While General Eisenhower might have been a modern day Julius Caesar, President Eisenhower became our Augustus Caesar — a supreme diplomat, formidable leader, and moderate pragmatist. Nonetheless, it is sobering to note that if Candidate Eisenhower were running for the Republican nomination in this election, America would probably have been deprived his talents. The Republican Party has unfortunately changed dramatically since 1952.

Former Governor Mitt Romney, like President Eisenhower, is a moderate Republican. As such, he has been met with less than positive enthusiasm by today’s Republican Party. And yet, he is not only the most electable of the Republican candidates the Republicans could field against President Obama, but he is by far what this country needs now.

It was only a few years ago that the left-wing of the Democratic Party hijacked the first two years of President Obama’s administration. Representative Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues propelled a left-wing agenda so out of touch with mainstream America that she squandered precious time in the midst of a blistering economic recession. Moreover, she almost single-handedly provoked a right wing tea party rebellion that ushered in the incredibly ineffective Congress we all had to live with these last two years.

The Republican Party is about to make the same mistake.

What this country does not need is more ideology from either the left or the right.  What this country does need is competent and moderate pragmatism.

The Republicans have the opportunity to regain the White House.

The Republicans have the opportunity to reframe the dialogue.

The Republicans also have the opportunity to set the cause back for themselves and for America by at least another four years if they choose ideological populism over proven real-world competency.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney successfully navigated the private sector where equity controls the flow of capital and jobs. He engineered the enormously successful 2002 Winter Olympics which produced the gold standard for an Olympic organization. He ran a successful Republican administration within the depths of a traditionally Democratic State. He has orchestrated with a few minor blunders a polished and successful campaign against a slew of pretenders.  And, if the truth be told, it’s hard to avoid noticing that his personal life includes a wife and family devoid of personal scandal.

Mr. Romney has earned his right to lead the Republican Party and our nation in this election.

Eisenhower may not have had the soaring rhetoric of either Robert A. Taft or Adlai Stevenson, but he did lead America into a prosperous decade and ended over two decades of New Deal thinking.  And although Romney is no slouch on the platform, his value lies less in his speaking style, and more in his substance.

And in any event, after three years of President Obama, I’m far less interested in rhetoric and far more interested in good management with measurable results anyway.

I want to encourage Republicans in Florida and in other states throughout the nation during this primary season to recognize the distinction between ideological rhetoric and effective pragmatic leadership, as they consider casting their votes for Romney.

A vote for Romney is a vote for measured government.  A vote for his opponents is a vote for ideology.  And there are times in which measured government trumps ideology at every level.

I like Mitt.  What about you?

I don’t even really start at the Bronze Age.

If the truth be told, I actually start from there and go back to the development of homo sapiens wandering out of West Africa as as they emerged from the multiple failed hominids that didn’t quite make it.

It’s a strange hobby, I know, but apparently it appears to really be my hobby . . .  after all.

I didn’t really think about it as a hobby until one day when I was pontificating endlessly driving with my wife, Janet, and our three sweethearts.  After a ten minute diatribe on the development of intelligence in hominids, she turned to me and said, literally after eighteen years of marriage, “Wow, you really do need a hobby, don’t you?”

Since I really don’t know the stats on the most recent football scores, even though I still follow Notre Dame regardless of its inability to cleanly win a game, or what teams played in the World Series, or even what season of sports it actually is, I realized in that conversastion that early anthropological development actually was my hobby . . . as lame as that must sound.

In any event, and back to the subject of this blog, I happened to be reviewing an ancient map of the Aegean Sea for no particular reason except to simply connect the dots between modern cities and how they evolved some 3000 years ago.

Something occurred to me in the process.

If you take a look at some of the most historical spots in the development of human history, they tend to be strategically positioned in incredible ways, the implications of which become obvious almost immediately.

