Convergence of Relevant Stuff

This letter was sent to Move On members-

Hundreds of thousands of us nominated and voted, and now the results are in—we know where to focus MoveOn’s efforts for the next year.

We asked you to vote for your three top goals, but after looking at the results, it’s clear that four rose above and beyond the rest.

Here’s how it worked out, in descending order:

1. Universal Health Care

2. Economic Recovery and Job Creation

3. Build a Green Economy and Stop Climate Change

4. End the War in Iraq

(Check the P.S. for a link to the full results, including the percentage of folks who voted for each goal.)

The agenda you set is bold, ambitious—and it is exactly the change America needs.

Of course, these aren’t the only things we’ll work on together—we’ll work on other issues as they come up, too. But the four big goals listed above will be our top priorities.

Over the course of the week, we received more than 78,000 nominations, 1.6 MILLION ratings and 806,707 votes.

And we also received a lot of emails—stories from so many MoveOn members who’re personally affected by these issues. Notes like the one below are a reminder of why these goals are so critical.

“I lost a daughter to cancer in July after a fight she couldn’t win because she had no insurance. When President-elect Obama said no one in these United States should die of cancer because they didn’t have insurance, I knew we had to work to get him elected. My daughter had to go to a county hospital where they died one by one in Houston, TX, one of the cities with the best cancer hospitals. That is when I joined MoveOn and worked with them online and in my city to register and get out the message to vote. My daughter passed away wishing her death would not be in vain. Yes We Did.”—Martha T., Abilene, TX

Click here to read more of these stories on each of the four priorities—and to see the full results for all 10 finalists:

Move on poll results

So, thank you for lending your thoughts, your nominations, and your ratings to this process. It’s a huge, exciting agenda!

The high incidents of layoffs in America gives us all room to pause and reflect on the state of the economy and  where the job market is heading.  It is a  difficult and dreadful situation, and it is poised to get worse in the next few month.

Seth Curry is becoming a scoring machine at Liberty College in Virginia. He is Stephen Cury’s brother and according to Steph Curry, Seth has the potential to be even better. There apparently was a lot of sibling rivalry while growing up; but this served to make them both better. Seth Curry is number 17th in scoring by the nations freshmen, so this give you a good idea about his potential.

The situation in Green Bay continues to drag out and become a distraction. Now the Packers are saying that they possibly will pay Brett Favre not to play; to the tune of $20 million dollars over 10 years. The deal could effectively end Favre’s bid to return to the Packers, or any other team for that matter. This is an an odd scenario; but it appears the Packer have offered up the deal. No one knows the particulars of the deal at this point, but it appears that Favre is at least open to it. Who wouldn’t be?

It is obvious that only Brett Favre knows what is important to him and what his motivation to retun to football is all about. The Packers, still apparently are not willing to see him play for another NFL team; so they are in effect buying out his contract. One could speculate all day long regarding the “whys” of this situation. To do so would be entirely hypothetical. Whenever we tread down the “what if” hypothetical road, we are asking for trouble. On first blush it seems to be a rather odd offer. It is a payoff to in essence, make the Favre situation go away. The million dollar question(s); Why is Favre even considering it? Do the Packer know more than they have been saying from the beginning? The short answer to question no 2 is Yes! Packer management has said this has been in the works for quite sometime. I guess that is news to us!

Whatever the reason, which probably will come out in the next few days, I believe this entire situation was handled in the wrong way by both parties, but more so by the Packers. What can the Packer front office learn from this situation? Take care of loose ends on the front end and don’t let anything come back to haunt you in the future. The Packers will do well to take heed to that advice and not let what appears to be a “loose cannon”, in this case Favre, derail both your plans and your process. It can be quite expensive to fix; perhaps a $20 Million dollar fix.

The Chief Executive Officer of a company is the most important person within the company structure. The CEO’s responsibility is to relay the vision of the company, both internally and externally. The CEO is responsible for setting the perception and tone of the company, while skillfully laying the groundwork, through strategic networking to foster the continued economic well being of the company.

The number one goal of the CEO is for the vision to be relayed clearly to the external partners, consumers, business leaders, and vendors, while insuring that all employees understand the vision, direction and goals of the company. The CEO must be adept at insuring that all employees can skillfully advance these goals while conducting their day to day business. Most of all the CEO must be proactive in in identifying hostile challenges and acting strategically to nullifying them before they become unmanageable.

It is a tall order. Many MBA Degreed professionals have entered into CEO positions only to find the waters tough in navigating through the Maze of a constantly changing business landscape. The challenges of today’s economy make these goals and success in achieving them, a challenge to say the least., What are rates of success for CEO faced with these challenges? There are many examples.

Larry Page was the founding CEO of Google, under his leadership Google grew to over 200 employees and profitability, before he moved to his new position of President of products. Because of Google vision and it penchants to be on the cutting edge of innovation and growth. Google grew to unprecedented growth, evolving into the premier search engine on the Internet. The Vision that fueled Google growth was fueled by free technological thinkers and the ability to think and anticipate trends in technology.

Page had the vision to create a high tech environment, where people really felt comfortable working at Google. The vision was to create an atmosphere conducive to the free expression of ideas; While presenting user technology that met the needs of changing technological innovation that many suffer so the internet demanded.

Google today has involved in a number of areas, now offering free internet mail series incorporating the blogs, document management, photo management a and a number of other applications that allow users to access information at anytime, from any computer. Sort of a traveling office, all you need is access to a computer. Google join the internet advertising mix, by creating Ad word, which has generated hundred of dollars in online advertising sales.

Google growth is unprecedented and today they are the most innovation engine company, out distancing Yahoo it nearest competitor. The recent news that Microsoft and my offer to purchase Google, as created quite a buzz, because of the ramifications. So Google is faced with an immediate challenge that threatens it very existing. Google leadership namely it current CEO, will have to find a quick answer top the advances of Microsoft.

As you can see from the Google example, the Leadership of the CEO is critical in order to meet challenges, not only form competitors, but form a changing business marketplace. The mold has been cracked and a new one has evolved. Creating a need for all companies to think strategically not just for profit now, but for their very survival. Strategic moves from competitors to take over the market share through consolidation caught Google by surprise. The CEO was caught napping. This cannot in any way happen in today’s market place.