Seeing the Mountains
I went to the doctor's office a few weeks ago, and the one of the doctor's assistants led me into a large room lined with chairs all facing out a large picture window. The window was facing the parking lot, but beyond that there was a great view of the mountains. In the city where I live, you're never more than five miles from the adjacent mountain range bordering the north side of the city,...
Too Much Music
David Byrne of The Talking Heads said recently that most people have all the music the could ever want or need. I have to agree with him; music is everywhere, and the sheer abundance of new music that's being produced by independent artists and being uploaded to MySpace every day is overwhelming. There's certainly well over 24 hours worth of new music being produced every day, which means that no person is going to be...
Steal My Thunder
A good resolution: make thunder, and make it worth stealing. And if you're doing it for the right reasons, you won't care when someone else steals it.
Nomenclature
Any ideal or action you hope to spread is dependent (at least partially) on the ability of people to call it by its name. Drunk driving was a massive problem back in the 1980s, and several campaigns were put in place to try and teach people about the dangers of drinking and driving. Facts and statistics were used to some avail. Then they decided to call one person in the group the "designated driver". Simple...
Intrinsically
My friend shared a great video recently, which makes an extremely important point about motivation that should be heeded by anyone in education or business. Let's assert that there are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the burning desire we all have, instilled in our very natures, that makes us want to do great work, to improve the world, to contribute to society, or to make a difference. I work hard...
When I Got Here
When daylight saving time was first observed in 1918, there was an awful lot of controversy about the idea. People and pundits came out of the woodwork to proclaim that the implementation of an hour shift in our clocks twice a year would have serious moral, religious, political, or pseudo-scientific consequences, and that it would leave future generations spiritually bankrupt in some profound way. ("Won't someone please think of the children?") I was born in...
Walk, Don't Sprint
When we present a person with a new thought or idea, we're often too quick to assume that the other person is going to see things our way very quickly. The problem with trying to change someone's mind in the space of a single conversation is that we don't reach conclusions...we accrue them over time. By the time we start talking to someone about a new idea, there's a good chance we already have several...
A Light in the Compost Bin
Fifty years ago, it was great to be in the car business. In 1953, in speech before congress, the then-CEO of General Motors said that "what's good for General Motors is good for the country." And at the time, he was probably right...but few would disput the charge that the automobile giant has shit the proverbial bed in their mission to serve the country a few times since 1953. Detroit, a former hotbed of industrial...
This Whole Parking Thing
Like most people, I've heard rumors that it's illegal to put change into someone else parking meter. Out of curiosity, I did a little bit of digging, and while I didn't come up with a definitive answer for my own city, I found this thread on Yahoo! Answers. Seems like most of the people who commented on there harbor the same question as I do: how could putting change into someone else's meter possibly be...
Do It eBay
There's two ways of looking at the eBay story in its formative years. The first way: its founder, Pierre Omidyar, was a brilliant person who had big ideas. When he first conceived of the idea for a peer-to-peer online auction site, he knew it was going to be a home run, and based on this guarantee of success, he worked tirelessly, pouring his heart and soul into building a massive website that he knew would...