Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Anything from thoughts on leadership to endurance races

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Nook Tablet 16g: A review after one week

A week ago, Valentines Day actually, my wife bought me a Nook Tablet.  (At that point they were only available in the 16g version, the 8g came out yesterday.)

We landed on the nook because A.) we can’t afford an iPad at the moment and B.) after exhausting hours of research on the web trying to compare the Nook to the Kindle Fire this is where I finally landed. Why you may ask? Well let me tell you…

First of all if you read through all the reviews you may quickly find yourself bewildered. The ratings and rankings systems are all different and most take into account things you may not care about like “case design” or “which company is cooler”.  Certainly check them out but at the end of the day the deciding factor for me was memory. Nook has a card slot, that’s up to 32g more memory, (twice as much as my iPhone 3gs), and the Kindle does not.

There’s more to THAT story though when you read the reviews: Kindle has 8g on board Nook has 16g, but Kindle has access to cloud storage but Nook has the card slot…blah, blah, blah… but the card slot was the deciding factor for me.

After a week here’s what I like and don’t like about the Nook Tablet:

Like:

  • 16g storage on the device. My iPhone is 16g and I haven’t filled it up in three years
  • Battery life is phenomenal. I plug it in at night and it lasts all day. Even on a travel day flying from Colorado to Washington DC and using it continuously
  • Card slot, already using it to watch movies
  • Graphics. The picture is as good or better than my wife’s iPad
  • It’s fast. I don’t use the on board web browser, I use Dolphin, free, awesome.

Don’t Like:

  • The 16g is partitioned. 1g for your stuff, 15g for stuff you get from Barnes and Noble. I like a little more freedom in choosing vendors.
  • Navigation feels clunky. It could just be that it is not very intuitive and I’ll get used to it.
  • I HATE searching on the B&N store. “Search” for apps returns books and apps and letters from foreign dignitaries.
  • It still feels like a reader, with some added features rather than a tablet that has a great reader app. Even at the user manual level which is pretty clunky in and of itself.
  • No Camera. I thought I would be MORE bothered by this but it really probably shouldn’t be in the don’t like column. The camera on my phone is good enough that I don’t miss having one here.

Getting to like better:

  • I have been able to find apps to consolidate twitter and facebook, to manage my blog, and to edit Microsoft Office docs so it IS getting more useful than just media.
  • With the release of the 8g Nook B&N will allow 16g users to repartition their hard drives to free up 8g for personal use. I’m in on that. That’ll be a free upgrade sometime next month.
  • The memory card option. I’d be dead without it. Movies take up a lot of room. As my travel schedule ramps up I’m going to enjoy being able to bring some along and really enjoy having the battery life to watch them and still get work done.

After a brief week the device has grown on me. Sure I’d like an iPad but for less than half the price I’m finding the Nook Tablet is doing what I need it to do, is smaller to carry, and the battery lasts long enough to serve the entire day. At the moment I’d have to say I’m a converted fan.

Any Questions? How’s your search for the right tablet device working out?

 

 

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3 Ingredients that Help Leaders Innovate

I’ve been fortunate throughout the majority of my career in that I have been consistently asked to innovate.

Whether I’ve been in operational roles and redesigning process, technical roles and delivering new solutions, or serving as CTO and re-branding entire companies I’ve had the opportunity to bring innovation, change, and new goodies to the table.

Unfortunately for a lot of people when they think of the word “innovator” they see a picture of Steve Jobs in their minds eye and resign themselves to thinking they could never be THAT good. (Hint: Steve probably wouldn’t have thought that way.) But the truth is that EVERYONE in a leadership position has the opportunity to be an innovator.

That doesn’t mean everyone has the skill set developed, or the desire, or maybe the need but every leader does have the opportunity to innovate, it’s part of the nature of leadership. So if opportunity IS knocking at your door let me suggest three ingredients that every innovator has to have in order to bring out the mad scientist.

