Monthly Archives: August 2005

Ten Great Selling Tips

Posted on August 31, 2005 by Dave Pollard

The other day I had lunch with George Coutts, a friend of mine. George has worked in sales most of his career, and is now a sales executive at Duro-Test Canada. Sales is not my forte, but I recognize good … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 3 Comments

Could You Live Without Money?

Posted on August 30, 2005 by Dave Pollard

The modern ‘working’ family, whether one-income or two-income, is, by most standards, a lousy business model, with poor, fragile margins and a terrible (sometimes negative) ‘return on investment’. If you presented your household budget to an accountant without describing what … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 26 Comments

Human Nature – An Unscientific Survey

Posted on August 29, 2005 by Dave Pollard

My parents raised my brother and me in the 1950s and early 1960s. My wife and I raised our two kids in the mid 1970s to late 1980s. They in turn are raising their families in the early 2000s. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 8 Comments

Living on Borrowed Time

Posted on August 28, 2005 by Dave Pollard

James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency is, at its heart, a story. It is a dystopia, but an entirely credible one. The pieces of this story have all been told before — the failure to learn from the lessons of history, … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 13 Comments

Saturday Links – Early

Posted on August 26, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Guess where this was shot? Read on to find out. Since I may not have time Saturday to post them, here is my list of most interesting links of the week, a day early. Another Service Decline: From Citizen to … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 7 Comments

The Moral Hazard Myth

Posted on August 26, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest article in the New Yorker explains why it is that: The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US is unpaid medical bills The death rate for Americans without health insurance is 25% higher than for those … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 7 Comments

Three Philosophers: Noam Chomsky, Doug Rushkoff, George Carlin

Posted on August 25, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Earlier this week I wrote about the work of environmentalist Bruce Sterling, one of the interviewees in David J Brown’s Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse. Three other philosophers interviewed in the book steal the show, and for those … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 20 Comments

Blogs and the Gift Economy as ‘Disruptive Innovations’

Posted on August 24, 2005 by Dave Pollard

In The Innovator’s Solution, Clay Christensen identifies two types of disruptive innovation in business: Low End Disruptive Innovation: Offering a lower-cost product to existing over-served customers, which incumbents don’t care about because these products are at the low-margin end of … Continue reading →

Posted in Using Weblogs and Technology, Working Smarter | 4 Comments

Environmentalists vs Environmentalists

Posted on August 23, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Technophoria is the irrational, overexuberant belief that technology can solve all the world’s problems. It has existed for over a century: since the zealots of the early industrial revolution promised us a life free of toil and drudgery,  since futurists … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 14 Comments

Eulogy: Learning to Let Go

Posted on August 22, 2005 by Dave Pollard

On Friday our beloved Chelsea passed away. She was about age 11 (we don’t know for sure — she was a pound rescue). She died of massive liver cancer, complicated by abdominal bleeding and a sudden onset of critical anemia, … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse Watch | 28 Comments