::: Source: Business Working Knowledge

You’ve heard it before. You MUST have a full shoulder turn for maximum clubhead speed, power and distance. I want to briefly explain that a full shoulder turn does not mean your golf club has to get high at the top of your backswing. So many golfers are worried about getting the club shaft parallel to the ground at the top.

This is not so! It’s becoming more common to see the touring pro’s not reach parallel at the top, even with their golf driver. As long as you get a 90 degree shoulder turn with about half that in hip turn, you will have maximum clubhead speed, and better yet, more control over your golf swing.

I want to show you a drill you can do in your home, garage, office and of course on the practice tee.

See the club I have on the ground to the left of my right foot? See the club across my shoulders?. Match those up and you know you’ve made a full shoulder turn on your backswing.

Give it a try!

:: Source: Perform Better Golf Blog

How critical is finding the perfect slot position at the top of your swing? Damn critical. Finding the perfect top-of-the-backswing position boosts consistency and increases power. While many talk about achieving this position, few can tell you what it is or how it affects your swing. Even fewer can tell you how to find it consistently. But if you’re serious about cutting down your golf handicap and improving your game, you’ll learn everything you can about achieving the ideal slot position.

To do so you consistently, you must adhere to the certain key fundamentals. Master those first and you’ll find the perfect slot position much easier. Key among these fundamentals is your setup. If it’s incorrect, your backswing is doomed right from the start. Put another way, finding the ideal slot position requires the address and backswing positions flow in the proper sequence. Perfect these moves and you’ll program the perfect backswing and create an effortless, almost automatic downswing, like they teach you in golf lessons.

Posture Is The Building Block
Golf tips in sports magazines stress the importance of good posture. It’s true. Good posture is critical to a good swing. If your body is out of position at address, everything else in your swing will off. So you’ll have to make adjustments to compensate—making a sound backswing difficult to achieve. That, in turn, means the perfect slot position will probably elude you. Check your posture at address to make sure it’s correct.

Then, check your grip and your hands. Many golfers check their grip and hand position at address, like they teach you in golf lessons. But then ignore them during the swing. Gripping your hands correctly at address ensures that they work as a unit throughout the swing. But your hands and wrists can’t turn during the backswing. If they do, the clubface rolls along with it. The chances of your achieving a square clubface position at the top of the swing—and at impact—dwindle significantly.

Swing On The Same Plane
In addition, check to see that the shaft is on the same plane as your left arm during the backswing. For left-handers, it’s the right arm. Midway through the backswing, the shaft should be parallel to the line of play. From there, it should remain on the plane described by the left arm, as it swings to the top. The shaft should not stray from that plane either inward or outward if your want to find the perfect slot position.

Achieving the correct swing plane is the fourth—and most critical—checkpoint for finding the slot. If your arms and shaft are on the correct plane, they’ll swing along the proper swing path with no need for re-routing. You’ll maximize power and control.

In many golf instruction sessions, they tell you to check this position by observing the position of the left arm at the top of the swing. Then drawing a line from the left wrist through the left shoulder to ground. It should intersect the ball. But you can use another checkpoint to assure you that you’ve achieved the correct swing plan Instead of the using the left shoulder, use the top of right shoulder. It should be visible in the “window” formed by the shoulders at the top of the swing.

Keep The Clubface Square
Golfers with high golf handicaps often overlook the last checkpoint—monitoring the clubface throughout the swing. It, too, is a must for finding the perfect slot position. When you’re club reaches waist high, check to make sure the toe is pointing skyward—the ideal position for a square clubface at impact. You should also check the clubface when it gets to the top of the swing. The toe of the club should be pointing almost straight down. This position also produces a square clubface at impact.

Monitoring your clubface through the backswing makes it easier achieve the perfect slot position. So keep all the checkpoints in mind when swinging and you’ll find the perfect slot position every time. This, in turn, will increase consistency, eliminate big numbers on the scorecard, and chop strokes from your golf handicap.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

::: Source: How To Break 80

When it comes to entrepreneurship, nothing says success like a track record of previous wins.

Entrepreneurs with a history of success are much more likely to succeed in new ventures than first-timers or those who failed previously, new research from Harvard Business School demonstrates in the working paper, “Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship” [PDF].