• Babylon sat at the nexus between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Mesopotamian Peninsula, labeled today the “fertile crescent” in what was then Babylon (now Iraq), bordering Persia (now Iran).
• Alexandria, home to Egyptian civilization and allegedly to the largest library in the ancient world, surrounded the shores of the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea.
• For Carthage, in the promontory of North Africa’s Tunis, no boat would dare traverse the distance between it and Sicily without paying an ancient Seafarer’s Toll, what would clearly be considered today “protection money.”
• Rome, centrally located on the Mediterranean and an equal distance between North and South Italy — well, not much more needs to be said about Rome.
• Athens sat at the base of the Greek peninsula with full access to the Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas.
• Troy guarded the entry point from the Aegean Sea to the hellspont with its access to the Sea of Marmara and ultimately through to the Black Sea.
• Byzantium’s “Constantinople” a/k/a Istanbul guarded the Black Sea itself and became the gatekeeper from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and ultimately . . . to the Eastern world.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

It’s not as if I didn’t study ancient history in school, as I’m sure you all did. It’s just that it hadn’t been quite so clear to me until I saw the ancient map through my eyes today. Every one of the metropolitan cities I just described had life cycles not of ten years, fifty years, or even of one hundred years. The shortest of all of them was centuries more than that.

As I thought about the map of Antiquities, I considered historical perspective interesting, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there was any application to modern business theory. As I thought about it some more, however, the obvious became more obvious.

Were you to take a look at the region around Babylon, Alexandria, Carthage, Rome, Athens, Troy, or Byzantium, you would see a massive list of cities, townships and regions whose names none of us know. And the reason is very simple: they don’t exist anymore. Most have perished, and those that exist are “also rans.”

On the other hand, when you track the empires built around the cities I just mentioned, the shortest length of time in which that particular city influenced the world was 600 years – that’s the least amount of time – and the largest has survived to the present time, of course, including Istanbul, Rome and Athens.  And that’s just in the region, although the same holds true on a World Map of Antiquities for other regions of the world.

That simple observation, whether it is profound or obvious or, frankly, just plain wrong, flies in the face of anything that I’ve ever said about business.

In my first published book, Finding Your Niche, I wrote that a mediocre business concept, effectively executed, trumps a brilliant concept poorly executed, every time. As I now take a look at a map of Antiquities, I have to question that fundamental assumption, which by the way, I now also have to question based upon my personal experiences and observations over the past two years.

Each of the cities I just described was tumultuous. They had ups and downs. They were captured. They regained their independence. They got captured again. They regained their independence again. They were devastated by internal corruption.  They were destroyed by natural events.  They were raised to the ground . . . more than once  And so forth and so on. But, at the end of the day, they all survived and they stayed relevant and meaningful.

On the other hand, when each of the other cities within their sphere of influence got hit by any of the above, they were gone. Simply gone. They became nothing more interesting than artifacts from digs orchestrated by modern archeologists. The reason, it appears to me, is that while they might have been effectively executed at one point in time, they simply were not brilliantly positioned to withstand the test of time.

That same rule applies to business today.

There is no question that there are businesses that sit in a strategic position and, because of that, will continue to endure, no matter what. Is General Electric one of those? Probably.

Is AT&T one of those? I suspect so.

Microsoft? Yes.

Apple? Probably.

But when we take a look at AOL, or Yahoo, or Blackberry (RIM), or Sears, or Netflix, or candidly the most recent of our IPO’s — Groupon — which went public two weeks ago, or hundreds of others, my thought is that it is unlikely.  They might surf trends, or be effectively executed . . . but brilliantly positioned?  I doubt it.

Strategic positioning doesn’t span years, or decades. It spans centuries, if not millennia. While for profit companies like the East India Trading Corporation or Wells Fargo might not have survived a millennium based on their current positions, they clearly survived centuries based on their strategic positioning.

