“I had a woman in Idaho tell me that her options for employment went from one job to hundreds because of her ability to work from home after receiving broadband,” said DigitalBridge founder, Kelley Dunne.

In partnership with others including Internet providers he offered online access to rural or otherwise “underserved areas of the country such as Native American reservations, rural communities and inner-city low-income housing.”

Dunne ‘s lifelong work path provides us with step-by-step insights on how to accomplish greater things with others and savor the friendships along the way.

Here are his steps that we can adapt to our work in our own way, even at a later stage in life:

1. Continuously deepen expertise in one single area that matters to you and matches your talents.

2. Practice working in teams, as a leader and a team player – especially self-organized teams – those not required by a “boss.” More important than leading in this increasingly connected and complex world, see how to become the Most Valuable (kind of) Player most needed in each situation.

Then you’ll stay sought-after for future opportunities on other teams. Morten Hansen calls this T-shaped management yet anyone – even non-managers – can practice it.

3. Learn how to scale and/or replicate the projects on which you work.

4. Keep an eye out for problems to solve and opportunities to seize, where you can employ your deep expertise and befriend apt partners along the way, before you need them.

5. When that irresistible problem or opportunity presents itself be ready. To tackle it find the right partners who complement your talents (and no extra people) and who share a sweet spot of mutual interest with you to tackle that task.

Together get specific on your actionable goal to create a different service, product or organization and/or to serve a different niche better together than you could on your own.

In keeping with those steps, Dunne described what he has done, in a recent interview:

1.“As I started my career, I decided that if I was going to participate in society, I wanted to first do something to serve others. I joined the Army, where I was involved in rolling out some of the first digital wireless communication systems.”

2. “Being a lieutenant in the Army taught me accountability, leadership and teamwork.

I eventually joined a very small company that was delivering DSL technology to apartment communities across the country. We grew rapidly.”

3. “I brought vision, leadership and execution and the ability to build a scalable business. In 2000, when we sold it to Verizon, it became Verizon Avenue.”

4. “I began to see that as the world evolved more into a wireless one, we could create different business models toserve areas that were harder to reach.”

5. “I came up with a plan to do this and pitched it to Verizon. We applied new technologies for underserved areas of the country such as Native American reservations, rural communities and inner-city low-income housing.”

We worked in cooperation with other partners in the industry to help figure out how to serve different parts of the country.”

“I’ve always been an admirer of One Economy. I love the way they ran it like a business, created very collaborative public-private partnerships and focused on the holistic solution – not just access but content training and sustainability.

Here was an opportunity to bring wireless to underserved communities on a bigger scale with a very well-respected organization that has a long track record and is poised to do some fantastic things both domestically and globally.”

Next step for Dunne? He is now the excited new ceo of One Economy, eager to train and mentor more “Digital Connectors” to help low income people improve their lives, including by gaining access to computers and online resources.

Hint: Collaborating around a sweet spot of mutual interest often leads to dreaming bigger and opens new doors of opportunity and friendship.

If a hotel can become famous for leading ducks across their lobby at 11:00 then certainly your business can become more well-known for some simple ritual that customers like to photograph and tell others about and reporters love to cover.

In fact it’s surprising that so few businesses and other organizations see the power of memory-making rituals that we keep talking about the few that do. And instead of creating a new ritual a sister hotel simply imitated the duck walk. You can do better.

1. Think quirky

As all actors know, a cute kid or animal almost always steals the show.  For example the annual ritual that raised $120,000 this year in a town of just 2,404 is the weiner dog race.  That’s right. Long, cute dogs. People and their pets came from all over the country for the chance to compete.

2. Create community around your ritual

The race is a great example of what the beneficiary of the race, the Lions Club calls a “core belief – community is what we make it.” It has been an annual tradition around which dog owners (and their families and friends) meet to compare notes and catch-up. Hint: the more fervent the community the more valuable your participation can be for your organization.

3. Offer the unexpected

Instead of “just” offering a loaner car like the one you are getting serviced a British Volvo dealership also offers bikes as loaners. The dealership enjoys two benefits  – deepening the loyalty of its eco-minded customers and attracting worldwide media coverage.

4. Reduce your cost of providing that ritual by partnering

Volvo’s ritual was then topped by Fiat in Spain. By partnering with electric bicycle maker Trek it could make the same offer yet without the cost of buying and maintaining the bikes. Trek benefits by getting a warmed-up introduction to possible customers.

