Thomas Watson is often misquoted as saying “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Although there is little evidence he actually said anything of the sort, the myth lives on because it illuminates a fundamental truth. For...

Analogies are useful things. It helps us predict the future for something that's new and it helps us form opinions when there is still a great deal of uncertainty. The real power in any particular analogy is how well it helps you draw inferences. Cloud...

I'm still reading the Churchill biography. And it occurs to me that he's a very dangerous example. I can very well imagine people reading this and thinking to themselves, "Gee, I've stood up for unpopular positions and limited my career because of it...

I'm reading "The Lost Lion," a mammoth biography of Winston Churchill. Right now we are between wars and Winston is a back-bencher. There was a time during the thirties when he was done for, a complete has-been. He had a stellar early career and was the...

I'm re-reading "The Brothers Karamazov." I read it for the first time and college and it affected me deeply. It's not quite the same to read it again almost twenty years later. I've changed and I think I'm past my days of existential anguish. But I'm...

People tend to argue from three perspectives, or ways of thinking. Some of the greatest disconnects occur when people are argue the same point from different perspectives. Principles --The principled thinker holds on to basic truths and measures...

I've got another anecdote from Atul Gawande. This one is about hernias. Repairing hernias is one of the simplest procedures in the surgical field. When you are learning to be a surgeon, you can start doing this during your first year. It takes about an...

Statistics as reported in most newspapers never quite satisfy me. It's not that they are lying, but there is never quite enough there. The flu is a great example. I was just reading this great article in Slate about how they came up with the 33,000 deaths...

According to my Kindle, I am about 80% through reading Leadership on the Line. That's close enough that I'll write a brief review. Don't get wrong. I'll finish the book. But business books rarely finish strong. If I wait until I've clicked the last "next...

Having kids can provide great examples of pathological team behavior. It's not that your team behaves like children. On the contrary, the reasonable explanations and subtle arguments deployed by adults can serve to obfuscate fundamental issues. But having...

I was thinking about government analogies for software development organizations while I was unclogging our bathroom sink. I originally made this analogy after in this post about the supreme court. But I didn’t make any analogies between the roles of...

Over the last week I went from not knowing about a new technological movement to seeing it everywhere and becoming a believer. Here's the story. I'm something of a data wonk. On, my desk you'll find a copy of the economist book of facts and figures. I...

I recently bought my wife an Amazon Kindle for Christmas. Yes, I know it's March but they were backordered. But at least this way I was able to give the Kindle two. Anyway, she loves it. The thing that's striking about it and the reason I am writing this...

One of my favorite theorems is Bayes' theorem . (There, I admit it. I'm a geek.) At its heart, Bayes' theorem is a way to update a probability estimate with new information. Say for instance you hear that there is a one in ten chance of rain today. Later...

I've been posting some highly abstract theories for project management and effectiveness. Well, actually there are even a level removed from that. They are more like analogies for theories. I'll probably still have one of those kinds of posts every once...

9:17 AM One counter intuitive rule of economics is that a country shouldn't allocate its resources based on how productive it is relative to other countries but rather relative to other things that country could do with those resources. For example...

Yesterday I spent an hour teaching origami at “Japan Day” for my son’s first grade class. It was frenetic. I’ve done this sort of thing before and it’s always the same. It’s very popular. Kids love origami. Most aren’t very good at it naturally. Being...

I sure picked an interesting time to start learning more about economics. Everything I've read, and experienced since my first post a while ago has gone against my first tentative steps. The first book I read the contradicts classical economics was The...

You'll often hear disgruntled participants in any endeavor complain that they aren't being listened to or that they can't advance because of 'politics.' This has always seemed to me like a lazy excuse. 'Politics' is just a word for how organizations work...

Recently, I finished A Terrible Glory . It's a pretty good book chronicling Custer's destruction at Little Bighorn at the hands of the Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull. When I started the book, I didn't expect to get a post out of it. After all, the...

I've often wondered what makes an effective leader. While I certainly haven't completely figured it out, I have noticed one trait that seems essential. Great leaders aren't necessarily the people who make the right decisions, rather great leaders are...

For those of you who might be interested in knowing more about what I work on, here's a link to my manager talking about and demonstrating Essential Business Server. http://edge.technet.com/Media/Essential-Business-Server-EBS-demo-with-Bjorn/

I'm not much of a UI guy. I've spent my entire time at Microsoft working on servers of one sort or another. I learned a ton about UI design back when I was on the Terminal Services team helping out the http://www.mesh.com guys on their live remote desktop...

One author I've been reading lately is Atul Gawande. I recently finished Complications and before too long I expect to start Better . Atul Gawande is a staff writer for the New Yorker. Just like other staff writers like Malcolm Gladwell you find that...

Back when I was in graduate school for physics, there was a professor who was very interested in physics education. He had a set of questions that he would give to Freshman physics classes at the beginning and at the end of the semester. These weren't...