I remain committed to tactical effectiveness and consistent, if not compelling, execution; but, in reviewing these Old Maps, I have a new found respect for the turf a company has homesteaded for itself: the turf which we call strategic positioning.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I got a note today, in this office building in Maitland I am renting temporary space in.  Apparently,  I’m not allowed to bring my Samoyed. I checked the lease, and lo and behold, it is actually true. We have several tenants who bring their dogs, all of which are not only well-behaved, but are actually personalities. Mine is a Samoyed who has never met anyone she does not believe idolizes her. On the third floor, there is a young woman who is raising dogs (tri-species) who are the most incredibly well behaved I’ve ever seen.

After that, I’ve seen several others begin to bring their pets in because they thought it was appropriate. And, alas, we all got the notice.

I haven’t had the heart to tell Ava that she is not allowed to come to the office anymore because she thoroughly enjoys it as she comes in each morning, runs like crazy around the office, greeting every person, and then ultimately lies down in the corner, with her bone, and either sleeps or chews. But, that is apparently the way it needs to be.

From a personal standpoint, that just simply tells me ”I . . . gotta get outta this place . . . if it’s the last thing I ever do:” and certainly when the lease expires this coming October (2011).

From a business standpoint, Dynetech Centre doesn’t matter.  No more tower, no more offices, no more rented space. No more KEL.

I’ve just got to get back my mojo again . . . in downtown Orlando, where I belong and where it all began.

I know I started there: I know I did well there; I know that I retired well there. 

And frankly, I don’t remember why I ever left there!

Very much like the black box game, he was able to postulate a theory based upon nothing other than seeing how those symptoms played out or manifested in reality.

The fact that he couldn’t explain “how” had no effect on the credibility of the theory, because the phenomena were consistent nonetheless and seemed to reflect some process beyond the tools of the day to explain.

Evolution and natural selection were steps forward in that explanation, far superior to anything postulated at that time.

Genetics continues that process forward as it takes the symptoms of evolutionary development and transforms it into an explanation as fundamental to the development of life forms as atoms and sub-atomic particles are to an understanding of matter.

Evolution is to the origin of homo sapiens what cosmology is to the origin of the universe.

Nonetheless, despite the science, and as far back as we place it from 7 days 10,000 years ago to the last 2.5 billion years over 14.5 billion years, there still remains lurking in the human soul the fundamental question – why? – and by whom?

Assume the next development of a species in which organs are freely transplantable or replicatable based upon simple science.

Assume a time in which organisms live based on transplantable and replicatable gene therapy . . . but with our minds and our souls.

Is that another species entirely? Is it the same species? Who are we when we have the opportunity to live for 100 years or indefinitely? Are we homo sapiens or are we some other life form?  What does that do to our view of reality?  What does that do to our view of life?

Assume even more a time in which we replicate transplantable organs with gene therapy and implant organic silica for the cerebral transfer of information in nano seconds.

How does that alter the calculus of discussion?  How does that change our life views?

Are we the same species or different?

How do we live our lives under those circumstances?

Do we feel more . . . or less?  Do we care more . . . or less?  Do we love more . . . or less?

What was intriguing to me when I had penned the blog on Ellen and Oprah a few weeks ago, became manifestly obvious to me as I watched that retrospective.  Not only has the tide shifted from Oprah-power to Ellen-consciousness in the blink of an eye, but Ellen has emerged a clear psychic victor for reasons I only began to surmise a few short weeks ago and can articulate more cogently today.

Let me outline those here:

