Posted on: Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Posted on: Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

 

More and more often, global leaders are asking us the same simple, yet colossal, question: “Does anyone know for sure what the world is thinking?”There is a great deal of classic economic data that record an infinite amount of human transactions, from GDP to unemployment to birth and death rates, that indicate what man and woman are doing. But there is no ongoing, infinite, systematic account of what man and woman are thinking.

Global leaders are right to wonder. To know what the whole world is thinking — not just what people in their own countries are thinking — on almost all issues all the time would certainly make their jobs a lot easier at the very least. At most, knowing what the world is thinking would create newfound precision in world leadership. Leaders wouldn’t make mistakes and miss opportunities because they misjudge the hearts and minds of their constituencies and the other 6 billion with whom those constituencies interact.

We think we have found a very good answer to that very good question. We created a new body of behavioral economic data for world leaders that represents the opinions of all 6 billion inhabitants, reported by country and almost all demographics and sociographics imaginable.

We call it the World Poll. We’ve committed to doing it for 100 years.

The World Poll

We knew going in it was a monumental challenge, but creating the World Poll was even harder than we thought. To start, Gallup scientists combed the best public opinion archives, academic institutions, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union archives, the State Department, everything and everywhere we thought we might find existing information of this type.

We couldn’t find it. There was no world poll. So we made one.

We knew the whole project hung on the questionnaire. It needed to cover almost every issue in the world, be translated accurately into dozens of languages, and be meaningful in every culture. Even more difficult was engineering consistent sampling frames in more than 100 countries from Ecuador to Rwanda, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Ireland, Cuba, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Honduras, China . . . You get the picture.

Having constructed the questionnaire, our team of experts found its next biggest challenge was choosing a methodology to ensure consistent data collection so the whole set is comparable. For instance, when we ask about life satisfaction, everyone from a Manhattan socialite to a Masai mother has to be asked the same question every time in the same way with the same meaning and in their own languages so the answers could be statistically comparable. If the meaning of the questions isn’t identical from language to language, culture to culture, year to year, the data are useless.

Furthermore, we needed to create the first-ever reliable and consistent benchmarks so leaders can see the trends and patterns. So we benchmarked wellbeing, war and peace, law and order, hopes and dreams, healthcare, suffering and striving, personal economics, poverty, environmental issues, workplaces, and on and on.

We have now completed the design, engineering, and first year of global data collection. The first-ever world poll on almost everything is done.

Then our Gallup scientists, affiliated academics, and colleagues from around the world who helped us make the poll got busy. They counted and sorted and used every known statistical technique to analyze exactly what the world is thinking. The conclusions are complex. This may be the great understatement in Gallup’s history, but it’s true.

For instance, when you dig deeply into the hopes, fears, motivations, and satisfactions of 1 billion Muslims, the more you learn, the more you realize how little the world knows, how wrong people are, and how much more complicated Muslim attitudes and opinions are than conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. Western leaders tell us religion drives Muslims to war. But Muslim extremists tell the World Poll that their anger is not about religion, it’s about politics.

It’s the same with the 3 billion people who live on $2 a day or less — the hungry half of the world’s population. What they’re thinking is very different from what most government agencies and NGOs understand and report. While we’re rushing them food and medicine, most of them feel the only real solution is jobs.

Another example: One of the most important questions in the world is “What do Muslim women want?” Discovering what Muslim women want has been as big a surprise to us as anything we have ever seen. Muslim women want all the freedoms that their counterparts in the Western world have — they want the right to vote, to have the same rights that men do, and to hold leadership positions in government. The big surprise is that most Muslim men think Muslim women should have these too. And because women are half of the population, it’s difficult to win in the new world unless they, their hopes and dreams, and their talents are integrated into the leadership of every organization, economy, and government in the world.

And those are just three demographics. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, old people, young people, black people, white people, communists, capitalists, Easterners, Westerners . . . These data are overwhelming because, while they offer answers to many questions that could never be answered before, they make us intensely aware of how little we know about what is in the hearts and minds of 6 billion people.

 

The great global goal

Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years, but we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. If used appropriately, it may change how every leader runs his or her country. But at the very least, it needs to be considered in every policy, every law, and every social initiative. All leaders — policy and law makers, presidents and prime ministers, parents, judges, priests, pastors, imams, teachers, managers, and CEOs — need to consider it every day in everything they do.

What the whole world wants is a good job.

That is one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made. It is as simple and as straightforward an explanation of the data as we can give. If you and I were walking down the street in Khartoum, Tehran, Berlin, Lima, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Kolkata, or Istanbul, we would discover that on most days, the single most dominant thought carried around in the heads of most people you and I see is “I want a good job.” It is the new current state of mind, and it establishes our relationship with our city, our country, and the whole world around us.

Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety, and/or peace more than anything else. The last 25 years have changed us. Now we want to have a good job. This changes everything for world leaders. Everything they do — from waging war to building societies — will need to be done within the new context of the human need for a “good job.”

How does this change everything?

