Peace

Tonight I heard something that made me pause, take a deep breath, and just spend a few moments contemplating the apparent peace in chaos. In the distance a dog was barking, closer in water was dripping from the trees, and just down the hill, safely away from me was a raging river. Somehow the combination just helped me settle my soul tonight.

Intellectually I know that the raging river just down the hill is full of massive amounts of snow melt and all the rain we had earlier today, running down from the headlands. Further downstream I know that it is causing flooding because I can see it on my drive to work. Yet, somehow, the sound of that rushing, raging water brought peace to me tonight. I cannot begin to quantify the why or the how, I simply know what is, and I am at peace with it.

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Reflections on 2011

The last year has been one of the most eventful years of my life. There were times I was ready to scream in primal rage and go running into the hills, but there are other times that make my heart swell in pleasure and pride. They say you need to experience the bad to appreciate the good. Call me selfish, but I would like to spend more time appreciating the good this year and less time learning to appreciate it by going through the bad spots. So, to review, here are some of the highlight moments:

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2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 52 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Protective Instincts

I have never considered myself to be a violent man, but watching a recently aired television episode (Glee, Season 3, Episode 6) really got me to thinking. How would I react if I was the father who’s child got dragged into something just to further political ambitions? Let’s just say that the “it’s nothing personal” line would mean nothing to me, and I would be extremely prone to illustrating just how personal it can be.

I have always known that the protective urges of a parent could be strong, but I had no idea that it could be this strong. It is one thing to contemplate protecting your child from physical danger, but social and psychological danger? Yeah, I don’t think that social niceties would stop me from doing whatever I felt I needed to do to protect my children. Nobody gets away with using my family or my children for political gains. Nobody!

That said, and since I seem to see a large volume of traffic driven here by a couple of sites who’s creators seem intent upon doing just that, consider this a wake up call for personal responsibility. I don’t deal well with Trolls, but if being a Heathen has taught me anything, trolls can only be effectively deal with by bashing them in the head with a hammer. Thor is a great example of using effective troll management techniques. Granted, these days we are talking figurative rather than literal hammers. Even so, remember that while it might seem that one can hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, there are ways of peeking behind that curtain. It might take some detective work. It might take some time. Regardless, eventually I intend to speak to these people face-to-face and question their intentions. No more anonymity. Talk to me as a human, face-t0-face, or fade into the background never to be heard from again.

I think I have made my point clear. Engage in conversation if you so desire. Me, I am done ignoring the trolls. You want to use my family you go through me to do it!

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Corporate Responsibility to Stakeholders

Before I delve into the topic I must first provide a definition of what constitutes a stakeholder. A stakeholder is anyone who has an effect or is effected by a decision or strategy. In a business environment this term has often become synonymous with stockholders and the Board of Directors. In a project management environment this term reflects managers that will be impacted by the results of the project.

Now that I have established what constitutes a stakeholder, I should advise that the title of this post can be deceptive. For most of corporate management groups this statement is interpreted as what makes the stockholders happy, and what can be done to create healthy investment income. Not a bad concept, and certainly one to keep in mind, but I propose that there is another group of stakeholders that are often completely disregarded: the employees. In this day and age management views employees as a resource to be manipulated and utilized at need. Even well respected business schools teach this perspective, and in so doing dehumanize the employees.

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