Remarkabalize

Within Reach

Three years ago, Tom Augustine's daughter Alainna was diagnosed with juvenile  (type 1) diabetes. While educating himself about the disease, he learned that with enough resources, a cure for this disease could be discovered in our lifetime. Wanting his daughter to know that he's doing everything he can to help find a cure, Tom looked for a way to draw as much attention and support as he could to this cause. He was inspired by Lance Armstrong's Live Strong wristbands, and Seth Godin's book, Purple Cow. He wanted to find the "next big thing," a purple cow that would increase awareness of the hope surrounding the cure for diabetes.

Tom knew that almost all charities have a run or a walk and found a commonality in the pervasiveness of shoe laces. He designed lacelets, small accessories that you wear on the laces of your shoes, which are inscribed with the message "Within Reach." The phrase references the potential of finding a cure for diabetes, but is so inspirational that many people use them as a reminder of their own personal goals.

There are now over 300,000 lacelets worn all over the world. Talk about globe-trotting - all the professional basketball players in New Zealand wear lacelets! This is still just the beginning. Tom is looking for major retailers to help by offering lacelets in their stores and trying to find other creative ways to bring lacelets to everyone.

We salute his remarkable efforts to help with the search for a cure. Especially since those efforts don't end with lacelets. When Tom heard about the authors of The Big Moo donating part of the proceeds from the book to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, he offered his help by designing this website. Tom has learned a great deal from his work with lacelets and said it's "the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life. This shows that everybody has the power to make a difference."

 

Room to Read Moos with its First School in Nepal

We thought you would like to see the impact that The Big Moo is making. Every penny of the author royalties is given to our three charities, Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund, Acumen Fund, and Room to Read. Room to Read has sent us a report that details exactly how that money has been used to benefit communities. They transformed an extremely dilapidated school serving four villages in Nepal into a welcoming place to learn. Prior to the Big Moo funded Room to Read restoration, the school was unsafe, didn't have sufficient furniture, space, or toilet facilities for the students. They now have plenty of room for classes, office space, separate toilet facilities, and a library. To read more about this remarkable project download The Room to Read Big Moo Report. Room to Read did an amazing job with this project; it's really worth your time to check out what they've done. Help us to continue to make a difference in the lives of families by getting involved, supporting our charities, and buying copies of The Big Moo. You can learn more about this wonderful project when Room to Read’s founder, John Wood’s new book comes out later this summer…Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.

Group Systems Moos

We'd like to introduce you to one of our partners, Group Systems. They've done some truly remarkable things, which is why they have been a perfect Remarkabalize partner. To help you understand what they do, try to recall the last meeting you were a part of where action items weren't documented, people went off on tangents, or you were so bored that you wondered why you bothered to show up. Group Systems provides meeting solutions that are exactly the opposite of that. They change the way people work and their goal is to change lives. They provide extraordinarily effective techniques that build consensus rather than using majority rule. It's more than mere collaboration, it's Group Intelligence. The method was developed in 1989 by the University of Arizona and IBM. Since then, they've served every sector you can imagine: corporate, government, non-profit, and education. One of their more remarkable projects involved an inner city school. Group Systems found that after they helped the students communicate more effectively with the teachers and the school system, including actual student input into the curriculum, the drop out rate decreased 40 percent. The people who adopt Group Systems products are innovators. So when they heard about The Big Moo, they immediately wanted to get involved. The collaborative effort of 33 authors trying to benefit charity "aligned with our objective to change lives" said marketing manager Diana Peterson. Help us change more lives: share The Big Moo with your friends or contact us to get involved!

The Big Moo Flys on Amazon Thanks to MSN Ad

  The Big Moo moved from an Amazon.com ranking of 2,500 to 113 "like a bullet," said Seth. The lower the number, the more people buying books. Our highest observed ranking was 24! We owe this lightning speed to our generous friends at MSN who donated ad space on their homepage on April 1st and 2nd. The ad by bloggers Simon Andrews and Scott Case of Big Picture, was not only remarkable, it inspired people to purchase books, and in doing so, helped our three charities. Also joining in on spreading the word about The Big Moo is Know More Media, a business news and information network. They're providing free advertising for The Big Moo on all of their blogs for the month of April. We're very grateful to all of the folks who are helping to connect more people to this remarkable project.

MSN Donates Most Popular Home Page On Web To The Big Moo!

Our leading sponsor, MSN, has graciously donated their home page to The Big Moo for two days - April 1st and 2nd. This is no April Fool's Day joke - this is an opportunity to share our remarkable message with an enormous audience. Join the fray! Go to the MSN home page on April 1 or 2, click through, and buy some books to benefit three charities that are changing the world. For a sneak peak at the clever ad by bloggers Simon Andrews and Scott Case that will be featured, click here. For a headstart, buy a book here or contact us to find out how you can order customized versions of The Big Moo.

The Big Moo Sound-Off

From our Washington DC roving eye, Renata Lana:

This month, blogger Matt Certo has asked readers to vote on the Big Moo stories that have had a “significant impact” on their thinking. 

I’ve participated in the poll, and I hope you do too.   For one thing, I’m curious to see if my favorites match yours.  More importantly, however, the question itself deserves respect.  There are lots of reasons that we read and enjoy stories.  Are the stories I favor those that challenge my thinking or those that affirm or articulate a belief I already have?  Is one reason “better” than the other?  At the very least, it has made me look again at the stories that are not my favorites and think about whether these stories are the ones that really have the most to teach me. 

