Image via Wikipedia RealClear Politics highlights an obvious issue; obvious unless you are a journalist or a true believer in government in general or Obama specifically: Would President Obama and the Democrats‘ legislation allow government to come between citizens and their choice of doctors and insurers? Obama promised it wouldn’t. Republicans said it would, and […]
Category: education
Apple, design thinking, nationbuilding
Image via Wikipedia Mike Roberto discusses Tim Brown’s book on Design Thinking here, and thinks aloud about Apple‘s application of the idea. I am a big fan of his work. The unfocus group’s insights become more important to the extent that the Long Tail phenomenon applies to that market/line of business. We are big fans […]
The business of war
Image via Wikipedia A crucial part of force generation is developing, maintaining and supporting industrial base capacity to research, develop, produce and perform life cycle maintenance on crucial equipment. The Defense Business Board just made a series of recommendations on how to approach this issue. Examine the composition of the board and try to predict […]
Leadership and charisma: what’s the relationship?
Image via Wikipedia a New York Times article examined charisma as a requirement for leadership and concluded it wasn’t an absolute necessity. Here are my reflections on that article: I found the article interesting, but it had a few anomalies that seemed odd to me. Just let me get those out of the way, as […]
a war economy as far as the eye can see
Image via Wikipedia I worry about us painting ourselves into a corner. I think we have gone past the tipping point where the military industrial complex lobbyists dominate the political process. What do we make besides war and the tools, supplies, services and movies of war? Related articles by Zemanta Are Progressives Entirely Useless? (lewrockwell.com) […]
Reflection on Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (part 2)
Thomas Kuhn’s influential book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” ignited a firestorm of debate and controversy in 1962 which continues unabated to this very day. Noted as the most widely cited book in the 20th century, Kuhn’s writing has penetrated the public consciousness to shape our collective language and thinking about science, truth and ethics. […]
Complexity and planning for “endstates”
from a discussion on usefulness or not of the “end-state” concept and planning in general when faced with the challenges of nation building: Complexity theory says that complexity arises from a combination of 4 attributes: moderate to high levels of interdependence, connectedness, diversity and adaptation. Complex systems do not lend themselves to cause & effect […]
Reflecting on Erich Fromm’s “To Have or To Be”
Erich Fromm is an influential social philosopher and prolific writer, whose life work offers a provocative synthesis of Western capitalism, Marxist humanism and socialist rational planning. He defines two modes of being: “to have” and ” to be”, and examines the characteristics and values of lives led in each mode with respect to materialism, politics, […]
Leadership: Believing in others as a way of life
Leadership as a belief in others there are two models of leadership that I am directly familiar with. The first is the leadership quality model which treats leadership as a quality manifested by the leader, often composed of subordinate virtues like honesty, loyalty, competence, empathy. In this sense leadership could be considered a state of […]
A Reflection on my professor’s commentary on my mid-term assessment
On engaging more with fellow class members: i think on the engagement piece, i have to look to hook in more to where my peers are rather than where i want them to be. I have to start from their position and proceed rather than trying to drag them to my position. I think […]