Source: Dictionary.com

In the broadest sense of the word, having contacts suggests that one as a high degree of influence.  However, and especially within the virtual realms of the social networking world where it is much easier to “build” a sizable list of names, does a large number of contacts on LinkedIn connote a proportional level of influence?

I thought about this question recently when I cracked the 20,000 connection mark and read that this lofty number of contacts when rippled outward in six degrees of Kevin Bacon fashion suggested that my total reach was 21,981,700.  Wow, that’s almost two-thirds of the population of Canada . . . not counting the beavers, which means that I could in theory and despite the absence of any practical experience, have the kind of reach to be elected Prime Minister.  Well it worked for Obama in the U.S. Presidential race didn’t it? And no, I am not a Republican . . . I am just a smart alec!

My point is simply this . . . what do the number of LinkedIn connections – or for that matter connections on any social network mean, in terms of practical and/or tangible benefit?

What is interesting is that so far there has been very little research and even less data as to what connections mean and how you can quantify their effect in terms of for example revenue for your business.

While on-line advertising has for years tracked the click through rate as a means of enabling you to calculate a return on your Internet-based advertising program, there is no similar method as far as I can tell, to correlate the number of contacts with meaningful business numbers.

Interestingly enough however, there are no shortages of numbers when it comes to proclaiming how many people are involved with social networking as illustrated by a PEW Research Center study which estimated that 82 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are interacting on-line in some network or another.  Of course to prove that social networks are not the exclusive domain of the young, a Forrester study claims that more than 50% of adults between the ages of 35 and 44 spend varying degree of times on-line.  As for those over the age of 45, we like to take naps.

So there you have it!  Lots of people coming in but what is actually coming out relative to a return on the investment of time and yes even money?  Or to put it another way, how do you justify the time that you spent on LinkedIn to reach the 20,000 mark?

As you contemplate this question, the answer to which we will delve into at some length in Part 2 on Thursday, why don’t you take a few moments to respond to our LinkedIn poll and let us know the answer to this question . . . With what percentage of your LinkedIn contacts do you actually interact with on a regular basis? (Hint: the answer to this second question may actually help to answer the first question.)

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Original Poster: No Jon that was repost of what i said before with some grammatical errors corrected and avoid misunderstanding of what I am tying to say.

My Response: This is a comment stream Mr. Ortega and as such grammatical errors as such are acceptable . . . editing a comment after a response has been posted draws the entire discussion into question . . .

Did I say THAT?!?

I had never prior to today given the topic of changing one’s original comment after receiving a response or responses from those in the network (even if said said comment proved to be unpopular), much thought.  Of course the thought of altering my original post or comment in an open dialogue stream, in and of itself would not have crossed my mind as the whole idea of interacting with fellow networkers is to call em as you see em and to let the conversational chips fall where they may.  This I believe is key to maintaining the creditability of on-line discussions.

While it is human nature to sometimes say things we might in thoughtful retrospect regret, as well as wish we could go back and un-ring the bell so to speak, in real life conversations once you have said it, it is out there.  This is one of the reasons why I appreciate LinkedIn’s platform in that you have only 15 minutes to make changes to a comment after it has been posted in a kind of you better change it now or forever hold your peace manner.

Sadly, and as I discovered earlier today, such safeguards are absent from the Facebook platform meaning that all participants in an on-line discussion are operating under the honor system.

So here is the question . . . should those who participate in on-line discussions be allowed to change their original post or comment if it proves to be unpopular or that their position is an untenable one in that it cannot be supported by fact?

Or to put it another way, if your original post or comment proved to be unpopular or cannot be substantiated would you change it or delete it in its entirety?

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Even though it is unrelated in an industry and era sense, the timing of Kodak’s Chapter 11 filing so close to the change in leadership at RIM is ironic in that the latter’s fall from grace mirrors that of the Rochester icon, whose own failure to acknowledge and respond to a changing business reality led to its demise, Heins’ task is made even more difficult in that the company is already taking on the water of failed expectations and a steadily declining market share and value.

It’s like being given the captains chair of the SS Titanic . . . after it had hit the iceberg.

