This is a post entirely inspired by David Fredericksen, Assistant Manager of Production Engineering at NVIC, a foundry in central Indiana. He and I got a back-and-forth debate going on LinkedIn over the weekend, focused on the topic of unionization that was raised in a video I’d posted. He raised some excellent points in his […]

I’m pleased as can be to present my review of one of the finest WWII history books I’ve ever read. Sand & Steel: The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France by Professor Peter Caddick-Adams is a triumph. It’s a dense book, and perhaps will seem a daunting one to many people, at nearly 900 […]

Someone I really respect and admire threw out this quote from Brené Brown today: “Empathy drives connection. Sympathy drives disconnection… Empathy is I’m feeling with you. Sympathy, I’m feeling for you.” That raised my hackles. Because I’ve studied this extensively, over and over. And I’m sorry to inform the Zeitgeist, but you’ve got this one […]

After I posted an article on LinkedIn yesterday about the current virus-driven obsession with hygiene being a threat to our cherished American freedoms, my LI pal Phil Rink commented that we should dial back the extreme language (though later saying he agreed some of what’s going on looks like fascism, but that it wasn’t helpful […]

The last decade or so has seen an accelerating decay in the popular notion of our national media as principled and dispassionate reporters of fact. That hasn’t happened because of any significant change within the news outlets themselves. Rather, it’s been the result of the Internet-fueled rise of media watchdogs and alternative news sources, which […]

According to Jim Craig, goalie for the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, he and his teammates had no doubt they would win the gold medal. They did, of course, almost exactly 40 years ago, in a story that has now become legend. February’s milestone anniversary prompted Craig to write his new book, We Win! Lessons […]

This lovely little piece by Dennis J. Pittoco brought some long-ago memories rushing back to me, and awoke me to realities I was largely unaware of at the time. Dennis’s stories about contact with older people and spending some time listening to them made me think immediately of Mrs. Marie Walesewicz (wall-uh-shev-ich). She was an […]

I’ve had an interesting dust-up the past few days over a comment I made about a LinkedIn post. Now I’ve been challenged with a follow-up question that I believe warrants an extended answer, so I decided to write it up here. It all started when a female VP at a large financial services firm posted […]

The always-intriguing Don Peppers published an excellent piece on LinkedIn today about the new focus on customer experience, and why it took so long to get where we are. His thesis is that it all came from the marketing approach of Jerome McCarthy dating to 1958, which put the emphasis on “product, price, place, and promotion.” Do […]

I’m terribly delinquent for a book review I promised months ago, that of Sharyl Attkisson’s recent The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote. So here’s my take on the book: everybody ought to read it. Attkisson details the staggering machinery of how […]