Category Archives: Business

18 March 2013

What Goes Around . . .

By Rick Ladd

It’s been nearly three years since I “retired” from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. I’ve been through several iterations of “What do I want to be when I grow up” and I think my latest incarnation is actually working! I’ve given myself until the end of this year for it to prove out to be a viable trajectory, at least for a few more years while I still have to tend closely to my children. You can read my most recent self-assessment/self-promotion at LinkedIn.

Additionally, some of the seeds I planted a while back may be sprouting, which would be really satisfying and might steer me comfortably toward another line of work I can enjoy.

It seems understanding Social Media’s role, both inside and outside the corporate firewall, wasn’t a terribly interesting subject for most organizations and, despite my zeal, I couldn’t get the traction I needed to do what I thought made sense. Equally, at least here in Simi Valley, small businesses have had a very hard time – as a whole – seeing how social can be used to promote their business or organize their work a little more effectively. I need to say . . . there were lots of opportunity for being a charlatan and raking in some dough or for doing something I didn’t really enjoy just to make money. I’ve chosen not to follow those paths, so the challenge has been finding – again – who and what I want to be or, more accurately, continue becoming. Being frugal’s been kind of important as well. 😀

It’s important to note there are lots of large organizations who recognize the value of social for reaching out to, and communicating with, their current and potential customers. There are fewer, in my estimation (disclosure: I have not researched the numbers. I have, however, been observing for a long time) that appreciate the value of social to build community inside the firewall, let alone in the space they share with their suppliers/vendors.

At any rate, I haven’t given up entirely and I was gratified to be contacted by someone who interviewed me on the subject nearly 2 years ago. He asked if the audio could be used in a couple other blogs and sent me a link to it. Frankly, I had completely forgottenI did the interview. Also, inasmuch as I am now doing some editing/proofreading professionally, I was a tad dismayed to read the copy that accompanied it, and I’ve asked for the opportunity to proofread these new publications prior to publication. I don’t believe I  had that opportunity with the first publication, which can be found here. Below is the Vimeo audio file with my interview. I don’t think I made a fool of myself. I’m hoping I actually make more sense today than I did back then. I’m gratified Dustin felt it was worthy of being repeated.

PS – I may no longer be a Chief BooMillennial Officer, but I do think I’m still an Emergineer and definitely a Serendipity Wrangler.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Collaboration, E2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, Marketing/Branding, Professional, Retirement, Social Media

14 November 2012

Important Stuff Happening Here!

By Rick Ladd
Installation Marketing - Lowe's

Hey! Guess What I’m Doing Inside.

As I was leaving my house yesterday to go pick up my daughters from school, I noticed a sign reminiscent of the political signs that had been so ubiquitous in my town for the past month or so. This one was in my neighbor’s yard, stuck in the median grassy area between the sidewalk and the street. Although I wanted a picture of it for this blog, I was in a bit of a hurry to get my oldest and had to continue on. I was pleased to find, upon returning to drop her off, it was still there. I got out of my vehicle for a moment and snapped this picture before going after my younger one.

Right after I saw it, though, I found myself wondering if there was a way I could do something like this. My first thought was I should have a big sign I can raise on my roof that says things like “Rick writing here!”, “Rick editing text in progress”, “Rick proofreading a blog post right now”. Now that I think of it, I doubt that’s a very good idea. Actually, the city would likely frown on it and I’d soon find myself at odds with the very people I wish to work more closely with. There’s likely an ordinance prohibiting it. Scratch that.

So, how about this? In keeping with my theme of being a Senior Inspector of the U.S. Grammar Police, I’m thinking when I go to someone’s house or office I should put up some yellow plastic tape that reads “Possible Literary Crime Scene. Do Not Cross!” How’s that sound? Any better ideas?

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Marketing/Branding, Professional

25 October 2012

Continuous Improvement

By Rick Ladd
Thumbs up

It’s All Good!

One of the things I noticed when I was working at PWR was the seeming inevitability that people who were most knowledgeable about some skills seemed considerably challenged when it came time to demonstrate the skill in their own work. What I’m referring to is analogous to the cobbler whose children are shoeless or the accountant who never balances her own checkbook.

I found this to be true of many of us who were the most active in what we still refer to as Knowledge Management (KM). We could help others – whether individuals or large product teams – to organize their approach to capturing and sharing knowledge, but we couldn’t keep our own calendars or contact lists up-to-date to save our lives. I was surely guilty of this; still am, though not nearly as profoundly as before.

I credit the concept of continuous improvement for my ability to refine my personal knowledge management and to slowly become more effective and efficient in performing the tasks and commitments I take on. I suppose, in that regard our lives are a bit like physics avoiding pyramids. The basic, foundational skills we learn early in life remain at the bottom of the edifice. However, as we gain experience and further skills, the foundation continues to broaden in order to provide maximum support for those new capabilities we keep piling on top of it.

In that spirit, I have just added another page to this site. On it, I’ve taken a screen grab from my LinkedIn profile in order to share some of the recommendations I’ve received over the past few years. They’re from colleagues and friends and, in that regard, they may be taken with a tiny grain of salt. I do believe they’re reasonably honest and accurate. I paid nothing for them 🙂

The page has been added to the Menu on this site, under “Background”, “Personal”. If you’d like to check it out now, the link is here.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Knowledge Management, Professional, Systems Thinking

10 October 2012

Get Out There And Buy The Book Already!

By Rick Ladd
Books for Sale

Go ahead. Splurge. Buy the book already!

Once I started blogging, which was quite some time ago, I became an author. Truth to tell, I’ve been something of an author virtually all of my life. I just haven’t ever thought of it in terms other than how it served whatever organization I happened to be working for. Whether it was writing advertising copy for my family’s business or my cousin’s wine store, publishing a newsletter in exchange for free range balls and rounds of golf at Simi Hills (that’s how I could afford to learn, starting at 46), or producing a monthly newsletter for the Knowledge Management team at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, I’ve been an author for a lot longer than I give myself credit.

Now that I’m planning on ramping up my writing efforts, including offering my services as an editor and proof reader, I’m starting to think a lot more in terms of what it takes; what my mentality needs to be. I’ve started contacting my connections, the people I got to know over the past six or seven years that I was very active in Social Business (formerly called Enterprise 2.0) and social media in general.

One of the folks I contacted and have communicated with is Nilofer Merchant. She recently authored this great post and I think you should read it. She makes some very interesting, important, and accurate (IMO) points about the way we treat authors . . . and artists in general (in my opinion). Here’s an excerpt:

No one knows how to support an author. So, every author feels slighted. And every friend is simply … stumped.

This is because we lack the social conventions for how to support authors. If an entrepreneur shares aKickstarter campaign, you break out the Paypal account because, of course, you want to help someone pursue their passions. If a colleague is doing a breast-cancer walk or leukemia team-in-training run, you know what to do. If a friend loses a parent, you know to send a card or flowers. If someone shares they are having a baby, you slap the dad on the back, wish the new parents luck (and sleep), and find some ridiculously cute outfit to gift.

But what to do when a friend, or even someone you know only on Twitter publishes a book? What if you don’t care about this topic? What if you think you have that domain covered since, you too, are an expert. What if you are just not a reader?

It is perplexing to know what to do since are no norms, mostly because being an author is rare. And – while most people would never want to admit this in public – they would rather be jealous of another person crossing off a bucket list item rather than get excited for them or support them.

But authors do need your help. They need it is small ways and large and since I have several great friends with books in the near future – books worth reading and supporting, I’m going to write a primer for how to support an author.

If you’d like to read further, her suggestions – and the rest of her post – are here. I have to admit being guilty of this myself, though I have purchased far more books than I’ll ever have the time to read . . . unless I become bedridden, and I’m not exactly hoping for that. Help an author. Buy their book. I’m expecting to be begging you on my behalf soon.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Personal, Professional

5 October 2012

The University of Twitterville

By Rick Ladd

I joined Twitter on March 2, 2008; 1678 days ago. I know this because I asked the Internet when I joined. I kind of remembered, but wanted to be sure. I just typed into Google “When did I join Twitter?”. Actually, I didn’t have to finish my sentence. Google finished it for me. I was presented with the following link, http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com/. I put in my user name and in less than a second I had my answer. A short while later I remembered HootSuite knows when I joined and shares that info quite easily as well. Oh well. It’s good to have choices, eh?

University of Twitterville

The University of Twitterville

At the time I joined I was working for a rather large aerospace company (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a division of United Technologies), where I had been a member of the Space Shuttle Main Engine team for nearly twenty years. My job at the time, which had changed considerably over the years, was to seek out new technologies for communication and collaboration and determine if we could use them internally to our advantage. I don’t recall when I tweeted for the first time and I just tried a whole bunch of applications which purport to reveal that initial tweet, but none of them can handle the number  I’ve made (18,036 at the moment). My recollection, however, is that it took me nearly six months until I was able to figure out a use case that made sense.

I was never interested in following celebrities and I wasn’t interested in small talk. I was looking for how Twitter could be used for a business to help its people get their work done efficiently and effectively. I think one of the first actual uses I encountered that impressed me was my discovery the team preparing one of the Shuttle Orbiters for its next launch were using it to share status updates in real-time. I had been part of teams that had “stand up” meetings every morning to update each other on the previous day’s activities. These were hugely wasteful exercises made necessary by the limited communication capability at the time. There were many days when only 20% or less of the team needed to be at the meeting, but there was no way to know that until it was over.

With Twitter, I imagined the NASA team being able to follow each other and share their status immediately. The value to this could be, in my estimation, enormous. For instance, if a team member was offsite picking up an item that another member of the team needed to continue working on a particular task, the knowledge that it would be available in four hours could allow them to start a task, knowing that the upstream portion of it was now complete or that a needed component for finishing that task was on its way. There are all kinds of scenarios where not having to wait until the following day saves time. There’s also something to be said merely for the value of one-to-many communication capabilities, which is one of the many value propositions of Twitter.

Unfortunately, I could never get anyone at Rocketdyne to experiment with Twitter as a communications tool, so I had to look for another use case; one that benefitted me but might have broader implications as well. So here’s what I, personally, got out of Twitter and why I think it is so valuable. One of the first people I started following was Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly). He had written what I found to be the seminal paper on the transition in the Internet from a one-way, broadcast medium to a multi-path, participatory medium. It was entitled “What is Web 2.0“, and reading it had been one of the more enlightening reads of my career. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it highly.

It wasn’t long before I was following quite a few thought leaders. What made all this so incredibly valuable was not merely being able to read their pithy tweets, but also being able to read the papers, columns, and blog posts they provided links to. Thanks to link shortening services like tiny.url and bit.ly, a very long URL could be shortened to less than 25 characters, allowing the author of a tweet to not only share the link, but also to provide a little information on what the subject is. This made it easy to determine if something was going to be of interest to me.

Although I hold a professional degree (Juris Doctorate) and a Masters degree (in Knowledge Management), I am largely an autodidact; a self-learner. I never went to undergraduate school and got into Law School on the strength of my LSAT scores, which I am reasonably certain were high based on my being self-taught and, therefore, fairly well rounded and well educated. I barely made it out of high school, taking an extra semester to finish enough credits to be able to graduate. I’m a lousy student, but a powerful, self-actualized learner.

In my opinion, perhaps in large part because I’m already someone who learns on his own, I found the things I learned – the education I got, if you will – from Twitter was every bit as valuable and useful as what it took for me to get either of those advanced degrees. In some ways I’m pretty certain it was actually better. It was certainly more pleasurable because it was done entirely on my schedule and nothing I studied was superfluous. I can’t say that of any other educational experience I have had in my entire life.

My experience with Twitter, therefore, is analogous to having gone to University; one of my choosing, taught by people I admire and respect, and studied on a schedule completely of my choosing. Tests came in the form of real-life applications both on-the-job at Rocketdyne and in various interactions I had with professional and other organizations and people. I am very grateful to be a proud graduate of the University of Twitterville.

Has Twitter affected you in any appreciable, useful way and, if so, what was it?

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Knowledge Management, Professional, Social Media, Systems Thinking

25 September 2012

On Being a Softie

By Rick Ladd
Suspension of Disbelief

To Open Up And Believe

The willing suspension of disbelief. What a powerful, magical, and exceedingly frightening thing it can be – at least for me. Not always, though. It’s been quite a while since my last venture into the genre but, a long time ago – in a galaxy far, far away – I read a lot of Science Fiction. Reading it can’t possibly be enjoyable if you aren’t able to suspend your ability to think critically. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the hell out of what many an author hated being called Sci-Fi.

I’m normally somewhat cynical and am a fairly skeptical person, so I’m continuously surprised at how easily I can get sucked into a compelling story, especially if the characters are even moderately complex. I think it actually frightens me to realize how deeply I have disappeared into many a television drama.

This tendency has no doubt been exacerbated by my becoming a father at the ripe old age of 55, when my wife and I culminated a decision we had made a couple of years earlier and traveled to the People’s Republic of China to adopt our first child. We repeated the process four years later and, at the tender age of 59, I once again became a new father.

I now find myself immersed in shows where children are involved (it happens far more often than one might think) and I can’t help but identify with the parents, which sometimes brings me to tears – occasionally racking sobs of grief.

It has always been this way. I’ve been told the men in my family – many of them – were blubberers. Though I couldn’t have been older than five or six at the time, I recall the first time I saw my father cry. He had just received news that my Bubbie Jennie, his mother, had died. He hadn’t seen much of her since moving to Southern California. She had remained in Chicago, where both my parents were born. It was eerie, and not a little unsettling to see my father, a young boy’s tower of strength and resolve, break down like that.

It was made more difficult because I had only met her once, when she came to visit for a week, and she was unfamiliar to me. On the other hand, my maternal grandparents lived with us and I felt a strong emotional tie to them I could not summon up for her. She was by Bubbie, though. My mother’s mother was just Grandma.

I frequently ask myself, however, why I am so deeply and painfully drawn into these stories. I’m not entirely certain I have the answer, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so much the story itself as it is the relationship those stories bear to my own life.

Dictionary.com defines empathy as follows: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. That seems pretty straight-forward, yes? I am a fairly empathetic person and I tend toward the second part of that definition, i.e. I feel the pain of others vicariously. However, I don’t think this captures the essence of what is happening when I am fully immersed in a story.

Perhaps it’s too fine a point and the distinction isn’t all that great, but it seems to me what’s really happening is I’m overlaying the experience in the story onto my own life. I’m not so much experiencing the feelings of another as I’m experiencing the feelings I would have were I to be in that situation. I don’t think they’re the same. Then again, maybe that’s the mechanism that actually facilitates empathy.

This is a minor conundrum that comes to me most every time it happens and, usually, I forget about it within a minute or two. Lately I decided to try and get a descriptive handle on it and this is my first attempt.

Empathy is a valuable and deeply human trait. It is one of the five traits listed as characteristic of emotional intelligence which, in turn, is seen by many as a valuable business and leadership skill. It’s important to understand and to cultivate in order that we may better understand the people in our lives, whether at work, play, or home.

I want to understand what is moving me when this happens. On some levels it seems patently ridiculous to get so emotionally involved in a fiction story. On the other hand, perhaps it is really what makes us human. I’m wondering if someone with a more classical education than I have knows more of the thinking humans have brought to the subject. I’m sure some in the Arts (especially the Theater Arts) have tackled it. I’ll have to do more research. In the meantime, I’m glad there’s plenty of tissue in the house.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Leadership, Personal, Philosophy, Professional, Random Thoughts

25 August 2012

The Prime Discriminator is Within

By Rick Ladd
Edward Ladd & Sons

Company Jacket created by Cat’s Pyjamas

As an opening aside, I find it an interesting statement about the immediacy of the Internet that I would hesitate to share an article or blog post I encountered because it’s more than a week since it was published. Nevertheless, I did hesitate when I came across this particular article in Fast Company. I ended up sharing it on my Facebook Fan page and I’m going to share it here, with a little bit of personal annotation.

Many years ago, when I was in my family’s wholesale food business, I realized what I found to be a very sobering fact. As long as we weren’t manufacturing or producing anything, the only way to stand out from the crowd was to provide service over and above everyone else. Anyone can buy and sell items that are readily available and this was surely true of food. We could break the ice with price, but that was ultimately a losing proposition as the customers we sold to would inevitably leave us for someone offering a lower price.

However, not everyone could provide exceptional service. As a result, we were constantly thinking of ways in which we could provide value that others didn’t even think of. One way to do this is to just be available. When a restaurant runs out of product for whatever reason – whether it be unexpectedly busy days or flat-out stupidity in anticipating certain inevitably busy days – always being there and coming through was one way to stand out.

But that wasn’t enough. I think the real discriminator was the mind-set that our relationship with our customers was more than just seller-buyer; it was that of partners. Such a mindset had us thinking as though we were in their shoes and, frequently, it made enough of a difference in how we anticipated their needs and even helped them understand their needs in ways they weren’t always capable of. I think it worked pretty well while I was there.

So when I read this article today I was both intrigued and somewhat satisfied. I never thought of what we were doing as anything other than providing good service. I didn’t realize it was providing a special customer experience. Back then, as the article points out, customer experience wasn’t what it is today, but in our little corner of the world – in the kind of business we were engaged in at the time – it was what we were providing.

Now, it seems, it’s what everybody needs to do . . . and I agree. Here’s a quote from the article I’m referencing:

You don’t have to take my word for this. Over the last five years we’ve been running a study in which we ask consumers to rate the customer experience at companies they do business with. What we can now prove is that customer experience correlates to loyalty. Specifically, it correlates highly to willingness to consider for another purchase, willingness to recommend, and reluctance to switch to a different provider. In other words, if you want that next sale, if you want good word of mouth, and if you want to keep your customers, it’s unlikely that anything else you do matters more than delivering a superior experience.

Indeed!

Here’s the link. You can read the whole thing at Fast Company. It’s well worth it, even if it is almost two weeks old.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3000350/why-customer-experience-only-thing-matters

Enjoy

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Marketing/Branding, Restaurants

25 July 2012

People ARE Talking. Are YOU Listening?

By Rick Ladd
Infoweek Cover

Yes. They Are. You Need to be Paying Attention.

The title of this post used to be the tag line I put on my business card. It’s still on the vehicle sign that covers the rear window of my Honda Pilot, and it’s still in my Facebook Fan Page’s “about” section. The first paragraph of that section continues, “Your company – your brand – is being discussed publicly. Don’t you think you should join the conversation?”

Information Week made it the cover story of their June 25, 2012 edition and I pointed out the similarity in a graphic I created and posted on my Facebook Fan Page. In some respects, we weren’t quite talking about the same thing, though, but they’re closely related. Their article focuses on sentiment analysis and my thoughts were more directed toward overall engagement, which includes sentiment analysis. They are also far more attuned to the needs of larger brands, whereas my concern is for small businesses and the value they can get from what I see as the proper use of social media.

Today I was pointed to an article by Brian Solis of the Altimeter Group, entitled “Why Digital Influence is So Important“. Brian discusses the value of shared experiences, the building of trust, and the spread of influential content, pointing out the value of online recommendations from people we know and trust. He concludes with the following questions: “Do you know what’s being said about your business? And who’s saying it? How are you getting closer to your customer by examining your digital influence?”

Now the reason I bring this up is there are a number of people here in Simi Valley who have created Facebook groups designed to help us communicate or promote local businesses or both. One of the activities that’s taking place is what some call “Cash Mobs“. We are trying to pick out small, independently owned businesses that we might be able to help out (at least with their cash flow) by patronizing them.

As a result of this, one of the members suggested a location that might be able to use a small infusion of business and, consequently, cash. Since I have been trying to get locals to realize the value of using mostly free platforms, services, and apps to market and publicize their businesses, I’m always wondering how well certain ones are doing this. So I decided to check out this particular business with respect to a few things I think it could (or should) be doing.

I didn’t do extensive research, but I did find out some things I think are interesting in light of what Brian has to say about digital influence, as well as what I know about it from my research and experience. What I found was the following:

  • They have a Facebook fan page but do very little with it. The page has 45 likes and 10 people have gone to the trouble of checking in there.
  • They haven’t bothered to claim their venue on Foursquare (a very simple process) and, even though 30 people have checked in a total of 106 times (that’s an average of 3 times per person; an indication of some loyalty), they cannot create specials to reward that loyalty and, perhaps, entice more people to try them out.
  • They also have two listings in Yelp but have yet to claim either of them. Were they to do so, they would be able to correct one of the listings, as well as provide accurate information on what it is they do. What they do have is four (two for each listing) high quality, five-star reviews for their establishment. I say high-quality because all of the reviewers have numerous friends and have posted multiple reviews in Yelp.
  • I also checked Yahoo Local (basic minimum listing), Bing Local (basic listing w/two of the Yelp reviews), and they don’t show up at all in Google+ Local.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Here’s another quote from Brian:

“In the end, people are at the center of your business. And connections are the ties that bind in social media. Your next step is to see what people are saying or what they’re not saying about your business to learn how you can become part of the conversation and ultimately part of the decision making process.”

My contention is that by not taking the small amount of time required to at least claim venues and ensure they are completely populated with information about your business, you are showing you don’t really care what people are saying about you. Your absence from Yelp means you lose the ability to both thank people who take the time to say something nice about you, and to respond to those who take the time to report a problem they may have had. Without Foursquare you lose the ability to create specials designed to reward loyalty from current customers who are using the service and to entice new customers to try you out.

Even if you’re reading the reviews on Yelp and the tips on Foursquare (and it’s highly likely you aren’t) you have no possibility of “becoming part of the conversation and ultimately part of the decision making process.”

There’s another factor as well, which Brian discusses in his article. When people check in to your business on Facebook or Foursquare or Yelp, which they can do with their smart phones, tablets, and laptops there is always the chance some of their friends will see where they are or where they’ve been. Since the most trusted method of referral is that received from a friend, either online or in person, every business that doesn’t take advantage of these tools is shortchanging themselves. There are other issues having to do with gamification, peer response, and virality but we’ll leave them alone for now. They are important to fully understanding how to use each of these applications, but they don’t matter one bit if your business isn’t using them at even their most basic level.

In this economy I’m of the opinion not taking advantage of free marketing seems almost criminal and, while the tools may change as time goes by, the concepts aren’t going anywhere. What are you doing about it?

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Marketing/Branding, Professional, Social Media

16 May 2012

I Like to Mix and Match

By Rick Ladd
A couple of Muses

One of these has got to be my Muse!?!

Yeah. I know. I missed posting the other day. I spent a lot of time creating and writing the first post for a new blog I created for a client. Have you tried to create an engaging and useful blog site for a Dry Cleaners? I believe I can (and have begun to) do it, but it ain’t a walk in the park, if you get my drift. Besides that, my muse decided to take a little vacation. I’ve been talking to it a lot lately, trying to convince him/her to stick around for extended periods of time, but I don’t always seem to get through to her/him.

Anyway, I suggested I would write a bit about why I’ve made the – perhaps – dangerous choice to mix my personal blogging in with my professional blogging. Actually, though I haven’t as yet done so, I plan on mixing in political blogging and, come to think of it, I’ve pretty much tipped my hand when it comes to religion . . . though I may yet have some surprises in store.

I have elsewhere discussed my purpose for starting this particular blog and why I named it Systems Savvy. I’m not exactly circling around to what my original intention was, as my plan is a bit broader than what I originally set out to do. What I am doing, however, is not only recognizing the systemic nature of the physical world, or that of the economy, society, and the entities that form bonds that keep things going, but also of my own life; me as a system and me as a system embedded in larger, more complex systems.

What I’m getting at is I am not defined by any one aspect of my life. I have diplomas to signify my completion of particular courses of study, but my education has been continuous and diverse. You can’t define me with a couple of initials at the end of my name. Neither can I be defined by any of the numerous positions I’ve held over the years at literally dozens of companies, some of which I either owned or was a partner in.

I have some pretty well-defined political and religious beliefs. Some might call me opinionated . . . but they’re clearly assholes :). Regardless, none of my “beliefs” or opinions are set in concrete. I like to think I am both intellectually curious and doctrinally malleable. I strive to be scientific in all that I do and in all my thinking about what makes the world go ’round.

Me and my alter ego

Me and my evil twin

I have a personal logo I designed, at the suggestion of Ross Dawson, that seeks to represent my philosophy to some extent. It consists of a pair of head-shots of me – one positive, the other negative – juxtaposed on top of the yin yang symbol. This represents my understanding* of the dialectic; the tension and resolution of opposite tendencies in the world and in human relationships.

All to say . . . I have presented myself as a compartmentalized, semi-one-dimensional person for most of my life. This is what was asked of me and what I gave in the belief it was necessary to survive and thrive. I still believe it worked fairly well for me and probably does for most people in today’s political and social climate. I have no intention of continuing along those lines. I’m still struggling for the right voices to use to present my stories, but I am bound and determined to present what I believe my life has been about and the direction I intend for it to take in the time I have remaining.

Two days ago marked the second anniversary of my retirement from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. I’ve been reconciling myself with the reality that life wasn’t going to proceed along the path I had expected for an awful lot of years; learning to deal with the changing circumstances. I’ve been on this path for a while and expect to constantly refine – and redefine – it as time goes by. I have my moments of despair, primarily over wondering if I’m going to be able to replace the income I lost as a result of my retirement but, for the most part, I’m having a ball.

Stay tuned if you’re interested. I do want to be read. However, a large part of my impetus for doing this is my desire to leave a trail for my children to follow in understanding their father and why he did what he did. Having become a first-time, adoptive father at the age of 55 (and again at 59), I have no illusion that I’ll live long into my children’s adult lives. This is just in case I don’t get to have the conversations with them I’d like to.

* On 17 May 2012 I changed the word “knowledge” to “understanding” with respect to the concept of “the dialectic”. I did this as, in accordance with Professor Russell Ackoff‘s “spectrum of learning“, I wished to convey the thought not merely that I have knowledge of the existence of the dialectic, but I believe I have a reasonably well-developed understanding of how it works in the world as well. Whether I have the wisdom yet to apply that understanding well . . . remains to be seen.

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9 April 2012

You Can’t Be Trusted!

By Rick Ladd

How many of us have heard those in charge of the organizations we work for complain that the use of some of the newer technology available is a threat to company security? How many are blocked from sites like Twitter or Facebook because – as the argument goes – the risk of compromising company security or inadvertently sharing intellectual property is just too great?

I recall a time when the company I worked for had a policy against bringing cell phones to work if they had a camera, the fear being we would all suddenly start taking pictures of . . . what? . . . papers? . . . hardware? . . . and sell them to the North Koreans, the Russians, or the Chinese. That restriction didn’t last very long and this presentation pretty much sums up why.

The futility of such an attitude, given the ubiquity of smart phones, is almost unworthy of discussion. In addition, much of this hand-wringing is tantamount to closing the barn door after the horses (or one high-level horse) have escaped. I have personally (along with tens of thousands of my colleagues) been subjected to training designed to “help” us not do what some corporate executive did, all designed to convince the government we had learned our lesson and would not do what none of us had any intention of doing in the first place.

I’m confident I could go on about this subject for quite some time and, no doubt, will in the future. However, I really just want to share this wonderful PowerPoint presentation I was recently reminded of. It’s one of those that is somewhat timeless. Hell, it may never quite go out-of-date. I think it’s deserving of a reprise. Please feel free to share. The author placed it in SlideShare, so I’m confident he wants you to see and share it.

View more PowerPoint from normanlamont

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