• I thought Oprah was wonderful, bringing salient and important human themes through her show routinely; however, in the back of my mind, virtually all the time, I felt that it was as much about Oprah as it was about the themes themselves.  Rightly or wrongly, I viewed Oprah as a wee bit too egocentric:  a wee bit too “look at me, ’America’, I made it after all.”  On the other hand, I find Ellen less thematic and more people driven.  And, when she is exposing those people — interesting people — it really is about them, not about Ellen, even when she’s being her goofiest.
• Ellen gave away some type of tablet to everyone who was in attendance at her 1400th show last night.  And, of course, that is a gesture clearly taken from Oprah’s playbook.  However, when Ellen gave it away, it was far less about her, far less about fanfare, and far more subdued than anything Janet had been crying about on Oprah’s show in past years.  With Oprah, giving away a potted plant had so much pomp and circumstance attached to it, I was actually a wee bit embarrassed for the recipients, and even more embarrassed about Oprah.  With Ellen, I barely noticed it was a gift at all, which is exactly as it should be.
• It goes without saying that the subjects of Ellen’s inquiry are far more about people and far less about world-changing events.  With a philosophical bend, I’m always interested in world views and global influences.  But because I felt I had to deal with Oprah as much as the themes, I hesitated to engage.  In Ellen’s world, life is far more about human weaknesses and foibles — risque, eccentric and idiosyncratic, but fun in a non-judgmental way — far more about the embarrassements along the way, and far more about living through them with a sense of humor than an obligation to act.  It is almost as if I’m comparing Ordinary People to the Incredible Lightness of Being.
• And as I saw the digital edits of those past shows, it occurred to me that Ellen was her best without a teleprompter or ear piece.  In fact, she was fresh, exciting and enticing.  When I used to view Oprah over  Janet’s shoulder, I saw a terribly gifted celebrity and interviewer controlled more by an earpiece and much less by raw instinct.  Neither is necessarily good or bad, but Ellen’s way is far easier to digest.

Let me simply pause.

These thoughts are at best docile observations from the bullpen.  Lest anyone be concerned, I was and remain an ardent admirer of the Big “O”, but I couldn’t help observing in Oprah’s time that Oprah’s work was often overshadowed by Oprah herself.  I can’t help observing today that Ellen in Motion allows me to relax and doesn’t judge me in the process.

Oprah, you’ve done your work . . . and it was game changing.  Focus on building your network and allow distance in time to build your legend ever more.  There’s more for you out there, but not from the front lines.  That time has passed.

Ellen, I wish you Godspeed in showing yourself to America.  You’re doing great!  Keep at it!!!

Her rationale is the fact that if she were ever attacked by any “bad men,” she’d be able to defend herself by giving them a “hi yah” and a “hi yeh.” Her firm belief is that once she delivers a “hi yah” and a “hi yeh” along with a swift high kick, whoever the “bad men” are, they will be running away.

While I questioned the rationale, I clearly did not question her passion. So, all was going well and I even indicated to her that I was going to get all of the particulars about the different programs in a couple mile radius for karate classes for children. She got very excited. In the process of her excitement, she got right to the point: “When do you think I will get a belt, Daddy?”

I told her that the belt wasn’t given, it was earned.

“Right! Got it.  So, when do I get it?”

She persisted:  ”Daddy, I understand what you’re saying (she said with the roll of both eyes), but answer my question:  when am I going to get the belt?”

And then I realized, of course, that it really is all about the belt, not just for Isabella, but for most people.

It’s the belt, after all!  The hidden incentive of behavior at every level.

I don’t know how many of you have listened to the Broadway Station on Sirius. It’s Sirius XM Channel 77. It’s a little funky, just a wee bit pretentious, and I guess you have to enjoy Broadway as much as the listeners of opera enjoy Met Opera on Sirius, or fans of Jimmy Buffet enjoy Margaritaville.

There is a fellow whose name is Seth Rudetsky. Since I haven’t listened to Broadway very long, I’m not really sure what his story is, but I know that he appears to be a pretty big deal in the Sirius Broadway realm, and maybe even Broadway itself. They have a particular show, along with several anchors which are interview shows.

I happened to be listening to an interview between Seth, Johnni James (sorry if the spelling is off), and Ben Vereen. Yes, the Ben Vereen of “All That Jazz,” “Pippin,”  “Funny Girl” with Barbara Streisand, and “Chicken George” of Roots.

If you know anything about Ben Vereen aside from what an incredibly talented performer he is, you might know (which I didn’t) that he has won several Tony’s and has been a mainstay on Broadway for a very long time.

