Victor Rozek
-
As I See It: The Workplace Politician
November 13, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read morePolitics is a great tree burdened with rotting fruit, and there’s nothing like a recent election to remind us of why it can be so distasteful. If political ads are any measure of gravitas, politics is full of brash sound and feigned fury signifying rudeness. Although politics is associated primarily with governance, the term is also used in the workplace, where it describes the backroom and boardroom decisions that impact employees–often adversely–but have little or nothing to do with the actual running of the business.
To be sure, the term “politics” is also used more loosely to describe a range
-
As I See It: The Workplace Politician
November 13, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read morePolitics is a great tree burdened with rotting fruit, and there’s nothing like a recent election to remind us of why it can be so distasteful. If political ads are any measure of gravitas, politics is full of brash sound and feigned fury signifying rudeness. Although politics is associated primarily with governance, the term is also used in the workplace, where it describes the backroom and boardroom decisions that impact employees–often adversely–but have little or nothing to do with the actual running of the business.
To be sure, the term “politics” is also used more loosely to describe a range
-
As I See It: Behavioral Redlining
October 30, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read more“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files; we’d like to help you learn to help yourself.”
–Simon and Garfunkel
Ever since people began gathering information about each other, the gatherers have used the data to control and punish the gatherees. King Herod, for example, used census data to hunt down families with infants hoping to preempt the coming of Christ by killing all of the male babies in Bethlehem. For centuries thereafter, birth records were used to determine social status–noble or commoner, free or slave, tax beneficiary or tax payer-and to keep common
-
As I See It: Behavioral Redlining
October 30, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read more“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files; we’d like to help you learn to help yourself.”
–Simon and Garfunkel
Ever since people began gathering information about each other, the gatherers have used the data to control and punish the gatherees. King Herod, for example, used census data to hunt down families with infants hoping to preempt the coming of Christ by killing all of the male babies in Bethlehem. For centuries thereafter, birth records were used to determine social status–noble or commoner, free or slave, tax beneficiary or tax payer-and to keep common
-
As I See It: Behavioral Redlining
October 30, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read more“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files; we’d like to help you learn to help yourself.”
–Simon and Garfunkel
Ever since people began gathering information about each other, the gatherers have used the data to control and punish the gatherees. King Herod, for example, used census data to hunt down families with infants hoping to preempt the coming of Christ by killing all of the male babies in Bethlehem. For centuries thereafter, birth records were used to determine social status–noble or commoner, free or slave, tax beneficiary or tax payer-and to keep common
-
As I See It: History Makers
October 9, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn the early 1960s, when IBM abruptly bolted from New York City, Armonk was a remote and barely inhabited woodland. On my only visit to the IBM mothership nearly two decades ago, I remember wondering why a big-city company would select such an out-of-the-way site to house its world headquarters. Like guys with a Rolex, successful companies enjoy showing off their architectural bling-bling. Power and status find their expression in steel and glass and are typically flaunted, not hidden.
Cheap land, I thought, may have been an inducement, but uber-wealthy people don’t buy things just because they’re cheap. There were,
-
As I See It: History Makers
October 9, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn the early 1960s, when IBM abruptly bolted from New York City, Armonk was a remote and barely inhabited woodland. On my only visit to the IBM mothership nearly two decades ago, I remember wondering why a big-city company would select such an out-of-the-way site to house its world headquarters. Like guys with a Rolex, successful companies enjoy showing off their architectural bling-bling. Power and status find their expression in steel and glass and are typically flaunted, not hidden.
Cheap land, I thought, may have been an inducement, but uber-wealthy people don’t buy things just because they’re cheap. There were,
-
As I See It: History Makers
October 9, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn the early 1960s, when IBM abruptly bolted from New York City, Armonk was a remote and barely inhabited woodland. On my only visit to the IBM mothership nearly two decades ago, I remember wondering why a big-city company would select such an out-of-the-way site to house its world headquarters. Like guys with a Rolex, successful companies enjoy showing off their architectural bling-bling. Power and status find their expression in steel and glass and are typically flaunted, not hidden.
Cheap land, I thought, may have been an inducement, but uber-wealthy people don’t buy things just because they’re cheap. There were,
-
As I See It: Pretexting
September 25, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read more“Pretexting” is defined as: A) Invading a country under false pretenses; B) Telling your spouse you’re going to the store for a quart of milk and stopping for a quick beer on the way home; or C) Hiring a lot of lawyers to give the appearance of ethics and objectivity. (For the purpose of this pop quiz ignore the fact that attorneys are paid not to be objective and that lawyers are to ethics what politicians are to truth.) The answer could probably be any of the above, but if you picked “C” you’re a winner, or in Hewlett-Packard‘s
-
As I See It: Pretexting
September 25, 2006 Victor Rozek
… Read more“Pretexting” is defined as: A) Invading a country under false pretenses; B) Telling your spouse you’re going to the store for a quart of milk and stopping for a quick beer on the way home; or C) Hiring a lot of lawyers to give the appearance of ethics and objectivity. (For the purpose of this pop quiz ignore the fact that attorneys are paid not to be objective and that lawyers are to ethics what politicians are to truth.) The answer could probably be any of the above, but if you picked “C” you’re a winner, or in Hewlett-Packard‘s