A500.4.3.RB - Blog - Ballet Slippers or Adorable?

"a rose by any other name might smell and look different,"  I feel that this is so true in American culture;  people want a choice in quality yet this is generally based on the perceived quality and not on consumer reports.  You can have two products side by side and if one is significantly more expensive it is perceived as being of higher quality, even if in reality they are identical in functionality and reliability.  I found Sheena's talk very interesting; I haven't ever really stopped and thought that too many choices could lead to bad ones, but it makes sense.  This, to me, reinforces the idea that choices that are not properly made when multiple choices are involved is a simple percentage of odds.  In a business scenario you would hope that a choice would be highly scrutinized as to ensure that the decision that is made fits it's desired purpose the best. Too many choices in the business environment, or even governmental environment, lets say for tooling, would lead those companies that have money to incentivize the consumer to choose their product.  This lobbying leads to an unfair practice of pushing the weak competition out of the running, even though the smaller manufacturer tends to have more to loose by offering an inferior product. 
This goes back to what I spoke about in an earlier assignment of picking the low hanging fruit, the things that have been tested and show positive results and are easier to get others to sign off on with the availability of "concrete" results.  They will work for the interim but will not allow an organization to stand out in one way or another for future investment concessions.
We need choices, but should choices be based solely on affordability, like the difference between Apple and PCs,  I agree that the Apple operating system is superior to Windows but the price to replace a windows computer is so much lower that Apple will never be a standard in the larger organizational environment.  A choice like this is fairly easy to make based solely on cost analysis, and this will generally trump any ambiguous efficiency metrics, because Apple will not give deals like a PC manufacturer can.

A500.3.4.RB - Blog - Explore the Hunt Library

From what I can tell, you will always be able to find a citation when you use the Hunt Library, this would be my first acknowledged difference between sponsored Google sites and the Library.  People always go to the first site that magically appears on Google because they feel that it must be the best, when in reality it is the most expensive site that relates to your search history.  It is true that you will have to do a little digging to find a document in the Library that fits your needs effectively, but you will not have to weed through wiki sites and the eight sites that would like you to know what Leadership is defined as. 
Within the Hunt Library, I will find an abundance of journal articles from individuals posing the questions that I am currently pondering; so it will allow for additional insight into issues I have not began to understand from persons thinking along similar lines as myself.

A500.2.3.RB - Blog - Tell Your Story

What are some standards that are most important in your life? Consistent truisms!  I find that in these times of US political chaos, no one group of people have your interests covered. You have to get informed and become a critical thinker to come to some conclusions that are well researched and free from bias.  So... standards wise I have a strong standard of not letting any one person or group sway my decision.  Take it all in and spend some time with it on your own.  Another standard that is important to me is directed ambiguity; I know that you can't always have the clearest picture moving forward with projects or programs, but an achievable goal needs to be established for what ever you are doing.  Even if the goal is one that takes you through the day or the week, there needs to be a way to measure accomplishment and achieve something tangible. So what I am saying is that ambiguity makes work interesting but too much of it will make you CRAZY! Another standard that has become so important to me as of late is being a good father.  I feel that I have always been trying to achieve something that will allow me to better provide for my family, but by doing so it has taken it's toll with the amount of engagement I have had with my children and wife.   Now that I have a new job that requires me to take my work home with me, at least mentally, I am spending less time with my family and am not sure how to correct this.  I was doing this masters program prior to starting this job and would like to finish on the schedule that was already in place, but I have no time.  I can't give my all to both school and work, and in fact I have not been able to give anything to school for three weeks now.In short, a work-life balance where you lean more towards the life side is one of my standards. I of course am talking of my latest string of standards, I have been a waiver-er for most of my life and jump on board with what my friends, family, and/or work colleagues are pushing.  I feel that I have not been one to really think things through, although, if you didn't know me and were to bare witness to my accomplishments you would think I have it all planned out and that I am on track to take over Mars where we decide to inhabit it.  I have made some good decisions, but most of them were slapping me in the face.  The rest were emotional drive towards something that sounded interesting, like a masters in leadership.  I know that I will be able to do amazing things with my schooling, but will it out way the things I will achieve with my new skill sets and experience.  As stated before I have gone through many standards over my short lifetime and continue to develop new ones, but I feel that my future standards will have a lot more of me in them, and that is exciting.

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A500.1.5.RB_Intellectual Perseverance

      Intellectual perseverance is the drive within an individual and/or group to overcome difficult questions, situations, and/or problems. The right answers come from extensive investigation, pondering, and usually multiple failures.  For one to intellectually persevere in a scenario like this, they would need to possess additional attributes such as patience, humility, and courage in order to arrive at a definitive long term solution that feels right.   

      When I am tasked at work and I can tell that the right solution to an issue could take weeks or months to resolve I attempt to find a solution that would bridge across the immediate future as to not have to deal with the real underlying problem.  I find quick answers to the issue within my available resources: people’s knowledge/insight and/or data mining. Valuable information comes from this, but a lot of the time I gain an understanding that the given information is not going to be the fix that mitigates future occurrences by the simple fact that the information given doesn’t encompasses the full scope of my issue.  I sell the fix to the appropriate people to get the aircraft flying again (NOT SAFETY ISSUES, reliability issues) but I keep it on my to-dos and revisit it at my convenience. 

     This works for what I am doing, but one thing I have noticed is that if you don’t get to the root, the issue will be overgrown by the time you get back around to it and an additional level of perseverance will be needed to overcome.  This is the real test of will; if you have the ability to gather information, analyze said information, break it down into understandable arguments for each decision,  and then MAKE THE DECISION based upon your bias of right and wrong, you exhibit a great level of intellectual perseverance