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« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Michael Pollan has a very interesting article in the recent New York Times Magazine that begins with the paragraph quoted above as the title of this post.

The article is fairly long so you should block off some time to read it.  The above quote is his short answer to what people should eat to be maximally healthy.  Pollan is the author of the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and he knows what he’s talking about.

Read his full advice here.

Posted by on January 29, 2020 at 04:54 PM in Current Affairs, Food and Drink | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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The Celtics Need More

I haven’t written much about the Boston Celtics because … well, I’m sorry to say it but they stink. 

Celtics

I grew up watching Larry Bird and company strut their stuff against Magic Johnson the the Lakers and against Michael Jordan and the Bulls.  For a while in the 80’s, the Celtics were unstoppable.  If they didn’t win the whole thing — they were at least in nearly every game.

Now they stink — bad!  And they have for a long time.

Doc Rivers is the coach and the Celtics have now lost 11 straight games — two short of the franchise record set 10 years ago.  After the loss, Rivers said, “We were soft.”

Sorry Doc — YOU are the one who is soft.  I know that the team has lots of injuries and a slew of young players.  Too bad.  Anytime a team like the Celtics loses that many games in a row, it’s time to replace the coach.

Doc, if it were up to me, you’d be history in Boston.

Posted by on January 29, 2020 at 10:24 AM in Business, Current Affairs, Games, Sports | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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That’s Knot Hard To Do!

Even have to know that you can secure something with a knot that will hold — but all you know is to keep tying square knot over square knot?  Well, this site will show you not only the right knot to tie — but also exactly how to do it.

It has knots for boating, climbing, fishing, scouting, search & rescue, household, and decorative.  Any knot you need is here so give it a look. 

What I like best about the site is that if you’ve never tied a certain knot it’s often difficult to visualize.  This site shows in animated form exactly how the knot is done.  Sweet.

Posted by on January 29, 2020 at 09:58 AM in Web/Tech, Weblogs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Get Human

Ever call an 800 number and really need to talk to a person instead of spending 10 minutes wading through automated voice prompts?  Wouldn’t you like to know how to skip all those annoying messages?

Try the GetHuman database to get right to a human.  Great idea!

Posted by on January 29, 2020 at 09:28 AM in Business, Web/Tech, Weblogs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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L.L. BEAN By Leon Gorman

Studying to be a Legal Professional? It's a difficult but honorable field. There are different challenges you will face as a Criminal Attorney that a perhaps a Real Estate Lawyer won't, and issues a Personal Injury Lawyer must deal with that are exclusive to that field.


L.L. BEAN

The Making of an American Icon

By Leon Gorman

Harvard Business School Press

$26.95, hardcover, 304 pages; ISBN 13: 978-1-20191-183-9 (2006).

 

Anyone who has grown up in Maine has grown up with L.L. Bean. Living here all my life, I was well aware of the success story of this legendary Maine retailer. I was genuinely interested in reading this book by Leon Gorman, Chairman, former President, and grandson of Leon L. Bean. After all, Gorman took over the business in 1967 and ran it for more than 30 years. During his tenure, the company experienced tremendous growth. In 1967, sales were $4.75 million – in 1975, sales were $30 million. Just 5 years later, this figure surged to $121.5 million. The year before Gorman stepped down as President in 2001, sales had reached an astonishing $1.169 billion. (I was pleased to read in the January 2007 issue of Down East magazine that net sales in 2005 were 1.47 billion, up 4% from the previous year.)

I had lots of questions: what was Leon L. Bean really like? How does a company gladly accept returns – no matter how long you've owned the product – without question? And above all, how did Gorman lead this company through such astronomical growth and still maintain its appealing corporate identity? I'm pleased to report that Gorman answers all these questions and many more in this informative book.

For those less interested in the business side of things, Gorman offers a behind-the-scenes look at his grandfather, L.L., while working at L.L. Bean from 1960 to 1967, the year L.L. passed away. In 1962, when L.L. was ninety years old and Gorman was still in his twenties, he described his grandfather as one who "rarely delegated any responsibilities. It was clear what he wanted done because he made all the decisions. He fully enjoyed his company and his reputation as a Down East merchant."