The news that successful experience, or performance persistence, pays off may not be news at all. But HBS researchers were surprised at just how much it does help. Successful entrepreneurs in the study had a 34 percent chance of succeeding in their next venture-backed firm, compared with 23 percent for those who previously failed and 22 percent for first-timers.

“The size of the effect more than anything was surprising,” note HBS professors Paul A. Gompers and Josh Lerner in an e-mail interview. “We know that there was likely to be some degree of performance persistence, but the magnitude was quite striking.”

Their research, conducted with HBS professor David S. Scharfstein and former doctoral student Anna Kovner (MBA ‘00, PhDBE ‘08), raises issues that could use further study. For example, do successful serial entrepreneurs receive higher valuations and less restrictive covenants when they raise capital?

Sarah Jane Gilbert: Can you explain the concept of “performance persistence” and what it entails?

Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner: Essentially, entrepreneurs who start venture-backed companies that are successful are more likely to be successful in their next venture-backed firm.

These effects are large and dramatic: All else equal, venture-capital-backed entrepreneurs who succeed in a venture (by our definition, starts a company that goes public) have a 34 percent chance of succeeding in their next venture. By contrast, first-time entrepreneurs have only a 22 percent chance of succeeding, and entrepreneurs who previously failed have a 23 percent chance of succeeding.

Q: How do contributing factors such as skill versus perception affect performance persistence?

A: While clearly skill is an important element, there is also support for the view that some component of performance persistence stems from “success breeding success.” For instance, entrepreneurs whose first venture succeeded at least in part due to good timing seem to also do well in subsequent ventures. (By good timing we mean those entrepreneurs who founded a company in a given industry at a time when most new ventures did well: for example, microcomputer-related firms begun in 1981 or Internet firms started in 1996.) Of course, starting a company at an opportune time and place also displays a certain kind of skill as well.

Q: What are some of the more actively pursued industries by entrepreneurs?

A: Venture capitalists typically invest in industries that have substantial growth opportunities and a defensible intellectual property position. Within the study, the computer and Internet, telecommunications, and life sciences industries are disproportionately represented because they have those characteristics. When we look at the more recent years in our data, industries like cleantech have risen in importance.

Because we are focusing on venture-backed firms in this study, the industries are those that are most common for venture capitalists to fund: Internet and software, biotechnology, and telecommunications.

Q: Was there anything in your findings that surprised you?

A: The size of the effect more than anything was surprising. We know that there was likely to be some degree of performance persistence, but the magnitude was quite striking.

Q: Given the current economic conditions, do you have any advice for entrepreneurs who are considering launching a new venture at this time?

A: Certainly one lesson that emerges from our analysis is to find an experienced (and successful) partner! Given the very difficult investment conditions, venture investors are paring back their portfolios and are hesitant to make new commitments. To get serious consideration, the more that you can do to seem like a “sure thing,” the better off you are.

More generally, being as careful as you can be with resources, and flexible in terms of the types of arrangements that you are willing to enter into, are particularly important in an environment such as this one.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: We are focused on further disentangling the underlying factors that impact the success of venture-capital-backed start-ups. The data that lies at the heart of our performance persistence papers was gathered from multiple sources over a three- or four-year period. It includes information on the company founders, the venture- capital firms, the boards of directors, and the outcomes of these start-ups.

One current project examines the value of boards of directors in start-up firms. We are also examining issues related to the expansion of venture-capital firms. How and when do venture-capital firms open up new offices? How do the strategic choices related to opening up those offices affect the success of investments? Finally, we are also beginning to explore how the experience and background of the individual venture capitalists influences their investment success.

We are trying to understand the drivers of success in new ventures and venture firms more generally. On the first front, we are exploring questions such as what makes up an effective board of directors for an entrepreneurial firm. On a second dimension, we are exploring issues such as how venture organizations grow: Does it make sense to open an office in a faraway city, and if so, should one staff it with a “local” or a veteran of the firm’s home office.

::: Source: Business Working Knowledge

Everything about Mark Barrowcliffe’s The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange screams of its geek credibility. The cover of the book features a yellowed D&D character sheet and a red dragon. Its website has a fantasy character generator. Wizards of the Coast are even working to promote the book.

