• work in focused bursts
• create rituals
• check email at set points in the day

You can see or download a bigger version of the mindmap here.

Also, if you are interested in this topic, make sure to check out my prior posts: 14 Secrets to Expanding Time and Touch It Once.

3. Don’t make the world worse. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that “changing the world” also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.

4. Marry someone smarter than you are. You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water. Note: Having a “spouse with benefits” is different from having a “friend with benefits.”

5. Help stop the Little League arms race. Kids’ sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it’s fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. We know that success isn’t about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don’t make the traveling soccer team or get into the “right” school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That’s not right. You’ll never read the following obituary: “Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place.”

6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.

What advice would you give if you were giving a commencement speech?

Although the title shows that this book is targeted at learning professionals, it’s a great book for business leaders as well. In the last year I’ve seen BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, and even the staid Harvard Business Review discuss how gamification is impacting marketing, service and employee satisfaction. Excerpted from my foreword, here’s my take on it…

As I sit down to write this foreword, I reflect on how many games I encountered in the previous week.

I saw my youngest daughter playing Club Penguin on the Internet, my son playing Mario Super Slugger on the Wii, my oldest daughter playing Zoo Tycoon on a laptop, my sister-in-law tending her Farmville crops on Facebook, a friend playing Angry Birds on her iPhone, a Cancun cab driver explaining how he plays Call of Duty with others from around the globe, and the US Naval War College describing to me their war game to assess their ability to deal with new conflicts that might arise from the climate crisis.

All of this just in the last seven days!

And I hesitated to actually list all those games by name, knowing that it will instantly date this book, just as the games I grew up with—Pong, Space Invaders, Zork—instantly date me.

Yes, from casual games to serious games, from smart phones to consoles, from toddlers to retirees, games are everywhere. Although games themselves are of course not new—they’ve been played in the earliest civilizations—we have reached a confluence of technology and design where games have become ubiquitous, and seem to have a unique ability to engage when we most need it.

It is this power of modern, digital games to engage that have caused “gamification” to become somewhat in vogue. Just as many industries benefited from the principles of industrial design, and interface design, and experience design…smart industries and businesses will quickly learn and adapt the principles of game design (or game “mechanics”).

Karl Kapp has written the definitive guide to gamification which itself is accessible and engaging. He brings trends to life and illustrates the principles of gamification through numerous examples from real-world games. Whether he’s describing the Cisco “Binary Game”, the US Navy’s multi-player anti-piracy game, or even the importance of aesthetics in a simple chess piece, Karl captivates the reader and ensures comprehension page after page.

There is no doubt that “gamification” is an important and powerful weapon in the arsenal for employee engagement, sales and marketing, learning and behavior change of any kind. This book is a valuable guide for all who are trying to understand or adopt these important design principles.

Buy the book from Amazon.

Check out the Gamification Facebook page.

“Oo-rah!” shouted the Marines in the audience. I was one of the few civilians, among a thousand service men and women, at the recent BEYA Stars and Stripes dinner hosted by the Marine Corps in Philadelphia. The dinner takes place each year in honor of black engineers. Every time an Air Force or Navy officer won an award, the airmen and sailors cheered. Whenever an Army officer won an award, the soldiers in the room roared. But when a Marine won an award, the other Marines in the audience boomed, “Oo-rah,” which has been the Marines’ battle cry since the Korean war.

That got me thinking that not enough companies use battle cries. After all, battle cries have been used for thousands of years to unite individuals into a collective identity and to emotionally charge them up before rushing forward to accomplish their mission.

Click here to read the full article, and to see the battle cries of companies like Coca-Cola, and how I “battle cried” my way through the first quarter of my new business.

I was walking quickly to my gate at McCarran airport in Las Vegas, oblivious to most of my surroundings, when I heard someone shout, “Hey, Allen Edmonds!” The older gentleman was looking straight at me, and he had a passing resemblance to Morgan Freeman.

Now my first name isn’t “Allen” and my last name isn’t “Edmonds”, so I almost replied, “No, I’m Kevin Kruse.” Then I realized he was talking about my shoes.

I was wearing Allen Edmonds loafers—black Maxfields to be exact.

The shoeshine guy, standing 50 feet away, had called out the brand of my shoes. I’ve walked through hundreds of airports, and frequently do get my shoes shined, but nobody has ever called out to me this way. Despite my plane’s looming departure time, I couldn’t help but hop onto the shoe shine stand and start up a conversation.

“Wow, you sure know your shoes—even Allen Edmonds,” I started.

“Of course I do. I lived in Wisconsin most of my life. Their factory was down the road. It’s the last great shoe company in America. More people should buy them. We used to always shop in the corner store to support our community, and we should buy stuff made from American companies.”

