This Week’s news which is enlightening: https://bartsbooks.com/newsletter/
Work Wit =- What’s so funny about business?
Work Wit Boss of your boss…American business folks believe that if you invent more, network more, and labor longer hours, you may someday be supervising your boss. Is that the lure of hope – or revenge?
Biz Quiz. How long do we work? The U.S. Department of Labor states that the average American worker (all levels) labors 2,200 hours a year. This compares favorably with the 16,000 – 18,000 hours throughout Europe and the 2,000 in Japan. The dish of mobility, whether served hot or cold, is apparently a very tasty and desired delicacy.
WORK WIT: To the Right of Truth…In the Boomer’s generation, folks got fired. More recently, folks got laid off. Now companies are “rightsizing” their employees. But no matter how softly you spin it, it still adds up to “Clean out your desk, son. No more salary, and don’t steal any pencils on the way out.”
Biz Quiz: To obtain the “right size” number of employees, how many U.S. tech workers were fired in the first half of 2023? Best estimates say that 200,000 of America’s 5.2 million tech workers told to hit the bricks in the first two quarters of 2023.
WORK WIT: Golden Silence…If you have nothing to say, either say nothing or hire yourself out as a keynote speaker.
Biz Quiz: What are top Keynote Speakers charging currently? Actress/comedian Retta charges $200,000 for live appearances, Shark Tank’s Daymond John will grace your podium for $100,000, and Pursuit of Happyness author will bring you joyful news for slightly less.
WORK WIT: America The Beautiful…An entrepreneur knows he’s landed in the right country when he spends more time & money giving rebates to loyal clients than to dubious government officials.
Biz Quiz. Within the last decade, what percent of new enterprises in the United States are launched by first generation immigrants? 48.7 percent.
WORK WIT: Why Didn’t We Think of That?…Retail giants are trending a sharp business move: they’re opening apartments in malls and closing CEO offices. Thus the new profit-making maxim: Keep your customers closer and your executives further away.
Afterthought. Last year, 11 of the 91 retail firms in the Fortune 1000 had CEOs exit, with no definite plans for replacement. Meanwhile the new in-mall and mall-adjacent apartment units are selling like hotcakes.
WORK WIT: Polishing Your Brilliance…I think the reason so many people keep asking me to write my ideas down is so that they won’t have to listen to them.
Biz Quiz: If you are given one minute to relate your idea, how many words should you use? 120 – 160 is considered an understandable rate of speech.
Work Wit: Corona Wonders…What do you call a nation where people sit down and chat face-to-face to share a glass of wine, but stand on a moving treadmill and squint into a screen to share employment in the same company? America the Beautiful.
Biz Quiz: What is the best estimate of treadmill desks purchased in the last decade? Somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000. https://www.bartsbooks.com
WORK WIT: Sign of Our Times…She wouldn’t be caught dead venturing into marriage with an off-the-rack wedding gown, but she thinks nothing of venturing into a new enterprise an AI generated business plan.
Biz Quiz: What is the price of the average wedding gown in the U.S.? America’s 2.5 million brides this past year paid an average of $2,000 – $4,000 for their wedding gowns.
Dale Caldwell – Takes Helm of Centenary University
His hand on my shoulder, Dale stated enthusiastically, “We can change the world from here.” Every once in a rare while the exact right leader finds a perfect fit with the exact right team. And I was fortunate to witness this on October 21st when the idealistic, energetically inventive Dr. Dale Caldwell donned the President’s robes and was invested with the leadership of the refreshingly progressive faculty and students of the 156-year-old Centenary University based in Hackettstown, New Jersey.
