James Drogan

The Huffington Post brought me to Anna Nicole Smith Died. So Did Three American Troops.

Paul Rieckhoff has described the shallowness and growing irrelvance of the MSM much better than I.

We need to play with our heads up. 

Many of my posts start with "Re Conversations with Dave."  And now, he has appeared.

See Parts, Structures, Systems & Outcomes.

Thinking About the Business Configuration has been modified to add emphasis to interpretation of the results from this diagnostic.

The Role of Visualization in Communication in response to a question from a reader of cac.ophony.org.

Both can be found in Other Information and Ideas. 

A few days ago I posted regarding my experience with publishing my first, albeit somewhat crude by generally accepted standards, book.

This morning, Greg Mankiw's blog takes me to a post by Uwe E. Reinhardt at Princeton titled "Choosing textbooks and toothpaste."

The following paragraph in Prof. Reinhardt's post caught my eye.

"As colleague Branson and I presented our ideas to sundry publishers, we quickly discovered that it probably would be too advanced and too revolutionary. It appears that to be publishable, an introductory textbook in economics now must fit snugly into a cookie-cutter mold that appeals to the mass market for textbooks, which now includes high schools. This requirement dictates the remarkable homogeneity among introductory economics texts and also explains why many of them do not engage Ivy League students. In their quest to tailor their textbooks to the mass market, some publishers even highlight with yellow markers passages in the text they deem important. The thought appears to be that students either are preoccupied listening to their iPods while reading the text or are just plain too dumb to highlight important passages on their own."

Perhaps the textbook publishers have too much control over the pedagogy.  I'm tempted to think this has been aided by the ambitions of professors and academic institutions to publish (or perish?).   Are we, at ever increasing prices,  imposing a homogeneity in our teaching that, in the long run, does a disservice to  all (except the publishers)?

Socrates, as far as know, did not require a textbook.  I've often thought that, if I am any good at all as a teacher, I ought to be able to step into a room with nothing more than a marker, a whiteboard, and a group of students eager to discover knowledge, and do good by doing well.

For some time I had been wanting to collect the lecture notes I prepare for my classes into a single publication that I could place on reserve in our college library.  I reckoned the students would find some value in this.

I use FedEx Kinko's to produce my quarterly diary, but didn't feel that was satisfactory (standard paper size, coil bound, difficult to make multiple copies). 

I was googling online publishing and came across www.lulu.com.  After a tour through the site, I decided to give it a go.

I had been collecting my lecture notes into a single document in anticipation that I would find a suitable publishing mechanism.  On January 12, within a 15 minute period, I had uploaded the 169 page document to the publisher, chosen the size (6 x 9), picked the cover and binding, and placed the order.

The result:

The book arrives late in the afternoon of January 17.  Excellent quality, excellent service, excellent price ($7.92 plus $7.39 for shipping and handling).  Plus, if anyone wants a copy, easy to get.

Now it's not peer-reviewed, has not been gone over by an editor (other than me), isn't in the formal layout (front matter, etc.) one normally sees in a book, lacks an ISBN, isn't in the commercial mainstream, but it will do the job I want it to do quite nicely.  It's the outcome that matters. 

I'm writing a new lecture note -- The Relevance of Data, Information, and Knowledge -- to bring a few points to the attention of my students.  In the paper I assert that "The data, information, and knowledge required to make decisions has its roots in communication."  So this statement has been running around in my head for a few days.

This evening, courtesy of Businesspundit, comes a post, The Curse of Knowledge - Why Communication at Work Is Sometimes Difficult, that bears upon the assertion. 

The opening paragraph captures the issue.

"Once you know something, it's difficult to imagine what it is like to not know it. It's called the "curse of knowledge," and it is the root of many different workplace problems. It affects communication between employees and with customers, and it can cause all your good intentioned new products to fail. It's why designing for someone who isn't like you can be so difficult."

It's a matter to which I must give more attention.  And I recommend the subject to my friends at the Schwartz Communications Institute. 

Re Conversations with Dave

Drogan’s Eighth Law: Old dogs that don't learn new tricks end up dead dogs. Darwin pointed this out. And there is sufficient evidence in any number of fields that holding to the status quo, while a seemingly comfortable position, puts one on the exit ramp.

"Right cost, right skills and right business environment" sounds pretty right to me. I think as individuals we use these rules when we acquire products and services (e.g., the best spot for a beer and conversation) and shouldn’t, therefore, get too upset when others wishing to acquire our products and services look at us in the same manner.

There is a certain naiveté on the part of those past the margin of the globalization slope. They need to be willing to do what needs to be done to get on a better wave of change.

On the other hand, and I agree with you here, the management of the human asset is generally unenlightened. The focus is invariably on cost, not value, except, of course, in the case of top executives (e.g., Nardelli) where there is no focus on cost or value. What sort of really useful talent could Home Depot acquire with $210 million?

I’m not an HR guy, of course, and perhaps this notion of valuation of the human capital has been solved. If so, it’s not obvious. I recall from my former career the importance attached to the employee development plan. However, after the plan was put in place there was little funding of time and money for, and little interest expressed by management in, executing the plan.

It seems to me that to survive, thrive, and make a difference in the world, one must be adaptable. Innovative is another useful word in this discussion. We have previously discussed that innovation and adaptability are predicated on a foundation of continuous, relevant learning. That, I think, results in a high quality asset and is not enough. That high quality asset needs to be part of an equally high quality management system.

I have long maintained that once a launch of anything has made into cyberspace it tends to stay there forever.

Every one in awhile I google "James Drogan" just to see what's out there about me.  I believe something like this is called a vanity google.

Anyway, here is something new. 

I presentation I did in 1988 has been citied in Modern logistics. Пер.343p. с англ.U413. Джонсон Дж. ИД Вильямс.Johnson Publishing J. Williams. 2005 г. 624 с.2005 624p. 

I'm flattered, of course, but knew nothing of this.

And there is...

I remember writing the words that appear on this site, but I've no idea how they got on Crusin'.

All of which recalls to my mind the Third Law: Never put things in an e-mail you would not like to hear read in court.

This morning, Greg Mankiw's Blog brought me a link to this article.  It caught my eye because of the continuing conversations that Dave and I have regarding the lack of critical thinking on the part of the body politic -- those I once characterized as being satisfied with "a beer, a boat, and a sound-bite."

While the article has a definite political theme running through it, there are some fundamental ideas that bear consideration by, for example, my students at Maritime as they develop their critical thinking and communications skills.

"The more knowledgeable we are, the more we follow a high-investment strategy of selectively accepting evidence that favors our outlook while discounting contrary information." should be seen as a caution to all of us.

The del.icio.us hotlist brought me this link this morning.  I suspect this is useful for ESL students as well as those of us who ain't so good with words.