Numbers that came from somewhere, and a name beside them.

McDonald’s Corporation 2000 Annual Report, eleven-year summary and segment tables — the filing covering fiscal 1999. Filings: SEC EDGAR.

McDonald’s FY2025 Form 10-K and the Q4/full-year 2025 results release. Systemwide is franchised ($51.946B) plus company-operated ($3.115B).

Arithmetic on the two filings above, with inflation removed using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U annual averages: 1999 = 166.575, 2025 = 321.943, a factor of 1.933. Index: bls.gov/cpi.

Kevin Ozan, then CFO, McDonald’s Q2 2020 earnings call, 28 July 2020.

Deliberately imprecise. The sharper figures in circulation (65–70% of U.S. sales) could not be traced to any McDonald’s source, so they are not on the site. “Well over half” is supported by the company’s own drive-thru statements.

PPG Industries Form 8-K and press release, 2014: Essilor, already holding 49%, acquired PPG’s 51% of the Transitions Optical joint venture for $1.73 billion cash pre-tax, plus a $125 million deferred payment — an enterprise value of about $3.4 billion. The filing. No longer used as a result on this site: the Store of the Future helped spark the sale, which is influence rather than attribution. The figure the site uses instead — up to $500 million a year in added revenue expected over the following decade — comes from Storyminers’ engagement records, reconciled in the aggregate below.

Jack Henry & Associates acquired all of iPay’s equity for $300 million in cash; announced 7 May 2010, closed 7 June 2010. Jack Henry’s 8-K press release. The sale is told as part of the story and is not counted in Storyminers’ numbers; the $13M → $58M arc before it is the next row.

As told to Mike by iPay’s co-founder, Mike Bowers, in conversation post exit.

Mike’s master engagement CV, FullCircle entry: as executive director he “optimized a $500,000 budget and reduced over $400,000 in expenses through strategic recruitment and technology,” and the work “identified $1 million in recurring revenue streams.” The same $1M line sits in the engagement ledger behind the aggregate below. FullCircle was a nonprofit Mike co-founded; he was also its paid advisor for about two years. The Client Stories page tells the whole sequence.

The membership figure and the line “The intent was never the problem; the infrastructure was” are Bob Westrope’s, from his letter to Mike “Six years on,” 14 September 2026 — his result, not Storyminers’. The foundation, The Hague, the hundred-million target and the September 2026 opening are as Bob set them out in the same letter and in his corrections of 25 September 2026, which also set the number of Founding Voices at nine. The First Backers’ Roll, with Mike at № 2, is public at unitedpeoples.earth/back-up. The 2020 lines in Mike’s voice are from his own member video, “LEx Member Mike W. Speaks – Why LEx Matters” (18 February 2020). NAVi, shown on the Client Stories page with UnitedPeoples’ permission, is UnitedPeoples’ own work.

From Mike’s speaking record (his master engagement CV lists the conferences, associations, companies and universities he has spoken for); named on the site on his word, 4 September 2026. “Leading brands in South and Central America, Europe, and Asia” stands for the international stages he has chosen not to list by name. The two organizer quotes on the page (Pat Haly, ExecuNet; Nancy Butler, Sleep Savvy) come from the same record, used on his word the same day.

Added up from Storyminers’ own engagement ledger, one line per client, reconciled in September 2026 against three records: Mike’s master engagement CV (objective, budget, and result for twenty engagements), the case-studies deck, and a contribution-by-role ledger built with an executive coach in 2024, whose method deliberately underestimates every figure. The rules of the count: only value the client actually got — revenue growth, permanent savings, costs avoided; every line at its low end; no company sale prices; and nothing a client did two decades after the work. The line-by-line ledger is held in Storyminers’ records and can be walked through in conversation.

Anchored by the event tally compiled for Mike’s Certified Speaking Professional application to the National Speakers Association (c. 2017) — the CSP requires documented, verified engagements — held in the Storyminers knowledge base, plus the engagement archive since.

Warren D. Devine Jr., “From Shafts to Wires: Historical Perspective on Electrification,” Journal of Economic History 43(2), 1983, pp. 350–352 (doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700029673); Paul A. David, “The Dynamo and the Computer,” American Economic Review 80(2), 1990, p. 357 (jstor.org/stable/2006600).

David 1990, p. 357: retrofitting “typically entailed adding primary electric motors to the original stock of equipment”; Paul A. David & Gavin Wright, “General Purpose Technologies and Surges in Productivity,” Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History 31, 1999, revised in The Economic Future in Historical Perspective (OUP, 2003), p. 36 (free copy).

David 1990, pp. 356–357 (“four decades after the first central power station”); David & Wright, pp. 1 and 21. The count of years depends on the start point: David says four decades, David & Wright “some three decades.”

David & Wright, pp. 1, 3 n., 21; David 1990, p. 359 (about half of the acceleration attributed to electrification). Spoken as “output”; the measured figure is productivity, and the on-screen line carries the precise figure.

The history behind it (motors bolted to the old system) is the entry above. No source says the electric motor turned the shaft faster.

Joe Collins, President, Collins Project Management, in a written testimonial cleared for use: “…our website and new materials led directly to winning the second largest engagement in our history!” Marcus Vess, Principal at Collins during the work and now Senior Vice President at IMPACT, in a written recommendation of 2026-09-11 given for use: “Our RFB led to improved company clarity, focus, and resulted in tremendous growth.” Both held in the Storyminers testimonials register. The engagement, in Mike’s account (2026-09-05): the project team charter (goals, anti-goals, communications, built on the client’s culture) made the first meetings the offer; the leadership team learned to let prospects find the value through questions. No dollar figure is published for the engagement won.

