Why The iPad Is Firing You From Your Job.

Eliminate the middleman. If you've ever reviewed a process, one of the first rules of management is to eliminate the superfluous and streamline. I've never seen a successful organization ADD layers of management or processes and succeed. The more people, approvals, and regulations all add time and money to any endeavor.

So the rationale for success in the 21st century is to be more agile, efficient, effective, nimble and inexpensive. Follow this simple progression — Memos to Email to Messaging or Film Camera to Digital Camera to iPhone. Faster, cheaper, more effective.

Take a look around — it's happening all over:

• Best Buy is Amazon's showroom. I can't remember the last time I bought something there.
• Have you walked into a Macy's, JC Penney, or even a Walmart lately? The employees HATE their job and each place is a mess.
• See a cash register at an Apple Store? They check you out with their iPhone. In fact, they have an app for your iPhone to allow you to check yourself out (I tried it this weekend - it works!).
• Bookstores are dying all around us. So are record stores.
• Expensive gyms are being consolidated into inexpensive monthly membership groups.
• Supermarkets have lost their way. There are some stand-outs (Shop-Rite, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Aldi), but for the most part, they're getting TOO big.

What's happening? They are eliminating the middleman. Why buy shoes at a shoe store when I can use Zappos? Same price, huge selection, and they have my size. If they don't fit, I can send them back free. Aldi's supermarkets can run with 3-4 employees (I'm not kidding) - super efficient layout and structure.

What would happen if Stephen King decided to leave his publisher? He could write his book, hire his editor to edit the book, and distribute it via Amazon. He could also have it printed via a print-on-demand structure. And he can eliminate the middleman. And keep ALL the profits.

Look at what Radiohead did when they offered their new album digitally and allowed their fans to pay anything they wanted for the music. They averaged about $5 per album download and kept ALL the profits.

What would happen if a famous professor taught a course via webinar and charged $1000 a credit ($4K total) per student? And they offered it to anyone? How much would they make if 500 students attended? That's right . . . $2 million dollars. The logistics are easy - billing, registration and testing online - books can be purchased digitally. The professor can take questions and have a virtual whiteboard. All they have to do is teach ONE CLASS. Eliminate the middleman.

Kickstarter is a game changer. Check out Amanda Palmer. She bypassed the recording industry, requested $100K via Kickstarter and raised $624K to launch her new album (great video).

The iPad is a game changer. It is slowly killing huge areas of business, entertainment, and education. Textbooks, printing, television, DVD's, gaming, etc. Walk into an Apple Store and look around — I only saw 3 computers. The rest of the huge store was littered with iPads, iPhones, and MacBooks. Another one bites the dust.

My charge for you today: Is your position, vocation, or organization being slowly eliminated? Are you the middleman? It might not be happening now — but it might in the future.

You don't want to be the company who made slide rules when calculators were invented.

Who Moved Your Acorn?

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." — Ralph Waldo Emerson What's your acorn? 

Okay, okay - I know. We all work hard. And long. And most of the time, it's boring.

But when we got out of school, we all had a dream. A dream of being someone important, making great strides, doing great things. Making a difference.

Unfortunately, life intervened. Work snuck it's ugly head in. Then family. Friends. Hobbies. Activities. TV. You get my drift.

Today, I have one question to ask you: What's YOUR acorn? What's your dream?

How do you want to make a difference in the world? Who do you want to help? My charge today is simple — how can you integrate your acorn into your daily activities?

Don't think big picture — start small — take baby steps. What can you do today to ultimately make a difference in the world? Something that will change one person's life . . . ten lives . . . a hundred lives . . . millions?

If you think I'm crazy, one person already did — check this out.

If he can do it . . . so can you.

What's your acorn? I'd love to hear.

The Man Who Is Changing The World.

By himself. Salman Khan is the founder and faculty of the Khan Academy. He started the Khan Academy as a way to tutor his cousins remotely — while he was a hedge fund analyst in Boston, and they were students in New Orleans.

He started posting videos on YouTube, and more and more people kept watching. It was clear there was a huge unmet need, so Sal left his hedge fund job and started Khan Academy with the mission of providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.

Here's his impact:

Sal holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was the president of his class. He also attended MIT, where he received 3 degrees: a Masters in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and a B.S. in Mathematics.

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Here's someone you might recognize touting his achievements:

He did this by himself. In a closet office. Using a computer.

Now let's turn that lens inward. How can you change the world? How can you change your life? How can you change your career? Like Salman, it just takes one Idea and Action.

What can you plan today, to then take action tomorrow, and change your situation?