Grab Bag

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Boycotting as Business

One of the most helpful things about both the David Ramsey method and running one’s own business (imo), is that you begin to see everything as business. Who you do business with, what your business can afford, when your business is open for business, and so on. And along with that, for me, comes a […]

When in doubt, Blog.

I’ve spoken with a number of people over the past couple of weeks that are searching for their work-lives - for what to do with themselves and, typically, like a Bordertown, they’re drawn to the internet. Partly by stories of heady profits made by people who don’t treat work as a source of meaning - […]

The Joy of Postage

This article has several key points that are barely but still related - despite recent criticism that this is not an acceptable approach to composition.
The poor pay more for everything. Walmart isn’t really mitigating this: First off, there’s the obvious fact that Walmart shoppers are propping up a work model that keeps their […]

Business phone under $40

The Motofone F3. For one thing, it’s an act of dissidence, like entrepreneurship, so I like it a lot in that way: it’s been called the anti-iPhone. It’s the opposite of the culture obsessed with texting and constantly communicating with little of substance to say beyond the kind of thing we all hate when someone […]

The Chickens are Finally Here!

I’ve been watching with interest the discussions in real estate news of the suburbs drying up, with vast numbers projected for empty homes and developments going into the future, and little market to fill them. This will be called overbuilding, and there is that, but I think it’s something else.
Similar news for rural communities goes […]

Swerving into Reality

Half of fearing something will fail is the fear. But fear *is* failure. Fear convinces us to chart a course so devoid of adventure, of risk, of originality, that success is replaced with mere survival. I don’t mean success as in living in the right neighborhood, driving the right car, and having the right job. […]

The News of Snooze

The biggest non-issue of the day, using up millions of dollars of airwaves and bandwidth in chatter, is whether or not we’re in a recession. Does x=y? Is this thing that thing and vice versa? It’s an exercise in absurd tautologies, and the single clearest example of masturbatory pseudo-news currently at hand.
The real question is […]

The 10-minute $2 “business” meal

A sound criterion for busy meals is: fast and few steps, few courses, inexpensive (consistently sensible), and few but complete and healthy components. Components are not the same thing as ingredients, mind you, and steps done simultaneously, I count as one. Among them, is this favorite:
Follow the directions for a bag of steam-in-the-microwave frozen mixed […]

Friends are not Food

Never sell your friends, despite what the network marketers say. For one thing, if they’re smart, they know you’re doing it and, either way, it shows a lack of respect. Likewise don’t feed the perpetual salesman, by affecting that bewildered sheep nod that they like so well. Let your body language indicate that you’re not […]

Don’t stand in the Sucker Circle

Try hard not to defend yourself when you’re falsely accused. It happens a little more than now and then, or it wouldn’t have merited a commandment. But put yourself in a position, more often than not, tangibly and emotionally, of having little to lose from it. As a general rule, if people can take something […]

The Dangers of Perception

“Perception is reality”, is a prevalent claim in business. It’s akin to “the customer is always right” or “I give it 110%”. Everyone knows it’s a bogus claim. Even the true believers - “No, that’s really true! That’s the truth! You’re just misunderstanding it!” - don’t live that way consistently. After all, I perceive them […]

Making the Jump to Mazda

Well, I made a decision. It may not be the best decision (I still have mixed feelings), but it’s certainly a decision, and that, at least, pleases me. I traded in my completely debt-free 2003 Dodge Durango (SUV on a truck body), and bought a Mazda3 on credit (with a smidgen of equity).

Previously, I had […]

Calendar Spam

Meetings are the calendar spam of organizational life. People create and distribute them, pulling in others and, like viruses, they distract, disable, or cripple the flow of work. Just as with e-mail, there are good meeting requests and good meetings, so we tend to be hopeful about all the ones we get handed, but so […]

Paperwork: Triage or Bulldozer

Sometimes, you just have to clear your desk. Pile it all up in one stack and go through it - even if the result is more stacks. Throw away, scan, or file anything that doesn’t need to be in your way. If for no other reason that the psychological benefit, periodically, you need a pristine […]

The Rules of Safe Driving

There were four friends, one of whom died in a car accident. The other three (let’s call them Jim, John, and Bob) decided to take a road trip in his memory, but vowed to be safe drivers from then on out. Jim sat behind the wheel of the car for a while, but wouldn’t drive. […]

Philosophy in between Meetings

In the course of work one will eventually run into the enthusiastic semi-intellectual. It might be the vocal ideologue, telling you how everything is supposed to fit together, or it could be the lazy skeptic, who takes the position that anything outside the realm of his experience, knowledge, or specialization, is silly.
There’s always someone who […]

What if it’s not that easy?

With regard to the future, people seem willing to accept one of two basic extremes: the status quo - that things will be as they have been - or the end of the world. What seems harder to accept, indeed a less popular, socially heretical idea, is that we will endure suffering, hardship, and chaos, […]

Cultivating the Capacity to Adapt

Among the many reasons I’m interested in the adaptive capacity of entrepreneurship is simply the interconnectedness and capacity for change in global events. Sure, it’s always been that way. But this is amplified by an era of globalized economies, immigration, and militant foreign policies.
This chart could be looked at a variety of ways. You could […]

The World is Big

It seems to be a common cultural trait among certain areas of the world to assume that the way we do things is the way “most people” do things.
I used to train staff for the world’s largest telephone service provider. You can’t afford not to think globally in an international business, I’d say to them. […]

Aging like a Silverback

One view of work believes in joining a company, sweeping floors at the bottom while climbing the ladder of responsibility, and becoming whatever you must become to remain within the organizational life and millieu. Then you retire with dignity and a plaque with your name on it. Other views of work don’t place a high […]

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