Rick,

I really thank you for your encouragement.

Your are my mentor where my father may have been if he was

still alive. I need to tell you a little story on why I say this.

My Dad took risks in introducing new sales

techniques and technologies in the agricultural industry.

He taught his salesmen how to use a four function

calculator in 1972 to create a feed ration for a livestock

customer without having to go back to the headquarters

for the answers.

This was instant creditability. He introduced a university

simulation tool to advance the least cost feed ration based

on available ingredients and their corresponding costs.

The thing that was missing before was the integration of

how these ingredient influenced the rate of gain and their

associated ingredient costs to the overall cost of production.

It so happened that I was writing a part of the computer code

as part of my senior project for my undergraduate degree.

So at the time I didn't really understand the big picture (1978).

He quickly saw the value of this tool in helping customers

make decisions toward the beginning of harvest and before

purchasing livestock. For example, do I cut more corn silage

or harvest the corn in kernels based on the markets? Given

my variable input costs what do I need to receive for my

livestock to make a profit.

In other words he was able to give his

customer a tool that they could go to the banker

to show them they could make money given

the current and project market conditions. Here was

one of the first introductions of information technology

and the value of information in the livestock market place.

The whole company adopted the tool across 8 states

in the Midwest. This helped the company, customer,

and university. Talk about collaboration!!!

I Bcc... you on a email to one of our suppliers that is an

innovator in many ways. The company president was one

of the first to introduce water based sealants to the wood

flooring industry, several years ago he introduced water

based field marking paint for synthetic sports fields (that's

how we happened to get connected), and is now teaming

with another firm to introduce antimicrobial products and

processes for the sports industry.

A local Edward Jones investment advisor we've been working

with the last two years is a great asset manager and is a

leading proponent of the ethanol industry. He gave me an

access point that I need to follow-up on, I may have mentioned

it in the telecon on Thursday, John Pappajohn from Des Moines,

IA. He is the Warren Buffet of Iowa. He has created 5 entrepreneur

centers throughout Iowa. I've included a link from one of his

centers. There is a video of him under Archives, a presentation

in 2002.

http://www.bcs.uni.edu/jpec/index.html

My brother is actively involved Junior Achievement in his

local school system in Omaha, NE. Have you been involved

at all with this organization?

http://www.ja.org/

I see that we have to start working with the youth while

their still in grade school, especially by high school, to

understand business practices and learn more about

global economy. In my mind this leads into entrepreneur

centers which are backed by venture capital funds like what

has been done by Pappajohn. There will be no quick fix,

rather a transformation over 10-20 years. The local community

college could be a primary player or Wayne State College

which is only 35 miles away.

How do we get our local business community to understand

this need for personal knowledge investment along

with the financial incentives? Jay Knobbe is on the edge, I

think, of getting the AHAH. He has the personal recruitment process

down yet the community is lacking the business recruitment

piece (creating the knowledge based and the future microbiology

industries of the future), or let me say we have not been as

successful, in changing our economic development model.

A local SCORE chapter was started in the last two years with

mostly traditional business executive experience. They understand

cash flow, business plan, marketing, but not necessarily in

the information technology age and how we can better

understand these markets using tools that are available

on the Internet. Here's where I may be able to engage

Jay Knobbe to expand what NAR is doing. His group

consists of primarily younger professionals, 35-45 year olds.

For example if a particular sport field

related product comes up on my "radar screen"

through trade magazine, eNewletter, email, etc.

I typically will check to see whether there are many

searches being performed on the Internet. (This is one

of our trade secrets that folks can learn easily enough

by keeping updated on Internet tools and tricks.)

I use the following web site, Key Word Selector, that

tells me how many times a key word or phrase was

used in the last month on Overture (not sure if this

includes Yahoo which purchased Overture over a year ago).

How popular is this keyword concerning active searches?

Yahoo represents about 20% of the on-line searches.

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Let's use "antimicrobial" in the on-line tool which comes back with

numerous combinations. The tool reported that antimicrobial has

1145 searches done in April. This tells me right away that people

are interested in this keyword or keyword phrase. Therefore this

is a possible market opportunity.

I then use the same keyword in the Google search engine to

see how many times the keyword has been indexed by the

Google, in this case 13.5 million. Here again a very popular

keyword however this may mean there is also a lot of competition

in the market place depending on the particular industry and

product application. I continue to make a table

of related keywords and key word phrases using a simple

Excel spreadsheet to better understand the "picture" of

the market place and our opportunity to market the product

on our web site.

One thing we'll check is whether a product

is being sold on a web site, do they have pricing. Here

again I want to understand the competition. If no one

can directly purchase the product using an on-line

shopping chart solution then I immediately know

we have a niche market to pursue. I will search

on eBay to see if any products are being offered

through this on-line supermarket. Is the product

in a big box stores?

We will search out possible manufactures

that will drop ship the item directly to the customer

without us having to carry inventory. We may find that

we can produce the product right here in Norfolk. For example,

our Sandbags are produced by a local tarp and awning

company. The owner is a member of our Kiwanis Club and

was able to help with the prototyping and establishing a cost

of manufacturing. Now they produce these sandbags, normally

during their non-rush periods.

http://www.athleticfieldmarker.com/Products/Sand_Bag.html

I can normally do this market research in less than 5 days,

sometimes in a couple hours to determine whether to proceed. This

is something that couldn't have been done very effectively

7 years ago.

This is another of my testimonials on why I believe transformation

learning concepts are so critical to our future.

OBTW...I recently attended a Boy Scout adult training class that

will prepare individuals to effective adult leaders. They have

incorporated a technique called "reflection" (developed in

Minnesota) that helps people understand communications

techniques and asking open ended questions so individuals

consider an appropriate response versus a yes or no answer.

He used a enclosed rope, first asking the group to grab the

rope then closing their eyes. He then asked the group

to create a triangle. After the group agreed they were

done he asked them a couple questions, e.g., who was

the leader, was it important who this was. He then

repeated the process asking the group to create

a square, then asking a question how was the

communications different from the previous

exercise, was there more teamwork involved and if

so how?

I thought you might enjoy this last story.

Feel free to share my story if you feel

it is appropriate.

Thanks again for your time.

Regards,

Mark

-----Original Message-----

From: Rick Symre

Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 12:13 PM

To:

Subject: Re: Brochure -- Update on Prospective Dialogue Members...

Hi Mark...

Great stuff in this message. Jay Knobbe's suggestion about the survey is a good one. What about asking him to be in charge of if the rest of the folks like the idea.

As for the nurses, what about utilizing this group to develop the concept of a three year covenant that would include getting them involved in developing capacities for transformation in the community as well as their professional work. Maybe you and they could think of a way to make these connections as a part of the visioning process.

As to entrepreneurial groups like SCORE, remember that the retired business folks are not familiar with what it take to be an electronic entrepreneur unless they are unusual. Maybe an approach would be to target one or two SCORE volunteers, give them a copy of It's Alive, and then get into a dialogue with them about how they would adapt SCORE to be aligned with ideas such as a Global Innovation Network.

Keep up the good work. Warm regards. Rick