1. A desire to break things
When I was about 5 my dad and I built a model helicopter, one of those plastic model kits that requires that stringy, smelly, Testors model glue. As soon as it was dry I broke it into pieces. I think in part to see if I could get it back to its original state and in part because I’d had fun putting it together with my dad. Needless to say he wasn’t as excited by my actions as I was.

Throughout most all of my life I’ve been taking apart stuff that has been labeled “I dunno, it just doesn’t work”: An old electronic vibrating football game, a car cassette player, (remember those?), a camera. If they didn’t work then there was no harm in taking them apart but if I DIDN’T take them apart there was no chance they’d work.

An innovator is someone who is willing to break something that isn’t working in order to make it work. (AND sometimes they’re even willing to break stuff that isn’t working as well as it should)

2. A desire to indulge dreams
How often have you said to yourself, “If only we could…” or “I wish there was a way to…” ? Innovators are the people that see inspiration in those statements. Non-innovators sigh deeply, shrug those ideas off and get back to the pile on their desk.

Innovators find sustenance in those kind of questions, blow out the wildest answers they can find, tear them down and build them back up again. They allow their minds to race ahead of their inner critic as though it were death on their heels.

As my younger brother, who actually IS a rocket scientist by education, used to say, “hey, define the limits…and start there.”

An innovator is someone who chases after their dreams to see where they lead.

3. A desire to make time
Innovators often run the risk of appearing to be lazy. If you come by my office and I’m leaning back in may chair with my feet are up on the desk I’m not sleeping. I’m imagining. (I sleep with my chin tucked to my chest facing my computer screen, it looks like deep thought.)

Th trick is that you don’t innovate in your spare time, unless inspiration hits you out of the blue. Spare time is your down time. You innovate on work time which means you have to have time in your work schedule to dream. If you don’t have time in your work schedule to dream as a leader…IT’S NOT WORKING. Break it apart and fix it.

An innovator is someone who make sure they have time in the schedule to dream.

Creativity, ideation, strategy, they’re all nice, but without the desire to break things, the desire to indulge dreams and the desire to make time you run the risk of merely creating prettier sameness.

What are some of the places you need to take a look at how you do business today and break it apart?

 

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Rejection Notice? 3 Tips on How to Handle it.

 

Several years a go a friend turned me on to a free stock photo site called stock.xchng (sxc.hu). Many of the images I use on my blog come from there.

I started contributing to that photo community and after a year or two I had about fifty pictures up on my profile. Shots of my kids have been used on web sites and in text books in countries, literally, around the world. At last check I had nearly 100,000 downloads of my stuff.

So, I decided to see if I could make some money at stock photography.

I took down my free stuff, because it is a requirement of most pay sites, filled out the application, took the “entrance exam”, and submitted three sample shots. Not just any samples but sample that had thousands of downloads.

They were rejected.

Now, I do get to try again and they DID provide some guidance as to why those shots were rejected but it still stings. I was tempted to print the email and file it with a couple of rejection letters I have from publishers but I thought I’d blog about it instead.

If you’ve ever experienced rejection, and who hasn’t really, you know it can be tough. In this case though I’m talking specifically about your work, or project, or effort being rejected, not you as a person. I’m not doing dating advice here although you can decide if it applies.

So the next time you find yourself DENIED, SHUT DOWN, REJECTED try to remember these simple reminders:

Tip #1 Remember it isn’t personal.
Whether we’re talking about an audition, a book proposal, or some sample photographs that get rejected you have to remind yourself that it isn’t a rejection of you as a person.

So often we pour ourselves so deeply into our work, especially when it is a creative endeavor, that it becomes unclear where we stop and the work beings. That line becomes such a smooth gradient that it’s impossible to distinguish the result from the effort from the passion.

But remember that what has been rejected is the work NOT you.

Tip #2 Remember to listen.
When we experience rejection emotion bubbles right to the surface. Our dignity is offended and we want to find a way to reject the thinking behind the rejection. “What?!?! Are you KIDDING me?!? Idiots! I’ll show them”

Just stop…breath…and listen.

