The internet connects people in remarkable ways. However, it also leaves a huge portion of the population feeling left out. It’s like high school all over again. You know there is a party going on, but you don’t where. On the internet a new video or website or blog will suddenly get enormous attention and even bring new ideas, phrases or products into mainstream culture.

But how do you know where to find these new fads so you can keep up with (or even lead) the water cooler talk?

Check out www.mahalo.com. At the bottom of the page is a link to “Internet Zeitgeist.” Check it out. It shows you what’s gone viral on the web.

I also happen to think that as a search engine, it is a wonderful site in general. To learn more about it, check out the Fast Company article.

I generally avoid writing about anything political, but today I feel compelled. I think the story speaks for itself, so please click here for the NPR report.

After reading, if you wish to lend your voice to the situation, check out this site.

I will offer a post soon with a more optimistic look at the opportunities that are being presented to some youths today.

The lobby was spotless. The front desk was standard. New. Clean. Nice. But standard. What’s your name? Who are you here to see? Photo ID please. We were then issued the requisite visitor’s passes. That’s when the normalcy disappeared and my excitement escalated.

The normalcy went away when I realized that the elevator didn’t have any buttons inside. My colleagues had entered our destination on the keypad outside the elevator. After that we had to put our trust in the machine hoping it would deposit us at our desired destination. Fortunately, the elevator performed its job well.

As I walked into the offices on the 37th floor of the new 7 World Trade Center building in downtown Manhattan I felt that I had come full circle. In order to explain that I have to back up two years.

In October 2005 I completed work on the book proposal for You’re Addicted to You. At the time a friend of mine had recently gotten a deal with a big publishing company to publish her book. I thought I was all set. I had an in. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Connections.

I sent my friend’s editor my proposal, and I waited. My polite follow-up emails were responded to with polite still-haven’t-had-time-to-look-at-it emails. Still, I had the connection. Everything would work out. Then I read the November, 2005 issue of my favorite magazine, Fast Company, in which they described Berrett-Koehler, a small publishing company in San Francisco.

The company sounded too good to be true. Book publishing is an industry in which publishers own all the power, current authors are tolerated nuisances, and anyone not yet published (whose name doesn’t happen to be Clinton) is valued about as highly as gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Yet, Berrett-Koehler (BK for short) was breaking all of those rules.

They partnered with their authors on decisions that other companies made unilaterally like cover design and title. They offered their authors an unheard of out-clause in the contracts that allowed the authors to take their books to another publisher if they became dissatisfied with BK. Oh, and by the way, their books sold more copies on average than the other companies that treated authors so poorly.

This was a no-brainer. BK was the publisher for me. So before I lost my nerve I printed off a copy of my proposal and mailed it to BK – no cover letter, no introduction, no connections, over the transom. Then I waited. And sweated.

On December 5th, the day before my birthday, I received two phone calls. My friend’s editor phoned to tell me she had finally reviewed my proposal. They were going to pass. Then BK called to tell me my dream had come true. They wanted to publish my book. My euphoria was tempered only by the reality choking deadline that I had to deliver my first draft in four months, but that’s another story.

The story here is that this never would have happened if I hadn’t read that magazine article. So when I walked off the elevator into the new corporate headquarters for Fast Company magazine, I had come full circle.

I was there to take a tour of their new offices, which feature wonderful open architecture, all glass walls to allow natural light throughout, and meeting nooks in prime window-front real estate. The building is also gold-level green-certified which is fitting for a magazine which trumpets social and environmental consciousness in business.

Towards the end of the tour the guide showed me and my colleagues their library, and there on the shelf was a gleaming copy of You’re Addicted to You. A second dream was fulfilled for me that day. I saw my book inside Fast Company. Of course, it wasn’t in an article in the actual magazine yet. But it was over the transom, and that’s a start.

Not everyone is a born salesperson. This doesn’t surprise me. However, when you are selling the most valuable asset you will ever own, I would think you would put at least 12 seconds of thought into it. I honestly believe that is all it would take to realize that you shouldn’t leave a pile of dirty dishes in the sink when you are taking pictures of your kitchen for display on the internet. My wife and I are looking at houses and we have been astounded by how little people do to prepare their homes for sale.

