Have you ever noticed how a company’s conference room naming convention reveals much about their company culture?  I have recently attended customer meetings in conference rooms “F” and “30.” How’s that for old school drabness?  In stark contrast were “Nazareth” and “KillZone,” offering conference room tribute to Jesus’ boyhood home and a popular video game, respectively.

I suppose that innovation and business success may have little to do with how conference rooms are named, but I prefer the stimulating names.

Commenting on the lifestyle of the traditional Mongolian herdsman, Mongolian President Elbegdorj stated,

Many people call this primitive, but this is not primitive, it is close to nature, it is a good life.

While my son Eric served a church mission to Mongolia, we grew to love the Mongolian people and their way of life.  In this brief CNN video about the boy herdsman turned President of Mongolia, we find a great leadership lesson about humility, vision and remaining close to our roots. This is a powerful lesson we in the more industrialized world should take to heart.

Yesterday, Silicon Valley Insider published a remarkable view of what shareholder value Apple delivered in the past fifteen years since Steve Jobs returned to Apple.

When Apple acquired NeXT, and Jobs, for $400 million in December, 1996, Apple’s market cap was $3 billion. Today it’s $347 billion, leaving it just $2 billion short of being the most valuable public company in the world, Exxon.

If we add to this legacy the fact that under Steve Jobs’ leadership, Pixar produced seven hit films from 1995 through 2006 (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Cars) before being acquired by Disney for $7.4 billion, we have the most remarkable story of profitable, creative genius in the history of the world.

Have you ever thought what Dilbert and Alice are saying in this comic strip?  Don’t lie, now.

We could all work on being a bit more punctual for meetings and con calls, don’t you think?

CNNMoney.com/Fortune Magazine published an intriguing article by Geoff Colvin  last Thursday, entitled “The World’s Most Admired Companies.” I enjoyed how the article compared the recent financial upheavals to the time when 40-year old Ted Turner skippered his yacht to victory through a terrible storm.  Turner’s strategy?

"We kept going at full speed during the height of the storm," he told an interviewer. But wasn’t he afraid? After all, 15 people died. Yes, he said, "but I was more scared of losing than I was of dying."

Mr. Colvin observed that many businesses weathered the economic storms differently than others, making this year the most tumultuous in the thirteen year history of “The World’s Most Admired”:

Now that the skies are clearing after the worst economic storm in modern history — far more violent than the experts had predicted — we face a surprising new roster of winners and losers, as our 2011 ranking of the World’s Most Admired Companies makes clear. Stress in the recession and financial crisis brought out traits that may not have been noticed when the sailing was smooth. Upstarts became champions. Famed competitors fell behind; some didn’t make it through the storm.

Ranking the Most Admired Companies was done by assigning scores in the categories of Innovation, People Management, Use of Assets, Social Responsibility, Management Quality, Financial Soundness, Long Term Investment, Product Quality and Global Competitiveness.  An interactive page is provided to view the complete list and by several categories.

It was interesting to see my employer, Oracle, ranked number 2 in the Computer Software industry (after Adobe) and 48th overall. 

Did you ever find yourself in the same dilemma as Hagar the Horrible?  Makes you wonder what is down below!

Source: Hagar the Horrible comic for February 23, 2011.

Jared Dudley, you inspire me!  You really do.

For my second sports blog of the day, I share with you three tweets that reveal why Jared Dudley succeeds.  Jared is a go-to bench player for the Phoenix Suns.  He has not been blessed with superlative talent.  In the high-flying, above-the-rim style of NBA basketball, he can barely dunk the basketball.  But the kid works, and works, and works … and his persistence pays off in games.  Time after time, his coming off the bench inspires the team to new levels of effort and performance.

A bit of his secret?

At 11pm on Tuesday night earlier this week, in the middle of the summer, Jared was watching film, trying to figure out how to improve his game.  He shares his thoughts with us:

Every night I been watching film on the top players I have to guard. Tonight is Kobe and the Lakers. It’s cuz of him I’m goin on this diet lol

I’m watching this WCF vs lakers, and Kobe can wear u down..Right when i thought I had some of his moves down he shows me something new

My thinking is I’m not getting any taller or a longer wing span.. So I better get in the best BBALL shape possible.. Back to the LAB

The best BBALL shape possible.  Yes, we can learn from that.  No matter where we are, or what we are doing in life, we can improve our performance, regardless of physical constraints that would hold us down.  We need to study, and work, and study and work some more.  Then, we can rise above our limitations and achieve greatness.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have given us little to cheer about this season.  They are mired at the bottom of the National League West with a dismal .400 record.  But yesterday, as reported by KTAR.com, “The Arizona Diamondbacks tied a major league record by hitting four consecutive home runs, with Adam LaRoche, Miguel Montero, Mark Reynolds and Stephen Drew connecting in the fourth inning Wednesday night to beat Milwaukee 8-2.”

You can view a video of all four solo shots here.

Only seven major league teams have accomplished this amazing feat in the history of the game.

The lesson? No matter how dark and impossible our world seems to be, we all have the potential to break out in a spectacular way.  In the face of immense opposition, we must, as urged by the Curtis Mayfield song, "Keep on Keeping On.”

Busticate: to break into pieces

Behemoth: any creature or thing of monstrous size or power

While I was in heads-down study mode for the CISSP exam last month, on two successive days, the Dictionary.com Word of the Day service sent out the words “Busticate” and “Behemoth” to my mobile phone.

I chuckled a  bit and tried to apply that advice to the exam: Break the broad spectrum of Information Security subject matter into manageable chunks and focus on each chunk in turn.  It seemed to help.  When I receive the results from my test (yes, I am anxious), I’ll have to attribute partial credit to Dictionary.com!

When confronted by seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our lives, we can benefit from this approach: Let’s break out our figurative big hammers and Busticate the Behemoths into manageable chunks that we can successfully manage.

At least for awhile, I think I’ll let this new addage replace the advice of “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, chew well.”

I was pleased to see the following video introducing the BYU Management Society, sponsored by my alma mater, Brigham Young University.

“The Management Society was founded in 1977 by Dean Merrill J. Bateman as an organization of alumni and friends of the BYU College of Business—now Marriott School of Management. Membership includes not only BYU and Marriott School alumni, but many other business professionals with the same desire for professional advancement, high ethical standards, career development, and continuing education. Twenty-Five years after its founding, the management society is an influential organization with about 6,000 members in 40 U.S. cities and 10 countries.”

The major objective of the BYU Management Society are:

“To extend the values and influence of moral and ethical leadership, the Marriott School, and BYU through a premier organization for the development of management and business leaders.”

I graduated from the BYU engineering college, not the management school, and didn’t actively participate in the Society until about 10 years ago, but I have certainly enjoyed my relationship with an outstanding group of people from varied backgrounds during the years I have been involved.