“I agree,” I said. “That’s part of why I get them. Great shoes and I love supporting an American manufacturer.” I saw from his name tag that his name was Ramone. “Do you know other brands, Ramone, or just Allen Edmonds?”

He smiled broadly, “I know them all…Cole Haan, Ferragamo, Johnston & Murphy, Florsheim. I have to know them all. Customers buy from people who are experts in what they do.”

“True that,” I agreed. “You know, in all the years of travel, I’ve never had a shoe shine guy yell out the name of my shoe before. You’re quite the salesman.”

“I learned from my Dad,” he replied. “He used to tell me, ‘A closed mouth doesn’t get fed.’ Not everybody responds, but I was selling stuff door to door when I was a kid. Knock on 100 doors and 95 will tell you no. But each ‘no’ gets you closer to the five who say ‘yes. It’s just a numbers game.”

“So how long have you been doing this?” I asked.

“I’ve been shining for 40 years. There’s no such thing as unemployment in this line of work. I’ve traveled around the world shining shoes–it’s a dying art. Young people don’t realize the power in having a personal service job. Nobody can outsource you. You can’t get someone in China to fix your plumbing, you know?”

Ramone’s hands moved fast—the cloth snapping and popping against my shoes.

He went on to describe his goals. “I’m saving up for the day when I’m going to go out on my own.”

“Going to buy your own shoeshine stand?,” I asked. “Rent space here in the airport?”

“No way. I’m not going to wait for customers to come to me. I’m going to go them. Think about it…people spend big money on their shoes, and they want to take care of them and look good, but nobody has any time. I’m going setup scheduled times to visit all the big companies in their offices. People will know they can find me in their lobby the same time each week and they’ll come down for a shine. I’m bringing the service to them.”

Wow, that’s actually a really good idea. I’d get my shoes shined a lot more often if it was that easy.

Ramone finished the job and my shoes didn’t just shine, they positively glowed.

I got up and paid Ramone for the shine, and tipped him well for the conversation, too. I rushed off to catch my plane with a little extra pep in my step and a smile on my face. It was great to be reminded of so many classic business success principles and great to see that American entrepreneurship is alive and well.

If you ever find yourself in Las Vegas McCarren airport, head over to the shoeshine stand next to Applebees. Tell Ramone a stranger named Allen Edmonds sent you.

# # #

At work, your relationship with your manager is what drives most of your engagement. If she enables you to learn and grow, feel appreciated, and confident in the future, you feel engaged and connected at work. And this works in our personal lives, too.

Remember that intense magical feeling you had when you and your spouse (or significant other!) first started dating?

You were learning all about each other, your families, and experiencing new things on your frequents dates (restaurants, music, plays). This is called Growth.

Remember all the compliments you used to get and how attractive and desired you felt? This is Recognition.

Remember how you used to talk about your shared futures—what your wedding would be like, the house you’d buy, the kids you’d have? This is Trust and confidence in the future.

What happened to those times?

Life happened. Just as people become managers of tasks at work instead of leaders of people, at home we too easily become to-do list and calendar focused.

Tonight, as you spend some special time with your loved one, remember that “GReaT relationships, are built on Growth, Recognition and Trust.”

I encourage you to brainstorm something new to learn together (a foreign language, an instrument, or how to dance the Salsa).  Shower each other with compliments and recommit to always looking out for the good in each other. Lastly, talk about your future. What crazy trip will you take when the kids go off to college? How will you celebrate when you finally pay off the mortgage? Where might you move when you decide to downsize? Even, where will you go on vacation next year?

It’s tough to nurture relationships on a daily basis; the job, the kids, the house all cry out for your attention. But tonight is a good time to reconnect with your loved one, and to both recommit to a relationship with an abundance of growth, recognition and trust.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

The company that began in 1869 and sold soup in 120 different countries hit upon bad times. Sales weren’t just slowing, they were declining. They lost 54% of their market value in just one year. Campbell’s executives were told that their employee engagement levels were the worst ever seen among the Fortune 500.

So the board of directors hired a new CEO, the mild-mannered Douglas Conant, to turn things around.

What do most CEOs do in dire situations? They sell off divisions, they buy smaller companies, they move into new markets, they hire investment bankers to evaluate “strategic options”.

But that wasn’t Conant’s style. As he was quoted in a Forbes magazine article, “To win in the marketplace…you must first win in the workplace. I’m obsessed with keeping employee engagement front and center.”

So quarter after quarter, year after year, Conant made sure that employee engagement was one of the top initiatives throughout Campbell’s.

