While it’s still fresh in my mind, I wanted to jot down some passing observations about my experience at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference. From the warm-up tutorial, it was interesting seeing how some of the personality preferences were demonstrated by Don Gray and Steve Smith. I particularly liked the I vs. E demonstration – […]
Category: thoughts
Jerry Weinberg
As many of you know, I’m off at the AYE conference, and one of the major attractors for me personally was Jerry Weinberg. I’ve read books of his like Becoming a Technical Leader and The Secrets of Consulting, and his systems thinking approach is an inspiration to me (his second “law of consulting” is “No […]
Planning for surprise
I had lunch today with the always inspirational Grant McCracken, who leaves my mind fizzing with new ideas and thoughts, so I’m riding that energy wave and updating my blog. As an aside, Grant is in the Bay Area talking about his soon-to-be-released book, Chief Culture Officer, about how companies need to incorporate an understanding […]
The world is small. Except when it isn’t.
Golly. Three months without posting. But things have calmed down at work, I took a few days off for Burning Man two weekends ago, and I slept most of this past weekend, and, hey, look, I have things to say again. Well, actually, I’ve had things to say for months, but not the energy to […]
Thinking about easy
I’ve noticed a fundamental distortion in how I view the world: If I know the answer or how to do something, it’s easy. If I don’t, it’s hard. This is a distortion because this worldview devalues my accumulated experience and knowledge. It’s funny because I know how long it took me to learn what I’ve […]
Making things easy
Why was the iPod successful? It didn’t have the most features – I once bought an Archos Jukebox with many options unavailable on the iPod at the time. It certainly wasn’t price – I bought a Dell DJ for $100 less than a comparable iPod in 2005. The design and user experience, the sleekness and […]
Leadership
Charlie asked the question last week: “Why aren’t you striving to be a leader in your field?” which has gotten me thinking about leadership, and what it means to be a leader. It also sparked an email exchange with a friend on the topic, which led to some interesting thoughts. What does it mean to […]
Why am I doing this?
Anybody that’s been following my Twitter feed knows I’ve been working long hours recently. I’m actually working harder now than I was last year when I was working full time while finishing my master’s degree at Columbia. This would come as a surprise to, well, pretty much anybody that’s ever worked with me, given my […]
Right vs. Effective
I’ve mentioned this idea in several conversations recently, so I figured it was time to blog about it. In particular, I’ve been telling people about my career and how it’s much easier to be right than it is to make the right thing happen. So, like any good wanna-be management consultant, I came up with […]
Super Bowl Sunday
Yikes, it has been a long time since I blogged. I’ve been buried at work, although things seem to be slowing down a bit (knock on wood). For those of you that want more regular updates, I recommend Twitter and/or del.icio.us as those get updated more regularly. This past weekend, though, I made time to […]
