A Year of Leadership–Or Not! On March 2, 2021 the Governor of Texas announced its 100% reopening–effectively proclaiming an end of the Covid-19 crisis. Needless to say in our hyper-partisan world, many widely decried the decision and even accused him or bringing physical death to the state population. Mississippi announced a similar rollback of virus
“When converted into productive thought and action, the energy it takes to blame, shame, and game is enough to launch anyone into heights of real success and happiness.” – Charles F Glassman Entrée It is not often that an entire geographically LARGE state loses power and water simultaneously. Now we know it can happen! Welcome
Recently, my team and I were tasked with a delicate decision making process. Due to its nature and signatory level, team members were only authorized to explore and present options. The final decision was mine alone. Our project governance model clearly defined this decision making process. One day I received a call from remote members
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” ~ W. Edwards Deming Data and its use is a very hot topic these days. Significant controversy exists over decision making regarding Covid-19 strategies and the quality or lack there of the data supporting government policies. Scientific disagreements and so called ‘academic arguments‘ are appropriate, especially
Crisis Drives Change In 2001 this writer approached the Houston medical community, post tropical storm Allison which flooded many basements in the Houston Medical Center with the loss of experimental data and other records. We proposed the development of an Internet based solution to hold and manage medical records of all types. The response to
A friend of mine sent me this uncited picture, so my apologies to the originator as I cannot give you the rightful credit deserved. If you see this, let me know and I will update this blog. We are all enduring 2020 in our own way. Sometimes positive but often negative. Battling my own 2020
Melvin—a story of growth. At beginning of my oil and gas career, I was partnered with my mentor to be and at the time my supervisor; Melvin. A gruff old cuss, he was a long-time south Louisiana ‘Cajun’ field engineer. Little did I know at the time the next months would be life changing for
Lessons in Leadership—how dare you put young people in jeopardy for loss of life or failures they will live with the rest of their life? As we end Veteran’s Week, we are reminded of President Herbert Hoover’s comment, “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” Hoover was president
“If it disagrees with experiment, its wrong” Our point today is to assess how behavioral decisions are being made today; not about the politics of one candidate or the other. The race to the US presidential election has entered its final phase. As of this writing, establishment wisdom holds the conventional candidate as the presumptive
“If it disagrees with experiment, its wrong”—Richard Feynman Full Disclosure: this author holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics with a minor in Mathematics. My doctoral dissertation developed a new Game Theory based practical solution. For those unfamiliar with this discipline, check out the movie Beautiful Mind or the work of John von Neumann
Not as Easy as it Seems When transforming this website to the Word Press platform, this author accepted the “wisdom” of various online sources and used a so called up and coming new Page Builder. A huge mistake! After many failures and indeed public page lockups, I changed to a more established solution—the one used
The battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 with over 200,000 individuals involved is possibly the largest naval battle in history. Hopefully, one of the last ones. In that battle, the submarine USS Darter initially detected (on radar) the Japanese task force early on October 23. Other US naval vessels spotted that armada shortly thereafter on
In statistics a Latent Variable can be defined as, ‘a variable inferred from observed or measured data.’ Its analysis is often used psychology, economics, and predictive modeling. This author used Structural Equation Models (SEM) in his 1996 doctoral dissertation, Cross Cultural Negotiations Between Japanese and American Businessmen: A Systems Analysis (Exploratory Study). From that abstract,
App developers have fallen in love with the concept of Minimum Viable Product aka MVP. Wikipedia defines minimum viable product (MVP) as “a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development.” This development model might make some sense for consumer software or even some
In a recent Harvard Business Review, I was struck by an article about Best Practices for small businesses. From that piece, “To successfully navigate Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) challenges like Covid-19, family business leaders can look to best practices from another organization that specializes in VUCA situations—the U.S. military’s Special Operations Forces (SOF)”
Let me understate, ‘working in the petroleum sector has always been challenging.’ Now we find ourselves in a major economic downturn caused by a Covid-19 pandemic and aided and abetted by an international crude oil price war. Once again, many thousands have lost their livelihood and possibly not return to a similar job as the
We have been hearing for years how, Big Data Analysis will help us optimize our businesses and generate performance at levels here to for never hear of. So where is it now? Two major sources for data on the Covid-19 virus are Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is
By one measure, the US presidential primary season is off to a rough start. In a small state, counting the ballots became a challenge. Wasn’t technology supposed to solve the problems of past confusions? Yet the mechanism seemingly failed—again! How is this different from the Boeing Max 8 disaster? In one sense it isn’t. Disclaimer:
Generally, this time of year humans are wont to look back on the closing year and assess the good and the bad, and dare I say the ugly? We celebrate successes, review the not so successes, and what is left undone. This process prepares us for the New Year’s resolutions that are often then broken.
Several weeks ago, as an amateur history buff, I was watching a documentary about World War I. During one segment the commentator discussed the apparent fact that if soldiers refused to charge out of their trenches across an open field into the teeth of waiting machine guns they would be shot. The brutality of such
At lunch the other day and for whatever reason, the history of the 3M Post It Note became a subject of our conversation. This technological marvel unveiled in the 1970s is still widely used today. As with other new or disruptive technologies, the ‘sticky note’ was panned at first and for some time. According to
Years ago, as part of a never-ending series of company reorganizations, a team of our change management consultants headed to the ‘field’ to interview users. Upon their return, they presented an extensive list of technology investments deemed necessary to remain competitive. Their list focused on technology and not business concerns. Wondering, I asked who they
Since it was first uttered in the early 1990s, the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” has been used and misused extensively. Let’s squander the lexicon one more time. The US ‘silly’ political season is well underway and forecast to last almost 13 more months—no telling what voodoo economics will emerge. Those of us with our
I recently submitted an internal organizational document that was spellchecked in addition to my review; several times. One sentence where there the intent was to say, “that which is …” was change to “that witch is …” Did I type it wrong or did ‘auto correct’ take over the decision process? In any event spellcheck
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 work of Harvard’s Max Bazerman and Northwestern’s David Messick, who
True Story! A couple of decades ago when I was the sales manager of a technology line of business that was part of a much larger organization, an excited young sales representative rushed into my office. He just had to tell me that he just rode up the elevator and an older gentleman wearing a
Over the past couple of weeks this writer has been part of several conversations regarding the value proposition of technology for established as well as startup companies and how to articulate it. This remains a tough subject and we have been addressing it over the years. However, there is an approach that is successful when
“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.” According to Gartner, “Digitalization is the use of digital technologies to change a
