Check out this video of my friend Ginger Costa Jackson singing in Verbier, Switzerland with Rufus Wainwright! I was so delighted by this I just had to share it. Ginger is one of the most talented and beautiful young opera singers.

I met her in Utah and she once gave us a little performance at our house. Set on the side of a huge mountain, this is a rather large house with a cavernous living room. She shook the rafters. The sound of her powerful voice traveled through my open windows, down the mountain and caused all the neighborhood dogs to howl. Astounding.

Ginger now performs all over the world and in New York City at The Metropolitan Opera.

This also happens to be my favorite song from Rufus. Little Sister is a sad song set in paradoxically cheerful music. The lyrics are bizarre but profound if you dig deep.

Are you judging your personal, professional, and organizational results on a superficial basis? Do you just ask, “Did it work?” When the results are great, people celebrate. When the results don’t meet expectations, people panic or start pointing fingers. I think that’s the typical response. Very much like the New York Yankees under the reign of King George Steinbrenner. It’s the reason why turnover was so horribly high, Brian Cashman and Joe Torre being the exceptions.

Process over results. You should be asking, “Regardless of the results, did we go through the right process?” Design the right process and you can confidently stick to it. The results will still be highly uncertain but you won’t blame yourself for random effects outside your control. You’ll also be able to stay faithful to a good process despite less than stellar results.

My first impression of Seth Godin upon meeting him was that he is an extraordinarily efficient person.  You wouldn’t think of a “creative” as efficient in the sense that a supply chain manager, hamburger flipper, accountant, or the Octomom are efficient.  But Seth conducted interviews with about thirty candidates for the SAMBA program in under three hours.  He made up his mind on who fit perfectly soon after and, it turns out, he picked an amazing group.

How amazing? That remains to be seen. Everyone in the group was so remarkable, I felt like the straggler who needed to keep up, especially when falling countless times skate skiing.  Of the SAMBA crew, I was probably the least familiar with Seth’s ideas.

My talented SAMBA fellows are all immensely grateful to Seth for the time and energy he gifted to us.  We all want to thank him in some way.  But I think the greatest thanks we can give to a teacher who is so generous is to take what he taught us, practice it in the real world, change the world for the better, and succeed beyond his wildest imagination.  Then we can extend the change he initiated by teaching others.  So we’ll see just how amazing we can be.

Here are a few lessons that made the greatest change in me and they have little to do with an MBA:

Be Brave. You can start off a little clueless.  You can even start off as a complete outsider.  You can lack the resources others more fortunate start out with.  But you must have courage – this is the foundation of it all.  Everything else can be made up for right?

Be Purposeful. Some might say this is the foundation, even more important than bravery.  Maybe.  I think that if you’re brave and you’re willing to venture out and explore, you’ll find your purpose eventually.  So instead of sitting there trying to come up with the perfect and grand purpose for your life, get a little gumption and get in the mix!  You’ll find your purpose if you’re looking for it and doing something.

Seek Change. Change yourself.  Change others.  Change the world.  Change is painful but necessary for growth.  Real, substantive change has the potential to create the greatest value.  This is good advice whether you’re a college senior, corporate warrior, first-time entrepreneur, business mogul, parent, or spouse.  Back to the foundation – serious change requires bravery and purpose.

Be Generous. This depends on if you fundamentally believe that generosity produces value and surplus.  Does generosity produce economic value and surplus?  Does generosity produce reputation value and surplus?  Does generosity produce influence value and surplus?  We believe it does – but you’d have to practice it to find out for yourself.

Be Persuasive. How? Learn to tell good stories. Paint stories that capture the imagination because they are artistic, empathetic, emotional, exciting, incredible, overwhelming, unique, unexpected.  Use your new-found persuasion powers to sell your vision, your product, your service, your point of view.  Wield this superpower to cause massive change.

Keep Promises. We saw Seth do this every single day.  We live in a world where intangible assets are often far more valuable than material assets.  One of these intangible assets is reputation or credit, before it became primarily a financial measurement.  If you’re striving to increase your value as a person, keep your promises – especially when it becomes uncomfortable to do so.

My Promise on the six principles above: Regardless of what you’re trying to achieve in any field of endeavor you choose to engage yourself, you’ll increase your chances of success exponentially if you practice the six principles above.  You already knew that deep inside.

Bonus Grab Bag! Here are some of the more tactical things we learned relevant to today’s changing business environment. Should satisfy the MBA in all of us.  You’ll notice that they all tie back to the big principles:

- Recognize the difference between a freelancer and an entrepreneur.  Either one works but you should figure out which you want to be.  This ties back to purpose.

