Three Years At The Horizon

“Wake up. You need to watch this. History is happening.”

Memories from early childhood are at best, subjective and distort with age more than most memories. Language plays a large role in providing context to our surroundings and to how we remember events. Emotional significance also plays a role in the permanence of memories. We are more likely to remember an event in detail for many years because it originally caused us great joy, anger, sorrow or pain, compared to say, last week’s grocery list.

To this day, I distinctly remember one night, when I was three years old, being awakened by my parents who spoke the quoted words above. The date was July 20, 1969. It was around 10:30 pm.

While the previous few days had been filled with interrupting news bulletins of the Apollo 11 launch and subsequent journey to the Moon, their significance (and detailed memories) would not imprint as much upon me. When I was awakened late that night to find that it was suddenly very important to my parents that I watch television, I, like any three-year old of the day, found that odd to say the least. The emotional significance of the event (and therefore its memory) was set.

In 1969 we had a modest-sized black and white television in the living room. Looking at the live ghostly lunar images that I’ve since seen countless times over the decades, I asked my parents (as best as a three-year old could) why this was important. They told me that mankind was about to do something that had never been done before, and it was going to be part of my future. Over the course of that night, and the months that followed as later lunar missions departed and returned with regularity, one thing became abundantly clear to me:

I had been born into a space-faring society.

This was not an epiphany, but an observation of everyday fact. We were going to moon several times a year. We were digging rocks, driving cool buggies, and even hitting golf balls off-world.


Back on Earth, the everyday pop-culture reflected our lunar occupation. Kids (including myself) were hoisted on the shoulders of adults to wave at the astronauts each time they were on the Moon. Toys, lunch boxes, advertisements, clothes, furniture, cars and just about anything you could think of had been touched by a NASA or space brand of one kind or another. It was just another, everyday and common fact of life. The motivations of the red scare and technology race with the Soviets were not part of the message making it through to me and my fellow toddlers. Certainly there was no discussion of the economics of space travel (though in retrospect, the return on investment has far eclipsed the original monies spent). All that society wanted me to know then was that space was about solving hard problems that benefited everyone.

Space was not only wicked cool, it was our future.

In the early 1970’s space and the future were inseparable. We’d have orbiting space colonies by the ‘80s. By 2000, we’d have cities on the Moon, and the exploration if not colonization of Mars would already be well underway.



That was the future I was going to inherit, and I had better be ready for it. It was what would shape my education choices, my careers, and my passions. Unfortunately, it would only be a few short years when forces much stronger than gravity would keep humanity Earth-locked to this very day.

For those of us who grew up inspired by Apollo, my generation soon became the legion of the disillusioned. In adulthood we came to recognize the political motivations and the economies of past and present space programs. We also saw the needless tragedies that befell the crews of Challenger and Columbia for the sake of appeasement, cost cutting and substandard process controls.

Modern planetary expeditions would use space robotics which were cheaper, safer, and easier to manage, especially for missions that would extend for decades. However, they left limited room for the imagination, and even less for the exploration of self.

At its core, the triumph of the Apollo era was not its technological achievements, but the triumph of the human spirit. We made (and stuck to) bold decisions to solve incredible problems on the belief that a better future lay somewhere, and sometime beyond the horizon. We weren’t traveling as tourists with complex cameras. We were explorers taking small steps in what was to have been a sequence of many – no different than the trailblazing into the unknown of Leif Ericson, Marco Polo, or Lewis & Clark.

We have long since abandoned the pioneer mentality, much to the detriment of our society. Today we celebrate ignorance and entertainment over knowledge and enlightenment. We spend our time reliving past glories to make ourselves feel good, while yielding the sovereignty of the horizon to leaders who would convince us that the horizon is not ours to pursue. We do not inspire future generations. Instead, we borrow from them, out of our own self-serving sense of entitlement.

If ever we as a society are to advance in any significant way (even as simply as leaving Earth’s orbit again for exploration of other planets) we must learn one important lesson from the 1960’s.



When planning a giant leap, one cannot afford small minds.

Patent Thriller

The universe is much smaller than you think.

Frequently, and without fanfare, worlds collide on a daily basis that one would think could never come into each others' orbits.

No, I'm not talking about planets (although, that happens a lot more than we'll ever see). I'm speaking metaphorically, in this case, about the worlds of an aerospace giant, an entertainer, and the United States Patent Office. When these worlds collide, the deep impact isn't necessarily visible or appreciated for years (or things) to come.

Last week, the world lost three icons from the entertainment world. Ed McMahon was not only Johnny Carson's sidekick, he was a decorated war veteran, retiring with six medals at the rank of Colonel. Farrah Fawcett was not only the girl-next-door who made it big, but she put a very public lens on her battle with terminal cancer. On the same day that Farrah Fawcett died, the world also lost Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson was many things including, most certainly, a pop-culture icon. However, few people know that he was an inventor and a patent holder.

Under the laws of many countries, patents provide temporary monopoly protection on intellectual property for the owner to practice or license. Patents awarded for technology or design innovation associated with entertainment are not as rare as they might seem. In recent years, there have been shifts in the entertainment industry that have created controversy in the patent world. Michael Jackson's patent is relatively simple (and will ironically outlive him, as it currently won't expire until June of 2012).

U.S. Patent #5,255,452 describes a "Method and Means for Creating (an) Anti-Gravity Illusion". Specifically, it describes a shoe that utilizes a heel slot that can engage a special hitch (assuming you're standing on a platform equipped with one). When the hitch engages the heel slot of the shoe, a wearer of appropriate body geometry and strength can lean well past their center of gravity, without fear of falling or having an impulsive need for rhinoplasty. If you're wondering where you might have seen this shoe in practice, look no further than Michael's "Smooth Criminal" music video.

