Management Communication and its Disconnects

One summer during college, I worked with my uncle’s firm building microwave towers out West.  It was one of those great jobs that pay you more in experiences than dollars that I will always remember.  During that time, my uncle noticed that I a book in my backpack. “What are you reading?” he asked.   “‘The [...]

From the Stadium to the Living Room — Is micro-social where it’s at?

This past week, Google unveiled its new application, “Google Wave” which will be released later this year. (To see the presentation of Wave by Google, click below.) Wave at once makes communication and collaboration easier and makes it more personal.  Think of it as combining the intimacy of e-mail and chat-rooms with the malleability of [...]

Three O’Clock Breeze

I’ve spent this Memorial Day opening our place up in Montana.  It’s not a tough job and I get more than a few of hours of time enjoying the lake, learning how successful the resident loons have been in building and maintaining its nest, exploring the logging roads and being continually amazed by the views [...]

Did Dave Eggers create the social web?

Actually, it’s silly to talk about anyone creating the social web.  Ideas get added, mixed, discarded, mutated and something emerges.  However, the social web requires some sort of notion of what identity is, and how it is shared. In his work, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers writes about the freedom in sharing who [...]

Fahrenheit 451

I am not a pack rat.  In fact, at home, I have a six-month rule — if we haven’t looked at or used something for over six months, out it goes.  (To be truthful, my wife has a separate rule which requires us to fill the basement to overflowing before we consider throwing anything out, [...]

Stationary Movement

I’m a big fan of Joseph Campbell. Campbell reviewed religions and mythologies around the world to identify the common stories we tell to better understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos.  One point that Campbell made regarding Buddhism has stuck with me for many years. It’s the concept that every moment of time contains [...]

Nothing ever happens until it happens for the first time

The above is a quote from the CFO of Goldman Sachs concerning the the current economy.  To me, this quote defines how we got to where we are. The financial models used to measure risk were 99% accurate.  Unfortunately, the 1% happened and it happened in a big way.  The 1% “Nothing” became a huge [...]

The Unfear of the Known

Perhaps the best words of advice I received in the business world was to hire people who are not like me. The point was, when you want to build a team, you don’t need — or want — a lot of people who think and act the same way; you need contrasting views and opinions [...]

Falling off a bike

My daughter is riding her bike in the driveway right now.  Last year, I took her to a school parking lot and in an hour, got her to pedal on her own.  Yesterday, she started getting the hang of starting on her own. If any of you have children, you’ve probably gone through what I’ve [...]

Making Beds

This week, has been a week I’ve been thinking hard about teams. Specifically, how do people get beyond their own individual motives to work with each other. Ironically, I ran across a June 2006 Fortune Magazine article on teams about a Wharton Business School student, Jim Vesterman, who signed up for the Marines. Here’s a [...]