The book seems a perfect fit for gamer geekdads who want to take a quick jaunt back in time to the early days of D&D. For those excited about sharing their old hobbies with their children, the book could serve as a primer for all that is fun and beneficial of the hobby. From the website’s synopsis:

“In the summer 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had a chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark—and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s—chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry, England; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome, or Effilc Worrab, an elven warrior with the head of a mule.”

As an adult whose childhood was shaped in no small part by tabletop role playing games, I had little doubt that this was a book that would speak to me. It did, but not quite the way I expected. If you’re looking for a book that endlessly touts the joy and fun of games like Dungeons and Dragons, Elfish Gene is not it.

Instead, Barrowcliffe spends nearly 300 pages looking back on his childhood with disappointment and embarrassment. The book is well-written and the author includes some pretty funny anecdotes. I laughed out loud when Barrowcliffe described his attempts to leap into a laundry basket to display his nascent ninja prowess, and all of his childhood friends were uncannily familiar in their strange and humorous mannerisms. I knew these guys.

Still, as an adult who was at one time an “ordinary awkward teenager” drawn into the escape of wargames and D&D, I found myself waiting for a moment where Barrowcliffe would come out and say, “Yes, getting picked on by bullies was horrible, and spending time with boys who were unwilling to bathe was difficult to stomach, but I had a truly wonderful time. I’m glad I played Dungeons and Dragons.” It never came. Barrowcliffe’s obsession—and from his description, it might be better defined as addiction—and his post-childhood reaction to it overshadow the joys that he might once have experienced at the gaming table.

The memoir is bookended by Barrowcliffe’s less-than-positive judgment on gaming. He opens the book with a dedication: “Avoid this.” It’s unclear if he’s referring to role playing games in general, or his own clingy obsession to then. Then, the book begins:

“An elf cloak is designed to render its user invisible.

Worn in the Coventry shopping precinct when the City soccer team is playing at home, however, it has rather the opposite effect.

What follows explains why, on 24 October 1981, I was thrown into a fountain by soccer hooligans and how I eventually came to wish they’d done it years earlier.”

That very first passage sums up the main problem I have with the book. Barrowcliffe’s exceptional wit collides with his intense regret and the result can be a bit of a downer. The first two paragraphs of the book are hilarious, but there’s something about the third that seems more sad than funny.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed reading the book quite a bit. It transported me back in time to basements and bonus rooms, rolling dice and staying up until all hours of the night fighting imaginary monsters. Barrowcliffe skillfully portrays his cast of boyhood mates and the dramas of their hobby: gaming stores closing too early, arguments over esoteric game rules, and encroaching hormones. I loved this part of the book.

There is a vicious undercurrent of frustration to Barrowcliffe’s stories, though. He openly acknowledges that he wasted his time with games and within the pages of his book he never reveals to the reader that it was in any way worthwhile. Perhaps Barrowcliffe is not writing for gamers but is instead trying to appeal to a wider audience, thus the unending self-deprecation. Parts of the book seemed less a memoir about the author’s experiences with the hobby and more a condemnation of gaming culture.

At the end, an adult Barrowcliffe seeks out a gaming group to see how D&D had changed over the years. He finds a group full of “the sneaks, the silent, the megalomaniacs and the plain weird,” and concludes that the motley crew of misfits “may have had something to do with the fact that [he] had to seek out an adult gaming group.” It may seem overly sensitive, but I took offense at that. Barrowcliffe claims that “if you’re still playing into your twenties and beyond then you’re an addict.” I don’t know what to make of that. It’s either the author’s honest opinion of adult gamers, or it’s an attempt at humor. Either way, it failed to engage. In the end, Barrowcliffe feigns illness in order to leave the gaming table. He runs away, literally, from the games and the culture, “away from the lands of fantasy and towards reality”.

Here’s the thing, though: I read this book, cover to cover, in a matter of hours. I couldn’t put it down. Barrowcliffe’s voice is honest, brutally so, and he seems to have a true memoirists’s eidetic memory. Like Nick Hornby in Fever Pitch or the fictional High Fidelity, Barrowcliffe encapsulates the draw of escapism and the raw power of obsession over the drab canvas of reality. While I can’t agree with him that role playing games should be avoided, I respect his decision that, for him, they were a distraction that proved far too addictive.