- You can generate a lot of business ideas if you try.  The trick is in choosing the right one for yourself.  Seeking change and having a purpose will help here.

- When writing a business plan, work backwards from success with concrete steps.  Concrete steps imply some level of control, that you can exert influence on.  No miracles allowed.  Each step should have more than one pathway to success.  This should not turn into a gigantic document.  Business plans that seek change have a greater chance to succeed.

- Marketing is a whole new game.  The old ways don’t work much anymore.  The power belongs to the people.  You cannot simply buy attention anymore.  You have to build permission assets, tribes, communities, ideas that spread.  Learn to tell great stories and your ability to persuade will help you thrive in new marketing.

- When working in a team, be first to spread the credit for success around.  When failure happens, be first to take responsibility.  If this doesn’t feel natural, you’re not doing it right.  It may feel painful in the short term but you’re building a long term reputation that everyone will want to associate with in the future.  This is related to keeping promises and being generous.

- Design is the last great competitive advantage.  You can design everything – not just your logo or website.  You can design the way your customers interact with the company.  You can design the way talent interacts within the company.  You can design your company culture.  This is more art than science and that’s why it’ll remain a source of competitive advantage for a long while.  It is also much harder than it looks, which is another reason why it works and is so valuable.  Design is persuasive.

- When writing press releases, make it more about the customers than about your own company.  Most press releases are ego-stroking exercises for company executives.  Don’t be that executive.  Why is your release important to the market?  Not why is it important to your company.  Check persuasion.

- Pricing tells a story!  It is a signaling strategy that is a marketing discipline.  You don’t have to just mark your costs up by 100%-200% as a rote formula.  Don’t price in the middle of the market.  Be the most expensive luxurious offering or be the cheapest most disposable solution.  Interestingly, this requires bravery to not price with your crowd of competitors.

- Sales has changed little.  It is still mostly an emotional process.  You simply need to learn to close.  Always be opening; always be closing.  Sales isn’t the tough slimy racket it is often portrayed.  When what you have to offer can improve someone’s personal or business life, you have the noble duty to change his life!  Every venture needs good salespeople and good sales processes.  Be persuasive and brave.

Seth, thank you for your time and attention.  I am truly grateful for the special experience and change of the last six months.  I am also grateful for the people who gifted us SAMBA fellows their attention by reading our posts and sending encouraging words.  I am going to set out to give thanks to Seth now by doing something remarkable.  I hope everyone reading this will choose to do something remarkable too.  This is only the beginning.

Beatles tracks are widely pirated on P2P networks. Even Paul McCartney doesn’t object to people downloading Beatles music illegally. The suits at EMI need to learn that having a tiny percentage of something is better than having a lot of nothing.

Rumors abound that my beloved Boston Red Sox plan to bid vigorously for the services of free agent Mark Teixeira and Japanese pitching phenom Junichi Tazawa. Although I’d like to see the team take the challenge of developing and sustaining a winning team in a major market with a Moneyball philosophy, I’m actually excited by the possibilities of these two signings. I’d rather see the team stay competitive while reducing its overall payroll, but if we’re going to spend money in the free agent market, then we should spend the money to buy premium talent or extremely undervalued and obscure talent. I don’t want to pay fair value for middle tier talent.

I don’t think that John Henry and Theo Epstein really need to find a way to replace Manny Ramirez’s bat, Jason Bay may not crush like Manny, but he is almost as valuable if you factor in statistical and defensive considerations. If instead of cutting payroll, the team is thinking about increasing payroll, then it might as well go for arguably the best hitter available on the market and pay a premium for his services. Mark Teixeira could conceivably break the franchise pay record set by Manny Ramirez. Teixeira is a powerful switch hitter, something we haven’t had in our offensive arsenal for quite a while. Jason Varitek is a switch hitter but few will argue that he’s a masher. Teixeira is entering the prime of his career cycle and should be a safe bet to break even on his salary on a performance basis.

Junichi Tazawa, a 22 year old pitching sensation from Japan, is an interesting validation of the efforts Henry and Epstein have invested into Japan. When they signed Daisuke Matsuzaka and paid a big premium, they established Boston as a desirable destination for talented Japanese players who wanted to test their skills in the much more competitive and lucrative United States market. The sophisticated public relations and marketing campaigns the Boston management team put in action generated tremendous amounts of goodwill in Japan. That has culminated in Tazawa announcing that the Red Sox is his preferred choice despite more lucrative guaranteed contracts offered by the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners.