As part of the patenting process, it is required in most countries for the applicant to provide examples of what is called, "prior art". Put simply, patent applicants are asked to show why previous attempts to solve a problem or fill a need have not been as innovative as their proposed technologies or methods seek to protect. Issued patents often become essential prior art documents, as they can be used both to make, or break a case for patentability of future inventions that may have already been invented.

A patent that references or "cites" previously issued patents as part of its prior art justification can give us insights into the influence a technology has, often across industries. A subtle niche of patent research is called "citation mapping". In one example, one can map an older patent's "future" citations from its date of issuance to see what other patents it eventually would support.

Michael's patent has two forward citations. A recent one is to a shoe-related technology. The other, however, is extremely intriguing and unexpected. Understand, that prior art references are intentional. It equates, at some level, to a collaboration or partnership, albeit usually in one-direction. Who else, besides a shoe-maker you ask, would have need of Jackson's creation?

Yep. Northrop Grumman was the first thing that came to my mind, too.

U.S. Patent #5,498,161, describes an "Anti-G Suit Simulator" and references the sequined boot of innovation from three years earlier. The suit is a simulation system which simulates "realistic acceleration conditions which are normally encountered during strenuous maneuvers" as applied in this case to jet fighter operations. Jackson's patent is cited among eighteen patents which "address themselves to alleviating the problems due to G-forces".

Think about it. A critical piece of aerospace technology used in the defense of nations owes its innovation practice, in part, to the king of pop.


Now why am I suddenly thinking of Baltimore?

Channel Searching

Yesterday marked the end of an era, as the last day of analog television broadcasts in the United States came to a close. After 12:30pm, the VHF and UHF airwaves that carried the early pops and clicks from Sarnoff’s labs at RCA, JFK’s fateful ride through Dallas and Neal Armstrong’s ghostly image from another world (as well as decades of mind-numbing entertainment) once again fell silent, to the relief of tens of Radio Astronomers. Indeed, somewhere out in the cosmos, alien civilizations might observe in their distant futures, a momentary 80-year stream of our analog TV transmissions. We’ll appear for a brief time as a non-Planckian energy source with an exceptionally high energy density in the VHF/UHF bands. It’s certainly something they will have not likely seen before, and we may never see again.



The transition to digital television hasn’t been easy. It is estimated that there are still 2 or 3 million households in the United States (most in remote locations) that have not converted to the new digital standard. The delay has been in part is due to understandable resistance to changes that are being forced upon individuals, at their own expense.

Sometimes, change is inevitable. We may have perfectly valid reasons for objecting to change that is thrust upon us, especially when such change causes us harm or sacrifice. Unfortunately, there are times when all we gain by taking the moral high ground against change is to be the first to be struck down by lightening.

I’m seeing a lot of businesses pitch tents on Mt. Moral these days.

The great recession in which the global economy finds itself, is something for which few business planned. Certainly there was little or no consideration given of its inevitability or impacts back in 2006, even though the signs of the terrible economic storm on the horizon were painfully obvious. My own customers (and in my experience the vast majority of businesses) have been focused squarely on the moment. As the recession has taken hold, its manifestation has changed from the “crazy talk” of a few to becoming the number one threat impacting every sector of the economy. Today, companies are examining every asset they have under a microscope, and no longer think of a recession as remote possibility. It has hit, and hit hard.

Currently, I’m seeing expected and predictable actions (and reactions) of corporate managers who feel as if they were caught flat-footed by the recession. Across many industries, the same stories are being played out: Redundancies are being hastily eliminated. Operations are being streamlined and/or reduced in any way that doesn’t involve new financial investment. Product innovation is being drastically re-examined and often curtailed. The latter story is of particular interest to me, for obvious reasons of course, but also because I’m seeing two product innovation camps form as I travel around the country.

The first camp is in denial, and is fighting for as much space on the summit of Mt. Moral as possible, even to the extent of pushing others down the hill. Companies in this camp proclaim “no one could have seen this coming” and are bemoaning the unfairness of the recession that has decimated their revenues. Costs have been cut, and product innovation is on hold. For these companies, their strategy, expressed with nervous pride under the flag of hope, is that the problem will just go away if ignored long enough, and the markets (with their past customers) will return to their pre-recession buying habits as if nothing happened. Once revenues return to the levels of yesteryear, resources for product innovation will be freed up, and product pipelines will be filled once more.

Important safety tip: Hope is a four-letter word.

The other camp is far more interesting. Companies in this camp are also facing significant revenue declines in their existing markets, but instead of reacting and retracting, they’re planning and preparing to move. This spring I’ve been helping companies who are seeing their billions-per-year revenues shrink by as much as thirty-five percent in less than twelve months. In this camp, no one is crying foul. Instead what they’re doing is looking for creative ways to strengthen and diversify their product portfolios. In a recessionary period, new monies for R&D are still very difficult to come by. A viable alternative to traditional product innovation is to examine benefits that existing products and technologies bring to current markets. By researching the question, “Who else needs the benefits of my product or technology?”, it is possible to discover new applications and channels for existing products that may not have been previously considered. Such channels can often represent entirely new product lifecycles for otherwise might have been a maturing product in a previously saturated market. It is a proactive strategy which companies in this camp are beginning to pursue aggressively. More often than not, the results are placing these companies in a far more competitive position for that day when the recession does finally end.

Unlike the crowded refugee camps on the high ground, this growing camp is making claims to large tracts of cheap, abandoned beachfront property for the next economic cycle. Ironically, the crowd on the hill will have poor reception in these new channels.



That gives me an idea. Maybe I can sell them my old rabbit ears?

Happy Bankruptcy Wishes from The Devil and Norma Jean

June 1st has once again made its way onto my desk calendar.

Unlike dates of significance that are associated with a holiday or moment of societal reflection, a birthday is more personal. This year's transit, for me, has proven to be a day of unique confluences that I can honestly say, as a younger man, I would not have expected.