Seth kept focusing him in the interview on his choices of parts, his awards, his accolades, and all the like.

To Seth, it had everything to do with artistic “choices.” 

To Ben Vereen, it didn’t have anything to do with any of that. It was really all about, in Ben’s words, “the work.” He loved the work and he wanted to work. It didn’t matter what part he played. He preferred to work with directors like Bob Fosse of “All That Jazz,” no matter what Bob Fosse did and no matter what Bob Fosse cast him in.  But, at the end of the day, while his preference was creative directors, his choice was simply to be able to work and work with people he enjoyed working with. He even talked about the difference between work and unemployment lines and he said he definitely preferred “work!”

At one point in time, after hammering his message home, Seth asked him yet again why he chose a particular part. His answer, predictably, was, “Seth, the WORK!”

I thought about that for a while, because, not being a Broadway aficionado, but finding musicals easy to enjoy, I certainly know Ben’s “work.” It’s monumental. It’s over the top. It is enormously talented. And he is in the moment when he is performing — even if he is performing each and every night, six days a week and twice on Sundays, on Broadway, for three years straight.

He brings his best game to the show and he stays in the moment not only because his patrons deserve it, that’s where he wants to be — working his passion, but most important of all because, “it’s all about the work.”

It resonated with me, because, as I looked back in my life, I realized I’ve always felt the same about entrepreneurship — about business building. To me, it has always been “about the work.”

The awards and accolades may come, which they did; and may go, which they also did. But what’s most important is the work itself.

I’ve likened entrepreneurship at one point in time to the work of a sculptor. It’s chiseling a statue that you get to stand back and look at from afar, approach as you chisel some more, and then step back again to gain perspective.

Entrepreneurship has been called part science and part art . . .  but above all else, at least for me, it’s about the work.

In any event, I turned to Bella and I concluded the conversation with:   ”I get it, Sweetie Pie. I really do. But just think for a moment that it might not be about the belt at all, but about what you will have to do to earn it!”

A Postscipt.

We went to the demonstration Saturday morning:  just the two of us.  The place was full of all the language you would expect in karate:  right intentions,  right conduct, and right results.   The belts were proudly displayed on the wall.  But it wasn’t a quick ”gimme.” 

You had to earn it.

She got it . . . at least I think she did!

She still said she wanted to take the karate lessons, but this time, her tone was far from certain, and much less cavaliere.

Of course it may turn out to be true, at the end of the day, that it is all about the belt, but you had better love the work first, or getting the belt is simply not worth the effort.

Apparently, Oprah really is gone and Ellen Degeneres seems to be the beneficiary.

I happened to walk into the bedroom when all of the kids were down a few nights ago, and Janet was pretty much belly laughing at Ellen, who is routinely DVR’d on our Brighthouse recording service.

As I walked in, Janet said something innocuous like, “she’s too much,” without stopping the gaffawing.  I froze in amazement at the irony of it all.

Just a year ago, I believe that I put it on the line . . . or maybe I didn’t really put it on the line, but I thought about putting it on the line anyway:  it’s Oprah or me, baby doll!  Capiche?  This planet isn’t big enough for the two of us in our marriage!!!

But tonight, it was all so very different. Janet appears to have gotten past her love affair with Oprah.  Now, it was all about Ellen.  When Janet would see Oprah DVR’d through the Brighthouse system, she routinely cried; she was awestruck . . . she was mesmerized.  She gasped in over the top ways.

But when it comes to Ellen, it’s not about that at all.

She was actually laughing hysterically with Hillary Duff as the guest.  Seriously – Hillary Duff!  Our current 16 year old loved her as Lizzie McGuire years ago and I even thought she was adorable myself, at least before she made those painful movies.  But that didn’t stop Janet, who was laughing hysterically as she listened to her, all grown up, married with a child — and, of course, under Ellen’s easy care.

