The Power of Lists

Like making lists? Me, too. My lists may not be traditional but still serve a cool purpose.

Impervious to Change

Work looks the same as play today. Hard to tell if you’re on Insta or looking at spreadsheets accounting just sent over.

TAG, you’re it

Yesterday was a big deal, celebrated quietly only inside my heart.

Oh, honey!

Since becoming a grown-up, there are many things about childhood I remember fondly. One thing I was happy to forget about forever was allergies.

Time, time, time.

One of the most important things we all learn as consultants is how to value our time.

More Gratitude for Postman and McLuhan

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who was associated with NYU for forty years. He wrote countless articles, papers and seventeen books. Though my personal favorite is Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Neil is best known for his 1985 book about television, Amusing…

DIY vs. DIT – Part II

The first part of this post built an analogy, that centralization is like DIY (Do-it-Yourself) and decentralization is like DIT (Do-it-Together).

If we can agree on that analogy, simply for the sake of conversation, then we can take it a step further by looking through that lens into some specific contexts where this approach can add value to our efforts by breaking down our silos.

On Being Prepared

It’s not a big secret. Organizations need to be much more proactive about security. Firewalls and antivirus are not a plan anymore, they are doors and windows that can and will be circumvented. Expecting that attackers will simply stay off of your network is foolish. No one knows the moment they’ve been hacked. They find…

Perfect is the enemy of good

WARNING – This is a long post. Something Dad used to say came into my mind yesterday, a variation on Voltaire’s wisdom: “Don’t let perfection get in the way of your best!” He used to tell me this especially while I was stymying myself by procrastinating on this or that. His words resonate today, even…

Show up. Do your best.

Showing up is the default for effort. It requires little or no attention, which works well if you are an alternate on the softball team or filling in on trivia night. In nearly most every other kind of situation where it might actually count, though, attendance requires intention in order to move anything forward. Careers,…

experience

Experience is the move. The move to a new understanding, a motion towards a richer perspective. We spend our lives chasing it, striving to open up new opportunities for it, while surrounding ourselves with those who have it. A simple thing shrouded in complexity, we go to great lengths and take risks to pursue it….

I didn’t go to university. I learned from Linux instead. 

TOUGH CHOICES When I chose to forego college, preferring instead to join the working world confident that doors would open and I’d be able to continue my own learning, there were a lot of the expected reactions. My friends and my friends’ parents asked me questions like: “What are you thinking?” “Why would you do…