November 24, 2008 by neilkrey.

The media is full of discussion about huge organizations that are being bailed out with taxpayer money because they are “too big to fail”.  According to the arguments, letting a General Motors, a CitiGroup, or any of dozens of other compnies fail would result in unacceptable consequences in terms of the economy and job losses.

What I wish someone would talk about is whether these mega-corporations are really too big to fix.  Rather than putting them on public life support, would it be better to let them slip away into history?

Posted in Economy | 2 Comments »

November 5, 2008 by neilkrey.

My wife and I each have our own alarm clock.  Hers is a traditional analog type with the little pointer that indicates what time the alarm will go off.  Mine is a fancy digital clock radio that has two different alarm times and lets you choose either an alarm tone or the radio.

If she is in a hurry to set the alarm, it can be as much as 15 minutes early or late.  If I am in a hurry, I am likely to get a very precise 12 hour error.

“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.” - Alan Perlis, Computer Scientist

There is no question that my alarm is the more complex of the two, so I suppose it is no surprise that it would be more prone to operator error.  This relationship is found in our cockpits as well.  Avionics have made a huge jump in capability, and complexity, over the last decade.  I often instruct in aircraft equipped with the Garmin G1000 and Avidyne Entegra glass cockpit systems.  While I feel I am very proficient in their use, I still learn new things about them from time to time.  And you customers have to work hard to learn to take advantage of everything these systems can do. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in SRM/CRM | No Comments »