My 2020 Reading List I set as a goal in 2020 the ambitious aim to complete 50 books over 52 weeks. I didn’t quite get there, but I did manage to complete 26. In addition, I read parts of four others and read probably a 100 or more journal and long-form magazine articles from a variety of sources. The four that I did not complete simply failed to sustain my interest. In general, I try to muddle through a book out of respect to the author’s efforts. But, I have come to realize that sometimes the best use of my time is not to spend time on an endeavor that I found not interesting or relevant to my interests. A couple of others, chiefly on electronics, I’m still working on, as they are detailed, and time-consuming. ...

Tips for Working from Home In response to the coronavirus, many employers have shifted as many workers as possible to teleworking. That is, working from home. This can be a real challenge if you’ve not had experience with working from home. I’ve worked from home for the last seven years, so I think I have some pretty reasonable suggestions to help you be successful while working from home and to help you ensure you have an appopriate balance between work and not-work. ...

Doing the Same Thing And … You’ve heard the saying “the definition insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” And I think you’ll agree that this ‘definition’ is commonly true. But, what about those times when you do the same thing each and every time and get a different result? That, my friends, is the definition of randomness. And, it’s far more common than you think. ...

The Evolution of an Academic Had someone told me on the day of my high school graduation in 1977 that I would one day be an academic, in possession of a doctoral degree and teaching at the university level, I’d have warned them that whatever they were smoking was muddling their brain. Yet, here I am, forty years later, in possession of not one, but two master’s degrees, and a doctorate, teaching at a university. How did that happen? ...

The ONE THING I love to read and love to learn, so it is no suprise that one of my favorite pastimes is to wander through bookstores. I love perusing the titles, skimming a few pages of those that interest me and maybe marking a few to add to my reading list. It’s a habit I developed probably thirty years ago. One of the subject areas I generally skim is the business management section. Learning about management styles and techniques is interesting and informative. Last fall, however, as I was skimming titles, I had an epihany. As I skimmed the titles I became aware of just how many titles purported to embue the reader with “the one thing” that they could do to be the best leader, the best manager, to build the most successful company, and … well, you get the idea. As I looked further, I found books of similar types in other subject areas. It seems that everyone one is looking for the ONE THING that gives them an advantagse. The problem was that in skimming the books it quickly became apparent that the “one thing” differed from book to book. ...

What’s Wrong with Asking for a “Highly Satisified” Rating? Virtually all businesses today are concerned about how the public perceives them. They recognize – and rightfully so, in my opinion – that customers who have a positive experience, who receive great service, or receive quality, tasty foods are more likely to be repeat customers. They also know that customers who have a poor experience are just as unlikely to return. Thus, measuring the customer experience by asking the customer to complete a survey of their experience is an important means for getting information on how well the company is doing in meeting the customers’ needs and expectations. I’m not sure all managers understand the value of the survey and the need for accurate feedback. ...

Updates to Technology Projects I’ve had several technology projects running for a while now and thought it was time for an update. Nextcloud, OnlyOffice, and the Like Back in February I set up a Nextcloud server and incorporated OnlyOffice. The concepts are pretty cool, but I have abandoned both of those projects. In all honesty, having completed my dissertation, I write so little that requires a word processor that I’ve not yet found a need for OnlyOffice. And when I do need such services, I have LibreOffice available on all of my computers. MS Office is on its way out since I no longer need to power of a word processor for my writing and my licenses are beginning to expire. (I still have a couple of licenses that will be expiring soon.) ...

Science Fiction and the Polymath Throughout my junior high years I was a huge science fiction fan. One of my favorite authors of the time was Isaac Asimov. I was quite surprised to learn that Asimov not only wrote science fiction but had also penned books, short stories, and essays that ranged from religion (Guide to the Bible), chemistry (he was educated as a biochemist), engineering, and the list goes on. This realization intially confused me. How could a science fiction writer be so bold as to write on so many different topics? How could he know enough in each of those fields to qualify himself to write books on them? It would be many years before I encountered the term “polymath”, but surely Asimov earned the title. ...

Me? A Manager? Not so Much For the past year or so my manager has been after me to move into a management role. I managed to avoid doing so until fairly recently, using my work on my doctorate as an excuse for not really having the time to take on all the work of learning the role, learning the courses I would manage and so forth. Recently, however, I was approached again and, having all-but completed my degree, really didn’t have a good reason for ...

The Power of Curiosity I have always been a curious person. I’m the kid that took toys apart to see how they worked (and was sometimes able to put them back together again, too!) I was the kid that enjoyed reading the WorldBook Encyclopedia because, well, just because. Learning about different stuff fascinated me. Even as a very small child I was curious. My mother used to tell the story of the time when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old and came in crying because my eyes were filled with sand. I had apparently held a toy over my head and looked up as the sand fell out because I wanted to see what it looked like from that angle. ...