Both these players will improve the team, but will come with high price tags. Given the paucity of truly top tier free agent talent, now may be the year to buy rather than build from within.

Has anyone witnessed any suspicious activity on Twitter? I don’t think I have. The only things I’ve seen that even remotely approach clandestine terror are the incessant spammy tweets by self-described “social geeks” and self-appointed “social media gurus” who are essentially parasitic consultants touting some “secret” paradigm-shifting upcoming feature on their hack job “me too” web service, or their thinly veiled attempts to take credit for clients’ products and posture as if they own it with terms like “my startup” or “my product,” or their failed attempts to rally a boycott of Twitter in favor of Identi.ca on the grounds of some open source crusade and then returning to Twitter with their tails tucked between their legs because they don’t understand first mover advantage. These bad guys terrorize the digital airwaves with poor thinking. Would you hire consultants like these? If yes, then you terrorize your own company’s balance sheet, income statement, and chances for success.

In Theo I trust. In the quest for perfection, Theo Epstein has the opportunity to get much more capital efficient. While everyone else worries about what the Yankees are going to do in the offseason and how much money they are going to spend, I want Theo to focus on capital efficiency and roster efficiency. The team has the ability to improve not by addition but by subtraction. Do not sign any high-ticket free agents. The youth movement consisting of Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lowrie, Lester, Masterson, Delcarmen, Papelbon, Youkilis, and Buchholz keeps the machine lean and mean at a relatively low cost. Please do not bring the following fellows back – a few responsible for some of the fondest championship memories of the last few years. Sentimental attachment seldom leads to good decision making.

Jason Varitek – The Captain’s armor is getting heavy. It doesn’t weigh any more than it used to. If anything, it weighs less as space age materials are being used in all manner of sports equipment. The Captain is simply suffering from the ailment all major league catchers fall victim to – accelerated aging. The bat is heavier. The chest protector is heavier. His near automatic out in the bottom of the lineup is the heaviest burden of all. He was a great player for the few peak years he spent in a Red Sox uniform but it is time to say goodbye to the Captain. While we are at it, let’s not try to find a replacement captain – it’s an emotional and outdated convention that has little impact on the overall performance of a team. If the Yankees want to keep the foolishness alive, let them keep Jeter as their glorious captain. Players simply understand that someone will usually step up to become a leader – there need not be a public declaration of who this person is. It’s obvious to all without having to designate someone and have him wear a special patch on the uniform. Please don’t hype Pedroia as the next captain.

Designating a captain also makes getting rid off him exponentially harder and a lot more political. Inevitably, teams end up keeping a player around longer than he is useful because of the emotional attachment the organization and fans have built up through the years. Derek Jeter will probably wear a Yankees uniform well into his ineffective late thirties and maybe even his early forties. Every stinking Yankees fan will secretly want to be rid of the captain but they’ll be unable to imagine life without the great leader. Nonsense.

Curt Schilling – He will always be remembered for bleeding his way to victory on the mound. There have been few more heroic moments in all of sports. Such is the special position of a great pitcher – he can carry the whole team on his shoulders with a superhuman pitching effort. Schilling’s salary has weighed on the payroll all year long without him pitching one measly inning. He will likely retire and his expiring contract affords the team some significant dollar savings. Does anyone doubt that he will go down in history as one of the greatest Red Sox ever? That he did more, in his shortened and injury-filled Boston career, for the team than Pedro Martinez ever did? He is the hero but all heroes must die or at least walk off into the sunset to never fight again.

Mike Timlin – In the pantheon of heroes stands a blue collar workhorse named Mike Timlin. He pitched and pitched and pitched until he couldn’t pitch anymore. Few pitchers have appeared in as many games as the prolific Mike Timlin. Longevity itself is a great accomplishment in the world of professional sports. The daily physical grind and emotional stresses are efficient agents of destruction. Few men survive to fight as long as Mike Timlin and Cal Ripken. But in the quest to break records for pitching appearances or games played, the team put a cute personal achievement above the purer goal of winning. For the last two years, we’ve endured watching this once reliable warrior get fed to the lions. He blew leads in dramatic fashion and lost games in gut-wrenching displays of futility. How does one say goodbye to a loyal company man? It calls to mind the indignity of a cheap gold watch for the corporate retiree.

