Ship To Shore

Thoughts on calm or stormy days from the exploration of beyond.

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Websites - Get Back That Loving Feeling

"E-commerce businesses, even e-commerce specialists, have yet to realize that the WWW is first and foremost an emotional experience. Few websites reflect this important priority."

I taught this concept at a seminar in the late 1990s and surprisingly it is still true today.

Most websites are still designed by a Joe Friday style web designer. "Just the facts, Ma'am - just the facts." That worked well on Dragnet but it does not give your business the full opportunity it could have through your website.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a proponent of easy to read and big stuff on top websites. I understand the importance of convenience and speed when someone is on your website hunting for some information. They usually want to get in and get out - much as how men shop (when forced to...) in real life.

Just as there are certain stores that you can walk into and feel comfortable while others make you tense - it's also true of websites too. Stores do a number of things to make you feel good about being at their store. They understand that their goal is to get you to buy something and spend money. The quality of their products is important. Most important is the price. So why not just leave it there and who cares about how you feel in that store? That's because retailers understand that you will stay longer, buy more and come again to a place that feels good. So what goes into a feel-good website? Check your website against this list...

1. Color - Make sure your colors fit a palette. Many websites use colors that do not blend or compliment each other. They clash with noise that's equivalent to a child crying. Colors should also coordinate with your logo - and hopefully you've chosen that well too! Look at the color trends in home decorating. That will help you know what's going to feel normal to people right now. Finally, colors should be something you could reasonably find in nature - unless you're selling alien software or Goth clothing.

2. Words - Use clear English and terms that most people understand. While most people may have a high school or better education in North America - it is true that using the vocabulary of grade five or six is where people's actual reading level is typical in everyday life. Save the big words for the tech manuals that nobody reads unless it is an emergency.

3. Space - The temptation is to use every bit of space and to load it to the max. It's as if web designers only built high-rise condos. The websites are populated with too much information organized too tightly. The website visitor gets overwhelmed and says goodbye.

4. Graphics - Choose friendly graphics. Sharp edges may look clean and tidy but they can also seem sharp - like you're going to cut yourself if you got too close. Make sure you have some friendly circles in the equation.

5. Navigation - Make it easy for people to make choices. Have a number of points of navigation available. That will allow people to get where they want to go more quickly. It's like beaming them over to the section of the store they want to visit instead of having to walk a very long way to the back corner.

6. Contact Us - Often people just want to talk to you, email you or come to see you. Have your basic contact information on the homepage. Have a second page with "Contact Us" clearly marked. Hyperlink your email address so one click creates an email. Use drop-down boxes to fill in the information for your customer rather than them typing standard information like States and Provinces or model numbers on your product. Be sure to give them hours and phone numbers too. If you're a location people visit - include a map.

So next time you review your website - make sure you feel it as well as know that what's there makes sense. It will make visitors to your website feel better about your website and your company. Remember - websites are first and foremost and emotional experience... I've heard that somewhere...

Grant D. Fairley is a keynote speaker with Strategic Seminars. 

Grant is also an author, inventor of a patented solution for using the internet for medical services in Canada, and former IBM Advanced Business Partner. Learn more about Grant’s seminars on technology, sales, customer service, people skills, leadership development and more at:

Strategic Seminars 

www.strategic-seminars.com 

@stratseminars @grantfairley 

ca.linkedin.com/in/grantdfairley

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Letters from Your Past

If I had known then what I know now... 

What if you remembered now what you knew then?

If you could write a letter today to a twenty-one-year-old you, what advice would you give? It’s a favorite topic for a graduation speaker, a book or as a coaching tool. Just think - you could share all the experience and wisdom learned over a lifetime. How your life might have been different, “If I had known then what I know now...” That is a useful exercise of reflection on how your life has developed over the years.

But what if a younger you wrote a letter to you today instead?

