Systems Mindset Newsletter

Sans iPod, she contemplates.

“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.” –Emily Dickenson 

For the past week we’ve been exploring coastal British Columbia. Love it. We hiked into the Skookumchuck tidal rapids at ebb tide yesterday. Incredible power as billions of gallons of water surge through the narrow channel at blistering speed. We’re up here for another week.  

Two weeks ago in my essay, The Yearning, I off-handedly said that hard work is not enough to get you where you want to go. I could have elaborated further by saying that hard work all by itself is actually a distraction that will ultimately take you down; that there has to be another concurrent effort if there is to be freedom and wealth. I’ll expand on this in next week’s post.

“Machines should work so humans can think.” -old IBM slogan

Will we see you at Burning Man at the end of August? Buy your tickets now while you still can. 

From our friend Colleen Wainwright regarding Battlestar Gallactica and Breaking Bad:  ”I finally finished BSG last night. I stretched out those last DVDs forEVer, not wanting it to end. Which is funny, b/c I raced through the rest of them like a greedy pig. What an epic story! So well told, too. And I did love the ending. I didn’t see it coming, and it was perfect. Saw the first two seasons of Breaking Bad, but haven’t seen the third yet. NO SPOILERS, PLEASE. It, too, is some ferociously good TV. We really are living through a golden era of television.”

Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit,” as described in his wonderful book The Demon-Haunted World, is a great simplicity concept. I credit this book and it’s encouragement of skeptical thinking with the development of my own internal “Highly Tuned Bullshit Meter.” 

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts…for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang (1844-1912)  

A note from my friend Gene Burke: “I am currently reading a book entitled ‘Geneen,’ a biography of Harold Geneen who built ITT into an international conglomerate back when the USA was in charge of things. In the early chapters it detailed how he started his career in WWII with a canning company and transformed it into one of the largest torpedo manufacturers of the war. No easy task. In describing his work the author wrote as follows: ‘With so much responsibility, it may sound as though Geneen had to be incessantly busy; but he was not. Once his systems were on-line their routines ran smoothly.’ I almost fell out of bed when I read that, and I thought you might find it interesting, if not confirming.” 

Please join me on Facebook and Twitter. 

Dan Millman: “Stress happens when we resist reality. Let go of opinions about what should be. Flow with what is. Reality unfolds according to its own design. Find peace by accepting what is, then respond creatively. Surf the waves of change.” 

A comment from Andrew Josuweit regarding my recent post that discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy: “Through engaging in difficult self-challenges we can condition ourselves to need lower levels of safety, love, family and friendship, allowing us to achieve self-actualization faster.  This is a principle I swear by.  I am constantly challenging my own status quo for what I need in terms of safety, love and friendship by practicing minimalism and constantly pursuing new adventures.“ Andrew’s blog: Carpe Diemage. 

Gotta love Lawrence. “I’m trying to free your mind but I can only show you the door. You’re the one who has to walk through it.” -Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), from the movie, The Matrix. 

Looking for a really good web design company? We have our terrific in-house guy Dan, but have recently directed extra work to Keith and Lori Turley of Imagine Design Studio. What we especially like about Keith and Lori is that they never drop the ball and always watch our backs. They have 20 years experience.

Tom Molyneux sent this clip of George Whitesides to me. It’s a confoundingly circuitous discussion of simplicity that only a career academic could deliver. Thanks Tom. 

From subscriber Mathew Strong, who gets it: “On the topic of Centratel the issue is that the system exists, is followed, and takes all the blame if it fails. The leader’s actions align with this. People in the business know their human nature and creativity can be channeled into changing that system at any time. All they need to do is propose something better. By this, Centratel has an open system that can evolve whilst simultaneously controlling inputs, process and predicting outputs.”  Thanks Matt.

Photo by h.koppdelaney via flickr used under a creative Commons License.