A wonderful group of people have contributed to the concepts, content and look of this site. You're terrific, and thank you, one and all!

To Ann Convery (www.annconvery.com) for her encouragement, expertise and insights into clear, compelling descriptions, and for helping my voice emerge.

Much appreciation to Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing (www.actionplan.com>) for his marketing insights and invaluable help in bringing Great Numbers! to life.

Our deepest thanks to Laurie Wolfrum for being the example that became our guiding light.

To Tim Waterloo for his insightful comments and ongoing encouragement.

To the editors and writers of Fortune Magazine, for being such a deep and constant resource, particularly Geoff Colvin, Jerry Useem and Shawn Tully for their superb expositions on shareholder value, and e-business.

To Floyd Norris and Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times for their penetrating sense of what it all means.

To Roger Lowenstein, whose long-running Intrinsic Value column in The Wall Street Journal provided clarity about what makes a great business.

To Dan Sullivan, Adrienne Duffy and Patti Mara of (www.strategiccoach.com) for The Value Creator.

To Colette Morris for her above and well beyond patience, and steadfast support.

To the company that hosts this site, HostMySite.com, for their excellent support, forward thinking and for just giving a damn about their customers. Disclosure: this is entirely uncompensated, and unsolicited.

To Karen Surgent for her thorough review and insightful comments on everything.

To Rief Kanan, Ginnie McDevitt, and the late Joseph Cody of Vistage (www.vistage.com), for their insights, help and encouragement.

To the Vistage resource speakers, who have brought us some of our most fundamental concepts:

• Pat Murray for purpose.
• Dan Wertenberg for the executive's job is to be in a great business.
• Peter Schutz and Gerry Faust (and the work of Ichak Adizes) for organizing to innovate and going for it.
• Howard Hyden for it's about customers.
• Max Carey for crafting customer-value propositions.
• Steve Snyder for how we all work "upstairs."
• Herb Meyer for creating a cost-effective way to see what's coming.

To the late Wayne Dyer for "Don't die with your music still in you."

To Josh Weston for sharing his insights on great business models and meta-models.

To Robin Williams, no, not the late actor, the Graphic Design teacher, and author, with John Tollett, of The Non-Designer's Web Book (www.ratz.com) for the longtime graphics education, and the path.

To Susan Lemons for "getting it" and her early encouragement.

To Brian Sasville for doing business the right way.