Amazon link This was recommended to me by a friend as a great book on becoming a leader and manager. The book reminds me of How to Win Friends and Influence People in that the advice is deceptively simple. If I had read this book even five years ago, I think I would have dismissed […]
Category: thoughts
Management is an Attitude
I’ve been thinking about what it takes to be an effective manager for a long time. Between the classes I’m taking at Columbia and the books I’m reading for myself, I’m starting to get some ideas that I’m trying to figure out how to apply in my own life. A recent realization is that being […]
Getting results
A few weeks ago, I wrote an email where I stated “You get results from what you pay attention to.” I was actually talking about management, but I am realizing that the statement applies in all aspects of life. It sounds banal, almost trite, but capitalizing on this assumption require discipline and focus. My personal […]
Being Impressive
In the Columbia program, our first professor (and founder of the program), Art Langer, spoke in the fall about the ingredients of being a leader. One of the things he emphasized was the importance of “being impressive”. It’s easy to dismiss that – it seems subjective and difficult to control. But I was sitting in […]
The Rise of the Amateur
You convinced me. I think I was just cranky on Wednesday evening because I’d been up until 2am finishing a paper the night before, worked all day, gone to three hours of class, and then wrote that blog post. So consider this a giant retraction and flip-flop on the last post. Christy brought up the […]
The Decline of the Amateur
I went to my third likemind a couple weeks ago (and, yes, I plan to continue mentioning likemind each month because I think it’s a wonderful concept, and because I continue to enjoy it). I was chatting with somebody there who expressed the opinion that he couldn’t start a blog because he wouldn’t be able […]
Requirements Management Processes
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in a master’s program in Technology Management at Columbia. As part of that, I’m working on a master’s project, which I’ve decided to do in the realm of requirements and specifications management, mostly because I’ve never seen it done well and would like to understand the field better for my […]
Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath
Amazon link Official site This is a study of what makes ideas stick. They start it off by relating the kidney heist urban legend, a story that all of us have heard and can probably recount. Why has this story stuck in our memories so successfully? It has no advertising budget, nobody pushing it – […]
Magic Words
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is “Technology and the Law”, for which we occasionally have to read legal cases. One of the ones we had to read recently, PG&E vs. Thomas Drayage & Rigging Company, was surprisingly entertaining and interesting, so I’ve been meaning to write something up about it. The reason […]
On Dilettantism
I just wrote a long comment over at Ei-Nyung’s post about the positive aspects of being a dilettante. As my first comment on that post states, I’m obviously biased as I post under the title of “Unrepentant Generalist”. But I figured I’d include my comment here as well, since it’s a recurring theme in my […]
