec, Mucha, Baxter, Gow, Shepard, Potter, Cappiello, Falter.


Admit it:  isn't it difficult to imagine anyone collecting the advertising artwork on today's gelatine boxes, cookie packets, or Yahoo banners?


Let's get extreme -- when your target audience encounters images representing you and your products/services, are they enlightened ("Okay, now I get it."), intrigued ("Interesting, I want to know more about this."), aroused (Wow, this is amazing!), or are they so underwhelmed they'd flatline an EEG?

Surrender and Win ~ Psalm 13

Free Screensaver for You!

(Right-click or Control-click & save to your image files)

From March 2010 to end of April 2011, I took nearly a thousand photographs of the All Saints church campus, attempting to chronicle its kaleidoscope shifts from melancholy to joy, its hushed and dusky dawns, the halleluiah-chorus sunsets, the corps de ballet of trees dancing a shimmering samba of light and shadow with the wind, the darkened chapel stirring with ancient hopes and fresh doubts.

This particular photo was taken at sunset, January 3d, 2011 -- a briskly cool, not-too-windy day, a week before the year's first snow.  The photo is unretouched.  As the sun slipped to the horizon, the actual colours were more more vivid than this image suggests.

I created this screensaver for display on my laptop,

a way to keep hope bright before me even as darkness approaches.

As a gift to readers of Java Chaat, you are welcome

to download the screensaver, for personal, noncommercial use.

Concept & Design by Shou'Shou, Gitanajava Productions LLC, ©2011.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A few years ago, during a dark night of the soul, as I rifled through a stack of books, searching for any shred of comfort and guidance, I came across Psalm 13.   This psalm resonated in me then; it still does today.  When the seas of confusion and panic come crashing over my head, sucking the very breath out of me, this tehillah is my life-raft.


At first reading, it is the tangled, inarticulate prayer of a desperate man on the run from trouble, the prayer of a man to a God he isn't altogether sure is listening, and if He is listening, then He isn't answering.

Yo vivo bailar, yo bailo vivar!

However you find a way to dance, do it! "Yo vivo bailar, yo bailo vivar!" -- I live to dance, I dance to live.

What I can't find a way to say with words, I can express when I dance.  All the joy, the pain, the passion, the tenderness, the anguish, the sadness, the confusion and uncertainty of "what next?", is pressed out of me. As grapes are expressed to make wine, and olives are pressed for their precious oil, dancing extracts from me my essence, the voice in me that cannot speak but must be heard.  We put courage back into ourselves by dancing:  literally and physically, we are en-couraging ourselves.

The PDF Lottery

A couple of weeks ago, a friend whose antiquated desktop computer will have to keep plodding along with Microsoft Office 2003 (MO 2003) until she wins the lottery, wrote asking how she could create PDF's without upgrading to MO 2010.

Here are a few solutions we found; we hope they'll help other harried netizens facing a similar challenge.

::::::::::::::::::::

Dear J,

With apologies for how long it has taken me to reply, here are some FREE options which will enable you to create & use PDF files from MO 2003 without updating to 2010.  The solutions fall into two principal styles of PDF'ing:

1. Create & store PDF's online, or
2. Create PDF's offline via freeware.

The solutions at #1 don't require you to download new software, will be compatible across multiple operating systems, and even if your computer crashes or you're away from your own computer and on the other side of the planet, the website has your documents and images safely filed and available to you via the internet from any computer anywhere.

It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to understand these "in the cloud" and "on-the-fly" web services are a godsend for computers with older OS, with limited memory capacity, or computers tottering along on their almost-obselete legs.

Marketing Al Fresco

And now, a few words from our sponsor about chilling out on the Starbucks patio to improve your marketing research...

I can circumnavigate the globe with the best GPS ever created, Global Positioning via Starbucks.  Drop me anywhere on the planet, and I will find my way to the nearest Starbucks or patio-con-cafe.  Want to know the coffee house with the best patio, best espresso shot, best crew, worst bathrooms, most corporate lockstep, most responsive and responsible management?  Call me.

My point?  An alert participant in life, his community, and in mundane, everyday conversations can gather an abundance of useful information, voluntarily offered and unobtrusively gathered.  A diligent marketer needn't invade people's privacy or manipulate them to get pertinent data for creating persuasive, appropriate strategies.  Chill out on the nearest java joint terrace and listen ' til it hurts -- and trust me, it will hurt occasionally.  Pay attention, do deep, intense people-watching, interpret a little of what you see and hear, talk a little, question.  PARTICIPATE.

As a friend in the U.K. says,

"Only Americans need a million-dollar survey to tell them the bleeding obvious."

W. Edwards Deming noted the proclivity of American big business to dismiss "unknown and unknowable factors" and business anomalies when he was a consultant to post-war Japan, helping the the shattered country re-invent their economy.  Although he was a reknowned statistician, Deming stated "one of the seven deadly diseases of management is running a company on visible figures alone" -- banking every decision on "statistics in a vacuum."

While American executives remote-controlled their decisions by commissioning study after study of consumer behaviour, Japanese companies sent executives and employes into the marketplace, to observe consumer behaviour first-hand -- at sales counters, in appliance stores, in automobile dealerships.  As Americans lagged behind in the technology and manufacturing race, insistently making big, gas-guzzling cars with fins, the Japanese passed them by with micro-circuitry, compact cars, and attention to detail.  "Made in Japan" ceased being a label to ridicule and became something to emulate.

Decades later, here goes American business again, this time with algorithms and "reality mining" overruling common sense.  To entrepreneurs, micropreneurs, solo-preneurs and marketing people everywhere:  Get out of your cubicles, java-chat your patio mates, and download real life.

After you've done your reality check, then you can supplement what you've heard, observed, and learned with surveys and statistical studies.  With an open mind and open heart, reassess your strategy, rewrite your business plan.  Yes, it may mean pulling a 180 and going an entirely new direction with your cherished, long-harboured idea.  It could mean ditching your scheme completely and starting from scratch.

Scary?  Oh, yeah.  Gut-wrenching, disappointing, and bewildering.  But, profound knowledge (remember, no more "data in a vacuum") is a "[l]ong-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy [and] is required of any management that seeks transformation.  The timid and the fainthearted, and people who expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment." (Deming)

You want BUZZ?  Go for a coffee at the scene of the crime.

See you on the patio! ;-)