• The leaders of countries and cities must make creating good jobs their No. 1 mission and primary purpose because securing good jobs is becoming the new currency for leadership. Everything leaders do must consider this new global state of mind, lest they put their cities and countries at risk.
• Leaders in education will be forced to think beyond core curricula and graduation rates. If you are a school superintendent or a university president, you’ll need to recognize that students don’t want to merely graduate — their education will need to result in a “good job.”
• Lawmakers need to contemplate whether and how new laws attract or repel a wide range of individual value systems. If enough people are sufficiently repelled, then the new laws will effectively strangle job creation.
• Military leaders must consider it when waging war and planning for peace. They must ask themselves whether military strikes, occupations, or community policing will effectively build a growing economy with good jobs. The opportunity to have a good job is essential to changing a population’s desperate, and violent, state of mind.
• The mayors and city fathers of every city, town, and village on Earth must realize that every decision they make should consider the impact, first and foremost, on good jobs.

The evolution of the great global dream is going to be the material of a million Ph.D. dissertations. But it’s only the beginning of the story. The shift in importance to “a good job” leads to a significant change in the evolution of civilization. There are endless indicators, but the most evident change is in global migration patterns.

Man and woman probably appeared about 200,000 years ago on the savannah plains in what is now known as Ethiopia and fanned out across the Earth to improve their lives, their tribes, and their families. We have never stopped walking. The first to move have always been the boldest adventurers, explorers, and wanderers, and that’s still true. Until rather recently in human evolution, the explorers were looking for new hunting grounds, cropland, territories, passageways, and natural resources. But now, the explorers are seeking something else.

Today’s explorers migrate to the cities that are most likely to maximize innovation and entrepreneurial talents and skills. Wherever they can freely migrate is where the next economic empires will rise. San Francisco, Mumbai, and Dublin have become hotbeds of job creation. This phenomenon has occurred in other hot cities from Austin to Boston and Seoul to Singapore. Highly talented explorers with the best skills and the most knowledge are attracted to the best cities. When they choose your city, you attain the new Holy Grail of global leadership — brain gain.

Brain gain

Brain gain is defined as a city’s or country’s attraction of talented people whose exceptional gifts and knowledge create new business and new jobs and increase that city’s or country’s economy. To some degree, all cities of all sizes, everywhere in the world, have a success story of brain gain. Someone had a good idea, and its implementation created new jobs in that town. Brain gain is the big-bang theory of economic development. The challenge leaders face is how to trigger brain gain in their cities.

It’s a new challenge, but an old issue. Twenty-five years ago, virtually every economist, liberal and conservative, forecast that the GDP of the United States would lose its first-place ranking and drop to third. News shows, newspapers, and business magazines predicted that Japan’s GDP would be around $5 trillion, Germany’s would be around $4 trillion, and the United States would fall to third at about $3.5 trillion by 2007.

The economists were partly right. Japan is at about $4.5 trillion, and Germany’s at about $4 trillion too. But they couldn’t have been more wrong about the United States. The country’s GDP didn’t fall. Over the last 25 years, it grew to $13 trillion. The best economists in the world were off by more than $10 trillion.

They were wrong because their economic models didn’t include the most powerful variable of all: the migration patterns of the most talented people. Value is now created from piles of ideas and determination, not piles of materials and natural resources. The economists underestimated the massive force of innovation and entrepreneurship that led to a technology revolution.

Now global economists are saying that by 2040 or sooner, the U.S. GDP will fall to second, behind China. Their formulas assume that everything is linear or cyclical and that man is rational. China has more consumers and more low-wage producers, so logic dictates that China’s economy will be an unstoppable juggernaut. That logic is likely to be just as colossally wrong this time because it doesn’t consider where the next big build-out of innovation and entrepreneurship will occur. It doesn’t consider brain gain or the migration patterns of talent. It could, however, be colossally right — but only if China becomes a center of innovation and enterprise, attracting and retaining highly talented people.

So, how many talented rainmakers would you need to change the GDP of one city and then one country?

Researchers counted how many people created the technology build-out that led to the $10 trillion of unplanned revenue growth over the last 25 years in the United States. It appears to be about 1,000 people. Just 1,000 unusual star innovators and rainmakers.

Some of those innovators, like Vinton Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internet, had a brilliant idea that others shared with the world. Some, like Meg Whitman, put together a brilliant team and business model that propelled the innovation. But if you only count the “stars,” the key individual pioneers who initiated the single spark that ignited the breakthrough idea or company, you won’t get much beyond 1,000. And of that 1,000, more than half were Americans who had migrated from other countries.

However, the inherent problem in looking for only the 1,000 Americans who created the unforecasted $10 trillion is that it overlooks too many lesser, but equally necessary, individuals — the great team members who supported the stars. Take Microsoft, for instance. We consider Bill Gates to be the poster child for this colossal economic engine, but Paul Allen, Steven Balmer, Jeff Raikes, and others played key roles. There would probably be no Microsoft if it hadn’t been for them.

