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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:29:06 -0500

What entrepreneurship! I too like Dark and Stormy. It is delicious. Keep the new products coming!

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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:23:44 -0500

The motivation of individuals at work is one of the most important jobs of a manager. What makes someone come to work and apply effort towards getting the task accomplished? What makes someone decide not to come to work? People work to better the world, be part of a team, and achieve technical excellence.

Managers need to understand the different forces that act on an individual. Then the question of how to exert influence on those forces may be addressed.

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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:21:32 -0500

I do think there is a rather keen and distinct difference between managing and leading. The chief responsibility of a leader, for example, is to rally people for a better future. If you are a leader, you better be unflinchingly, unfailingly optimistic. No matter how bleak his or her mood, nothing can undermine a leader's belief that things can get better, and must get better. I believe you either bring this to the table or you don't.

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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:08:23 -0500

The reason this open-source market of thinking and writing has such potential is that the always adjusting and evolving collective mind can rapidly filter out bad arguments and bad ideas. The flip side, of course, is that bloggers are also human beings. Reason is not the only fuel in the tank. In a world where no distinction is made between good traffic and bad traffic, and where emotion often rules, some will always raise their voice to dominate the conversation; others will pander shamelessly to their readers’ prejudices; others will start online brawls for the fun of it.

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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:02:54 -0500

Interesting article. In an effective leadership situation, the leader is a social architect whose leadership style is analysis and design. The leader is a catalyst and servant whose leadership style is support, advocation, and empowerment. while in an ineffective leadership situation, the leader is a pushover, whose leadership style is abdication and fraud.

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Matt Timothy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:54:36 -0500

With succinct summaries of any topic imaginable a mouse click or two away do you think I worry we are loosing the ability to identify key points on our own. I use Google every day, but I do worry about what we are giving up with all this speed and efficiency.

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Matt Timothy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:04:59 -0500

A recession could save your life according to Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Professor Ruhm argues that death rates go down during economic slowdowns. Professor Ruhm’s research indicates that suicides rise but total mortality rates drop, as do deaths from heart attacks, car accidents, pneumonia and most other causes.

Nicolas Kristoff (New York Times) argues that a bear market might benefit you, if you are in your working years and won’t have to sell your stocks soon.

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Matt Timothy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:59:00 -0500

It's distressing that so many who know so little would so willingly throw a strategic American industry, and millions of employees and retirees, so quickly under the bus.

I'll take a number and stand in line to join in the criticism of Detroit's leadership. But to reduce the issue to simple bad management is incredibly wrong. There is no industrialized nation on earth that does not provide some level of protection and support for strategic national industries--steel, auto manufacturing, air travel. Except us.