As the Tour de France came to an end in Paris last week, Lance Armstrong’s gritty performance was overshadowed by allegations of doping during his remarkable 7 year run as champion.  The Tour is itself a test of character; a 3100 mile trek across the Alps and Pyrenees, amongst the wind, rain, crashes and dramatic climbs of 3000 feet or more. Allegations aside (the man has never tested positive for use of any substance), his sports achievement is amongst the greatest of our lifetime, rivaling those of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. It is easy to forget that at this point, Lance Armstrong doesn’t ride to win bike races; he rides to win the race against cancer.

Livestrong, the brand conceived by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to fund cancer initiatives and supported by Nike, Amgen and others, raises over $40 Million dollars a year and is growing quickly. Livestrong is the ultimate social enterprise, a business/non-profit created to achieve a higher purpose.  Its powerful imagery connects with us in a way that few brands can. Whether your business is for-profit or non-profit there are lessons to be learned from Livestrong.

Some CEO’s I work with trivialize mission and values as mushy and soft. We must not forget that people need to be connected to something bigger than they are.  Achievement in the fight for a cure for cancer and other diseases is not just a goal; it is an all consuming commitment to excellence, because failure is not an option.

We have a responsibility as business people to serve the greater good. But beyond our social consciousness we must also be responsible for providing vision, in the form of tangible outcomes that people can feel and touch.  That is, if we expect others to give their complete, unbridled commitment, then we must deliver a purpose that resonates with them.  The clearer we are about our ideology, values, and determination to succeed, the better chance we have of delivering product and services that support our mission.

As a sign said in the final stage on Sunday: “Merci Lance; you have been an inspiration”.

Here we go again. Suddenly, people are fleeing the stock market for the safety of muni’s and other low risk investments. The U.S. dollar is strong only because of the weakness of the Euro and other foreign currencies supported by extraordinary deficits.  Emerging markets such as China, India and Singapore are the only ones growing and even China’s forecasts are cooling. Some economists are calling all of this a dreaded double dip.  Is this spasm an overreaction?

I am not here to offer a prediction as much as some perspective. Historically, there have been two elements that have preceded U.S. recessions.  Typically, there has been a scandal such as the Savings and Loan Crisis, Michael Milken, Enron/Worldcom, and most recently the liquidity crises triggered by the likes of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Bros, and Bear Stearns, where someone has manipulated a market (most recently derivatives and credit default swaps).  Secondly, the recession usually follows a bubble (dot.com, real estate, etc).  In other words, our economy gets fat and happy, investors take advantage, and then the bubble bursts.

We certainly have not seen our economy swell over the last 12 months.  People have been so desperate for good news that we accepted what little there was as signs of a recovery.  The reality is that our economy grows at about 5% in times of prosperity, and 2% in times of stagnation.  Three percent swings us from optimism to pessimism, which reinforces the magnitude of emotions in our decision making. Fear is always the most powerful emotion and motivator, greater than love and all the others.

So how will the next few months play out? I don’t have a concrete answer for that but what I do know is that our reaction to the sound bites from economists and experts is quite personal. Our practice is thriving at the moment (in part due to the acceptance of the book) which is proof positive that the performance of an organization can be driven in part by one’s confidence and sheer will. Certainly, market forces are in play and in some businesses (like construction) you can still hear the giant sucking sound.  In others the business can best be described as mediocre and the entrepreneur must decide how much investment (in sales and marketing for example) is appropriate.  What I have seen from manufacturing clients is that are petrified of expanding their factories out of fear that they will not be able to dial back capacity.

In a universe where most are passive, there is more opportunity for the aggressors.  I read of one recent investor who bought BP and shorted Apple, a counter strategy that clearly made him a lot of money. While I am not dispensing any investment advice, I am suggesting that we all must make individual choices on the level of risk we are willing to accept. In an age when things are uncertain, there is as much evidence that we will continue along a modest recovery path as there is that the bottom will fall out, and I have made the choice to stay on course. If you are not comfortable with the status quo, it may be time to find new product, services, channels or sectors because there does not appear to be a hockey stick coming any time soon.

In a bold move this month, Amazon doubled royalties paid to authors for electronic books. Given the surging popularity of book readers and the release of the iPad, Amazon is attempting to lock in its position as the distributor of e-books. The segment tripled in volume in 2009.

As an author, what is of particular interest to me is that this transition represents a seismic shift in the control of a distribution channel. For years, publishers controlled the shelf at popular book sellers such as Borders and Barnes and Noble. Thus authors are highly incented to push distribution through publishers, even though they hog all the profit.

The advent of the electronic distribution channel (which dilutes the value of media through lower pricing) will now offer the originator volume and margin, if they have the gumption to self distribute. What are the ramifications of this trend in other industries?

The golden rule is that for physical products, the last mile of distribution is always the most expensive. This is why home delivery of groceries (Webvan seems so far away) has never succeeded. The grocer can move product in mass more efficiently than the consumer can.

But what about categories of products that are traditionally moved through distributors that will no longer require a middle man or special handling? Could we buy automobiles direct, or water for that matter? Could television be streamed straight to our TV’s without the need for cable or a dish?

If your business is reliant on distributors, or you are one yourself, it may be time to consider if your model could be disrupted and by whom. Do distributors in your space add value to the product or diminish from it? As internet applications continue to proliferate, it is time to think provocatively about what radical changes may take place in the way your products and services move through the value chain.