Erich Stauffer

Author: Erich Stauffer

  • Release

    Erich wrote an amazing article about taking advantage of this economic situation of a lifetime, and it really got my wheels going.  Pun intended.  It’s funny how the world works for us some time.  He happened to mention a quote from the Richard Donner movie, “The Goonies”.  Why did he have the Goonies on his mind?  I don’t know.  But earlier in the day, I happened to be driving up the Oregon Coast on the way to a seminar, and I stopped by Cannon Beach, where much of the movie was filmed.  In fact, I took this picture of the HUGE rock that the pirate ship sails out of in the end of the film.

    Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, OR
    Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, OR

    It was kind of cool to me that Erich and I were thinking about the same movie at the same time, without ever talking to each other about it.  It’s almost as if sometimes there is something beyond our five senses that we connect with.  Some may call it a sixth sense, others might call it God, sci-fi geeks may call it “the force”, etc., but its happened to me enough times, that I am beginning to really believe in it.

    I was visiting my children this week with my mother (their grandmother, natch) and I noticed how much she was concerned about the timing of everything that we did during our air travel.  When it was time to board the airplane (Southwest Airlines, cattle-call style) she was very concerned about making sure that we got on board as soon as possible, in order to get the best seat.  I told her that it would be ok and that we should not stress out about it and trust that the line would move at the right pace and that we would find the perfect seats when it was our turn.  She still hurried ahead and was able to get an aisle seat like she wanted.  But when the plane was done boarding, we looked around and saw many aisle seats still remained open, as the flight was not full.  Something told me that we would be ok to wait at this point.  This happened a few different times on our trip.

    Now, I know that this site is called Managing Actions, but what do you do when you have managed your actions to their limit?  Sometimes, you can do everything right, and the plane gets delayed, the company cuts your job, you slip on a banana peel, etc.  There are something in life that you just cannot manage completely.  It is in these moments that we need to let go.  There are mechanisms and systems in place in the world that will catch you.  There is a balance between managing our actions and flowing with the world that is managing itself around us.

    Just as I was leaving Cannon Beach, I noticed a marble block that had something carved into it.  I came closer to examine it.  I took a couple of pictures.

    Release
    Release
    Release Sign
    Release Sign

    Getting back to Erich’s article making my wheels spin, I love the way that this piece captures the struggle for us to let go of what we have always known.  The world is changing around us.  If we hang on to that old world for too long, soon we will be grasping dust.  If an opportunity presents itself, you have to first let go of your current reality in order to grab hold of the new one.  Even if you have a great system for managing your actions, you may have to let go of a few things in order to experience something greater.  Believe, trust, and release.

    At the end of my visit with my kids yesterday, as my mother and I enjoyed arriving 30 minutes early to our destination in Phoenix, we both laughed as our bags were the first ones out of the baggage chute.  It had been one of those trips where everything fell right into place.  We let go of our stress and worry and let “something” take care of the things that we couldn’t take care of.  Now, because we were so early, we ended up waiting 40 minutes for my dad to pick us up from the curb.  So, I guess nothing is a perfect rule, but I am closer to believing that there is a larger flowing river going on around us.  Sometimes it is best to quit swimming upstream, and go with the flow for a while.

  • Erich Stauffer is Active in the Fight Against Homelessness by Supporting Homeward Bound of Indiana

    During these tough times it so easy for us get caught up in the news headlines about a tough economy and rising unemployment. We have become quick to shut our doors in an attempt to “weather the storm” that we hear and read about everyday. Despite the hardships that we have all gone through, almost all of us can say that we at least have a safe, dry and warm house to go to at the end of the day. We have so many blessings to be thankful for in our lives.

    What if you didn’t have doors to shut, or a safe/warm home to protect you or your family from the storms of life? Homelessness is a very real and growing issue in all the communities where we live and work. So many people have lost their jobs due to a tough economy and cannot provide that safe haven for themselves or their family. This year our team at Erich Stauffer is joining thousands of Hoosiers to raise money to provide housing and fight homelessness in Indiana, and we want you to be a part of our team.

