Nearly 70 million people tuned into the vice presidential debate last Thursday. It and the three presidential debates are among the most powerful political events because they are the only times both campaigns are represented on the same stage (White House meetings about the economy excluded).

Gwen Ifill, reputed PBS newscaster, moderated the Biden-Palin tete-a-tete. Just prior to the debate, we found out that Ifill is currently writing a book called Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (see the book’s YouTube video), which will be released on Inauguration Day.

Ifill moderated a fair and impartial debate by all accounts. That doesn’t forgive her lack of transparency. The Commission on Presidential Debates did not comment about Ifill’s lapse when contacted by the Associated Press.

Maybe that’s because the commission has its own transparency issues. The commission has refused to make available the contract between both campaigns about the debates’ details. A spokesperson went so far as to claim that a contract does not exist. Yeah, right.

Non profit organization Open Debates called the commission’s bluff and released a copy of the 2004 contract between the Kerry and Bush campaigns. Among its 32 pages, the contract describes in detail the coin flip to determine who receives the first question and many other minute details.

A memo to both campaigns: Transparency is the new currency. Unlike our taxes, please spend it with abandon.

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Ctn im @wrk hand

Can you read the “sentence” above? You’ve probably said the same thing yourself, just not in the same way. It’s text-speak for “Can’t talk now. I’m at work. Have a nice day.”

Teenagers are proficient when it comes to learning the new language of text messaging. It certainly has its place when sending phone messages, but it becomes alarming when they start using shortened phrases start in their written essays and homework assignments.

The text language has started to show up in business communications as well. Suddenly, professionals are lacing their e-mails with phrases such as “R U going 2 dinner 2nite?” and signing off with a “thx.”

Now that more businesspeople are using a BlackBerry or an iPhone to send work e-mails, the lines between texting and e-mailing are blurring. We’ve come up with our own handy rule:

If you’re using a full keyboard, type full words and phrases, preferably in full sentences.

If you need to send an e-mail from a phone that has a truncated keyboard, it’s okay to use a few shorthand terms that everyone understands. T2ul8r

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Next time you’re away from a computer and have a question, try texting Google SMS for the answer. Simply text your query to 46645 (GOOGL on most phones), and Google will send you a restaurant listing, look up the definition of a word, find the price of a product, or even calculate a tip.

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It seems everyone has a blog—your 13-year-old daughter, the gossip across the street, and the guy in accounting who tends to share a bit too much.

CEOs are getting in on the action too, ruminating on everything from the trends in their industries to the day-to-day workings of their companies to their views on the economy. The following are 10 popular CEO blogs that Blogs.com says are worth reading.

• Internet Media Commentary by Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia
• Blog Maverick by Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner
• Blog.Pmarca.com by Marc Andreessen, entrepreneur and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation
• Cnewmark by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist
• Counter Intuitive by George F. Colony, founder and CEO of Forrester Research
• How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki, founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures
• Jonathan’s Blog by Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems
• Only Once by Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, Inc.
• Rex Blog by Rex Hammock, founder and CEO of Hammock Inc.
• Sifry’s Alerts by David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati

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http://www.tompeters.com

Tom Peters rose to fame with 1982’s In Search of Excellence. His publishing and consulting career have placed him among the top business consultants in the world. Apparently, he is trying to add champion blogger to his list of accomplishments. Peters blogs almost daily regardless of where he is in the world about excellence, good and bad leadership examples, his consulting gigs, books of interest, and much more. The truly daring can download Tom’s 10-part master Excellence PowerPoint presentation.

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Rules to Break & Laws to Follow: How Your Business Can Beat the Crisis of Short-Termism
by Don Peppers & Martha Rogers

Peppers and Rogers, authors of the bestseller The One to One Future and founders of 1to1Media, have collaborated on a provocative new book that challenges convential wisdom underpinning modern business.

They offer three “Rules to Break”:

1. The best measure of success for your business is current sales and profit.
2. With the right sales and marketing effort, you can always get more customers
3. Company value is created by differentiating products and services.

The authors replace these rules with what they call “Laws to Follow.” Most of the laws focus on the value of customer trust and how to achieve the highest levels of trust.

The following are two examples:

1. Regardless of how good your current earnings are, with no customer equity, you will have no future earnings.
2. If being fair to customers conflicts with your company’s financial goals, then fix your business model or get a new one.

The book is chock full of other business insights. For example, they recommend assigning an empty chair in a meeting to represent the client. Does the essence of the meeting change if you have a client sitting at the table?

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