Solving Hard Problems:
Software, Part III

Find dialog with backslash escaped brackets, hightlight main document and use wildcards checked

More advanced search and replace techniques for MS-Word

After a couple of weeks off for seasonal holiday, let’s round out the year with another example of advanced formatting searches. What would you do if you needed to change every occurrence of movement or direction (separate from content or dialog) in a 300 . . . → Read More: Solving Hard Problems:
Software, Part III

Solving Hard Problems: Software, Part I

Advanced search and replace techniques for MS-Word

If you needed to to reformat your text to find every title that was in all caps, longer than three characters and add an additional line (carriage return), how would you do it?

Having spent the better part of the year on technology and . . . → Read More: Solving Hard Problems: Software, Part I

Reverse Luddites

Image: census.gov

One of my most memorable professors, Charlie Gilmore, had a saying: figures don’t lie, but liars do figure and statisticians are great liars!

Image: census.gov

Here the US Census bureau gives us some whoppers to digest. Heartburn is more like it: even today, there are those benighted folks committed to illusions . . . → Read More: Reverse Luddites

The Risk is in the Mirror

At the risk (pun intended) of being pilloried as the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, I’ve been brimming over with comments about some of the articles on business risk that I’ve been reading. Not sure which is a greater hazard, the one writing or those of us reading.

Let’s take this topper . . . → Read More: The Risk is in the Mirror

Celebrating a New Vision, part 2

Whoa there! Yeah, you with the Elvis hairdo. Put down the muffin. Seems like you’ve had a few too many wassails of good cheer. Back away from the dessert tray. Keep your hands where I can see them […tense pause with heightened background music] Ok, that’s better. Now go sit in the . . . → Read More: Celebrating a New Vision, part 2

…And Nothing Was Ever the Same Again

Innovation brings changes into our world, whether that’s process, product or people. Building bridges of trust helps span the gap between early adopters and the mainstream. . . . → Read More: …And Nothing Was Ever the Same Again

STETA: Systems Thinking and Engineering Technical Alliance

STETA is a brand new 501(c)6 business league integrating head and heart to drive industrial innovation forward. As a B2B member forum for best practices, STETA reflects, focuses and thereby magnifies the buzz around social media and the power of storytelling to show yet once again that technology alone will never produce breakthroughs that transform industries and cultures. . . . → Read More: STETA: Systems Thinking and Engineering Technical Alliance

Systems Thinking & Sashimi

By engaging new hires in their strength, which is their fresh perspective, we transform the path through the landscape, rather than trying to transform the landscape itself. Ask yourself which is cheaper, faster and easier: buying a four-wheeler and making a new path, or engineering a superhighway. . . . → Read More: Systems Thinking & Sashimi

Book Review: The Tower and the Bridge

David Billington’s excellent history of a slice of technology, frames the technical process of building functional structures as a way to understand the societies that use them. . . . → Read More: Book Review: The Tower and the Bridge

Five Ways People Empower Technology (and not the other way around)

In a twist on the usual technophilia, starting off 2010 with a profound commitment to “treasure people and exploit tools” will dramatically enhance the results you achieve. . . . → Read More: Five Ways People Empower Technology (and not the other way around)

A walk in the forest…

Systems Thinking teaches us how to scale our perspective to study the forest or the trees, while Systems Engineering tells us what to do with the data we find.

Visitors: Where in the World?