Morning Rants

Every Sunday morning, over two large cups of coffee, I read the New York Times. This morning, there were a lot of good articles covering a lot of good subjects. And, as is often the case, I had some pretty robust mental rants about a couple of stories. Below are three sentence rants about the six news items that caught my eye: Daily Deals - I've been ranting about the lack of real value that the plethora of daily deal sites bring to the merchants for as long as I've known about the daily deals. I signed up once and unsubscribed the next day. I frequently reference Skinner's Box in speeches and believe that is the best explanation for what these sites and this (soon to be over) craze has trained consumers to expect. (Full Story)

Wait for 2016 - This week, similar to the first week of August ahead of Rick Perry's candidacy announcement, has been filled with all kinds of speculation about Chris Christie doing a cannonball into the already crowded pool of Republicans vying for the party nomination. I still don't think anyone is going to beat Obama and if I were in Christie's shoes, I'd use the next 10 days to make sure everyone in America knows who I am and then send them a "Save the Date" magnet for November 8. 2016. Let Mitt have the nomination, he's tried long enough and will give it a good Bob Dole try. (Full Story)

Preoccupied - The Occupy Wall Street gathering is exactly what is wrong with my generation and the reason that I get nervous about the future of America. I am 100% in favor of the fact that these hundreds of people took their frustrations offline and into the streets but I am extremely disappointed that it looks a lot more like activists on holiday than a real and ideologically focused effort to exact any one specific change. This is not Tahrir Square and you are not an extension of the Arab Spring, try harder. (Full Story)

Crunching Numbers - in 2003, when Moneyball (the book) first came out, I meant to borrow it from my college roommate who had read it and said it had a lot of wisdom about business using the vocabulary of baseball. One of my favorite quotes is that "What gets measured is what gets managed." Now that I've seen the movie, and naturally loved it, it is probably time for me to read the book. (Full Story)

Groomed Overachievers - I was raised with an overdeveloped sense of self esteem and have benefitted from that built-in layer of confidence as I have been asked to do new things in new industries in new places throughout my career. But there is a whole new breed of overachievers that trump me based on one fact: their overachievement is quantifiably documented and shows up nicely in their bios, resumes, and LinkedIn profiles.  You call them Super People, I call them competition. (Full Story)

Numbing - Because of the increasingly small world that the over-connected interwebs now affords us, we are all more acutely aware of the suffering, strife, and challenges that face the human population around the world. But, as a result of the exponentially increased exposure that we all have to all of the truly horrible situations around the world, we are also becoming increasingly immune and calloused to the truth that the world needs our help. We are no longer just expected to pursue the causes and the issues that are important to us but we are expected to have formed opinions, participate, andhave enough compassion to cover all of the things that are predetermined as worthy causes. (Full Story)