What would you as a young boy or girl tell now about what it was like to be you back then? They might remind you of a time when play was part of learning. Creativity and exploration were celebrated. Change was expected and usually welcomed. Making a new friend was routine. Conflicts between friends would appear and disappear quickly as you did not yet know how to hold a grudge. Your primary relationships were part of survival.  You were never far from those you loved and those who loved you.

What would you as the new college graduate have to say? Then, you were facing the hopes and terrors of the foggy future. You had just conquered an important challenge in the passages to adulthood. You had amassed a wealth of knowledge on a subject area or perhaps a broad knowledge of many subjects to prepare you. If it was a good education, you learned how to learn. That would serve you well in the years ahead. Think back to those years. What would that person with the mortar board and tassel want you to remember now from that exciting time in your story?

How could listening to your voice from your industrious or swaggering 30s help you now? Would that awaken a part of you that may be dormant? It was a time of tackling a career, perhaps raising a family and finding your place in the world. There were many demands on your life and time as you built your career. Yet, there was a special strength that helped you through all of that.

As we experience our children or the children of others, we are reminded of what it was like to be that age.

Remember the wonder of the earlier stages of life to engage your greater self in all you do. Like everyone, you have had disappointments, successes, relationships and losses in the range of experiences that make up your life story. Even time itself shapes and molds us as we age. We gain perspective (and hopefully some wisdom) as we grow older but we often forget or discount what it was like to feel like a teenager or someone in their thirties. Take time to inhabit your past once again. You can draw on your past for passion and energy for your future to add to the seasoning that age and experience have brought.

Each stage of our development has some valuable perspectives that could help you in your career and life today. Take time to remember what it was like to be you back then. Reminisce with older family and friends who knew you along the journey. Pull out an old diary or take a look at some of the old pictures. Hear the stories and rediscover those earlier drafts of you as a person. As Madeleine L'Engle said, “I am still every age that I have been." Listen carefully and you will hear those voices still talking to you now. They might just be saying something you need to hear.

“I am still every age that I have been." Madeleine L'Engle

Letters image bigstockphoto/bvt

Child image taken by Grant Fairley

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“A hungry child can not digest their education.” Grant D. Fairley

http://www.strategic-seminars.com/quotes.htm (via admiralwood)

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Visit Original Link

Blog Talk Radio Podcast

New Book- The Third Act: A Baby Boomers Guide to Finishing Well -Meet Authors

Meet the authors of a new book on the challenges and opportunities of the life from our fifties, into retirement and onward. "The Third Act - A Baby Boomer's Guide to Finishing Well" was co-authored by geriatric psychiatrist William S. Cook, Jr, M.D. and Grant D. Fairley, a motivational speaker, executive coach and author. 

About the Book

The Baby Boom Generation is in The Third Act of their story.  How will your story be remembered? Will you finish well? Explore with you the challenges and opportunities awaiting all baby boomers in the final third of life.

Family - Retirement - Purpose - Health - Friendships - Perspective - Aging Well - Meaning - Choices - Opportunities - Generations - Grief - Service - Relationships - Legacy. 

Available on Amazon, Kindle, iTunes, NOOK and in bookstores.  

Follow us!

@drwilliamscook @grantfairley @stratseminars @silverwoodspub

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-cook-jr/45/901/215

https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantdfairley

Find the Book

The Third Act: A Baby Boomer's Guide to Finishing Well by William S. Cook, Jr., M.D. and Grant D. Fairley

www.silverwoods-publishing.com

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Act-Boomers-Guide-Finishing/dp/1897202237

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-third-act-dr-william-s-cook-jr/1120593763

Contacts

[email protected]

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[email protected]

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Before "In Flanders Fields"

Much of the world knows and cherishes the World War I poem written by Colonel John McCrae, the Canadian surgeon.  "In Flanders Fields captures the terrible price of war. He made a lasting contribution to honouring those who served their countries in times of war. On Remembrance Day (Canada), Armistice Day (UK) or Veteran's Day (US) we pause to reflect on the sacrifices made to protect our freedoms and way of life.