Before you think this post is all about home sales, allow me to make this point. We all sell. We sell products, services or ideas at work. We sell suggestions to our significant others and our kids. We are always selling.

All I’m suggesting is that before you take a picture of your home or start explaining a request to your kid, you should take 12 seconds to think about the sale. I encountered five pictures in particular that could not possibly have been considered for 12 seconds.

1. I already told you about the sink piled high with dishes.
2. A picture so blurry I couldn’t tell if it was a living room or a water buffalo.
3. A closeup of a toilet. No kidding. Nothing else in the picture but the inside of the bowl.
4. A close up of a flower. Now I’m not an expert on these things, but what exactly is supposed to happen when I see a picture of a flower? Should I forget that the owner neglected to include pictures of the kitchen?
5. And this one is truly remarkable. A photo of water damage.

I’m just asking for 12 seconds. Is that so much to ask?

This week I heard what I thought was the best book statistic ever. I know that Harry Potter is a huge phenomenon. In fact, I joked around with people saying that this past weekend JK Rowling and I averaged 4 million book sales each. Still, this took me by surprise. There was a study released in a British journal of medicine that said that on weekends following the release of a Harry Potter book children’s admittances to emergency rooms in England fell by 50%.

Wow. Very cool.

We should all pay close attention to the lines that formed outside bookstores leading up to 12:01 this morning. Hordes of fans across this country and others have been impatiently waiting for the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series. It has already been noted in many places that Ms. Rowling (the author) has accomplished a remarkable feat by getting so many kids this excited about reading. I’d like to take this moment to just recognize and appreciate the passion that causes people to wait so long in lines like these.

In my youth I did this for concert tickets. I remember showing up at 2 AM to get on line for Billy Joel tickets when I was 17 years old. The line was already around the block, but right before tickets went on sale a guy walked by and yelled to the line that there was another ticket office a block away with no line. We ran over and discovered he was right. We got great seats.

I remember camping out overnight at Boston Garden for Billy Joel tickets and meeting a guy with six toes (on one foot). I camped out overnight at Madison Square Garden for Phish (the band) tickets and almost broke up with my eventual wife as a result. These were great times (not counting the fight with my wife which is a whole different story).

I remember showing up 6 hours early to be first in line to see the movie Batman in 1989. It was about 5 hours and 45 minutes before the next person got in line behind me. But that’s not the point.

The point is that in each of these cases I was tremendously excited and passionate about what I wanted to see. The kids (and adults) in lines outside bookstores last night are filled with passion. We can all learn a lesson from them. I believe it’s incredibly important to be in touch with what you are passionate about. Make a point of spending time on your passion. If you don’t your life will fill up with other stuff. Our time is too short for that.

They say that there are no new ideas. If that’s the case, it’s a good thing there are so many good old ideas for us to recycle. Last week I spoke at the annual conference for the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. It was an honor to be one of the speakers and a thrill to see Stephen Covey, one of the keynotes. His talk covered many topics, but one that was particularly interesting was the use of the Native American Talking Stick.

The Talking Stick was a device used by Native Americans to resolve disputes. Only one person, the holder of the stick, was allowed to speak his mind. In order to gain the stick another speaker had to convince the holder of the stick that he understood the holder’s point. It was the stick holder who determined whether or not the next speaker sufficiently understood him. When he felt understood, he would pass the stick along to the next speaker.

All of this is based on an agreement by all parties that they will work to first understand one another and then to find a solution that is more agreeable than any other solutions so far suggested. This is a terrific device, and it is definitely not new. But unless it is widely used in your world, this is an idea that is worth recycling.

The Talking Stick concept can be used in disputes over politics, business, religion, even whose turn it is to take out the trash. So on this Independence Day, I invite you to join me in honoring a tremendous idea from the natives of this country. I hope we all experience a year ahead with less conflict and better solutions.

I recently wrote about remaining calm while waiting 45 minutes at a customer service desk (Rewarding Mellow). In case you wondered how I stay mellow, I will share with you my secrets. These are techniques that I have worked for years to master and that have helped me in business, marriage, parenthood and many other walks of life.

