Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
People on the left say the economy is turning around. People on the right say the economy will turn around, as soon as Romney kicks Obama’s butt. Whichever one’s right, the economy can’t keep sucking forever, and we’re going to have to re-learn these things when we pull out of “punch the clock, suck my thumb, hope gas prices don’t go higher” mode and actually do some impressive, real things again.
1. DO NOT play the “one foot in front of the other until we get there” game; make a list of the whole thing, stem to stern. The temptation is to say “I can keep two or three things in my head, no problem,” but by the time you get up to four or five things, this natural ability is being exhausted and if there is a failure event, it will have to do with leaving something undone, resulting in failure of the whole project. Besides, without defining the list you can’t define the stature of any item within the list, like for example, is this the highest priority item to which we should be attending right now. In fact, you can’t make a qualified statement about any item at all, dealing with superlatives, without an understanding of the complete body of work, nor can you sequence these items in any way. So make the list.
2. If the project is more complex than a list, make a matrix. This means, for each item, there are multiple things to be done. Tracking progress is therefore a two-dimensional endeavor, with a width and a height. This provides definition for what you are doing with each item. Without this “horizontal” definition, working from a simple list where a matrix would be more suitable, there is exposure for you to realize late in the game you haven’t been processing all items the same way and then you’ll have to burn off your time playing catch-up with some kind of self-audit, the product of which will be some kind of two-dimensional matrix anyway. So you might as well make it in prospect rather than in retrospect.
3. Understand that when things possess meaningful differences relative to one another, they are not the same and should not be treated like they’re the same. This is, perhaps, the most difficult rule to follow out of the eight.
4. Understand that when the differences are irrelevant, then for all practical purposes, the things being compared are the same. They should not be treated like they’re meaningfully different. (Words like “meaningful” and “meaningfully” are important, since all things in the universe are unique in some way, the question that arises is: Are the differences meaningful with respect to what you’re doing.) This is, perhaps, the second-most-difficult rule to follow out of the eight.
5. Understand your effort. There are three high-level classifications of effort: Creativity, preservation and destruction. They are not interchangeable. You have to sort these things out according to the end goal, since some things are created for the purpose of destruction, and some things are destroyed so that other things can be preserved. Your effort pays the price, as your likelihood for success diminishes, when you start to become confused about what it is you are trying to do.
6. Understand how to achieve excellence, and align your personality with what it is you’re trying to do. There are four high-level classifications of ways to achieve this excellence, and the job you’re doing drives your effort to achieve excellence: 1) Extraordinary achievement that doesn’t cost anybody else anything. 2) Extraordinary achievement that results in consumption from a finite resource, at a cost to your competition. 3) An extraordinary amount of activity, or time, exhausted without any catastrophic events encountered. 4) There is no way to achieve excellence in this job, the best you can be is adequate. When people cannot achieve excellence in what it is they’re trying to do, it often emerges that their personality is a good fit for one of these four things, and their job demands excellence through one of the remaining three.
7. When solving problems, solve the “big” problems; look for trends. Make a statement of the problem and don’t be afraid to use the word “whenever” if it fits the situation. Example: “My computer speakers are popping” would indicate the amplifier, speakers, sound card or cables require replacement. “My computer speakers are popping whenever the fan across the room is plugged in” would indicate something else is the throw-away item, and might in fact be a fire hazard. It’s important to identify the problem correctly if the objective is to implement a correct and effective solution.
8. Evaluate ideas from others, as ideas. Demand specifics. Just because someone speaks “with great weight” or “seems to know what he’s talking about,” doesn’t mean the idea is any good. In fact, it’s well established that very often the truly bad ideas come from the “smartest guy in the room,” for the simple reason that the human dynamic doesn’t make it likely that such ideas are challenged, or confronted with any social necessity to improve or evolve.
Everyone with a brain knows these rules apply. Everyone who thinks on it diligently for any length of time at all, understands these are necessary for basic quality decision-making. For driving decisions that are more likely to achieve the desired result, than a decision about the equivalent situation driven by a random-chance process. The challenge is to stay true to them when you’re actually working on something. Examples abound of bright, smart, talented and capable people failing to do this, and what follows is an accounting of tiny little fails becoming bigger ones.
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Failing?
Don’t forget such folk that are simply not-licenced, not-permitted, not-credentialed
non-membered, non-papered, and legislatively non-funded, non-correct skin /gender/birthright/ or other “special” non-sequitur “considerations”.
ALthough, ALL of these have practical work-arounds, the matrix chart is
FAR more high maintainence for a while.
…AND, that generally, you don’t put up anything that wasn’t sparked by SOME phenomenon or another.
- CaptDMO | 10/06/2012 @ 10:31What was it THIS time?
Is The blog that nobody reads running around , subjecting popular media folk’s “pre/post-US Presidential debate/election analysis” to that pesky peer review, again?
If they were obvious rules that are EASY to follow, we never would have had an Obama administration in the first place.
- mkfreeberg | 10/06/2012 @ 11:04