Husbandry

This last weekend marked my Meyer Lemon’s annual trip into the house for Winter. Since lemons require a long growing season, I always bring it in just before Thanksgiving laden with lemons while silently praying that none fall off while being GENTLY coaxed through the door, where it will stay until February. Then it’ll go […]

The Soul of (All) New Machines

Remember the Tracy Kidder book, “The Soul of the New Machine“? Required reading in business school from almost the day it shipped, the author embedded with teams at Data General in Massachusetts, in their quest to build a new and better mini-computer (remember those?) in those in-between days between big iron mainframes and the eventual […]

“Can anything good come from Tulsa?”

“And Nathanael said unto him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip saieth unto him, “Come and see.”“ — John 1:46 A friend of mine recently posted a news story about a former Tulsa Public Schools Assistant Superintendent and his great successes in another state, with accolades and recognition on a national scale. […]

Virus

COVID-19 virus

I had no idea earlier this year I would have read so much about virology. One tidbit: virologists have learned that viruses are something less than alive: they contain genetic information but cannot reproduce. They require a host that they can take over and make do their bidding. Once a bug is inside us, its’ […]

Transparency

What do Police Departments and Public Schools have in common? In 2020 they’ve both been forced to reckon with situations that question their legitimate, organizational authority. One over perceived systemic racism and safety (Black Lives Matter) and the other over COVID-19: how to engage with stakeholders, how to share information, and (allegedly) safeguard the personal […]

A Really Long View on COVID-19

I’ve been reading a bit about the 200 viruses that are known collectively as “the common cold.” Three or four of those are coronaviruses, the latest of which science believes jumped to humans approximately 10,000 years ago (~8,000 BCE). They estimate the world population then was between 1-10 Million. The upper end is the current […]

The Long Path

For years as an IT diagnostician, my most sought-after skill was being able to know someone’s mind (and thus their technology needs) well enough to anticipate needs, or at the least being able to translate needs into something I can deliver. Later as an IT Director and V-P, when onboarding beginner Tier 1 tech support […]

Everybody Out of the Pool!

Note: I started this post in late February 2020, before the pandemic lockdown, to remind and describe how companies have “pivoted” (hate that term) in the past due to societal mandates. Now I finally went back, post-surgery, to finish it… See the “Mad Men”-esque image above. Where’s your organization’s secretarial pool? Not long ago (my […]