As of this hour, twenty-two people have come together in one place from different parts of my past to wish me well today. I've heard from high-school acquaintances from the early 1980's, past and current professional colleagues, clients, service providers, friends and relatives. All of them have written on my Facebook wall today, in a sort of virtual birthday party that started on the 29th and will probably linger into mid-week. I've long-since stopped being awe-struck by internet technologies - there hasn't really been a disruptive innovation in this space for years. However, the disruptive application of internet technologies continues to weave social tapestries that had no counterparts just 5 years ago, let alone twenty or more.

Every day on the calendar contains footnotes to famous events, births and deaths. Certainly the news of today will add another footnote that will be of far greater impact than I could expect to have. At 8:00am this morning, General Motors, which at one point employed over 500,000 skilled workers and was the manufacturing engine of the United States, became a ward of the state and filed for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, this was an event that was foreseeable, especially in the last few months. Yet in that time, the American taxpayer has been subjected to a fleecing of epic proportions to support GM and its denial of the inevitable. The price tag for such hubris, funded predominantly for political expedience, has already put taxpayers on the hook for $100 billion dollars and is likely to pass $150 billion as the true depth of the liabilities are uncovered.

Do you know what $150 billion could have bought today? The Apollo program, which ran from 1961 to 1972 and put humanity on the moon (creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and spurring technology and manufacturing innovation on a scale we haven't seen since from any other single event) cost $25.4 billion in 1969 dollars. In 2009 inflation-adjusted dollars, that comes out to just under $148 billion. President Obama says we may ask ourselves, "Where's my Moon?". Apparently, it's been hacked to bits and locked in the trunks of our fathers' Oldsmobiles, which the mob has already collected and placed into outsourced car crushers.

Thanks, Barry. Keep the Change.

Maybe you could spend it on a birthday party of your own, as a predecessor of yours once did.




Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1st.

Still, among the well-wishes and gifts that did not come with a certificate of perpetual wealth transfer from the IRS, was an extremely practical birthday reflection / greeting from Satan (via my goddaughter). It was a short, to the point, pull-no-punches message studded with the realities of what will befall people on any given birthday.




This guy's good. If only we had such clarity and sobering honesty in our country's fiscal and monetary policies (to say nothing of the budget). He clearly seems to have the capacity to show us exactly the road we're on and the Inferno to which it leads.

Dante was born on June 1st. I wonder if Virgil ever threw him a party?

The Creativity of Evolution

I know what you're thinking.

He's stepping into dangerous territory now. After years of telling us how from his training and experience in the sciences that innovation is driven through evolutionary and revolutionary paths, Jim's going to weigh in on the greatest debate of all: Where did we come from? How did we get here? Who or what is responsible it all?

I can summarize the answer to your thoughts in two words: Advertising Agencies

(more on that later...)


Today's posting really gets back to what this blog is about. It's a place where I like to chronicle ideas, events, and things that capture my attention. A lot of times it involves my professional interests, and sometimes it reflects something more personal. On rare occasions, I come across something really unique that blends interests and ideas from both sides, and today, I want to share something I stumbled across the other day that fits in that category.

I focus an extraordinary amount of each work day thinking with my clients about evolutions of systems of all kinds (mechanical, electronic, biological, thermodynamic, the list of systems is open-ended). How machines are put together, how and why they function, and how they can be improved are my bread and butter. I also have a passion for the arts, especially fantastic art - visions of possible futures and pasts as realized in oils, watercolors, computer graphics, wood, metal, television, film, stage, and just about any medium for creative expression.

The word "evolution" of course has a sociological context, and immediately conjures up images of primordial soup, dinosaurs, primates and humans engaged in a battle against time and the elements. Each organism is locked in mortal combat, striving to survive, and (consciously or not) is trying to better itself for the promise of an unknown future. Imagine then, my reaction to this advertisement for Saturn Consumer Electronics I recently came across from the Scholz & Friends Group. Is this robotic evolution, or Deus Ex Machina?




Within a few minutes of seeing this ad, I happened to stumble across another which addressed a similar theme, but where the evolutionary flow of time was reversed.

It also happened to feature another one of my..ummm...passions.




This advertisement, created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, won a top award at Cannes in 2006. I'm sure my colleagues in Great Britain will recall it, but I think I can safely say it never aired during the Super Bowl, or else Budweiser would have suffered record losses that year.

So, you see? I really wasn't going to unleash a charged debate on the origin of humanity. Evolution can co-exist with all kinds of design. Pre-determinism and free-will can find balance in the universe.


Now, where did I put my remote?

Fail Whale at 36,000 Feet (or: Oh No, Not Again)

It's not often that life imitates Rod Serling and Douglas Adams simultaneously.

I'm currently 36,000 feet over Colorado, flying on the new Virgin America route between Boston and Los Angeles. Ever since America West's acquisition of US Airways, coast-to-coast travel has not been one of my favorite activities. When Sir Richard Branson entered the United States' ailing commercial airlines market, there was a glimmer of hope that something new might be on the horizon.

Today's flight offers coast-to-coast Wi-Fi service. How cool is that?

Now I find myself ever closer to working "anytime, anywhere" as I can spend the majority of a 6-hour flight connected to the virtual world. I can keep up on my e-mail. I can hold web-conferences with clients and pass critical issues to home office as they happen.

I can update my blog. I can tweet. Wait, I just saw something. Did I just see in my window what I thought I saw?

I need to summon the stewardess, err, flight attendant (he gets paid less). Come quickly, it's out on the wing!



It's gone. But I know I saw something. Maybe I'm just tired. I should get back to updating my tweets. Here's a neat article on Wolfram Alpha that I saw, let me post the link. I just sent the tweet..wait..nothing's happening...now my window is going blank..wait..there it is again! Now I can't do anything...tell the captain - the creature's tampering with the knowledge engine!



