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Below, I presented an open letter to the Science, Technology & Innovation Council. Now I’m honoured that its Chair, Dr. Howard Alper, took some time to respond.  This is not my common ironic sarcasm.  Considering that the organization must be sustaining comments and feedback from all quarters, I’m pleased that I would warrant the letter…

So I was listening to Dan Ariely’s book The Upside of Irrationality a little while ago… while I was on the treadmill at a hotel at 6:00AM.  I’m practically certain, although I have no way to prove it, that the only other person there ended up convinced I was mad. The recording got to chapter…

According to the study referenced by this Globe & Mail article today, “Nice guys make less than ‘highly disagreeable’ men,” and most people willing to comment on my “prickly” or “grumpy” or “crusty” tendencies, my pay packet should be A LOT thicker.

(I should have been a headline writer for a counterculture magazine…) Those in Canada who pay attention to things innovative would be aware that the Science, Technology and Innovation Council issued its latest State of the Nation 2010 report in late June.  There was much to do about it in the business press for a…

Many years ago it was illegal in most jurisdictions for a motor vehicle’s windows to be tinted dark. As I recall, the reason was because it reduced the driver’s visibility. Might also have been because it impeded the policeman’s (yes, at the time almost exclusively men) ability to identify the driver and/or passenger load. Only…

The reader will remember that I blogged about participating in the Frost & Sullivan MindXchange in San Diego last month.  One of the outcomes was that the session follow-up I did turned into a Powerpoint summary, which then turned into an article in the F&S e-bulletin.  The article is about the life of expectations in…

I may have railed about this once before in a blog long since passed into archival stasis (this being its resurrection). And it’s always bothered me, but recently, particularly, because I’ve had to try and comply with its implicit demand as a speaker or presenter. You know, at a conference people (or their employers) pay…

I found this in the Ottawa Citizen on Saturday.  You could go there yourself, but I’ve decided to reproduce it here. On June 25, a funeral procession was waiting to turn onto Flewellyn Road from Shea Road.  None of the traffic was stopping or would even slow down in order to let the mourners leave…

I’ve been negligent toward this blog… again.  In my defense, it IS summer, I have been trotting across the continent, and have now shifted from the writing and typesetting of my latest book (The Spaces In Between) to selling and marketing of it.  Oh yeah, and then there’s the day job too.  I’ll try to…

Casually and formally, like everyone else here in San Diego for MindXchange, I’ve been doing a lot of talking.  It is absolutely fascinating to listen to how many others in so many different industries and areas are struggling with essentially similar challenges.  No doubt this applies to every functional area, not just innovation.  It’s refreshing…

NOTE:  The last post was to have gone out last night, but such are the inconveniences and inconsistencies of modern life. Today is a brand new day and on the Left Coast, I was in the gym at 4:00AM because I’d chosen to sleep in an hour.  For a while, there was another guy there…

Travelled from Ottawa to San Diego yesterday.  Would have blogged about it on the American flight from O’Hare using their on-board wi-fi, but I was a little busy and calculated that $4/hr for Internet that I didn’t need to use was too much.  In any case, early arrival at airport and connection times included, I…