On the radio I heard a person say, “I’m glad the mayor is thinking of housing as the solution for homelessness.” (Editor note: duh!) She wasn’t being sarcastic and making a joke. She was being a talking head that stays on message and tries not to say anything controversial. I recently…
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring except for the loudest three little monsters you ever saw. My goodness, my 3 boys were a terror today. I should have made them run a few miles in the park. They were wound up and fighting…
Over the past few months I have seen many examples of people trying to make a certain approach work to solve a problem. At some point, they gave up on the first approach and tried a different one. Immediately incredible progress was made. It looked like this: It was literally…
Every year, I hand write a bunch of holiday cards for my co-workers. No one else in the company does this (to my knowledge). I don’t know why not. It’s a wonderful gesture that most people really appreciate. An email doesn’t have nearly the same emotional connection as pen to…
I am interviewing people to hire a Sr. UX Designer. Guess what is the first thing I do whenever I receive a resume? If you guessed “Look at the resume” you would be wrong. The first thing I do is search for the person’s name in Google. Unless you live…
According to Wikipedia: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression or winter blues, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year, experience depressive symptoms in the winter… …prevalence in the adult population of the US ranges from 1.4 percent (Florida) to 9.7 percent (New…
I spent the other day at the Moskone Center in San Francisco attending Salesforce’s annual conference, Dreamforce. There were alot of people there, way more than I expected. Last year it was crowded and big, but this year it just seemed gargantuan. Marketo had a platinum booth this year, right…
I often dream of being a famous song writer. Being the front man in a famous rock band isn’t the point for me. Music draws enormous groups of people and focuses them extremely concise topics. In short, the audience sings the song along with the band. They memorize the lyrics at home…
I’ll start with the punchline: Getting to market faster is not important at all. Every company I have ever worked with in the past 15 years pressured the development staff to deliver functionality faster. We need to get to market first! Quicker! 4 months??? Make it 1!!! It has been…
I love holiday lights. They are bright and festive and make the cold dark times of the year more fun and bearable. One movie that really inspired me was National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. He decked out every inch of his house. Growing up a family had put blue lights all over…
Several movies I have seen recently (Karate Kid, The Last Airbender) made me think of movies that were based on previous works. This isn’t universal, but a common theme I see is that the newer version removes all of the charm from the older version. Modernization, somehow has become synonymous…
Imagine you received this letter: Dear [You], I am about to graduate high school and have been accepted to several good colleges. However, I believe that the cost and the potential benefits of the college life are no match for real world experience. Drinking, partying and spending hundreds of thousands…
Worst Remake Ever. Previously, this honor was held by Willy Wonka with Johny Depp; what an abomination. However, my current winner of the prize was the recent remake of The Karate Kid with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. The plot shifted from a 16-year old New Jersey kid moving to…
Most of us are not the CEOs of our organization. We are somewhere in the middle. Yet we all have, every day, an opportunity to provide leadership from the middle. Leadership comes in several flavors. Here are some that I find valuable. Movement Leadership When you are in a meeting…