All American Chair

Got to love this all American chair. 

Red, white, and blue. 

And stars and stripes everywhere. 

The only thing that I seriously wonder about is whether this chair was manufactured in the U.S. 

With the U.S. losing 35% of it’s manufacturing employment between 1998 and 2010 (from 17.6M to 11.5M), due in large part to outsourcing, there is a good chance this chair was made overseas. 

Now manufacturing makes up less than 9% of total U.S. employment. 

Also noteworthy is the loss of 51,000 manufacturing plants or 12.5% between 1998-2008.  

Together, agriculture and industry make up only approximately 20% of the entire U.S. economy. 

Manufacturing are agriculture are strategic capabilities for this country and any country. 

It’s not just what you know, but what you make!

Sure we can make things faster and easier with automation, but at this point there is a serious skills shortage (with millions of jobs going unfilled), and we need to safeguard the strategic knowledge, skills, capability, and capacity to make things vital to our thriving existence.

We need to be a more self-sufficient nation again and not a one-trick service pony. 

We need to use information to be better innovators, creators, developers, and builders. 

Information is great, but you can’t live by information alone. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Where Did I Put That Action Memo?

Lots of people desks seem to look like this.

(Not me though…compulsive neat freak and learned from IBM’s “clean desk policy” early on in my career.)

In analyzing our fight against Islamic jihadists and terrorists, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal writes:

“In all the photos published of al Qaeda, Islamic State or any other terror groups, have you ever seen them sitting at desks?”

Henninger points out the root of “Bureaucracy” is the French word “Bureau,” which mean desk.

Hence, we in the West are stuck behind desks, while the terrorists are actively working to destroy our freedom and way of life–smashing down doors and wielding AK47s and suicide vests!

We’ve got to stop hiding behind our piled-high desks, analysis-paralysis position papers, endless meetings, and political bickering, and actually do something concrete, meaningful, and strong–to not only deter, but destroy the enemy!

Fear of making a decision or nonsense claims that your still searching for that action memo is something that should get you uprooted from your messy desk with a boot up your a*s!

Wake up, wake up, wake up–enough ho hum, we need some leadership that is bold, patriotic, and heroic to protect what we value so dear.

Don’t you think it’s time to win this war for real?

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Shawn de Raaf)

Google Fiber 4 The Nation’s Capital

How About Google Fiber for Washington, D.C.?

– Lead, by example, the rest of the nation forward.

– Speed up the functioning of the government.

– Helpful for Emergency Management

– The Patriotic thing to do! 😉

All Opinions my own.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Cameron Yee, & no idea why it’s in Spanish, but I like it!)