Celebrate Your Independence: Taking Charge of Your Career
Today, my country celebrates its 243rd birthday. Many observe the day with family and friends and enjoy fireworks. Consumption of hamburgers and hot dogs will most likely be huge. No one in the United States is still alive from the time when the colonists rowdily…
Systemic Reasoning Errors: Stink’en Think’en
The April 13-14, 2019 edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Russiagate and the Media’s News Denial. The author makes the point, “Judgement is teachable. Long ago, in relation to the Enron debacle, I pointed to the…
Event Horizon: Towards Singularity
This month a group of astronomers announced they had captured the first image of a black hole, some 55 million light years from earth.[i] A novel use of high-performance computing enabled this imaging and seems to hold promise for future commercial applications. Moreover, there is…
I Hate These Things: Why Does This Always Happen to Me?
We have long argued that people will change if they understand the new idea/technology value proposition—what’s in it for me? For some, this question is more difficult to answer than others. Moreover, we are all stuck! This age of digitalization may pass a few ‘off…
Human—Machine Interface in the Age of Digitalization: Can the Machine be Trusted and When Should the Human Intervene?
On March 10, 2019 the second Boeing 737 Max 8 (in approximately 5 months) crashed in Ethiopia. This incident has led to extensive investigations and as of this writing that model aircraft is grounded. This pundit cannot and will not hazard a guess as to…
Decision Making in the Digitalization Age: Who Decides?
“Ergonomics (or Human Factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.”[i] According to Gartner,…
Fleeting Success: In Pursuit of Sustainability
Winston Churchill is credited with saying, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” The late Prime Minister nailed it; once again! Our journey through life, including our career is a marathon not a sprint. While we…
Beat the Market: Can Operational Excellence Increase EPS?
In a recent Houston Chronicle article, its author puts forth the premise that while oil and gas companies should do well in the stock market this year, don’t expect the energy services sector to fare as well.[i] As those who are either in the sector…
Millennials Take On Our Increasingly Complex World
Originally published in 2013. On January 1st at 0348 hours a young engineer employed by a service company is trying to address a problem she has encountered with a compressor on a drilling rig in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico. She graduated from college three…
Command and Control: Is this the Way to Run the modern Railroad?
The managerial model, Command and Control (C&C) dates back to the dawn of humanity when tribal chieftains dictated the behavior of the group. It survives to this day in many forms. Typically, one thinks of military operations as the current manifestation of C&C in the…
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