Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Do you let the facts get in the way of a good story?

What do you do with people who disagree with you… do you call them names in order to shut them down?

Are you open to multiple points of view or you demand compliance and uniformity? Bonus: Are you willing to walk away from a project or customer or employee who has values that don’t match yours?

Is it okay if someone else gets the credit?

How often are you able to change your position?

Do you have a goal that can be reached in multiple ways?

If someone else can get us there faster, are you willing to let them?

No textbook answers… It’s easy to get tripped up by these. In fact, most leaders I know do.

In the summer of 2010, Foursquare’s Head of Business Development Tristan Walker and American Express’s Vice President of Global Marketing Capabilities David Wolf started talking about ways to work together to redefine loyalty for local merchants.

The fruit of their conversations is now on display in the city Austin, Texas where 60 merchants — including Whole Foods, Starwood Hotels and Stubb’s BBQ — are offering Foursquare users “spend $5, save $5″ rewards when they load the special and swipe their AmEx cards.

The pilot program started Friday and will run through Tuesday, March 15. Participating merchants have posted “Austin Unlocked” window clings to highlight their participation, and Foursquare users need only register their American Express cards to unlock this new type of special — the Loyalty Special.

Loyalty and Location in Real-Time

On Friday, Walker and I journeyed to Le Cafe Crepe so he could demonstrate the special in action. Upon arrival, Walker launched Foursquare, checked in to the cafe, tapped to redeem the offer and then hit the green “Load to Card” button to initiate the special — see a 44-second walk-through in the video above.

Several minutes later (there was a long line), Walker placed his order, the cashier swiped his AmEx card, and then together we waited for proof that the $5 savings reward had been activated by his swipe. Seconds later, Walker received a push notification alerting him that he had successfully redeemed the special. Soon thereafter, he also earned the “Swiped @ SXSW” badge — for each badge redeemed, American Express is donating $1 to Grounded in Music.

Walker was quick to point out that the experience was nearly frictionless, happening exactly at the time of sale without requiring integration with the cafe’s point-of-sale system.

This is what Walker and Wolf believe is a ground breaking initiative that finally creates the closed loop between a consumer’s digital behavior and their offline spending behavior.

Phase One

Wolf calls the South by Southwest Interactive relationship with Foursquare, “phase one.”

Being a first-of-a-kind program, AmEx decided to not only fund the offer — it’s paying for all of those $5 credits — but to also send out a street team to recruit and train local merchants, print up informative cards for attendees and make QR code pins to get the word out at the festival.

American Express is making the financial investment because it believes it can use phase one to get to phase two: when the company’s local merchant network will be able to set up, run and fund their own offers.

Wolf talks about the partnership as a strategic move on behalf of the company to align itself with a hip startup working on the location-meets-loyalty challenge. “We wanted to partner with a young, innovative company who understands the importance of providing value to merchants,” he said.

Wolf also explains that “American Express is anxious to play in this space because of this closed loop of information that we get.” To create the closed-loop effect, American Express is allowing a third party to access its APIs for card member data, merchant data and transaction data for the first time ever.

Regular Since 2009

On Foursquare’s end, Walker speaks of the startup’s desire to work with a preeminent company that truly understands loyalty, understands customer appreciation and has connections to local merchants. One of Foursquare’s goals, he says, is to recreate the type of brand affinity that consumers have with American Express.

“Foursquare has taken inspiration from AmEx’s ‘member since’ designation as to how we allow our users to evangelize or stake their claim to place. Much the same way that AmEx allows for that ‘member since’ designation, we want to create a ‘regular since’ designation … and allow merchants to communicate with those folks who are the most fervent, and are evangelists for their brands,” said Walker.

In working with AmEx at SXSW, Foursquare is taking this “regular since” idea to the next level, while also delivering on its closed-loop promise to American Express and the participating local merchants.

Next up, phase two.

Image courtesy of Flickr, The.Comedian

A portable GPS is commonplace in cars where drivers are looking for some help with driving around town. For pilots, the small navigation tools have also become very popular, but not only because of the help they provide in finding a destination from 10,000 feet. Real time weather received via satellite is becoming at least as important for many pilots flying longer trips around the country.

Weather has been available in the cockpit for decades, but the displays were usually rather crude and if radar information was desired, the cost was very high and the information was still limited to a scan in front of the aircraft.

Pilots usually had to rely on communication with ground based weather services where a person could relay weather information over the radio. But today, the same small GPS units many of us have in our cars come equipped with weather capabilities that exceeds the most advanced systems from just 10 or 15 years ago available only in bigger aircraft and costing tens of thousands of dollars.

According to a story in Pilot magazine from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, one retailer reports that 75 percent of portable GPS units sold include satellite weather capability. Many newer aircraft have satellite weather capabilities built into glass panel displays that also include GPS. But these systems cost many thousands of dollars to purchase and are not available for many older aircraft. A portable GPS with weather capability costs less than a thousand dollars and can be carried in any airplane from antiques to business jets.