The same is true for all world-class economic achievements and small and medium-sized ones as well. There is a star inventor and/or enterpriser whom we credit with the innovation, but we often forget the innovator’s good fortune to have had several stellar performers or Super Mentors in his or her universe.

Let me quickly review what exactly makes a star different from a typical, hardworking employee. A star creates large amounts of new human energy where none previously existed. That energy creates economic energy. The star’s organization is the first and greatest beneficiary, but the organization sends the current out in the form of higher wages and more purchases. Its employees and suppliers earn more so they spend more money on things — cars and houses and computers, healthcare, movie tickets, groceries, and of course, taxes.

The energy weakens as it spreads, which is why Bill Gates hasn’t made everyone in the world a millionaire, but the energy is nonetheless transmitted bit by bit throughout the star’s organization, city, and country. The star’s energy may be so strong it transmits all over the world. Proximity counts because the closer you are to the stars, the stronger the money currents are.

These enterprisers are not limited to business. One guy in a Midwestern U.S. city has built a $100,000,000 junior college from nothing, and it’s thriving and growing. His great value to his city and the United States is not just creating educated workers for the labor force, but also in the creation of many new teaching, administrative, support, and technical jobs. Of course, he has also purchased and developed real estate, requiring the services and supplies of dozens and dozens of businesses of all types. This social entrepreneur has created $100,000,000 of energy out of nowhere. And his Midwestern city — and the rest of the country — is benefiting.

These stars juice their immediate economy and that of everything around them. They are drivers of GDP. Brain gain contributes to a country’s GDP growth. A country grows one city at a time. A city grows one organization at a time. An organization grows one star at a time. And all organizations are economic engines for all cities.

But who are these stars? They could live almost anywhere. More often than not, they are single, young — between the ages of 25 and 35 — and have at least an undergraduate college degree. And most of them have not yet been discovered nor have they created their big invention or enterprise.

Therein lies the opportunity. If 1,000 world-class explorers and inventors were the heroes of the unforecasted $10 trillion, how many stars are there in the world? How many exceptional people should we be watching and tracking? How many are in your city, and what effect are they having on brain gain/brain drain? Because you want and need them all . . . the small, medium, and large stars.

The four types of stars

This math and interpolation are really rough approximations, but hopefully more precise than the calculations that mispredicted the U.S. GDP by $10 trillion.

If 1,000 individuals were the “Columbus-type” explorers who receive all the credit for the economic value they discovered and claimed, let’s generously assume that they had 10 other world-class supporting cast members around them — 10 people who were so important that there would be no economic miracle without them. So that equals 10,000. We then multiplied the 10,000 builders of big businesses by 10 again to determine a rough gauge of how many inventors and rainmakers it takes to support the continuing growth of the total U.S. GDP. Ten thousand multiplied by 10 (to take into account and give credit to the dominance of jobs in small to medium-sized corporations, which make up about 70% of the U.S. workforce) equals 100,000. In other words, a mere 100,000 stars of varying sizes created the unforecasted current state of growth of the United States, a country of 300,000,000 people.

Here’s the part that matters to leaders: These 100,000 stars would have created that growth wherever they resided. If they had all set up shop in Sioux Falls, Kansas City, and Fargo, it would have all happened in the American Midwest. If this group had all lived in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, or Brasilia, $10 trillion would have magically appeared in Brazil.

The math is simple. One star per $100 million of GDP growth.

If you were to ask how to significantly increase your city’s GDP, we would say you need to find and develop 10 stars. And you should create the biggest incubator of talent possible. Your incubator is your energy and job pipeline for the future. It will take some time to see the outcomes you want, but you won’t get them if you don’t start with 10 stars. The only other alternative is to buy growth, like companies do, with acquisitions. Corporate leaders face the organic vs. acquisition growth issue all the time, and they know that organic growth is the best long-term strategy for any organization or community of people.

To get a better idea of how to identify and incubate the stars, our team coded the characteristics of several hundred extraordinarily successful business, political, and nonprofit leaders. Only four categories or codes were needed to classify them all.

1) Innovators

Innovators get ideas that create new products, new markets, stock value, and hatch thousands of jobs.

They are often struck with their discovery while employed by an organization — a hospital, the government, a corporation — or most often during their university studies. They are as likely, however, to follow through on their discovery outside that organization as within it. In any case, the discovery creates the next big surge of energy for increased economic activity and subsequent job hatching.

What makes Innovators stars isn’t just their creative capacity, but also their rare talent to seek innovation in all aspects of their lives. Brilliant ideas are often born from seeking solutions to difficult problems, and Innovators are able to solve the problems and realize the idea. However, they aren’t necessarily the ones who bring it to market.

2) Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are most recognizable as super-salespeople or rainmakers. Entrepreneurs are those who see an idea, recognize the potential, figure out the necessary steps for making the idea a reality, and then bring the Innovator together with supporters to form a new venture. Entrepreneurs bet their money or career on a new idea, whether it’s a new business or a new initiative within an organization. Entrepreneurs have the rare gifts of optimism and determination, which are, and probably will remain, the new most valuable resources in the world. Optimism and determination are more valuable in the equation than creativity and innovation because they are rarer.

