Random Ruminations

Dale Carnegie HTWFAIP

Posted Mon Feb 8, 2010 in Books

I recently finished Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book was written nearly a century ago and went through any number of editions. It is an excellent book and one I wish I read many years ago. What can I say besides I’m a late-bloomer.

The book is a combination of many stories (anecdotes) that illustrate Carnegie’s theses. He did an excellent job of enumerating those principles and then providing a heuristic argument for how they work when dealing with people.

My expectation is that they will not work all the time. But, I think what they will do is set up the situation to be cordial and professional and provide the framework for reaching a conclusion where every participate takes away something they want or need. The side benefit is that they will all leave as pleased with the outcome as they can be.

I prepared a summary of the 31 principles. I printed a couple of copies and posted one in the back of my reporter’s notepad (Moleskine squared small size) and another on the back inside cover of my journal (Moleskine plain regular size). A copy of the PDF is posted (carnegie-win-friends.pdf) on my website for download. Use the summary if it helps you.

But, you will need the book to understand how the principles work. Get yourself a copy and read it. It’s good.

Maybe I’ll make an image of the back of my reporter’s notebook and post it for this entry before the entry posts.

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On Mandated Healthcare

Posted Sun Feb 7, 2010 in Ruminations

There is no hiding that I am adamantly opposed to the health care proposition as currently stated in the Congress of the United States. In my opinion, it is a move toward the socialization of medical services and I am opposed to socialism in any form. In fact, I’m afraid that particular cat (socialism) is out of the bag when I wish the sumbitch had been drowned!

But, before I get on a tear (which can happen these days), I thought I would share this link to openmarket.org — an interesting site for those of libertarian philosophy.

There is some good logic in the piece and a solid argument for why it is overreaching for the federal government to require American citizens to buy health insurance. The State of Virginia is drawing a line in the sand and preparing for a challenge to the federal legislation, if it makes it through the process.

There is no doubt in my little pea brain we need healthcare reform. But the current legislation is overreaching. It’s too big and I see the potential for the law of unintended side effects (or consequences) hanging out all over the place. I would suggest a much smaller approach, dealing with one problem at a time¹.

A good first step would be the elimination of the pre-existing condition clause present in most policies. There are two ways to accomplish this: 1) An outright ban on the condition or 2) encouragement of competition between companies that would reduce the fiscal benefit to insurers to have the policy.

Another important component is to control costs by developing malpractice reform. Malpractice insurance costs a buttload of money. (I know because my firm carries malpractice insurance — it must.) If the costs associated with malpractice were limited (and perhaps a more direct approach is pulling the license of someone convicted of malpractice), then costs would be reduced. A second important approach is to encourage competition among insurers (again) by opening the market such that it wasn’t bounded by state lines. The states should get involved in this.

There are other issues I’m not so conversant with. But, I think a lot of them should be handled at the state or local level. The funds to pay for the programs should come from the state or local level. The federal government is too big and too involved in the lives of American citizens.

Get out.

¹ I firmly believe the unix philosophy of simple, single-purpose tools. This complies with the principle contained in Occam’s Razor.

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Linkfest — 02-06-2010

Posted Sat Feb 6, 2010 in Links

The first of the month has arrived… Time flies, sometimes swiftly, sometimes ponderously… but it flies…

Zeldman has an interesting take on the future of flash. It’s worth a read. I think he has some insight into why Apple decided not to include flash in the iPhone and now the iPad.
I may have shared a link with him before, but David Seah has an interesting website, writes well, and has some fascinating ideas.

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Choices… and Changes

Posted Fri Feb 5, 2010 in Ruminations

I’m up much too early this morning. It happens, especially when I fall asleep at 2030 the night before. I can’t sleep more than about six hours at a time. I don’t know whether my mind activates after six hours or this old body just can’t stay in one place any longer¹.

I was reading The Preacher via his RSS feed this morning. I still try to keep up with Atkinson’s writing because his writing does something for me. He recently decided to leave the pastorate (of his church in San Antonio) and turn his energy toward writing full time. I understand the challenge of this decision and the internal tearing after spending a long time (20 years in his case) doing something.

There is a parallel between his life and mine. I spent 14 years at Texas Tech University teaching young civil engineers. It was a good job and something I felt “called” to do. In the beginning, I had a lot of enthusiasm and energy and spent both freely on my academic career. I was never a stellar performer as an academic — I didn’t publish enough of my work. The hassle of the publication process (which is laborious) was never worth the reward.

Then came some family issues followed by several years of clinical depression. The church we’d be part of for years took a nose dive. During this period of time my post-tenure review came up and I garnered poor marks, nearly being put into a “remediation plan.” A personnel issue arose that did not seem to have resolution. Daughter and her family moved far away.

The depression eased (or I found some resolution) but the other struggles remained. I found that I no longer enjoyed the classroom like I had initially. The bad-actors finally wore me down. I no longer wanted to go to work everyday and the only part of my work that I enjoyed was my research program. I suspect I had burned out, but could not find a way to recharge.

