http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:49:40 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Perfect! This morning I was remembering a section of Malcomb Gladwell’s The Tipping Point about group dynamics. Honestly, I am not sufficiently motivated to look it up, so I am going from memory here. But I remember that the number seven was very significant. He talked about the fact that phone ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/06/24/7/ Last week we went over to Pittsboro Christian Village to shoot photographs for some brochures and a website. It’s a pretty amazing place. The average age of the residents there is 85. We started the adventure with shots of a group of ladies grading Bible correspondence courses from inmates at ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/06/15/old-hands/ VIvian and I went over to Easley yesterday, to call on a prospective client. Can’t say who the prospect is, but I can tell you that it was great to be in Easley. There’s just something about Easley. Back in the last century, when I moved here, I was under the ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/06/10/easley/ What are they called? The ones that get way up in the air, point their beaks strait down, tuck their wings, and dive like spears into the water, smash through the surface, and spear fish like six or eight feet under water. Not sure what they’re called. But they sure ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/05/18/those-fishing-birds/ Way back in my waiter days, I discovered a wonderful, single-question test of character. Do you treat the people who work for you the same as you treat the people you work for? Try it out. It always works. I first noticed it when I was a waiter. Business people ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/05/12/a-test-of-character/ I don’t know why this story came to mind. Maybe it’s to remind me that tough people have feelings too. Back when I was in college, one of my roommates was from Cincinnati. His little brother was a tackle for Cincinnati Princeton (or one of those elite Cincinnati football high schools ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/04/23/big-du/ Historically, the idea of branding was contrary to the bank culture. The idea being that to brand something was to impose some artifice onto it, as opposed to the low-profile, three-button, wing-tipped, dry, trustworthy image that professional bankers enjoyed projecting. In fact, there was a time when marketing of ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/04/16/branding-a-bank/ Friday was a half-day, and we made the most of it. We ran some errands and then we popped over to the Delellos to borrow Anne of Green Gables (the quintessential Canadian chick flick/arty-right-brained epic). We took a break in the late afternoon, and we ran into our neighbor who ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/04/13/bruised-reed/ That was the last time the Volatility Index closed this low. Today, it closed at 38.85! ’Scuse me while I do the little learned optimist dance. http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/04/08/september-30-2008/ I’m thinking Facebook might have a couple of problems they hadn’t counted upon. First, the site/ap/service was created during times that were (for most people) pretty solid economically. Making the rent wasn’t a worry. Buying groceries certainly wasn’t. We were, as a culture, all up in the “self actualization” zone. ... http://www.gibbonspeck.com/blog/2009/04/08/facebook-chit-chat/