Twitter's "fail whale" is a familiar but random creature that up until this morning, I only saw on land. Now it's a recurring nightmare above 20,000 feet, and yet, it seems to be missing something, like a bowl of petunias. I know I've seen these two together somewhere before. Maybe it's an iPhone app.



I've spent most of my career keeping up with and driving technical innovations. Once in a while, however, the benefits we gain come with extremely ironic coincidences. I'll research ways of coping. Maybe Google or Facebook has something. Nope. Let's check the Twitterverse again. Wait a minute...there it is again!!



Flight Attendant: "Can I help you, sir?"

Yes...a glass of water.

Teleporting is a Good Walk (Failed)

I just got back from a long week in Southern California. I was presenting a paper at TRIZCon 2009 and working with several clients. While giving my paper, I made a comment on the nature of innovation practice that I make frequently during seminars or working with clients:

"Failure is not just an option. It's essential."

I noticed over at Innovating To Win that Jim Todhunter's latest article focused on this aspect of innovation. We've had a pleasant difference of opinion on this topic for a number of years. As with many of Jim's articles, I found myself re-reading some of the many books on innovation theory and practice I've compiled, and offered the following response to his latest musing.

Great article, Jim. As you and I have exchanged over the years (as recently last week as I watched you shake your head and chuckle quietly as I lectured a room on the essential need for failure in an innovation practice), we perhaps share different views on what failure means.

Or do we?

My own view (which I've written about before) is that failure is not only an option, it's essential. The journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. For many, it requires the other several million steps. For a very select few, their first step is onto the teleporter. Most management that I speak with are expecting their teams to journey 10,000 miles in one step, which is a very unrealistic expectation.

Your invocation of the brightest bulb in the innovation bunch made me go back and re-read "Innovate Like Edison", by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott. Specifically, I wanted to review how Edison treated failure.

According to Gelb & Caldicott, Edison developed five skills for successful invention:

1) Have a solution-centered mindset.
2) Use kaleidoscopic thinking.
3) Use full-spectrum engagement.
4) Become a master at collaboration.
5) Create "Super Value".

Despite mastery of these skills, Edison and his teams at Menlo Park recorded far more failures than successes in pursuing their technical and product goals. Were their failures actually failures? Edison had this to say on the nature of failure:

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

and one of my favorites...

"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure."


I think what is so inspiring about Edison and others like him that we get a chance to work with every day, is that the ultimate success in any inventive effort, is the learning which results. Regardless of whether the outcome is right or wrong, the highest success-metric for innovators is that something was learned which can be applied in practice to the next attempt.

If the on the last step of a 10,000 mile journey, the inventor discovers the teleporter, that makes the discovery no less important than if it was discovered on the first step. The essential "failures" of all the in-between steps, were still essential.

The real winner, of course, will be the innovation practitioner of methodologies that minimizes the mean distance of the success path.

So perhaps, semantics is a small part of the problem, but more so, it is the owner of the success metric. As innovation practitioners, we ultimately own our metrics for success and failure, regardless of what may be imposed on us by management or markets. In my own case, a failure to achieve a specific goal of an innovation task is a step to ultimate success. Failing frequently and learning (and with a methodology for improving how I apply what I learn) means succeeding more frequently and with higher impact.

Obviously I haven't succeeded in convincing you on the critical need to embrace failure for winning innovation.

I must be doing something right. ;-)

Since posting this comment to Jim, he has suggested to me that I am merely confusing empirical method with innovation. I don't agree with him, but his feedback is very constructive. Often it is the journey that is more important than its beginning and end points. That in itself is more valuable than teleporting to the destination I'm sure we'll eventually reach.

In the mean time, I'm sure we'll share many winning failures along the way.

Wintry Potpourri

The deepest aspect of this article is likely to be the seven inches of snow that's fallen outside my window. A typical New England storm has moved through to make room for an even larger storm later this weekend. The roads are nearly impassable, but as a familiar song of the season slurs (at least Dean's rendition of it), I've really no place to go.

A lot of topics that I'd would have liked to write about here have surfaced since I talked turkey last month. However, I find that as the end of this year approaches, I want to clear the decks to make room for what's to come in 2009. So I thought I'd take a break from writing a larger article, and instead share some brief insights on things that have caught my attention over the last few weeks.


Innovating In A Recession

It is probably safe to say that 2008 has been a recessionary year for most, and 2009 promises to be even more challenging. During the Great Depression, a few companies managed to thrive. Their secret was simple. They identified ways to create and deliver value.

Chuck Frey of InnovationTools and Renee Hopkins Callahan of Innosight recently contacted a diverse collection of innovation experts and practitioners to learn more about the strategies they recommend for maintaining innovation during these challenging times. I was surprised and honored that an excerpt from one of my recent articles here at Thirty Minutes From Andromeda was included in their report, "Innovation Strategies for the Global Recession". My colleague Jim Todhunter, over at Innovating to Win, was also included in this report.


Recent Passings

Innovation is a technical and creative form of expression, usually a longing for something better, often of a goal that seems unattainable. I have found that for some of the most inventive minds, science-fiction has been an early source of inspiration, creating dreamers that transform into doers. It personally has played a role in my own career paths. So it is with sadness that I note the passing of two important figures in 20th century science-fiction.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry passed away this week from complications of leukemia. She was well known as the "first lady of Star Trek", having been involved with every production of the most recognized franchise in genre entertainment. Recently, she just finished voicing her familiar role as the computer of the famed U.S.S. Enterprise in J.J. Abrams' blockbuster restart of the franchise, due in theaters next May.