With in-cockpit weather, pilots of even the smallest airplanes are able to monitor the weather along their route in real time. Being able to watch a developing thunderstorm move across your path, or being able to see areas of potential icing conditions allows pilots to make alternative plans with greater confidence than can be made when relying on radio communication with ground based weather services.

Pilots still tend to check the conditions and forecasts before embarking on a long flight. But once in the air, a picture can be worth a thousand words and satellite weather can save a lot of time and effort compared to trying to listen to those words over the radio.

Photo: Garmin

Perhaps it’s time for a new definition.

Unskilled labor is what you call someone who merely has skills that most everyone else has.

If it’s not scarce, why pay extra?

Skills matter. The unemployment rate for US workers without a college education is almost triple that for those with one. Even the college rate is still too high, though.  On the other hand, the unemployment rate for skilled neurosurgeons, talented database designers and motivated recombinant DNA biologists is essentially zero, despite the high pay in all three fields.

Unskilled now means not-specially skilled.

Yeah, we know. The Motus MST looks like just another sport-touring bike. It’s not. It’s an American sport-touring bike, built by an Alabama startup and powered by what is, essentially, half a Corvette engine.

The MST and its upscale brother, the MST-R, make their public debut at Daytona Bike Week today. They feature a sweet 1,654cc direct-injection V4 that is by far the coolest thing about the bike. It’s the first direct-injected gasoline-burning V4, and it was designed by the same outfit that builds Corvette racing engines like the Le-Mans winning LS7.R.

It literally is half of an LS7.R, just downsized.

The engine, dubbed the KMV4, is built on the same assembly line as the Vette race motor. Just like the 7.0-liter V8 that powered the Corvette GT1 to victory at Le Mans, the KMV4 has a 90-degree V. The aluminum block uses nickel-silicon-carbide-coated linerless bores. There are two pushrod valves per-cylinder, a chain-driven single cam mounted in the valley between cylinders and hydraulic valve lifters.

The KMV4 — for Katech Motus V4 — makes 160 horsepower at 7,800 RPM and 122 pound-feet at 4,500 RPM.

Motus hails the MST-01 as being all-day comfortable for real humans without sacrificing performance. The engine architecture is a big part of that, providing a huge spread of usable torque to counter the typically sky-high revs experienced on most performance motorcycles.

“We’ve focused on the actual street riding experience and specifically fun, usable power for sport touring,” company co-founder Brian Case told Hell for Leather. “That means high torque over a wide rev range, a sporty wheelbase and suspension, appropriate weather protection for comfort and low fatigue over long distances, all in a 500-pound package.”

Of course, other LS-motor benefits apply too. There’s no need for valve adjustments and the motor remains incredibly simple and easy to work on. Weight — 130 pounds — is on par with much smaller engines, despite nearly doubling the typical motorcycle capacity.

“The engine we’ve designed should spice up the relatively mundane sport-touring market with the torquey characteristics of a big V-twin combined with the smoothness of an inline-four and an engineered sound unlike anything on the market,” Case said.

Race Engine Technology magazine has been highly impressed with the engine, speculating that such architecture could be the ideal basis of a Formula One engine when F1 switches from 2.4-liter V8s to turbo- or supercharged four-bangers. Give the KMV4 forced induction and it could be the perfect 300 horsepower engine for the next-gen Delta Wing Racer Indy Car.

The engine rides in a chassis designed and built by Pratt & Miller Engineering. Pratt & Miller also built the transmission and bodywork. The transverse-mounted engine provides a unique look with the heads and exhausts poking out. Adding to the awesome factor are four 40mm throttle bodies fed by vertical intake trumpets. It also is shorter and more rigid than a comparable inline-four, allowing Motus to spec a relatively short wheelbase and make the engine a stressed-member of the chassis. Despite being mounted sideways, the 1,645cc V4 is narrower — by four inches — than the 1,649cc inline-six in the new BMW K1600GT. It measures just 18 inches wide.

And at 130 pounds, it would be the perfect swap for, say, a Mazda Miata.

This post was written by Wes Siler of Hell for Leather; a portion of it also appeared on Jalopnik.

Photos: Motus

Just days after AOL completed its acquisition of The Huffington Post, the Internet company announced layoffs of hundreds of employees in an effort to reorganize its editorial operation.

The struggling tech giant has slashed the jobs of 900 employees, including around 200 U.S. editorial staff. Sites such as Gadling, DailyFinance and Stylelist were hit with major layoffs. Among those who lost their jobs were PoliticsDaily editor in chief Melinda Henneberger and Stylelist editorial director Colleen Curtis.

In a memo to the AOL team, CEO Tim Armstrong outlined some of the details of the reorganization. Most of the layoffs will occur at the company’s India offices. AOL will be creating department editor and general manager positions for different pieces of its content business. It will also rely less on freelancers and hire more full-time journalists.

Naturally, Armstrong laid on the praise for his prized acquisition, The Huffington Post and its co-founder Arianna Huffington. The newly-formed Huffington Post Media Group, which includes AOL content such as Engadget, Moviefone, and MapQuest, is a centerpiece of Armstrong’s strategy. “With Arianna’s leadership and vision, HPMG will be fueled by high-quality editorial content,” he said. It will also “give AOL the enhanced ability to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, entertainment, information and community.”