It’s important also to recognize “social entrepreneurs” in this category, as they are just as crucial to building hot, growing cities. Social entrepreneurs provide surges of positive energy through philanthropies. The work these entrepreneurs do enhances the culture of their city and always increases the wellbeing of their communities. These social enterprisers not only create better cities, their organizations are economic engines and job-hatching machines.

3) Superstars

Superstars are extremely rare creative achievers, people unusually gifted in the arts, entertainment, or sports. They’re famous authors, singers and other musicians, artists, chefs, architects, actors, fashion designers, politicians, soccer and basketball players, etc. Such celebrities need their own category because they are valuable magnets for the cities where they live and work, but mostly because they’re economic engines themselves. They create huge new amounts of economic energy from their movies, books, concerts, sports championships — the things they do, the related businesses that promote them, the causes they support, and on and on.

4) Super Mentors

Innovators, Entrepreneurs, and Superstars rely, whether they know it or not, on genius developers. We call such developers Super Mentors. They are the people who say, “Your idea could become a company. I’ll line up investors for you.” Or, “We need to get behind that professor’s idea. He needs a lab here in town.” Or, “Let’s start a youth program that’s the best in the country.”

There are several varieties of Super Mentors. Often they are “city fathers,” rich businesspeople who care deeply about their city. They can be great college presidents or the heads of philanthropies or religious leaders or CEOs. Sometimes they’re just average citizens with a deep commitment to the place where they live and the ability to find and encourage raw talent. In any case, Super Mentors have a gift for identifying and developing young stars and strong hands to guide and lead them.

Super Mentors also have the rare capacity to command broad support and participation in local initiatives that otherwise wouldn’t happen. The best and fastest growing cities in the world have an informal, never-elected group of Super Mentors. They work outside the local government and meet regularly to determine activities and strategies to help their city and people win.

One could argue that this group of Super Mentors makes a bigger and more positive impact on cities than do local governments. They have as much or more access to money and influence within the community as government leaders do, and they have the great advantage of speed and fewer barriers. And they serve a critical function — they are the very kindling that starts the fires of Innovators and Entrepreneurs.

Creating brain gain

Talented people create brain gain. Brain gain and brain drain are among the most crucial factors for the growth and wellbeing of any organization — from a one-employee business to the most powerful government on Earth. The most important issue for leaders is to identify and cultivate the conditions that create brain gain. They have to know the key factors.

We ask 100 core questions in our standard World Poll survey regarding seven critical conditions of life — conditions that are present in every country. When any of these conditions are higher or have momentum, it is likely that brain gain and GDP are higher. The seven critical conditions cover law and order, food and shelter, work, economics, health, wellbeing, and citizen engagement. There are several question items per each condition. For instance, “Do you feel safe walking alone at night in your community?” is one of four questions that measure the human condition of law and order. At the other end of the behavioral economic algorithm is “Have you volunteered your time to an organization …” which factors into the condition of citizen engagement.

Each domain is never static; things are always getting a little better or a little worse. Because they are not static, they can’t be “resolved” — cities and countries must improve them continuously. Furthermore, we found that there is an order of importance to the issues, and that the higher the scores on these issues, the greater the potential for higher brain gain and GDP. A leader’s biggest challenge is creating momentum on any of these critical domains.

Law and Order. The presence of law and order is the first and most important manageable condition. Take Sierra Leone, for instance. Nearly half of Sierra Leoneans say they have had money stolen in the past year, and nearly 3 in 10 say they have been mugged or beaten. These figures are among the highest we’ve found so far. Without law and order, Sierra Leoneans will be severely hindered as they rebuild their country after a violent, decade-long civil war. When law and order improves in Sierra Leone, so will GDP and life expectancy — currently age 40.

Food and Shelter. This is the same basic need Abraham Maslow identified 50 years ago. But as important as it is, we found it to be No. 2 on the new scale of wellbeing — as we saw in the “law and order” example, one’s ability to obtain food and shelter may depend on law and order and is also highly related to life expectancy in lower income countries. In the United States, 10% say there have been times when they haven’t had enough money to provide adequate shelter for their families in the past year, and 17% say they didn’t have enough money for food. Those numbers are 36% and 27% in Russia. Consider the difference in each country’s GDP. But in both cases, if this condition improves, brain gain and GDP will increase.

Work. As Freud said, “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Work is crucial to every adult human because work holds within it the soul of the relationship of one citizen to one government and one country. The most important World Poll discovery, so far, is that the primary driver of almost everyone is a “good job.” This particular condition relates to net migration in high-income countries and GDP growth in low-income countries, but it is also a core influence of elections, revolution, and war.

While food and shelter and law and order are basic needs and are associated with self-preservation, work is where wellbeing turns the corner. This is where positive emotions that lead to creativity and openness are built. Good work facilitates a higher standard of living, higher potential for health, and higher wellbeing.

