TLN web site development foundation

Operational foundation

I've worked in over 60 different organization settings and over 40 different kinds of work assignments in the military (USAF, some NASA exposure), university (Vanderbilt Medical School), Fortune 200 corporate headquarters (a mix of consulting and unique project work), manufacturing, design/marketing (mostly apparel), and retail environments (extensive retail exploration).

Extensive travel to a wide variety of cultural settings in the US, Canada, and Europe

General manager corporate restructuring

Former CPA. Top operational financial (plus) trouble shooter in Fortune 200 company

Conceptual foundation

Over 70,000 hours of direct, full-time work have gone into developing the TLN site and background on which it rests.

The aim of the background is both an external and long-term view of organization evolution (the main vehicle in delivering our standard of living) in the context of a world moving in time. Thinking several moves ahead and initiating the "right" sequenced actions is the essential thrust.

It is not possible to work on things that are not on one's "radar." In other words, the content of our active mental radar sets the limits of how we spend our lives. It is not very fruitful to work with yesterday's mental patterns in a world moving toward unimagined futures. Neither experience nor the formal education system—even at the hightest levels—are adequate for navigating the roads ahea—as evidenced by the recurrent organization crisis stories the news.

The discreet items listed below are all part of a core reality and are inseparable from that reality.

The desire to pursue this background emerged from my own experiences in corporate restructuring and examining the histories of many prominent organizations from years ago—the ups, downs, disappearances and discontinuities. The following list portrays my search for what I now call an adequate work approach and foundation for future directed decisions.

Part of this background includes:

A meta-system moving in time

exploring the economy—its content, structure, dynamics, and evolution. Explored my connections with the economy—what I consume, ultimate objective in doing so, desired improvements, desired new satisfactions etc. Reflected on the validity of this analysis in time. See snap shot of the economy—contains links to: spending analysis, effort analysis, 2000 global brands, realities, strategic thinking chain, healthy financial architecture, small biz statistics, and the visible world around us.

Conceptual resources

reading and classifying hundreds of articles from Harvard Business Review

dissected several thousand conceptual resources (books and articles) using computer outlining tools—a step in calendarizing. Available on my hard drive. See tables of content (insight and methodology), my categorized conceptual resource list and foundational work. Part of this includes dissecting Michael Kami's (strategic planning at Xerox and IBM) Corporate Planning Process Manual and prototyping an implementation database.

I'm extremely familiar with Peter Drucker's work (structured view) plus that of Edward de Bono (creative thought), Mike Kami (strategic planning IBM and Xerox), Kenichi Ohmae (strategy), M. Porter (strategy and industrial economics), Tom Peters, Steven Covey, J. Juran (quality), E. Deming (quality), E. McKay (marketing), Ted Levitt (marketing and general management), Philip Kotler (marketing), Al Ries and Jack Trout (marketing), Karl Albrecht (marketing), Max de Pree (leadership), Andy Grove (general management), Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and quite a few others. These ideas can be superimposed on the content, structure, performance and results in society's three sectors.

Day-to-day intel

purposefully reading well over 50,000 newspaper and magazine articles on time-life navigation © events (includes extensive classification work). These events demonstrate the synthesis of the TLN dimensions (work life action management and organization evolution, life design, and financial investing) in action.

Examples: My TLN Weblog (select articles); all recent articles contained in my DEVONthink article database (blog source); and earlier story titles. See Intel map, News analysis table.doc, and Jack Welch Book 2000 for relevance and importance.

Organization and investment performance

an extensive amount of work on stock selection (similar to validea.com) and organization performance profiling including statistics on the distribution of performance measurements (over time) that can be found in Value Line and Forbes. Also investigated startups and venture capital.

1600 pages in Value Line Investment Survey and beta testing their software

bios of the 400 wealthiest Americans and classifying their wealth sources

Economic data

exploring The Statistical Abstract, GNP and Federal Reserve reports and graphs (e.g. Business Conditions Digest)

over 100 research studies published by the Federal Reserve

Information tools

beta testing software and participating in a number of software communities (text analysis, concept mapping, graphics, and other work flow tools). Daily work includes reviewing new releases announced at VersionTracker.com. Part of the work flow involved in "concepts to daily action."

developing the capacity to create basic web sites and moderately complex web pages

exploring thousands of web sites

The point of this background work: evolving social and economic terrain familiarity—a part of navigation capacity and the full range of organization evolution. The breadth of topics covered in the site is one indicator of that familiarity. We can only work with what's on our radar and within our attention span. The human brain only sees what it is prepared to see.

My key resources:

Peter Drucker:

Edward de Bono bio:

Warren Buffett info:

Connections:

1. Toward unimagined futures

2. Knowledge system view

3. Information challenges

Need more info? Best way is to explore the web-site. Or send an email.