IBM Watson debuts on Jeopardy
February 8th, 2011 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Culture-Structure, Technology, Work
LONGMONT, Colo. — The IBM Watson supercomputer’s Valentine’s Day debut on Jeopardy brings to mind the old American folktale of John Henry. Do you remember John Henry? He was the “steel driving” man born with a hammer in his hand. In an effort to save the jobs of his railroad crew, he took on the steam-powered drill to see whether man or machine was faster at carving a tunnel through a mountain. John Henry won the battle, dying of exhaustion [...]
Read more...How do you define work ethic?
November 8th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Culture-Structure, Institutions, Work
LONGMONT, Colo. — Baby Boomers often lament the deficient work ethic of young people. Is the problem that young people are spoiled? Or, is our definition of work ethic out of date? The video games Pacman and World of Warcraft are excellent metaphors for the changing nature of our institutions — the workplace and schools among others. Pacman is like our 20th Century institutions. You are given are predefined task and a prescribed amount time in which you can do [...]
Read more...Facing down temptation
June 5th, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Leadership, Work
Rough thoughts to warm up on a Saturday morning… Facing down temptation is a human challenge as old as time. Isn’t that what many stories in the Bible are about? Isn’t that one of the purposes of religion… to instill the habits of avoiding destructive temptations? One of the best ways to resist temptation is to avoid putting oneself in a position in which it is possible to act on our temptations. Can’t resist eating ice cream. Don’t buy it. [...]
Read more...Emma to the Rescue
May 29th, 2010 by John Creighton in Snapshots
Tags: Boulder, Emma, Family, Joni, Work
I only agreed to the garage sale because Joni said I don’t have to be in the garage during the actual sale. My job is to set up, tear down and take what ever didn’t sell to Goodwill. I can do that. Sometimes the best made plans don’t play out the way we imagine. Joni is working at Alpine Clinical Research Center. She is supervising an asthma or heart study. I don’t remember which. Probably a heart study because she [...]
Read more...Numbers
May 26th, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Work
Very rough thoughts to warm up on a Wednesday morning… I love it when I find someone who has spent the time to dig deeper into numbers and challenges me to think harder about what’s going on in the world. I found this post today by Dan McCarthy, chairman and CEO of Network Communications, Inc. (NCI). U.S. Census figures show that median household income in the United States has been relatively flat. Taken at face value, a person could reasonably [...]
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