29 Saturday Mar 2014
If democracy should eventually fail, it will be by popular vote!
No totalitarian or fundamentalist regime has the means to challenge the military might that results from the wealth generated by free enterprise. What crazed ego-maniacal self-proclaimed leaders opposed to freedom and free enterprise might be unable to do, advanced societies might still achieve on their own.
27 Thursday Mar 2014
Tags
Aliens, Ancient Alien Theory, Erich von Daniken, evolution, Extraterrestrials, Humanity, Learning, Shared Fate
I’ve taken my aliens seriously ever since I was twelve. As a kid, after reading a good Von Daniken ancient alien piece, I would open the windows to the house wide open in the dead of winter – in case “they” came, I would always have an escape route. They fortunately never came.
24 Monday Mar 2014
Posted in human capital, Organizational Development, Uncategorized
One of the lasting memories I have from the Peter Drucker Global Forum event held in Vienna, Austria in November 2013 is of the great Charles Handy. His speech was great. But what amused me more was his playfulness. His willingness to still take chances. I caught him staring intently for what must have been a minute at an 100 year old “hop-on-hop-off” wooden elevator with no doors that still functions in the building of the Federation of Austrian Industries building in Vienna (see picture below). Eventually he hopped onto the moving elevator and everything turned out fine to my relief.
12 Wednesday Mar 2014
Posted in Crisis, future, human capital, innovation, problem solving, science
Tags
bureaucracy, Crisis, Data Crunching, economics, Fanatism, future, Kurzweil, neo-Marxism, Numbers, Religion, Singularity, Society, Stagnation, Totalitarianism
I posit excessive measurement is the culprit behind the world’s biggest problems, as well as the likely initiator of its future crises. It is the largest hidden systemic risk to our future livelihood. Our obsession with quantity is the very incarnation of the materialistic credo, a worldview focusing on physical resources and antagonist to a knowledge economy.
11 Tuesday Mar 2014
Posted in business, innovation, technology
11 Tuesday Mar 2014
Posted in Communication, knowledge
The mightiest skill the world’s thought leaders master is not diamond sharp insight. It is rather the ability to be just controversial enough. Fashionably controversial if you will.
09 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in business, capitalism, human capital, innovation, knowledge, society
Tags
Capitalism, creativity, daydreaming, economics, Global Peter Drucker Forum, Harvard Business Review, human capital, Imagination, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Marxism, non-zero sum thinking, Peter Drucker, Prosperity, wealth
Despite what you may be led to think when listening to heated political debates and cable news wise men, things are not that complicated when it comes to humanity’s predicament.
In a time when common folk and elites alike decry Capitalism and seem intent on going after it with pitchforks, I say we have yet to achieve it.
09 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in business, design thinking, management, strategy
Tags
Analytics, Big Data, business, Clay Christensen, Design Thinking, disruptive innovation, Generative Management, George Gilder, integrative thinking, Kevin Kelly, Nassim Taleb, operations, Peter Drucker, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, strategy, thought leaders
Like yin and yang, human enterprise has two facets: closed-loop activities and open-ended endeavors. In management we call these two operations and strategy.
02 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in business, capitalism, democracy, future, human capital, innovation, Investment, science, society, technology
Tags
capital, Clay Christensen, Cosmos, economic growth, Facebook, Innovation, Investment, Kardashev's scale, Knowledge, Prosperity, social networking, Unknowns, Zuckerberg
I’ve often wondered whether social networking companies like Facebook qualify as innovations driving sustainable economic growth, i.e. fueling human prosperity.
As more of the world’s discretionary capital (equity, venture, etc.) is sunk into social technologies we should I think explore the link between virtual technologies facilitating human connectivity (i.e. social media) and vibrant economies conducent to democratic political systems, invention and human prosperity.
The art and science of the possible 