I’ll use marriage as an example. See, I used to get impatient while waiting for my wife. We are supposed to meet our friends at the restaurant in ten minutes. How can she still be getting ready? How long does it take to put on makeup!? When are we going to leave!?!?!?! I used to confront my wife about these things. I made three discoveries in these confrontations that have helped me change my approach.

(1) My questions did not speed her up. If anything, they slowed down the process. This discovery was important, because it forced me to recognize that I had very little control over the situation. I find the same to be true in most customer service situations like the one I wrote about at Lowe’s. I can ask questions, push, agitate, do any number of things, but in the end, they had to search their whole warehouse to determine my screen door wasn’t there. No questions or anger or prodding would have changed that. Key lesson: disrupting the process doesn’t speed it up.

(2) My wife does not like to be rushed, and the unhappiness generated by fighting about being late greatly outweighed the unhappiness that came from just being late. I don’t like to be unhappy. I’m also not particularly fond of being angry. If I have a choice, at any given moment, I’d prefer to be calm and happy vs. angry and unhappy. This sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often people choose the latter. Key lesson: getting angry won’t make me happy.

(3) Paying attention to being late only adds to the anxiety. I used to turn the TV off and put away my book or newspaper when it came time to leave. At that point the only thing I had left to do was to watch the clock. There are few things that raise my anxiety more than watching the clock show me getting later and later and later. Now I try to find the most interesting TV show to watch or article to read or game to play. I look for some activity to engage in that will actually aggravate me to have to stop. It totally takes my mind off of waiting. Key lesson: being happy makes the time fly.

It’s easy to get upset at bad customer service. This is especially so when getting angry, yelling at people, threatening, and stomping your feet gets a reward. As someone who tends not to do these things, I find it somewhat annoying when I see people get rewarded for this behavior.

This week I went to Lowe’s to pick up a new screen door. I ordered it a couple of weeks ago and they called me to tell me it had arrived. So I went to the customer service counter to ask for my door. They sent someone right off to get it for me. I stood off to the side to wait. After about ten minutes I asked (calmly and respectfully) about progress. Someone else scurried off to check.

Ten minutes later they triumphantly emerged from the bowels of the warehouse with . . . a range hood. I (calmly and respectfully) pointed out to them that the range hood was not in fact a screen door. They retreated once more to the storage area to search for my door. I checked in again (calmly and respectfully) after 10 minutes. Another associate left to join the search.

When I had been standing there for 45 minutes all of the associates emerged to inform me that my screen door was nowhere to be found. I was calm. Then they told me they would deliver it to my home at no charge. Okay. I left.

Here’s where I want to give kudos to Lowe’s. I had been calm. I didn’t make a scene. I didn’t berate any of their employees. They could have left the situation alone, but they went another step. They rewarded mellow. The next day I received a voicemail apologizing for the error and informing me that they were going to refund my credit card 10% of the purchase.

It’s easy to recognize and reward the squeaky wheel. It takes greater compassion and discipline to reward the person who stands calmly and respectfully off to the side. My Lowe’s did that, and with that gesture, won me back as a customer.

I read about a clothing company called Nau in the June Fast Company. It sounds like a remarkable organization on many levels. They encourage store patrons to have their purchases shipped home. This allows them to carry less inventory, keep their shops smaller and use less energy. They use open source methods for fabric design and invite their competitors to use their fabrics. These are both noteworthy practices, but they aren’t what really caught my eye.

Nau gives 5% of all sales to charities dedicated to solving environmental and humanitarian issues. Given that the gold standard in business is 1%, this is quite a commitment for a company that has just opened its doors. The really interesting part is how they are doing this. When you make a purchase from Nau, they ask you which of their charities you’d like your 5% to go to. This puts the giving experience in the lap of the customer and engages them with the Nau giving mission.

Many companies have charity programs, but few bring their customers into the mix. I think this is valuable for a couple of reasons. First, this is good business. It’s just plain smart to let customers know that you are working to make the world a better place (and not just working to make a profit). Second, this is good for giving. When customers are engaged in this process, they will learn about the Nau charities and experience the warmth of giving to these charities. This is bound to rub off at some point and encourage more giving down the line.

I hope this company is wildly successful. I hope their practices are picked up by others. Check them out and have fun deciding where your 5% will go.