Eventually I decided to leave academics. In truth I probably needed a year or two of something else to do — some mechanic to allow me to recharge my intellectual, emotional, and spiritual batteries. I didn’t find that mechanism and when an opportunity to switch directions and work in another part of my field arose, I took it — for better or for worse.

I think that Atkinson’s path parallels my own in some fashions. I know he’s dealt with depression because he writes about it. I know how the ebb of energy can sap the enthusiasm for the work, particularly people-work like pastoring (notice I didn’t say preaching). The time came when he finally realized he couldn’t or shouldn’t do it anymore, so he made a decision. That decision probably didn’t come easily. I suspect it came hard and with a lot of soul-searching and prayer.

In the end I hope this works out for Atkinson. In the same way I hope it works out for me. I don’t know and can’t know if it will because we only move forward in time and our foresight is relatively short. But, we soldier on, which is what we’re tasked to do.

Vaya con Dios, Gordon Atkinson, and may God shine his light on your path.

¹ It’s true that I don’t stay put for long periods of time. At work (whether at home or the office) I get up and move around about every half-hour or so. It might just be to hit the head, refresh my coffee (or other drink), or just move about to think. But, I don’t stay planted very long.

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Quiet Lately…

Posted Thu Feb 4, 2010 in Bloggish

One of my commenters mentioned that I seem to have disappeared. I do that sometimes, either being distracted by work, by home duties, or just having the muse escape me. There’s no cause of alarm.

I am thinking about what I want to write in this space. A lot of my recent writings seem to be of the “summer vacation” variety. That’s OK, I think, at least part of the time. But I want to write about other things that are more intellectually interesting. That is the main reason I created this space in the first place.

When I created my personal web space, I didn’t want to write about a lot of things — politics, religion, and so forth. I wanted to write about academic things, about my experience in the educational system, about my experience as an engineer, and about my experience in general.

I suppose I could expand my readership if I’d be a bit more controversial. People seem to like that.

But I find it boring.

I might write about my observations on the American experience. I can tell I’m becoming an old-timer, because I can recollect changes over my lifetime. From what I can tell, things are generally not better than when I was young.

I can certainly find a lot to write about as a professional, but I think those words belong on my professional website and I need to institute a content management system for that part of my web space. That’s something to add to my lists.

I can write about music — both from the listener’s and the performer’s perspectives. That’s sometimes interesting, but I’m not actively playing anymore so some pieces are missing.

I could write about computer games… naw, I don’t think so.

I can write about firearms and I do and I might write some more. They’re a part of the American experience and far more important than a lot of people think. True power to the people belongs in their fundamental rights, and the right to keep and bear arms is a hinge pin of those basic rights.

I can also write about books, but most people would think the books I write about are boring. I might like reading about physics, physicists, mathematicians and mathematics, and things of that nature, but not many people would find it interesting.

Oh well, enough ruminating for now. The muse will return one day and I’ll park a few more words here.

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Linkfest — 01-30-2010

Posted Sat Jan 30, 2010 in Links

We’re at the end of the first month of 2010. That seems strange to me, especially when I think that I haven’t done some of the planning activities I wanted to do before the end of the first month. Hmm…

If you have a late 5G iPod, then there is an upgrade that will give more storage and more battery for that old device.
Zombie Apocalypse is hysterical! I don’t know how he managed to capture every zombie movie ever made, but he did!
Church of the Holy Sepulchre has some amazing images.

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Professional Blogging

Posted Sat Jan 30, 2010 in Blogging

After our regular weekly meeting on Wednesday, one of my colleagues approached me with a book he’s been listening too. The title of the book is New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Scott. One of the things mentioned by Scott and relayed to me is the need to write a weblog dealing with professional activities to draw eyeballs that are looking for my specialty to the company website, and ultimately to me.

This is something I’ve been thinking about. I read a really short ebook about marketing tips. In that book, the writer suggests that a proper web presence is one of the things that brings in new work. It isn’t that someone will read my weblog and them dump a buttload of new work on my desk, but it opens an opportunity for me to establish myself as an expert in my field. Then an opportunity for a dialogue with individuals and companies needing my specialty can occur.

My colleague is right on this one. I don’t know when this will happen on the corporate website, but I have another domain that is housing my old university pages. It would not require much time to add another content management system to my server and run a professional website under my other domain. I could write about a number of things that are a combination of technical and professional and host those writings there, with prominent links to my current employer.

I was already thinking about this before my colleague approached me. I need to promote my capabilities if I want to draw additional work — which I do. I also want to position myself for the time when I leave my current employer. That time is no time soon (I think), but things do change and will change¹ and I want to prepare myself for that time.

I have no idea when the new company website will be operational, or even if it will change. My work is not prominently featured on our website. I think that’s a mistake (without being arrogant). So, I will probably work on something of my own to fill the gap while company leadership figures it out. There is no real reason for me to delay because I have the capability, the hosting space, and the knowledge to make it happen.

¹ I just shuddered thinking that I’m channeling the current U.S. President.

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