Metaphor evokes both conscious and subconscious responses
and produces, more fully than do logic or common sense,
an awareness of the implicit connectedness of things.
--Robert Grudin
"Virtually all abstract concepts turn out to be metaphorical." -- George Lakoff
Trainees told their presentations will be videotaped.
Turns out no tape in camera on them. They view tape of
the audience--that's the important part.
Woman is picked up to be taken to mental hospital in her home
town. At first
she is calm, then she protests violently.
Subdued with shots, she is taken away.
Then it is found that she was not the proper woman
to take. There was nothing she could do about this situation; everyone
acted appropriately.
Nasrudin searching for his keys under the streetlight
because the light is better.
Prophet (with great business vision) --> Barbarian (implements
action, can-do, high-risk experimenter) --> Builders
and Explorers (accompanied by Administrator to keep order)
--> Bureaucrat (management puts on the brakes) -->
decay
--from Barbarians to Bureaucrats by
Lawrence M. Miller
The Law of Raspberry Jam: The wider you spread it, the
thinner it gets. --Gerald M. Weinberg
The wino syndrome -- fear of losing job, end up selling
pencils
The letter from college: dorm burned, riot, can't see well,
date a Muslim, converting, soon you're grandparents, moving
to Africa. P.S. No
fire, no riot...did flunk Chem.
Wanted you to view this problem in perspective.
Robert Reich: four persistent political myths:
1. rot at the top (cabal in power is at fault)
2. mob at
the gates (damned foreigners, etc)
3. triumphant individual (Horatio Alger)
4. benevolent
community (metaphorical barnraising...)
from the Well
So stupid his
lips move when he watches TV.
Feeling like
a Christian Scientist with appendicitus
I'm gonna hound
you like a Mormon with an Am-Way dealership.
Versatrac and Paperless Office
Stories
paperless office not here and not in sight. Businesses
generate nearly a billion pages of information daily--and
maintain a majority of this information for later use.
Companies are deluged by a wealth of in-house information
but only 2 to 10% exists in digital, machine-readable
form. The remainder resides on desks, in file cabinets
and in micrographics departments.
U.S. per capita paper consumption has steadily risen
from 200# in '40 to 600# in '80.
95% of business
communication is paper, 5% automated.
Business
stores 1.3 trillion pages of paper, enough to paper
the Grand Canyon
107 times! We
add another 930 million
pages/day.
Paperwork
paleontology--sorting thru the levels....reptilian files.
$17.5 million
a day is spent searching for paperwork
The paperless office is down the hall next to the paperless
toilet.
AIIM claims even higher figures: American businesses
generate more than 1 trillion pages of paper documents
a year, and 2.7 billion new sheets of paper are put into
file folders every day.
From the Delphia Consulting Group:
"The amount
of paper generated for the development and maintenance
of the F14 fighter jet weights more than the plane.
"In the U.S. eight
file cabinets of paper are generated each time a baby
is born."
"The average
amount of paper-based information necessary to apply for
a single new presscription drug requires one and one half
16-whell tracktor-trailers for delivery to the FDA.
"If the paper
documentation on board an aricraft carrier were removed,
the ship would rise 3" out of the water."
"appropriate technology"
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Recession: Delaying all major projects involving discretionary
spending is analogous to burning your furniture to stay
warm. It may feel deceptively good for a while, but the
long-term effects can be devastating.
Bar code is 13 times faster than manual data entry and
6,000 times more accurate. Payback often is measured in
several weeks or a few months.
Fifteen years ago there were 50,000 computers in the
world. Now 50,000 are sold every day.
Sam Goldwyn, whose files were taking over his office.... When
he asked his secretary to "get rid of all this,"
she said, "I can't, some of thse are important papers."
"All right, then," he said, "make a copy
of everything before you throw it out."
"We came to admit that we were powerless over our files."
Internet
Time Group