    On Sunday, April 26 at 2:00 PM, we will be joining hundreds of thoughtful Hoosiers for a 5k walk at the Millcreek Civic Center in Chesterfield, IN. We would love to have you walk with us to show your support for this wonderful organization that helps those in need. You can register to walk from the Home page of the Homeward Bound website.

    In tough times it is easy to grasp onto what we have and lose sight of what we have to give. I sincerely thank you for your thoughtful gift. You are truly making a difference in the lives of others.

    Thank you for caring,

    The Team at Erich Stauffer

  • Why Is the Easter Bunny Smiling?

    I picked up a chocolate bunny at Cracker Barrel and noticed the smirk on its face.  What is it hiding? Does it even know its hollow inside? Or does it know that its sweet, creamy, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  Does it know that you will be five pounds heavier after eating it?  Or is it just the result of the mold maker, the designer at the factory or the man in the chair waving his mouse around Autocad clicking and typing in ALL CAPS as he be.

    What is the point of Easter, anyway? Is it to fill our baskets with things we shouldn’t? What is an easter egg hunt and what does it have to do with easter bunnies? Rabbits don’t lay eggs and eggs traditionally aren’t hollow inside like the chocolate bunny.  When did we get so far removed from the Easter story of Jesus of Nazareth sacrificing himself once for the sins of the many, only to defeat death and rise again.  Go ahead, Thomas, touch His wounds.  See how they are healed.  Now do you believe? Blessed are those who believe without touching, which is all of us, today, who believe in what Jesus did that weekend.

  • Business Success

    At Erich Stauffer, we are concerned about one thing…making sure that your business is and remains successful. We believe that our success will ultimately be defined by our ability to lift others up and help them succeed. At Erich Stauffer, our way of lifting others up is to design premier websites, provide reliable hosting services, and engage in beneficial promotion activities to help market your website and your business.

    The success of your business could be defined by a number of different metrics; increased sales/profit, increased customers, increased products/services per customer, increased locations, etc. To achieve your metrics for success, there are a few basic necessities to consider in today’s environment.Subscribe to Erich Stauffer's RSS Feed.

    • Visibility
    • Good Communication
    • Providing Value For Your Customer
    • Education About Your Products/Services
    • Education About Your Business’s Message, Mission or Vision

    In today’s economic environment, consumers are doing more research than they have ever done before. They research what products and services are available to fit their needs, and a big part of that research is about the company or business that is selling those products or services.

    So how does that effect you, and how can we help?

    Having an attractive website to gain visitors, and having an informative website that is easy to navigate will help the consumer (and hopefully your future customer) feel comfortable and confidant in your products/services and your business. Promotion activities will increase the visibility of your website to get consumers to come to your site, and our web design services will ensure a pleasant experience when they get there.

    Get a free quote today!

  • A Smattering of Twitter Directories

    Twitter, a micro-blogging service which allows users to post up to 140 characters at a time, is still in its research phase, but in Web 2.0 terms, its fast becoming a juggernaut. You may have noticed its use in mass media like CNN and NPR. Although Twitter usage has grown 1689% in the last year (2008), it is still dwarfed by Facebook which has more than 175 million users compared to Twitter’s 1.78 million. It may be unfair to compare the two however, as they are two completely different types of services. Facebook is more full featured while Twitter does one thing, but does it very well. One thing they don’t offer is a directory services, so a few companies have been filling that need and piggybacking on Twitter’s success by creating Twitter directories.

    Currently the five major Twitter directories are Just Tweet It, We Follow, Twit Town, Twit Dir, and Twibs. Just Tweet It is currently the most popular, but Twibs and We Follow have a strong chance of overtaking Just Tweet It. Twibs is a business directory and is currently paying for online advertising until their SEO base can allow their site to rise to the top. We Follow is ran by Digg founder, Kevin Rose so it is sure to be a player, but in this Economy 2.0, nothing is for certain. One thing you can count on is content and right now the only ones creating it are the Twitter users themselves. If that dries up, Twitter, and all its directories, go with it. That does not seem to be happening though. Even MySpace, which has stopped growing as fast, has not started to decline even in the face of its biggest competitor, Facebook. There is probably even room for Twitter competition like Plurk in this vast, virtual place we call the Internet.