More often than not the rejection is because the work doesn’t meet the need. Remember that the person approving your work is, in effect, your first customer. You should be looking to provide what they believe THEY need rather than looking past them to their customers. It might be true that you know their customer base better than they do, but odds are you don’t.

My photos were rejected primarily on composition. I disagree BUT by listening to that criticism I now know what to tweak in the next round to try to meet what they’re looking for in a stock photo.

Every rejection has the potential to hold a kernel of truth that, if you listen for it, will make you more likely to succeed next time.

Tip#3 Remember to learn.
I know, it sounds like a repeat of Tip#2, but every rejection is an opportunity to learn. Sometimes we’re NOT told why we missed the mark and that in itself may provide some learning.

  • Sometimes we learn what we could do better to have our work accepted next time.
  • Sometimes we learn what the market is after at the moment and we can tweak our work to match the need.
  • Sometimes we learn that what we THINK we’re good at isn’t really our calling at all. (See American Idol for good examples of this one!)

In any of these instances we gain insight that helps us decide where next to move. If I find out I am not good at stock photography composition I’ll turn more in the direction of artistic expression and sports photography. If My children’s book idea gets rejected a few more times I may have to turn to writing for adults…or stick with blogging.

Each rejection is a potential learning experience that guides future endeavors if we listen closely and don’t allow it to define who we are because it isn’t personal.

Have you ever had your work rejected? What did you learn from the experience?

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Take this Simple Integrity Test

I was speaking to a room full of about 175 Jr Hi kids, this was before the term “middle school” became vogue, and the question I posed was, “What would it be like for you to tell nothing but the truth for the next 48 hours?”

That meant no subtle twisting of the facts, no avoiding the question, no little white lies and no “I was just kidding”‘s. Interestingly only about half the kids were willing to take on that challenge.

I was closing the meeting in prayer and asking that God put each kid who was taking on the challenge in at least one situation where it might be uncomfortable for them to tell the truth. Just as I was getting to the “amen” someone, somewhere near the front, let one go. It wasn’t a huge rip but it was loud enough, and the room was quiet enough that everyone heard it. (For those still unsure as to what I meant the kid passed gas, queefed, had flatus, farted, etc.)

With the ‘n’ of the amen still resounding in the room, eyes starting to look up , and snickers being  painfully if ineffectively repressed throughout the crowd I simply said, “Ok, I hate to ask but, who did it?”

One little seventh grade guy, about three rows back, eyes wide in terror, slowly dropped his head and raised his hand. The room exploded in a mixture of interesting laughter.

Some of it was just what you’d expect from a Jr Hi audience, that mocking tone delivered at another person’s demise. But some of it was a sort of relieved laughter. They’d seen someone take on the challenge and their laughter was part relief that it wasn’t them and part pity on the kid in the spotlight. But some of it, to these kids credit, was actually congratulatory laughter. They had seen their friend in the worst possible timing come through with flying colors!

Integrity is, in one sense, adherence to moral and ethical principles, soundness of moral character, or honesty. But in another sense of the word it is simply wholeness. Allow me to suggest that in terms of how we live integrity can be said to be the level to which our actions are consistent with what we say we believe…wholeness.

You may not hold to the same set of moral standards that I do but if you live out what you claim to be your moral standard to the same degree that I live out mine we are equals in terms of integrity.

So here’s the little test, you’ll need to write these down:

1. Without thinking too deeply about it, first things that come to mind, make a list of the 5-10 things you hold as your most important beliefs or values. Go.

2. Without thinking too deeply about it list 10 people you are around on a consistent basis. Only 3 can be intimate friends or family.

3. Now next to each name write the number of items you think that person would guess correctly from your first list.

Done sincerely it’s an interesting exercise. Did you list “spending time with family” as important? Would your colleagues at work have picked that? Did you list honesty? Would your kid guess that after watching you do your taxes?

If you want to take this to the extreme create a multiple choice list that includes twice the number of items you picked in part one and hand that out to the people listed in part two and see how you fare.

