Notes

  • Recognizing Zebras and Wildebeests

    On the plains of the Serengeti zebras often stick close by wildebeests. The two animals seem like an odd pairing with their contrasting colors and non-matching body shapes, but they are frequently seen traveling together in one massive herd. There’s a good reason for this conspicuous friendship. They have a symbiotic relationship in that they…

  • Ranking the Best Elmore Leonard Novels

    Elmore Leonard is one of my writing heroes. He is a major influence on my own novels. The man’s prolificity makes it a challenge to tackle his entire catalog–he wrote 45 novels over a 60-year writing career. He published almost a novel a year for six decades. In some years he even published two books.…

  • Why Amazon Bought Whole Foods

    Amazon wants to be the default retailer for everything. This includes groceries. The problem with selling groceries is shelf life. If you don’t turn inventory quickly, you end up throwing away your profit margin. The grocery business does not lend itself to cross-country shipping due to this perishable factor. In order to sell groceries online,…

  • Too Much Customer Service

    In the new customer-centric economy, I’ve noticed a trend that is more disturbing than the problem it replaced.  Apparently, it is possible to have too much customer service. We can no longer run into the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk without being asked by three employees if we’ve “found everything okay.” I…

  • One Project Wednesday

    Imagine if we dedicated every Wednesday to working on one single project. If we set aside a day each week to pick one item from our to-do list and then refuse to allow any other tasks to creep into our workload. When was the last time you concentrated on a single project? I’m talking about…