-
A Night at the Museum
I’ve always been a fan of flight. Watching birds migrate for the winter, seeing airplanes take off, watching clouds of gnats bounce in the breeze. It doesn’t really make a difference. Flying things intrigue me, they always have. So when this year’s Boy Scout Sub-in trip to OMSI was called off for a scheduling conflict, I was thrilled that we managed to book the Air and Space Museum for the night instead. Imagine this: you go in to the museum after it closes, eat dinner, get a private tour of the facility, watch an IMAX movie about fighter pilots, build…
-
Advent of Evil – Part 5 of 10
IT wandered aimlessly down an alley, akin with the darkness and aimless in ITs tasks for the night. IT still didn’t fully understand not just what had happened, but what IT was at all. IT remembered standing above the one that had killed ITs wife, waiting to taste the sweet nectar of vengeance. Yet IT also remembered cowering in fear at the feat of the one whose wife IT had killed, dreading the biting sting of a husband’s wrath. The two images were one and the same, yet so different they tore ITs mind in opposite directions. Thus IT had…
-
Directions
How well can you follow directions? Not necessarily instructions provided with your new desktop computer, but directions in general. There are always those people who set off on their own, thinking they understand what’s going on and that they can figure things out on their own. In a team environment (read: corporation) this can damage your reputation and destroy your bottom line. Even the CEO of a company needs to be able to follow directions, albeit half of the time he or she wrote those directions. They key here is that the CEO needs to live up to the standard…
-
Advent of Evil – Part 4 of 10
Alan had more evidence than anyone had ever had in one of these cases. The forensics were astounding! They proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the victim was in fact Mary Drake. They were also able to match fingerprints found on the scene with the fingerprints taken from Rick’s wine glasses. The best he could put together, the man involved had been the primary butcher – the prints on the surgical instruments all belonged to him. The woman had helped hang the plastic sheeting and apparently had set up Mary’s restraints. It was the most horrific crime scene…
-
Advent of Evil – Part 3 of 10
Richard went home and sat in his living room. It was only 6 o’clock, but he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. He thought for a minute about turning on the TV. He almost made it as far as to pick up the remote, but deep down he didn’t want to watch specials about the horrors of humanity tonight. He was already inside his own little horror show, he didn’t need speculating journalists to seed his already tormented imagination. No, what Richard needed to finish today was a drink. A lot of drinks. He carefully removed his car…
-
Critical Mass
How do you know when a new product launch is successful? When you’ve reached a critical mass of customers. Now, what exactly is “critical mass” for your customer base? There are two ways to measure this, and they both have their places depending on the market you’re trying to reach. Percentage of the market If your market is somewhat small and the real total size is easily accessible, you can consider your critical mass to be a certain percentage of the total addressable market. For a market on the size of 1-100k people, about 1% of the market would be…
-
Advent of Evil – Part 2 of 10
IV Richard ignored the alarm clock and laid, staring at the ceiling. His eyes bored a hole that was filled in with static if he stared too long without blinking. He’d wink his eyes and re-wet the lens, then stare again for a few minutes or so. To his disappointment, though, this was a staring contest he would lose every time. His mind drifted again to the whining alarm clock on the night stand and, once again, he forced his mind to ignore it, refocusing his energy and concentration on the ceiling. Not only was he haunted by the dream…
-
Motivation
Businesses are motivated by profit. You push your employees to work hard in order to maximize your owners’ (either your or your shareholders’) profit-making ability. This leads to incentives for sales teams, team-building promotional activities, quarterly performance reviews, and a highly competitive workspace. The public sector, on the other hand, has other motivations. Most public services exist to fill a vital need. So long as that need is being “adequately” filled, managers don’t push their staffs to work any harder. Overtime is rare, and competition is more for personal fulfillment than to earn any kind of reward-based recognition. This dichotomy…
-
Self-Marketing: Track your accomplishments
Whether you’re looking for a new job or just refining your portfolio to attract new clients, it’s important that you itemize and monetize your accomplishments. “I helped to increase business” is less impressive than “I was directly responsible for $100k in new contracts.” At any given time, it might seem like your most prized accomplishments will be easy to remember in the future. Unfortunately, they won’t be. Six months from now when someone asks you to describe the results of your contribution to account X, you’ll be scratching your head. “I know I did something really well, but I can’t…
-
Advent of Evil – Part 1 of 10
I The wispy tendrils of someone else’s thoughts pulled at the edge of Richard’s thoughts. He could feel someone or something there, just beyond, but he couldn’t quite see them. They were hiding in the shadows, yet beckoning his consciousness to venture forth and join them. It was an ominous feeling, to have such a welcoming presence hiding in the shadows, and Richard recoiled from the inner core of his being at the other’s touch. A sinister, foreboding voice in his mind told him to run farther, but it was matched by a tone of curiosity from his inner child.…