Currently, Dale serves as founding head of the Dale Caldwell Foundation, and the Entrepreneur Zones movement which battles poverty in distressed communities by developing new businesses. Previously, Dale served as head of Farleigh Dickinson University’s Rothman Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, working to promote family businesses and the Prometheus Social Enterprise Awards. For President Caldwell, Centenary offers an ideal platform. An impressive number of the 1,200 undergraduate students take active part in ENACTUS, an national organization that guides collegiates into entrepreneurial enterprises as a catalyst for progress. Prior to the inaugural ceremony, Dale and several undergraduates celebrated his donating supplies to a local food pantry and books to a nearby correctional facility.
In his address, Dr. Caldwell noted that “Within our institutions of higher education we possess ample and necessary brainpower and energy to solve all the problems facing our society.” It seems only fitting that the Centenary mascot is the cyclone. Keep your eyes on this whirlwind center of innovative learning… where “changing the world” becomes a practical mission.
Snippet from my new book: Fellow Travelers
Gathering All the Animals
Compared to Noah, I couldn’t find a lion in my living room. Quiet, settled, subtly humored, Noah knew exactly which stream banks lay slathered thick with alligators, on which kjopes lions stoically scouted for prey, and precisely how close to wildebeest herds he could set us walking without probably getting trampled. Lorraine, I, and long-time fellow trekker Richard Craig had just come down from traversing Mount Kilimanjaro, and a friend had linked us with Noah as the “most intriguing” driver/guide for a few weeks camping safari in Tanzania’s Serengeti…
From the moment we tossed ourselves and gear into Noah’s “Jarringly Jouncing Jeep,” the three of us realized we had a perfect fit. Noah was the first man we’d met in all Tanzania with camping equipment as worn and aged as our own. Pointing “JJJ” roughly toward Mount Mehru, our guide began expanding our Swahili expletive vocabulary as he fist-swatted the swarming tsetse flies against the dashboard. (Tsetse bites make our American greenhead’s worst efforts feel like a gentle kiss.)
It soon became apparent. We had own definite ideas about this photo safari, and Noah had the right ones. “Yes, of course,” he had wryly noted, “you don’t need a cook, but then the baboons will destroy everything.” Thus we had hired on Grayson to make scrumptious meals and fend voracious intruders by day while the four of us drove across the dust-choking plains in search of game…..
As we huddled close to our charcoal fire, gazing uneasily at the predatory eyes crouching seemingly a few leaps away in the inky dark, Noah gleefully spun “true” tales of hyena and big cat attacks. He and Richard also swapped military stories of serving in Vietnam – ironically on opposite sides. (Apparently, some contorted Russia/Tanaznia treaty had placed a bewildered young Noah training in North Vietnam camps.) Not surprisingly, both men shared a chest of anecdotes concerning military inefficiency – SNAFU….
Did Noah live up to his biblical name in showing us all the animals? Was it really his fault that we were sprinting down this trail toward the jeep with an ardently perturbed cape buffalo right behind us? More about this fellow traveler will be revealed in further pages.
From Vine to Glass Touring the Fine Wines in New Jersey
Thursday eve, May 4, 6:30 at the Cranbury Library
From Vine to Glass Touring the Fine Wines in New Jersey
As the sixth largest producer of wine in the United States, New Jersey boasts 55 commercial wineries and a growing number of wine-grape farms. And in the Dionysian Society blind tasting pitting the best wines of France and California vs. New Jersey – guess who took top honors? Wine author and hobby vintner Bart Jackson guides you around the Garden State’s wine offerings, explaining what grapes thrive in her four growing regions, and what winery events not to miss. (Opera & wine, anyone?) Bart also provides tips on selecting, tasting, and growing, as well as some of the best ways to launch your own wine trail explorations. All is presented with good humor and touches of history…(Do you know how many wineries in Burlington county were closed at the outset of Prohibition?) Come and discover the tasteful bounty growing all around us.
