Reading minds is outside our capability.

Running a business is hard. There are many moving parts to contend with, both from the customer’s side and that of the enterprise itself. A knife’s edge of difference enables those parts to work symphonically rather than as a cacophony. The cacophony often prevails. Not for nothing is the practice of good management often characterized as more art than science, especially when “good” is a matter of perspective and bias.

We’re dealing with humans. Most simply want to make a living and provide for those closest to them. For that reason, when studying economics in college long ago, I always found incongruous the assertions of those theorists who tried to reduce human behavior and all its attendant unorthodoxies and irrationality to a series of simultaneous equations. Despite the mathematical elegance, something didn’t fit into such a neat solution. People aren’t abstractions, but I was too young and inexperienced to adequately express my misgivings about the incongruity. Plus, I wanted an A.

Time has added depth, and depth comes from time-tested experience. Experience, and hitting many walls, reveals a range of motivations.

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If time is money, getting to The Point is invaluable.  

Add “space" to the growing list of vandalized spoken English words.

As in, “We work in the AI space.”

Reminds one of workers beavering away in a corrugated shipping container with the letters “AI” stamped on the outside.
Or, “My career trajectory has symbiotic granularity with the ERP or IT or CRM space.”

What?

Are people who speak like this born this way or did they acquire this skill in school? For what purpose? Contrary evidence above notwithstanding, one must nevertheless cultivate the space between the ears.

Famously there is NASA, which spends its days laboring in the Space space. Or used to. Now commercial interests dare to boldly go where no one went before, spatially. NASA just writes the rules. Billionaires get the accolades.

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Is round-the-clock engineering any way to live?

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

What makes a marketing expert a Marketing Expert?

What distinguishes a soft skill from a hard skill?

Is expertise conferred with an MBA at the tender age of 27? (How can somebody be considered a master of anything at 27?) Does wisdom come from meeting one’s quota nine reporting periods out of 10? Is it filling up spaces with arcane verbiage, hoping the reader is overwhelmed and won’t ask impertinent questions, like what does this all mean, and how does it benefit me?

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An out-of-body experience leads to introspection.

By the time you read this, I’ll be having an anniversary of sorts. Commemorating, not celebrating.

Your life can change in an instant. Let me explain.

Two years ago, at the end of May 2019, our team exhibited a new CT scanning machine at an aerospace trade show in Southern California. Nothing newsworthy there. Display the machine, a kind of entry-level CT scanning system; answer questions from any and all; harmlessly scan a few souvenir water bottles to interactively show the novelty of nondestructive 3-D imaging. Do the usual glad-handing and manufactured sincerity that comes with the show gig. Expectantly snag a few promising leads over three tedious days. Inspire somebody to part with their cash. Show team solidarity around our maypole of a machine by memorializing the moment with a group photo. Say kumbaya, crate it up and dodge forklifts while prepping for shipment back north to our facility. There the system will go into working display as a demo unit. Goodbye, crate. Mission accomplished, take the rest of the week off and enjoy the sights and sounds of Southern California, rekindling my youth and visiting friends, savoring the week’s success over cocktails with broiled fish in Seal Beach. Life is good.

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