Collected Wisdom

Rader's Rules

  1. Never run out of money or credit.
  2. The sum of all costs should be less than the amount received from the customer.
  3. You can't sell the second if you can't sell the first.
  4. When the quarterback says go around left end, you go around left end.
  5. It doesn't matter how good your calculus is if your arithmetic is no good.
  6. Anybody off the street can run a business at a loss.
  7. Statistics are for losers (no one needs a statistical analysis to show how they made money).
  8. If you don't get the facts, the facts will get you.

- from Dr. Louis T. Rader, "Straight Talk for Young Executives," Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, January, 1977

The 3 Hardest Things to Say

  1. I need help.
  2. I don't know.
  3. I was wrong.

- from Mark McCormack, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School

Is semantic analysis sufficient without context?

Suppose one were to assert: The gostak distims the doshes. You do not know what this means; nor do I. But if we assume that it is English, we know that 'the doshes are distimmed by the gostak.' We know too that 'one distimmer of doshes is a gostak.' If moreover, the 'doshes are galloons,' we know that 'some galloons are distimmed by the gostak.' And so we may go on, and so we often do go on.
-- from "The Meaning of Meaning" by C.K.Ogden and I.A.Richards (emphasis mine)

So now that we have inferred that 'one distimmer of doshes is a gostak,' and that 'some galloons are distimmed by the gostak,' do we really know any more than we did at the start?

Here is my paraphrase of one of the poems from the Book of Bokonon:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to sit and wonder "Why? Why? Why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to draw himself UML diagram.
-- apologies to Kurt Vonnegut, paraphrased from "Cat's Cradle"

History tells us...

A key lesson of history is that nobody gives up land, money, or power without a fight.

Summary of All Behavioral Psychology

People will choose M&M's over 50,000 volts every single time.

If you stop to think about it...

All cars run on used parts. (from a bumper sticker for an auto parts rebuilding service)

Corollary: All companies run on legacy information systems.

Why We Need People with Dirty Fingernails

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; but in practice, there is.

Rules of Carpentry

  1. Use the right tool for the right job.
  2. Every tool is a hammer.

Some Metaphorical Corollaries

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When your favorite tool is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail.

On Change

Change is inevitable.
Acceptance is optional.

... and always have a Plan "B"!

Last updated June 22, 2005