Economics. When perceptions of economic confidence have positive or negative momentum, it may potentially affect local economics and GDP. If an Innovator doubts the vitality of his personal, local, or national economic situation, he’ll believe that Super Mentors won’t come to his aid, or that the government restrictions are too onerous, or that his customer base is too narrow and always will be, and he’ll never implement the idea. And a potential star fades, as does a potential spike in the GDP.

Health. This condition tracks specific health problems. We ask the whole world “Do you have health problems that prevent you from doing any of the things people your age normally can do?” Condition-specific questions range from the presence of physical pain and sleeplessness to whether one smokes and exercises and satisfaction with personal health.

Health highly correlates to wellbeing in low-income and middle-income countries. Healthy people create more vibrant communities and more productive workplaces, which contribute to productivity, brain gain, and quality GDP growth.

Wellbeing. While the health domain reports perceived physical and mental health, wellbeing reports the presence of suffering or thriving, misery or inspiration, feeling controlled or feeling independent. This is a crucial metric because all good things happen in the presence of high wellbeing. Many world leaders argue that the ultimate act of leadership is to improve gross wellbeing (GWB) versus increasing gross domestic product (GDP). Maybe. In any case, this “soft” issue affects a population’s ability to innovate, improve, and invent, because it reports the all-important presence of hope.

Engaged Citizens. Citizen engagement is the actualization of real global altruism. This is the domain of world-class social entrepreneurs. It is the ultimate act of all leaders of all ranks because this is how leadership touches absolutely every constituency in the community.

Citizen engagement is the Mother Teresa domain of the World Path because it explains charitable giving not only of money, but also of time, and willingness to help strangers in need. It’s the most precious and sophisticated value, and it speaks to the genius of Super Mentors. And it has the biggest potential returns of all for brain gain and subsequent GDP, especially in higher income countries.

Citizen engagement creates two kinds of magic. It generates new multiples of relationships between wide ranges of citizens, which breeds cooperation, productivity, citizenship, and patriotism. Positivity about one’s country, and more particularly, one’s community, creates an environment that makes talented people want to come and stay.

Leadership

From the very beginning of our 70 years of observing and studying the practice of leadership, we’ve known that unless a city or country has several committed, admired, and talented leaders in place, growth won’t occur.

The Gallup Path behavioral economic model for societies assumes that the primary purpose of all “new world” leadership is to create an environment in which talented people want to live and work. This new global leadership responsibility rises above every other duty. Attracting, retaining, and developing talent in your organization, city, and country is now a more important variable than natural resources, ports, and even direct investment.

An effective global leader must see the task not as “fixing the problem” because brain-drain problems are almost always too complex to quickly fix. Rather, leaders must get the solution headed in the right direction. The job of leaders is to use strong hands to yank their organizations, their cities, and their countries onto the right path.

A successful team of global leaders will need both state-of-the-art classic economics, such as GDP, inflation, population, and birth rates and state-of-the-art behavioral economics, such as law and order, citizen engagement, and wellbeing to affect the migration patterns of the most talented people and create the next global economic empire.

Posted on: Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Most leaders don’t know this: Great businesspeople are more important than great ideas

Posted on: Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Dr. Erica Miller | Because Life Takes Courage

Posted on: Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Order This Book

What everyone in the world wants is a good job.

In a provocative book for business and government leaders, Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton describes how this undeniable fact will affect all leadership decisions as countries wage war to produce the best jobs.

Leaders of countries and cities, Clifton says, should focus on creating good jobs because as jobs go, so does the fate of nations. Jobs bring prosperity, peace, and human development — but long-term unemployment ruins lives, cities, and countries.

Creating good jobs is tough, and many leaders are doing many things wrong. They’re undercutting entrepreneurs instead of cultivating them. They’re running companies with depressed workforces. They’re letting the next generation of job creators rot in bad schools.

A global jobs war is coming, and there’s no time to waste. Cities are crumbling for lack of good jobs. Nations are in revolt because their people can’t get good jobs. The cities and countries that act first — that focus everything they have on creating good jobs — are the ones that will win.

FROM THE BOOK

• The War for Good Jobs
• PODCAST

  Cities: Where Good Jobs Are Created

• PODCAST

  How to Secure U.S. Jobs

• PODCAST

  Why Entrepreneurs Matter More Than Innovators

• High-Energy Workplaces Can Save America
• What China’s Rise Really Means

ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS

• Healthcare Is Killing Us
• Who Really Creates Jobs?
• The All-Out War for Good Jobs
• Good to Great? Or Lousy to Good?
• The Next Generation of Leadership
• Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation

MEDIA RELEASE

• The Coming Jobs War

PRESS

• Forbes: Gallup’s Jim Clifton on The Coming Jobs War
• Free Enterprise magazine: Jim Clifton on America’s War for Jobs

VIDEO

• CNBC “Squawk Box”: Jim Clifton onThe War on Job Loss
• Jim Clifton speaks to the National Governor’s Association on Growing State Economies (remarks begin at 11:15)
• The Coming Jobs War discussed inSenate hearing on national security threats
• The Coming Jobs War discussed inSenate confirmation hearing
• Gallup’s CEO to Reuters: Jobs solution lies at the city level
• msnbc.com: “Morning Joe”: Gallup CEO: American Dream Has Changed Dramatically
• The City Club of Cleveland: The Coming Jobs War

