Mission Statements

I always said that when I started blogging, my first post would be about mission statements. Well, it's not the first but it's close.

Here's my beef. A mission statement is just that. A statement. The most effective ones are usually under 12-15 words give or take a few well-placed adjectives. It is not a paragraph. It is not two statements strung together to sound like one. It does not have any bullets after it tagging around like a third wheel on a date.

Use your mission statement to tell people what you do and give them a little flavor for how you do it. Use it to set your priorities and say a lot about what your corporate culture is really like. It's that simple. Nothing says you don't want to work here like a mediocre mission statement full of corporate-ese. Do you think Google or Trader Joe's use the words synergistic or facilitate in their mission statements? I checked, they don't.

Your mission should not be a wall of words you think people want to read ... you know the words, professional, strategic, visionary, in order to, world class, comprehensive, utilize, blah, blah, blah.

Your mission is an opportunity to stand out from your competitors and give your employees something to strive for on your behalf.

My dad gave me some great dating advice years ago. He said if you don't know whether or not you want to marry someone after dating them for two years, you don't. Maybe that's not right for everyone, but it proved to be great advice that saved me a few times. And I think it applies in this case, too.

If you can't tell someone what your company does in one sentence, then you really need to make some hard decisions.

Facebook

I've been on for about a year now. I am through the initial Superpoke frenzy, movie quizzes and the what 80's movie are you phase. John keeps telling me how useless it is. But today I reached a new level of Facebooking that had nothing to do with Superpoking.

Today, as I was singing Christmas carols in Latin via status updates, the son of my Latin teacher from high school (he is in Chicago) noticed and called his mom to tell her that one of her former students was singing Latin Christmas carols to her friends on Facebook 20 years later.

Now I ask you how is that useless?? That's just cool.

Twilight

I finally saw Twilight this weekend.

And let me go ahead and get this straight up front, too. My son Edward was not named after Edward Cullen. He was named after one of John's closest friends, Edward Timmons, and after my grandfather, Edward Decker. As I explained to no less than ten swooning nurse at Baptist hospital. This morning I was relieved to see that the name Edward did not crack the Top 100 List of Baby Names.

But back to the original reason for this post. I loved the movie but after reading this book and all the others, the movie left me a wee bit disappointed. Only because the book was so much better. This is one of those classic cases where you really should read the book before you see the movie.

Read, you say. I have no time to read. I know because I said the same thing a few years ago. The extent of my reading was the latest issue of People or Us magazine. But a few things happened. I joined a book club. I had a baby. Then I had another baby. Along the way I rediscovered a love for books that had completely fallen by the wayside. I will read anything. I even borrowed a book from Tim about hockey ettiquette last year (and loved it).

While I was on maternity leave this fall, I actually watched very little TV. I read book after book. It was great and I didn't feel like I was wasting what little"me" time I get these days.

But even better, I love to read to my kids. I have rediscovered my old favories like Courderoy, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew and The Little House. And now I'm starting to see that Jack enjoys books and reading, too. That's a huge reward for me.

I hope that one day, when he's ready, he'll pick up the first Harry Potter book and dive right in. I can't wait to hear what he imagines Hogwarts to be like or what he thinks about Draco Malfoy. His imagination will add so much to those books, much more than a movie can ever do.

In the end, I think that's what bugged me about the Twilight movie. As I read and savored the first book a few months ago, I spent hours lingering in scenes and moments, experiencing the evolution of a powerful relationship and meeting and getting to know characters who (though key in the book) were mere window dressing in the movie.

But to be fair, that's something even the best movie can't do. Only you and your imagination.

Creativity

I work in advertising and have now for about 20 years. One of the coolest things about what I do for a living is using creativity to solve problems. Even more fun and challenging? To try and solve the same problem in a completely new and different way. Over and over again.

Another thing that's fun about advertising is the people I work with are also creative. Some are creative with numbers. Some are creative with paper and ink. Some are creative in ways I don't yet understand.

I'm pretty spoiled to be able to work in such a fun and freewheeling place, even when we're really busy. I get to play in a hot-bed of creativity every day. But sometimes out in the real world, I see something really creative that absolutely floors me. Like at Edward's daycare.

Often they have seasonal door decorating contests among the staff. You should see what these women create. Right now on the door to Edward's daycare room, there are these giant "lollipops" with the kids' faces on them. Af first glance, I thought they were cute but when I took a second look my jaw gaped open.

The woman who made the lollipops really thought them through. She took two paper plates and glued them together so the lollipop was three-dimensional. Then she added sticks and colored the lollipops so they looked like they were big starlight mints. She covered them in clear wrappers and tied small red bows to hold the wrappers in place. Then she made one for each of the eight or so kids. Very impressive looking when you see it all together on the door.

Yeah, yeah. So what's the big deal? Well, she could have covered that door in green paper and stuck a Santa cut-out on there and it would have technically been decorated. But Gretchen thought bigger than that.

When I was driving home that night, I kept thinking about that door and how creative it was. And here I am a week later still talking about it. It really stopped me in my tracks.

And everyone knows that's what good creative does.

Finally.

I thought about starting a blog a few years ago but I never did. Today for some reason, I decided to go ahead and do it. So I did.