Jeff DeGraff

I was recently asked by an authority figure in fashionable red pumps to tidy up my library. I can only assume this is the first step of a more serious intervention. You see, I have a little problem with books. I'm addicted to them. I cruise the bookstores at least...

I was walking through the engaging new Decorative Arts of the World's Fair exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City when I chanced to see a photograph by Charles Thurston Thompson depicting the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In a strange way I felt...

One of the side effects of my portfolio life is that I travel more than any rational person should. I have inadvertently become an inconspicuous observer of world cultures as I briefly move through all manner of terra incognita. I mostly come away with small fragments that wouldn't make the...

My teenage son reported in a snit the other day that my answer to everything is "You figure it out." Maybe the printer wasn't working right or, horror of all horrors, there was no signal, or maybe he was just in an Angry Bird mood. He blames this elevated sense...

Each year around this time the calls and emails start -- magazines, associations, think tanks. "What are the most innovative companies in the world?" Of course the first challenge is to discern what exactly they mean by innovation so I can pander to their readership or membership -- elegant product...

I live in Michigan -- the Great Lakes State. The upside -- The earth doesn't shake, the wind doesn't blow everything into the ocean every other year and fires can't burn very much because we are surrounded by 95 percent of all the fresh...

I was in a positively ebullient mood as I went off to Christmas Mass at St. Mary's with my family in tow. The senses were amped up for the big production: stained glass, plainsong, frankincense and myrrh -- the works. A procession of...

It's that time again -- the Christmas to New Year dash -- rat-a-tat- tat. I believe Weight Watchers counts it as a half-marathon and gives you enough points to devour at least one chocolate éclair and swill a few glasses of port. Put up the lights, take the youngsters to...

At the conclusion of the delightful movie Amadeus, the jealous and mischievous court composer Antonio Salieri, who has undone Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, announces that he is in fact "the Patron Saint of mediocrity" and proceeds to absolve the mentally ill and parish priest alike of their sin of ordinariness. Playwright...

I was asked recently to give a speech on the state of innovation in the biotech sector at a convention for clever research scientists turned rich and swanky entrepreneurs. Like a bus and truck Broadway show, I do dozens of these types of crowd pleaser events every year -- Counter-intuitive...

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. " Arthur Schopenhauer

Dale Carnegie advised never to talk about religion or politics in public because you never know who you might offend. While I will...

For a quarter of a century I have kept the same seats in the Big House. I don the maize and blue, sing along with the faithful and even drink the Kool-Aid colored schnapps -- everything but the tattoo. I love college football --...

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" declared the longtime news anchor Howard Beale in the 1975 film classic Network. In the picture, people everywhere toss open their windows and repeat the catchphrase with a barbaric yap. They rush to the streets in maddening throng...

What if you were a company? Not a brand or product but a company with lots of moving parts and dots to connect -- demanding shareholders, disengaged employees and a to-do list that would make Santa Claus swoon.

That just about sums it up for most of us as...