  • Is a “Green” Website Possible?

    What makes a website “green”? Green can be defined as using less energy because the less energy used, the less needs produced. Fossil fuels are a large part of energy production, but they also create gasses that harm our environment. There are things we can do in the real world to be more green. A home, for example, is much easier to make green by adding insulation or turning down the thermostat. Buying a vehicle that uses less energy is also considered green, but how can a website be green? Lets take a look at how a website works from a physical standpoint and then from a virtual one to determine if a website can indeed become green.

    A website is hosted on a computer running somewhere on this planet Earth. That computer is most likely a server running in a data center, which may or may not be eco-friendly. It is probably greener than it was a couple of years ago due to computer chip manufacturing companies like Intel and AMD who have been producing chips that use less and less energy. This helps cut electricity to run the servers and in air conditioning to cool them down.

    When a website is requested from anywhere in the world, the requesting computer is also using electricity as well as the all the networking equipment along the path to get from the data center to the computer. Initially you might think that adding up the servers at the data center, the hubs, switches, and routers along the way, and your computer might add up to a lot of energy and that websites might not have a chance to be green. And you would be right, but consider that these things are already on anyway and it doesn’t take any more power to run them whether you access a website or not and you might be feeling a little bit better about surfing.

    From a web designer’s standpoint, there are some things we can do. We can make black backgrounds which reduce the amount of energy cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors need to display the website, but everyday more people are switching to using liquid crystal displays (LCD) instead, which use the same amount of energy regardless of the color. Not every design can be done in black and so there are other things we can do, as web designers. We can encourage users not to print forms and create PDF versions or custom web forms to cut down on paper. Sometimes being green is more than just saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases. Sometimes its about saving trees which also help reduce greenhouse gases.

    So can a website be green? Absolutely. If all things remain the same and the only change we make as web designers is to keep the environment in our design process, then the website can be green. It is up to us, up to all of us, to do our due diligence to preserve our environment and continue to innovate in ways that help us all. If you need help innovating your website, consider the Indianapolis web design company, Erich Stauffer.

  • This is Our Time

    Like the kid said in the Goonies under the wishing well, this is our time, down here.  Down here in the recession is our time to shine.  The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, thinks this moment of our lives will shape the next 25 years.  The decisions we make now are the ones that people will be telling stories about for years to come.  It’s make or break time.

    Humans have a way of evolving faster when they have to.  What I mean by evolving is probably more like innovating, but its innovation for survival’s sake, which is more closely related to evolution.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  If you need to eat, you just might start thinking harder about all the different ways in which you could make money to buy food.

    This is a period of paradigm shifting.  People are rethinking everything they do.  They are starting to ask themselves, “Why am I doing this?”.  On a national scale we are asking ourselves, “Tell me again, why are we at war?”  And when we go to do something we normally do, we notice our habits are changing.  I’m reminded of the old poem:

    Use it up

    Wear it out

    Make it do

    Or do without

    I think there is a lot of people making their cars run longer, upgrading their computer parts instead of buying new, cutting back on cable programming and spending more time at home.  But if you take each one of these scenarios, there is a flip-side for the economy.  Car maintenance shops have increased business.  Computer repair shops are now busier than ever.  Low-budget entertainment like Red Box rentals and Netflix are increasing.

    How many of you are starting to eat all of the food in your pantry? How many of you are selling your unused goods on Ebay or Craigslist? How many of you have started a second job or business? How many of you have gone through your home and unplugged unnecessary appliances to save money on electricity? How many think that these are things you should have been doing all along but never did? How are you going to live going forward? What will you do when things turn around? Will you go back to your old ways? What can you do to improve the life of yourself, your family, or a neighbors life today?

    This is our time.  How we spend it is up to us.  Lets make it memorable.  Lets improve things for all mankind.  Lets bring developing countries up with us.  Lets unite as a world and stop tearing each other down.  Lets use the economy as an excuse to do the things we should have been doing all along.