The bonus benefits are that many of the people who saw the cyclists heard also saw the message on the bike and many of the cyclists told their friends about their experience.

5. Give a souvenir sample whenever people have to wait – or even pause

For a client years ago I set up an experiment in which those waiting in a movie theater line were greeted by smiling, good-looking college students and offered a free ice cream bon bon on a silver tray. One each. The students simply walked down the line, saying, “Like a tasty bon bon while you’re waiting? If you like it there are more inside.”

The results of that study were so positive the theater chain intermittently continued the practice. (Intermittent rewards create more happiness, perhaps because of the hedonic treadmill effect yet we crave the certainty of constancy – “the ducks will walk across at 11″). When bon bons are offered movie theatre snacks go up an average of 26 percent.

For the owner of seven upscale restaurants in London we did a similar experiment with wine.  Per customer sales went up as average of 23 percent.

Then we suggested that the restauranteur approach his wine distributers to offer them the opportunity to provide their wine, at cost.  Several agreed so he could rotate the kinds of wine he gave waiting guests.

For this sampling ritual, the wait staff, while offering the tray with the glasses of wine, showed the bottle and said the vinter’s name.   That was so successful that wine makers now vie for the opportunity to give their wine for such samplings. They also began offering samplings to delighted diners during their meal.

That way more customers get free wine and often wind up ordering more wine.

The participating vintners get their wines introduced in a relaxed, convivial atmosphere.

Cost-saving Hint: Make your ritual so popular that you can attract partners that want to participate in it.  That way you can offer your customers that ritual more often yet at a lower cost to you.

Conclusion

Most any consumer-serving place can create a small, simple-to-execute ritual that:

• Gives an unexpected experience to customers, one they can brag about – and others can see them enjoying.

• Increases sales.

• Attracts media coverage.

• Demonstrates the value of partners participating so the cost of offering that ritual go down.

See more ways to profitably partner and then create your own, unique, customer-attracting ritual – with the right partners.

One morning over his breakfast cereal, life forever changed for a twelve-year old Canadian boy. He flipped through the pages of his morning newspaper to find his favorite cartoons. Instead he was stopped by a headline, “Battled Child Labour, Boy 12 Murdered”. That was back in 1995. Craig Kielburger asked his brother Marc and then others to join him in what’s become a child-to-child “Me to We” movement.

Now they write a column for The Toronto Star. Marc is executive director and co-founder of Free The Children. (He also graduated from Harvard, then became a Rhodes Scholar with a law degree from Oxford University).

Beginning on March 25th you can get an eBook version of the Kielburgers’ book, Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World.

Like Buried Life, four other Canadian youth, Marc and Craig believe that anybody can make a difference in others’ lives – and thus live a more meaningful life. Once you read some of the everyday actions and inspiring stories they collected you may want to re the “blueprint” they offer in their ebook. (Who’s your hero?)

Perhaps they can expand involvement by partnering with Sergio Lub’s pay-if-forward community, favors. Maybe Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire at MIT can involve them in creating the Me to We games to teach children. Yes, sometimes good things do happen to good people.

You don’t have to be a powerful politician to increase your influence by partnering. Emulate their tactics. Here’s how:

1. Are You Under Someone’s Thumb?

When your piece of the pie keeps getting smaller, don’t battle others for a bigger piece – making their share smaller. Instead join forces with them and fight for a bigger pie. That advice came from one of my mentors, Harvard negotiation and decision making expert Howard Raiffa. Your best bet to gain more clout collectively, as others are, especially when under the thumb of someone with much more power.

2. Then Forge the Alliance That Can’t be Ignored

With others you can change the power paradigm. Out to prove the power of the right partnership – and look like public heroes – are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell. Faced with a record deficit in Bush’s just-proposed budget, they formed a coalition to “encourage” (read “pressure for”) “direct federal funding for infrastructure investment.”

3. Name Your Group to Label the Situation Your Way

These three powerful politicians dubbed their coalition Building America’s Future.