Forrest J. Ackerman (Uncle Forry, to those of us who knew him) was one of First Fandom's beloved members. He was responsible for coining the phrase "sci-fi" as a pun on the popular "Hi-Fi" home entertainment center in the 1950's. He discovered and represented giants of the genre including Ray Bradbury. Long before the commodity of social media, Forry published magazines and books that helped connect hundreds of thousands of fans and professionals in their love of the future, the fantastic, and the unknown. He was also one of the kindest and biggest hearts that you could ever meet. I was personally very fortunate come to know him through the 1990's, and last saw him in 2006 in Los Angeles. Forry's passing represents the end of an era, but not the end of his influence.


Notable Blogs

I started this blog as an experiment. One thing I learned very quickly is that there are more bloggers in the world with more talent than I could ever hope to have (or keep up with) who have some very thought provoking things to say. Recently, I've recently discovered several blogs which appeal to my professional and ecclectic interests that are very much worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out.

• Lateral Action - Thought proking articles on creativity, productivity, problem solving and innovation.
  
• Zero Punctuation - While technically not a blog, this video website contains the most essential element of electronic game review: a misanthropic British pop-culture slave displaced to Australia with an unnaturally developed sense of abuse and sarcasm, and command of the $#%&ing English language.
  
• The Market Ticker - I follow a fair number of economic and financial blogs as best I can (certainly not enough as I should). Karl Denninger pulls no punches and doesn't waffle around when it comes to looking at the macro-economic catastrophe we are in, and all of its consequences.

I'll be returning to writing more focused articles shortly, including: the conclusion of my "Why Johnny Can't Innovate" series; a recommended reading list for 2009; and some new insights into the innovation initiatives of the Obama administration.

Innovate Or Fry: Arc-Welding The Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

On a cold, New England morning, the scenes of holiday traditions could not be more appropriate. Outside, the trees have long since given up their leaves which only recently had blazed the landscape with fiery colors. The frosted ground crunches underfoot and the familiar feeling of icy air tingling the lungs reminds us of the pleasures waiting inside. Soon we'll inhale the warm, noxious scents coalescing in the kitchen, from a glorious feast to be enjoyed later that day.

The vapors indeed tell a story of culinary tradition. The turkey, dressed and stuffed, is departing on its slow journey to..*CRACK!*…huh?…*BANG!*…*BANG! BANG!*

….did anyone else feel the house shake?

Loud, random, house-shaking cracks and bangs are not traditional songs of the season. My shadow appearing and disappearing synchronously on the wall opposite my kitchen, surrounded in a bluish-white light, also seems absent from Plymouth Rock folklore. Imagine my surprise (if not idiot-like awe) when I turn to face the oven, only to be blinded by an intense, flashing bluish-white light emanating from the stove’s every orifice. Peering into the oven window, I can just make out the faintest evidence of what I think is frequent movement.

In a different time and place, had a robed, Strother Martin-like figure appeared on the scene from the Ministry of Magic and said in a treble-ish drawl, “What we have here, is failure to apparate.”, my mind might have been put a little bit at ease.

No such comfort would visit on this particular early 1990’s morning. Indeed, my 1960-something Raytheon oven (prior to their using their acquired Amana brand) was in its death throes. We would later discover that the cloth-insulated, 35-amp master service wire had finished a lifetime of caramelizing, and was now arc-welding itself to the oven’s firewall.

Aside from the practical problems of safety and unplanned expense (“oh, your 1960’s stove was 35-amps…the industry shifted to 45-amps a few years ago…you’ll need to rewire your house”), there isn’t a microwave recipe in the world that can finish a 14-pound undercooked turkey to a golden brown, delicious and juicy feast. So, years ago when I faced this predicament, I was fortunate to have a few resources at hand, and some prior coaching that I never knew would prove so valuable in future years, and become a staple in my culinary repertoire.

Early in my first career, I worked in an Air Force weather lab. There I was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of one of the staff meteorologists who was renowned for his skills with hardwood charcoal, smoking woods, and a variety of professional and individually fashioned tools of really good barbecue. He got me hooked on a Weber kettle, and taught me the basics of simple, convection cooking with indirect heat, curved geometries, and hydrodynamic flavor delivery. Little did I know at the time that I would soon need those skills to rescue a turkey dinner.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the day my stove turned into an arc-welder, pulling out the Weber and figuring out how to regulate heat and moisture, and not overcook the turkey was no easy feat. In the end, however, it was the best turkey I’d ever cooked. Since then, smoked turkey has become an annual family tradition in my home, and in recent years, I’ve moved from using a kettle to a more precise tool. Here’s my recipe and some resources for those of you looking to do something a little different and incredibly flavorful the next time you cook a turkey.

It starts a day before you actually cook the turkey, with brine, or what Alton Brown refers to as, “The Life of Brine”. Combine:

• 1 gallon (4 quarts) of vegetable broth (not the low-sodium variety)
  
• 1 cup of kosher or pickling salt
  
• ½ cup of light or dark brown sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon of whole peppercorns
  
• (optional) ½ tablespoon of allspice berries
  
• (optional) ½ tablespoon of crystallized ginger

Bring the brine ingredients to a rolling boil (make sure the salt and sugar are well dissolved) then cover and let cool to room temperature. Take the room temperature brine and chill it in your refrigerator. Make sure the brine is completely cold before proceeding to the next step.

In a food-safe 5-gallon bucket, combine the brine with one gallon of heavily iced water.

Place a 12-14 pound turkey chest-down into the brine for 6-8 hours (either overnight or early on the morning of the big feast). After the first 3-4 hours, turn the turkey over (chest up) for the remainder of the brining.

The other essential element to this recipe is what’s often referred to as a bullet smoker (“bullet” refers to the cooker’s obvious shape). I’ve been using a Weber bullet smoker for years, but there are other brands available through specialty shops or online. I’m not going to go into minute details here, but I do recommend that if you decide to add a bullet smoker to your arsenal of cookware, go check out The Virtual Weber Bullet website, which contains free instructions, discussions, videos and links to amazing bullet smoker resources. Spend about half a day familiarizing yourself with the basics and with the do’s and don’ts of bullet smoker operations. Used safely, bullet smokers can produce amazingly tasty and healthy meals. They can also ignite surprise parties with all of your previously unknown friends at your local fire department if you have the foresight, patience and planning skills of a hungry ground squirrel.

