If you’d like this URL, and are among my circle, let me know. I’ll sell it to you for cheap. Real cheap. Like in, buy me a Latte or two.

I just hate to let it back into the wild for a URL pirate to pickup for resale.

“Good story.  Just to let you know that I got a link to your story from Christian Dillstrom, the mobile and social media marketing master – so you must be doing a beautiful job.”

Gee. This is really nice to hear. And “THANKS” to Christian Dillstrom too!

Here’s one of my favorite posts to which I just added animated video:
http://www.1ricci.com/ideas/two-steps-for-change

Didn’t click on the link? Here’s the video to entice you to read the post:

QUESTION: I don’t know if the correct way to refer folks to another post is to link to it as I do here, or whether one should refresh the copy and repost so it gets a new round of distribution. Some of you are more savvy than I am. Let me know what you’d suggest.

I’ll be speaking and moderating a workshop for SMPS in Pewaukee, Wisconsin on March 17. If you are in the area, you are welcome to join us!
I’ll be telling stories and describing how we lifted firms from tough times. And the crowd at SMPS is always fun and full of good ideas they are willing to share. Registration is here: http://smpswisconsin.org/halfday.html

My compatriot, Fritz Grutzner of Brandgarten will be hosting the morning session, working on Branding. This is important because your reputation arrives well before the proposal, and some attention here will prevent you having the kind of problems proposal managers at Enron and Microsoft suffer(ed): Enron Vs. Microsoft by Laura Ricci

BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) is charged with finding and supporting development of agents to protect the US population at large from attack with contaminants and agents like Anthrax, developing medical countermeasures, and stockpiling medicines for an emergency.

Here’s the description from the BARDA home page:

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides an integrated, systematic approach to the development and purchase of the necessary vaccines, drugs, therapies, and diagnostic tools for public health medical emergencies.

BARDA manages Project BioShield, which includes the procurement and advanced development of medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents, as well as the advanced development and procurement of medical countermeasures for pandemic influenza and other emerging infectious diseases that fall outside the auspices of Project BioShield.  In addition, BARDA manages the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE).

TMTI (Transformational Medical Technologies Intiative ) is charged with finding and supporting development of agents to protect military personnel from biological weapons. They are a DoD (Department of Defense) agency.

Here’s the description from the TMTI homepage:

Transformational Medical Technologies Intiative (TMTI) was pioneered by The Department of Defense (DoD) in 2006 to better prepare and protect the warfighter and the nation from emerging, genetically engineered, and unknown biothreat agents.

DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency) is a DoD agency focused on WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and supports developments to counter WMDs.

Here’s the description from the DTRA website (About Us page):

DTRA is the U.S. Department of Defense’s official Combat Support Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction. Our people are Subject Matter Experts on WMD, and we address the entire spectrum of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high yield explosive threats. DTRA’s programs include basic science research and development, operational support to U.S. warfighters on the front line, and an in-house WMD think tank that aims to anticipate and mitigate future threats long before they have a chance to harm the United States and our allies. SCC-WMD, the U.S. Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, synchronizes Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction efforts across our military’s geographic commands and leverages the people, programs and interagency relationships of DTRA at a strategic level. We work with the military services, other elements of the United States government, and countries across the planet on counterproliferation, nonproliferation and WMD reduction issues with one goal in mind: Making the World Safer.

Vaccines for a variety of disease have the attention of agencies responsible for responding to and preventing death from bioterrorist attack. Malaria, mustard gas, anthrax,  influenza, nuclear contamination, smallpox, botulism and radioactive contamination are all of interest for these agencies.

If you found this page, you may be interested in our services to support your proposal to these or other agencies. If so, please contact us by clicking here.

Matteo Ricci was the first missionary from the West who was welcome and became revered by the Chinese leadership. He arrived in 1583 with new knowledge from the West, but was open to discovering the sciences and inventiveness of the Chinese educated class. Contrary to the BBC article, he was not the first missionary sent to China, but the first who was allowed to stay.

