Month: May 2017

Dale Carnegie’s Six Ways to Make People Like You

  1. Become genuinely interested in other people
  2. Smile
  3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
  4. Be a good listener, encourage others to talk about themselves
  5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
  6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Writing a Book

I am thinking about writing a sci fi / fantasy novel. The core concept would revolve around a portal that characters can go through to have adventures and improve upon their skills. I wrote up a ton of notes yesterday, we’ll see if I do anything with it.

The Honest Job Applicant

A fictional job applicant’s information conglomerated from my actual experiences with people over time (client’s employees and pre-skills test CT employees):

  • “I get bored after six to nine months of work and quit every job I’ve had”.
  • “The gap in my resume was six months I spent in a drunken stupor in my bedroom”.
  • “I hate people and will drive out any team members you assign to work with me”.
… read more “The Honest Job Applicant”

There is no justice

I’ve been reading a very fascinating book, “Sapiens”, that has really helped me to think about things we humans take as absolutes in a new light. Concepts that we assume to be concrete real things… really just don’t exist except in our own imaginations. Everything from justice to money to laws to human rights to religion to politics are invented by human beings.… read more “There is no justice”

Hacksaw Ridge Movie

I am a little worn out on movies that glorify war, especially those that don’t really portray it accurately. No one stands up and runs around when they are under fire. You crawl from place to place.

Self Ban Registry for Addictions

I had an idea that I thought could help smokers, alcoholics, and gamblers.

Create a national registry that people can voluntarily add themselves to that associates their drivers license number with a self-ban list for their addiction of choice.

For example, a smoker could add themselves to the cigarette ban list. Any time the smoker went to a grocery store or convenience store to buy cigarettes, the clerk would scan their license.… read more “Self Ban Registry for Addictions”

Ongoing Feedback Tool

I built a tool for giving my team ongoing feedback and launched it last week. What is my team’s reaction so far?

First, check out how it works:

A user can:

  • Write in their feedback
  • Select who should receive it
  • Decide whether the feedback is positive or negative
  • Decide if the feedback is small, medium or large

Lots of team members have been using it so far, here is a running log of the most recent feedback:

Seems to be quite helpful for people to share their thanks!… read more “Ongoing Feedback Tool”

Permanent Mob Mentality

“Mob mentality” is a powerful phenomenon sociologists have observed… a single human will seldom heckle another person or riot. However, throngs of sports fans will torch cars, protesters will storm government offices, and gangs will go to war over very small slights. Scientists have actually shown that your brain shuts off your sense of self during these times of collective endeavor.… read more “Permanent Mob Mentality”

The Cloud

Ten years ago or so, the Cloud was supposed to be the next big thing. It actually already was a huge thing with software as a service products hosted on the cloud exploding in popularity (Gmail, BigCommerce, MailChimp, and others).

Now most people take it for granted that their website and the apps they most frequently use are not installed on their computers, but are installed in the cloud somewhere.… read more “The Cloud”