In our economy there is a mixture of profit, government, and non-profit organizations in effect. Today the blog focuses on the non profit, where a wide range of sizes can be found and all are trying to make the world or at least their part of the world a better place. Within the non profits, many people volunteer their time and dollars because the non profit does something that the touches them. Recently I read the book A Year of Living Generously by Lawrence Scanlan, Douglas & McIntryre, Vancouver, 2010, The author volunteered at 12 different organizations or one a month and then wrote about it. The idea of volunteering in different organizations to see what they do is a very good one. Many people would like to do more, and a book such as Mr. Scanlan’s offers insight into what goes on beyond the the many doors that most of us do not go through, but we are glad they exist.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, volunteering because it is something you enjoy doing offers many dividends. Sometimes the reason why volunteering is great is because after you have figured out a method to earn a living, the volunteering gives you a wide  variety of tasks to do and helping people is very rewarding. Although you can volunteer for a short time, having a longer perspective is ideal. Similar to the author you can volunteer at many organizations or concentrate your time to a fewer selections and be well rewarded.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

In my part of the country, over the Easter weekend, the sun was shining as the temperature rose, after a cold winter it was very welcomed. As the sun was shining, it was a good day for a walk and the writer went for a walk in a corporate garden. A corporate garden has many people looking after the lawns and generally the grounds are immaculate. At this time of the year, tulip bulbs poke their leaves above the ground. In another month or two depending on where you live the tulips will be adding splendid colour to the world Many people plant tulips and other bulbs in the fall, and if all goes correctly, the tulips display thier colours in the spring. After the tulips have display their colours it is time to go to the garden centres for summer and fall plants.

Linking to dividend producing stocks, the planting of a tulip bulb in the fall leads to a flowers in the spring time. If a gardener cuts the leaves when the flower display is over, the bulb will remain in the ground and continue to bloom for another couple of years or it will provide dividends. Plants that come back every year or known as perennials, and plants that start from bulbs are dividend buyers delights. Once you have a solid base of perennials, add the annuals (plants that need to buy every year) to complement and enhance the garden.Gardening is better than trying to start from scratch every year.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time   – to raising questions.

On a recent trip to the library the writer picked up the book Everything I Know about Business I learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes PhD, published by Business Plus 2011. The Grateful Dead was a very successful musical band from 1965 to 1995. The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavour Cherry Garcia was name for lead singer Jerry Garcia. singer. This column continues with lesson 10 and wrap up.

10. Exploit the Experience Economy – Provide your customers with authentic experiences that improve their lives. Customers know if your business is genuine or operating for the correct reasons. They may try it, but will not be a returning customer.

Most authentic brands have a long heritage, while moving into the future they honour the past. Authentic businesses always remember where and when they originated because these orgins shaped the identity of the company. In the music business, all poor bands are authentic, what happens when the money comes in is the test.

To remain authentic is to be open with your customer with your plans, your successes and failures. For the Grateful Dead, the issue of authenticity never really came up, it was just assumed. The Dead’s values – to make the world a better, more humane place – animated everything they did, and their fans recognized that. The investment in sound systems, better records, great customer service were all evidence that the band cared about their fans. The fans responded by staying fans.

The Dead were not striving for success, and yet achieved it. Or, perhaps they achieved success because they were not striving for it. The Dead kept their focus on their vision and values. Success flowed from there. All decisions flowed from the integrity of the music, many simply turned out to be great business decisions as well.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

On a recent trip to the library the writer picked up the book Everything I Know about Business I learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes PhD, published by Business Plus 2011. The Grateful Dead was a very successful musical band from 1965 to 1995. The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavour Cherry Garcia was name for lead singer Jerry Garcia. singer. This column continues will 3 more lessons:

7. Innovate Constantly – stay on the cutting edge. Established firms can be held captive by their current customers and if they become comfortable serving them, the firms miss out on disruptive technologies that create new markets. In the example of the Dead, they wanted better sound systems for their concerts.  The existing companies did not want to go there, so the Dead and their team learnt to do it themselves. This lead to other avenues of earning money, selling the expertise.To innovate is to take risk, to win some, lose some and move to the next challenge.