Gorman writes:

Because L.L. was outgoing, energetic, and personable, people enjoyed working for him. But he never was and never pretended to be a manager in the conventional sense. He had little interest in planning and budgeting, in organizational issues, in training or developing people, or in performance management. Team building was something he left to the manager of his beloved Boston Red Sox.

Gorman explains the famous L.L. Bean guarantee of satisfaction had gone by the wayside when he took over the company. Despite the many stories touting L.L.'s personal guarantee on everything he sold, the guarantee hadn't been in print since 1919 and wasn't being practiced when he joined the company. In 1968 he changed all that by including the guarantee in the Spring Catalog. The unqualified, broadest guarantee in the industry was printed in boldface in 1970.

It read:

"Guarantee" Our products are guaranteed to be 100 percent satisfactory. Return anything purchased from us that proves otherwise. We will replace it or refund your money, as you wish, and return your postage costs. Please attach letter of instruction and our packing slip, if available, with returned merchandise.

Gorman writes that the feared influx of frivolous and fraudulent returns never materialized. He writes that the vast majority of customers could be trusted to be fair in returning unsatisfactory products – and that those returning products they weren't happy with often became loyal customers in the future. This helped to further the company's reputation for trust and became an L.L. Bean hallmark.

I'm happy to report that Gorman's description of leading the business through massive growth is presented in a clear chronological way with no effort made to gloss over difficult business times. He gives credit to hiring many professionals in the 1970s and 80s – starting with Bill End as his second-in-command in 1975. At that time, End was a bright and energetic twenty-six year old with an MBA from Harvard. In the following years, many other professionals were hired to help Gorman run the company.

Gorman's strengths were in keeping L.L. Bean focused on it core values, balancing growth and tradition, and preserving it's corporate identity. His team of professional managers was given latitude to expand the business through specialty catalogs, retail stores and overseas. They also were instrumental in reorganizing the business and focusing on Total Quality as a strategy to make the company more productive, increase performance and retain the L.L. Bean core values.

It's refreshing that Gorman doesn't hide the fact that employees often described him as careful, quiet and reserved. Reading between the lines, it's easy to see that his greatest skills were not in communicating with his managers and workers. A good friend of mine (who was one of the professional managers at L.L. Bean in the 1980s and has since moved on) told me he very much enjoyed reading the book. "Finally," he said, "I was able for the first time to understand what Leon was thinking."

 

Purchase the book from Amazon here.

This post supported by Injury Claims Lawyers.

 

Posted by on January 26, 2020 at 04:45 PM in Book Reviews, Books, Business, Current Affairs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Ross Kodner Rocks!

The Maine State Bar Association is holding it’s 2007 Annual Meeting at the Portland Marriott.  It began yesterday and will finish up today.  One of the featured speakers in Ross Kodner.

Ross Kodner

I’ve known Ross for a number of years — heck, practically everyone one in the Law Technology field knows Ross.  Ross is a whiz at all things related to efficiently and professionally running a law practice.  (He’s forgotten more legal technology than I’ll ever know.)  He’s given over 1000 CLE sessions and his website is packed with so many Technology features that you’re sure to find something of interest.

This is his second time speaking in Maine and we are lucky to have him here.  I’m always amazed when listening to Ross how he can make the most mundane subjects seem fascinating.  Attending one of his sessions yesterday, I left with two other attorneys talking excitedly about back-ups for their computer systems.  Nice job Ross!

For our meeting, Ross has done a couple of his standby topics:  “The $5,000 Law Office:  All the Parts and Pieces to Make Your Practice Hum” and “How NOT to Commit Malpractice with Your Computer.”  Today he’ll be doing his famous “60 Hot Legal PC Tips, Gadgets and ‘Net Sites in 90 Minutes.”  I’ve seen them all before but never tire of the way Ross continues to make them fresh and lively.

If by some strange twist of fate Ross hasn’t spoken at one of your legal meetings before — or hasn’t spoken recently — book him again.  You won’t be disappointed.

UPDATE

Ross now has his own blog.  Check it out!  He also has the presentations from the Maine State Bar Annual Meeting on-line — including supplemental materials here.

Posted by on January 26, 2020 at 08:32 AM in Business, Legal | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Senator Kerry and the 2008 Presidential Race

Senator John Kerry has finally done something I completely agree with.

