How many more times does disaster have to strike before responders finally learn the lesson of the need for unified command?  How many times do agencies need to experience a tug-of-war over resources, slow response to needs due to poor inter-agency communication, and lousy coordination all because the "powers that be" refuse to put their […]

For some reason today I was reflecting on two of the worst teachers I had when I was in school (back around the Ice Age) and just why they were such terrible teachers.  I suppose that other than their lousy personalities, it would have had to be their passive-aggressive nature when it came to the […]

There's all kinds of supporting documentation regarding the differences in simply sending a message and telling a story.  In doing the research for a paper I mentioned earlier on this blog, I found that some companies like 3M and Nordstrom used the art of telling a story to deliver their vision instead of simply outlining […]

I was playing around with Twitter the other day and blundered onto a site that discusses social media, coincidentally named Social Media Insider, which of course, led me to a link (and to another) in regard to quality.  The title of the blog was actually "What Does Better Mean" and it was on a blog […]

I started to title this, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, but no matter what I did, that title wasn’t fitting really well.  Soooo, as you may be able to tell from the title, I just wanna talk a little bit about being serious and not being serious.  On any number of occasions, I (and a […]

So I was going to bed and I just wanted to look over the stats for Firehouse Zen.  You know, you all aren’t a really talkative bunch, so I do look over the numbers from time to time to see if I am reaching anyone (and maybe by looking at which pages are more popular, […]

In another post, I mentioned a great homily by Father Chris where he spoke about getting the message out (you know, THE Message).  I specifically discussed one of his points about how, when someone in today's society doesn't agree with you, the expectation is that they have a "right" to be offended.  How if you have decided […]

It seems like everytime I speak with one of my colleagues, we have all got so much going on that certain things fall by the wayside.  Some of these things are important enough that allowing them to slip affects others, or an important project we are working on loses momentum. One of the problems I […]