There is a crowd watching. Some want to laugh at you, some want to laugh for you, and some want to laugh in celebration of you. The more consistently we live the larger the third group grows.

Did you take the test? How do you think you scored?

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What’s the Difference Between Life and Sports?

I’m bummed.

Last weekend the Broncos lost, which I thought might happen anyway, but tonight the 49ers lost. I really though they had a shot at winning it all.

I grew up rooting for the 49ers. I’ve personally known some of the players. I DJed a couple team parties back in the day. I’m bummed. And that has made me wonder…

How is it that we can get SO passionate about a team, or a single game, or a season and we rarely experience that kind of passion in the rest of life? Allow me to share a couple observations:

1. Sports span a wide emotional gamut.
There are studies that show that fans actually like games better when there is a chance their team could lose. Blows out are humdrum either way. If we blow out the opponent that’s nice, if we get blown out that’s too bad, but if the game is close our elation of depression are much more deeply felt.

We’re emotional beings so that range of emotions is intoxicating. Threat, risk, despair, hope, anticipation, elation…they’re all there. We like the emotional ride.

2. Faster team sports generate bigger emotions
I don’t have any science on this, I just think it is true. You don’t see fans of individual sports like golf or tennis go as crazy as soccer, hockey, or football fans. I would contend that baseball fans are less crazy too, except perhaps on a hot afternoon when there has been a lot of beer consumed.

We’re social beings made to be in relationship. Team sports are about relationship and interdependence and team work. We love it when all the parts click and wish we could be a cog in that well honed relational mechanism.

3. Sports require split second decision making.
This plays into why faster sports spawn bigger emotions. It is also why soccer fans pick on football fans and football fans pick on baseball fans…the amount of relative dead space in their games. This need for instant decision mixes physical, cognitive, and intuitive skills in an oft times artistic mix that amazes us when it all comes together.

We’re creative beings. When adrenaline courses through our veins our cognitive and physical functions work at max capacity and we are at our most creative. We not only love to feel it, we love to see it in others.

So if that’s how we’re wired why isn’t day to day life more like that?

Probably because we spend a large proportion of our time at work!

1. The workplace engages fewer emotions.
At work we’re asked to operate predominantly out of our brain, sitting on our butt. Emotions are against company policy to a large extent. It’s not: go big or go home, it’s: go big? and we’ll send you home. We’re asked to dial back the range and the volume on every emotion. We must be in control.

2. “Teamwork” takes on a different connotation.
We may be “team players” or “individual contributors” but we rarely, if ever, find ourselves in a place where teammates must connect one after another like a quarterback getting time in the pocket and completing a pass.. (I’ve never worked on an assembly line but I do wonder if it feels more like a team in that setting.)

3. Decisions are generally made over time
…and then second guessed, and then changed. Sports contests are confined to 90 minutes, or nine innings, or the couple hours it takes to play four quarters. Sales cycles are days, weeks, months or sometimes even years. Product life cycles are even longer.

What if we allowed emotional expression in the work place without fear of reprisal? What if we created teams that had to consistently connect the dots one after the other? What if we set up cycle times that put teams in a position to have to do that daily, or even before lunch time?

Would we find ourselves being as passionate about work as we are about sports? And if we were…what might we accomplish?

What can you do to bring the fan experience more realistically into your workplace?

 

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Stress Reduction in Three Movements

I’m late in posting today. I woke up this morning and bolted upright when I realized it was Friday. I typically write in the evening, even try to get ahead sometimes but it has been a bit of a stressful week.

Not an “oh my gosh I’m going insane” stressful week but just one of those “the list seems to be piling up and I can’t keep track of it all” stressful weeks. You know, those weeks where everything seems to only be half-way finished because you’re waiting on something or someone else for information or effort and so the list just grows?

My gears tend to grind to a halt.

Speaking of grinding to a halt my computer froze and went to a black screen shortly after typing that period. It shut down long enough that I started writing again on my laptop and got through a new introduction just in time for this computer to come back on!

