Even though the framers were pretty bad about race, and they certainly didn’t understand sex equality, the one thing the framers got was class. They understood that the biggest risk was to create an aristocracy. And so they insisted, as Madison said, that ‘the people’ meant ‘not the rich more than the poor.’ We’ve completely betrayed that commitment.
— Lawrence Lessig
Watch Lessig’s entire 12-minute interview with Bill Moyers:
… in the last ten years or so, there’s been a major economic resurgence for introversion—the “geek” economy. The prototypical geek is really good at thinking, has superb powers of concentration (which tends to be an introvert trait), and works very well independently. They’re often pretty awesomely brilliant people, and they’re fairly defiant about being geeks. They’ve turned this word “geek” into a term that’s almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they’ve been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what’s happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun.
Consulting is a relationship business. A special product may make you competitive. Differentiated services may make you distinct. But only carefully crafted relationships will create a breakthrough firm.
— Alan Weiss, Million Dollar Consulting
In preparation to launch Rizers — my new company — I am reading Alan Weiss’ classic tome, Million Dollar Consulting.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
— Lord Acton
I was born in Canada and came to the US between my sophomore and junior year in high school. One of my first courses in my newly adopted country was high school civics. I learned with a newcomer’s sense of awe about the three branches of government and their important role in each checking the power of the other. It is highly attributed that this system of checks and balances is the genius of the America.
In the intervening years since those wide-eyed high school years I have been a casual observer of the reality that power and money are self preserving. …
A tip of the hat and a hearty thank you to Len Edgerly and his new podcast, The Kindle Chronicles. I joined the Kindle revolution a few months ago and have been amazed at how beautifully this gadget fits into my arsenal of tech toys. I went looking for a podcast that would allow me to get even more out of my Kindle. I stumbled on to Len’s Kindle Chronicles and have been hooked ever since.
The Kindle Chronicles have a wonderful format that includes well defined sections for
It is a great format and his recent effort to keep the show around 30 minutes has resulted in an outstanding half-hour of content. …
Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.