This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• TechCrunch lays out a formula for putting a value on social networks.
• BusinessWeek explore a survey by architecture firm RMJM Hiller on the best American cities for design. Check out the article and then join the discussion.
• Despite some recent technical problems, Twitter has become a popular tool in politics: Presidential debate and general campaign tool.
• Over at the Sun Microsystems blog, Guy Kawaski explored “the art of change” with Ariane de Bonvoisin, the founder and CEO of The First Thirty Days, Inc.
• Gary Vaynerchuk explains why more people should focus on what they’re good at.
• Seth Godin shares the five elements of marketing.

Every once in a while, young whippersnapper entrepreneurs ask me, an old grizzled entrepreneur, for advice. Of course, I’m always happy to oblige. Here’s my newest: be Teddy Roosevelt, let your personality be what it will be.

Teddy Roosevelt was hyperactive. He could be downright childlike in his enthusiasm for life — more than one contemporary referred to him as a child, though a brilliant one. When he was nominated McKinley’s vice president, the head of the Republican party was aghast — “Don’t any of you realize there’s only one life between this madman and the Presidency?” McKinley, of course, was killed by an assassin within a matter of months and Roosevelt the “madman” became President. Washington society was befuddled, to say the least, by Roosevelt. He could be seen hanging from a rope over the Potomac — Roosevelt was an avid weightlifter so, it’s supposed, this was exercise. He would gallop his horse through Rock Creek Park, shooting his pistol at squirrels. At times, he could be seen in his office lying on the couch, laughing and joyously kicking his feet up in the air. In short, he was a bit of a nut. He was also a great leader with a passion for fairness and justice, and a belief in America that reshaped our world.

The lesson? Let your personality go. Years ago, I used to worry about “acting professional.” Now, I just worry about being productive, about winning at the game of being an entrepreneur. I’m hyperactive. I’ve got an odd sense of humor. I’m obsessive. I can get overly anxious. I don’t try to suppress these traits anymore. I revel in who I am. Do the people I work with always enjoy these aspects of my personality? Highly doubtful. Do they get 100% of me, unfiltered in my commitment to my business and their personal and professional development? Absolutely. Because I’ve embraced my inner Teddy Roosevelt.

National Public Radio — which I listen to religiously — needs a rating system. Perhaps an audible buzz followed by an earnest voice stating, “Warning: the following has been rated HTTWP.”

Because this morning, driving home from church, I nearly puked in my car.

“Weekend essayist” Diane Roberts was droning on about why we are afraid of Michelle Obama. Apparently, Michelle Obama represents a terrifying archetype: an angry black woman.

(A Blogenberg digression: First of all, Michelle Obama doesn’t seem angry to me. She’s kind of hot, if you ask me. Second of all, I’ve seen an angry black woman up close. It’s my wife about twice a week — much scarier than anything Diane Roberts thinks we think we see in Michelle Obama.)

According to Roberts, to the rest of us white people Michelle Obama seems downright terrifying and threatening. Michelle Obama even does a “terrorist fist jab.” No kidding, that’s what Roberts said — a “terrorist fist jab.”

But what made me nearly throw up just thirty minutes after taking the Lord’s blood and body into mine, was the holier than thou drip, drip of Roberts’ “essay.” It’s the very nauseating enlightened white person making sure we all know he or she isn’t like those other white people. You know what, Ms. Roberts, I’m thrilled you’re a “good” white person, not an “uppity” white person.

Just warn us next time, so I don’t puke in my car.

And by the way, it’s a fist bump, not a “fist jab.” And even old white guys like me do it on occasion.

This week’s recommended reading from the folks at Blogenberg…

• Earlier this week, NPR ran an interesting segment on the difficult decision facing Iraqi reporters working for American news organizations - stay at home and risk death or emigrate to the U.S. as a refugee and start all over again.
• Encyclopedia Brittanica goes wiki; allows users to edit entries.
• We couldn’t resist linking to one of the greatest sports commercials ever - Nike’s latest Tiger Woods ad.
• Is green noise actually making it tougher to protect the environment?
• By limiting acceptance speeches to 5 words, the Webby Awards offers a lesson in how limits can strengthen branding.
• In “a clash between traditional business models and the emerging conventions of the Web,” the Associated Press today will meet with the Media Bloggers Association to discuss complaints filed by the AP that bloggers who quote as little as four words of AP-produced material are infringing on the AP’s trademark rights. Read more: New York Times, TechCrunch, Social Media Today.
• A commentary on “experts” who don’t use the technology themselves.
• Two Tim Russert tributes you may not have seen this week (and, for us, the most interesting we’ve seen): The New York Times’ Adam Nagourney reflected on his time with Tim Russert the political operative and Matt Lauer interviewed Tim’s son, Luke, on the Today Show.

