Quality in a service or a product is not what you put into it. It’s what the client or the customer gets out of it. Peter Drucker.

It’s an age old adage, but true. Regardless of the tools we use to build a business, without customers there wouldn’t be one. I was thinking about that last evening when I wandered into a Starbucks, just before they were closing.

I stared into the display case looking for something sweet. The selection was seriously depleted. About the only left was a lonely looking oatmeal cookie – with a big “bite” taken out of one side but it looked good and I was hungry.

“Would you like something with your tea?” the barista pleasantly inquired.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’ll take that oatmeal cookie – the one that a mouse has obviously attacked.” We both laughed.

She took the cookie out of the display case and, as she was swiping my card, she said announced, with a grin, “The cookie’s on us.”

“No, no, no,” it’s OK,” I said, “I was just joking.”

“I know,” she replied. “It’s still on us.”

Hmmm… I thought. Here we are. Tweeting, liking and blogging, updating our web presence… trying so hard to be cool, scrambling for our fair share of the market.

But it’s not always only about the technology. How much could that cookie have actually cost? At the end of the day, growing a business is always about people, even in the age of laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Getting customers isn’t easy. Keeping them is even harder.

In a hard scrabble market place, the leaders know takes sometimes nothing sticks as well as a free cookie and a simple human gesture.

Technology, as we all know, is in the process of fundamentally changing how we conduct our businesses. Even how we think.

For many, the transition from the old to the new model has already happened. For others though, often entrepreneurs in mid career, the adoption is slower, more hesitant.

The other day I attended a presentation and book signing at the Rotman School of Business conducted by Mitch Joel. His new book is entitled Ctrl Alt Delete, Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It.

In it he suggests that we are “in a moment of business purgatory”, caught between the obsolete tools of marketing and selling and the social media revolution which is gaining momentum everyday.

It is sometimes humorous and light hearted, at other times deadly serious. But if your business is flatlining or not growing at the rate you think it should be for the effort you are putting in, then this book may well be worth taking to the cottage, or on the back patio for a couple

While you may not necessarily concur with everything he writes, for the most part, I agree, our futures, on many levels depend upon our getting the technology right.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Mahatma Gandhi

As the car taking him from the grey prison blocks slowly approached the gate, he ordered the driver to stop. Getting out of the car, strong and dignified, he walked the last few yards and strode out through the open gate to freedom and on to the world stage.]

After 27 years Mandela was free.

Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas and his daughter Chelsea were among the millions that dazzling, sunlit morning watching the dramatic scene play out on TV. In the foreword to the book MANDELA, THE AUTHORIZED PORTRAIT, Bill Clinton recalled watching and wondering, as Mandela walked down that dusty road, what he was thinking about and whether he was angry all over again.

Years later he had the opportunity to ask him that. It was at a time when they both were presidents of their respective countries. President Clinton said, “I know you are a great man. You invited your jailers to your inauguration. You put your persecutors in the government. But tell me the truth. Weren’t you really angry all over again? And Mandela answered, “Yes, I was angry. And I was a liitle afraid. After all, I’d not been free in so long. But,” he said, “when I felt the anger well up inside me, I realized that if I hated them after I got outside the gate then they would still have me.” Then he smiled and said, “But I wanted to be free, and so I let it go.”

Letting go of a wrong done to you or some slight to your person, whether big or small isn’t always easy. Often it takes courage and a big heart. Can you imagine spending 27 years of your life, six days a week, smashing rocks under a broiling sun or digging in a lime quarry only to return late in the afternoon to a tiny cell and then somehow being able to forgive your jaliers? I don’t know if I could.

Never the less, it is true that carrying around old grudges or past injustices does, indeed, imprison you. Rather than looking for the good and the positive in their lives, many people spend their whole day looking for ways to be insulted. It isn’t hard. The problem with doing that, though, is that it takes the joy out of life and stops you from moving ahead to a better place. Worse still, it makes you blind to your blessings.

So much has changed in these 23 years since Mandela walked his famous walk. He has become larger than life, a model of immense courage and grace, a personal moral authority for people everywhere, regardless of race, creed or status.

Every once in a long while, the Universe presents humankind with someone very special. He was not perfect nor without his faults, as are we all, but his contribution was enormous. The eyes of the world are upon again, especially at this moment.

When he finally decides to go and walks the last walk, hopefully he will know that while we may forget what he said, we will not soon forget how he made us feel.

“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” Rachel Carson

Weekends in the city are special, especially the parks. After a hectic week and the city seems to empty out as the cottagers head out of town, they are an oasis of calm; a place of tranquility, a spot where you can connect with nature in the middle of the concrete canyons and ribbons of unending vehicles.

Parks attract people of all ages and from all walks of life but regardless of whom they are, they all have one thing in common. They value quietude. Watch them… lovers slowly strolling, arm in arm, along the paths; old men sitting on benches, soaking up the life-giving warmth of the sun; young parents proudly pushing stollers. Then there are others, singlely or in pairs, reading their books or the Sunday papers. Occasionally someone glides by on a bike. Even the animals get into the act: dogs, free of their leashes, unsuccessfully chase squirrels. Birds flutter around, pecking for food in the grass.

Connecting with nature, in any of its forms, is important to your health and well being. It helps to release stress, sooth your spirits and sharpen your senses.

It doesn’t have to be only in a park, of course. Whether you are sitting on the end of a dock, in a quiet backyard garden – or on a bench under a tree in the park, plugging into nature affords you the opportunity to set aside your busyness, if even for only for a short while… and just catch your breath.

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Have you ever felt that, for whatever reason, time is no longer on your side? If only you could stop the clock or turn it back. No such luck.

In his famous, I Have a Dream speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently reminded us that:

“We are faced with the fact, my friends, tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood – it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

Many of us, from time to time, feel similar sentiments, especially today. These are uncommon times. Uncertainty and fear are creeping around the edges, sniffing at the centre.

We all face barriers and challenges of one kind or another and have setbacks occasionally. That’s how life goes. It’s the familiar dance – one step forward, two steps back.

In the dance of life time waits for no one. The trick is to keep dancing -with the fierce urgency of now.