His first work in China was a small book, On Friendship, which just became available in the US in english. The Chinese Prince who had commissioned the book was pleased, and the small book became very popular in China.

I’m going to try to get to Washington D.C. to see this before it leaves for Minnesota where it will have a permanent home with its new owner. It’s one thing to try to keep up with the Joneses, but just try to avoid being a slacker with ancestors like these!

David Klein

This time, an artist, Richard Prince has been sued for copyright infringement. The case was filed in New York District Court, alleges that Prince violated copyright when he scanned photographs from a book, printed them onto canvas, and then painted on top of them, adding evocative elements like face paint and electric guitars.

His defense is that he “transformed” the original image and so is free of the tethers of copyright. (Yeah. right.)

Don’t do this at your firm. Like running with scissors, letting your scanner substitute for legitimate licensed images is dangerous.

There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal about this case. Click here for the link free for the next week. (After that you’ll need a subscription to get this article on-line: Color This Area of the Law Gray)

There are some instances in which “transformation” will pass muster. Like the time that Jeff Koons was inspired by a fashion photo of a woman’s legs with dangling sandal. He’d massaged the image so much that only the photographer could see the resemblance.

Even so, if he’d been a businessperson instead of an artist with renown legal representation, I suspect he would not have prevailed.

Satire is another shield for artists, but in business, it makes you look petty to satirize a competitor.

Don’t think that you can “transform” the logo of your competitor and come off looking good nor staying outside the legal protection afforded trademarks and copyrighted images.

Keep it clean out there, and don’t run with scissors scanned images!

I left her office with some nuggets that sparked several ideas today which can be used for marketing in the next few months.

Time is of the essence

The bad news has been delivered to the White House: infrastructure projects can’t get underway in less than 18 months, and money needs to be flowing NOW.

Consider holding a brainstorming session in your firm. Are there ways you can improve or drastically change the way you deliver that would transform the speed to market?

I’ve seen engineers split projects in a way that allowed construction to begin very early, with some loss of efficiency, but accomplishing the goal of an immediate construction start. If your team can come up with ways to expedite flow, you may find opportunities to land new work based on your ingenuity.

Architects, Engineers, and anyone early in the infrastructure pipeline has an opportunity. The challenge is to shift from focusing on scraping your fees down as low as possible to focusing on allowing the larger expense of construction to proceed earlier than usual, or in a way that solves the problem.

Remember, you can have two: Fast, Cheap, Good. The focus in this moment may be Fast and Good, rather than Cheap and Good.

Money Will Shift

Defense spending will go down, Energy spending will increase. DOE and EPA will have more opportunity as funding shifts. Where you market to federal agencies, a shift should be considered. Where you contract to prime contractors who work for DoD, you may need to look for prime contractors with relationships in other agencies.

Easy to see that some areas will have attention paid, and other areas will be starved for funding. Adjust your marketing accordingly.

“We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

. . .

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Great piece of writing. Promising future if we can keep fear at bay and get back to work.

What passage from today’s speech will stay with you?

“Weaponized portable lasers for sale“

The guys all got to show off their snow blowers. Our next door neighbor is a first-time homeowner. He bought his first snow blower last week to be ready. My husband went out to play with it, and all over the neighborhood men did the manly thing and wrestled with heavy dangerous equipment to put the snow in it’s proper place.

My first few winters in Wisconsin were very mild. Practically no snow.

One morning I woke to the muffled quiet that means a blanket of snow has come and covered every tread, step and squeek. The quiet was broken when I heard two men outside.

“What did you do that for?”

“What! I was just helping out!”

“Well, I was going to do that. It’s my snow you know!”

Great. The snow had been so sparse the guys were fighting over who got to shovel it out of the way.

Well, last year was a doozy. They said it was a 100 year storm that lasted all season. I was sort of hoping this year would be another mild winter, but this seems sort of early for 4 inches on the ground.

Oh, well. The only yard work I hadn’t done yet was to empty a few pots on the porch, and put up the bird feeders. I brought out the boot tray for wet boots this afternoon and will try to find my snow boots and snow pants tomorrow.

Hope you had a warm Thanksgiving!