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THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX.
There might be another way.

You've probably been challenged at least once by the puzzle that features three columns of dots and asks you to connect all the dots [with four straight lines] without lifting your pencil tip from the paper. Some people who have struggled painfully with this puzzle feel vaguely cheated when the answer is revealed. You can connect the dots quite easily if you allow you pencil to travel outside the borders of the invisible box. which the columns of dots seen to describe. Going outside the box—is that fair?
    After all we are taught early to color inside the lines. We are cautioned to stay within the crosswalks. We are conditioned to observe the rules. We are taught to see boxes, so we can hardly be blamed for our conservative, in-the-box thinking.
    But in-the-box thinking mires us in the concrete of "the way we've always done it." Sometime we're so struck we don't even consider there might be another way—a better way.
    So here's a fable: The Acme Mousetrap Company has always launched its new traps by preparing an ad and a data sheet and sending out a press release.
    Then one day a consultant asked, "Where do most of your sales come from?"
    "Overwhelmingly from our current customers." The marketing manager had the answer right on his tongue.
    "Then why not introduce the new trap directly to your current customers?"
    So when Acme's new Big Cheez trap was ready, the marcom department sent a flashy postcard mailing to folks who had bought from Acme in the past; the card introduced Big Cheez and asked for phone calls and internet orders. This outside the box thinking soon had orders jumping.
     How do you get your head outside the box?
    Ask, for one thing, who has built the box? Going back to the dot puzzle, we are surprised to learn that there is not really a box there at all. But because those dots lined up in such an orderly fashion, we assume there is a border that we must not cross. Nine times out of ten, the box is simply the product of our own perception. i.e. we build our own boxes.
    Learn to look at the problem in new ways. Find perspective you've never used before. Turn the problem upside down. Read it backwards.
    Look for some rules to break. It costs nothing to ask, "How can we do this differently?" Asking doesn't mean you have to follow the answer but as Charles Suritz suggests, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."
    Think of something outrageous. Make connections between your present problem and other ideas—yours and those that have worked for others.
    Be inspired. Out of the box thinking has produced Post-it Notes, Lifesaver candies, Spam, The Goodyear blimp, Kleenex, Band-Aid bandages and sliced bread.
    Moral: When the better mousetrap is built, it will spring from out-of-the-box thinking.

THE 80/20 RULE REVISITED.
How to apply the rule.

Everyone knows the 80/20 rule: 20% of the people in any given situation or organization do 80% of the work, contribute 80% of the revenue, show up 80% of the time. Conversely 80% of the people do 20% of the work, contribute 20% of the revenue, show up 20% of the time. From volunteer organizations to the federal government, the 80/20 rule holds.
    You can probably site examples of the 80/20 rule in your company or business.
    Now consider applying the rule to troublesome clients or customers. 80% of your tsouris comes from 20% of the folks you serve, right? So if one or two customers are driving you crazy and are draining time and energy away from more reasonable and profitable clients, maybe it's time to politely—but firmly— part your business from this minority.
    Suggest that another firm or individual might be better able to work constructively with the troublemaker. Offer to supply a list of your competitors.
    There—you've just killed two birds with one stone.

URBAN MYTHS.
Just because something is said with confidence and precision doesn't necessarily make it true.

PROVERBS FOR THE MILLENNIUM (continued).
Courtesy of Jack Murachver.

• Fax is stranger than fiction.
• What boots up must come down.
• Windows will never cease.
• In Gates we trust and our tender is legal.
• Virtual reality is its own reward.
• Modulation in all things.
• A user and his leisure time are soon parted.
• There's no place like www.home.com.
• Know what to expect before you connect.
• Oh, what a tangled website we weave when first we practice.
• Speed thrills.
• Give a man (or for that matter anyone) a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the net and he won't bother you for weeks.