Month: February 2010

  • The Importance of a Warm Up

    Several weeks ago, we went to see Daddy Yankee in concert.  He is one of the more popular reggaeton artists, which is mix between pop, rap, and latin music.  Doors opened at 7pm, so we showed up 15 minutes early to queue up and get a good spot. After waiting for about an hour, they…

  • Doubt is the Spark Killer

    It may be that “Fear is the mind killer”, but doubt is the spark killer. Earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to hire a number of great engineers and tried to help cultivate their careers. In the process, I found that one of the most difficult things to teach was initiative. Some were capable…

  • Nature of Leading and Following

    Concrete and concise stories of leadership are hard to come by, but the video below provides exactly that.  It creates a visual picture of the relationship between leaders and followers. I originally saw this video on Seth Godin’s blog in the middle of last year. Seth mentioned that we need more “Guy #3″s.  Since then,…

  • Guest Blog: Mawy had a Yittle Yam

    [In response to my post on Tea Bog Beet Knee, Matthew Ritzman, a friend of mine, wrote a response that I thought worthy of more attention. Matthew and I met while he was President of the local Toastmasters club that I attended. His speeches always tied in personal stories and how they impacted him and…

  • The Power Of Purple [The Phoenix Airport Sucks]

    If an airport was designed like most software it would look exactly like the Phoenix Suncity Airport (PHX) and, like many software companies, PHX offers consulting and tech support. Fortunately, their consultants are free and take the form of an army of purple-clad senior volunteers. In spite of this, every time I visit this airport,…

  • Cultural Inertia

    Often, as a leader, you can see the long term consequences of a culture if it continues unabated.  You see people taking habitual actions that lead to horrible ends and you want to encourage them to change, but changing a culture is never as simple as you’d like it to be. Recently, I finished reading Earth…