Layoffs are to be expected with any major acquisition, especially when the two companies have a lot of overlap. But this wave of layoffs is more likely part of a larger content strategy driven by Armstrong and Huffington. Whether this shake-up is the start of a revitalization of AOL’s fortunes or marks the beginning of the end has yet to be determined.

YouTube expects to have its biggest hiring year in 2011, with plans to grow its staff by 30%.

The Google-owned video site has dozens of open positions in all areas — although an especially high number in advertising sales and customer support — and all around the world. A great number of the positions are based in YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, just outside San Francisco.

The company currently has about 650 employees. A 30% increase would mean YouTube could hire close to 200 more staffers this year.

“Because we believe that technology and platforms like YouTube are giving rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history, us YouTubers really enjoy and feel proud to work here,” YouTube wrote on its blog Thursday.

The company has continued to grow and make acquisitions. Just this week, it was reported that YouTube bought web video production company Next New Networks.

Productivity comes from interactivity and the exchange of ideas and talents.

People are happiest when they’re encouraged and trusted.

An airport functions far better when we don’t strip search passengers. Tiffany’s may post guards at the door, but the salespeople are happy to let you hold priceless jewels. Art museums let you stand close enough to paintings to see them. Restaurants don’t charge you until after you eat.

Compare this environment of trust with the world that Paypal has to live in. Every day, thousands of mobsters in various parts of the world sit down intent on scamming the company out of millions of dollars. If the site makes one mistake, permits just one security hole to linger, they’re going to be taken for a fortune. As a result, the company isn’t just paranoid–they know that people really are out to get them.

This is the fork in the road that just about all of us face, whether as individuals or organizations. We have to make an assumption about whether people are going to steal our ideas, break their promises, void their contracts and steal from us, or perhaps, that people are basically honest, trustworthy and generous. It’s very hard to have both postures simultaneously. I have no idea how those pistol-packing guys in the movies ever get a good night’s sleep.

In just about every industry (except electronic money transfer, apparently), assuming goodwill is not only more productive, it’s also likely to be an accurate forecast.

Trust pays.

Formspring, a popular and highly social Q&A app, gets a bad rap for bullying.

Because users can ask questions anonymously, some of those users feel they can use Formspring’s platform to harass, belittle, intimidate and even threaten others. While most adults might be able to shrug off such words, teens and younger users can have a difficult time emotionally processing hateful speech.

And since quite a large percentage of Formspring’s users fall squarely in the teen and young adult demographic, the startup has decided to take an honest and intelligent look at how bullying can be prevented on the platform.

Today, the startup announced it is partnering with MIT’s Media Lab to develop detection tools for finding “problematic content” and putting a stop to online bullying. Formspring and MIT are presenting their research and project at today’s White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in Washington, D.C.

Henry Lieberman is the principal research scientist at the Media Lab. His team has been using natural language recognition to detect questionable or harassing content in ways that go beyond user reporting and simple word filters. To assist with the team’s research, Formspring has provided the MIT team with valuable internal data on cyberbullying as well as a financial donation to support the Media Lab’s research.

Lieberman said in a release, “There is a real opportunity to put innovation to work in solving the problem of online bullying, and our work at the Media Lab represents a first step in what we believe can result in powerful solutions for social networks, educators, parents and of course, teens.”

Formspring has always been mindful of privacy and safety issues and has been committed to responding to user complaints and reports. However, this new partnership is indicative of a more proactive approach: Why wait for bullying to cause a user stress and emotional pain when it’s possible to detect bullying in advance?

The startup’s communications head, Sarahjane Sacchetti, said, “The Media Lab’s efforts to put some of the world’s most advanced research to work in identifying and flagging problematic content is of great interest to us.

“We want to emphasize that technologists represent an important part of the solution to this issue.”

Image based on a photo from iStockphoto user Rivendellstudios

The world knows quite well that #tigerblood flows through the veins of @CharlieSheen. We’re also learning that the color of #TigerBlood is green, as Charlie proves to the world that paid Tweets not only sell, they work.  Ad.ly, the social media talent agency to the stars, is largely recognized for its work in merging celebrity endorsements with Twitter, introducing us to an era of sponsored Tweets from the people we know, love, and take guilty pleasures in following. Ad.ly is also the team behind the media storm that is @charliesheen and #CharliesKorner.

Ad.ly arranged an initial endorsement opportunity for internships.com, helping Charlie Sheen find a #winning intern.

Today Ad.ly and internships.com released some initial stats that officially are impressive and unofficially are nothing short of incredible. I’m working getting approval on releasing additional data, but in the mean time, the team published an interesting infograph that demonstrates just how far #tigerblood spills.

One single tweet published at 4:03 pm Eastern was published to 2.2 million followers.

The Speed: The velocity of the social effect hit 95,333 clicks in the first hour…

The Reach: 181 countries

The Yield: Over 74,000 applications

What this means for brands, personal brands, and additional stats to follow…