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Help Wanted: Zookeeper with a Good Attitude.

Most job postings are dry.  Really dry.  And – they usually include “must haves” which require skills and/or experience with everything but being able to both plumb AND re-enamel a kitchen sink.  As one hiring manager/Art Director I spoke with last week said – if any candidate ever met his team’s expectations, there …

Interesting Quotes I Found Today.

“A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”  - Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 “All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” - Sean O’Casey (1880 – 1964)   “It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most …

Oscar Wilde Monday

Oscar Wilde wrote ”There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Since I’ve found few writers able to match both his brevity and wit, I frequently turn to his writings and quotes to humorously summarize a recent (or not) happening in my life. These are just a …

The CEO’s Secret Handbook

Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management was originally part of a PowerPoint presentation by Bill Swanson, CEO of aerospace contractor Raytheon made to engineers and scientists at the company. Swanson later put his rules down on paper. So he did: in 3-inch-by-5-inch spiral-bound notebooks handed out to executives and customers. While some of the …

And One More Thing…

Steven Jobs, cofounder of Apple, has been labeled many things, from visionary to egomaniac. Often I think he is inspirational too: We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? Innovation is the distinction between a leader and a follower. The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t …

Customer Experience, Part II

A t-shirt popular within the Apple Computer team building v.1 of Quicktime read “Apple: 80 hours a week, and loving it!” So much for work  | life balance. At the same time, I think Steve Jobs gets a lot of things right – including not making decisions for the short term without …

I think that is partly right.  We are all part of one dynamic, interdependent system; when any one component within the system experiences a change, that change will potentially impact other components, or even the system as a whole.

Most of the time, I think change is good, especially when I initiate it.

At the beginning, change is exciting and full of optimism, great opportunity and hope.

After the goal is reached, there’s a sense of relief – you did it; and the sense of achievement  is combined with a more realistic but still optimistic vision of opportunity, and the ability to more clearly see what is down the road.

For me, the biggest challenges during times of change occur while I’m somewhere between 70 and 90% through the process;  I’ve completed most of the milestones, but have not resolved the last few problems keeping me from the finish line and not yet sure how to make that happen.

For those times, I keep a framed copy of my favorite Hugh Macleod cartoon:

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

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Help Wanted: Zookeeper with a Good Attitude.

Most job postings are dry.  Really dry.  And – they usually include “must haves” which require skills and/or experience with everything but being able to both plumb AND re-enamel a kitchen sink.  As one hiring manager/Art Director I spoke with last week said – if any candidate ever met his team’s expectations, there …

If you lead your life the right way… the dreams will come to you.

I’m a big fan of Randy Pausch, and rewatch his Last Lecture about once a week.  I had hoped he would outlive us all, but he died early this morning. I believe in wakes and not in funerals, and appreciate the world is a better place because Randy was here: The Academy is… …

Bucky is Still Here (Sort Of)

Today CNN.com is running a story on humanity is acquiring the right technology for the right reason – and is also a current example of R. Buckminster Fuller’s life quest to answer the the question “Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how:” Inventor Jon Bohmer created …

Perhaps it’s a good thing karma is not instant – eventual karma is ok, too, and deserves to be celebrated when it occurs; and some happened this week. 

“It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” – Douglas Adams

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“We’re all mad here.”  

I’ve often wondered how companies succeed when so much inside seems to be broken.  If we’re lucky, work only consumes 10 or so hours a day, 5 days a week – but if you work in technology, frequently it consumes a lot more time, even if it’s only mental bandwidth and …

Ego, Redux 

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right. – …

Help Wanted: Zookeeper with a Good Attitude. 

Most job postings are dry.  Really dry.  And – they usually include “must haves” which require skills and/or experience with everything but being able to both plumb AND re-enamel a kitchen sink.  As one hiring manager/Art Director I spoke with last week said – if any candidate ever met his team’s expectations, there …

Life on Mars 

I’m a fan of the US version of the TV show “Life on Mars,” and look forward this weekend to watching the original British production. In the meantime, I’m still laughing over two lines from tonight’s show – “One Brady short of a Bunch;” and ”Maybe you spend enough time with a crazy …

Often I Learn the Most from People Who are Clueless. 

Yesterday, my friend Sherry and I were “out and about,” enjoying a relatively warm, dry, and sunny late November day in Seattle. Sherry is a woman of many talents; in a past life was a Specialized Ed teacher.  Eventually our day included a discussion of how those students who most needed help to learn were often …