From the monthly archives:

July 2009

Shakespeare's Pizza: Secret Ingredients

July 31, 2009

“It’s the pizza, stupid … and maybe the beer.”
So begins the mission statement for one of Columbia, Missouri’s cultural icons: a self-proclaimed pizza dive known as Shakespeare’s Pizza.
People come from wide and far and close and narrow to line up to eat their pizza. No pasta. No burgers. No fried ravioli or stuff. Just [...]

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Loud Noises.

July 30, 2009

I’m working in my favorite little coffeeshop this morning. I’m wearing headphones. Yet, the music’s being drowned out by the complainer lady* a couple tables over.
No kidding. Everything sucks. The way the little league coach treats her kid sucks. The way the doctors in her office treat her sucks. The act has included not only [...]

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Gifts of Opportunity. Starring You.

July 30, 2009

Struggling with a hard decision at work?
Why do it? Honestly - why do the hard thing?Maybe it’s not just for you. I mean, whatever the outcome, whatever the result, there’s grace in simply doing the hard thing.
On Saturday, we’re taking our son to his first movie at a movie theater. The Thompson Center’s inviting [...]

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Rage Against the Dying of the Write

July 27, 2009

Time Magazine stages a funeral for handwriting.
 

Call me out of touch. Call me an old dude. Call me an anachronist. But:
No! Nothing better than sending/receiving a handwritten note/letter/card. Nothing.
Send one handwritten thing a day.
You’ll feel better for it.
If you need raw materials (and inspiration), try my friends at Botanical Paper Works.
Now, get off my [...]

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Why not you? 840,000,000 reasons to be next.

July 27, 2009

Great little interview with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on the heels of his company’s acquisition by Amazon on Entrepreneur.com’s website.
Before you think things like this happen to company’s much larger than yours, consider:

We’ve grown from almost no sales in 1999 to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008. The No. 1 driver of [...]

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DIY Word of Mouth Triggers for Your Small Business

July 25, 2009

Morning. Happy weekend.
Saw these and thought about them for longer than usual. Then thought of you. Now I’m doing something about it. (Something as simple as typing a few words and hitting “send.”)
Some of these will seem so obvious, some you may be doing already … yet … the difference between getting by [...]

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