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

• Similar to a new initiative from one of our clients, Jacqueline Novogratz discusses how capital investments can help build a sustainable future for the world’s poorest.
• We don’t know about you, but we think this is way cooler than “regular” hockey and we love regular hockey.
• PR Newser gathers (largely negative) reactions of reputation experts to last Friday’s statement by Tiger Woods.
• David Alston considers how to define “community equity” by identifying those questions and factors that add value.
• Seth Godin reminds us to remember the importance of questioning the status quo by understanding the manipulation of ideas.

Yesterday, I hopped into a taxi at the Nashville airport. On the dashboard, a photo of a beautiful one-year-old girl was taped. I asked the driver if that was his daughter. We started talking. He asked where I was from. I told him, Washington, DC.

He asked how the economy was in Washington. I told him, better, but still bad. He said Nashville was the same, that he had lost his job in manufacturing and was now driving a cab full-time. He said he doesn’t think Washington, DC has what it takes any more to fix the crisis.

“I don’t think the men and women in Congress care about America,” he said. “When I came to this country 17 years ago from Ethiopia, people in Congress cared about this country. They were Republicans and Democrats, but they worked together to help the country because they love this country. Now, they don’t care about America. All they care about is fighting with each other. All they care about is winning elections. They don’t care about America.

“That is why 3rd world countries never get better. The leaders are always fighting, trying to get power from each other. But they don’t take care of the country.”

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

• Mashable talks about Please Rob Me, which has been getting considerable attention for pointing out a glaring drawback to updating Twitter locations.
• We like photography. A lot. Via Jason Kottke, the 2010 World Press Photo winners.
• With giants like Facebook and Twitter dominating our attention, Chris Brogan reminds us not to forget the little side streets.
• Toyota uses Olympic ads to repair its brand.

I do a good bit of media training. For one federal contract, I have visited and spent a better part of the day with community-based organizations. I help them develop a communications strategy and then conduct media training. If I had a nickel for each time I heard, at the end of the day, “We were dreading this, but this was fun, just terrific” (or something like that), I’d have a lot of nickels. I like to think I’m pretty good. But I’m wondering if it’s more that most consultants just plain stink.

Perhaps it’s because when I visit, I listen. I never show up with a projector and PowerPoint. I don’t pass around handouts. I don’t stand up and give a lecture. That would be easy. I do something much harder. I lead a discussion. I listen. For a consultant, that’s risky. It means I never know where the conversation will go. It means I am never sure that I will have something to offer the group I am working with, never sure I will have the answers. It means I’m nervous starting every session.

But I guess it means I don’t stink.

Finally, my retirement planning has taken shape. My teenage daughter got a job. She will be able to buy (most of) her own clothes. I will be able to retire some day.

We are in the middle of blizzard redux. The first blizzard was Friday through Saturday. Today is Wednesday.

I spent the first one snowed in with five teenagers (my two youngest kids and three of their friends). That was noisy and messy. I’m spending today’s blizzard just with my dog — my kids are at friend’s and my wife is still “stuck” in the Caribbean visiting her mother. This blizzard is quiet and neat. I like the first blizzard — filled with teens, noise, mess — better. More energy.
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Reaction to my post yesterday, in which I mentioned that my wife makes great chili, got me thinking. Every man out there who has a woman who makes great chili is a man who “married up.”

First, the cool stuff. The Blogenberg legion knows that I believe in making money and doing right. This may be the coolest project to help make this happen that I’m yet to come across. The Hitachi Foundation has just launched the Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs program. Young people (very young to me!) ages 18-29 who started their business to both generate revenue and help people in this country who are being economically left behind could be awarded up to $50,000 over two years. Plus they get other support, of the non-dollar kind, to help build the business. The first-round application deadline is March 22nd. (Disclosure: The Hitachi Foundation is a client.)
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The weird stuff. A good-looking young woman whom I don’t know asked to friend me on Facebook. Turns out all of her friends are guys whose first name starts with Jeff. (That’s my given name though I make my dog call me Blogenberg.) She’s collecting Jeffs. She’s got some sort of Jeff Fetish. I mean, I know that science has documented a direct link between the name Jeff and virility, but I turned down the friend request.
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Because of the snow that has turned Washington, DC into a ski vacation destination, my wife is still “stuck” in the Caribbean visiting her mother. And school has been shut down since last Friday, and will be through next Monday (a holiday). My house is being run by teenagers — my kids and their friends — and a dog who is trying to steal and eat every bagel or snack I bought for the longest snowstorm. Send help.
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At least I am eating healthy. Last night, my son, his friend and me cooked dinner. We put nacho chips in a platter. Grated cheese over it. Poured leftover chili (my wife makes the best chili in the world) over it. Grated more cheese on top of that. Microwaved it. Then more chili on top. Dinner!

They may not make the local news, but a snowstorm like the one that hit us this weekend (27 inches) brings out real heroes. I saw one in action yesterday — and it was me, Blogenberg.

The television signal went out. Many men would have panicked, it being just about 24 hours before Super Bowl kickoff. Not me. No, Blogenberg went into Super-Blogenberg mode. I dug out the garage door. I got the extension ladder and carried it 70 feet through nearly 3-foot-deep snow. I put the ladder up and climbed to the roof. Unable to reach the satellite dish, I climbed back down the ladder, trudged back to the garage, and got a paint roller, which I attached to an extension pole. Back through the deep snow I went. Back up the ladder I climbed. I was able to clean the dish with the paint roller.

Back inside, the television worked.

Yes, the next time you see a super hero changing in a phone booth, it will be me, Super-Blogenberg. (Or it will be me, Super-Blogenberg, getting arrested for changing in public since there are no more phone booths.)

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

• Christopher Penn imagines an interesting possibility for Apple’s iPad.
• Not sure if this is news, but a having a house of cool ideas is, well, just stinking cool.
• Here’s an interesting concept: is your business wired to make money or wired to care?
• The recent problems with Toyota’s quality control demonstrates an important tension between growing sustainably and maintaining quality.
• Pew reports that social networking is up, and blogging is down, among teens and young adults.
• Business Week discusses the value of design in business processes.