Previous Entries
Summer 2011
I'm getting a lot of satisfaction serving on the DisAbility Employment Awareness Committee as part of PNC's Diversity and Inclusion initiative. Our work includes outreach to local organizations that provide pathways to employment for individuals with physical and mental disabilities and creating guidelines for interacting with individuals with disabilities in the workplace.
Please see the following links:
Namaste
September/October 2010
This month's theme is old-school.
August 2010
Entre-peneury vs. Entrepreneurship:
In a society increasingly driven by the bottom line, how do we encourage people to take risks and think outside the box? Must creativity always turn a profit? Should this be our sole standard for success and recognition?
Please compare the historical figures and their contribution or idea that changed the way we live for the better. Hint: the individual who thought of it first didn't always receive recognition or reward (and sometimes quite the opposite).
John Fitch and Robert Fulton
Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell
Ignaz Semmelweiss and Louis Pasteur
The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.
-- H. D. Thoreau
July 2010
Last month I quoted from
Lao-tzu. Please click the link to read a review of a book on
Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics of ancient Greece from the publication
In Character. Our society sometimes seems lost in materialistic indulgence and distraction. But in this month of American independence, do we really need to give up our individual desires and ambition in order to be virtuous?
But a little while and thou shalt be burnt ashes or a few dried bones, and possibly a name, possibly not a name even....And all that we prize so highly in our lives is empty and corrupt and paltry, and we but as puppies snapping at each other, as quarrelsome children now laughing and anon in tears.
-- The Meditations
There's something to get up to each day. So much for the value of achieving our fifteen minutes of fame.
For another perspective on living a virtuous life, please see an essay by A.C. Grayling on
wisdom vs. intelligence .
May/June 2010
I never got the hang of Chinese philosophy. I guess the
memes of Western culture are too deeply embedded in my psyche. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I feel it limits me in understanding other ways of thinking about the world. Since China is apparently becoming leaseholder to the U.S., I thought I would give it another try.
The following caught my eye in edition of the Tao Te Ching (The Book of the Way) by Lao-tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell:
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don't trust the people,
You make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
The people say "Amazing:
We did it all by ourselves."
Simple, eh? But try applying it in your life and work.
Speaking of memes and received wisdom:
Changing Your Password Is a Waste of Time (Boston Globe)
The Diagnostic Madness of the DSM-V (Slate)
Exporting the American Mind
The Good Old Libertarian Days (Reason)
April 2010
N/A.
February 2010
I love serendipity. (Or is it synchronicity?)
I recently wrote a
review in the Pittsburgh City Paper of an art exhibit currently at
Future Tenant titled
Do You Understand? The exhibit explores questions we all should be asking about the ways technology such as Facebook and YouTube affects how human beings communicate (or don't). This is a favorite theme of
Neil Postman's.
The New York Review of Books has an
article by Charles Peterson on Facebook's founding and the evolution of social networking that raises some of the same questions.
And the Chronicle of Higher Education has an
article by David Glenn on an information technology phenomenon I've long felt suspicious about: multitasking.
December - January 2010
Christmas 2009 has come and gone (except for Orthodox Christians) but the story continues.
Karen Armstrong explains it's "for celebrators and skeptics alike".
I have been reflecting on the relationship between peoples’ beliefs and how they live their day-to-day lives. Here are some relevant links: Economic Prosperity: A Step of Faith, by Joseph Laconte in The American
Religion and Morality: Separated at Birth?, an essay by Marc D. Hauser in the Edge
We claim to celebrate individual differences and diversity in our society. But we dismiss or suppress nonconformity and separate the successful from the supposedly unsuccessful outcasts and outliers, (to borrow a phrase from Malcom Gladwell). Our obsession with celebrity has only increased this tendency. For anyone who’s felt like the odd-person out (and that includes most of us), here’s a reminder that qualities that are liabilities in some contexts can prove useful traits in others.
How We're Wired: 'The Science of Success' by David Dobbs in the Atlantic Monthly
The story of nonconformists and weirdos seeking enlightenment and truth to share with the rest of us is a pretty universal one, especially relevant this time of year. Think Joan of Arc and Rachel Carson. Think Thoreau, John the Baptist and Jesus. Maybe we should treat folks like these better when they’re among us. For a lighter look at this, see The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers by Cathleen Falsani reviewed on NPR. And keep those white Russians coming.
Have you ‘friended’ someone on Facebook or been friended through this or other social networking sites over the holidays? What has been your experience with the quality of those virtual relationships? Can you count on people out in the ether when the cat dies and you’ve lost your job and you break up with your significant other? See:
Faux Friendship by William Deresiewicz in the Chronicle of Higher Education
In the past month the husband of a colleague died and someone in my family has experienced a recurrence of cancer. Many people I know are struggling with the loss of jobs and work-related problems. Are we just not thinking the right thoughts? I’m reading Brightsided, by Barbara Ehrenreich. She tries to inject some sanity into the positive psychology/positive belief movement based on her experience and observations.
Best wishes for hope and happiness.
· Culture always pays a price for technology
· There are always winners and losers in technological change
· Every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.
· Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. [And I would add the law of unintended consequences as a corollary)
· Media tend to become mythic, [in the sense that we have] a common tendency to think of our technological creations as if they were God-given, as if they were a part of the natural order of things
Please also see the following:
Now You Tell Us: Interviews with Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy in the Washington Post
September - October 2009
Please see my latest blog entry on the G20 at Working Pittsburgh:
June - August 2009
April - June 2009
March 2009
February 2009
Last year Pittsburgh celebrated its 250th anniversary. This month the city happily celebrates the Steeler's sixth Superbowl win.
I have embarked on research for an oral history project to celebrate the stories of workers in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The project is titled Working Pittsburgh. It will weave together fictional and non-fiction historical accounts with first-hand contemporary narratives of working people about their jobs in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania -- from football players and waitresses, to bicycle messengers and CEOs.
The project is inspired by Mike Rose's The Mind at Work and my involvement as board president with STC WorkQuest. More details will follow. If you are interested in participating or have questions, please click Contact on the menu to send an inquiry to me through this site.
Please click to see a outline for the discussion I led January 13th at the STC Pittsburgh Career Roundtable event. (Requires the free Acrobat Reader.)
Personal and Online Networking for Your Job Search
Thanks.
Chuck Lanigan
January 2009
Happy 2009. On January 13th I led a discussion for the STC Pittsburgh career roundtable on traditional forms of face-to-face networking and new virtual networking (AKA Web 2.0) resources. Topics addressed included:
- Traditional Face-to-Face Job Search Networking
- Online (Virtual) Job Search Networking
- Using Web 2.0 Tools
- Comparison of Skills and Techniques
- Putting it All Together
I will be adding a PDF or other file outlining the presentation available from the STC Pittsburgh web page .
Archived Pages from My Old Site
Please click to see What's New? entries archived from my previous web site.