In the 20th century, work organizations were often described mechanically – as well-oiled machines, perhaps. Today, work organizations are more likely described biologically, like an amoeba organization, or Open Xerox. This trend should accelerate. Old machines had...
For the last two years, Egypt has been prominent in global political news, but that tends to bury deeper issues in the excitement of who’s in, who’s winning, and who’s not. Any Egyptian government will have to get beyond finger-pointing circuses to address long-term...
Uncertainty is a popular business buzzword. Western managements mostly use the term to explain reluctance to invest when the future direction of regulations and tax laws are unclear – and anywhere, not just in the United States. In places like Egypt, slipping closer...
When the Compression Institute began we had the notion of forming learning groups of for-profit companies that could start a learning journey together toward a much bigger view of how to live better using much less. However, very few companies could see where that...
“Subsidarity” is a buzzword for an old idea: that a matter should be handled by the authority closest to the action that is capable of addressing it effectively. Its fuzzy opposite is “bureaucracy:” that in order for matters to be addressed with competence in an...
The difficulties of explaining risk are the nub of the recent conviction on manslaughter changes of six Italian seismologists and a public official for inadequately forewarning the public of the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009: 309 fatalities, over 1500 injuries, and...
Formal risk management has become common in large organizations. Risk management has become complex, standardized in ISO 31000, and meriting university degrees. Most risk assessment multiplies the consequences of an event times its probability to create a risk index....
American prospects to displace coal and petroleum fuels have been boosted by natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. This “fracking boom” began when “slickwater “ fracturing made extracting gas from shale feasible in 1999. By 2005 thousands of fracking operations...