  • Sacrifice for the Greater Good?

    I saw a film last night about sacrifice.  Sacrificing the lives of a limited number of people in order to save an even greater number of people.  President Obama also lifted the stem cell reseach ban which prevented human stem cells from being destroyed and researched for possible future organ growth.  Again, sacrificing the lives of a limited number of people in order to save an even greater number.  They both raised some interesting questions in my mind.

    Why can’t we just have everything that we want, all the time?  Why must there be a cost associated with such a great good as saving human lives?  What other costs do we have with the good that we want for ourselves and our loved ones?  Well, if we decide to get married, then we put away the complete freedom to to what we want with our time.  We now have to share our time (among other things).  The same things happens when we have a child, and another child, and another child.  For every new relationship that is added into the family, there is a trade off of the kind of time that can be spent with other members of the family.  For many people, having children is the goal of the marriage, but that same goal can end up poisoning the marriage, since the kind of time spent working on the marital relationship changes so drastically.

    Time is limited.  We cannot just add something new without subtracting something current, in most cases.  Any changes that we make to our live will be adding or subtracting something.  When we subtract something, usually we see the replacement as greater than what was subtracted.  But, that doesn’t mean that thing that was subtracted is without value.  In fact, it may be something of HUGE value.  We just have to understand what is truly important to us on a core level and always work toward the greater good.

    Be careful sacrificing things for others, it may not be your place to do so.  Even so, we have to be willing to accept the consequences.  Go on and see what your changes will cost, and if it is worth it.

  • A Legacy of Managing Actions

    If you followed the news this week, you probably heard the story of the 4 men who were knocked out of their boat by a wave off of the coast of Florida.  Two of the men were NFL players.  One of them was from my hometown and a childhood friend of my brother.  His name was Marquis Cooper.  Many people in the metro Phoenix area followed the story.  Not as much for Marquis and his football career, but because of his father and the relationship he had with this community through being a sports broadcaster here for over almost 20 years.

    Bruce Cooper’s most recognizable quality was his love for life.  His next most obvious quality was his love for his family.  Bruce always spoke of the respect of the game and the honor of being a good sport.  He coached his son in community sports all the way up to high school and always supported Marquis in what he chose to do with his life.  They were more than father and son….the were best friends.

    On Tuesday night, a prayer service was held at Central Christian Church in Mesa, AZ.  It was to pray for the rescue and/or recovery of the 3 remaining men still lost at sea.  I was moved by the entire situation and attended the service.  Leading the prayer and scripture reading was a young man that I knew from my younger days.  He was even a couple of years younger than Marquis.  He spoke with poise, respect, care, and compassion.  He was no longer the boy I knew from my youth.  He was now a man.  There was little doubt where he had learned so much of his touch as a pastor.  His name was Jeremy Jernigan, son of the church’s senior pastor, Cal Jernigan.

    As I watched Jeremy comfort the family and indeed all of us who were hurting, still reflecting on how all of this was affecting Bruce, I was struck by how proud of his son Cal would be if he were in town, and not away on church business.  There was so much of Cal in Jeremy.  Both were gifted speakers, but there was also the clear evidence of repetition and refinement of their speaking craft.  I could almost see the father as I looked up on stage at the son.  As we bowed our heads for prayer, I asked God to give strength to Marquis to hold on, and that help was coming.  I prayed for his father to have strength to lead the family through their fears.  I prayed for God to give comfort to everyone.  I particularly thought of Bruce.  Then, to my surprise, the voice from the stage was no longer Jeremy’s.  Cal had broken from his business trip to be back for this service.  He was now speaking of comfort and hope to the family.  He prioritized this service over everything else, and came to give support to a grieving family.

    The legacy of both fathers is clear.  Marquis will have a memorial fund set up in his name, and his father will oversee and support its impact on the community that he had lived for all of his life.  Jeremy will continue to grow into his own kind of pastor, but will cling tightly to all that he has assimilated from his mentor, his father.

    The least we can do is be responsible for our own actions.  If we are blessed, we will be able to see what legacy will remain from those actions.  What can we do today that will remain?