The rest of this recipe is literally a simple exercise in building a controlled source of heat, and waiting for the heat to do its job. I start with any of a number of brands of natural lump, hardwood charcoal. There's a bit of a trade-off here. While the flavors aren't impacted by any glues or binders of briquettes, the lack of uniform shapes makes temperature control a little more finicky, but by no means difficult. I also make sure to properly foil the bullet smoker's drip pan to catch the juices I'll use for gravy. The Virtual Weber Bullet website has some great videos on how to foil properly (yes, you can screw this up if you don't think this through).

The assembly is straight forward. Weber's bullet smoker is assembled in three sections. Get a bed of coals started in the base unit. I recommend that you use a chimney starter (with a good, heat-resistant handle). Set the bottom vents of the bullet smoker to 50% (half-open). The goal is to regulate the temperature of the burn. Loading up on extra fuel at the beginning and just walking away will guarantee a dry bird. You'll be adding fuel occasionally as needed (mostly dependent on your local climate) to regulate a temperature range. You'll also be adding smoking wood. There's plenty to choose from - hickory, mesquite, apple, maple, though my favorite is chopped oak-barrels from the Jack Daniels' distillery. The smoke creates a whiskey-flavored glaze that is out of this world.

The middle section is basically a tube with a door to access the coals in the base section, and inner supports to hold the top shelf, and either a middle shelf, or the water / drip pan. For a brined turkey, we don't need to add water to the smoker, in fact we want to catch the drippings. Place the drip pan inside the middle tube's supports and insert the tube into the base unit. It is very important that the drip pan be properly secured. If it isn't, or if it's offset, the considerable drippings (remember, a brine uses osmosis to force moisture and flavor into the meat, so there's more to come out once the heat's applied) will cause the pan to tip off its supports, and dump lots of fatty drippings into the coals. The best way to describe a burnt fat glaze is "funky".

At this point, you're ready to put the turkey in the smoker. A final touch I like to add sometimes for additional flavor is to add aromatics to the carcass. Rosemary sprigs, half an onion microwaved for 30 seconds are good starters. There are so many possibilities for this last step. The only thing you should never put inside the carcass, is stuffing. Stuffing adds thermal mass, which lengthens cooking time and interferes with efficient heat transfer. It also harbors bacteria which may not exceed 140 degrees at the center of the turkey, creating a festively disguised biohazard.

Covering the smoker is essential - this isn't a barbecue. The dome cover allows for convective cooking and circulation of smoke and moisture. I leave the top vent of the cover fully open. Two thermometers are critical for a successful smoke. One to measure the temperature of the top section (effectively the "oven"), the other to measure the interior temperature of the turkey at the thickest point of the breast. Here is where folks tend to get a little crazy when it comes to technology. I've found that a simple woodstove stack thermometer is ok to place on the top of the dome. It's magnetic which means you don't have to worry about custom mounting, and gives an accurate enough reading to get the job done. I use a standard digital probe thermometer to measure the temperature of the turkey. I keep the dome regulated at 350 degrees (again, consult the Virtual Weber Bullet website for tips on how to regulate temperature of a bullet smoker). I cook the turkey to 161 degrees, then pull it from the smoker and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

The efforts are definitely worth the wait. The turkey is not only incredibly moist and packed with flavor, but the leftovers make phenomenal sandwiches, stews, and especially, chili. (You haven't lived until you've had hickory smoked turkey chili.)

Had I not experienced the...exhilaration, of finding a solution to a case of sudden domestic-appliance arc-welding cuisine, I would likely not have explored the joys of preparing beef, chicken, turkey, fish, vegetables and a whole list of foods over the years in a smoker or other kettle-style cooker.

Ironically, all it took was a bright flash of bluish-white insight.

$25 Billion - A Simple Business Plan

This is one of those moments where life and art have a strange intersection.

The recent plea for $25 billion of taxpayer-backed loans by the CEOs of the big three auto firms has Congress asking a very practical question:

"What plan do you have for spending $25 billion?"

Back in March of 1939, General Motors' Department of Public Relations commissioned the Jam Handy Organization to produce a short film on the subject of macroeconomics.

Maybe GM's future is in widgets?

Buy Jupiter! (And Beyond the Infinite)

This week has been one of those rare periods in time when many frames of reference overlap. I don’t often comment here on issues concerning economics, global markets or financial management.

Today is an exception.

Unless you’ve been clinically dead for tax purposes, the imminent meltdown of the global financial system has been in your face, on your mind, and very close to bringing your way of life to a sudden and irrevocable stop. (Think your profitable small company could make payroll if all bank transactions were suddenly halted for 90 days?) I doubt there are many people around (let alone who might be reading this) who were alive as adults during the 1929 crash and the events leading up to and after it, and could put this week’s crisis in perspective. For the rest of us, go read Manias, Panics and Crashes. (Ideally, you should have read this two years ago.)

On this day when AIG has been suspended on the precipice of bankruptcy by a tenuous Federal bailout, and we’re just beginning to understand how close the world has come to a global financial seizure, questions on how we got here (and where we have yet to go) are only now being considered by the general population. I find myself looking at Jupiter.

As an innovation practitioner, I see futures – all futures that my clients consider as they move to achieve their goals in new product and business development. This week is particularly apropos as I am working with one of the premier rocket design companies in the world, who support engine systems ranging from the Space Shuttle, to a return to the Moon, to interplanetary transports. This was the stuff of hard and pulpy science-fiction back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The kings of that era were authors like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke (both of whom I’ve been fortunate to meet and talk with when they were alive). They didn’t limit their writings to rockets and ray-guns – they often looked at the complex (and often darker) sides of human nature.

