Monday location: Seven | 6:40 am – 8:40 pm
Winter Session all day – and evening. Great first day. I learned a lot. Hope to post thoughts about some of the clinics. Sleep for now.
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Sunday location: Seven | 8:05 am – 10:50 pm
“Out of my way son, you’re using my oxygen.”
As I was working on the Winter Session clinics today I thought of this scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In a good way.
Warning: profanity. Because I’m fairly profane. And a bit tired today.
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Friday location: Seven | Studio || 7:15 am – 11:25 pm
- Business Development: Final day of Seven Winter Session clinic preparation. It’s all come together pretty well. I still have a ton to do on my clinics but everyone else at Seven looks pretty good. I’m excited, and retailers seem to be ready to get here.
- Project: Honey Bikes design. Working on yet another model in the Honey line. Will post more details in a couple weeks. J.
- Note: Nearly all my time over the past few days has been focused on the Winter Session. Next week life will return to the normal.
Post title: Albert Einstein
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Thursday location: Seven | 8:10 am – 9:35 pm
- Research and Development: I’m putting together an updated comprehensive and standardized paint durability testing procedure for Seven Cycles. We’re including scratch resistance, impact resistance, chip resistance, overall toughness, surface hardness, interstitial bond cohesion, rust preventiveness, edge durability, and weather resistance. All told it looks like there will be 17 distinct test attributes. I’m trying to prioritize them now. Not so easy.
- Business: Wrapped up top line performance for January and February at Seven Cycles in a rocking place. Ahead of 2012 Jan-Feb, and on target for 2013. The climb gets a lot steeper for March. Got my crampons on.
- Project: Honey Bikes was just invited to participate in a product test for a big magazine. Looking forward to this. Details to follow soon, I hope.
- Note: Clinics on clinics on clinics.
Post title: Human Cycles: History as Science
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Wednesday location: Seven | 7:35 am – 7:55 pm
- Design: Working with Skunk and John L. on a new series of print ads. Six distinct ads that all provide different and related aspects of Seven. Great photography based on the brochure. Very simple black and white. And we’ve got a series of online ads rolling out, too. Ads are a fun challenge.
- Business Development: Winter Session Clinics almost done – but not necessarily ready, but nearly done. We’ve got 12 people from Seven leading clinics; I’m impressed with how they’ve come together. My clinics are weakest. Fortunately I have a large number of them to give, so that’s good.
- Business Development: Working on the toughest clinic of the Winter Session: Sales Process Best Practices. It’s pulling me under. So many bests to whittle down to 40 minutes.
- Note: I noticed today that work seems follow the Doppler effect with me. It’s crushingly fast as it approaches me. And, as soon as it has passed by me – incomplete – it suddenly looks evenly and reasonably paced. Deadlines crash into ma and then lazily stroll past. It’s sort of the opposite of 20/20 hindsight.
Post title: Uncle Tupelo, High Water
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Tuesday location: Seven | Studio || 7:45 am – 8:10 pm
- Business Development: Seven Cycles Winter Session preparation continues. I’m getting pretty excited about the clinics we’re presenting – and the general discussion topics we’re corralling. At the moment I’m working on connecting Seven’s unique manufacturing process to the retailer sales process – how these two systems can interact and improve the customer experience.
- Recruiting: I was reviewing notes from some research Seven Cycles did a few years ago on the subject of hiring. Everyone has seen the stories of how the cost of a bad hire is 2.5 times more than the salary of the hire. We did some detailed research at Seven, internally, and found this to be pretty close to true for us. The purpose of the research was to help employees better understand how important is each hire. And why we invest, on average, about 9-months and many hundreds of hours on each recruiting search.
- Clothing Design: Having some problems with the Sicily jersey design. Nuances of embroidery are causing some trouble. We’ll get it figured out.
- Product Development: Met with the Ride Studio Cafe crew this evening to work on the new food menu. It’s very different from what we’ve done to date. And decidedly different from anything we’ve seen anywhere else. Get ready – not too soon – and bring your appetite – not too hungry. Our mantras include: Locally sourced; nearly everything we’re serving is locally sourced – about 75% of it is within 100 miles. About 95% is within 250 miles.
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Monday location: Seven | 7:50 am – 9:20 pm
- Business Development: The Seven Winter Session Reboot begins next Monday. We’re confirmed about 40 retailers. I’m re-working some of my clinics. More time always means more work. It’s impossible to talk sales process in 40-minutes. What to leave out and still have meaning for people that have been selling bikes anywhere from 30-years to less than one year.
- Graphic Design: Wrapping up the Sicily jersey design for Ride Studio Cafe. It’s fairly different from anything the Studio has previously done. I look forward to seeing it completed. A bit of a challenging embroidery design.
- Product Development: Just wrapped up the first production design of Honey’s newest bike model: The All Roads. The original idea was suggested by Pamela B. I wish I had thought of this bike.
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Sunday location: Studio | 7:40 am – 5:35 pm
- Time Marker: Worked solo on the bike side today. It was snowing all day so it worked out okay. Still, a lot of bike conversations.
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The latest in the ever expanding Honey Bike Lineup. I’m embarrassed to say that this idea was suggested by someone – I didn’t think of this. I’m embarrassed because this bike is precisely the kind of riding I enjoy the most.
The Honey All Roads bike is exactly what it is named after. This bike is designed to ride on all road conditions – paved, broken, carriage trails, and even well worn single track. Ever get the urge to ride into the that side trail you spot during a long ride? That’s what this bike is for. The All Roads is a lot like a classic ‘Rando’ bike but with the ability to work well under harsher terrain scenarios.
More thoughts to arrive soon. And photos.
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