And just the other night, we had no choice but to see these 8 and 5 year old phenoms from England who You Tubed an energetic presentation of  rapper Nicki Minaj with a rhyme, rhythm and reason that marveled grown ups. Clearly, I’m glad we had a chance to see it. We laughed and I cried of course, empathizing with the 8 year old’s father whose mother (his wife) nonchalantly handed him a Kleenex while their daughter was on stage with Ellen.

And so I said to Janet, as I sat in amazement at the transformation in less than one year, “well, I guess Oprah is a goner?”

“Well, maybe not a goner, but probably a little out of sight,” she says;  “besides, she became way too elitist towards the end!”

“Elitist?” I asked, absolutely astounded with, I must say, a tinge of schadenfreude interspersed.

“You know what I mean:  just too full of herself,” she confessed.

Too full of herself?  Too full of herself!  I loved it.  The ironies rushed over me with waves of relief.

Frankly, though, I actually liked Oprah, although I do admit that her sense of self at times overpowered the themes she wanted to spotlight. To me, she was the Frank Sinatra of her genre compared to the lighter hearted and more apparently genuine Dean Martin:  more interested in himself than in his audience. 

Nonetheless, Oprah (like Frank) did some mighty work for which we can all be grateful.

And what abot Ellen?  Yes, Ellen?  She’s done her work too, but of a very different nature. From the painful coming out to the hidden days healing her publicly villified inner soul, to her current regenesis radiating the pure joy of her spirit:  her transformation was an enormous delight to witness, even from afar.

It hadn’t occurred to me to place either of them side by side (anymore than to compare Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin), but for the simple fact of Janet’s joyfulness in watching Ellen navigate with fluid ease in and through the conversations she shared with those two young British starlets in a singing frenzy and with Hillary Duff exciting about young marriage and children and the youthful newness of it all – which each of us, with smiles on our faces, can recall.

P.S.  As I was rereading this post to clean up typos, etc., by the way, I had to stop because, from the other side of the house, I heard this cackling that sounded like it was coming from Janet.  I didn’t believe it, but, upon further investigation, it  turned out to be true.  Apparently, Janet was thoroughly engaged in Ellen, one of Ellen’s employees and her employee’s mother on the Queen Mary Halloween Voyage, or something of that nature.  Apparently, it was scary and the way it was depicted doubled Janet over in bed, yet again!  I any event, you get the picture!

P.P.S.  I’m sorry, Oprah.  It appears to be over.  And Ellen, please . . . please . . . please . . .  don’t learn to take yourself too seriously!  It’s happened before, of course, with others.  And it could happen to you.  But, we’re all out here supporting you and doing our best to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

So, I thought this was so cute, it had to get published. 

Since Jordan, at 16, and Jared, at 13, are feeling stronger as they get older,  the challenge of dealing with a young 8 year old fire brand who balances all of us out in psychic strength has escalated.

As I was pontificating on that very subject throughout dinner the other night, Isabella got up, grabbed a marker and started writing. 

This is what she came up with . . . which she called The Prayer. 

I hope you enjoy it!  Dad

I had read an article about a year ago. It was actually about myself and the seminar business I had built.

It talked about the fact that I had blamed the demise of my seminar business on the Great Recession.

I had certainly made that statement, but I had not implied, directly or by inference, that the Great Recession was the only reason the seminar business died. There were several other reasons that had nothing at all to do with the circumstances of the Great Recession or the circumstances surrounding the capital structure of the company, which also contributed.

In fact, if I were to rate them all, I would say that the capital structure of the company was third (the subject of prior blogs); the Great Recession was second, and, if the truth be told, the primary fundamental reason for its demise was the disruptive nature of technology.

Yes, the disruptive nature of technology. 

I know that many of you have heard that technology is disruptive.  However, I suspect very few of us have probably sustained or absorbed the direct and immediate impact that a disruptive technology had on our individual businesses. It is akin to the disruptive result of automobiles on the sale of buggy whips ninety (90) years ago, or of cell phones on pay phones, or of DVD’s on VHS’s, or of streaming video on DVD’s, and so forth and so on.

