Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills.

Today brands are everything, and all kinds of products and services - from accounting firms to sneaker makers to restaurants - are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a Tommy Hilfiger-like buzz.

If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?

Screw-ups are the mark of excellence.

Many flagship state universities have wonderful digital libraries that are accessed by people around the world. In future, if not current, budget crises, trustees, board members, and administrators may wonder why these state institutions - with an articulated primary clientele of students, faculty, and staff members and a secondary clientele of all citizens of the state - should be spending resources on a digital library that is used by many people beyond the primary and secondary service populations.

To meet the demands of the fast-changing competitive scene, we must simply learn to love change as much as we have hated it in the past.

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.