Sigh-ber
It’s been a while since I opined on matters I know little about…so I thought I would continue that tradition by putting out a few thoughts about all things cyber. No doubt you have all heard about cyber-xxxxx until you are becoming immune to the cries of “Danger Will Robinson.” And that is a real problem because cyber crime, cyber snooping, cyber intrusion, cyber war, and all manner of other things is perhaps the most significant challenge to the well-being of the good ole US of A in this century, IMHO. I’ve attended a series of meetings and had a couple of...
Read MoreDoggone Dogfight!
So I have raised the hackles of my esteemed Warthog (A-10) brothers and sisters and Army and Marine ground pounders before in an article entitled “The A-10 and Reality.” In that article I took the position that the A-10, even though it was a good airplane for its time (first flown in 1972), should be retired. I still believe that its time has come. You can read the details by going to the link, but my opinion is still that while it would be nice to have if the Air Force had unlimited amounts of money, it doesn’t. The A-10 is expensive to fly and maintain, it...
Read More“Where you stand depends on where you sit”, Miles Law and related maxims
I attended an evening affair recently with a well respected leader who reminded me that the old maximum “Where you stand, depends on where you sit” was actually memorialized by Rufus Miles of Princeton University back in the 70’s. Anyone who has ever been in a bureaucracy knows exactly what he means. I myself am a slave to Miles Law. And not only when I was lurking around the bureaucracy of the Pentagon, but even afterwards in my second career. It’s not a bad thing, by the way. In fact, if you are to be a loyal member of any organization, you will be dealing with...
Read MoreThe High Risk List: So What?
The Washington Post had a great little piece over the weekend on the number of reports required by the Congress this year. The article, “Unrequired Reading” states that the Congress is expecting no less than 4291 reports from 466 Federal agencies and non-profits this year. Of course one wonders who the heck reads those reports and more importantly, what gets done about them. As far as who reads them, my guess is that even the people who write them don’t bother to read the whole report, so that means probably one of the 18,000 employees on Capitol Hill (638 of whom owe...
Read MoreWhat to Drive today? Porsche or Maserati?
Let’s see…..What do I drive to work this morning? My Porsche or my Maserati? Gosh, it’s such a tough choice. When I read all the rhetoric coming out of the Pentagon theses days about the tough choices they are making over there, I tend to think that’s their definition of a “tough choice.” Granted they do make a few hard choices, but none of them are the budget choices they are making for the FY15 budget that’s on the Hill right now. They have so much money to deal with that the normal ways in which you or I would deal with problems is not possible....
Read MoreLeadership: What Works!
There has been a lot about leadership in the news lately (Check out yesterday’s comments). I read this morning in the Army Times about one retired general’s efforts to improve his post-military image by hiring an image consultant! I would rather focus on what’s going right and hope, that in doing that, we could actually fix what is going wrong. One thing is for sure: You should spend your time fixing those things you already know are wrong before trying to figure out what else is wrong. Federal agencies and companies spend lots of time and money on conducting employee...
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