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Bill @ MindPrep

Bill Welter

Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.

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Resending: Mindprep 251 - (Business) Thinking in a Wicked World

Hi Reader, Three Assumptions and a Conclusion I’ve been in “the world of work” for well over a half-century and have seen a lot of change resulting in successes, failures, trends, and fads. Some examples include: The very definition of “quality” morphed in the 1980s. Trucking became logistics and when combined with warehousing, they grew into supply-chain. “Shareholder value” was invented to urge senior leaders to take a long-term view but that idea was quickly gamed, and some members of the...

4 days ago • 3 min read

Reader The phrase, translated as “if you want peace, prepare for war” is found in the late 4th century writings of the Roman Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus. I came across it while reading a fascinating book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by the historian Niall Ferguson. At one point along his journey through history he was explaining England’s political reaction to war following the end of World War I. It’s not that they prepared for another war; it’s that they didn’t. Because of...

28 days ago • 3 min read

Reader AI fever has infected many companies. And the rush to implement AI is akin to the gold rush of 1849. “Put it in! Show your customers that you are smart and worthy of their money! Do it NOW!” Not sure what to do? Find an AI consulting firm (LOTS of them already), give them a contract, and get going! Whoa! Slow down a bit and take some advice from the late Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science. His advice, found in the title of his book All Life...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

Reader Here are a dozen questions to consider as you think about the future. First, orient yourself to your four futures. After, I’ll comment on five different ways to think about the future. (BTW, I’ll dig into these ways of thinking about Ozempic & Wegovy in the February 15th Directed Dialogues session. It’s at 12:00 CT, will last 40 minutes, and can be joined https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84381397493.) Four futures All of us are faced with four futures. Known: This future is understood by...

3 months ago • 5 min read

Reader Can we predict the future? No. Can we anticipate the future? We’d better. The late management thinker, Peter Drucker, wrote about considering the “futurity of present decisions” to anticipate changes that will come about because of decisions we are making today. We are in the early stages of “the electric vehicle” age. EV cars, EV bicycles, EV scooters, and EV aircraft all have one thing in common – batteries. Let me start by reproducing an old MindPrep article. MindPrep 3/17/13: An...

3 months ago • 3 min read

Reader OK, here’s a softball question. What do the following four items have in common? An “explicit” photo of Taylor Swift posing at a Kansas City Chiefs game. George Carlin released a new standup comedy special. Joe Biden called people throughout New Hampshire and urged them not to vote in the primary. A video of Hamas downing an Israeli combat helicopter over Gaza. THEY ARE ALL FAKE! And here is the BIG downside of artificial intelligence. They looked or sounded genuine. Yep, your eyes and...

3 months ago • 2 min read

Reader Carl Sagan the astronomer, exobiology pioneer, and advocate of skeptical scientific inquiry died in December of 1996. His book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candlestick in the Dark, was published earlier that year. In the book Sagan addressed many of the thinking problems facing today’s world. The back cover presents the challenge that Sagan undertook: “How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the differences...

3 months ago • 3 min read

Reader Last December MindPrep 233 addressed the topic of “They are Trying to Bend Your Mind.” Really? Could someone cause you to change your mind? Bend your mind? How? Well, face the brutal facts. It’s been happening to us humans for a very, very long time. In fact, something changed the minds of millions of Germans about ninety years ago. It was propaganda and it was used effectively. Propaganda is not new. It’s been used before and it’s applicable today. It’s important that we learn from...

4 months ago • 4 min read

Reader 2024 is opening before us and we can be sure that we will be exposed to an incredible number of deceptive stories and pronouncements. But forgeries and fakes are nothing new. Thinking people have been exposed to them for ages and, yes, we have fallen for them. But fortunately, someone seems to come along who challenges them and the truth shines through. Unsplash A brief history of deception 1725 - Beringer's Lying Stones: A series of stones with images of plants and insects that...

4 months ago • 3 min read

Reader The last issue of MindPrep had the initial announcement for my 2024 experiment, MindPrep Navigator, and a short list of the topics and dates for a new offering, Directed Dialogues. Here’s a bit more information regarding Directed Dialogues. Premises Covid-19 forced many of us to work from home, alone. Webinars are often too long and often a boring broadcast. The world of work is changing faster than we want. We are responsible for our professional development, but we are busy. Thinking...

4 months ago • 2 min read
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