The real questions here are what if anything can Heins do beyond manning the lifeboats and going down with the ship?

In today’s first of a two-part series, we will examine what new leaders of a failing or struggling enterprise can do to right their ship and lead their crew to smoother sailing by rebuilding both employee and customer trust in the brand.

Next Monday, we will view the above scenario through the eyes of the crew and delve into what employees need to do to help to re-establish the brand and become part of the “new” captain’s team.

Based on a February 2011 24/7 Wall Street article (America’s Ten Biggest Corporate Turnarounds), the first reality that Heins and those in similar circumstances must accept is that Corporate turnarounds are almost “never engineered by a single person.”

Even though the “vision for how a company can change and the execution skills to put the vision to work begin with the chief executive” writes Douglas A. McIntyre, it is obvious that the new leader needs “help from management, a board, along with customers and shareholders” to put the company on the right track.

Against this backdrop of collaborative co-dependency, the most important thing to consider when you take the helm of a struggling enterprise and what is likely a workforce in disarrayed shock, is to recognize that organizational change is inseparable from personal change.  Specifically, you have to quantify the effect of any strategy from the standpoint of how employees will perceive its impact on them personally.  According to statistics 70% of all change initiatives fail because the chasm between an executive’s view of a strategy’s impact does not correspond with that of the employees who are ultimately responsible for it’s front-line execution.

Of course in what can be a desperate environment, where job security is of increasing concern to most employees, establishing the trust that leads to a meaningful dialogue can in and of itself be a trying exercise, especially if the new leader is swinging for the fences right out of the gate and making bold yet uninformed predictions of better days ahead.

As a new leader, it is important to remember that you are the outsider coming into an established situation and as result cannot summarily discount the successes of the past or overemphasize the failures of the present.  Instead, you must be seen as having an empathetic understanding of what the employees are experiencing (see tomorrow’s post for a detailed list), and that your intention is to build on the positive remnants of the former enterprise through the recognition of its enduring values of integrity and value, while embracing the changes that are necessary to not only right the ship but ensure its ongoing success for many years to come.

There are of course many other areas to consider, but what is presented above represents the cornerstone of a new beginning without which there is little if any hope for success.

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To me comments such as these, as well as those from listeners who indicate that we had provided them with new insights and perspectives on a particular story is immensely rewarding.  However, and at the end of the day, it is ultimately the subject matter and the expertise of the guests themselves that make for great radio.

I can think of no better way in which this latter point was demonstrated than when criminal profiler Pat Brown, who in providing a preliminary assessment of the Lululemon yoga store killing, opined that the victim’s co-worker was the likely perpetrator of the crime.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

It was a bold assertion, but one which Brown made with a level of certainty that reflected her years of experience and expertise.  It also turned out that she was 100 percent right as Brittany Norwood, who was convicted of murdering Jayna Murray, was just yesterday sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

While I will leave it to the traditional media such as newspapers to provide you with the overview of the case details, what makes the timing of this story so interesting is that I had just recently received what I can only describe as being an e-mail with an unctuous undertone from a fellow BTR host with whom I have never been previously in contact, questioning Brown’s competency as a profiler.

In a manner reminiscent of an Eddie Haskell compliment, while assuring me that he believed my show was first rate, he nonetheless wanted to let me know that his open criticism of Brown by way of a critique he wrote in a recent episode’s comment section in which Pat was a guest, in no way reflected on my creditability.

The "well intentioned" BTR host even questioned Grace's creditability for having Brown on her show as a regular

Now you have to understand, I have never been one to show reluctance with regard to entering the fray of even the most controversial topics of the day.  This has resulted in what has been an at times interesting dialogue with readers and listeners such as when one White House insider suggested that I was a “crazy ignoramus” for suggesting that a show in which the host asks the guest to provide the questions he or she will be asking is not a show to which I would want to listen.

So when this particular host suggested that he was giving me much needed advice with only my best interests at heart concerning the shortcomings with Browns profiling abilities I was, suffice to say, cynical.  Similar to someone answering a question that hasn’t been asked, I was immediately suspicious of this individual’s motivation for criticizing someone who according to my research has been forthright and well prepared for each of her appearances on my show.