You can participate in Matt’s poll by going to http://blog.websolvers.com/cgi-bin/blog/mt-wstb.cgi/77

Remarkabalize* goes to Brand Manage Camp

On the morning of November 3rd we held our first official booksigning at Brand Manage Camp in Philadelphia, with Julie Anixter, Dean DeBiase, and Carol Cone signing, and 100 very cool people in attendance.   Len and Katy Herstein put on one of the most compelling brand conferences around...highlights included Martin Lindstrom on Multi Sensory www.martinlindstrom.com, Carol Cone on Cause, www.coneinc.com, and Second City's Improv Workshop, www.secondcity.com. Perhaps for me personally it was meeting one of Seth's childhood pals who shared that even at 9, Seth was a visionary....!

Katy Herstein and Big Moo author Dean DeBiase at the early AM book signing table...check out the conference at www.managecamp.com

Remarkabalize* at work!

After the funniest cab ride ever with a 20 Philly Taxi veteran who was a ringer for George Carlin...Ingrid, Megan, Erika and Amy disembark at Penn Station to head over to Caviar & Banana to set up the book launch party...

Remarkable Airplane Story #1: Hody Crouch, Senior Manager, AppForge

I use airplanes a lot to get from point A to B. I have always had a curious fascination with the work that other people do…which leads me to ask them about it, usually in the last 10 minutes of the flight. En route to San Francisco this week I met Hody Crouch, who works for AppForge….here’s an approximate transcript of our conversation…after I ask him if he’d like to switch his seat (aisle 11-A) with my colleague (exit row middle, 17-B) he says “middle seat, further back? Uh…no” and we then establish that he knows more about airplane seat configuration than anyone I’ve ever met…likely an engineer…so I ask him what I am now fondly thinking of as The Remarkabalize Question….

JA: [The Remarkabalize Question]: “What do you do?”

HC: “I work for a co that builds development tools for mobile devices.
The key to our tools is that we let you use Microsoft tools to build apps that target both Microsoft and non-Microsoft handhelds…”

JA: Wow! (Good elevator speech!) So give me the “so, so what?”

HC: Millions of developers are using MS tools…but you have hundreds of different mobile devices…operating on different platforms…even on Microsoft you have pocket PC, ppc. It’s a big mess…Our tools let you take those millions of developers targeting hundreds of platforms and make it easy for them to build apps.”

You must have noticed that these things (holds up his handheld) are everywhere.

JA: Yep. I actually consider them the “blankies for adults.” You know…blankie…blanket…fetishistic object?”

The conversation continued….at some point, I show him my copy of The Big Moo,
just to get his reaction. And this is what he said….which led me to later name the act of sharing The Big Moo….”The Remarkabalize Test” – a sort of instant mirror/ Rorschach technique to gauge what someone thinks is remarkable based on their first impression.”

HC: “Oh this reminds me of how I started my professional career….I worked for another company, Ratio DesignLab…We did concurrent engineering…you bring together traditionally disparate disciplines at a early stage in the design process. Traditional engineering is ruled by “over the wall thinking” – you know, you finish your work, throw it over the wall…and, with concurrent engineering you encourage disciplines to get together early in process to id potential opportunities and problems. In the design process the closer you get to production the more costly it is to fix …”

JA: You mean concurrent prototyping – it’s the same thing, right?

HC: Yes….For example, back up from end of…each discipline has its own constraints…for

Electrical engineering – ruled by laws by basic physical laws of battery power

JA: Tell me about it! That is my life…when I can plug this – pointing to laptop – into this – pointing to seatback – I will be a happy woman! I note this does not stop his conversation…)

HC: Interface Design – thinks about human communications interaction
3D Cad side -- the material selection -- ruled by material selection, drop test performance, environmental requirements.

JA: How is it different from a people/process dynamics point of view?

HC: It’s dramatically different. it really works best with highly qualified individuals who are willing to fight for what they believe in. The downside is that if you have a single dominating personality…

JA: And that never happens…(laughter)

HC: ….it can be dangerous… In traditional engineering there is a huge process moat to overcome…as the design gets passed from one function to another…which actually protects the integrity of the design. But in concurrent engineering – the design in flux – easier to make a change – and that’s double edged sword. It’s great for mood, morale, and for an aggressive ego-centric “I’ll fight for my design” approach…

There was a conflict that we just had…the electrical engineers needed a particular type of component for reliability…something about ribs in plastic…strengthening the case..

“I was in the room for the fight, and it literally came down to…you can either survive a 6 ft. drop test or make the batteries more reliable…or…enlarge the unit.
What do you want…you can’t have all three. I’m sure you’ve heard this line…

“You can have fast, good or cheap – pick two…”

JA: No Hody, I have not…. but I do love it and will definitely use it…Thank you….Hey…I think I need to write a story about you….

To reach Hody Crouch and AppForge...www.appforge.com

MSN to sign on as official book launch sponsor!

MSN has signed on to be our official launch sponsor. The authors launch event will be held in NYC on October 10th, so get involved and meet the authors! Location and details to come! Any hot new spots we should consider?