“The More I Find Out, The Less I Know”
The Wonder of Flight
A family of five traveling in an airplane with four seats presents certain obvious problems. As a result, we've not been flying with the whole family since before the twins were born. While She Who Puts Up With Me and I have been on a couple trips (such as our Gunflint weekend a few weeks ago), we haven't taken any of the kids up with us for something like two and a half years. The last time Scooter (now five) was flying was when he was two, and he had completely forgotten the experience. The twins have never been flying in our plane.
Loyalty is Reciprocal
Many companies strive to build customer and employee loyalty, and for good reason. Loyal customers are often willing to pay more, and are less likely to be swayed by the competition. Loyal employees are less likely to quit when the company goes through a rough patch, and are generally willing to work for less than what they would receive elsewhere.
What many executives don't understand, though, is that loyalty is reciprocal. Loyalty is a mutual (if unspoken) agreement to take each other's interests into consideration. Loyalty cannot be bought, but can only be earned through an ongoing demonstration that the loyalty is mutual. I'll be loyal to you if you're loyal to me.
Free Hardware?
Bill Gates has us imagine a future where hardware is free. Not literally free, but free compared to what we pay for a level of performance today. This isn't such a hard thing to imagine, given that the price/performance for today's hardware viewed through the lens of, say, 20 years ago, makes today's hardware seem very nearly free.
Why I Respect Bill Gates and Microsoft
Microsoft is the 800-pound gorilla in the technology world, and it takes a lot of hard work to avoid using their products if you do any kind of computing at all. But here, at a combined conference which is about 80% dedicated to Microsoft developers (the other 20% being about speech recognition technology), the Microsoft effect is truly overwhelming. We drink Microsoft Water, breathe Microsoft Air, and get our sunlight through Microsoft Windows (sorry, couldn't resist).
Bill Gates Keynote
I'm writing this from the combined Microsoft MDC/VSLive/AVIOS-SpeechTEK conference in San Francisco. What these three shows have to do with each other is something of a mystery to me, but here we are anyway. Bill Gates will be giving his opening keynote address in a few minutes. This will be the first time I've seen Gates speak in person, and I'll record some of my impressions as we go.
Notes from a satisfied (former) customer of Northwest Airlines
I'm writing this article from 30,000 feet, on board a flight which will eventually take me to San Francisco for a trade show the remainder of the week. To my own surprise, and the disappointment of Northwest Airlines, the plane I'm on bears not the red tail of Northwest, but one of the many wildlife photos Frontier uses.
Marketing and Customer Service
I discovered a nice blog today (if infrequently updated) about marketing and branding. Being in the business of evaluating companies' customer service, I've had this rant brewing for a while, and this seems like as good an opportunity as any to let it free.
Schools, Bombs, and Flamethrowers (all part of the educational process)
An article about a high school student fighting expulsion over incidents involving chemistry experiments with explosions brought back some interesting memories, and thoughts about how times have changed. In this case, the student's chemistry teacher apparently demonstrated to the class how to make a "bomb" with aluminum foil, household cleaner, and an empty soda bottle. Not surprisingly, some of the students decided to try this on their own, and now the school is trying to expel those students who decided to repeat the demonstration.
Cliff Notes for Dad
Being a Dad is hard work, and nobody ever knows how to do it at first. In the hopes of helping my many friends who can now call themselves Dad (and the mates of my many friends who can now call themselves Mom), here is a distillation of some of the things I've learned through five years of experience.
How to Have a High Traffic Blog
A brief observation on how to have a blog which attracts a lot of traffic.
Early Spring?
This morning, on a bare patch of the yard outside Scooter's window, I noticed something we watch for every year: the first of our daffodils poking its head above the ground. This particular spot gets a lot of sun and warmth, and is always the first to thaw in the spring. Even so, this was earlier than I had expected. With snow forecast for tonight, the poor things will most likely freeze and have to try again in a few weeks.
Old Friends
Twenty years ago, I was a kid with a modem who knew just enough to get into trouble. Inspired by the movie WarGames , I wrote a little program on my Apple II which would wardial for other computers: dial thousands of phone numbers looking for another modem. I had this program pretty well tweaked, and it could pulse-dial almost as fast as most modems would tone-dial. My dad, you see, wanted to save a few bucks and didn't order touch-tone service on our second phone line.
Fusion Power: Just Around the Corner
Controlled nuclear fusion as a power source is something which has been "just around the corner" for the last 50 years, but the inherent problems have been just too difficult to overcome. We had the hysteria about so-called "cold fusion" a decade ago (now completely discredited), but in general the approach has been to build really really big fusion reactors and make tiny incremental improvements over the course of decades. Now, a small-scale approach based on a phenomenon called sonoluminescence (meaning "light from sound") appears to be bearing fruit.
Gunflint Weekend Part 2: Relaxing
Gunflint Lodge is the kind of resort where you spend hours every day hiking, skiing, or snowshoeing, then soak in the hot tub to get the aches out, and you still gain weight over the weekend. Just because you're an hour from the nearest town, and a hundred yards from the Canadian border doesn't mean that you can't get gourmet food and pampering.
Gunflint Weekend Part 1: Getting There
She Who Puts Up With Me had hinted very strongly that for her birthday she wanted a weekend for the two of us at our favorite resort, Gunflint Lodge. Her birthday was two weeks ago, but this was the earliest I could make all the pieces come together. Just as well, since they would have likely been mobbed for Valentine's Day.
How Does a Business Behave Ethically?
In my last article, I showed that a business owes an ethical responsibility towards its employees, customers, community, and shareholders, in roughly that order. This was based on a practical consideration of which people and groups are most responsible for a company's success, or can cause it to fail. In other words, you want to behave nicely towards people who can help you.
The final question is, what actions does a business have to take (or not take) to behave ethically towards its employees, customers, community, and shareholders?
To Whom Does an Ethical Business Owe a Responsibility?
In my prior essay on ethics and capitalism , I argued that Ethical Capitalism is not inherently impossible. Now that I've established that it is possible--and even in a company's best interest--to behave ethically, I'm going to examine where a business owes its ethical responsibilities. A common myth today is that a company owes its primary, and possibly sole, responsibility to its shareholders. I will argue that an ethical company's true responsibilities lie with many different groups of people, both for practical and for ethical reasons.
Is Ethical Capitalism Possible?
There is a meme, particularly fashionable since, oh, 1995 or so, that it is impossible to be both ethical and a practicing capitalist. This idea has become even more popular since the corporate scandals of the past few years. As an entrepreneur, CEO, and (I believe) and ethical person, I argue that it is not only possible for a company or businessperson to behave ethically, it is imperative. This is the first of a series of essays in which I will lay out what it means to be ethical in business, and how to behave ethically.
Our Faithful Steed
I've had my pilot's license since I turned 17--my first license was actually dated my 17th birthday--even though it isn't something I would ever consider doing as a job. Some things are too much fun to ruin by doing them for money. Shortly after we were married, I convinced She Who Puts Up With Me to get her license, too. Not long after that, I got my instrument rating, and we realized that it made sense for us to buy an airplane.
So, in 1995, we found a 1979 Piper Archer II , a basic four-place single-engine airplane with enough oomph to be fun to fly, but not so complex as to be expensive or difficult to fly. It was literally owned by a farmer who flew it only occasionally, and was willing to be convinced to sell it. Mechanically, the airplane was in excellent condition, but it needed new paint, upholstery, and radios.
Words for Snow
Supposedly the Eskimos have 23 words for snow. Here in the Frozen North, we're not so far behind. Here's a list of words and phrases we use for various forms of frozen precipitation, in the air and on the ground.