If you want some food for thought on technology, service providers, and where technology is going in general check out this commentary by Oliver Reichtenstein.

When eBay announced 2 years ago that they were going to buy Skype for billions of dollars, the first reaction from this technology person was that they overpaid. Evidently, that has been confirmed now. Very unfortunate.

Check out the article here.

I once heard it said, “Be a teacher. Be a hero.” When it comes to examining the Bible’s keys to organizational increase, we could say, “Be a teacher. Be a success.”

Great leaders don’t hide in ivory towers plotting strategy. They teach by instilling in those around them their ideas and their values. This is the approach Jesus modeled. He was often called rabbi, which simply means teacher. His effectiveness is evidenced by the success of His pupils.

-Mac Hammond

I love to be around people with ideas. It’s easy to find people who are experts at seeing the problem. It’s the rare and valuable person who always seems to have an idea for the solution.

When you examine the qualities of the people chosen most frequently for promotion and leadership, you discover that the vast majority are people who generate lots of new ideas —fresh ways of looking at a situation. Fear keeps most people from training their minds to think creatively and keeps them from putting forth a new idea when they happen to have one.

Being a solution-oriented person with lots of ideas will position you for promotion and increase on the job.

by Mac Hammond

The Japanese, Sex And Family

With a topic like sex, I am sure we’ve got your attention. In Japan, sex is a youthful thing. There is really no Judeo-Christian standard of sex being something being saved for marriage. But it is definitely not something two young people do at home. A whole industry sprung up called ‘love hotels’. More appropriately, they should be called sex hotels as they are just designed to give people a room to do something that husbands and wives are usually doing at home.

What has happened a lot in the Japanese society is pre-marital sex has been rampant. Youth have gotten pregnant and gotten married (which is a heck of a lot better than killing the baby through having an abortion which does happen) to take account for their actions. There is some abortion of babies as abortion in Japan is the lazy form of ‘birth-control`.

Once married the young couple ends up raising their children. Traditionally the Japanese wife stays at home with the family while the husband goes to work. Usually, the wife controls the bank account and budgets for the family. Unlike other countries, Japan does not allow joint bank accounts.

As time passes, the parents are focused on their kids but not too much on their relationships with each other. Many times the relationship goes cold as love is something that needs to be cherished and developed. When the children leave the home, the parents don’t have that much to talk about. Divorce in general has been taboo, but with laws are changing where wives can get half of their husbands worth.

In Japan, there are many Japanese married to foreigners. Many Japanese men married to foreign women, and many Japanese women married to western men. In general, ladies from the Philippines are known for looking after their usually aging husbands better than Japanese women. At the same time, American men are known for treating Japanese women better as there is the cultural sense of chivalry that American tend to have. For example, opening the door, walking behind the lady, giving her attention that a Japanese guy would usually not give.

One interesting phenomenon we have seen with many Japanese women married to Westerners is related directly to sex. American couples usually have very active sex lives. However, after a few years of marriage Japanese women tend to start to withhold themselves from their husbands. We have even heard of Japanese wives telling their western husbands if they want to have sex so often then they should ‘get a girlfriend’. How pathetic!

Men have a very strong sex drive and withholding yourself from your husband is very harmful to a marriage and the family as a whole. Of course, if the drive is out of your marriage then you need to do something about it. What can a husband and wife do to make their marriage deeper?

More next entry…

Can everything your organization stands for be boiled down into a single concise message? It can, and it should be. At least if you want people to make a heart connection with it.

Jesus knew this. On one occasion some scholars asked him to summarize the entire Old Testament. Jesus was able to do so on the spot. He said the entire law can be boiled down to this: “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”

My question for you is: “Do you have a clear, concise message with which your staff and customers can connect?”

-Mac Hammond