As mentioned in my previous blog post, this year marks the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. At the conclusion of that war—at the time referred to as The Great War—the prevailing opinion was that we’d never see another one like it and Earth would finally be at peace. A mere 20 years later, however, Adolf Hitler’s army marched into Poland and thus began what was to become World War II. Six years later, after 60 million (roughly 2.5 percent of the planet’s population at the time) had been killed, it finally concluded. Once again, everyone thought we would finally have world peace.

As history tells us, that was certainly not true. War after conflict has followed in a bloody trail since—and as I said in my previous blog it seems evident we have not learned much in the last 100 years. But today we could be saved by technology which, unfortunately, was not available to our forefathers. Read more →

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. The causes of that great war are complex, but can be boiled down to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, and his wife Sophie, at the hands of Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist. The assassination resulted in Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, which was Russia’s ally. The war rapidly escalated into a global conflict because both the Austrian Empire and Russia had staunch allies which formed them into two super-powers. A third might be considered to be the US which didn’t publicly ally itself to either side; rather it declared war directly on Germany for targeting, with its submarines, England-bound American ships in the North Atlantic. Read more →

Last year Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer created an uproar when she cancelled Yahoo’s work-at-home policy, issuing a memo that all telecommuting employees must return to work. On the heels of that change in policy, Best Buy followed suit with a similar change in policy. It seems that the prognostication of only a few years ago—that telecommuting would become more of a norm than an exception—is being seriously challenged.

It’s certainly not a problem of technology—the technology is there, affordable and relatively easy to deploy. The pages of Wired continue to be filled with the many possibilities and opportunities. Many tasks can be performed from home, from Starbucks, from a diner or even the park. Meetings can easily be held and conversations can be engaged in throughout the world, complete with accompanying graphics and video.

Why, then, do we seem to be moving in the opposite direction? I believe it’s like any other scenario in life and business: once you actually arrive in a new paradigm and scope out the landscape adjustments will always have to be made, and procedures will have to be established and tweaked to achieve the successful potential envisioned. Read more →