Europeans do things differently. We know that. The simplest things. How they hold their silverware, the clothes they wear, they even drink alcohol unapologetically. But there is one thing that they do differently that just fascinates me: the way they teach kids to...
Since the appearance of the search engine a great deal has changed about how we do things. I can still remember when memorizing something at hearth, was not just something for convenience, to have the most frequently needed information “in the cache”, and available...
We may not recognize them at first, but every day we witness examples of how digital transformation can be well done, and how it isn’t. Sometimes it is hard to explain how it looks like, but hopefully, at the end of this short article, you’ll be with me in the...
Price. It is everywhere. We invented money, credit, and we also invented the price tag. Granted, price is not just that number on a tag, you can specify price in a barter equivalent, but in modern times, it has been reduced to an abstract number. But, How is it set?...
Most companies offer products or services that have a number of well-known, set features. They are a “finished good” and we gladly pay a premium for this work. Take for example a Restaurant. We would we pay three, four, or even 40 times as much for a meal that we...
It is quite annoying to walk with only one shoe. If you clap with one hand, you will not make much noise, and if you resort to eat with just one chopstick, you’ll probably get hungry. A similar principle plays in most of our lives, and leaders must understand...
Most of us go through our lives paying attention to the things that we are not particularly good at. Report cards in school tell us what we have to improve on, or “put in more effort”, the scale tells us how badly out of shape we are, and later in life, on...
You may notice a different tone in this article, a one of hastiness. I was going to publish something different today. But I can’t. As I stand in mourning and astonishment, I cannot help my mind to go where years of engineering, solution selling, and consultancy...
We have all seen this. The welcome at Starbucks, the bubbly personality at Trader Joe’s. And it is uncannily the same, doesn’t matter which of their stores you walk into. It cannot possibly be organic. How could ALL the people at Starbucks ALWAYS want to be...
I just removed a bunch of channels on my Roku. While this marvelous little box lets me add to its content almost infinitely, I realized that I wasn’t really using most of the channels. Like all of us, I have limited time to spare watching TV, and I will never...
While working with organizations, I have experienced how good, reliable workers can become jaded by actions that the leadership takes. Often times it happens that organizations -if they are doing things right- go through spectacular spurts of growth. In those periods,...
How do you become an expert? Is there any other way than just picking one particular subject, deconstructing, and digging deeper and deeper? A few days ago I read about an incredible advance in superconductors. Superconductors are only currently viable at very low...
If you know me, you also know that I like photography. A lot. When I was just starting college, I once enrolled in a photography elective. We used film at the time (remember that?), and invariable, no matter what the assignment was for the week, our instructor, my...
Digital content has all kinds of interesting behavior. You have probably heard about the “search bubble”, where through endless customization and targeting, we end up experiencing the world through our interests, never distracted by opposing ideas or novel...
Doing a good job gets you the next one, and just like that, the purpose of every meeting should be at least to get the next one. The therapist always books the next session right away and we always talk about the next one at the end of a date. Every meeting with a...
We already experienced the ugly side of things, the conspiracies, the half-truths. It is really hard to know what or who to believe. Bit this has given us the skills to dig deeper, to uncover what is really going on, and the resources are almost unlimited. Information...
Have you ever been cornered in? I have. My gut reaction has always been frustration and strong urge to get out of that position. Sometimes, I have succeeded in holding back, but other times, it has been quite self-destructive. When negotiating for something, recognize...
If you google “Frank Robinson MVP”, you’ll find the first Frank Robinson, the outfielder of the Baltimore Orioles, a Most Valuable Player-MVP who was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. He is a great example of what most people in the US...
There are some habits, especially of the bad type, that just keep coming back. No matter how much we commit, or how much of our willpower we throw against them, we just return to the “default mode”. For these stubborn ones I have found that the best thing...
Finding one’s purpose is easy for some. They know already who they want to be, and what they want to do. It hasn’t always been so easy for me. I am a fast learner, because of that, I tend to do reasonably well in many things, and since I like variety,...
There is a classic quote from Bruce Lee: “Empty your cup, so that it may be filled” Love this analogy. Cups that are already full, cannot be filled. You can’t put wine in a glass that is already full of water. Most of us are bound with finite...
Everybody is on their own journey throughout life, and there is no reason to think they are not taking steps in their own betterment. People learn, evolve, rise. Just like you and I. Some time ago, I was interested in a particular position at a multi-billion dollar...
Once just a techie, biz-bro term, to Zoom someone is now part of everybody’s vocabulary. From international state-leaders strategic gatherings to birthday parties, from grandpa visit to virtual sleepovers. For almost every human interaction there has been a...
Heard it before, “they have Marketing down to a science”. Having a process, and some rules to follow, doesn’t make it a science. It is still an art. A craft, in its best case. I am an Engineer by training, and my career took me to do a lot of...
We sometimes shun the “amateur”. We tend to think that the “professional”, the one that gets paid for doing the same thing, should be better. We even use the word that way. When something is made to spec, with all the expectations met, we say...
