I’m a sucker for what pmarca calls productivity pr0n. From early pioneers like Seneca, Franklin, and Carnegie, to today’s wonder-of-the-minute, I always looking for a better way. Sometimes it’s like that six year old with the hammer, who saw everything as a nail. Daniel Goleman’s Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence is a marvelousRead… Read more »

There are many ways to communicate, as I got a lesson this morning. Yesterday, I got a text, which I misinterpreted, due to lack of detail. We were about to commit significant resources to an ongoing project when a chance call degraded the whole effort to much ado about nothing. Seems to me a textRead… Read more »

The end of the year brings a rush of social, semi-social, and non-social events. With the crush of other obligations, it’s hard for me to get into the season. However, necessity is a mother, and over the weekend I found myself relearning four ways to have a better time at gatherings. Number one is DoRead… Read more »

This old man was walking down the street and he sees a little kid sitting on the curb crying. “Little kid, why are you crying?” “I can’t do what the big boys do!” So, the old man sat down and cried with him. Jokes are how we explain the not-yet-knowable, part of the process toRead… Read more »

In Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes To War, Max Hastings tells the story of the clash of modern war technology (machine gun) meets the warfare of the previous century, cavalry charges, colorful (target) uniforms, and the ego, misinformation, stupidity, and ego that commanders could have when battles took months to set up, and soldiers could haveRead… Read more »

Bruce Schneier gave a talk at Authors@Google about his book, Liars and Outliers:Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive. I watched it a couple of months ago, and he provided a lot to think about. What started as an off-hand observation and has since become increasingly useful is his metaphor of the Three Keiretsu.Read… Read more »

I see a lot of advice about how to start relationships, that networking, firm handshake, clear eye stuff. Earlier this month I got a delightful call from a 20 year customer asking permission to introduce me to a new prospect. We hadn’t spoken in years, but still like each other a lot, and he toldRead… Read more »

How do you start your new projects? How do you remember what happened in meetings six months later? Saturday I started two projects in a whole new area of my life. I had been collecting information for a week, and needed to figure out what I knew. I wrote two one page descriptions, one forRead… Read more »

I got a chiding comment about Civility. “You write about longer conversations opening more options. You should be selling what your company is offering.” Fair enough. Through a quirk of career, I was a product manager designing offerings before I ever got into the field. As a matter of fact, I fought going into theRead… Read more »