Heather Hutson

I was listening to a podcast the other day and a prominent long time conservative republican was explaining why he was not seeking re- election. He became nostalgic as the reporter and he walked along the outside of the Capitol Building recounting the time just after 9/11 when both democrats and republicans were earnestly working together to come up with legislation that WOULD pass on both sides of the aisle, legislation that was a legitimate win win for their constituents. And now 18 years later the climate has changed to where one side is trying to ‘stick it to’ the other side.   This practice, he said, isn’t limited to either side of the aisle.   He went on to say that if he were to run again, he would have to run in a way that wasn’t true to himself, intimating that he would have to go negative and point out the flaws of his opponent. He simply didn’t want to do that.   Yesterday there was a shooting in a church just outside of San Antonio.   It’s close to home fo

I read this book a while ago called Blue Ocean Strategy ,  it was written by these really smart people from Harvard. They drew an analogy to the free market as an ocean.  When all the sharks are feeding, there is a lot of blood in the water, the ocean is red.  The sharks are businesses out there trying to gobble up as much market share as they possibly can.  Think of the cola wars in the 80's, Pepsi and Coke were going at it head to head. "Take the Pepsi Challenge," remember? and then Coke responded with the New Coke, which was an absolute debacle.  In production we closely guard our processes as trade secrets so we have a perceived edge against the competition. But in reality, Production companies all promise the same thing, flawless execution, peace of mind, bringing your vision to life. The writers of Blue Ocean Strategy noticed that there are companies who don't jump into the crowded red ocean but rather create their own market.  Look at Cirque du Soleil, befo

I am a mediocre guitarist, I enjoy it though. I enjoy the way the guitar feels against my body. I like the familiarity of the strings and the chords. I'm sure if I practiced more I'd get a little better, but I'm probably never going to be a great guitarist. And I'm ok with that.  Does that mean that I'll never achieve greatness? Probably not as a guitarist... But what about other areas of life? How can we achieve greatness in the areas that are most important to us? Integrity We all agree that we should do the right thing, so why don't we? Humanity's ablity to rationalize pulls us off the beam more often than not.  Research shows that while most students agree that cheating is wrong about 95% of them admit to having cheated in the past. We rationalize that it's not a big deal, everyone does it, it's not hurting anyone... so how can we maintain our sense of integrity when most everyone is letting it slide.  If we decide to be that 5% who