Managing Chaos

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September 13, 2005

What Makes Someone Great?

Ask Metafilter had a great anonymous question posted today: "What makes someone a great person?"
It's really interested to think of this in a work context, and realize how much of it carries over. Your great coworkers are probably the ones who are always willing to muck in and help on projects. They'll offer you support or a shoulder to cry on when things aren't going well. They're not just in it when the going is great.

One user, driveler, posted the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, which I love. The text is after the jump.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

September 08, 2005

Andy Kessler on Philly Telco

Andy Kessler has a good piece on the battle for free Wi-Fi in Philly over here. Well worth reading:

Now I can’t decide who to root against, bureaucrats or monopolists. But someone is missing. Where are the entrepreneurs? Why aren’t venture capitalists spreading wireless Internet all over Philadelphia or Pennsylvania or the entire country? Is this a profitless pit? Sort of.