Monday, June 28, 2010

Success

Recently I've had several discussions, mainly at work, about tech companies and how they measure success. The former CEO of HP is running for public office, touting her successes at HP as part of her credentials, and while the company did turn a profit with her at the helm they also managed to become one of the least reliable manufacturers of technology out there today. While some might argue that for the CEO's job is to run a profitable company, shouldn't they also have some expectation that they would include objective quality in measuring true success? I feel like too often we are willing to overlook incompetency and laziness so long as there is money coming. But shouldn't we hold ourselves, our country, and certainly those we rely upon to deliver the tools we use in our daily lives to a higher standard? Simply being profitable is not a true measure of success, only a measure of wealth. But I guess that's why they call it the almighty dollar.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rolling Stone?

MPR's News Cut blog has a very cool interview with Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, along with a small blurb explaining the current place of Rolling Stone in our society.

Soccer, "summer", and the need to constantly talk

So I happen to remember that the USA is playing in their 3rd and final game of the first round this morning and go pull up the live broadcast on ESPN3. Not at all surprisingly the game is tied 0-0. I've been ranting for the past couple weeks about how tying in sports is a giant waste of time and how it completely takes the excitement out of a game. All set to write a snarky FB status update about how this sport will never catch on in the US, I suddenly start to feel my heart rate increase as time approaches the 90 minute marker. Algeria has just missed a shot and it looks like there are 4 Americans racing down the field with very little resistance. A pass, a blocked shot, and then some guy named Donovan runs right up the middle and taps it back in and I can't believe that I'm excited about all this. Maybe it's the bandwagon, or maybe it's that part of all of us that gets excited when a band says the name of your hometown, but I'm pretty sure I'll be chanting USA and actually caring about the game this coming Saturday.

Is it just me or is this summer a constant battle between rain and ridiculous humidity? Didn't we used to have pleasant days in June?

As anyone reading this may have noticed, it's been a very long time since I posted anything here. For a while I was trying to use the tiny little FB status updates and link sharing to fulfill my need to always have someone listening to me, but it just isn't enough. So I'm back, ready to rant and rave and most likely say at least one stupid thing that I regret per post.