8. Transform through Leadership  – every organization has a leader. The Dead’s leader was Jerry Garcia who denied he was the leader and encouraged others to take leadership decisions. The transformational leader inspires followers to produce far beyond what is expected of them. The leader will evolve if they know when to lead and when to follow as they leave space for others to perform at their best.

9. Share the Power – a flat organizational system, encourages everyone in the firm to participate and step up to the needed tasks. The key is to encourage debate from all perspectives or everyone, for everyone brings a slightly different view. If employees step up and back as needed, the end result is better decision making and more loyal employees. In terms of compensation it helps a lot to share the wealth, however to ensure direction in the firm choose employees who fit the values of the firm.

Many of the lessons are internal, but reading between the lines you can gain an insight into management. The lessons are if hippies can make money, perhaps the establishment folks still need to learn something.

The are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

On a recent trip to the library the writer picked up the book Everything I Know about Business I learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes PhD, published by Business Plus 2011. The Grateful Dead was a very successful musical band from 1965 to 1995. The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavour Cherry Garcia was name for lead singer Jerry Garcia. singer. This column continues will 3 more lessons:

4. Share Your Content – the Power of “Free”  In the creative business, familiarity rather than scarcity creates value. The more people that know your work, the more ways there will be to make money. An example the band had to deal with was fans taping the shows. What to do about them? After some time, a decision was reached to have a spot in the concert for tapers. The reason for the decision was to increase the size of the pie. The tapes brought in more fans who bought tickets to the shows, more records, more merchandise and equally important the fans shared with others to create an even  bigger marketplace.

5. Create a Business Tribe – Collaborate with the audience. As the audience increased, the Band wanted to have multiple methods to contact them. One method was to ask for an mailing address and send material, not always to sell something. For example the concerts sold out quickly, a solution was to allow the mailed addresses fan base to buy before the general public. The fans within the scope of the spirit of the band were allowed to do what is considered right. Another of the many examples was some of the Deadheads sold merchandise at each show. This allowed them to pay the expenses to go to the next show, The Tourheads were encouraged to be part of the concert scene.

6. Insource  – do-it-yourself. In source means to control or do it better in terms of creative control in an effort to keep customers happy resulting in greater profitability. There is no magic answer to do things in house or outsource them for there are benefits to both methods. It is often better to do it in house, if you are trying to do things differently than the established rules. To do it in house means learning opportunities, but if control stays within the organization’s values and with proper execution, the organization can make more money.

There will be more rules in tomorrow’s column and you can see if your organization follows these rules or is open to them.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

We all have bad theories and some of them turn out to more than true. For example, in the urban city the writer lives in, the hippies tended to buy property in areas where the establishment was not, as the property was inexpensive. Now days the property is worth close to a million and everyone wants to live in the area. Sometimes it is worth paying attention to the hippies or counter culture. To continue with this theme, on a recent trip to the library the writer picked up the book Everything I Know about Business I learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes PHd, published by Business Plus 2011. Personally I never went to a Grateful Dead concert, but the band lasted for over 30 years, it toured extensively and people followed the band from city to city and were and are known as Deadheads.

There were a variety of reasons to do this, which includes no two concerts put on by the Grateful Dead were the same. They might have the same lineup of songs, but the musicians would extend or stretch many songs much longer than the play list. The musicians were able to do this because they had talent, knew each other strengths and weaknesses which allow them to go off on tangents or improvise and equally important a respect for the paying audience. The fans were treated to a great show.

Mr. Barnes has 10 lessons which will be featured in the next couple of columns:

1. Improvisation – the band prided themselves in never playing the same song the same way twice. To arrive at this point, all band members were very accomplished musicians, while playing the musicians would give one or more the ability  to go off on a tangent.  In the music world, making no mistakes is a mistake. Improvisation will cause failure, but if you learn from them, the long term result is that much better.

2. Live Your Values – do well by doing good. If you or your organization does the right thing, in the end it will be more profitable. Your customers will examine what the organization is or is not and if they like it, they will tend to be returning customers. When you do the right thing, other avenues will flow.

