-- You, on the other hand, have to get your big butt in gear. Otherwise, you'll just sit there dreaming.

-- > Would you have bet on these guys?

--> This, my friend, is your lucky day. Everything is FREE. -- We, the IASL, haven't charged you for our services, other than when you join - a first year Association Dues. -- You, on the other hand, have to get your big butt in gear. Otherwise, you'll just sit there dreaming.

%:-}~[||)\\===;

-- "To be conscience that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscience of our own existence." -- Aristotle, Nicomachear Ethics

-- Whether you have been working on an idea for years, just got this zillion dollar idea, have been struggling on a prototype -- and now you're stuck and want more help...this IASL website is the place for good - honest - advice:

-- "Fight for the full loaf, take half a loaf; you can always come back and fight for the other half tomorrow." -- Hubert Humphrey

-- "Food Inventors Network" --

-- "YOUR RECIPE Professionaly Developed * Labeled & Bottled

>--> "Top Secret Recipes - What's New"

-- "10 Extra Large and Extra Cheesy Pizza Ads" -- More Sexxy Ads

-- -- A Penny for Your Thoughts -- --

-- "There is more stainless steel used in the U.S. each year for bottle caps than for automobile bodies." -- The History Channel

-- "The automobile was invented in 1886; the used car lot (17 cars) was invented in 1897."

-- -- The average income in the 1920's was $1236 a year.

-- We didn't consider the fact that we were all somewhat poor 'in the good old days' because a dollar would buy you a whole grocery bag full of food :-)
-- A Few Choice Prices from 1949
-- First Class Postage Stamp, 3 cents
-- A Daily Post-Dispatch Newspaper, 3 cents, and the Sunday only 10 cents; only the Sunday comics were in color
-- A neighborhood movie ticket; child 20 cents, adult 40 cents - kids under 7, free with parent; a bag of popcorn a dime; large candy bar a nickel
-- At a Movie Theater: A Feature Film, A Second Feature Film, Prevues of Coming Attractions, a Bugs-Bunny Cartoon or two, News of the World, a Movie-tone Serial, Public Ads - and you could sit there all day and see the movie over and over again (and your dad could come in to get you and sit there and see the picture, too.)
-- A child's haircut, 20 cents; adult's, 50 cents
-- Pinball Machine, a nickel a game, 5 balls, and you played the machine until it tilted or the free games ran out
-- Bread, 14 cents a loaf
-- Gasoline, 26 cents a gallon
-- Telephone call from phone booth, 5 cents
-- Kraft's Velveeta, 30 cents for 8 ounces
-- Campbell Soups, 18 cents a can
-- Del Monte asparagus, 35 cents for a
19 ounce can
-- Milk, 84 cents a gallon
-- Eggs, 30 cents a dozen
-- 16 oz bottle of Pepsi-Cola, 5 cents
-- 12 oz bottle of Coca-Cola, 5 cents
-- An Ice-cream cone, one scoop, 5 cents
-- Hershey's Chocolate bar, 5 cents
-- Twinkies, two for a nickel
-- Roses, $1.98 for 25
-- Lowest-priced 1949 Ford, $1,472
-- Lowest priced Cadillac, $2,966
-- The minimum wage was 40 cents an hour (about $882 a year, based on a 40-hour week). --Congress mandated a dollar-an-hour minimum wage in 1970.

-- When the Rolls-Royce Automobile was intoduced to the United States in 1904, it sold for $104,000; equivalent to $100,000 today.

-- 1967 introduced NEW Words and Phrases into our vocabulary: Boutique, Hippie or Hippy, Teeny-Bopper, Nitty Gritty, Permanent Press, Narc, Hipsters, Kinky, Public Television, Scam, Swap Meet and Think Tank. Counterculture figurehead Dr.Timothy Leary advises, "Turn on, tune in, drop out".

-- -- Of course, a hundred years before, 1849, a Spanish Silver Dollar was scored to be broken into 8 pieces. That's were we got the expression, "2-bits," i.e., a quarter of a dollar (for a loose woman, a good piece of ...). Most people worked for 10-cents an hour, a dollar a day. And farmers only made about $40.00 a month. A prospector's gold-dust brought $18.00 an ounce. - Did you ever see ten or twenty-dollar gold-pieces and see how small they were? And what their values are today? - Gold is heavy--hence gold coins are small. - There are many metals heavier than lead and gold being one of them.

