I've read a bunch this morning about how we're all losing our consumer confidence. It's no wonder. I don't have to tell you the reasons. People have confidence when they have a feeling of stability. When the bedrock under your feet starts to shift, you lose that confidence. Between

News comes that the Associated Press, in one attempt to define the nature of content in the new media, is looking to charge online writers for use of their material -- as little as five words, which would cost $12.50.

That would mean that the link I just provided...

I go to a lot of meetings with a lot of bullsh**ters. One of the main topics of such people in a host of different businesses is a twofold argument with which they amuse themselves and each other. Here are its two prongs:

-- My business is coming up the...

Today we begin a unique event on this site, which is normally a quiet and dignified place and relatively unused to the clang of swords and the sweat and smoke of organizational politics, let alone the art of self-promotion.

It attends the publication of my new investigation of workplace life,...

Two events in the media happened recently that gave me, as a manager of other people, a cold shudder down the back of what's left of my spine.

The first was the publication of Scott McClellan's book What Happened. You can argue all day about whether Mr. McClellan was a)...

It is possible that the problem with the world right now, or at least one of the problems with the world, which seems to have its fair share at this point, is that people are required to give their opinions on matters that are relatively obscure, and then, due to...

Boulevardiers and professional business diners throughout the New York City area have been chattering this week about a recent piece in the New York Times that announced, once and for all, who had been elected the Mayor of Michael's. That throne went to Joe Armstrong, formerly of ABC and now...

I don't know why everybody is pussyfooting around about this. I think it's safe to say that, with oil blasting up to $200-a-barrel sometime soon, another inexorable millstone suddenly sails into view. I want to be the first to say it. Remember where you read it first.

To hell with...

To those unsophisticated in the business arts, the behavior of Wall Street and its analysts may seem arbitrary, based on emotion, greed, self-aggrandizement and a narrow understanding of the true interests of organizations and the customers they serve. It takes deep study to perceive otherwise, in fact. Just this morning,...

I understand the purveyors of malware, sort of, the same way I get why people spraypaint walls or put chewing gum where people can step on it. At their most virulent, I suppose the digital vandals aren't that far from the anarchists who placed bombs in train stations, ostensibly as...

1. I like reading all the articles in the normally sycophantic Apple (AAPL) magazines promising to fix the 10 Things You Hate About Leopard.

2. I like to think about the meetings they had at Apple, in which the Development people fought with the Marketing people over whether the product...

In about a month, my new book will be published. It's called Executricks: or How To Retire While You're Still Working. Compact, entertaining and wise, the book will teach you how to live like an executive even if you aren't one, cleanly, legitimately, creating while you are still in mid-career...

As some of you might have been able to tell, yesterday's blog was not a random exercise. It was written in the near dark just after dawn, as I looked forward to a day that was to include a meeting that began with breakfast and ended well after lunch. The...

1. Sit.

2. Check your BlackBerry, but never when someone superior to you in the pecking order is speaking.

3. Draw on the pad provided on the corporation for your take-away.

4. Go to the bathroom, but never while someone on a higher branch of the corporate tree is tossing...

NEW YORK, April 29, 2008: Observers of the business scene were aghast today, when it appeared there was in fact no breaking news to fill the pipeline. "There's news," said one analyst who declined to be named because he was unauthorized to speak by his senior management, which is now...

We're all drinking a lot less for business reasons now, because... well, I don't really know why. We just are. You go to lunch and a proud phalanx of sparkling water bottles festoons the room, and everybody is munching on salads like giraffes. This is sad for two reasons. First,...

As any reader of this space may be able to tell by now, I'm a big fan of bailouts. Some believe that the markets should go through the pain of what they have wrought on themselves in order to come out the other side cleaner, stronger, faster. Not me. If...

Have you ever noticed that the rudest people are often the most touchy about any slight to THEM?

This is an executive trait, of course. People who feel particularly comfortable yelling at others, but whose feelings are incredibly sensitive to any kind of slight. I once knew a guy who...

I woke up yesterday morning and found myself paralyzed. I lay in bed and couldn't move. I didn't even know what I was worried about, I was so worried. Eventually, I got myself up, shaved with trembling hands, and made my way to the office. I got to my desk...

Just a short note today because I'm a little worried about myself. I wonder if you guys out there can figure out this phalanx of symptoms:

* Overall tightness in my neck and upper back;
* Achy elbows, particularly my right one;
* Pain that radiates from...