Chuckling, shaking my head, but happy to have it back I plugged in my iPhone to download a quick picture to add to this post. And of course iTunes tells me I need to install the latest version first.  YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT HALF FINISHED?!?!?!  Sheesh, one of those weeks.

So in the interest of coming to the aid of those of you who find yourselves mired in the midst of a similarly mind grinding week allow me to compose for you a symphony of stress reduction, in three movements.

Movement #1
The Inconvenient Truth

When the list starts to stretch out and the stress starts to pile up you need look around and determine if your environment is a contributing factor. Hint: It nearly always is.

At the left is a picture of my desk taken moments ago.  Is it any wonder I’m feeling a bit of tension sitting behind this chaos?

We tend to overlook the obvious on this one. We don’t clean it up because we have too much to do but the too much to do feels like a whole lot bigger pile when we’re sitting in a big pile. So…

If you find yourself on hold, halfway through projects waiting for input from others, clean your room. When the desk is clear the mind is too.

Movement #2
More Nike and Less McDonalds

When the list gets long we tend towards, escape, wanting to take a break, after all, we deserve one! “If I just take a minute to rest/watch a favorite show/play a video game I’ll be more relaxed and then I can get stuff done.”

Sorry, wrong move.

The problem with this approach is that the relaxation isn’t truly relaxing because the stress is still playing in the background like environmental music. Get a couple items off the list first, Just do it, THEN pause for breath.

One of my old roommates in grad school days was the consummate example of this. Vance just did things when they needed doing. If I came home from a long day and my car needed an oil change I’d ALWAYS take a break first. “I’ve been at it all day. I need a minute.” Four days later I’d be driving to work, stressed, because my car needed an oil change!

Vance on the other hand would come home from an even longer day and almost without pause change the oil in his car. The guy was ALWAYS relaxed because he ALWAYS did stuff when it needed doing.

Movement #3
Go Big or Go Home

This one is a little counter intuitive. When we have a long list of things to do that is producing stress we typically try to pick off a couple little ones to start. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing particularly if you just need to get started, however; when we start with the little things the big things loom out there like Chernabog looming over the wizard’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia.

Have you ever been hiking up a difficult trail and thought you were getting to the top only to find you’d reached a false summit? working our way upward through the little things can be a lot like that. It makes the task of list reduction a lot like an uphill hike.

Instead why not get a little thing done then nail a big one! JUST DO IT remember? Starting by getting a couple boulders out of the way makes the whole thing feel more like a downhill run then an uphill slog through the heat of the day.

Check your environment, pick something off the list a just do it, and if at all possible start with one of you E ticket items and you’l find your stress dropping off drastically in no time.

What others tips do you have for reducing stress? What would you add to the symphony?

 

 

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Sopa Pipa isn’t just a Mexican Dessert Anymore

 If you’ve not yet encountered the terms SOPA and PIPA they refer to legislation pending before congress that would affect how we access information on the internet.

You’ll find several of your favorite sites blackout today in protest.

Rather than completely blacking out I’m providing a link to a post by Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond. Not only because I think it is an excellent post, but also because I played football with him at Santa Clara University. He’s a really good guy!

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/dont-censor-web.html

Take a minute, read Dave’s post, and decide what action you might be able to take to let your representative know that while you don’t support illegal web activity neither do you support censorship as the solution.

What would life be like with a censored web?

 

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Where do YOU stand on: The Tebow Phenomena

This past Monday I asked does God care about sports?  If you’ve not read that post my conclusion was roughly that God DOES care about sports when He can use it to advance the kingdom and care for his people.  Now, let’s have a show of hands, how many people paid any attention to the wild stats flying around on Monday?

If you missed them let me fill you in:
* Tebow threw for 316 yards
* He set an NFL playoff record by averaging 31.6 yards per completion
* The ratings for the game reportedly peaked at  31.6
* John 3:16 was the top Google search on Monday
Incidentally ESPN also listed Tebow as the most popular athlete in America at the moment.

If you think ALL of that is mere coincidence then, I am sorry, you’re an idiot.