Good grief.  The pages of the Wall Street Journal are blood stained reporting on businesses and industries that have and are perishing in the midst of the technology rapture.

I just didn’t realize mine would be one of them.

I remember attending a convention of the Factoring industry some fifteen (15) years ago and commenting from the podium that the internet would fundamentally change their businesses. Truthfully, I really didn’t know how that would occur. I just knew that it was a powerful instrument and that it had to result in some influence on the way they operated their businesses. Of course, in fact, it did, even though I was met with skepticism at the time, and didn’t honestly know what I was talking about anyway.

All of us know how price comparisons are occurring. We know that the internet is incredibly efficient at delivering information, whether it’s on branded goods in our favorite grocery store, or on mortgage rates or insurance, or on footwear delivered overnight, and so forth and so on.

Similarly, I knew that the internet, over the next fifteen (15) years, would have an effect on our seminar business.

But what I didn’t know is in what ways. In the beginning, we saw some effect, but not terribly substantial and certainly not producing any significant result. As a matter of fact, the best years we ever had were from 2003 to 2007, when everyone in America was printing money in their businesses and the internet was a distant disrupter.

But, with each passing year, I saw more and more significance in the influence the internet was having in lots of different ways. However, it wasn’t so much the internet as it was the development of a derivative product that I hadn’t honestly thought about in the early 2000′s:  the evolution of search.

Let me explain.

Our seminars sold information. We did not sell tangible products; we sold information.

Information is very valuable if it is proprietary. Indeed, it continued to remain valuable even after the development of the internet because the information, although available, was buried in the gigabytes of information which may or may not have been accessible and certainly not in any recognizable or communicable format.  And, unfortunately, our information did not have the imprimatur of earning participants a diploma or a university degree.

Therefore, while the internet might have been somewhat disruptive to our business, it was not substantially harmful since it just simply proved that, in a sea of information, the most efficient way to obtain relevant information was to attend a proprietary seminar where it would be created, packaged and delivered cogently.

On the other hand, what happened in the later years of the seminar business was the development of search engine technology. Each of the search engines became more and more powerful and acute in identifying information that was relevant to the subject at hand. Therefore, by 2007, if you wanted to search for information on conducting a short sale, or an options straddle, or a triple net lease transaction, you could do it with a few strokes of your fingers and you would have more information than you could digest in a month.

It had the following attributes:

• Everything was free.
• It was comprehensive.
• Some information had agendas, but much information did not.
• At the end of the day, while some information was worthless, a great deal of the information was valuable.
• You could do it from the privacy of your own home without anybody being involved. 

And, by the way, did I say that it was free?

The Internet was disruptive, for sure.

But search technology was even more disruptive because it enabled a consumer to pinpoint information which was relevant to them, pay nothing, and digest the information in a useful way.

Fast forward one year.

My wife, Janet and I were getting ready for a Halloween Party. She wanted to do a spider cake. She went online, stroked the appropriate terms, and ended up with a recipe, not only in print, but also with a video narrator. She had her recipe in less than ten (10) minutes and, guess what . . . it was absolutely free. . .and tasted great!

Welcome to an era in which information is valuable, searchable . . . and free!

At the end of the day, the internet, with its culture of free exchange, free information, free communication, combined with a communality and culture of free sharing, made the business of selling information virtually impossible.

The seminars that made us the 800 lb. guerilla were “How to” seminars. They were legitimate and real. They were valuable, constructive and useful. However, they required a business model to make them work. The internet, combined with search and consolidated with the joint culture, ultimately killed that business model, at least in any format I was prepared to accept.

That does not mean that there are not other information-driven business models that work or may work.  It does mean, however, that mine no longer did. 

Seminars were not dead on arrival. But they ultimately became dead on delivery.

Consider my seminar business another case study in the annals of Darwinian economics relevant to each of us as we play out future scenarios for the businesses each of us runs!