Of course, and as guest Libby Gill once stated if you are going to be on Jon’s show you better have done your homework and know about what you are talking, because he will have done his own homework, and is not reluctant to raise a point of contention should it be warranted.

So why . . . why did this host feel compelled to expend the effort to reach out to me through multiple channels just to call into question Brown’s credentials?

At this point I do not have the answers but I will tell you this, my only response to the young fellow who so “genuinely” has my best interests at heart, is one word . . . Lululemon!

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from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute website

Between misdiagnosis and the cover your behind policies that saw the Gatineau hospital repeatedly fail to respond to communication requests, and a total lack of follow through relative to forwarding medical records, the mental health care system in Quebec is in complete and total disarray.  In fact the system is so poorly run that it prompted one of my partner’s former CLSC counselors to lament that “Jennifer deserved better.”

Sadly this isn’t the worst of it, as my partner’s primary doctor was, during their counseling sessions, more interested in talking about his Medicus investment group as opposed to actually treating her, eventually persuading her into investing $1,200 and attending an investment group meeting with the cautionary words that she should not let the other doctor’s know that she is his patient.

Of course, when the wheels inevitably fell off with Jennifer spiraling into an uncontrolled nosedive of Bipolar addiction complete with questioning her worth and existence – a situation made more traumatic given that she was 3 months pregnant, his response when I called him to express my concerns was to say “I expected this,” and “tell her I will see her at her next appointment in May” (which was weeks away).

Even after Jennifer, like Maggie Trudeau who also has Bipolar Disorder, voluntarily committed herself to the hospital’s psych ward for what turned out to be a six week stay, the doctor was so clued out that the only call I received from him was to tell me that he had yet another envelope of information on the Medicus investment group that was ready to be picked up at his office.  Then when I had informed him of Jennifer being hospitalized, there was little if any reaction (although when Jennifer went to see him after she was released, besides suggesting to her that she leave me, he expressed annoyance at the fact that I hadn’t picked up the envelope).  By the way, the above is just one of the many examples of how the health care professionals involved in treating Jennifer play patients off against their families in an effort to gain absolute and unchallenged control.

The Quebec Mental Health Care system is based on intimidation and control

While we are in the process of filing an official complaint against the health care professionals involved, as well as filing a lawsuit for malpractice, what prompted our coming forward publicly is that we shudder to think of how many lives these people are ruining, and as result want to let those battling a mental illness know that they are not alone in their feelings of both dismay and betrayal and that they do in fact have options.

“A new approach to mental health care and services in Quebec? People suffering from a mental health problem will have to access care and services via the “accueil psychosocial” of his/her CLSC or through 1st line general practitioners.”

Despite the benefits of the purported new approach to health care and services in Quebec via the “accueil psychosocial” of a patient’s CLSC, I will be posting a series of articles in which I will refer to my exhaustive compilation of notes and supporting documentation to provide you with an insiders look at a broken system that does more harm than good, and what you need to do to take control of your or your family member’s treatment.

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Ener1 is now Ener-NONE!

1. Ener1 is a story about the public’s continuing love affair with fossil fuels.

The failure of ener1 should not come as a surprise to anyone. In fact earlier this year I wrote a 2-Part story titled “With the failure of the electric car concept in America what impact will this have on the lithium ion battery global supply chain?” that provides an in-depth look at the sector.

What is interesting is that this recent failure has little to do with failed policy per say, and more to do with the public’s unwillingness to end its longtime love affair with fossil fuel.

Reference Links: 1 (http://wp.me/p4HrB-2Xa) and 2 (http://wp.me/p4HrB-2XM).

The question is simply this . . . how can we turn our own unwillingness to move away from fossil fuels into a shortcoming on the part of any political party? It’s like ignoring our parents warning not to put our hands on a hot stove and then getting mad at them when we don’t listen and get burned.

2. The elephant in the room, which is the securities fraud class action suit against Ener1.

The peril of people focusing on Ener1 as a convenient political bat with which they can bash each other, is that this little tidbit of information is being overlooked completely . . .

http://investment-losses.com/securities-under-investigation/ener1-inc-hev/

What does this all mean?