But the question of whether or not Tim has God on his side is not what baffles me most. What truly baffles me in the response of some people to the Tim phenomena.

Sally Jenkins, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a BRILLIANT piece back on December 30th that asks the question: Why are so so many offended by the quarterback’s faith?  If you have time it is well worth the read. In the article she quotes a tweet from political speculator Bill Maher who wrote, on Christmas Eve:

“Wow, Jesus just [expletive] Tim Tebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is Tebowing, saying to Hitler, ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them.’ ”

I really don’t get it. Why all the vitriolic hatred?  Tim isn’t cocky like LeBron or aloof like Tiger or a problem like a boy named Suh. He just plays, and quite often he plays not good! But he wins and he gives credit to God and somehow that pisses people off.  Which is funny if you think about it since most of those people that get angry don’t believe God exists, or so they claim.

You think they’d be that angry if Tim grabbed his belly and laughed like Santa when he scored? Or maybe if he hopped around like the Easter Bunny? Not sure the tooth fairy would work out too well but hey why not?

I can certainly understand venting one’s spleen in the general direction of the media who won’t seem to let it all alone. (Yes, I suppose you may now lump this blog into the fringes of that category.) But that would be more on the level of an eye-roll couple by a silent OMG or WTFNA.

So help me out here, where does all the anger come from?
(Answer that BEFORE you read Jenkins’ article)

And, just for grins, (and for the Python fans in the group) my salute to Tim from the pinnacle of the win streak:

 

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Are you in the right job?

There is a question that I ask everyone who reports to me at one time or another: If you could do anything in the world to make a living, no limitations or restrictions, you could be older, younger, live in the past, live in the future, what would you do?

Would it surprise you to know that fewer than 2% of the people I ask that question ever answer with the job they’re in?  To be fair I don’t know that I have yet answered that way either.  Let’s quadruple my experience though. Let’s guess that 8% of the people you know are in the job that is their perfect fit. Really?!? 8%? That’s horrible. How is it that so few people are really in a job that is what they’d think of as a perfect fit?

The job we land in is typically dictated by a significant number of factors: pay, location, schedule, opportunity for advancement, experiential fit, prestige. If we’re lucky a few of those factors come together and land near what we’d call our perfect job.

I think the trouble, for most of us, is that we never actually interrogate our answer to the question, if you could do anything what would you do? Why never actually ask ourselves why?

For years my answer to that question was that I would either play professional football or act. I played football all the way through college, even a season after college, loved it, miss playing, but I’m way too old now…even by Brett Favre standards. I’ve done some local acting around the edges. Loved it. But I have a family to support and there aren’t a ton of high paying acting gigs in Colorado Springs.

So I guess I’m stuck right? Wrong.

You see when I finally took the time to ask myself why I would pick one of those two professions, and did a little digging, I realized that what those two options had in common was what I call spectacle. They each are imbued  with opportunity to take people out of the course of daily routine and provide them with an emotional experience that is outside their norm.  I LOVE being able to create those moments for people.

For me the word “spectacle” encompasses what I want to be involved in creating. Now, here’s the interesting bit, the rest of that job stuff? Title, location, particular company, prestige etc. etc. all starts to take a back seat. Pay is still important because I have a wife and three kids after all, but as long as what I do has an element of spectacle to it I’m good to go!

So in order to figure out if YOU are in the right job you need to explore the answer to three questions:

  1. If you could do anything to make a living, no restrictions, (the age excuse on football falls out here), what would you do?
  2. What are the elements of your answer to #1 that most inspire you, in other words, why did you pick that?
  3. How much of your answer to #2 is present in your current job?

To be fair you may need someone to help you dig a bit. By way of example my little brother hated question #1, got tired of people asking him about his passion.  He just knew he wasn’t happy in his job and would rather be “doing adventures”.  But you can’t support a family just doing adventures so he’d given up.  Would it surprise you to learn that with some probing and digging we landed on corporate tax accounting as a potential career change? On the surface that seems CRAZY, but once we’d answered the “why” and found the elements he was after HE even agreed that it sounded cool.