His image of the torch being passed is understood as a generational obligation and opportunity.  Especially in dark times, the light of that torch is even more necessary.  As there has always been, forces of darkness would try to shadow all that is good with hate, terror and horror.  It is a time to pick up the torch and to let it shine brightly to resist such evil and tyranny.  We can be grateful to John McCrae for his service and the words he penned.

Our family owes a debt of gratitude to the McCrae family that comes long before "In Flanders Fields" was written.

One of my great-great grandmothers was Elizabeth McFarlane. She and her brother were children of Scottish immigrants David and Margaret McFarlane who had a farm in the area of Guelph, Ontario in the mid-1800s.  At some point in the 1850s both parents died in an epidemic of of perhaps typhoid fever, leaving Elizabeth and her brother orphaned.

The McFarlane children were taken in by Guelph lumber merchant Thomas and Jane McCrae and raised with their children.  The McCrae siblings included a son David, who was a year younger than Elizabeth. David would grow up to marry Janet Simpson Eckford.  Together, they would have a son, John McCrae, the surgeon who would go to war and write, "In Flanders Fields."

The kindness and generosity of Thomas and Jane McCrae provided for Elizabeth McFarlane and her brother.  Elizabeth would go on to become a beloved school teacher and later would marry James Cameron Wood. They would become the parents of Jean Eloise Wood who would marry Rev. Hugh Cowan.  Hugh and Jean Cowan's children included Canadian public relations pioneer and friend of Ernest Hemingway, James Alexander Cowan. He would marry Grace Fenwick Williams, daughter of Canadian journalist and historian Fred G. H. Williams and granddaughter of British war correspondent and author Charles F. Williams. Children of James and Grace included educator Joan Meuser, nurse Lois Cowan and Ontario Ministry of Transportation publicist, Doug Cowan. Lois would marry Harry Fairley and so my story begins and this blog ends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Frederick_Williams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Cowan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Alexander_Cowan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Williams_(journalist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Ann_Fairley

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A visit with my 99 year old great-aunt Frances Cowan (nee Hollister) where a couple of her wonderful poems are shared.

Poetry: Moon Path and Crazy Wishes (by Gregory De Souza)

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Roller Derby at the Grocery Store

There are many childhood experiences we all remember within a generation that are foreign to the next.  For those of us who grew up during the advent of supermarkets, we enjoyed a special fascination with the grocery box.

These were the colorful plastic tubs that waited at the end of the checkout for the assorted bags of groceries to be conveyed on their final journey from the store.  Long before the age of debit cards and scanners, the cashier would manually punch in the product category and then the price into the cash register.  Even the most proficient cashiers were prone to errors and the process was always long.  We children were surprisingly patient at what should have been a difficult parenting moment. After wandering around the store or being confined to the small seat the grocery cart facing our parent, we could have been expected to be cranky, in spite of any animal crackers doled out along the way.

As the items passed onto the bagging station, a different staff person would assemble the items into those eco-friendly paper bags made from those renewable trees.  It was the age before plastic bags when were green and did not know it.  Each of the bags were then added to the top plastic bucket in the stack of tubs.  When four or five bags were added to the bucket, it was ready for its adventure into the darkness.  

The bag boy would call out the number of the bucket - #29!  The cashier would pause to write the bucket number on the receipt that was progressing out of the register.  The bucket was then carried a few feet to the waiting store-wide channel of metal rollers waiting for yet another arrival.All curious boys and girls were waiting attentively to help the bucket begin its journey.  

After inspecting the angles to be certain that the bucket would not roll off, we would start to give it a push.  Slowly at first and then gaining speed like a roller coaster on its tracks, we watched the metal cylinders spin faster and faster beneath the passing bucket.

If mom had chosen her cashier station well, we would be at the beginning of the rollers.  That meant a longer launch and perhaps the chance to shunt into some other tubs, waiting further down the path.  