Bart Jackson, author of The Garden States Winery Guide, is a veteran advocate and explorer of New Jersey’s wine industry. Since 1995, he and his wife Lorraine have grown the grapes in their own hobby vineyard in Cranbury from which they joyfully press and produce their own Chateau Bonne Chance vintages. Bart is CEO of Prometheus Publishing, hosts The Art of the CEO radio show, and is the founder of The Prometheus Social Enterprise Awards, bringing the most inventive social contributors to light. His other books range from Whitewater – Running the Wild Rivers of North America to the bestselling CEO of Yourself – Getting Down to the Business of Your More Rewarding Life. As a globe-trotting journalist, Bart has carted his pen and curiosity and wine thirst through over 80 countries. His most prized writings are the poems penned to his bride Lorraine, which are published on the north wall of their Cranbury home.
To learn more visit https://www.bartsbooks.com
The Post-Covid Career Opportunity Boom
Host Bart Jackson lays out practical methods for re-sculpting yourself into a multi-talented, renaissance businessperson – so you may best seize the opportunities in this wide-open post-covid market.
Welcome to the wild west of post-plague hiring. The single-skilled job slot – tight workplace structures – even the old employee/contractor/consultant distinctions have been swept away. Victims of Covid. In their place, established firms now clawing their way back to profitable operations are looking for performance wizards. Those multi-skilled businesspeople who can reach across department lines and do what it takes to get the product made, marketed, and sold. Host Bart Jackson lays out practical methods for shifting your presentation from skill sets to results architect. He also lays out plans for you to profitably partner your talents with the flood of over 5 million businesses launched in 2022. Tune in and learn how to re-sculpt yourself into a renaissance businessperson and best seize the opportunities in this wide-open post-covid market.
https://thear
toftheceo.com/
Easter Joys
We are indeed children of the light. When we first realize that the darkest day of late December’s winter solstice lies behind us, we celebrate this season of hope with Christmas, Saturnalia, and many other northern hemisphere rites. Now, when that daylight comes literally into full flower, dazzling our eyes with daffodils, forsythia, and small buds of high promise, we emerge from hope into resurrected joys. We celebrate Easter and the return of every new life under the sun. Once again, we sense opportunity – visions of new plans, schemes, and creations blossom within our minds. Now is the time to….(fill in your favorite venture here).
And humanity’s creative juices begin to flow. Can’t you feel your fingers itching to build? ‘Twas ever thus. Back in the 12th century, the Catholic church mandated that all good Christians should give up eating eggs as part of their Lenten fasting. The people agreed, but somehow the chickens didn’t get the memo and they kept laying those lovely fresh ovoids. The farm folks, unwilling to let good eggs go to waste, began decorating them in wildly ornate colors. We just cannot resist celebrating or setting idle hands to artistic pursuits.
So this Eastertide, when we celebrate the man taught us to rebuild our world into a kingdom of love, it is my hope that we may all catch that spirit. To Hell with the Devil who smiles at every suicide, harbored hate, and maliciously pandered fear. Who needs that paralysis? We have dreams to construct and bring forth. Please accept my Easter wish that we all roll up our sleeves, join hands and see just what we can make together.
Wishing You Every Success,
Bart Jackson
Re-sculpting Your Career – Post-Covid Opportunities
Fortune now smiles on the energized employee willing to take his/her current skills and apply them in a new field. On Friday, February 24, 10 a.m. at the Princeton Public Library Bart Jackson will speak to the Professional Service Group of Mercer County. Admission is free, all are welcome – virtual attendance is also available: register on the PSG website www.psgofmercercounty.org.
Bart lays out a practical plan for searching out what businesses are seeking, how to navigate your professional switch, and how to negotiate your way into a more profitable career. In his words, “If you thought the business talent hunt was immense before Covid, wait until you see what’s waiting for you today.”
Work Wit – What’s Funny About Business
The American Way… As a patriotic gentleman of business, I whole-heartedly support all legislators who give contracts to my firm. Of course, those who give contracts to my competitors are irresponsible wastrels and darn fools.
Biz Quiz: How many government contractors are employed in the U.S.? You are paying for 5,294 contractors – 55% are male – average age is 46.