Julio Lugo – Here is one player I won’t miss and would like to forget quickly. Julio Lugo’s contract is not over yet but we need to get rid of him somehow. We’ll likely have to pay someone to take him off our hands. This isn’t so much a case of capital efficiency as it is a case of roster efficiency. He’s a terrible defender and an even worse hitter. His amazing ability to make outs is only surpassed in absurdity by the dearness of his salary. Theo Epstein has made few mistakes since taking over as the general manager but this one is probably the worst. You can’t win them all even if you have won two championships in the last handful of years. Even Warren Buffett isn’t perfect. Theo Epstein has been a great value investor in baseball talent on balance. Lugo represents one of the few investments he made in a dubious growth prospect at its peak price. Lowrie cannot do much worse at a much lower cost.

The next season is full of possibility. The young players will only get better and the Red Sox have the potential to get younger, better, and cheaper at the same time. In the meantime, I’ll be lamenting an enjoyable yet depressing defeat.

It’s been a busy year and I haven’t been able to catch as many Red Sox games as I would have liked. Granted, the urgency has been diminished by two championships in the last four years after a near century of long-suffering from close calls and dramatic second-place denouements. The championship in 2004, which broke the slump, was highly cathartic and wonderfully expressed by this surprisingly sympathetic and understanding Nike (NKE) commercial. I cry every time I watch it. Since that 2004 campaign, I’ve watched the franchise grow in sophistication. The team’s use of sabermetrics and shrewd market operations has made it the closest thing to a dynasty in Major League Baseball.

This year, my precious Boston Red Sox are once again in the playoffs and are on the verge of eliminating the Los Angeles Angels from the first round. Jon Lester, the young pitcher and cancer survivor, spun a marvelous Game 1 against the Angels and looks like he will become another ace for my boys from Beantown. His pursuit of excellence in the face of great challenge serves as motive inspiration. J.D. Drew, the marvelously talented but oft-injured outfielder, hit a late tie-breaking home run in Game 2 for the victory. Odds are, the Red Sox will win this series as few have ever come back from a two game deficit in a five game set.

The Red Sox enter the playoffs as this year’s Wild Card in the American League and many unsophisticated “gurus” or analysts would have you believe they are no longer the best team in baseball. Disney’s (DIS) ESPN staff of “experts” has put together a Power Rankings list that has the Red Sox ranked as the fourth-best team. They couldn’t be more wrong. I’m going to argue that the Red Sox are indeed the best team in baseball.

Sure, they did not finish with the best record, but wins and losses are only one way to look at dominance. I’m looking for an approach that reveals more truth by looking at the numbers behind the numbers. Much like the superiority of On Base Percentage + Slugging Percentage (OPS) as a tool for analysis over the simplistic Batting Average, which was nicely documented by the oft-cited Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Winning Percentage, and more accurately, winning percentage in the playoffs, is the only thing that counts in the end, but I think we can gain a deeper appreciation for a team’s record by looking at more nuanced numbers. At the same time, I’ll try to keep in mind jazz musician and civil rights activist Charles Mingus’ timeless insight; “Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”

Another way to look at dominance is to examine the Run Differential each team achieves. Run Differential is simply the total offense (runs scored) minus the total defense (runs allowed) over the course of a 162 game season. It stands to reason that a team that score more runs than it allows to opponents, over the course of a whole season, is a winning team. The degree to which it can score runs and limit opponents’ run-scoring should determine its level of success. The greater the Run Differential, the better the team and the more dominant its victories. A seasonal Run Differential is a measurement of a team’s sustained ability to win or dominate. The table below shows the records of the eight playoff teams.

By Run Differential then, the Red Sox should only be the second best team in baseball. ESPN has a standings report that shows the Chicago Cubs finishing the regular season with the best run differential. The lovable losers from the Windy City scored 184 runs more than they surrendered. The Red Sox only managed to score 151 more runs than their opponents. The Philadelphia Phillies rank third with a run differential of 119 runs. The emerging Tampa Bay Rays have 103 runs more than their foes. Interestingly, the team with the best record in the regular season, the Angels, only managed to score 68 runs more than they gave up.

We can’t stop at Run Differential. What if the American League is the league with better teams and thus tougher competition? What if the National League contains better talent? We need to look at what I am inclined to call Relative Dominance, Adjusted Run Differential, or something to similar effect. With the unbalanced schedule, teams play opponents from their own division more frequently. So an examination of the competition within each division could give us clues as to who is relatively more dominant. For example, the Red Sox and Rays both play in the same division and face each other more frequently. They had to assemble good records while engaged in this battle of behemoths. Perhaps the Angels achieved their best record by playing against relatively weak division rivals out West.

