Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Home Work
November 1, 2021 Victor Rozek
Data collection and privacy weren’t much of an issue when the Constitution was being debated, which may account for the fact that those words don’t appear anywhere in the document. Probably the greatest threat to privacy at the time was gossip.
At best, privacy is implied in the Bill of Rights. But while the government can’t quarter soldiers in your home willy-nilly, there are plenty of other digital intruders that may be billeting in your residence; tools designed specifically to tread on your privacy. And while social media has long been Hoovering every available scrap of personal data, a subclass …
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As I See It: The Management Challenge
October 18, 2021 Victor Rozek
Imagine coaching an athletic team under the following conditions: Some percentage of your players do not practice in your facility. You have minimal contact with them, and even less influence over how, when, and how long they practice. Building and maintaining team cohesion is almost impossible. There’s a chance some of your players may be unavailable at some point during the season, and your training facility could be closed for an unspecified period of time. Yet you are still expected to win.
That’s roughly the situation in which managers find themselves. Some percentage of their employees probably still work from …
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As I See It: The Misinformation Crisis
September 13, 2021 Victor Rozek
The person who invented the wheel was probably also the first person to run over his/her own toes. That’s just the nature of technology: it’s helpful, but not always friendly. From the wheel to social media, technology has served as both the engine of progress and an instrument of grief. And, paradoxically, there is perhaps no greater accelerant of progress and regress than computer technology.
The name of Floyd Ray Roseberry is deservedly forgettable, but he recently managed to engineer his ten minutes of digital fame by live-streaming his imagined grievances on Facebook. As a remedy, he claimed to have …
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As I See It: Anatomy of Failure
August 30, 2021 Victor Rozek
Decades before the term “woke” became a thing, a couple trained in psychology expanded their portfolio to include corporate consulting. Among other offerings, they taught a seminar called “Conscious Business Practices,” during which they identified three principal reasons why corporations fail.
Their names are Gay and Katie Hendricks, and they are book-writing machines. Those who actually still read books may recognize some of their enduring before-the-turn-of-the-century offerings: Conscious Living, At the Speed of Life, and The Corporate Mystic.
I first wrote about their work over 20 years ago, a time barely recognizable now. And I was curious …
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As I See It: Delusionware
July 19, 2021 Victor Rozek
Currency has always been the product of mass hallucination. From shells to spices, bottle caps to urine, what people decide is valuable, and what they are willing to trade life energy for, is as varied as imagination and circumstance. (In case you’re wondering, clean urine is used in prisons to pass drug tests and can be bartered for goods and services that are best left unnamed.)
All that is required for a currency to have value is that enough people share the same delusion. And suddenly, little pieces of paper with numbers and the faces of departed presidents (and lesser …
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As I See It: The Reluctant Return
June 7, 2021 Victor Rozek
Another day, another questionable announcement from the CDC. This time it was a guideline suggesting that vaccinated people need not wear masks in most circumstances; a pronouncement that many experts found to be both ill-advised and premature.
Nonetheless, many heard it as an invitation to return to normalcy. Long-suffering restaurant and bar owners exhaled for the first time in many months, and everyone seemed delighted just to see the bottom half of their friends’ faces again.
One group in particular was unabashedly eager to return to the pre-pandemic past: CEOs. Newsweek reported on a poll conducted by the Best Practice …
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As I See It: Orwellian
May 24, 2021 Victor Rozek
In last month’s article, I expressed ambivalence about our increasing reliance on technology and its growing dominance even as it slips ever further from our control. The challenge presented by a host of computer technologies is how to maximize their benefits while minimizing their potential for harm. And the more powerful the technology, the greater the temptation to weaponize it.
I closed the article with the following statement:
We are already using artificial intelligence on an enterprise scale. It won’t be long before it’s used on a planetary scale. Computer intelligence is evolving much quicker than human intelligence. According …
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As I See It: Ambivalence
April 19, 2021 Victor Rozek
Former business professor Aaron Levenstein once said: “Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting. But what they hide is vital.” Unlike the bikini wearer, however, statistics are bloodless, void of experience, and often boring. Except of course to statisticians.
Broadly speaking there are two types of statistics: the ones that make your eyes roll to the back of your head, and the ones that make your eyes pop out of your head. This is the latter, courtesy of economist Robert Reich. Reich calculated that in 2020 Jeff Bezos’ net worth rose by $2,378 every second! You read …
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As I See It: Pass The Chips
March 15, 2021 Victor Rozek
We’re running out of chips. I know what you’re thinking: We absolutely, positively cannot run out of chips. They’re a staple of life in the time of Covid. How will I scoop my guac, you ask? How will I maintain my sodium levels? And what’s the point of salsa without chips? For that matter, what’s the point of binge watching without binging?
Not to worry. Take a deep breath, exhale, do a deep knee bend. It’s not potato or corn chips we’re lacking – it’s computer chips, and they’re way too small for scooping guac.
As we know, computer chips …
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As I See It: Sunshine Or Oxygen?
February 22, 2021 Victor Rozek
There is an intense debate within the print and electronic media about the future of the 1st Amendment. At core is the question: At what point does free speech become antithetical to a free society? And what, if anything, should be done about it?
The answers to these questions call for great nuance and even greater caution. Is it even possible to fine-tune one of the foundational principles of our Democracy, while simultaneously preserving it? When does enthusiasm become incitement? What’s true and what’s false? What constitutes ignorance versus willful manipulation? What’s the dividing line between news and propaganda? And …
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