Stop using stories such as the Ener1 bankruptcy as a self-serving political battering ram in an election year, in which each party points the accusatory finger of incompetence at each other, which misses the real point and accomplishes nothing.

Your thoughts are of course welcome as always.

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Specifically, and referencing my August 21st, 2010 post below, credit card debt is at a staggering level in which low income earners are the biggest users.

Here is an excerpt from my article that speaks to this directly;

“What is even more interesting given Dixon’s observation that “without an adequate income, low earners continue to turn to credit cards without the means to pay off their balances,” thereby creating what she referred to as “a vicious cycle” that prevents them from ever getting ahead, is the fact that banks continue to issue credit cards under these circumstances. Perhaps the banks need to check themselves into rehab as well, as a means of breaking their addiction to the money earned off the backs of consumer debt.”

In short this is not a unilateral or one way play, but instead is a dance between wanton consumerism which leads to spending beyond one’s means and, the greed of financial institutions to capitalize through charging high rates to low income earners. The addict and pusher relationship comes to mind here.

Or to put it another way, the rich stick it to the poor by capitalizing on what I refer to as the working poor (including middle class) propensity to spend beyond their means. And no, the majority of people who use credit cards are not using it to pay the hydro or put food on the table either . . .

It may be no shock that 94% of Canadians would feel better if they had a nest egg. But did you know that nearly 40% of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque? As Scotiabank’s Saving Ambassador, award-winning television broadcaster Valerie Pringle is traveling across Canada to talk to Canadians about ‘saving’.

With catchy tag-lines such as “you’re richer than you think” Scotia Bank is now leveraging Canadian television news personality Valerie Pringle to tell us that we are also “dumber than we know.” (Note: see Larry Winget video at the end of this post.)

Okay, so maybe we are not so dumb, as Pringle even states in her video interview (click image above to view), that this program is “not here to judge,” but to help Canadians achieve “financial health.” But the real question is simply this, how did we get into poor financial health in the first place?

Perhaps one hint can be found in a December 31st, 2004 article by Susan C. Walker in FoxNews.com which was ominously titled “U.S. Consumer Credit Card Debt May Crash Economy.”

Referencing sources such as the New York Times, Walker indicated that the use of credit had taken off dramatically in the United States since 1990, with the number of people holding credit cards growing by 75% or from 82 million in 1990 to 144 million in 2003. But here is the real shocking statistic . . . the amount people charged during that same period grew approximately 350 percent, from $338 billion to $1.5 trillion.

And that’s only credit cards continued Walker, revealing that the average U.S. household owes mortgage debt, student loans and automobile loans, in addition to credit card debt. Hmmm . . . but to whom is this money owed?

The Canadian data paints an equally bleak picture.

Under the January 13th, 2010 headline “Canadians’ credit card debt jumps $2 billion,” Melanie Dixon writes that the “working poor are being plunged even deeper into debt by the credit cards they’re turning to in order to pay for the necessities of life.” Of course according to Dixon, it is the “low-income earners” that are the most “lucrative type of cardholders for credit card companies.” Talk about a feudal system capitalizing on the plight of the unwashed masses.

Herein of course lies the rub (and the irony) as they say regarding the Scotiabank infomercials. Specifically, and like the proverbial drug pusher, banks have played a seductive role in our becoming financial addicts through easy access to credit and questionable loan practices. But why?

As Walker also so adeptly pointed out in the December article, with “pretax profits for the credit card companies” having grown 360 percent between 1990 to 2003, and fee revenues an equally astounding 250 percent, do you think they (being the U.S. credit card companies or the banks behind them) want to “close that spigot voluntarily?”

Now without a doubt, the Canadian banking system is one of the best in the world. So while we were willing partners in this tango of fiscal irresponsibility, by employing the services of a well-known TV personality as a Saving Ambassador, the campaign is tantamount to the local drug pusher driving the addict to rehab.

Especially when the banks response to the recent data which show that Canadians with bills “more than 90 days overdue have increased by 53 per cent between September 2008 and September 2009, to $3.6 billion,” is to substantially increase interest rates for those who don’t pay in a timely manner.

