Send your junk mail back to the advertiser!

Sample reply mail.

 It never fails. The mail box lid slams shut and you proceed to see what goodies were left for you by the postal worker. Of course you have a bill or two which there is nothing you can do about (unless you are a. wealthy, or b. just better organized than most). Looking further into the stack will most likely reveal spam. Whether it is a time share sale, insurance advertisement, get cash now ad (or whatever) chances are you do not want it. To help stop this unwanted mail I have a proposal for you that will not only send the mailer a message, but will clean up your mailbox.

1) Find a reply mail that contains a prepaid envelope.
2) Sort through all of your junk mail
3) Remove your personal address (optional but recommended)
4) Stuff all unwanted mail in the prepaid envelope
5) Place back into the mailbox for the next pick up

If nothing else, you cleaned up your box. It is amazing how heavy a person can make these envelopes. If everyone was to try this - maybe, just maybe - we would annoy a company so badly they would reconsider what it sends. Doubtful, but I feel better sending a message back.

Google owns the internet. Now, they pay indie bands!

At South By Southwest which is a major media convention that seems to be growing in popularity with Facebook, MySpace, and now - Google? Google is promoting partnering bands, and paying the bands for advertisement. The videos which can be uploaded for free are shared with the world. The musician can display his or her content, sell some add space and earn revenue. In the event that the band's video gets embedded into another web page, the earning can go up. Very interesting concept for the aspiring artists. That being said, when Facebook and others are trying to find a way to tap into the music industry. The media giant, Google, did and is offering payment for content while cutting out the music record industry. No middle man means more profit for the little guys.

To find out more, go here http://www.youtube.com/t/partnerships_faq to sign up, or review the article which I found from WNPR.org.

Powerful Speeches

Amazing speech. Examine how he empathizes with the team, exploits his weaknesses. Yet, he shows knowledge, and determination and pulls the team back in. Consider what you say - how you say it and realize in 2 mins. the team turned around and won the game.

5 - S Your Life

5-S - you may ask? What is that? More than likely it is something that you do - in many instances of your life. Clean out the clutter and put things away. 5-S stands for Sort, Straighten, Sanitize, Standardize, and Sustain. It is a part of a lean journey where the waste is removed. Directly, you may remove waste by the discarding of unused items. Indirectly, you may gain time, or make your task more efficient.

Consider the following: Imagine a day that you were late for work. The alarm clock "did not" go off and you are frantically running around your house. The "Flight of the Bumble Bee" is playing in the background. Thing about your clothes. Now, knowing that you are late - find what you need in the pictured room.

The very thought is a logistical nightmare! Yes, I will admit that my room does look like this, but this is not my room. However, I never claimed to be efficient in the process of keeping my room clean. Regardless, it is a point that relates from the largest of manufacturing plants down to something you do everyday.

The idea of lean, which is what 5-S is a part of, is waste reduction. In this case it is time by removing all the items that you are not using. If you find that you are using all the items - great - except we must now organize. It is an art as well as a discipline. When you begin this journey in your home it will take some time to establish. Consider small things first. Go through your sock drawer and remove all the unmatched socks. Match all the socks while you are there. Make sure your socks have a certain spot, your shirts, your jeans, your shoes, etc. Everything has a SPECIFIC place. This is not the hard part by the way. The use of the system is the easy part and you will be very thankful for it when you get accustomed to it. I must warn you, the hard part, will be to put everything back the SAME WAY, EVERY TIME. Everything has a place, and everything in its place.Once you have the standard set - label it. Place a label that can work for everyone. Make it kid friendly too! If you set up a standard process - and find yourself deviating take a moment and revisit the process. If you place your socks in drawer 4 and your map says the socks belong in the other room - should you adjust your map? Your standard process should also be realistic, and adaptable. I caution the adaption portion - only if your plan changes the standard. If your plan does not change, and you just start adapting here and there based on "time" or "laziness" then you have broken your process and the 5-S will crumble. However, you may get to play the "Flight of the Bumble Bee" song. If you just want to hear the song, go to this site.

One last visual to help you understand the effects of 5-S. Consider a word search puzzle. Consider the length of time that you spend looking for the words. The diagonal, vertical, and horizontal words that cross or share letters - even the really tricky ones that go backwards. Now if the words were already circled, or listed out in the same order or manner so they were easy to pick out - how long would that puzzle actually take?

Once you have this down, consider all of the other things that you could do? The garage, your tool box, the cupboards, etc. Other examples can be found by visiting this site of "before and after" pictures of 5-S.


Pictures found at:
http://lizette.i.ph/photo/d/760-1
http://webscripts.softpedia.com/screenshots/Word-Search-Game-24400.png/DSC02131.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT

The Precautionary Principle

"The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action. Effectively, this principle allows policy makers to make discretionary decisions in situations where there is evidence of potential harm in the absence of complete scientific proof. The principle implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative explanation. In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the precautionary principle is also a general and compulsory principle of law."

(As seen on "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle")

Recently, I was listening to the radio when I first heard about this principle. For example, the “Y2K bug.” The interviewee started rambling on and how many people would argue that we never had the issue to begin with. Of course the world was going to end at the stroke of midnight on January 01, 2000. However, nothing happened. We waited.... some purchased water, food, extra health supplies, flashlights... and nothing happened. Could it have been that we blew the entire thing out of proportion? Yes, that is quite possible and even probable in that scenario. However, the other option is that we put the efforts into the problem to fix the root cause prior to the needed evidence to suggest facts that an issue could occur.

I would hope that in the event of a discovery significant enough to attract merit of potential we would act.