Dan Pfeffer. Kevin Sullivan. Jen Psaki. Ellen Moran. Jennifer Palmeri. Anita Dunn. Nicole Wallace. Dan Bartlett. Karen Hughes.
Recognize any of those names? I don’t. If you do, you’re probably a White House wonk. But my guess is that you don’t either. Those are the ten White House Communications Directors that held the position before Donald Trump came to office. There’s been 33 of them in all since the role was founded in 1960. I’ve heard of two of them. Continue reading
In 1880, George Eastman developed a machine that could coat the dry photographic plates used in the sliver gelatin process. In plain English, that means he made it easier to make the things that made pictures. Eight years later, he founded the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY. Eastman Kodak sold cameras pre-loaded with film for the modern day equivalent of $600. Continue reading
In the mid 90’s, when I was there, Admiral Chuck Larson was the Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy—the Navy’s version of a university president. He was a full blown four-star Admiral in a role normally reserved for two-stars. The Academy had hit a few rough patches in the years leading up to my time. There was a cheating scandal and a few other ugly incidents. So the brass brought back one of their most distinguished graduates to steady the ship. Continue reading
Daniel was a rare and talented warrior.
He was razor sharp. He picked things up so quickly it was like he’d seen it all before. His eyes would latch on to someone when they talked like he was quietly downloading them. He was strong and tough, viciously so, if he needed to be. We beat him down like we beat down the others so that we could build them back up. But he never flinched. He never lost that deep set, dark stare. He refused to be broken down. Perhaps because we could never build him back better than he already was.
It was his home, not ours, but he had traveled further than any of us to be where he was. Continue reading
The first Saturday after the 2016 election, I sat down with my kids to eat breakfast at our kitchen table. Cheerios and bacon. It was a Saturday morning dad breakfast if ever there was one. I did my best to engage them in conversation but I was a distracted. The election was on my mind. I had a few thoughts I wanted to put down and post on my then small but growing political blog. So, after they cleaned up their plates and wandered off, I opened up my laptop and took about thirty minutes to cobble together a few paragraphs that captured how I felt about the previous few days. I did a too brief once over to proof read it, hit the publish button, closed my laptop and went about my day. Continue reading
Silicon Valley didn’t invent disruption. We like to throw the word around like we did though. Uber disrupted taxi and car services. iTunes disrupted the music industry. Google disrupted, well everything.
It’s been happening for a long time though.
It’s been 500 years since Martin Luther disrupted Christianity when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. 80 years before that Gutenberg disrupted human knowledge with his printing press. Centuries later, three men in Philadelphia sat down to disrupt the governing of man with the most important document the world has seen since scripture. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I sat down to do a podcast with retired SEAL, fellow writer and friend Andy Stumpf. He asked me a good question. And I gave him an ok answer. I’ve thought about it quite a bit since and I feel like I left a lot on the table. I write answers to questions like the one he asked a lot better than I say them. So I thought I’d give myself a second chance at it.
It’s worth the time I think. Because it’s one of the most important thing I ever learned. Continue reading
As long as we’ve been making computers, we’ve been trying to make them beat us at chess. That sounds like an odd thing to do with a computer out of all possible things that can or could be done with one. Until you spend a little time figuring out how one makes a computer that can beat a human at chess.
And then you get it. And then you’re scared to death. Continue reading
We don’t write books or make movies about the men and women who drive ships any more. But maybe we should. Continue reading
Within the first few pages of the second to last chapter of the important book Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito and Northeastern University’s Jeff Howe, I found a jarring sentence. It came as part of an introductory description of how MIT Media Lab Synthetic Neurobiologist Ed Boyden looks at the human brain.
To Boyden, “The brain is more verb than noun.” Continue reading
Chartwell West 