Welcome Notes:

Welcome Notes:

This particular note is for my new readers. Even if you are not one of my new readers, but one of my returning friends and guests, I still think it’s worth reading, so I beg your patience as I introduce what the objective of this outlet is all about.

Obviously it’s about whatever crosses my mind as important, but I’m sparing the world at large the need to weed through *everything* I’m thinking about to get to certain specific topics.

This blog routinely deals with several key subjects that cross my brain and my research on a daily or almost daily basis – Competitive Intelligence, Business News, Risk Management, Marketing, Personal Achievement, and yes, Art. And most of those subjects have found a focus in one of my projects, The Millionaires’ Race to 2010, which you will hear about a lot if you become a regular reader, which of course I hope you do.

First a quick word about the Race, why it’s important and why it belongs here as a regular topic:

The Race, or The Millionaires’ Race to 2010, is a social marketing project designed to be a proactive step we can all take to both turn the national economies around and provide individual success and financial security in this era of economic turmoil.

The idea is to help people connect with each other in ways that stimulate action in developing new ideas, new businesses, new revenue streams, and new relationships to help solve the hurdles that impede success.

Those of you who know me, know me well enough to know that I categorically *hate* phrases like the one above because they usually mean these kinds of empty promises of hope and miraculous successes that you see and hear in late night TV sales pitches.

The truth is that there is a reason why this particular phrase is so positive – the reason is that it’s actually happening. It’s working. A little more each day as people hear about it and start thinking about it and getting more comfortable with it, and finally start getting into it and getting their hands dirty making it happen. There is real momentum starting to percolate with it.

This brings us back to why this project belongs here in this blog about business subjects, personal achievement and art. It belongs here because it is designed to further all of those subjects together by uniting them in a common focus.

It’s a story about each of us growing and achieving important things personally and together. It’s about the trials and tribulations of growing new businesses. It’s about art, graphic design, events, community, entertainment, haute couture and bas couture; it’s about t-shirts and about advertising. It’s about making all of these subject ingredients into a single gourmet meal of rich tastes, flavours, and experiences, all of which I devoutly encourage you to share with us.

But for all of the Race’s good points and contributions, it does not represent everything that’s happening on these subjects, nor does it show you everything I’m thinking about or encountering on these subjects. There are many serious, important stories and ideas that I will be raising to your attention here. Some you will see are derived from my analysis of mainstream news, some will be based on my independent research, and some will have distinctly *other* sources and provocations.

And then, every so often, I’ll talk about art – whether it’s art I’ve encountered, the art of great friends, or my own art projects and experiments.

At the end of the conversation, these three main foci of discussion, business, achievement, and art, all do have three things in common – me, and the power to inspire, and you. I just get to relay the info and the goodies. The inspiration is the end result. The glue that holds it all together and makes it work? That part is you.

This whole experience or experiment depends entirely on you. If you aren’t reading, participating, enjoying, becoming energized by and discussing this stuff then the momentum stops with you. The entire momentum to evolve, achieve and inspire positive change grows and stops with you.

With great inspiration comes great responsibility – to judiciously act so as to achieve and inspire further achievement in turn. Sounds a little bit like ‘Pay It Forward’, doesn’t it?

So this is it – this is your opportunity to bare witness and be a part of the great things of our era. And when the next era gets their kick at the can, let’s leave them whistling and applauding in appreciation and awe at what we achieved independently and together. There may be 7 World Wonders, but nothing says we can’t make it more and leave our mark on history too.

So new readers or returning, I welcome you alike to join the cause, build the momentum, and create the wonder with me.

They say the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step – but I have a car and work for an airline. I can be there in a couple of hours, plus or minus the security lines at the TSA and finding a decent parking spot at the airport. With the technology of today the milestones are closer, faster, and more attainable then ever before.

We don’t need a race of presumptively nomadic traveling aliens to build our pyramids, we don’t need a millennia of communal effort to carve the titanic statues of our time, and we don’t need to find a group of medicinally inclined heavily medicated people moving obnoxiously large rocks into circular formations without any explanation for it at all in order to leave a legacy of achievement for future generations to oooh and aaah over.

We do need a common purpose, a goal, a focal point of common understanding and agreement to leave a lasting monument to the world for inspiration and motivation for generations to come.

But great things need a great foundation too. To build that foundation we need to start with our own achievements, our own successes, both individually and collectively and then build on those together.

Which brings us back to this outlet, this blog and this community of friends, readers, colleagues, and contributors. It all starts here. With you.