4. Get Maximum Attention by Moving From Specifics to a General Goal – Not Vice Versa

In announcing the coalition, Bloomberg started with a few vivid specifics then moved to the “obvious” general conclusion: ““We can all look at recent headlines in New Orleans, air traffic congestion in the Northeast or the bridge collapse in Minnesota to realize that our nation’s infrastructure is in need of serious attention. “But those examples only scratch the surface of the problem. The funding to maintain our existing infrastructure, and to improve and expand infrastructure as our nation continues to grow, just hasn’t been the priority it needs to be.”

Don’t let people stop listening before you stop talking. When we feel strongly about our situation and are steeped in knowledge about it we tend to speak in fervent generalities, talk too long and bury our main message – the one that could attract support. Speak English Like it Tastes Good.

5. Share the Spotlight With Your Partners

That keeps all partners invested in the success of “our” alliance. Together you can:
• Makes the message more credible and compelling
• Offer multiple and mutually-reinforcing points
• Attract a wider mix of potential supporters.

When the coalition was announced, Rendell said, “State and local governments have been forced to pay an increasing share of infrastructure maintenance costs, and they now need federal aid.”

6. Hone Your Message

This coalition is out to prove that their pie is, in fact, getting smaller. And less funding is making “our” communities less safe, harming local business and the environment… and so on.

Schwarzenegger gets to deliver the money quote to drive home that point: “America needs $1.6 trillion worth of infrastructure over the next five years yet federal investment has been cut in half as a percent of gross domestic product since 1987. This is disastrous because without adequate infrastructure to quickly and safely move goods and people, our economy and our traffic will stop dead in its tracks.”

7. Time Your Announcement to Gain Maximum Visibility and Leverage

During this long presidential campaign period, reporters need fresh angles to cover. This coalition was announced before President Bush announced his staggering budget and just 16 days before Super Tuesday. Weary pundits and political reporters need a new news hook, related to the campaign. The coalition partners provided one – a “first ever” – to, “educate presidential candidates on the enormity of the infrastructure crisis.”

Photo-ops do have impact. Like politicians, celebrities and other public figures, you can bolster your message by choosing where you announce it. The three political leaders announced the coalition while standing under a freeway overpass in Los Angeles.

8. Piggyback on Others’ Credible Messages

Following up on New York Times columnist’s Bob Herbert’s column, the coalition partners wrote to him, “Mr. Herbert is right to call on the federal government to take a stronger leadership role in meeting our nation’s infrastructure challenges. We recently announced the formation of Building America’s Future, a nonpartisan coalition that will fight for exactly this goal.”

9. Invite Others Who Also Want to Make “Our” Pie Bigger

In this fight for upgrading our roads and other basic infrastructure, the coalition founders are recruiting the professional groups of local and state elected and other government officials, civil engineers and others affected by decreasing size of the infrastructure pie.

Also, morph your structure to go after your goal: After the presidential election, the coalition will become a think-tank.

Remind the holder of the big pie that he will have to fight “us” not just “me”: Schwarzenegger said “I could not be happier to join Governor Rendell and Mayor Bloomberg to shine an even brighter spotlight on this critical issue.”

Thousands of prisoners, nursing home patients and others cut off from freely roaming the world have been moved by the live concerts organized by Bread and Roses. Famous musicians including Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis and Tuck and Patti have been joined by hundreds of other skilled, local musicians, sound engineers, event producers and other volunteers to bring concerts to those leading more isolated lives than most of you who are reading this. If music moves you, then you may be motivated to jumpstart your own version of Bread and Roses in your community. What a way to create a circle of talented friends as you help make music for others, eh? As Maya Angelou wrote in Gather Together in My Name, “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

Since Bread and Roses has established systems to leverage the value of their volunteers in hosting a packed schedule of concerts each month, you may not have to start from scratch. Get more ideas and systems from The ‘Rite of Spring’ Project and other music-to- community non-profits.

From this beloved non-profit’s executive director and my friend Cassandra Flipper and her talented producer and public relations director Marian Hubler, hear how these concerts have lit the lives of so many. Bread and Roses has a poignant back story, intensely loyal supporters and a lively collaboration with local high school students that brings the story to life for you here. After all, as Berthold Auerbach wrote, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

As Taquisha, a performer in The ‘Rite of Spring’ Project, “a sixth grader … wrote (on the Carnegie Hall web site), ‘I think the music is awesome because the music is so strong. If that music is strong, I am going to be strong.’” Amen, Taquisha!  Hear the podcast.