Posted on: Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

9/11 brings LIers to Ground Zero to remember

Originally published: September 11, 2012 10:42 AM
Updated: September 11, 2012 10:53 AM
By CHAU LAM, MARIA ALVAREZ AND JENNIFER BARRIOS  lidesk@newsday.com

Photo credit: Justin Lane/Pool | Police officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey carry an American flag that flew over the World Trade Center towers during the 11th anniversary ceremonies at Ground Zero. (Sept. 11, 2012)

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  First tour of WTC Tower One

Documentary: Families remember 9/11 victims

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As the names of the Sept. 11 victims echo across lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning, many Long Islanders are there remembering those lost, holding pictures and holding on to memories.

Many of those attending the ceremony at Ground Zero were connected to Long Island, making their annual visit to the site, paying their respects.

As names were read aloud, most family members gathered around the stage, set between the memorial’s two reflecting pools, to listen.

PHOTOS: Latest from ceremonies | Families of LI victims | Your photos of the Twin Towers | Share 9/11 photos

MORE: Interviews with victims’ families | Database of LI victims |Walt Handelsman’s 9/11-inspired cartoons | Complete coverage

Some looked intently at those reading the names. Others lowered their heads slightly.

Ilia Rodriguez‘s son, Carlos Rey Lillo, was a paramedic for theFire Department of New York City who died on 9/11 at age 37. At the time, mother and son lived in West Babylon.

Rodriguez lives in Miami now, and she comes each year to attend the ceremony in honor of her son.

This year, her granddaughter will read Lillo’s name. And as Rodriguez waits, she holds a picture of her son rescuing a woman from one of the towers, before it collapsed, on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Please don’t forget about my son; he was a ‘caballero,’ ” she said, using the Spanish word for gentleman. “I come here every year, holding this picture. I’m sad, I’m very sad today. I’m living with a pain that is inside, that is always in my heart.”

Lillo’s aunt, Nelsa Rodriguez, of Huntington, said her nephew “loved helping people since he was a little boy. He was so sweet, always ready to give a helping hand.”

Joe Loliscio, 59, a volunteer firefighter for the East Rockaway Fire Department who works as a park supervisor for the Town ofHempstead, was a first responder.

He remembers arriving at the site 11 years ago, with his fellow firefighters in a village fire truck. The area was desolate, a dust pile, said Loliscio, who lives in Baldwin.

He remembered a feeling of emptiness. “When we got here, it was all over. There was nothing to do. No one to rescue. No life to save. Not even a fire to fight,” he said.

The scene also remains etched in Loliscio’s memory. “When we got here, it was all dust . . . It was a day of horror, when the world stood still.”

He was dressed Tuesday morning in his firefighter’s uniform, with Ground Zero medals, standing in Zuccotti Park, looking at the memorial from afar.

Tracy Armentano, 39, of Rocky Hill, Conn., did not know city firefighter Michael J. Cawley, of North Bellmore, who died in the attacks, but she has come to Ground Zero every year for 10 years to support her friends who were friends of Cawley.

She wore a T-shirt with Cawley’s name and carried a photo of the Twin Towers.

“We’ve been coming for 10 years because we feel it’s important to be here,” Armentano said.

Walter Matuza, 20, of Staten Island, used to go fishing every year on Sept. 11. That was the favorite pastime of his father, Walter Matuza Jr., originally from West Babylon, who was in the north tower on the 92nd floor.

The younger Matuza, who said he became blind shortly after his father’s death, said he used to hate coming to 9/11 memorials — until the memorial plaza was built.

Matuza said he had come to the 10th memorial at the newly unveiled plaza.

“It was better now that we have this,” he said.

Matuza, who was accompanied by his mother and brothers, said he planned to spend the morning at the memorial before having a light lunch.

“It’s not as upsetting as it was at first,” he said “It feels better for me to come down here now.”

With Emily Ngo

Posted on: Friday, September 7th, 2012

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest. These are the platforms many social media experts claim can be the linchpin in developing your online presence. While all of them can be useful marketing tools, there’s another social network that can be more effective in generating leads and sales: LinkedIn.

While your competitors are busy spinning their wheels getting “likes” on Facebook and sending a barrage of tweets on Twitter, you can use different tactics on LinkedIn to build an online presence and generate profitable prospects.

Here are three steps to help transform your LinkedIn profile into a lead generating machine:

1. Create a call to action.
Don’t just list your name and title in your headline. Instead, tell your network whom you have helped and how you have helped them. Explain the benefits you can provide because that’s what really communicates who you are and what you do — not a title.

Next, write a clear, concise call to action in the summary section, telling people in your network exactly what you’d like them to do. It may be a phone call, an email or just a visit to your site to sign up on the mailing list. Even a message as simple as “First Time Home Buyer? — Click HERE” can have significant impact for real estate agents. You can’t simply expect someone to call or email. You have to ask them. Also, be sure to collect their personal information so you can continue to connect with them.