If you’re looking for a fluffy memoir with humorous D&D-related anecdotes and a happy ending complete with endorsement of the hobby—what the book seems to be marketed as—then you may be disappointed. But if you keep reading, you’ll find something else, something with a bit more depth, that has all the funny stories, but throws some realism into the mix. Escapism is addictive, regardless of its form, and it can bring out the worst in people if they’re not prepared to take it in moderation.

Buy The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange from Amazon

The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange
Price: USD 19.00

43 used & new available from USD 0.83

:: Source: Geek Dad

This past weekend, kids from 34 countries traveled to Billund, Denmark for a series of special tours of the LEGO headquarters, factories, and the company’s legendary Idea House (the LEGO museum) as well as LEGOLAND Billund. After the tours, the kids participated in huge building event where they each created a LEGO model that represented their country and then placed it on a giant LEGO map of the world.

The US contingent consisted of Greg Wakefield of Colorado, his best friend, and their dads. Congrats Greg & company for winning the trip to Denmark and  representing the U.S. in this great event!

Greg busts out a 50th Anniversary set and starts building.

More kids building!

Greg and his dad pose for a picture with Greg’s model — he chose to depict the Rocky Mountains of his home state.

Greg installs his model on the giant map.

All done!

Buy yours now:

Even the Empire had its fine art, in the manner of William Turner that is.

Found via Dark Roasted Blend.

Another fantastic geeky cake has been spotted.  This one was created by Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes (they also have a blog here), specifically for the premiere party of a new videogame that is already near and dear to the GeekDads’ hearts: LEGO Batman.  All I can say is that this looks good enough to play!

Found via Makezine.

Executive Summary:

Individuals frequently attempt to avoid questions they do not want to answer, from politicians dodging reporters’ requests to clarify their position on when life begins, to employees sidestepping their bosses’ questions as to why they are late for the third straight day. Rogers, a recent PhD grad from HBS, and Norton, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit, suggest that when faced with unwanted queries, question-dodgers sometimes exploit conversational blindness—a phenomenon whereby listeners fail to notice when speakers respond to a different question than the one they are asked—by responding with answers that seem to address the question asked, but which in fact address an entirely different question. In the context of political debates, two studies demonstrate conversational blindness, exploring both the conditions that impact the likelihood of such dodges going unnoticed, and how speakers’ successful—and failed—attempts to capitalize on conversational blindness impact listeners’ opinions of them. Key concepts include:

• Conversational blindness occurs in part because real-world conversations occur as a continuous ebb and flow, leaving little time for people to reflect on how every statement links to each previous statement.
• A successful dodge occurs when a speaker’s answer to the wrong question is so compelling that the listener both forgets the right one, and rates the dodger positively. In some cases, speakers end up better off by answering the wrong question well rather than the right question poorly.
• These results add to the growing literature on people’s surprising unawareness to changes in their environment.

I am introducing a new feature I am calling “Useless iPhone App of the Month.” Like many of the other GeekDads, I have an iPhone and I just love collecting pointless crap on it. Hey, it is how I roll…

The criteria for the selection of a Useless iPhone App are as follows:

1. It must available from the iTunes Store. (No jailbreaking here Mr. Jobs!)

2. It must be free. (Because besides being a GeekDad I am also a CheapDad.)

3. It should have little-to-no redeeming social value.

My pick this month is called “Wooo!” This app does one thing and it does it very well. When you tap the button on the center of the screen, a very enthusiastic voice says… well… “Whooo!”

I have played with this app for a while now and it has not let me down yet. It says what it means and it means what it says. If I were to mention one fault with the program it is that the voice is far too soft coming through the tiny iPhone speakers. If you wish to amaze your friends and confound your boss, I would recommend using some external amplification.

I would recommend this app to all iPhone and iPod touch users who wish to feign enthusiasm at the touch of a button. This can come in handy when attending business meetings, commenting on  lectures, listening to sermons, etc. It is a sturdily crafted little app that is well worth its price.

What guilty pleasure iPhone Apps would you like to see featured next month? Please let us know in the Comments Section below.

Source: Geek Dad