Episode 46 – Resolutions for the New Year

About the Podcast

Topic:  We do another theme-based episode, this time on “New Year’s Resolutions”.  It doesn’t matter whether they are funny or serious ones, but it does matter that your word and resolve is so useless that you can’t keep a promise to yourself.  In that case, you might not even have any resolutions.  But if you do, you will probably find that no one other than yourself will follow up on them.  As the immortal Shakespeare once said, “Please pass the bacon, I prithee.” Oops, wrong quote. “To thine own self be true.”

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JP shares some wisdom from Texas – which seems to be lost in translation to British-English.  And shares his experiences with the extremists of continuous improvement – as he refers to them as the “Taliban of Continuous Improvement” – that he has encountered on social media, with Benjamin sharing similar experiences he has had.  JP ponders whether Benjamin was involved in the floorplans that went missing at MI6 in a desperate attempt to improve his internet speed.

Neal, a transplant from Atlanta now living in Louisville (however you pronounce it), Kentucky, joins us as the first guest.  His resolution is to become more active in maintaining and growing his professional network.  Neal shares that he engages in social medial, but has found it difficult to find peers for face-to-face meetings.  JP suggests that Neal introduce himself to the Systems Science and Industrial Engineering department (or similar) at the local university as a starting point.

Remarkably, Benjamin’s first – and perhaps only – friend has finally joined us at the Outliers Inn.  Chris, who claims Benjamin did not have to pay much for him to join us, shares his interest in this emerging community.  A maverick technologist for several years, he got the opportunity to form a “guild” at his organization – a grass roots organization dedicated to a professional practice.  The idea of the guild was to bring people at work together in a non-transactional format.  Although not generally into creating resolutions, Chris’ resolution for 2020 is to consolidate and grow the guild. 

Our last guest and frequent visitor to the Outliers Inn is Don.  Don starts off by sharing some distractions and interruptions which made him less effective and efficient in his efforts in 2019, so his goal and primary focus for 2020 is to get organized.  That being said, his one distraction that he will allow is his growing interest in brewing beer (how distracting can that be; wink-wink).  It’s actually a father and son project; or perhaps son?  After all, there is a stark difference in the approach to brewing between the two with the son being a sticker for adhering to a strict following of the formula and the Don being more “close enough is good enough”.  The official launch of the Square Deal Brewery (as it will be called) is a year away.  But when it is launched, it will be the official beer of The Outliers Inn. 

There are a lot of other great conversations, and we don’t mind you eavesdropping.  Enjoy!