James Drogan

I've never preferred IE (7.0) as a browser because it is simply slow. There are, however, some instances where the website is so tightly wed to the Microsoft technology that IE simply must be used.

I have been a Firefox advocate for some time, but the last version (3.5.2) I installed seems to conflict with other software in my Thinkpad R60. It seems to not shut down properly and lockup my machine. I first noticed this last week and, in an experiment, tried Chrome.

Very fast, this Chrome. Fast to load the browser and fast to load the sites. Easy to use interface once I got over the strange placement of the tabs.  It is, at the moment, my browser of choice. The only drawback I've found to this point is that Zotero doesn't work with Chrome. Hence, when I need to capture or use citations I return to Firefox.

By the way, the capability of Zotero will cause me to take Endnote off the machine.

I also dallied with Safari, but found the interface hard to become friends with. That's probably just me.

The breadth and depth of data and information regarding technology is, for all practical purposes, fathomless. It is probably impossible, and at least impractical, to know all there is to know.

There is, however, a set of data and information about technology that is highly relevant to one’s role and responsibilities in an organization in an industry.

This note suggests ways to discover that set.

...I had little idea what competencies I would need post-graduation beyond the contents of the curriculum.  In hindsight I was not as well prepared as I could have been.  Most of what I needed was not in the curriculum. I have previously blogged on this in Things They Don't Teach You in School.

Harvard Business provides additional useful insights on these post-graduation competencies in 5 Core Competencies for the 21st Century.

I recommend a read.

Virtually all my classes use the Context of Interest as a unifying theme.

This note describes the origins and meaning of the context and how it can be used as a basis for thinking about business.

One definition of introspection is that it is “contemplation of one's own thoughts, feelings, and sensations; self-examination.”

Introspection comes into play in “Know what you know, know what you don't know, and know who knows what you don't know” and “When things are going really well you've probably missed something.”

Introspection is valuable, important, and perhaps even critical to successful business operations. A prominent case dealing with this that my students and discuss is “What went wrong at Cisco Systems?” More recently, we have difficulties in the global financial industry and the American automobile industry that also suggest the lack of introspection.

This note takes up this characteristic – introspection – in more detail with some comments on its value, how it can be developed and applied.

Through the kindness of a SUNY Maritime graduate student, Yanjie Shi, I attended a speech yesterday by Ambassador Rice.  The transcript of the talk, as delivered, can be found here.

Ambassador Rice is a very impressive speaker and seemed to me to have a great grasp of all the salient facts and the manner in which they interact.  I underscore the interaction because I think too few of our elected officials, self-proclaimed pundits, and main stream media manufacturers really understand and discuss the complex, interrelated nature of the world.

Complexity in global social, economic, and political systems presents opportunities and threats to commercial enterprises that operate within, and thus must respond to, these systems.  The student of today is virtually obligated to understand the cross currents affecting world commerce if they are to be of value to the stakeholders of the firms they join after graduation. 

Consider the following introductory paragraph of Kauffmann, Lutz, Alex Michael, and Craig R. Carter. 2009. DEBIASING STRATEGIES IN SUPPLY MANAGEMENT DECISION-MAKING. JOURNAL OF BUSINESS LOGISTICS 30, no. 1: 85-106.

'Decision biases are likely to arise in the area of business-to-business sourcing (Bendoly, Donohue, and Schultz 2006) as many supply management decisions are made within contexts of uncertainty (Kaufmann and Carter 2006; Ogden et al. 2005; Zsidisin 2003) and thus challenge supply managers’ rational decision-making. As decision makers’ rationality is bounded due to limitations in information gathering, computing capabilities, and a limited memory (Arrow 1986; Koh, Ang, and Straub 2004; Miller 1956; Nordstrom, Williams, and LeBreton 1996; Slovic and Lichtenstein 1971), they may fail when it comes to judging probabilities, making predictions, or otherwise attempting to cope with uncertain decision-making environments (Arrow 1986; Thaler 1985). This view challenges the traditional rationality assumptions in economics (Hogarth 1987; Tversky and Kahneman 1974). Specifically, it suggests that decisions are vulnerable to decision biases and might only meet the decision quality criterion of “satisficing” (Simon 1957, p. 204) or “reasonable” (Bazerman 1998, p. 5), rather than “rational”.'

I have underlined within these lines 15 citations.  They appear to me to be an an acceptable citation style.  They testify to the thoroughness of the research by the author.  However, they are unfortunate speed bumps to reading and comprehending the paragraph.

My sense is that one would rather get high marks for readability and quality of the argument than high marks for count of citations.  My sense is that we academicians put too much stress on the purity of citations when, after graduation and entering the work force, many students will never use a citation again.

The subject of the paper is one that intrigues me, but I am having trouble getting over the speed bumps.

We need to write to be read.

Dan Gillmor, writing in Harvard Business Publishing, has an excellent piece expounding on an important theme I have been discussing with Dave.

This is a required read.

One of my favorite tweeple, michaelg, brings me the lead to this article.

There is a reason why Ethics, Critical Thinking, and Communications combined and structured the three themes in the manner it does.

From TED Talks.

"Willard Wigan tells the story of how a difficult and lonely childhood drove him to discover his unique ability -- to create art so tiny that it can't be seen with the naked eye. His slideshow of figures, as seen through a microscope, can only be described as mind-boggling."

This talk is highly recommended.  The message is, "Yes you can."