Happy E-Day!

Today is E-Day, short for Engineer's-Day, a day of celebration at my Alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines. The fireworks shown are from the 1984 version of E-day, when I was a senior. E-Day goes back to 1927 when Mines held it's first E-Day. The celebration is steeped in tradition and pride, as shown from this quote from the Mines site, referring to the 2000 E-Day brochure: "One thing that has remained the same through E-Days of past, present, and the future, is the weekend starts with the most spectacular fireworks show in the state and ends with seniors graduating a month later to become the best engineers the world has to offer." There were only 65 graduates that year of the first E-Day, and they studied mineral engineering: Metal Mining, Metallurgy, Geology, and Petroleum Engineering.

Mines grew a lot over the years, and now is the leading engineering school for a wide variety of mineral engineering and related disciplines. I have always respected the intellectual rigor of Mines and its students. The depth and breadth of curriculum is impressive by any standard. There has always been a very conservative, traditional air about the school. Now I hear about a new program that was recently announced, a Minor in Humanitarian Engineering. This is surely a new Mines... one that is taking on new challenges this generation feels passionately about. Here, engineering students take design and humanities courses to prepare them to implement improvements or alleviate vulnerabilities in under served communities in the developing world. What a great way to get the best and brightest out there making a true difference.




I proudly graduated in 1984, and to commemorate, I pulled this photo off the Mines website: http://www.mines.edu/. This year, to celebrate E-Day, we're hosting a get-together for any other alumni and their guests here in Western North Carolina. Click here for details. I hope to see many Miners!

Simply Powerful Meetings: A Quick Overview

View from the Grove Park Inn, Asheville, courtesy of Grove Park Inn.

Simply Powerful Meetings are just that. We plan and execute meetings that matter. Subjects vary depending on your needs but can include

• strategic planning SWOT analysis,


• critical success factor development,


• focused improvement,


• action planning,


• initiatives development,


• matrix analysis

When you need to get a group together, we promise you will achieve far better results with us.

I have a new course on effective meetings... click here and create a new account to check it out!

Asheville Retreats

A view of Asheville, NC in March, 2008. Photo by Bob Michel

"You seldom get what you go after unless you know in advance what you want. Indecision has often given an advantage to the other fellow because he did his thinking beforehand." Maurice Switzer

Deciding what he wants for his business is clearly one of the most important things a leader can do. Often the leader is well served having the input of key constituents on strategic matters. When a leadership team begins to stall, it is time to get clear in everyone's minds what is wanted... what is the goal.

I lead teams through excellent corporate events and retreats in Asheville, NC and other locations. I provide a proven framework to work through today's business problems and emerge with effective action plans that teams have developed and buy into. We also provide meeting facilitation training to develop key employees abilities and help transform their work groups. These trained facilitators generate process improvement profit with the team.

I have a new course on effective meetings... click here to create a new account and check it out!

Exporting... where to start in NC?

I attended a session of the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council (BREC) on networking the other night, and I heard about an upcoming program that caught my attention. The North Carolina Department of Commerce is hosting several sessions on how to export to various markets. There will be trade representatives from several countries at the sessions, and local businesses can schedule free meetings with the representatives to ask questions, show their products, and find out what they need to do to begin global trading. Countries to be represented are Germany, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Korea. Additionally, there will be seminars on how to do trade in various markets. The first session is on trade with China and it will be in Charlotte, March 31st. April first, a seminar on doing business in Canada will be presented in Asheville. See the program information here.

To register or for additional information on any or all of these free Lunch and Learn sessions, please contact:
Katie Newcombe: knewcombe@nccommerce.com or 919-733-7193.

Exporting is an excellent corporate retreat topic: gathering ideas on what to do, and how to do it, can be a great topic of a staff retreat to Asheville.

Envisioning Progress

I am experimenting with visualization techniques on many-eyes.com. Here are two examples of text clouds which demonstrate the relative frequency of word use. The top text cloud resulted from an exercise in determining how to overcome barriers to success for a non-profit group, the Ski-Hy Chapter of the American Business Women's Association here in Asheville. The second text cloud comes from the improvement plan.

I am also experimenting with using small multiples, as shown below. Here I have tracked key word usage from the beginning of the workshop, "what success means," through identifying success factors, barriers to success, overcoming barriers, combining success factors, and finally, the improvement plan. You can visualize how the session evolved using this image.

Comments welcome... what would be your preference? What other ideas are there to take words into the visual realm?

Flyer for services offerred

Read this doc on Scribd: Services Available Flyer

Asheville Tree

This oak tree is over 200 years old and is situated outside my office in Asheville, NC. The intricate branching mirrors the way ideas flow from a central core to the many particular ends.

Interestingly, it also reflects a way that the brain develops by connecting neurons in a branching fashion known as "arborization."