I just finished reading Switch, a book about how to effect change. Very Dale Carnegiean, the substance of the book was nothing revolutionary, per se. But I liked the way the Heath brothers broke things down to the Rider and the Elephant (borrowed from The Happiness Hypothesis). Here are a few of my favorite pointers from Switch.

One of the few lessons from high school science classes that has actually stuck with me is the difference between velocity and acceleration. Simply put, the velocity is the speed at which an object is traveling, whereas acceleration is how much an object is increasing in speed.

To put it another way, one is an indication of a current status and one is an indication of rate of change.

People love ranking things. Best business school. Best company to work for. Best mustache. Rankings are designed to show how something compares to similar items in a particular category. It shows velocity. And people like that because it helps them make judgements based on what they see.

Velocity has played a part in a lot of the decisions I have made in my life, including what schools I have chosen and what companies I have worked for (not so much with mustache decisions :{ ). Despite this, my view on velocity as an important decision metric has begun to change. Lately, I've been learning to appreciate acceleration as a better measurement.

Last year, I posted about my opinion that ideas are easy, that it's the execution that is hard. The more I learn about business, the more I believe this to be true. I think we all know how great of a resource the Internet can be. But how many of us effectively use it to solve problems? I'm not just talking about Google, but also the vast landscape of knowledge in the form of databases, forums, libraries, connectability to bloggers and industry experts, and so many more tools. The best part is that most of this is free and (forgive the cliché) literally at our fingertips.

I'm just beginning to fully embrace this as I work towards my MBA and future career. Since the time I was in high school and starting participating in FBLA, I have had a number of ideas for new businesses. But up until this point I haven't followed through on them because I didn't have enough money or enough knowledge or both. I think that the time has come for that to change.

There's no excuse for not knowing or not acting.

For some reason, I find this incredibly stupid commercial hilarious.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Minneapolis, Minnesota and tour the world headquarters for General Mills. I had the chance to meet with and hear from some very amazing people who work there. Here are just a couple of the takeaways I wrote down from Becky O'Grady, President of Yoplait.