Latest stats on the US Economy, written up about by Andrew McAfee. He posits the fact that unemployment's not going up while other economic stats are might be due to greater IT spend -- technology replacing labour? Seeing what I've seen in my half decade in the workforce I can't say I disagree: too many... Continue Reading →
Push On
I just realised that I haven¹t announced that I achieved my IPPT Gold last Saturday. Third one in three years. Full points for all three too. I almost make it seem easy. But the fact is, it was anything but. For the past couple of months I've been training really hard for this and the... Continue Reading →
The importance of domain knowledge for a business analyst
I was part of team working on an analytics project that sought strong reasons to back up a major business decision, but found myself contributing much less than I’d have wanted to. It wasn’t technical ability that I was lacking in. Rather, it was a distinct lack of industry/business knowledge that bottlenecked my value. I’m... Continue Reading →
Have meat if you’re usually vegetarian
For the third or fourth time in a couple of days, through chance alone, I came across four websites espousing the benefits of "mixing things up" through changes in habits. All four recommended "having the vegetarian dish if you normally have meat". Why not the other way round? Why not have meat if you're normally... Continue Reading →
Running with Music for my Long Run
Just last week, for the first time in a long time, I completed a long run (one lasting more than an hour). In fact, it the first time in years that I completed one without the Galloway-recommended walk breaks. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Galloway method of taking walk breaks every few minutes... Continue Reading →
Risk vs. Uncertainty (Part II): The Secure Print & Scan Edition
I remember once talking to a friend in HR who lamented the fact that her office didn’t have a way to securely scan or print documents. Because she worked in a department with highly sensitive data, I thought that it was strange it wasn’t made available to her. I recommended that she put in a... Continue Reading →
Risk vs. Uncertainty (Part I)
I can’t believe I didn’t write about it before today: the difference between uncertainty and risk. I’d originally thought that uncertainty and risk were one and the same. If you’re uncertain about something, about taking some action, and you had to decide whether or not to take that action, it was a risky action to... Continue Reading →
Masks: A poem by Shel Silverstein
I came across a beautiful poem by Shel Silverstein called "Masks", that reminded me of how we can sometimes go through our whole lives pretending to be someone else, hoping to find like-minded souls but afraid to reveal our true selves. She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid And... Continue Reading →
The NS Man Tribe
For the next couple of weeks (and for the last few days) I'll be doing my yearly national service. It's not something I particularly look forward to, but after I'm doing with it I'm often quite thankful for the opportunity to have been able to do it. It's something like a hard run in the... Continue Reading →
A kindler, gentler philosophy of success
A great talk by one of my favourite authors Alain de Botton, speaking on success. A quote that I absolutely love, from the talk: The next time you see someone driving a Ferrari, don't think this is somebody who's greedy. Think of this as somebody who's incredibly vulnerable, and in need of love.
Donn, fragments 