It was an unspoken code of we grocery kids that each would keep a lookout for overly cautious patrons who might want to keep us from our quest.  "Don't do that - you'll break my eggs kid!"  "Watch out! You will get your fingers pinched."  Pity the poor parent panicked that the children would end up sliding down the rollers on an adventure.

Usually , the cashiers were engaged with their button punching.  The parents were stressed as they moved groceries from cart to cashier.  The bag boy, not long beyond such fun himself, would appear to not notice the launch of the grocery tubs.  If it was a major grocery purchase, there might be three or four of these buckets to push as they were added to the roller derby.

With the stars were aligned, we could sail our bucket down the rollers pushing three, four or even five more buckets into a large procession of tubs moving together on the tracks. 

It was a powerful moment in early childhood.  

Buckets too heavy for us to lift, even one at a time, were now moving in succession at the push of our small hands. We might just grow up to be superheroes. 

We usually hesitated as the end of the conveyor approached the opening in the wall.  This was usually covered with some rubber strips hanging down with a dark room on the other side.  This was not unlike the terrorizing dangling obstacles featured in a haunted house walk at Halloween. 

One by one, the buckets would disappear from the light of the store into the darkness of what was "out there."

Occasionally, so many buckets were waiting to be conveyed down the rollers that they would back up before they entered the dark abyss.  Then a sinister jolt would draw the buckets into the darkness, freeing the maw to swallow even more of the groceries as they rolled to their doom.

Gathered by the tired parent, we would be escorted through the store door to the parking lot where the car would await our return.  Once in our places, the car would drive to the side of the store where we would enter a special pick-up lane.  We would cross over the air hose and hear the familiar ding in the distance. On cue, a more senior teenager would appear from a darkened room.  

Rolling down the window by hand, Mom would pass the cryptic receipt with the secret code written in pen beside the printed items and prices.  You could hear her try to memorize the numbers.  #29 #111 #81 #42  

With the car now off and the trunk opened, the attendant would come with one of our beloved buckets full of our groceries.  Mom would observe the numbers on the buckets with the numbers she had tried to memorize.  This was to avoid the dreaded wrong box or missed box debacle.  

After taking three boys shopping and then home, the last thing you wanted to find was an unknown neighbor's bags of groceries full of wonderful food that the kids would never eat.  The required return trip to the grocery store to exchange the bag typically only solved part of the problem as it was unusual for the corresponding bags to be waiting for you.  Sometimes, you would have to shop again to replace the missing items from the receipt. 

No fun for Mom but it did mean another chance to do our roller derby once again. 

Over the years, cutbacks to staff meant that you carried or carted the groceries off for yourself.  Like pumping your own gas, hiring staff was not as efficient as doing it yourself. It was however, early retail therapy. Grocery shopping was one of those tasks we did not mind doing.  

Perhaps that is why now one of the parents, I do my most of the grocery store runs in our family. At one point, there were six of us in the house including the four children.  That became many bags of groceries passing over the check-out counter.  That would have filled a bunch of tubs. 

I can still hear the spinning rollers call to me as the echo of childhood calls softly in memory.

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"Great teachers do not just know their subject - they love it." Grant D. Fairley

http://www.strategic-seminars.com/quotes.htm

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"A hungry child can not digest their education." Grant D. Fairley

http://www.strategic-seminars.com/quotes.htm

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“Be willing to sacrifice any job to protect your career.” Grant D. Fairley

http://www.strategic-seminars.com/quotes.htm

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“You own your career not your job." Grant D. Fairley

http://www.strategic-seminars.com/quotes.htm

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Own Your Future - Wisdom for Wealth and a Better Tomorrow  A new book now available on Amazon and Kindle by Grant D. Fairley and Michael H. Lanthier that helps you navigate through the defaults, drift and despair of the present economic crisis.  Learn about keeping wealth in an age of bubbles, bailouts, battles, booms and busts. It will also position you to have a long-term strategy to give you and your children the brighter future you thought would be yours to give.