-- "Uranium is the heaviest metal found in nature.."

-- "I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want." -- Mark Twain

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS: --
-- -- Not giving up before you start. - Not giving up 'after' you start. Figuring out where you are. "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line."

-- Only losers give up. Winners look around and see that they've moved further up in the line, when they see the losers dropping out.

-- And if you do hit a barrier, go around it or over it--keep climbing, and KEEP THINKING: --> "How can I take advantage of my situation? -->

-- --> In 1858, it took three weeks to send a message from Missouri to California by stagecoach.
-- --> In 1860, it took three days to send it much faster from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacremento, California by Pony Express.
-- --> In 1861, it took less than an hour to send a message from the east-coast to the west-coast by telegraph wire.

-- -- I'm thinking of that pathetically-funny cartoon of that forlorn female skeleton, sitting there on a park bench covered with spider-webs. She sits there wearing a cloche hat, trench coat and wedge shoes with dead and wilted posies in her clenched boney fists. The caption reads: "Waiting For The Perfect Man".
-- Nobody ever said life would be perfect. :-))

-- -- A skeleton goes into a bar and says to the bartender, "Quick! Give me a shot of whiskey and a mop." -- Ta-dum..

-- "Perhaps you will be the one with the perfect solution or invention to make the hurt go away?" -- Robert Scheinkman

-- "Wal-Mart says it classifies its customers into three groups: brand aspirationals, price sensitive affluents, and value-price shoppers. Wal-Mart says the new categories will replace the old customer classifications: teeth or no teeth."
-- Conan O'Brien

* This should boggle your mind. * * 2010

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th)..... than what Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart all combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart has sold and now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

11 This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart

* *Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street. Better yet, let them run the damn Government! * *

I think they would do a better job of it!!!!!!!!!!!*

-- "Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." -- Sir Winston Churchill

-- -- "Staying in a rut means that you are on the well travelled road. Getting off that road leads to an adventure of a lifetime." -- R.S.

-- A Touchstone of History --

-- Who first said? -- "You'll need us for protection."
- A. James Bond -
--- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- B. John Wayne -
--- U.S. Military Frontier Command
- C. The Mafia -
--- Community Development Production Workers
- D. Kimberly-Clark® -
--- Personal Hygiene Aids: Perfect Fit

The above is a 'gotcha' factoid --> > Always do your research - don't believe everything you read.

-- Benjamin Franklin invented crop insurance. --

-- An eleven-year old boy invented the popsicle.

-- -- Go Forth And Multiply -- Just don't go around moping; slumping low in someone else's shadow, whimpering, "I could have been rich -- that new invention would have been mine if only I'd.." --

-- -- "One day you will be in this room
with your shadows and bad memories.."
-- Dustin Hoffman, to Gene Hackman, in Runaway Jury

-- You've read your three inventors' books and are looking around for a fourth. -- Next, read "MILLIONS from the MIND" by Alan R. Tripp.
-- With stories of 50 successful inventors, this is the book that you should seriously consider before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. A real value @ $29.95

-- -- "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."-- Chinese Proverb

-- -- "Because, the atomic bomb is the invention to end all inventions."

-- If I give you a dollar and you give me a dollar, we both have one dollar. But if I give you an idea and you give me an idea, we each have two ideas. That's the power of brainstorming -- creating a lot of ideas to help solve problems or do things better.

-- I thrive on creativity, and brainstorming is creativity at its grass roots. Unfortunately, most of us have been in brainstorming sessions when something destroys the mood that allows people to openly express their ideas. It can be as simple as a snicker or a laugh. When you're brainstorming, rule #1 should be that there are no bad ideas. Sometimes you have to go on a wild goose chase to realize wildly creative ideas.

-- Advertising genius Alex Osborn integrated creativity with everything he did, every day. Considered the "father of brainstorming," a term he helped coin in 1939, Osborn devoted his life to promoting and teaching creative thinking. And the fiercest enemy of creativity, he believed, was criticism: "Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated."