The idea is to award teams that assembled winning records against tough divisional competition and to penalize teams that achieved winning records against futile divisional competition. What if we simply tallied up a division’s cumulative Run Differential and added it to the playoff team’s Run Differential. In the American League East for example, we take all the teams in the division and add up their cumulative Run Differentials and get a +333 value. Then we add in the Tampa Bay Rays’ Run Differential of +103 to get a +436 value. When we do the same process for the Los Angeles Dodgers, we end up with a -203 value! The Dodgers beat up on a bunch of sissies. Below is a table of this analysis.

It is interesting to see that the team with the best record entering the playoffs, the Los Angeles Angels, and the team with the weakest record to make the playoffs, the Los Angeles Dodgers, both have a negative value for Relative Dominance. They both beat up on hapless division rivals. But Relative Dominance tells us, surprisingly, that the Angels are a lot weaker than their record suggests, given they achieved the best Winning Percentage in the American League.

The Red Sox, despite entering the playoffs as the Wild Card, is the strongest team when measured by Relative Dominance. They scored the biggest Run Differential in the toughest division, a division that included the wildly successful Tampa Bay Rays, the hated New York Yankees, and the tough luck Toronto Blue Jays. Only the Baltimore Orioles had a losing record and negative Run Differential.

I acknowledge that this is only one way to look at a team’s record.  I’m sure there are more robust methods out there like Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem.  Are there other methods that could better describe a team’s winning record?

Of course, we still have to play the games on the field. Many say that baseball is unpredictable. I say baseball is mostly predictable but there are occasional surprises. The Chicago Cubs, the team with the strongest Run Differential during the regular season, were just eliminated by the Los Angeles Dodgers. This was a huge surprise and an Herculean feat pulled off by the Dodgers.

The Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays are on the verge of advancing to the next round. Their matchup in the American League Championship Series will be the real World Series as they are the two strongest teams on paper. As a member of Red Sox Nation, I’m most nervous going into this next round with the Rays. The Rays are younger and hungrier – you can never discount that in life. Whoever wins the American League pennant will be the favorite to beat the National League champion. We shall see.

If the Red Sox win it all again for the third time this century, general manager Theo Epstein and owner John Henry will truly have built a dynasty. This post-catharsis dominance has been an enjoyable departure from a long bout of depressing close calls.

Early tomorrow morning, I’m changing my routine so I can catch the Red Sox open the season against the Oakland Athletics in Japan. ESPN (DIS) will be televising the game at 6am EST, but since I’m in the Mountain states, I will need to get up by 4am MST to catch the first pitch. Can’t complain though since I’ve been in withdrawal since the last out of the World Series in 2007.

The Red Sox better jump out to an insurmountable lead early so I can comfortably get back to preparing for the markets. I am a moderate to long term investor so I usually don’t make very many moves, but it is essential that I stay aware of big picture developments and microeconomic situations. During market hours though, I don’t pay too much attention to the action because I have to manage my technology startups and because I find that not being glued to the screen helps me to keep aloof of the market’s passions. After market close though, I spend a great deal of time doing the deep research that helps me attain an edge.

If the boys from Beantown don’t take an early lead, I’m going to have to say to heck with the market and keep my eyes affixed to the action on the baseball diamond.

Since the Red Sox won a bidding war for the services of Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka last year, the fan base in Japan has grown exponentially. This is a strategy an increasingly sophisticated Boston team should expand upon. By scouring the world for the best baseball talent from relatively unknown countries, the team can diversify its fan base and talent base. Brand – build it and they will come. This is a concept that the management of the team should instinctively understand. John Henry, the owner, made his fortune in commodities investments; so I am sure that he can see the parallels between building a great team and a great portfolio.

Go Red Sox!

The best Super Bowl commercial for me was the National Football League’s “Super Ad: Who Wants it More?” spot titled Mr. Oboe. The advert features a story about NFL offensive lineman Ephraim Salaam convincing a young, oboe-playing grocery bagger named Chester Pitts to give football a try. Pitts ends up joining the San Diego State football team, getting selected in the second round of the NFL draft, and playing right alongside Salaam for the Houston Texans.

What an inspiring story! It reminds me of a line from Disney’s (DIS) Pixar-produced Ratatouille. After being pleasantly surprised by the cooking of an especially talented rat who dreams of being a chef, the curmudgeonly food critic Anton Ego states, “Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” In Chester Pitts’ case, we see that “not everyone can become a great football player, but a great football player can come from anywhere.” Pitts was discovered while bagging groceries!

Where does great talent come from? That great talent can come from random, unexpected places makes this world and life interesting.