And if you *are* an old person who has had no alternative but to
invest in
low interest-bearing annuities, because you had the smarts to know
that boom
inevitably leads to bust???? Boring it may be, but at least you can
still
eat.......
Still not blaming the banks (much) - dunno what it's like
elsewhere, but
here in the UK, we're looking at 0.5% base rate and 5% inflation -
please
explain why anyone would want to be anything other than cautious about
now???
And no, I'm no longer a SPAH member.
Stephen Jennings
-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf
Of The Iceman
Sent: 18 December 2011 11:05 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] SPAH leadership
good points.
However, "can do" is WOW and leads to greatness. There are never any
guarantees, so risk taking is part of the excitement.
Keeping expectations low is YAWN and minimizing risks are for old
people who
put their money in low interest bearing safe annuities.
WOW is entrepreneurial spirit doing things. STEVE JOBS.
YAWN is a company or corporate man sitting on endless committees
debating on
doing things. US CONGRESS
I hope SPAH isn't an old person looking for safe, conservative paths.
BORING
I hope SPAH becomes young, vital and exciting, blazing a new path
with fire.
A bright fire seen from horizon to horizon will create a strong
gravitational pull to more people.
-----Original Message-----
From: Slim Heilpern <slim@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l harp-l <Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Dec 18, 2011 11:08 am
Subject: [Harp-L] SPAH leadership
A lot of what's being discussed over the last few days with respect
to SPAH
leadership is related to style, simply put a "can do" vs. a "might
not be
able
to do" approach.
I learned a long time ago that when making announcements to
customers, or in
this case members of a reasonably large mailing list, keeping
expectations
reasonably low is often the smart thing to do, as lack of
achievement of a
stated goal, even if unachievable, will be perceived to be failure.
Having
been
involved with a couple of different startup companies that eventually
failed,
it's easy for me to be put off by the "can do" attitude -- it only
works
once in
a while, and can lead to a very abrupt demise when it doesn't.
With specific respect to SPAH, I would not like to see its limited
resources
(be
they volunteer time or money) be spent chasing after things that are
unlikely to
succeed. Tossing ideas around is wonderful, but before any money is
spent or
any
in depth research on a particular idea is taken on, it is important
for
leadership to decide which things _seem_ to have a reasonable
chance of
success,
and then dig deeper into those things.
My attitude might be different if I thought that SPAH was in danger of
demise if
it did _not_ act swiftly and bravely, but I don't see any evidence
that this
is
the case. It seems to be doing reasonably well, and that is no
small feat in
this economy.
- Slim.
www.SlideManSlim.com