Buy Jupiter! is an Asimov short story about future humans channeling creative greed by outsmarting natives in overseas emerging markets through option derivatives trading. (The story really involves selling Jupiter’s atmosphere to aliens for energy who then try to use the atmosphere for advertising, only to find the humans outsmarted them by selling options to other atmospheres to competing aliens.) Over half a century ago, Asimov pretty much called the future we are living today – people in their own greed are willing to come up with more and more creative (and poorly understood) financial vehicles to try and capitalize on other people’s greed – and all is well until the system falls apart. Arthur C. Clarke is of course most known for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and since I’m willing to bet more of you know Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of it (i.e. the film) and possibly haven’t read the book in a while, I’ll stick to what you probably know as the last act of the film, 'Jupiter, and Beyond the Infinite'. Astronaut David Bowman is seen leaving Discovery in an EVA pod, heading towards the mysterious monolith in orbit around Jupiter, and crosses what can only be thought of as a transitional and transformational gateway. We see glimpses of Bowman as he is hurtled through the dizzying gateway, pained with expressions of absolute, stark terror.



This same expression has been spotted on many faces at the NYSE, NASDAQ and other trading floors around the world every day this week. You (and as of next week, the American taxpayer) may soon be seeing this face in the mirror.

We are rapidly and irrevocably going through a period of great change that is completely out of control. We haven’t yet emerged on the other side of the gateway, and the trip ahead will be dark, dizzying and absolutely terrifying. The next few days and weeks will dramatically affect how we re-define wealth, money, and qualities of life for decades to come.

Somewhere in my library should be a story from not so long ago that tells me how this will all work out. Very likely, it was written by Philip K. Dick.

Back In The Future

I’m leaving on vacation this week to spend time in interests outside of, but synergistic with my day job. I’ll be in Colorado, taking in the sights, sounds, and steers. (One of my all time favorite steak houses anywhere in North America is just outside of Denver. They bring an unsurpassed passion to what they do. You know a steak house is passionate when they burn down to ground one night during dinner, and rebuild. Twice.)

I’m going to be displaying some of my artwork at an exhibit that focuses on science fiction art. Being a facilitator of innovation in new technologies across many fields of science, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve always had a fascination with the future. Space travel, ray guns, immortality – they were the standard fare of many children like myself who were slaves to late 1960’s pop-culture. We were the first generation to be truly sucked in by television (and even saw colors on occasion). We let our brains get rotted by degenerate media executives who tried to convince us that technology was cool, science was empowering, and commanding starships was a great way to impress babes.

Forty something years later, I’m still waiting for my starship, but I did pretty well taking some of the other lessons to heart (and leaving one of them back in the ‘60s). Along the way, I‘ve crossed paths with many inspirational people. I’ve discussed the physics of tachyons with Isaac Asimov, the snows of Mars with Arthur C. Clarke, and the ethics of nuclear energy with Carl Sagan, to name just a few who have fueled my interest in the future.

I’ve also had a passionate interest in visualizing the future. Wizards of the silver and small screens (including The Wizard Of Speed And Time) have been lifelong personal influences and sources of inspiration. With advances and steep price drops in computer technologies (both hardware and software) I’ve been able to find a medium beyond the limits of my stick figure talents to try my hand at creative visualization. I’d like to share a few of my works (some of which will be on display next week in Denver), and the back stories behind them. (You can see larger versions of these images by clicking on them.)

"Maybe It Needs A Little Love"


Being smack in the middle of the 2007 holiday season, I found myself asking, "What if Charlie Brown went looking for a Christmas tree offworld?", and after a while, this was the result. This was actually the first image I produced with one of two 3D visualization packages I had purchased earlier that year.


"Phobos - 1912"


A "rare" surviving photograph from a failed, top-secret terraforming project (circa 1912) on Phobos, using polar ice from neighboring Mars to flood portions of the surface. There's probably a half dozen influences in this image including tips of the hat to Torchwood, The X-Files, and just about anyone who's imagined space flight with a V2-styled retro rocket. I learned a lot putting this image together, both about the tools I'm using, and in composition.


"Here For The View"


Break out your red and blue 3D glasses. This is a 3D anaglyph study of a flying saucer. I designed it in the simplest (i.e. cheapest) way possible, the way a model maker on a 1950's budget B movie might have built it (yes, its a ball inside a doughnut). Some of the reflections were particularly fun to incorporate, both on the edge of the saucer, and the multiple reflections in the dome. If you click on the image and view the larger size with 3D glasses, you can definitely see the saucer "pop" over the mountain range and the ocean. There are three perspectives I wanted to bring out in this piece - it was definitely a lot of fun (and took a ribbon at a recent showing in New York).

A Mighty Wind

T. Boone Pickens is a Texas oilman by his own definition. He's also one of the most accurate and insightful energy analysts I've seen in the last decade, and I have a lot of respect for his opinions about the energy markets.

Yesterday I happened to catch him early in the morning on CNBC. He was launching a self-funded campaign to any and all interested parties (political, commercial, academic) to propose a plan to shift the United States' disasterous dependence on external energy sources to those that are domestically produced and freely available, including an enormous abundance of wind.

Here are the plan's highlights in his own words:



How did we get here? There are plenty of financial and economic models, theories, and blogs which can argue the answers to this question. I would suggest that supply and demand ultimately play the biggest roles, and in particular, it is the demand side which is least understood by most people. It isn't just the rise in demand by energy consumers in developing nations such as India and China. Demand has skyrocketed through the creation of derivative financial vehicles such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and options markets that enable large pools of money such as retirement funds (like the ones you likely have at work) to bid up the price of oil without even realizing it.