Posted by on January 24, 2020 at 04:02 PM in Current Affairs, Politics | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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Maine Senators Disagree with the President on Troop Surge in Iraq

The lead article in today’s Portland Press Herald is about how both of Maine’s Senators — Republican Susan Collins and Republican Olympia Snowe — disagree with the President’s decision to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

How do your U.S. senators stand on the issue?

Posted by on January 23, 2020 at 11:03 AM in Current Affairs, Legal, Politics, War | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman

All right — I admit it.  Despite the fact that it was wildly popular when it first began, I was one of those people who didn’t really care for the blog Anonymous Lawyer. 

It wasn’t that the writing was poor or that the fictional hiring partner (remember in the beginning we didn’t KNOW for sure that he was fictional) was unconvincing.  Just the opposite.  

The posts seemed all too real — and that, my friends, was the problem.  Reading about a ruthless, opportunistic, pompous, windbag of a hiring partner at a large law firm simply held no fascination for me.  After all, I’ve been practicing law for nearly 30 years and I don’t need to read about fictional accounts of these guys — hell, I can give you have a dozen names of men just like the Anonymous Lawyer right now.  And the truth is, I don’t like any of them.

So I had few expectations when Jeremy Blachman sent me a review copy of his book a while ago.  I didn’t care for the blog and thought I’d probably feel the same way about the book.  And I was right — sort of.

After reading Anonymous Lawyer, I still didn’t care for the fictional hiring jerk portrayed in the book.  Surprisingly though, I did enjoy the book itself.

Unlike the typical whining, bullying and rude behavior I read about on the Anonymous Lawyer blog, the book rounds out the lawyer and adds a slice of “reality” by including an Anonymous Niece — a person outside the legal sphere — who brings an innocence to counter-balance Anonymous Lawyer’s hard edges. 

In addition, instead of just seeing Anonymous Lawyer as a complete ego-maniac, Blachman allows a glimpse of Anonymous Wife and his family.  There’s also the tried and true intrigue of a competition with The Jerk for the firm’s chairman’s job.  (Hey, I said that I didn’t like pompous a**holes — but like all A-types, I enjoy a good rivalry.)

Finally, somebody knows about Anonymous Lawyer’s blog and there’s the question of who that is and whether he’ll be ousted for his posts.  What effect will this have on his desire to be chairman?

These threads make for an entertaining romp through the fictional world of Anonymous Lawyer.  So go ahead, put that legal brief aside for a little while and indulge yourself.  These tales about that unscrupulous lawyer in the corner office will make it just a little bit easier to go back to that endless paperwork.

Buy it here.

Posted by on January 22, 2020 at 09:41 PM in Book Reviews, Books, Business, Weblogs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Pats Lose Playoff Game To Colts 38-34

I had no illusions when the Patriots were up 21–3 at the half.  I knew that the Colts could score points in a hurry.

I tried to keep the faith when they scored 18 unanswered points in the 3rd quarter — but I knew that the Colt fans were now in the game and the Pats were feeling it.  Everything that had gone the Patriot’s way in the first half — close referee calls, a fumble recovery in the end zone, an interception of Manning for a touchdown — all seemed to be clicking now for the Colts.

Whether it was all the flu that had decimated the Patriot defense, the heat that was wilting them, the recovery from last weeks thriller in San Diego, or simply the fabulous play of Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts offense, Indianapolis was not to be denied.

Face it, any time a team torches you for 35 points in just two quarters, that team deserves to win.  Finally, Manning can shed that “can’t-get-it-done-in-the-playoffs” rap and live up to everyone’s expectations.

Manning and the Colts played like champions.  Down in the first half, they believed in themselves and kept scoring at every opportunity.  They didn’t lead the game until only 1:00 was left on the clock.  But as the Patriots know so well from their earlier game against the Chargers, the only score that matters in the final one.

Although I dearly wanted the Pats to win and spent a sleepless night with the game running through my head again and again, I have to hand it to Indianapolis.  They played with poise and made some huge plays down the stretch. 

Good luck in the Super Bowl.

 

Posted by on January 22, 2020 at 08:27 AM in Current Affairs, Sports | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

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