2. Create an industry-specific LinkedIn group.
Forming a LinkedIn group is one of the most effective ways to get your network excited and engaged about a specific topic, all while driving traffic to your site and increasing sales. For example, I started the Sports Industry Network group in 2008, which has grown to 90,000 members.

As the group was getting off the ground, members began connecting and helping each other, but I wanted to add even more value to it. So I began hosting networking events and free webinars where I interviewed sports business leaders. During the interviews, the experts offered free advice and spoke candidly about various best practices. Eventually, the webinars attracted hundreds of attendees, and that’s when I started thinking about how to make money from them.

The strategy I devised was simple: Promote free webinars to my LinkedIn group and then make an offer at the end for further education or assistance, including live events, private consulting or access to my membership site.

Based on my experience, here are five lessons for creating a group of your own:

• Identify the type of group you’d like to create and give it a name that communicates the topic clearly.
• Reach out to well-connected people within your industry to let them know you’ve started a group and would like to feature their expertise in live webinars.
• Do something special to show your appreciation to experts who join your group, even if it’s just sending them a thank you card. Then, you can ask if they’ll post the group link on their social networks and spread the word to like-minded people.
• Continue to add value by hosting webinars or in-person get-togethers.
• Provide a premium to members by offering some of the your business services at a special discounted rate.

3. Be active in LinkedIn’s ‘Question and Answers’
No matter what industry you’re in, strategically participating in LinkedIn’s Questions and Answerscan be another effective way to develop stronger connections and boost sales.

The Q&A area is where users can post questions and get answers from others on the network. While this is an opportunity to demonstrate your industry expertise, you should tread lightly and avoid hyping your brand. Be a resource that answers people’s questions without pitching your company, product or service.

Here are three tips for answering questions on LinkedIn:

• Find a question you feel confident answering and give a concise response.
• Click on the “reply privately” button to let the questioner know you’ve responded. There can be multiple answers posted so this helps draw attention to yours.
• Tell the person you’d be happy to have a quick phone call to help solve his or her problem and offer more detailed suggestions or strategies. At the end of the call, offer to provide more solutions at your normal rate if further assistance is needed.

The key to using LinkedIn as a sales-generating tool is to always ask, “How can I add value?” With that mindset, you’re on the right path to attracting new customers.

Lewis Howes

A former professional athlete, New York City-based Lewis Howes is co-author ofLinkedWorking (418 Press, 2009) and creator of the LinkedInfluence training program. 

Posted on: Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Just because you’ve received your degree doesn’t mean you’re done learning. Go back to “school” this fall with a hefty reading list

The days are getting shorter, geese are flying in formation, and the fall seasonal microbrews are on tap. It’s back-to-school time, and as children head back to the classroom and young adults set off for university, I would challenge us all to get in the spirit with a fall reading list.

I have always been a veracious reader and encourage OtterBox employees to do the same by keeping a library of the books that have most influenced the direction of the company in my office. Many of the theories, ideas, and aspirations that have helped my company maintain a high rate of growth have come from the top authorities in business philosophy.

The foundations these great minds have laid can be leveraged into great things. As a reminder of their influence, we’ve named our conference rooms at the headquarters facility after a few of them. Below are my top recommendations:

1. Michael Gerber, The E-Myth

Maybe more than any other book, E-Myth had a tremendous impact on how OtterBox developed and grew. It shed light on the reason my previous entrepreneurial ventures, and there were many, didn’t experience success beyond a certain point. It really came down to me, which was great because that was something I could change.

2. Jim Collins, Good to Great

Growing a company with the right people in the right roles is essential to building for lasting growth. At OtterBox, we have a multilayered interview process that includes a cultural interview and team interviews to ensure that we have the right people on the bus.

3. Dennis Deaton, The Book on Mind Management

Most companies have a vision, but can that actually come to fruition? Dennis Deaton discusses how to harness mental imagery to create the future rather than just dream of it.

4. Peter Drucker, The Essential Drucker

You could dedicate years to reading the works of Peter Drucker. A consultant to General Electric, Coca-Cola, IBM, and many other leading corporations, Drucker provided groundbreaking insight on company structure, change within organizations, and the central role of the customer. This book is a compilation of some of his most lasting theories.

This list only scratches the surface of books that have shaped me as an entrepreneur and leader, but it is enough to fill several months’ worth of quality reading time.

OtterBox founder and CEO Curt Richardson created the first prototype of a waterproof case in his garage in the early ’90s. OtterBox evolved into a leader in protective cases for mobile technology. @OtterBox

Posted on: Monday, September 3rd, 2012

When we were young life was easier, right?  I know sometimes it seems that way.  But the truth is life still is easy.  It always will be.  The only difference is we’re older, and the older we get, the more we complicate things for ourselves.

You see, when we were young we saw the world through simple, hopeful eyes.  We knew what we wanted and we had no biases or concealed agendas.  We liked people who smiled.  We avoided people who frowned.  We ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty, and slept when we were tired.