-- Here are some brainstorm killers to strongly avoid if you want your session to be profitable and the remedies I recommend for each:

• Allow criticism: - Nothing will kill a brainstorming session faster than allowing comments like, "Are you kidding?" "You're crazy." "Boy that's stupid." No one should laugh at another's idea or shake their head in disgust.
• Don't have any fun: - Brainstorming is supposed to be fun. For 40-plus years at MackayMitchell Envelope Company, we've opened all our sales meetings with everyone going around the table and telling a funny, tasteful joke. Laughter relaxes people. You have to create a relaxed atmosphere to get people in the mood to brainstorm ideas.
• Favor some ideas: - Every idea is equal. You can't play favorites. Remember, there is no such thing as a bad idea in a brainstorming session. Some turkey suggestions can turn into soaring eagles.
• Everybody speaks only when it is their turn: - Brainstorming is improvisation at its best. You can't slow things down and make sure everyone goes in order. Spontaneity is important. Allow participants to share ideas whenever inspiration hits. Take advantage of flashes of genius.
• The boss has a lead role: - There is no problem with the boss being on hand, but he or she is on an even footing with everyone else. All are there to provide ideas. The boss is merely a member of the group. Don't allow a hostile takeover.
• Type of participants isn't important: - If you truly want to brainstorm a problem, you can't have everyone from the same department in the room. You need people from sales, customer service and production. "Outsiders" provide a different point of view. But you can't have forced participation. People should want to be there. Similarly, employees can't be afraid of "consequences" if they say the wrong thing.
• Write everything down: - I can't tell you how many times I've been in brainstorming sessions where every idea gets written down on a board and the time delay slows the creativity process. Have a note taker who can write fast or knows shorthand. Maybe you want to have two people take notes so you don't miss anything. But don't slow down the creative process.
• Don't set any ground rules: - Set a time limit. Let people know what to expect.
• Bad atmosphere: - On-site is best, but the setting needs to be comfortable and free of distractions. Pick a time when people are fresh and not rushed.
• Lack of a skilled facilitator: - You need someone who can keep things moving, fun and focused on the task at hand. Look for someone who will stop any criticism of ideas and keep the boss in his or her place. A facilitator need not be a good brainstormer, just good at pulling ideas out of people.
• Don't act on any ideas: - If you or your company have a history of not following through on anything, employees will view the exercise as a waste of time and all you get is sarcastic input.

--> Mackay's Moral: "Minds are like parachutes; not much good unless they are open."

TELEPRESENCE CATCHING ON:

You may think having the ability to see someone who is far away with perfect clarity means you'll have their undivided attention because they can't tweet or send e-mails as you're talking. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're engaging them. Mike Song, CEO of infoexcellence.com, a business productivity firm based in Guilford, Conn., offers a few tips to ensure virtual meetings will be productive:

Interact every five minutes. Practice what Song calls "five alive," which means you try to interact with people every five minutes by asking a question.

Find a role for everyone. If people read action items or queue up a best practice, they're much more engaged "because they're more of a part of the drama," says Song.

Turn the gathering into an action meeting and suggest doing one of the tasks discussed after the meeting, such as finishing an administrative assignment. "Rather than talking about going to a Web site and logging in and do something, if people have their laptops, they can go there during the meeting and do the task,"

Song says. Be decisive. Whenever you can make a decision in the meeting, people become more engaged, Song says. Explain how the meeting will be conducted, how the decision will be arrived at during the meeting and when it will be made so you can put it on the agenda to achieve greater momentum.

Recount decisions made during meeting. Get decisions down on paper (or pixels) afterward to make sure action items are followed up on afterward.
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You know it is time to reassess your relationship with your computer when.....

1. You wake up at 4 O'clock in the morning to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on the way back to bed.

2. You turn off your computer and get an awful empty feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

3. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free internet access.

4. You laugh at people with 28.8 modems.

5. You start using smileys :-) in your snail mail.

6. You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com

7. You can't correspond with your mother because she doesn't have a computer.

8. When your email box shows "no new messages" and you feel really depressed.

9. You don't know the gender of your three closest friends because they have nondescript screen name and you never bothered to ask.

10. You move into a new house and you decide to "Netscape" before you landscape.

11. Your family always knows where you are.

12. In real life conversations, you don't laugh, you just say "LOL, LOL".

13. After reading this message, you immediately forward it to a friend!