Not everybody got the message. In fact, Conant fired 300 of his 350 managers who just wouldn’t adapt to the new program. For most of the openings, he promoted from within those who understood the importance of culture and its impact on the bottom line.

By 2009, Campbell’s Soup had achieved an astounding 23:1 engaged to disengaged employee ratio. More importantly, in the decade that saw the S&P 500 stocks lose 10% of their value, Campbell’s Soup stock actually increased by 30%.

In other words, “keeping employee engagement front and center” helped Campbell’s to achieve 4x greater results for investors.

The Google alert on my own name shows that my previously scheduled blog post went live this morning. I hop over to kevinkruse.com to make sure it’s all good and notice a typo (“they” should read “my friend”). Damn, I’ll have to fix that in a few minutes after I scan the rest of my emails.

“No! Touch it once,” my inner voice reminds me. I quickly open WordPress and fix the typo.

Next email is from a freelancer giving me his EIN number so my accountant can prep a 1099. I’ll have to send that along with a note to my accountant later.

“No. Touch it once.” I hit Forward, add a few lines and off it goes.

Next email. New invoice from an advisor. “What?! I wasn’t expecting this,” I think to myself. Double-click the PDF. Yep, it’s right. Damn, I just finished paying bills yesterday. I’ll have to stack this for my next scheduled bill pay session.

“No. Just do it now. Touch it once.” Fortunately he takes credit cards. Open the form, type in my info. Email it back. Good, only 3 minutes.

Next email.  I joined the Pennsylvania Society. Somebody needs to know if it’s a non-profit or not. How the heck do I know? Who can I pass this onto? Oh,

“touch it once.” I open a new tab in my browser and go to their page. Quickly scan 2-3 of their pages. No mention of 501(c)3 status. Reply to email: don’t think so.

“Hmmm, I should write a blog post someday about how the voice in my head chants “touch it once” as I clear my inbox each morning. Yeah, that would be a good one. Wait!” Open WordPress, start typing the new blog post. Title, “Touch It Once.”

Touch it once. Touch it once. Touch it once. It’s the cadence call of efficiency and productivity.

Whether I’m going through my paper inbox on my desk, or the email inbox on my computer, if the item at hand can be taken care of in less than 5 minutes I do it right then and there. If I can delegate it, I’ll do that. Otherwise I’ll schedule time to complete it.

Touch it once.

[Now clicking the Publish button]

Last week someone told me that they have a great idea for a new business, but they are going to wait until the economy turns around.

I told them that every one of my businesses I’ve launched in a recession, and that while you always would rather have the market going with you than against you, it’s the smallest variable in the algebra of success. Other companies that launched during recessions include: Hyatt, Burger King, FedEx, CNN, Trader Joe’s, and even Microsoft. My friend wasn’t convinced.

In fact this is the best time in history to start a company. What used to require $10 million of startup funds can be done for a fraction of that.

The Golden Age of Entrepreneurship is Today

Serial entrepreneur, Alain Rossmann, who is currently the founder and CEO of Klip (the maker of the fastest video app ever to reach 100,000 downloads), explained in a recent Business Week article how his new company cheaply purchases hosting from Amazon’s cloud service and uses freelancers found on Mechanical Turk. As he puts it:

“You can achieve 10 times more now with 10 times fewer people and 10 times less capital. It’s unbelievable. This is the golden age of startups, and I hope America and everyone else takes advantage of it.”

This is a sentiment I hear repeatedly from those who are actually creating businesses. Computer power costs a fraction of what it used to just a decade ago. Highly talented freelancers can be found on eLance, Odesk, 99Designs, and other sites. Online social networks make it easier than ever before to spread the word about your goods and services. The only thing the Great Recession has done has been to lower the price of commercial real estate…bad for property owners, great for startup businesses.

If you want to start your business, do it or don’t, but don’t use the economy as an excuse.

And when it comes to hiring, the secret formula is:

Great Hire = A lot of candidates + A rigorous interview process

Once again I see evidence of that, this time from Ron Johnson, who oversaw the creation of the Apple Stores, and who is considered the greatest retail mastermind of all time.

In a recent interview conducted with Harvard Business Review, Johnson explained that to get hired as an Apple Store associate, you need to get through six to eight interviews.

As he puts it, this is a very different process than most retailers who, “…find somebody at the lowest cost who’s available on Saturdays from 8 to 12.”

With this rigorous hiring process, not only do you get great talent, but the ones who make it through feel honored to be part of an elite team, and the existing associates respect them from day one because they know the newcomer has survived “the gauntlet.”

It’s a crude but memorable aphorism: Be slow to hire and quick to fire.