This is the third of four installments. The first was “Are We Alone in the Universe,” where the conclusion was, it seems so. The second installment was about the space explorers of 50 years ago and the irony of looking outward towards space caused them invariably to focus back on the tiny blue marble that […]
Author Archive | david lightfoot
The Legacy of Space Exploration
This is the second in my four-part series on the really big picture questions to consider during the holiday season of reflection. The first installment was titled, “Are We Alone in the Universe?” Next up… The Legacy of Space Exploration During 2018 and 2019 there is and will be a lot of celebration of the […]
Four-Part Series–Are We Alone in the Universe?
Here we are at the end of October and on the cusp of the holiday season. I don’t like the dark and rain of November and December but I do like the holidays. Thanksgiving and New Year’s, two secular holidays, bookend the religious celebrations of Hanukkah and Christmas. It is a good time of year […]
Improving Margins
In my last post I wrote about having Accurate and Timely Financial Information. Let’s say you’ve got your accounting straightened out so that you have good financial information on a timely basis. Now you’ve got something to base decisions on. Let’s assume neither your gross profit margin nor your net income is as high as […]
Book Review: Moonwalking with Einstein
Wouldn’t it be great to have a photographic memory? We’ve all heard of people who have photographic memories, haven’t we? It turns out no one has a photographic memory. No one. I once had a business project where we needed to get people with photographic memories. I talked to a professor at the University of […]
They Can’t Download Me (or You)
Have you ever had proprietary content plagiarized? If you have a website, send out blogs or post on social media, chances are you have. There are services to track this sort of thing. They do matches of word patterns to catch the scofflaws so your lawyer can send a nasty-gram telling them to cease and […]
The Middle 30
This blog is about an important business topic. It’s just going to take me a moment to get to it, so stay with me. Digression 1 Most of my blogs are the result of two or three clients or colleagues mentioning a topic. I figure if two or three are interested, probably more are. In […]
Book Review: The Written World
In my last blog, I related the story of the candidate for a high-level, executive position, who didn’t read books. I felt this was a character flaw that was so fundamental that I would consider it a disqualifier for the job. To me it indicated the lack of critical thinking. I asked for your thoughts […]
Thoughts on a Post-Literate World–“I Don’t Really Read Books”
A client related this story. They were interviewing a candidate for a high-level executive position at a very prominent company. During the interview, they asked the candidate, “What kind of books do you read?” The candidate’s response was, “I don’t really read books.” The “really” wasn’t necessary, the person just doesn’t read books. Perhaps a […]
Book Review: A Higher Loyalty
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey was released on April 17th. I preordered my copy through Amazon and they delivered it on the 17th. I had ‘cleared the decks’ in terms of my reading schedule and dove right in, finishing the book in a week. A couple of comments right up front. First, Donald Trump […]