With summer upon us, most Seattle businesses and nonprofits have done their initial goal settingidentifying strategy, measuring against last years success or challenges and dreaming that vision of success. Some companies are taking to heart the new neuroscience discoveries, which indicate that when you marry ideas, strategies and vision with a visual picture, you have…

You would expect the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce to be focused on issues such as job creation, education and transportationand we are. You might not expect to see our chamber actively engaged in celebrating and promoting Seattles vibrant music scene, featuring Sir Mix-A-Lot at our social media conference, or creating a common ground vision…

The Boston Garden provided a playing home for Beantowns hockey and basketball teams for nearly 70 years. Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto was home of the eponymous hockey club for about as long. The current incarnation of New Yorks Madison Square Garden, opened in 1968, is still in operation as a venue for sporting events,…

See full illustration at end of article. If you havent heard someone lament the rapid decline of civility, you havent been paying attention. Social commentators have been going on about how the next generation is less civil than the previous one since before people were using forks. In 1530, the Dutch priest and scholar Erasmus…

When I first came to Seattle in 1989, I enjoyed Seattle Times columnist Emmett Watsons rants about the swarm of Californians invading this impressionable region. Watson called for a Lesser Seattle campaign whose central tenet was also the name of a fictitious organization known as KBO (Keep the Bastards Out). Watson could just as well…

Lean on me. The Leaning tower of Pisa. Jack Spratts wife could eat no lean. You may forget, for now, any other context for the word lean. The only approved usage of lean these days is as a method for improving workplace efficiency and productivity. But you already know this, unless you are oblivious not…

Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when Amazon.com became the Borg? Me, neither. It just sort of happened. One day, Amazon was this little online bookstore that couldnt make a profit. The next, it had 65,000 employees, $48 billion in annual sales and the same fearsome presence as those boxy…

When I was 19, I spent a summer working at a kibbutz that bordered a gorgeous beach on the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, I spent most of my days in a factory making ladder rungs for the Israeli army. I would stuff a block of wood in a machine and watch it grind a notch. Turn, repeat….

If youre like me, one of the first things you do at work in the morning is read your email. Bad move, it turns out. Why? The randomness with which tasks are thrown at you decreases your cognitive ability. You can end up spending a big chunk of your day reacting to those demands while…

Washington states effort to establish an insurance Exchange by January 1, 2014, as part of the 2010 federal health care reform law, is getting less publicity than the pending U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of health reform. But the Exchange will lead to a transformation of the current system that relies on employer-sponsored…