During the course of 2012, I want to spend more time playing golf and less time watching television. Are both cable and satellite television companies swimming upstream against the growing force of internet enabled content? We cut the cord (aka cancelled our satellite and or cable subscription) about a year ago. For the most part, the transition has been relatively seamless. I have been asking myself the question, “Who really needs to watch several hours of television per day?” Giving up watching live sports on ESPN was probably the hardest part of cutting the cord. Cable news networks are capable of providing hours of mindless background noise, but they rarely deliver truly informative content. We just got a flyer from Xfinity (Comcast) that would provide cable, internet, and phone for about $89.99 a month. It is interesting to see the difference between the on demand video content services provided by satellite and cable companies versus the on demand content that companies like Netflix provide.
The company holiday party and my second Stanford University class
The weekend started off pretty well. I successfully finished my second Stanford University class and attended the company holiday party. The holiday party at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort was really enjoyable. I missed the company holiday party by one day last year. It is hard to believe that it has been an entire year since the last time I went through a new hire orientation. Every once in a while a degree of synchronicity occurs that allows a uniquely informative moment to occur. For me the Stanford University advanced project management courses have been completely germane. The courses have both validated and have informed my journey within the workplace. Overall, my second Stanford University Center for Professional Development class, “Leadership for Strategic Execution,” went very well. Joni allowed me complete autonomy on Saturday to read, watch online lectures, and take quizzes in the living room. I would like to take a moment to celebrate my Bose Quiet Comfort 2 acoustic noise canceling headphones. I have had my Bose QC2 headphones since 2005. They have held up surprisingly well over the years.
Thanksgiving went well enough
So far this week could be summarized with one simple expression of expository prose, “Thanksgiving went well enough.” Our house guests left early this weekend on Saturday morning. I will probably have enough time to assemble the Christmas tree and work on preparing for my next Stanford University class, “Leadership for Strategic Execution.” During the Black Friday online sales extravaganzas I looked at dress watches, browsed topcoats, and searched for dress shoes. Strangely enough, I did not feel compelled to make any online purchases yesterday. Maybe the cyber Monday sales will be more compelling. I am starting to believe the argument, “Beware of monthly subscription services.”
The 2012 ASPA conference committee accepted my paper
Lindahl, N. (2012). “Analyzing social media engagement within e-government implementations using automated data mining techniques: A study of local government social media engagement.” American Society for Public Administration 73rd Annual Conference, Conference Paper, Las Vegas, Nevada.
My favorite public administration academic event of the year has to be the American Society for Public Administration conference. I started attending ASPA conferences back in 2005 when the conference was held in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year I will be attending both the MPSA and the ASPA conferences. I am pretty excited about visiting Las Vegas for the first time… anybody got any hotel suggestions? The conference will be staged out of the Flamingo Hotel (so recommendations within walking distance would be appreciated).
Thanksgiving football and a ton of random snacks
I’m officially taking the entire day off of work (groundbreaking strategy I know). The Thanksgiving holiday season provides a great opportunity for extended vacations. For the first time since Joni and I move to Colorado we will be entertaining family for Thanksgiving. Vacations that involve prolonged shopping adventures are not really vacations. Strangely enough Thanksgiving (a holiday firmly rooted in the consumption of vast quantities of food) has become closely associated with the shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday. Black Friday deals are arriving via email at an unprecedented rate. Earlier this morning I almost purchased a topcoat based on a door buster savings deal. At some point, I want to transition into being able to wear a suit to work every day.
Good new! I have been taking a victory lap all week; after completing my first Stanford University class this week. I really did enjoy taking, “Converting strategy into action,” from the Stanford Center for Professional Development. As part of my current professional development strategy, I started pursuing avenues that would enhance my project management knowledge, skills, and abilities. Professional development will always be an ongoing process. Things change at different rates. Practitioners have to evaluate and reevaluate the playing field by using reflective techniques mixed with strategic forecasting.
Just a little stream of consciousness on a Saturday
Tonight will include at least 10 minutes of pure stream of consciousness writing on my Dell Studio 1535. Over the last few months, the writing process has come to the forefront of consideration. More or less (for better or worse), the process of writing a book or an article from start to finish without any deviations remains an illusory construct. From time to time, the spark that generates outstanding prose just occurs. Inspiration has always seemed to be a funny and fleeting thing. Maybe this sentence will help transition this think piece away from process and center the think piece on idea cultivation. Amazon launched the Kindle Fire without building out enough games. Building a forked version of Android that has a proprietary application market limits the number of available games significantly. Amazon seems to be primarily focused on generating revenue.
The people are consuming news in different ways. News aggregators are centralizing content. In some ways, the art of writing a good briefing document has faded away. Both reporters and bloggers have focused on either directly reporting facts or writing opinion pieces. Briefing documents bring history, context, and depth to the subject. News cycles are getting faster and faster. At some point, the entire concept of the news cycle will fade into the news stream. With any news stream history inevitably fades away as waves of modernity push back the sands of the moment. Streaming news tends to over supply the market. After a few years of oversupplied streaming news, the degree of information saturation within society will be overwhelming. Should society remain focused on a series of key issues? How does one concept remain central to the process with wave after wave of ideas setting agendas that do not share a common purpose?
Presidential debates have become functionally meaningless
We as a national would be better off allowing each of the candidates to deliver a 5 to 7 minute campaign speech followed by a period where the candidates are allowed to ask questions of each other with time limits for the questions and answers. Honestly, who could argue with the argument that the media (or partisan journalists) have no business asking debate questions of candidates that should be debating each other? If it was an interview, then it would be the right forum for journalist questions. We should allow candidates to debate each other openly and honestly during lengthy televised debates. Journalist should not be allowed to set the national agenda by controlling debate questions. Allowing leaders to provide some degree of leadership mixed with vision and defined agendas would allow votes to make better informed decisions.