Mike’s account (2026-09-05), with the engagement on file: “Student Center Experience Design” in the Storyminers engagement record, and the 66-page deliverables document “Diseño de la Experiencia del Estudiante y del Empleador” (August 2012), held in the Storyminers archive. Vanta agreed to be named. Year 2012 and the leadership team of about six are Mike’s recollection (2026-09-05); the engagement record files it under 2013. The opening dates and budgets are Vanta’s own figures as reported to Mike; no dollar figure is published.

Company figures from LeasePlan Corporation N.V.’s Annual Report 2013 (fleet 1.37 million vehicles, “over 30 countries,” 6,571 employees, net result €326.4 million; incorporated in Amsterdam, offices in Almere). The 2016 sale by Volkswagen and Fleet Investments to an investor consortium for €3.7 billion: Fleet News, 21 March 2016. The 2023 acquisition by ALD Automotive and the Ayvens brand: Ayvens, October 2023. The engagement (the customer-experience design and management framework, with LeasePlan’s director of customer experience, around 2013) is Mike’s account of 2026-09-05; LeasePlan agreed to be named. Adoption in 27 countries within 18 months is Mike’s account (2026-09-05).

Certified in Private Company Governance, Private Directors Association, earned 2026. CSP — Certified Speaking Professional, National Speakers Association; NSA says fewer than 800 speakers worldwide have ever earned it (NSA CSP directory page, read 2026-09-05). CMC — Certified Management Consultant, Institute of Management Consultants USA; CMC-Global counts almost 8,000 CMCs worldwide (CMC-Global directory, read 2026-09-05). CCXP — Certified Customer Experience Professional, CXPA; 1,369 listed in CXPA’s directory on 2026-09-05; “about the 65th” is Mike’s own count from his certification year. All three were earned and have since lapsed; Mike chose not to renew, so none of the three directories lists him today, and no page on this site presents them as current. The decade recognition is Nextiva’s “The Top 50 Customer Service Experts of the Decade (2010–2020).”

The years are when the work was done, from Storyminers’ engagement records (Mike, 2026-09-19); none of these is current work unless its story says so. Every client named on this site agreed to be named. Storyminers keeps a permissions register recording who agreed to what — and permission to quote someone is tracked separately from permission to name them.

Each quote is used with the client’s permission, recorded in the Storyminers testimonials register. Howard Fields’s line on the McDonald’s card is about Mike’s IBM years, not about McDonald’s: Howard launched the IBM Centers for e-Business Innovation alongside Mike and wrote the words in September 2026 for use. Where a client has not agreed to be named, the engagement is described without identifying it — and the site says so rather than hinting.

Four case images are AI-generated and credited to Leonardo.ai on the page, per the standing rule that AI imagery names its source. The two photographs are credited to their photographers, Homa Appliances and Priscilla Du Preez.

Westinghouse Works films, 1904 (American Mutoscope & Biograph, camera G. W. Bitzer): Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (collection). Ford Highland Park assembly line, about 1913: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-19261 (item). Overhead line shafting with a Bliss-made press, Illinois Pure Aluminum Company, Lemont, Illinois, 1986, photo Jet Lowe: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER ILL,16-LEMO,2--4 (item).

The Cabildo de El Hierro’s Plan de Desarrollo Sostenible, approved 1997 (Cabildo de El Hierro). Gorona del Viento, five wind turbines plus a pumped-water plant, inaugurated 27 June 2014, owned mostly by the island council (Gorona del Viento). Annual shares: 56% in 2018 and 54% in 2019 (elDiario.es), 43.7% in 2024, with 1,049 hours at 100% in 2025 (Autonoción). “In its best years” is said on purpose: the plant was promised as a hundred-percent island and has not reached it; the diesel plant stays as backup. The full working file behind the video is held in the Storyminers research record.

The idea that the room deciding on AI should hold workers, faith leaders, youth, and communities is Bill Gates’s, from his essay on the Gates Notes (August 2026), linked where the Worldview page says it. Storyminers’ Wide Circle practice is our version of it, and we say so.

The 328 is counted from the project’s own version-control history: every recorded revision to the website and design repositories, 15 July through 26 August 2026. The 5–10× comparison and the conversation tally are Mike’s own accounting as a former digital agency co-owner — the working sessions span two machines and months, so the site claims “more than three hundred” rather than a false-precision count.

The Security Council’s first briefing on the safety of AI systems, convened by France on 23 September 2026; briefers Yoshua Bengio, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Clément Delangue. Recording, and the official transcript when posted: UN meeting record; live coverage: UN News. The five-point list is Gary Marcus’s summary of where the speakers converged, “Historic UN Security Council Briefing on AI,” Marcus on AI, 23 September 2026 (garymarcus.substack.com), with Bengio’s remarks reprinted there with his permission; it is his framing, not a Council document. The match to Storyminers’ working rules is our reading, not the Council’s.

On 20 April 1961, a week after the Soviets put the first person in orbit, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, chair of the National Space Council, asking: “Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man.” On 25 May 1961, in his special message to Congress, he asked for the landing: “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” The memo is in the National Archives (shown at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center); the speech text is held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (“Address to Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961”). “Offered a space station” is our shorthand for the memo’s “laboratory in space”.

Older Storyminers documents keep the name that was true when they were written; a pointer to the new name was added rather than rewriting the record. The register lives in the Storyminers naming file.