The Four C's that launched churnOn.com

Create, Connect, Complete, and Churn

Many of my Carolina friends remember Dean Smith's famous 'Four Corners' offense. Before the shot clock was introduced into the college game (in the 1985-86 season) the Tar Heels would go into 'Four Corners' to protect a lead or even as a complete game strategy. For the basketball purists, and especially UNC fans, the offense was a thing of beauty when executed correctly. So I pay tribute to the greatest college basketball coach of all time and one of my 'heroes', Coach Dean Smith, with this series titled The Four C's that Launched churnOn.com. A quick bit of trivia: Who was the first Carolina player to play the 'center' position in the Four Corners in practice? Read to the end to get the answer.

The true innovator!:

In early January, I began the process of 'unplugging' from my day-to-day sales role at Salient Systems and started a new phase of life. One of the first things I did was read a book called, YOU Are a Brand! by Catherine Kaputa. The stores (and Web) are full of personal branding materials these days. I selected Kaputa because I wanted to write about the subject with my daughter Sally, away at college and beginning to shape her professional career. Kaputa is an impressive woman and I enjoy celebrating accomplished women as a way of inspiring my talented girls. Through studying Kaputa's book, subtitled 'How smart people brand themselves for business success,' I decided that I wanted to create a personal website and set the following 'intentions' for the site:

• A unique way to highlight my professional career, my creative abilities as a salesman and a manager, and as a launching pad for my book Releasing the Churn.
• As a launching pad for my blog, where I could write about things I enjoy such as entrepreneurialism, golf, raising girls, fitness, writing, and spirituality.
• As a home base, around which I could surround the ecosystem of social networking tools (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and others.) Entrepreneurs, executives and especially great sales people need to use these tools effectively and efficiently, but not excessively, in order to operate at peak capacity in the world in which we now live.

So with my goals clearly identified I set out to create the website, the blog, and the ecosystem. That brings me back to The Four C's That Launched churnOn.com: Create, Connect, Complete, and Churn. I will dig deeper into each of these cornerstones in the posts that follow. I think you will enjoy hearing how I created the entire site in four weeks, starting purchasing a new MacBook, and finding out just how 'intentional' one can get through a regular Yoga practice.

Answer: Larry Brown. In Coach Smith's book, A Coach's Life (p. 69 of my autographed copy, thanks to my friend Mike Merritt) Coach Smith explains how the offense was created (in practice) in the early 60s with Larry Brown in the center position but actually never utilized in a game until after Larry graduated.