Welcome

So, it has been years since I have blogged. If it gives you an indication, the last blog I updated was a xanga. I decided to return to blogging for a couple of reasons. The first reason is to hopefully give my friends a better idea of where I am and what I am doing. The second is that since I have learned of the Junto club that Benjamin Franklin founded (read more about it here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junto_(club)) I have always wanted to be a part of one. While I am never in one place long enough to start a sit down Junto, I plan on using the top part of each blog post to discuss my personal life, and then the bottom to discuss and interesting article I read, or quote I found, and hopefully get responses from friends about their thoughts on the subject. So, here goes nothing:


Personal:
I am currently writing this from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We arrived here Monday and had a long day today, Tuesday, because our trucks got stuck at the border, so our load in started three and a half hours late. I am very excited to get back to Canada because they have Ketchup chips, literally Ketchup flavored potato chips, which I have missed greatly. I am afraid I will get fat the week we are here because I will probably eat at least a bag a day. 


Junto:
The night before our flight to Canada I had not been able to charge my kindle, so the first leg I read the United Airlines provided magazine, Hemispheres. In it they had an article interviewing the CEO of Yahoo!, Carol Bartz. The focus on this Junto is a question asked of her and her response. It read:


"HEMISPHERES: Let’s talk about your managerial philosophy. You’ve described it as “fail-fast-forward.” What is that exactly? I think I have the first two parts mastered…

BARTZ: Fail-fast-forward means you’d better be doing enough that you have some failures. In other words, you are taking risks. People talk about taking a calculated risk, but by definition that’s not a risk."

I personally disagree with this philosophy. I disagree with two main parts of her phrasing. Any good manager or leader will admit that there will be failures in what you do, as we all know we are not perfect. I disagree though that you have to do enough to fail. I guess I am trying to say, I do not believe failure should just be accepted because it means we are "moving forward" as it sounds like she is saying to me. Likewise, I would argue that there are such things as calculated risks, and that normally they should be preferred (this could just be my logical side talking). The definition of risk is, "exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance". So, to me that says anytime you do not have a guaranteed check, you are exposing yourself to loss. In business, even if you have done studies that tell you something will be worth it, until you actually have the money in your hand, it was a risk taking time to develop it and then a risk to manufacture and release it. 

So, please feel free to share your thoughts on the above. Due to my schedule I cannot make promises how often this will be updated, but I will try for at least once a week.

For the rest of the Carol Bartz article it can be found here: http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2010/11/01/the-hemi-qa-carol-bartz/