As we grew older our minds became gradually disillusioned by negative external influences.  At some point we began to hesitate and question our instincts.  When a new obstacle or growing pain arose, we stumbled and a fell down.  This happened several times.  Eventually we decided we didn’t want to fall again, but rather than solving the problem that caused us to fall, we avoided it all together.

As a result, we ate comfort food and drank alcohol to numb our wounds and fill our voids.  We worked late nights on purpose to avoid unresolved conflicts at home.  We started holding grudges, playing mind games, and subtly deceiving others and ourselves to get ahead.  And when it didn’t work out, we lived above our means, bought things we didn’t need, and ate and drank some more just to make ourselves feel better again.

Over the course of time, we made our lives more and more difficult, and we started losing touch with who we really are and what we really need.

So let’s get back to the basics, shall we?  Let’s make things simple again.  It’s easy.  Here are 60 ways to do just that:

Life is not complex.  We are complex.  Life is simple,
and the simple thing is the right thing.
– Oscar Wilde

1. Don’t try to read other people’s minds.  Don’t make other people try to read yours.  Communicate.
2. Be polite, but don’t try to be friends with everyone around you.  Instead, spend time nurturing your relationships with the people who matter most to you.
3. Your health is your life, keep up with it.  Get an annual physical check-up.
4. Live below your means.  Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.  Always sleep on big purchases.  Create a budget and savings plan and stick to both of them.
5. Get enough sleep every night.  An exhausted mind is rarely productive.
6.  Get up 30 minutes earlier so you don’t have to rush around like a mad man.  That 30 minutes will help you avoid speeding tickets, tardiness, and other unnecessary headaches.
7. Get off your high horse, talk it out, shake hands or hug, and move on.
8. Don’t waste your time on jealously.  The only person you’re competing against is yourself.
9. Surround yourself with people who fill your gaps.  Let them do the stuff they’re better at so you can do the stuff you’re better at.
10. Organize your living space and working space.  Read David Allen’s bookGetting Things Done for some practical organizational guidance.
11. Get rid of stuff you don’t use.
12. Ask someone if you aren’t sure.
13. Spend a little time now learning a time-saving trick or shortcut that you can use over and over again in the future.
14. Don’t try to please everyone.  Just do what you know is right.
15. Don’t drink alcohol or consume recreational drugs when you’re mad or sad.  Take a jog instead.
16. Be sure to pay your bills on time.
17. Fill up your gas tank on the way home, not in the morning when you’re in a hurry.
18. Use technology to automate tasks.
19. Handle important two-minute tasks immediately.
20. Relocate closer to your place of employment.
21. Don’t steal.
22. Always be honest with yourself and others.
23. Say “I love you” to your loved ones as often as possible.
24. Single-task.  Do one thing at a time and give it all you got.
25. Finish one project before you start another.
26. Be yourself.
27. When traveling, pack light.  Don’t bring it unless you absolutely must.
28. Clean up after yourself.  Don’t put it off until later.
29. Learn to cook, and cook.
30. Make a weekly (healthy) menu, and shop for only the items you need.
31. Consider buying and cooking food in bulk.  If you make a large portion of something on Sunday, you can eat leftovers several times during the week without spending more time cooking.
32. Stay out of other people’s drama.  And don’t needlessly create your own.
33. Buy things with cash.
34. Maintain your car, home, and other personal belongings you rely on.
35. Smile often, even to complete strangers.
36. If you hate doing it, stop it.
37. Treat everyone with the same level of respect you would give to your grandfather and the same level of patience you would have with your baby brother.
38. Apologize when you should.
39. Write things down.
40. Be curious.  Don’t be scared to learn something new.
41. Explore new ideas and opportunities often.
42. Don’t be shy.  Network with people.  Meet new people.
43. Don’t worry too much about what other people think about you.
44. Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven, and likeminded.
45. Don’t text and drive.  Don’t drink and drive.
46. Drink water when you’re thirsty.
47. Don’t eat when you’re bored.  Eat when you’re hungry.
48. Exercise every day.  Simply take a long, relaxing walk or commit 30 minutes to an at-home exercise program like the P90X workout.
49. Let go of things you can’t change.  Concentrate on things you can.
50. Find hard work you actually enjoy doing.
51. Realize that the harder you work, the luckier you will become.
52. Follow your heart.  Don’t waste your life fulfilling someone else’s dreams and desires.
53. Set priorities for yourself and act accordingly.
54. Take it slow and add up all your small victories.
55. However good or bad a situation is now, it will change.  Accept this simple fact.
56. Excel at what you do.  Otherwise you’ll just frustrate yourself.
57. Mature, but don’t grow up too fast.
58. Realize that you’re never quite as right as you think you are.
59. Build something or do something that makes you proud.
60. Make mistakes, learn from them, laugh about them, and move along.

Oh, and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.  They’re free and better than anything money can buy.  

Posted on: Sunday, September 2nd, 2012

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.” ~Melody Beattie ~