Monthly Archives: September 2003

WHAT GOOD IS IT?

IT (and KM) professionals need to refocus on some simple, novel, inexpensive technology applications that could dramatically enhance individual employee effectiveness, instead of trying to achieve unattainable organization-wide improvements with ever-shrinking budgets. The fallout over HBR’s May, 2003 article IT … Continue reading

Posted in Working Smarter | 5 Comments

HOW HARD IT IS TO BE DIFFERENT

We are social animals. It is our nature to want to belong. It is Darwinian: We learn from each other and we survive by working in teams. We help each other out. Our community, our tribe, adopts us, accepts us, … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch | 4 Comments

BEST OF SALON BLOGS THIS WEEK

Here are my personal favourite articles from the very talented writers of Salon Blogs in the past week. The topics are mostly political, and the authors of these posts are, for some reason, almost all female. Different Strings‘ Kriselda is … Continue reading

Posted in Using Weblogs and Technology | 1 Comment

ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: THE BUSH LEGACY

Sometimes, an article is so well written that it’s pointless to try to summarize it. This week’s lead in the New Yorker‘s Talk of the Town is one such article. Writer Elizabeth Kolbert succinctly captures the extent, the cynicism, and … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works | 2 Comments

WHEN THE BOSS IS A BULLY

One of the submissions in the latest Virtual Occoquan was an article by a non-blogger, D.G. Johnston, on dealing with bosses who bully their staff. This is an important and rarely-discussed topic and Johnston deals with it very powerfully, and … Continue reading

Posted in Working Smarter | Comments Off on WHEN THE BOSS IS A BULLY

AND THE WORLD CHARGES AHEAD, BLITHELY IGNORANT

Two bad new stories on the environment yesterday, one of which only appeared in the Canadian media, the other only in the American media, so the irony of the two stories appearing the same day was lost on everyone. In … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch | 4 Comments

BROWNFIELD DEVELOPMENT VS. URBAN SPRAWL

Brownfield Development is the restoration of abandoned, underutilized and often polluted land. It’s a messy business. Some of the land contains large, sprawling, poorly maintained and gutted buildings. Often the costs of dismantling the existing structures outweigh the cost of … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch | 7 Comments

IS ‘BRINGING THE TROOPS HOME NOW’ AN OPTION?

There’s increasing attention — and pressure on liberal and moderate presidential candidates to state their position — on how best to extricate ourselves from the expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq. There seem to be two schools of thought: We … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works | 17 Comments

END OF SUMMER

We made our annual trek to the Niagara Wine Festival yesterday, and got back too late to blog. Been out campaigning today for the Ontario Greens. It’s almost as if summer caught up at last — it was a lovely … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | Comments Off on END OF SUMMER

SWEET DIFFERENCE

One of the curious differences between Americans and Canadians is how they sate their sweet tooth. Although the big manufacturers are the same in both countries, their top products are quite different. In alphabetical order, here are the top 10 … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 14 Comments