Michael Josefowicz (@toughLoveforx) had a great pointer to a series of videos on The Paradigm of AWESOME! from Trustus Pharmaceuticals. Cathy Davidson came across Michael as part of researching her book Now You See It.

Cathy described Michael in her book:

“I met him on the Internet. He called himself ToughLoveforX. He had a way with winning phrases. Soon, I was one of his followers.

“This story isn’t going where you think it is.

“ToughLoveforX is Michael Josefowicz, a retired printer who has an active life on Twitter. I began to follow him, which means, for those who don’t use Twitter, that I selected to receive Josefowicz’s tweets. They roll past me every time I check out my Twitter page, several times a day. Twitter is called an asymmetrical technology in that you can follow anyone you want and read what they tweet. You follow people because you are interested in what they have to say. Because he seemed always to be on top of the most exciting news and research on education, social media, publishing, civil society, the brain, and other areas that interest me, I began following ToughLoveforX—or TLX, as I now call him for short—and found that every other day or so, he would be sending out a link to something invaluable for my own thinking and research.

“I’m not the only one who thinks TLX has a bead on something worth seeing. He currently has 3,202 followers. That’s a pretty substantial audience, given that, of the 75 million people with accounts on Twitter at the end of 2009, only the top 1 percent had more than 500 followers. The average Twitter user has exactly 27 followers.14 TLX describes himself as: ‘Retired printer. Lots of time for blabla. If I can help fix high school. So much the better.’ That candid, offhanded, unpretentious style is why a lot of us follow him. Another reason is that, in addition to having so many followers, he himself is avid at following others, 3,410 of them to be exact. He has made himself one of the most informed people out there, anywhere, on all of the research in neuroscience and learning.”

Soon I was following Michael and what a torrent of insight I jumped into.  Thanks to Cathy and Michael, I realized what a terrific knowledge awareness tool Twitter is. Some days I dive into the business stuff, some days the university and learning stuff, and some days I grab the humor.  This morning I need a little humor.

MEDCITY News wrote this about the Big Pharma Parody that “The Paradigm of Awesome” is a part of:

“My favorite video is the one describing “The Future of Pharma.” It shows new hire Mike talking with site manager Heidi, who is immersed in the corporate speak of Kaizen training and another corporate initiative called “5s.”

“In the exchange, Mike notes how at Trustus, science appears to have taken a backseat to corporate goals. “Don’t you do chemistry here?” he asks.

Heidi: Chemistry is the past, Mike. We are the future. Once you learn to be a team player, we will have a project assignment for you to sink your teeth into. But it won’t involve doing any chemistry. Once you join a project team, you’ll be assigned a specific portion of the chemistry. Mostly, your job will consist of selecting companies in China where that chemistry may be outsourced.

Mike: Ah, I see. So then we just come up with the ideas here. Is that it?

Heidi: Ah, no. We mostly get our ideas from other companies. Either by acquiring the companies or by licensing in their projects.

M: So then, what we do at our site is develop the projects. We take the raw laboratory processes and then develop them so they are suitable for manufacturing. Is that it?

H: That’s how it was in the past, Mike. Now, most of the development work is done at our corporate headquarters before the projects are transferred to our site.

M: So, the company gets projects from other companies. The projects are developed at our corporate headquarters and then transferred to us. And then we portion out the work to Chinese firms.

H: Check the big brain on Mike. Now you’re getting it.

For me, I loved Heidi’s comment in “Awesome” about silos and silage.  Sure enough there was an episode on “We Have Silage.”

A good friend and marketing colleague forwarded me another example of corporate silage from a sales executive at Cisco. You just can’t make this stuff up.

“Today is a historic day at Cisco! We are coming together as a Segment on a Global basis to share our theater and functional best practices in order to maximize revenue and optimize investments.

“Our overall segment is now the Small Business and the Mid Market. We have enjoyed great success throughout the world in each segment to date, and with the unification of our go-to-market segment, our growth will accelerate. In Mid Market and Small, rhythm is important in everything we do. Starting with this Day One Message, we will be driving consistent communication within our team, and externally to our Partners and Customers.

“Before we focus on the future, let’s reflect on our roots. First, I would like to recognize all of our theaters for the amazing journey over the past years in Commercial Mid Market. All of our theater leaders are to be commended for their leadership–you should all take great satisfaction in knowing you were a part of the Commercial success we will now unify around. Your commitment to innovation in each theater to grow Commercial has resulted in many pilots we can now build throughout the world jointly.

“Secondly, I would like to thank Andrew Sage and the entire Small Business team for a tremendous launch during FY09 and for the focus on execution and scaling during FY10. The entire Small Business team can take great pride in knowing that the innovative approach to the routes to market will now be scaled across both Small and Mid Market for the overall success of Cisco. Thank you all!

“Commercial is now a very exciting place to be within Cisco, and this is why:

1.     We are Investing in the Segment by Aligning to Five Go-to-Market Models

1. Co-Led: Known as Select in the US, or Large Opportunity in EU, this go-to-market model will bring home our largest opportunities and drive architectures.
2. Partner Led: Throughout the world, we will scale our Partner AM’s to success and growth for the Partners and Cisco.
3. Virtual Small: The Small Business Team continues their journey and further develops the routes to market for growth acceleration.
4. “Franchise Like”: We will pilot several flavors of these new models to gain great coverage throughout the world.
5. New Consumption Models: We will develop Cloud and Xaas models with our SP brothers to scale all four of the Go-to Market Models.

2.     We are Investing in the Segment by Aligning to Five Supporting Functional Tracks

1. Inside Sales is now aligned to the above Go-to Market Models for maximum return.
2. Engineering and Architectures will be creating a scalable solution for technical salessupport throughout the world.
3. Channels is aligning to create greater momentum in Commercially-focused Partner Programs – DAP, DAPc/s and Avant Garde.
4. Marketing continues to be our best ally in terms of investing in Demand Generation in each theater.
5. Collaborative Relationship Management, beginning with a deep understanding of our Partners and then our Customers.

3.     We are Aligning as an Innovation

“For many years, our theaters and functions were forced to innovate within theater budget limitations, which made scaling across theaters very difficult.  We are now sharing our innovations, and will be scaling our best pilots. The worldwide organization will facilitate the awareness and project management of key pilots.  Alignment is our next Innovation!

4.     Commercial Organizational Support

“The investments made in a worldwide organization to assist in alignment are only valuable if the new organization creates value for the theaters and the functions. Therefore, we are here to serve.

“Below is the single slide that will be our focus.  We have ownership of each go-to-market model and functional track, and we would like you to offer your perspective, so we can develop a dialog as we launch our efforts. (If you would like to share your thoughts, please visit the WWPO Partner Watch blog  and post your ideas in the comments.)

The Culture of Commercial

“I personally have great pride to be associated with this group. Our efforts will develop the Small and Mid Market into the ultimate growth engine within the company, and our Partner base.  We will behave differently in our new aligned world by driving success to, through and with our Partners.  Our new organization is responsible for SALES, but we are organized within the Worldwide Partner Organization to drive the needed investment and alignment for the Commercial Segment.  We will need to have great cross-functional support and rhythm to all we do. You will lead Cisco by living our company culture.

“The Commercial Leaders will meet in mid-September to take our next steps on alignment and investment. You can expect to see the worldwide team organizational announcements in the coming weeks to serve your needs.  Please let us know your thoughts as we align around the world as One Commercial within One Cisco!

“Congratulations on FY10 and welcome to One Commercial in FY11.”

I will never be able to sit through another corporate speak presentation without thinking “here comes the silage.”