Coming soon - a special Canadian edition!

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Own Your Future - Building a Better Tomorrow

I am happy to announce that my next book will be available soon!  Own Your Future - Building a Better Tomorrow is a project done in collaboration with friend and colleague Michael Lanthier.

The book is designed for younger and older audiences covering not only financial decisions but also career and lifestyle choices that we all must face.  It should be available by December 2012.  We will keep you posted here as well.

Here's the blurb and cover.

Own Your Future - Building a Better Tomorrow  A new book available in December 2012 by Grant D. Fairley and Michael H. Lanthier that helps you navigate through the defaults, drift and despair of the present economic crisis.  Learn about keeping wealth in an age of bubbles, bailouts, battles, booms and busts. It will also position you to have a long-term strategy to give you and your children the brighter future you thought would be yours to give.

COMING SOON - A CANADIAN SPECIAL EDITION OF THE BOOK!

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Up to the Cottage - Memories of Muskoka

WHAT'S THAT SMELL?

Cottages like most buildings have their own distinctive smell. Particularly those cottages that are seasonal tend to have certain scents that change with the calendar and the activities of the cottage dwellers. If you are coming from the city to Muskoka, you already experienced the freshening of the air and the richness of the oxygen as you made your way past civilization. Along South Mary Lake Road, we would drive by a series of white pines standing guard that exuded a wonderful pine scent that confirmed we were getting close to the beloved cottage. Stepping out of the car at the cottage, our senses were greeted by a variety of smells from the leaf litter in the forest to the breeze from the lake depending on the time of day and the weather. It was quite a contrast from discerning the metallic smells of industrial Windsor or the smell of grains being processed at Hiram Walker’s downtown. Those first few moments at the cottage offered a bouquet of distinctive reminders that you were in Muskoka.

When it came time to open the screen door and then unlock the main door, it was as if the cottage exhaled the breath that it had held since the cottage was closed in the fall. You could take in the combination of wood and fabrics that had been waiting to be reawakened for the summer season. As is traditional for most cottage goers, this important event typically was connected to May 24th weekends. The new flowers might be planted and some potted plants were spread around the property to add some extra colour during those first couple of months there. It was that wonderful time of hope and optimism for a new cottage season.

The best mornings – even if the floors were cold – were when you awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs cooking and coffee percolating. Mom would often also have a batch of Quaker Oats bubbling which she assured us would “Stick to your ribs.” When questioned why we would want oatmeal or anything else stuck to our ribs – she explained that this would keep us from getting hungry rather than eating something that was digested quickly. We felt better about the oatmeal after that. Adding to that the wisps of smoke coming from the fireplace and traveling up the chimney to be carried away through the woods, you had a perfect Muskoka morning.

The only thing that could surpass the ecstasy of that experience in cottage life would be to catch the hint of smoke as you returned from an early-morning canoe ride in the mists of Mary Lake and find those smoky scents also included the bacon and eggs and coffee as you opened the door. Of course, the aroma of Grandma’s meals or baking would also enchant anyone who experienced it.

Growing up in the 1960s when smoking was more prevalent meant that you could become quite a connoisseur of tobacco smells as a boy even if you did not smoke. (Thankfully, it was not something our family ever did. We had other vices of course…see paragraphs above…) Grandpa Cowan used to smoke cigarettes and then on a whim switched to cigars. We became used to smelling the scent of some very fine cigars as we would walk on the road or sit on the screened porch. His favourite brand (based on the beautiful wooden boxes we received for storing little boy stuff like marbles) was White Owl.

As mentioned elsewhere, the first Gandalf I knew was the kind grandfatherly Ben Jackson from the original cottage who was very senior in years when I remember meeting him. He was one of those talented pipe smokers who could blow smoke rings, allow wisps to float up or just puff gently on the sweet smelling tobacco. Did I mention he could blow smoke out his ears? Remarkable sights for a young boy to see.

