“Ultimately, the Galactic Empire failed as an enduring organization because of incredibly flawed leadership at the very top. By building an organizational culture based on fear, lack of independence, and an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances, the Emperor set the stage for his own inevitable failure.” —
Five Leadership Mistakes Of The Galactic Empire - Forbes
Galactic Empire meets Harvard case study, courtesy of Forbes.
For a more in-depth analysis of the weaknesses of evil organizations, see The Evil Overlord List.
“In our democratic society the ultimate arbiter of religious authority is the conscience of the individual believer. It follows that there is no alternative to accepting the members of a religious group as themselves the only legitimate source of the decision to accept their leaders as authorized by God.” —
Birth Control, Bishops and Religious Authority - NYTimes.com
I found this philosophical point very interesting. If 98% of sexually active Catholic women ignore the Church’s instructions on birth control, then where does the supposed authority of the Catholic bishops on the matter come from?
Camellia, First Bud To Break on Flickr.
Spring has been sighted!
By my friend Janet down in Ukiah, CA, though. Not here yet. Oh well.
Symposium AAA: The Business of Nanotechnology IV - 2012 MRS Fall Meeting -
I mentioned a while back that I’m helping organize a symposium at this fall’s MRS meeting. The Call for Papers is now official.
Formal abstract submission is through the MRS site, with a June 19 deadline. If you’d like to be considered for an invited slot, please contact me directly as soon as possible.
Those who follow the integrated circuit industry may be familiar with chip art, in which the circuit designer tucks logos and cartoons into unused corners of the circuit.
Apparently aerospace engineers do the same thing, they just use a much larger canvas.
42,000 years ago, a Neanderthal sat in a cave in what would someday be called Spain. He or she had an urge. An urge that was unexplainable. They picked up a piece of coal and approached a stalactite. They drew. Maybe they knew what it was they were drawing, maybe they didn’t. What they didn’t know was why. Why make this? What does it do for me? Why is it here? Why did I want to do this?
Regardless there it was. Looming above them in a cave, leaving them with more questions than answers.
Thousands of years later. Nothing’s changed.
It gets worse and worse.
First, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood. Never mind that the money was used to support cancer screening for poor women, something that would seem to fall smack in the middle of the stated missions of both organizations.
(Just so we’re clear on terminology, the mission of Planned Parenthood is to provide high quality, affordable, reproductive health care. The mission of Susan G. Komen for the Cure is to promote breast cancer awareness and treatment.)
Then, it turned out that the decision to stop funding was made because Planned Parenthood is the subject of a Congressional investigation. Which sounds pretty scary, except that any member of Congress can open an investigation for any reason, including political opposition to an organization’s work. The mere existence of an investigation says nothing about the actual behavior of the organization involved. Such a policy is like throwing an individual in jail because a prosecutor requested a search warrant — regardless of whether he actually was granted the warrant or found anything in his search, much less actually pressed charges of any kind.
That’s bad enough. But the latest is this Atlantic article, which argues that the “no investigations” rule was created after the Komen board became aware of the Stearns investigation, specifically in order to provide an excuse for withdrawal of funding. And also after the organization’s professional staff had decided that Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening work was important to the Komen Foundation’s mission.
So. Retroactive and questionable rule-making to support a politically-driven decision that undermines one’s own mission, over the objections of one’s own public health experts. Oops.
Update: The Komen Foundation is now in full retreat from this decision. They have restored Planned Parenthood’s grant and are re-amending their grant criteria “to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”
“I don’t like the fact that you sent me a contract; it makes me feel bound to pay you.” —
(via clientsfromhell)
Apparently some people really do think this way.
So this is a thank you to my clients, all of whom do actually believe that vendors should be paid. How quaint. How wonderful. Thank you!
On this date in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation establishing Rocky Mountain National Park. This living showcase of the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, with elevations ranging from 8,000 feet in the wet, grassy valleys to 14,259 feet at the weather-ravaged top of Longs Peak, provides visitors with opportunities for countless breathtaking experiences and adventures.
Photo: Ann Schonlau - National Park Service
Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph -
The Atlantic offers a very clear summary of the transformation of the US economy over the last 60 years, from manufacturing and agriculture-oriented to finance and service-oriented. Unfortunately, the graph also demonstrates how difficult reversing the trend is likely to be: it has much deeper causes than, say, China’s trade practices and lack of worker protections.
White-collar work of all kinds now accounts for nearly half of GDP, while manufacturing is just one-ninth.