In November of 2013 Bill Gates was attending a conference in Germany, and was asked if he was concerned about “balkanization of the Internet,” the growing trend toward islands of authoritative control of the Internet. He replied, “China is really the only one who to any meaningful degree has partitioned their stuff.”
Early in my career, when I began working for a leading high-tech company in California, I was asked to manage international marketing, and one experience has stuck with me as a key observation about remote working. A colleague was asked to move to our European HQ and to work directly with me in California. This was pre-Internet. We had phones and telex messages on long rolls of paper. My colleague and I discussed our impending new situation, and…
Our commitment to our clients is to provide exceptional value to them for their businesses. To achieve that goal, it is necessary to understand the communication environment needed to facilitate relationship-building, the foundation for successful consultation, and retained understanding that can be translated into results for the client. The recent rapid transition to online streaming business meetings, conferences and webinars has made that goal more challenging.
1964 was a harbinger of the future we now inhabit, but no one knew it at the time. It was the year of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California Berkeley, the first stirrings of the cultural revolution to come. FSM epitomized the fear of a world dehumanized by mainframe computers controlled by corporations. Yet that same year Marshall McLuhan also first articulated his famous concepts of “the medium is the message,” and his vision of a “global village.”
As a teenager I had the habit of asking myself odd questions. One of the most enduring of those “questions to myself” involved asking if there was some possible mathematical order to hideously complex physical phenomena like smoke rising from a cigarette. My question remained unanswered for decades until in 1987
This five-minute read may be the most important thing you do today. I say that humbly. Uncertainty is the new normal about everything. Think about it. The extent and scope of unexpected changes to the way things are done is global. Reacting and responding to this uncertainty is now the basis for company and personal survival. I am going to share two examples to get you thinking. I am also sharing here a downloadable model for an entirely new method to analyze and develop your own “impromptu” strategic plan.
While I was still in university, I was sitting on the grass on campus one afternoon, and out of the blue, I was struck by the fact that I didn’t much care anymore what other people thought of me. At that moment, I realized that the most important thing in my life was what I thought about myself, the goals I set for myself, and the direction I would take. I was the pilot of my own destiny.
Zoom has become a target for harassment and abuse coordinated in private off-platform chats. By Taylor…
I need to confess that I’m a procrastinator. I have always been a procrastinator, dependent on bursts of energy and productivity to compensate for my weakness. I have found a million reasons not to attend to what I know needs doing, especially now. I have drifted off to play Death Stranding, the new PlayStation 4 game, watching CNN or Netflix, and drinking too much wine.
Last week I wrote about some of the issues that I have personally encountered in setting up my own professional “Work From Home” (WFH) equipment and infrastructure. I only mentioned the Internet infrastructure by recommending that you get the most broadband you can afford. It turns out there is considerably more to it than that.