3. Be Kind to Your Customers – offer Superior Value. In the case of the Dead, they were committed to treating people well simply because that was the right thing to do. The band was kind to the fans. In the long run their fans and the Band were better off. One method for the Band was to constantly tour and enjoy it.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

On the weekend, the writer was at an event which many people took pictures either on their cell phones or digital cameras. Those with cell phones (similar to me)  tended to take pictures more on the go or an instant response. The ability to do that is wonderful and many phones have built in camera features that allow for that type of response. The other folks with digital cameras tend to go slower, they try to frame the picture first, taking their time and then took the picture. The digital photographer likely has taken hundreds of pictures and is looking for a great shot. Each person with the ability to shoot a picture and both are likely satisfied with the result which is why both methods are valid.

Linking to dividend producing stocks, the cell phone cameras in this example is buying an index. It is a good strategy, whatever company manages the index, changes the index at least twice a year, with the non performers being changed for the better performers and in the long run the index will and has shown it does go up. The digital camera in this example, are people who have learned that after research of ensuring what you do not want, dividend companies will over time give you a total return that is higher than the index. The total return is the companies making a profit, paying a dividend to you together with the share price increases that come with continually making money.Their are many valid methods, dividends work

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

Similar to many people, the writer enjoys flowers, but liking flowers and putting them in a wonderful display is a little different. Technically it is possible for anyone to do, however you need to have more than a little knowledge. Yesterday at an event, the writer was at, there was a lady talking about what can be done with the floral arrangement that can be bought at the grocery store for half price? After opening the display up, the lady examined the flowers and discarded some (knowledge was needed) and cut the stems of the remaining flowers. Next she filled the vase by going in a circle, she would turn the vase to fill it, then turn the vase. The final touch was to put smaller vegetables on a stick and insert them as the vegetables added colour and shape to the arrangement. It looked good and did not take too much time or money to do. Could anyone do it? yes.

Linking to dividend producing stocks, when you choose these stocks you will have picked many winners. Every year to make a profit through the economic cycles is a difficult thing unless the company has a monopoly or near monopoly. Even then, people are always looking for alternatives. If a company has paid a dividend and increased it, that says their management has something good going for it, which you can use to your advantage. Starting with dividend producing companies will tend to a total return that will grow your money. Can anyone do it? yes. Is it difficult? no.

The amount of dividend is one of the headings listed on a stock summary in the newspaper, if you do not see one, take the stock off your list. When you do see the number, put the stock on your list. You will notice the list you have made is much smaller than the number of shares listed on the exchange. All companies on the exchange have a website, and show a listing of dividends paid in the past. As you do your research you can determine if the company appeals to you. The best part of dividend producing stocks once you have made your selections, for the part you do not have to check the stock listings on a regular basis. When the company pays its dividend, it is that time you can review do I keep it or move to something else? If you decide to keep it, then you are good for doing other things which you enjoy which may include stop and smell the roses.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In every field of endeavour, there are tools of the trade. There are basic tools which will do the job but the more you know, the more you can do. At this time of the year, for me and many others, gardening tools are looked at. Every year, new tools willl have changed to either they are more balanced or lighter or more durable or more colour, but something to allow you to do the work, even better. If you are an occasional user, there maybe ony a little difference, but if you are a daily user of tools, it is good to look at the  premium ones. Most gardeners have a mixture of quality and favourite tools.

Linking to dividend producing stocks, every investor has their own system or tools, most have evolved over the years. The basics of reading or gathering information has never changed. How you do that has changed, but you need to use various information sources and with the Internet, there is an abundance of them. For the industry you are in, reading the trades is important because part of your job is connecting the dots, both from the past and looking into the future. In the financial forecasting world, all models looking at the past are wonderful. The models differ on the future and you must use your experience to narrow the field. From this blog’s perspective, if a company has produced continuous dividends, that is a great starting point  to ensure you do not lose money investing. How much you make will depend on many variables, but not losing money together with dividends and long term capital appreciation means you are on the right path.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions