Essays on creative leadership,
culture, and the human side of work.
Published weekly, with an original illustration. Two series: Becoming and Advisory Notes.
I’m very happy – actually, “thrilled” is more appropriate – that Joe Biden is our new president. I wanted Bernie Sanders, but I understood he might not be acceptable to enough U.S. voters. It was Bernie who nudged me into thinking about these larger issues that affect us all. Bernie who gave me the courage…
Note: Yesterday (8/20/20) at the suggestion of Larry Coffman, editor of Marketing NW I sent the following to Seattle’s Mayor and each member of Seattle’s City Council. Goal: We must get the 12,000 or more homeless people off the streets and into housing. We must do this now. We must do this to make the…
“We’re out of masks.” “We’re out of hand sanitizer.” “We’re almost out of aspirin.” “Generic and brand?” “Yep.” Tommy remembered it well. The conversation happened just as he was walking into the Tell’s executive conference room. He was about to present the plan assembled by the Overture team to the Tell’s board and senior executives.…
Billionaires. Got the money, wanna keep it. Tommy left his seat and began walking up the aisle as the train slowed. Living in a police state. Amazing how quickly things changed. Stock market continuously going up. Unemployment shrinking to almost nothing. And yet, 40% of us living below the poverty line, real wages shrinking, thousands…
“Why are we at war all the time? Has it always been like this?” Brie was on the line with Elizabeth, Purple Morn’s resident historian. “Not always, Brie,” she said with a sigh. “There’s now strong evidence that we sapiens lived without war for something like 3,000 years in the Fertile Crescent, just before ag…
Brie’s dreams all played to her fears. Only partially awake, Brie could feel the fear. Taste it, actually. That metallic taste. “I’m doing the right thing.” And again: “I’m doing… I mean, we’re doing the right thing.” Brie facing it now. Knowing the fear. Thinking through the risk. “We’re living in a time where we…
The life as advertised. Happy shoppers surrounded by abundance. Abundance for the affluent few. “Remember magazines?” This from Tommy. They were in GM’s Detroit planning bunker, waiting for the AI engineering report on Project Bella. They knew it was going to be a long wait. “They were wonderful,” he said reverently. “I helped create a…