Put titles and labels aside. Ask yourself the questions. Get someone to help you dig for the real “why” and you may surprise yourself with where you land.

Are you in the right job? Why do you think you just answered the way you did?

 

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Three truths about TRUTH

If you ever watched any spy shows on TV as a kid then you no doubt remember sodium pentothal – the universal truth serum. I always wondered if it really worked.

Yesterday I read a blog post from my good friend Michael Hyatt announcing the publication of a new book from Andy Andrews. The full post can be found here but I’d like to take the liberty of quoting a bit:

Through the lens of the Holocaust, Andy examines how Hitler was able to get eleven million people to march to their deaths with so little resistance. In short, he lied to them. And, sadly, they believed it.

If the truth is what sets us free, we need to ask what it means to live in a society where truth is absent, where we are routinely lied to by politicians of both parties, Wall Street, and the media. What is at stake? Can we survive in such a culture of deception?

Our only hope, Andy argues, is an informed citizenry that demands truth at every level—first from themselves and second from their leaders. We must be able to separate fact from fiction, truth from lies, and hold those who lie accountable.

If you’ve got two spare minutes pop over to Michael’s blog and check out the original post. I’m really looking forward to reading this book in part because it has already provoked a few thoughts about truth.

1) Truth is intolerant
By its nature something said to be true is immutable. Statements like, “Well that may be true for you but not for me” are, outside of personal preferences or descriptions, actually contradictions of the very nature of truth. In the interest of discussion let me put a finer point on it, absolute truth is absolutely immutable.

That being said truth is not something subject to interpretation or application but rather ought to be the subject of discovery and investigation: a digging after the truth.

2) Truth is the basis for all rational discussion
Fortunately because truth is immutable and intolerant of multiple interpretations or applications we, as humans, can have rational conversation and debate. Of course the conversation starts to get sideways when we THINK both parties understand truth in the same way, but dont’.

Most of us would agree it’s not right to punch someone in the nose for no reason. But unless we ALL hold this as absolutely true then someone else might come along and state that that may be well and true for YOU but not for them…and shmack you in the schnozz.

That simple example seems pretty easy to digest. But try to use a similar foundation when discussing religion or politics and you go WAYYYY off in the deep end. There are many, many, many interpretations of what is true in those arenas.However, if we go back to our original premise that truth is immutable and intolerant, then most of those interpretations are false.

3) Truth is worth seeking
To often what we proclaim as “true” is really an intuitive leap based on a collection of readily accessible facts. Al Gore gave us an inconvenient truth that global warming was an imminent threat to all life on earth. Huh? There seems to be a measurable set of facts around temperature, and ice flow size, and ozone hole size to name a few…those things seem to be factually true. But saying that this threatens all life on earth is an interpretation of those facts…it isn’t true.

Now, to be fair, it MAY be true and if it is it is certainly inconvenient. But for the moment it is no more true than the Mayans prediction that the world will end on December 21 of this year. Is the truth of the matter worthy of more research and study? Certainly. Truth is always worth digging after.

I come from what I would call an orthodox protestant Christian background. Several times I have had Mormon missionaries come to my door.  I’ve had some GREAT conversations with these guys. I typically tell them that we can discuss anything they’d like as long as they agree to three principles:

  1. Each of us is seeking to serve God as best we can.
  2. We’re not both right.
  3. If we focus on #2 then we’ll try to prove each other wrong but if we focus on #1 then together we’ll dig after the truth.

Sometimes they stay for a chat. (The longest lasted several months meeting once a week.)  Most times they don’t.

As I said I am looking forward to reading Andy’s book. But if we are to be a society that seeks after truth then we must agree to a similar set of principles:

  1. Each of us is seeking to know the truth
  2. There is one right answer
  3. Digging together for the truth still requires us to agree and apply it.

My guess is that as a society we fall apart at #1.

Do you think that as a society we can move in the direction of being governed by truth?