Regular Blogenberg visitors (and I remain grateful and mystified by the number!) know that I will punch any entrepreneur who says, “Now that I own my own business I can take a spinning class in the middle of the day!” First I puke. Then I punch ‘em.

I just filled out a survey for entrepreneurs. I don’t usually waste my time with such, but it was an interesting research project. It reminded me that the only real entrepreneurial “work out” routine is “risk, and focus, and sacrifice, and risk, and…”

If risk doesn’t get your blood rushing — in a good way — don’t start your own business. As your business matures, risk never goes away. It just matures right along with your business. When I started, the risk was: Can I pay my mortgage this month? Will my retirement plan involve being a greeter at Wal-Mart? Today, every strategic step risks this living entity I’ve built, with walls, computers and, yes, people that I care about.

You better be able to focus on no more than two things: business and one other. I would hope, for your sake, that the one other is family. It is for me. Whatever it is, I don’t believe you can build a business and focus on more than one other thing. Just doing two is exhausting.

Finally and complementary to focus, you better be able to drop some of things you love for the sake of loving your business. I love golf. I haven’t picked up a club in at least six years. That’s waiting for retirement.

Because when you’re in business, it’s “Risk, and, Focus, and, Sacrifice, and…” Then, in retirement you can shove your golf club in the spokes of somebody’s spinning cycle.

This week’s recommended reading from the folks at Blogenberg (sorry we’re late this week)…

• The Atlantic asks: “Is Google making us dumber?“
• John Jantsch helps businesses understand the hierarchy of social media.
• Learn business and leadership lessons from George Washington in this BNET podcast.
• National Geographic has posted this striking series of photos showing how Africa has changed over the last 35 years.
• If you haven’t been following NASA’s updates on its Mars rover, Phoenix, check out Phoenix’ website (and follow the rover on twitter - we do! It’s a great example of how a federal agency can test the online social networking waters).
• On The Media takes an interesting look at why MSNBC’s ratings are up and considers what the long-term impact on the network will be.
• New research suggests that instead of trying to remember that thing on the tip of your tongue, you should just look it up… right way.

Worst mid-life crisis I’ve ever seen: I’m not making this up. I saw a mini-van with spinners. The fake, plastic spinners at that. What depths could this man have sunk to that he thinks the answer is to put spinners on a mini-van? Oh the humanity.

If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today there would be no Teddy Bears: I’m reading Edmund Morris’ brilliant The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for exactly one year to the day. In that one year, he completely reformed the navy’s personnel procedures, restructured naval war planning, kick-started the production of new warships that would make this country a world power, and strategically positioned the current fleet to be ready to annihilate the Spanish navy in the forthcoming Spanish-American war. All in one year. I have worked in the federal government. I know lots of people working in it now. Many of them are extremely talented. But today, it’s practically impossible to just get, for example, a federal rule written and published in one year.

This is going to be a very long election season. I just watched Campbell Brown of CNN break down the clothing choices of Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain using a telestrator.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg:

• What newspapers still need to learn from the web.
• The Economist covers new research on the most common paths to the CEO’s chair.
• On the 40th Anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, NPR carried this excellent interview with Ted Sorenson, a close friend of the Kennedy brothers.
• Business Week provides some advise on how to be sure “you have a preferred place in your target customer’s mind.”
• When you read this post from Jonathan Schwartz at Sun, don’t miss the point in all the tech-speak: If young people are the heaviest media consumers and most young people live Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Africa (”BRICA”), then this has profound implications for media media companies of all kinds (from software companies to news organizations).
• As part of a fantastic program on media and space, On The Media included this segment on how architects sometimes use the Internet to build hype around attractive designs of buildings that would not otherwise be built.
• More praise for Southwest. One blogger’s experience with how the company weathers hard times.

My daughter, it seems, can get a job by just walking into a store without saying anything.

She’s a very pretty girl and she looks a good bit older than her actual age. It’s become rather routine, when she walks into one of the very trendy youth and young-adult oriented clothing stores, for the manager to ask her her age. “Oh, you’re way too young,” the managers always respond. One of them explained to her my daughter that if she were older, she would have offered her a job. Apparently these stores like to hire very pretty girls to work there because it fits the image the stores are trying to project.

Does the amount of attention my daughter gets because of her looks bother, even scare me? Well, let’s put it this way: given that she can get a job without talking, I’ve just told my financial advisor to transfer her college savings account to a different type of account, one titled, Blogenberg Porsche Savings Account.
——————————————————————–

My daughter: When I get my license can I have the SUV?
Me: I don’t know what we’ll do when you and your brother get your licenses.
My daughter: But I need to have the SUV. A girl in an SUV looks powerful, in control.
Me: Oh.
My daughter: Well, I mean, it depends on what kind of sunglasses she’s wearing.