What is even more interesting given Dixon’s observation that “without an adequate income, low earners continue to turn to credit cards without the means to pay off their balances,” thereby creating what she referred to as “a vicious cycle” that prevents them from ever getting ahead, is the fact that banks continue to issue credit cards under these circumstances. Perhaps the banks need to check themselves into rehab as well, as a means of breaking their addiction to the money earned off the backs of consumer debt.

Maybe a tangible goodwill gesture on the part of the bank would be to return a small portion of their staggering credit card profits to their Canadian cardholders as a way to jump start the process?! Now that would be news!

Larry Winget’s Big Spender – Why Are You So Mean

Use the following link to tune in to the on-demand PI Window on Business broadcast “The Failings of Institutional Advisers and How You Can Grab The Bull by the Horns!” featuring Larry Winget and Cenk Uygur

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My response when asked what I thought upon hearing the news that Kodak was filing for bankruptcy

The Brownie: The Camera That Built Kodak

Talk about becoming a victim of your past success, the Rochester icon dined very well off of the profits of its traditional film business for far too many years while ignoring the internal voices of key personnel as they sounded the alarm of pending change.

From a business standpoint, Kodak was swept aside by the tide of what is commonly referred to as discontinuous innovation or disruptive technology,which is an innovation that creates an entirely new market while displacing an existing market.  In the case of Kodak we are talking about digital imaging replacing film.

What is ironic about the Kodak saga is that despite the fact that the company was originally founded in 1889, in the end their demise is similar to what happens with new organizations who, having achieved a high level of success with a single client, fail to gain meaningful traction or scalability in their attempts to replicate their success with the market as a whole.  The parallel is that success whether spanning a few short years or decades can demotivate  rather than motivate companies to evolve and therefore adapt to the inevitable changes of a market that is always looking for better, faster and cheaper products and services.  Like a 40 year old still living at home with his parents, success is like a fall-back safety net that makes it easier to accept the status quo as opposed to really laying it on the line and going for broke.

The only real difference between a relatively young start-up who has experienced success with a single client, and an established company with broad market acceptance such as a Kodak, is that with the former they are trying to figure out a way to expand their success to a larger customer base, as opposed to the latter in which there is an earnest effort to avoid change.

So here is the question, does success pose a greater risk than failure?

Something to think about as we ponder the bygone era of the Brownie.

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I am of course talking about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly who in criticizing the recent Newsweek cover story which asked “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb,” questioned the credentials of its author Andrew Sullivan. Specifically Kelly, on a Fox broadcast, openly asked “why Newsweek had not put what she called an “actual journalist” on the cover, instead of Sullivan.”

Funny thing, and has it relates to questions of professional journalism, I cannot help but wonder if this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

After all wasn’t it Kelly who appeared in the December GQ magazine modelling black lingerie, prompting one newspaper to report that she “looked like a sex kitten as she posed for the revealing shoot.”

Megyn Kelly: Fox or Almost Naked News?

Additional Source; Daily Mail Online article “Hello boys! Newsreader Megyn Kelly goes from Fox to foxy as she strips off for magazine shoot“

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So when I received an e-mail from eCampus News Assistant Editor Denny Carter informing me of two fast breaking stories and suggesting that we might want to be the first to hit the virtual airwaves with his publication’s take on what they mean to those involved with the Higher Education sector it was an easy decision to move our first show up from the originally planned January 31st broadcast date to Thursday the 24th. I think once you hear the stories about which we will be talking, you will be glad that we did.

In the first half of the show, we will discuss Mitt Romney’s praise of a controversial for-profit college in Orlando (Full Sail University), which makes for anything but clear sailing ahead for the presidential candidate based on accusations that a number of these types of institutions have defrauded students.

Then in the second half of the show we will talk about Apple’s pending announcement regarding their new platform for creating interactive digital textbooks, also referred to as being “GarageBand for eBooks.”

All in all it will be a great 45 minutes, so make certain to mark January 24th at 12:30 PM EST on your calendars and use the following link to tune in to both the LIVE and on-demand broadcasts @ http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jon-hansen/2012/01/24/higher-ed-this-month-with-denny-carter

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