Category: work

culture, Life, Politics, workLeave a comment

Leadership Matters

Mark Cathcart

It doesn’t matter what you do, or where you go, there is no doubt that leadership matters. Big company, small company, local government, national government, even religion isn’t immune to bad leadership. #BREXIT for me, is a case in point. Leadership on both sides has been severely lacking, irrespective of which side you are on. For the Conservative Government, starting with David Cameron, followed by Teresa May, and now bottom feeding with Boris Johnson, there has been someone in the job, but there hasn’t been a leader. As Johnson is finding out, being a leader is very different from wanting … Continue reading Leadership Matters

automation, culture, Politics, politics, technology, workLeave a comment

Fear of Automation

Mark Cathcart

ZDNet has a good summary of a few recent reports on automation, a subject I’ve covered here more than once. The more interesting survey report is from a Harris Poll for ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace. ZipRecruiter’s nationwide data shows 60% of job seekers believe fears around robots taking away jobs are overhyped while 2 in 5 employed job seekers (41%) believe their current job will be automated within their lifetime. This is more than likely because workers asked, don’t see the big picture. They don’t get involved with decisions and discussions about how to cut cost and risk from … Continue reading Fear of Automation

automation, culture, environment, films, Life, technology, transport, workLeave a comment

The machines are coming – 2049?

Mark Cathcart

It is notoriously difficult to predict the future. I lived my life at IBM, following Alan Kays 1982 aphorism The best way to predict the future is to invent it In my career I got many things right, and many things wrong. While Amazon was still a small time bookseller, and Youtube for the most part didn’t exist, it was obvious both business models would thrive. While I couldn’t convince IBM to pursue either of these opportunities with ny success, we demonstrated the technology perfectly. My “Wired for Life” Presentation contains some of my wins, and many of my losses. … Continue reading The machines are coming – 2049?

Politics, politics, workLeave a comment

Organizational chaos or Conspiracy?

Mark Cathcart

[Updated: This post was updated at 11pm Central to include the link to Matt Macowiacks tweet as a great example.]It’s easy to fallback on the current debacle in the US administration as a massive conspiracy. Conspiracies work for people who are afraid, and lack experience, conspiracy theory assumes someone is in charge. Organization chaos theory was a big thing at the end of the 1980’s, Tom Peters book “Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution” blazed a path of revolution for the newly minted management consultants through the mid-1990’s. I’ve no idea what they teach in business schools these days, … Continue reading Organizational chaos or Conspiracy?

healthcare, Life, Politics, politics, tax, technology, transport, workLeave a comment

Government US style

Mark Cathcart

It’s clear that many Americans view “Big government” as a bad thing, it seems though that they are OK with lots of branches of small government, that is ineffective, costly and open to misuse, and often technology challenged. Given the size of the USA, any government is going to be a big government. With over nearly 320-million people, and almost the largest country in geography in the world, most people clearly are clueless about the scale and the challenges of delivering services in what was the worlds most advanced country. Listen to this 10-second clip from NPR’s Morning Edition today, a … Continue reading Government US style

Life, politics, transport, workLeave a comment

Why Nations Fail, does this apply to Texas?

Mark Cathcart

Why Nations Fail is a fascinating book, by Acemoglu of MIT and political scientist, James Robinson. They posit that economies that have abundant natural resources can be easily captured by groups that become politically powerful. The authors view is that an abundance of natural resources, which may seem like a blessing, often turns out to be a blessing for a select few and, for the rest of a country’s citizens, a curse. It’s called the natural-resource curse. The natural-resource curse is well understood economic equation, there are a number of papers on it, this one by Sachs and Warner, the … Continue reading Why Nations Fail, does this apply to Texas?

Life, travel, workLeave a comment

Travelling for your job: Survival Tips

Mark Cathcart

I wasn’t sure which blog to post this on, in fact I thought I’d already posted in to my more work related blog, turns out I hadn’t. I’ll be heading back to Texas A&M again next month to give a talk on career and personal development, and these were the slides I used to guide the talk last time. Anyone that hasn’t traveled much for business, when you list the countries you’ve been too, think it’s something like Matt Harding, I doubt this represents his real travel experience. If I remember this time, I’ll record the talk and transcribe the … Continue reading Travelling for your job: Survival Tips