• 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: 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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• As I See It: Disruption Revisited

  December 7, 2020 Victor Rozek

  This time of the year, I generally write a predictive piece about IT trends and outside influences likely to impact the profession in the coming year. Three years ago I wrote an article titled As I See It: Disruption. In it, I posited that IT would have to contend with three main sources of disruption: major weather events, the impending demise of net neutrality, and widespread security breaches from what has become an international hacking industry.

  I was right on two of three counts. Net neutrality is still limping along. But perhaps I was more prescient than I thought: …

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• As I See It: Reviewing Performance Reviews

  November 9, 2020 Victor Rozek

  I started working at the age of 15 for a ship chandler on the San Francisco docks. Like many entry-level blue-collar positions, there wasn’t any talk of job descriptions or performance expectations. Basically, some burly guy told me what to do, and I did it.

  Over the ensuing decades, however, I’ve had a goodly number of white-collar jobs replete with detailed job descriptions, project goals, and deadlines, all anchored by the assurance of regular performance evaluations. None of it materialized exactly as advertised. In a dynamic, rapidly changing environment, what you end up doing is often not precisely what you …

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• As I See It: Another Modest Proposal

  October 19, 2020 Victor Rozek

  In 1729, responding to English indifference to chronic poverty in Ireland, Jonathan Swift wrote an essay called A Modest Proposal in which he suggests the Irish could sell their babies to the English gentry as food, thus addressing both the problem of Irish poverty and, presumably, the lack of meat variety in England. (I shouldn’t have to say this, but given the bizarre QAnon belief that elites actually drink children’s blood, it should be noted that Swift’s proposal was, you know, satire.)

  Well, with the country starting to resemble 1729 England updated for inflation, it’s time for another …

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• As I See It: IT And The Other Pandemic

  September 28, 2020 Victor Rozek

  Most mornings I wake up with a now-familiar feeling of nagging dread. It sticks like gum to my shoe and sullies the rest of my day. Accordingly, I enter the world worried, impatient, and easily irritated.

  The unrelenting stress of dodging the pandemic has slowly taken its toll. Activities that not long ago were prosaic – like grocery shopping, going camping, dining out, or attending a wedding – are now cloaked in a patina of anxiety. A convenience store clerk recently asked me how I was doing? I shrugged. “Another day of avoiding people,” I said. She nodded knowingly and …

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