Category: business
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Vince Lombardi – Speech 1970
SO “back in the day” (in another lifetime, in a small town in southwestern Ohio when I might have described myself as an “athlete”) a high school teacher gave me a mimeograph (“ditto sheet”) copy of a speech by Vince Lombardi. Yes, that is the “Vince Lombardi” for which the “Lombardi Trophy” is named. The…
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value, price gouging, and, monopolies
Every “introduction to economics” book will have a chart showing the relationship between “supply” and “demand.” Pointing out that as supply (of a manufactured product) goes up, unfulfilled demand goes down probably sounds obvious, but the relationship works both ways — i.e. if “demand” goes down, then “supply” will decrease. However the relationship between supply…
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look for the union label, corporate profits, and inflation
A “meme” post caught my attention. I’ve seen various versions – but the gist is always that “corporate profits” are the cause of “inflation.” From a “marketing” point of view the meme does a lot of things right – the version that caught my attention “caught audience attention” by stating that “The profits of the…
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memoirs of an adjunct instructor or What do you mean “full stack developer?”
During the “great recession” of 2008 I kind of backed into “teaching.” The small company where I was the “network technician” for 9+ years wasn’t dying so much as “winding down.” I had ample notice that I was becoming “redundant” – in fact the owner PROBABLY should have “let me go” sooner than he did.…
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Plot holes and “Star Wars” …
“Telling stories” is a euphemism for “lying.” “Lying” obviously requires a “lie” to build around – with the definition of “lie” (the third definition from Merriam-Webster: “to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive”) being the relevant point. Not that INTENT is required. SO it is POSSIBLE for someone to “tell a story” that is not…
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random thoughts on “Acres of Diamonds”
Russel Conwell (February 15, 1843 – December 6, 1925) (from wikipedia) “was an American Baptist minister, orator, philanthropist, author, lawyer, and writer. He is best remembered as the founder and first president of Temple University in Philadelphia, as the Pastor of The Baptist Temple, and for his inspirational lecture, ‘Acres of Diamonds’.” A link to the full text of Mr.…
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Feedback, praise, and constructive criticism
Starting with a definition: Communication is “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior” (thank you Merriam-Webster — emphasis mine) Notice the emphasis on “information is exchanged.” If INFORMATION is NOT being EXCHANGED then you don’t have “communication.” Two people yelling at each other might…
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Markets and Competition
True innovation is rare. Ecclesiastes 1:9 is several thousand years old and tells us that “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Of course when we aren’t talking about “big picture…
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Talking Football – August 2023
Back when the B1G was actually 10 teams – “two yards and a cloud of dust” was sometimes used to describe the offense philosophy of most coaches in the conference. The forward pass might have been added in 1906, but to paraphrase a coach “three things can happen when you throw the ball, and two…
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Team building
The word “team” implies a coordinated ensemble. The word comes into the English language via Old High German with obvious “draft animal” connotations. Since modern English is a combination of Germanic and French/Latin vocabularies, we tend to have multiple words for the same concept – e.g. the French/Latin companion to “team” is probably “companion”/”company” (please…