Trade-Offs

How often do you find yourself confronted by a situation where you have to make a choice, and none of the options under consideration seems to be a perfect fit for your current needs or desires?  It happens all of the time. Examples abound, and we need look no further than the disturbing political three-ring […]

We Talk Too Much

We all talk too much. I’m not referring to intelligent conversation, rational argument, intellectual debate, or anything of that ilk. I’m thinking about all of the idle chit-chat, meaningless prattle and idle bulls**t that pollutes our auditory system on an almost never-ending basis.  We have Talk Shows on TV.  When we get in the car […]

Teamwork – and All That Jazz

Let me make this clear right up front.  I’m not a music critic, and certainly not a jazz critic.  I like some jazz music, but I’m not a raving fan.  Nonetheless, when my good friend, Doc Gruver, invited my wife Debbie and me to join him and his wife Linda at the Sunset Jazz at […]

Like a Nautilus

I have learned that I am not a continuous learner. I learn in sometimes dazzling bursts. But then I go through a phase of consolidation and integration. It’s as if I need some time to rest, refresh, renew, and maybe even reshape my view of the world, before blazing into another flaming glory of learning. […]

Ten Commandments of Teamwork

A group of my students were working on a team project, and were experiencing some problems getting their act together.  Nothing too serious, just the sort of symptomatic problems that seem to get in the way of top-notch performance from team efforts. Why do we seem to have problems working together on teams?  Everybody knows […]

On the Lookout for Wisdom

I was trying to understand the popularity of websites like Yelp.com and Digg.com. These sites rely on the so-called Wisdom of Crowds to identify the best places to eat, shop, etc. [Yelp] and to determine what news is REALLY news [Digg].  Apparently,  when we somehow aggregate the knowledge and information of a large number of people, we come […]