The Rapid Response Institute

Month: September 2024

  • Why Me and Why Now?

    Why Me and Why Now?

    In the current calendar year, I have personally not been negatively impacted by hurricane Beryl and other extreme weather events that have hit the Houston metropolitans area.

    Friends and colleagues have not been so lucky with several enduring power failures multiple times.  So why have I been so lucky?  We usually ask the title question when adversity impacts our lives.

    Clean living, fate, etc. are claims we all make when fortune smiles on us.  Probably none of these are true in  my case.  Luck plays a big role when we are smiled upon.  None of us can be certain what will come our way and when adversity will hit and perhaps hit hard.

    The word Luck, has a number of whimsical expressions such as, “I would rather be lucky than good.”  This writer would take that all day long!  Another whimsical expression.

    “Happiness is a quality of the soul…not a function of one’s material circumstances.” ~ Aristotle (384–322 BC).  In other words, it is not about what happens or does not happen to us, words spoken over 2,300 years ago.  It is what we make of our life.

    Finally, stay tuned (a 1950s statement about the then emerging technology — television).  Shortly we will launch another Blog tentatively titled, Wisdom of the Ancients.  There is an immerse body of knowledge from our forefathers that are applicable today.

    What do you do everyday to assure the quality of your life?

    For More Information

    Please note, RRI does not endorse or advocate the links to any third-party materials herein.  They are provided for education and entertainment only.

    See our Economic Value Proposition Matrix® (EVPM) for additional information and a free version to build your own EVPM.

    The author’s credentials in this field are available on his LinkedIn page.  Moreover, Dr. Shemwell is a coauthor of the just published book, “Smart Manufacturing: Integrating Transformational Technologies for Competitiveness and Sustainability.”  His focus is on Operational Technologies.

    “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” (Martin Luther King speech at Cornell College, 1962).  For more information on Cross Cultural Engagement, check out our Cross Cultural Serious Game.  You can contact this author as well.

    For more details regarding climate change models, check out Bjorn Lomborg ands his latest book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.

    Regarding the economics of Climate Change, check out our blog, Crippling Green.

    For those start-up firms addressing energy (including renewables) challenges, the author can put you in touch with Global Energy Mentors which provide no-cost mentoring services from energy experts.  If interested, check it out and give me a shout.

  • The Times They Are a Changin!

    The Times They Are a Changin!

    Creative destruction is the dismantling of long-standing practices in order to make way for innovation and is seen as a driving force of capitalism.

    We live in an era of hyper-change.  Technology to be sure, but all social constructs are under duress.  The question is, how will all of us at an individual level deal with these enormous pressures?

    The statement, “The only constant is change” remains a basic truism.  From the time of our birth until our death we  undergo physical and psychological transformation.  At this writer’s age, I have been through more than seven decades of evolvement.  With hopefully a few more cycles in the future.

    Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress.

    The question is, would we have it any other way?  Some central government (most likely unelected) bureaucrat dictating how we should respond to social/economic forces is not only anti-American it is Fascist if not Communist policy.

    If Lenin and the Bolsheviks prevail in the upcoming US presential election, get ready for the disruption of life as we know it.  Welcome to East Berlin, circa 1960s.

    How will you preserver Capitalism, the best, worse, social construct?

    For More Information

    Please note, RRI does not endorse or advocate the links to any third-party materials herein.  They are provided for education and entertainment only.

    See our Economic Value Proposition Matrix® (EVPM) for additional information and a free version to build your own EVPM.

    The author’s credentials in this field are available on his LinkedIn page.  Moreover, Dr. Shemwell is a coauthor of the just published book, “Smart Manufacturing: Integrating Transformational Technologies for Competitiveness and Sustainability.”  His focus is on Operational Technologies.

    “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” (Martin Luther King speech at Cornell College, 1962).  For more information on Cross Cultural Engagement, check out our Cross Cultural Serious Game.  You can contact this author as well.

    For more details regarding climate change models, check out Bjorn Lomborg ands his latest book, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.

    Regarding the economics of Climate Change, check out our blog, Crippling Green.

    For those start-up firms addressing energy (including renewables) challenges, the author can put you in touch with Global Energy Mentors which provide no-cost mentoring services from energy experts.  If interested, check it out and give me a shout.