Bizology

Zach Braff on Saturday Night Live

I absolutely love this episode of Saturday Night Live. Zach Braff, who is from my area in New Jersey, did an incredinble and absolutely hilarious monologue on poking fun at our beloved state. Here's the YouTube video. For those not from the area, the places Zach refers to are in northern NJ - essentially the suburbs of Manhattan. Where Manhattan offers cultural activities, great restaurants, and fantastic nightlife, NJ is sometimes know as the place with the malls, Newark Airport, and sports arenas:

No Fear!

So this isn't exactly about technology (unless you consider physics and gravity technology) - it's more about business and team building. At a recent Entrepreneur's Organization NJ Chapter Board of Directors meeting in Cooperstown, NY we had  an interesting event: the "ropes" course. One may wonder why on earth would someone voluntarily climb about 5 stories to a wooden platform and then catwalk on a wire between several obstacle courses. Well, that's what I wondered too as I took the first steps.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said "There is nothing to fear but fear itself". This is exactly what you say to yourself about 1000 times a second as you step onto the first obstacle. The lesson here is that the first step is the hardest step. Well,in this case it was first, second, and third. The rest were...easy..er. Self-motivation works wonders sometimes!

The second thing you learn is that in order to make it through something like this teamwork is really important. Having people coach you through the obstacles and cheer you is critical psychologically. Of course I volunteered to go first so I got a chance to share my experience (well, there was a lot of yelling) with the rest of the group.

The best part was when we finished the exercise. The course didn't look so hard after all. I'd do it again!

Cooperstown, NY is also the place where baseball was discovered and it is also home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. On the business side (there's always a business side in this blog) most of the property, including a substantial amount of acreage, the Otesaga Hotel, and even the Clark Sports Center that had the ropes course is managed by a descendant of Clark family. Edward Clark was a partner to Isaac Singer..of the Singer Sewing Machine company. Jane Forbes Clark runs the operations of the foundation and owns the Otesaga Hotel. All this from inventing a sewing machine. Go figure!