There were many smells of the cottage as you roamed through the woods, in the ferns, over the meadows, in the dark forest, by the beaver dam, under the pines, on the beach and in the lake. Each one of these aromas is imprinted on memories and emotions of those growing up at the cottage in Muskoka.

Excerpted from Up to the Cottage - Memories of Muskoka by Grant D. Fairley

Silverwoods Publishing

www.silverwoods-publishing.com

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Executive Coaching - Friend?

There are some executive coach programs that work to keep a distance between the Executive and the Coach.  We understand that.  We just disagree.  As our the name of our executive coaching association suggests - The Fellowship of Executive Coaches - includes the concept of Fellowship.  It has many layers of meaning but among them is the simple concept of two "fellows" in a "ship".  Disregarding the gender - that means that the best executive coach is "in the boat" with the executive.  We're not standing on the shore making suggestions and pointing out errors from the safety of dry land.  Great executive coaches are in there with you - pulling together with you to navigate through the sometimes dangerous and sometimes still waters of your life and career.

Our belief that there should be an effort for the executive and the coach to become friends is based on a healthy understanding of what friendship is.  A healthy friendship - no matter where you find it in your life - has a number of common characteristics.

True friendship is based on mutual respect.  Otherwise, it is a co-dependent relationship.  Many coaches keep their ten foot pole handy - don't get too involved in the big issues facing the executive.  Be cool and dispassionate.  Keep your distance.  That approach misses the point of the executive coach.

True friendship is based on a willingness to invest in the relationship.  As soon as a relationship is strictly a job - many important benefits of a friendship immediately disappear.  Friends want to see each other grow and develop as healthy and effective persons.

True friendship is based on persistence.  That means the friendship is there for good times and the bad ones.  Otherwise - you're one of those "fair-weather" characters.

True friendship is based on trust.  This is especially critical for effective executive coaching.  If the executive does not have a sufficient level of trust to discuss the real challenges, fears and opportunities he or she face - the coach will be only going through the motions.

True friendship has unconditional positive regard.  That means that the relationship has at its core that I'm going to assume and encourage your best self.  Does that mean you want fall down and blow it?  Of course we all will.  But as a coach - I'm here to encourage your potential and your opportunities to experience you best life experiences.

True friendship is accountable.  For the executive - that means working on those challenges and opportunities that have been identified.  For the coach - that means putting your all into encouraging the possibilities and potential in the executive.

A Friend In The Night If there is a healthy friendship at work as part of the coaching process - then that means the coach sticks with you when the road becomes dark.  The coach is your friend in the night who will not abandon you when times are tough.  They walk along side you and share the road you must face.

A Friend In The Day We often assume incorrectly that we need friends when times are tough.  That's of course true.  But we also need friends to walk with us during the bright days of our career and life.  It is during the fair times that we must prepare ourselves for the inevitable tough dark days that are part of the mix  of life. 

A Friend In The Twilight We all understand the good times and the dark days that happen in everyone's life.  What is just as important is having a friend in the twilight.  Twilight is that strange and dangerous time when we are between day and night.  Our eyes have not adjusted to the darkness or the light during that hour.  We can make some large mistakes when we are in the transition period between the good times and the bad.  The good executive coach will stand with you during the twilight as your sun is rising or setting or if the clouds have overtaken your night sky.

Choose an executive coach who will value your friendship and who will work for you to succeed.   At VIP and Canadian Executive Coaching we're investing in your success.  We're also proud to earn the relationship with you and be able to call you our friend!

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Great customer service happens when people dealing with the customers either have or have immediate access to someone who has the authority to make a decision. Learn how sales are lost by no one having the power to say "Yes - we'll take your money!" Grant Fairley is your host today.

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Great customer service and email seem to be opposites. How can you be effective using email to communicate with your clients? What email strategies can make email a positive part of your customer service strategy? Join Grant Fairley of Strategic Seminars for a review of some of the big ideas about using email well.