Well it's that time of year again. College graduation season is upon us and a temporary feeling of joy and optimism abounds as it should. As for Mom and Dad relief may be a more apt description -- there were days they had serious questions about your commitment to the...

Have you ever watched one of those television programs about how aliens have been visiting earth and gumming up the works with their weird science since time time immemorial? It starts out with a legitimate and intriguing premise such as why the Sphinx is really thousands of years older than...

Recently I spoke to a conference of leading business school deans about the prospects of the MBA degree. My speech was entitled The Future has Come and Gone and You've Missed It. Admittedly this was a pathetic attempt to...

When I was eight years old I had a secret identity. By day I was mild mannered Jeffrey but when the shadows of the afternoon drew long I became Batman. No, not the brooding and menacing Dark Knight but rather the breezy and kitsch Caped Crusader -- POW, BAM,...

Recently the World Economic Forum came out with their Annual Report of Global Competiveness. Apparently, Switzerland and Singapore are now officially the valedictorian and salutatorian of the global class, while the U.S. is the kid with a lot of potential if only he would apply himself. It would be...

"18-35? You Are Generation Screwed!" was emblazoned on the cover of Newsweek. A little light summer reading, a sufficiently controversial subject and a Tina Brown screamer -- I just couldn't resist. The basic argument goes like this: Boomers...

Want true love in your life? There's an app for that. Want to know what secrets tomorrow holds for you? There are dozens of apps for that. Want to lose 10 pounds in just 10 days? You guessed it -- an app. Life is now so simple for everyone that...

In ancient times the two-faced god Janus adorned the lintel above the front door of the prosperous Roman gentry. He was a reminder of how our perception determines our precarious place in the world and what we take to be true -- inside and out, coming and going, the future...

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...