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The Value of Story: Mavericks

I am just back from witnessing the spectacle which is the Mavericks Invitational big wave event at Pillar Point, Half Moon Bay, Ca. There are a huge number of stories surrounding this event, and I must select a few, and share those in Editorial. I worked this event with Deniece Watkins Smith who is a budding Photographer, sage Silicon Valley Real Estate Agent and wife to Cary Smith of the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol. We shot the event together. It was a lot of fun, challenge, and rich with story! Here is a great piece on the value of Story.

Ode to Resolution

My wife slipped into my office this morning as I was experiencing this piece. She said what I was thinking: “That is the soundtrack to Fukushima.” Here is a remarkable performance of The Dark Knight – Hans Zimmer /James Newton Howard -LIVE by the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra and Choir, a part of the Masterpiece show. I would like to re-name it though: “Dark Night, An Ode to Resolution”. As is rarely so obvious a circumstance, we have a fantastic opportunity to evolve as a species as a result of what has gone on unabated for almost three years now at

Critical Thought, and Creating Change

The other day I got an e mail note from a newer member of a group which I participate in with this piece related to Global Warming-Climate Change and the global push which attempts to reside beneath the subject heading of Sustainable Development, a subject which I know a great deal about and generally refrain from discussion of. Here is the piece I was sent. http://masdar.ae/en/adsw/detail/lily-laurence-cities-redefine-success-and-focus-on-what-matters Here was my reply. “Great article. However the reality may actually be the inverse of what we are being led to believe, and is possibly scripted by business interests setting up profit bases for

Holy Water: A Christmas History

Christmas began for me around 6 am on Dec 25th in 1955, when I was born. My Mother had been on her way to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She had stumbled on the steps leading up to the church and labor began. I like to think it was me who pushed her. That somehow, I knew Christmas and I, we would need to become acquainted. “Let me out!” I can imagine the look on my Mom’s face as she realized she would not be in church that day, Catholicism being what it was at that

My Truth

Any Organization or person which stands in an effort to accomplish something of merit or value, must predicate it’s existence on belief. Some call this belief system: “Our Truth”. Recently I watched as one of the companies I am a part of, had it’s leadership disappear and not only jeopardize the organization, but potentially engage in some actions which could cost a lot of lives and careers. The person is doing what I call “Flailing” which is sort of like beating the air with your arms as you head for the bottom of a fall which you embarked upon when

Understanding Fukushima-Daichi

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 I began to study aspects of the disaster at Fukushima-Daichi the moment the Tohoku quake occurred. The disaster began not on 3-11, as common knowledge would have us believe, but during the throes of the Cold War in the late 1950’s. Some aspects of it actually date back to the turn of the century After watching the tsunami wash ashore with some of my colleagues from K38 Rescue (we

Love and Trustedness

Maybe it is the full moon which hangs sagging slowly through a clear western sky which has me awake at 3am working. But I suspect that it may be something else. It always cracks me up, when as I am sorting through the variety of large and complex projects which are the melange of companies I get to help shepherd, that a blog invariably pops in from Seth Godin. This one, (as usual) was exactly about what I am working on today. Creating trust. He titles it: Belief is More Powerful Than Truth. I am a strong believer in Strategic

The Morning After (Veterans Day)

I did not do my customary blog entry on Veterans Day yesterday. To be honest, it was more out of embarrassment, than anything else. As everyone went about engaging the socially acceptable platitude of “Thanking a Veteran”, I could not help but be very uncomfortable by what I have been watching happen to our Veterans in recent years. The day as a holiday yesterday, made me even more miserable about being an American. It is no secret, nor is it news in any way, that War is waged on the backs of our youth. That the Political Will, embedded in

North Coast Musings

I am seated at a small round table which is covered with a white table cloth, and rests in a bay window alcove. In the corner in front of me, a gas fireplace glows and fills the room with a soft warm embrace. To my right is a queen size bed in which my wife sleeps. At my left through moisture streaked windows, I see the faint outline of that vast diorama which is the rugged Northern California coast. Approximately 400 feet below me, down a near sheer cliff, lies the sea, and she has come awake with new

Messy and Beautiful

I frequently note that Life (that precarious process which we see daily around us) is both messy and beautiful. In my work this is illustrated to me regularly. Seth Godin writes beautifully on that today, in a blogpost entitled Our Crystal Palace. Julie Borowski hilariously points out the ridiculousness of the TSA in a very similar vein when she is molested by them and makes a beautiful statement about something very horribly messy. In our tendency to want to get through the messy, we somehow lose sight of the beautiful, and quite frequently pass on the possibility to effect some

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