In other words, if you walk to work, take the stairs, and let your 401K be managed by companies that deal in hedge funds, you're probably jeopardizing the planet. Think about it.

Pickens' plan has some fascinating implications for the future. If realized, it could mean the revitalization of the American midwest. Skilled labor will be needed to build, maintain and replace turbines. Support businesses and communities will develop around windfarms in an almost symbiotic relationship between people and the machines that sustain them (a theme not foreign to many science fiction stories of the last century, and likely an accurate prediction of the near future).

Unlike oil fields that have a definitive lifecycle of about 30 years, wind farms lend themselves to a continual lifecycle and sustainable innovation. The technical and logistical problems ahead (beyond the establishment of multiple wind farms) represent an opportunity for science and engineering advancements on a scale we haven't seen since the Apollo program. The potential for commercially developed (and green) innovations in turbine design, power transmission, and battery technologies (to name just a few) are incredible. (BTW, not too far outside the proposed wind belt is a solar belt which is equally exciting for its innovation potential.)

This is a plan worth considering.

There are some humorous ironies that I can't help noting. In Picken's own words yesterday, "we all have to get on the same team". When we consider who might be on that team, we might consider Larry Hagman, best known for his role on the tv series Dallas as oil-baron J.R. Ewing, who has converted his entire California estate to solar and alternative power. We might also consider actor and environmental activist Ed Begley, Jr., who has made similar conversions to his home. One of Mr. Begley's roles was a bit part in the film "A Mighty Wind", which was a mockumentary about the folk music movement of the 1960's. The title song from the film refers to a mighty wind as "blowin' peace and freedom..blowin' equality".



How life imitates art sometimes.

Ideas of Futures (Passed)

I'd like to take a brief interlude from my recent articles on innovation, and indulge in something a bit more personal.

As much as I enjoy connecting with the challenges of defining the future, I really appreciate looking at futures past, or more aptly, those that were passed over. I especially am drawn to creative expressions of what technologies and society might have looked like, but never saw the light of day except as some tangential form of entertainment.

A blog I discovered about a year ago truly fascinates me. It's called Paleo Future, and it is perhaps one of the most unique collections of past (and passed) visions of the future that I've seen. A recent article particularly caught my eye, and included a slide show that was being developed for a girl geek dinner. There is another slide show in the article itself, but the one that caught my eye the most is shown below.

| View | Upload your own

It takes so many ideas from creative people and processes to acheive the breakthroughs that future generations enjoy as everyday amentities. We tend to forget ideas that didn't quite make it (and rapidly lose touch with the fact that they were once created).

Recently, one of my favorite forgotten ideas surfaced over at Damn Interesting. One of Ford's answers to the '57 Chevy was a design concept that was never prototyped - the 1957 Ford Nucleon. An elite team of Ford's engineers were asked to look far into the future, and dreamed of a world without fossil fuels or harmful vapors. The Ford Nucleon would have used a steam turbine to drive both torque propulsion and electric generators that would satisfy all of the automoting customer's needs. This wonderous vision of the future was powered by a pint-sized nuclear reactor in the trunk. It gave a different meaning to "green" transportation.

The future is built on creativity and the freedom to fail, as well as succeed. Governments, academic institutions and industry giants have recognized and succeeded on this principle of human nature. As important as it is to be reminded of examples of where our creativity will take us (such as the Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair), visions of past inventive creativity (successful and otherwise) should not be far removed from anyone's innovation toolkit.

Rudolph's Sticky Idea

Its that time of year again when the signs of the season descend upon us. The weather gets colder. The regular holiday street players dust themselves off. Human resources sends out open enrollment notices.

I was reminded of this by an advertisement I saw on CNBC from a company whose memorable tag line is, "Ask about it at work".


I will never be able to watch the Rankin-Bass classic again without hearing "Aflac!" screaming softly in the back of my mind.

Ideas have many intangible properties. Stickiness is one of them. If Aflac's advertising campaigns over the years had employed a used-car sales approach to supplemental insurance, I doubt they'd still be in business. (I'm not sure that supplemental insurance is a blood-pumping topic of discussion, though I welcome to be proven wrong if anyone at Aflac is reading this). The invocation of pop-culture icons as a foundation in which Aflac's story is re-told, makes their idea one that is both sticky, and pervasive.

The stickiness of ideas is the subject of a book published earlier this year. In "Made to Stick", authors Chip and Dan Heath look at six essential qualities of ideas that make them effective in influencing thought, and changing behaviour.

One example is the concreteness of an idea. Chip and Dan remind us that while the language of communicating ideas is often abstract (a favorite of theirs is "idiopathic cardiomyopathy"), life is not abstract. Abstraction makes it very difficult to understand and remember ideas. I can certainly agree with this.

Ultimately, what winning ideas need is gift-wrapping from their own personal Aesop.

Techno Samhain

Tonight is Halloween, and the ghosts and goblins are making their annual trek from WalMart and beyond to grace our doorsteps with threats of mischief and requests for colorfully wrapped pieces of high-fructose corn syrup.

The name Halloween is derived from the night preceding a Christian holiday. All Hallows' Eve, or the Eve of All Hallows, comes the night before All Hallows' Day (also called Hallowmas, All Saints' Day, or All Souls Day). All Hallows' Day (and all its related names) is celebrated on November 1st, or the first Sunday after Pentecost in honor of all souls, known and unknown, who have departed this world for the next.

The ritual of remembering the dead is not unique to Christianity. In Wiccan circles, October 31st is known by the name Samhain, which is a celebration of and for the dead. The departed (family members, loved ones, and ancestors) are remembered and often invited to participate in the celebration and ceremony to offer guidance and remind the living of their connection to the past.

Learning from our past connections is extremely valuable. As we move further into the 21st century, our connections with technology become almost inseperable. So as we push technological innovations in every facet of our lives, it can be useful to periodically reflect on their progenitors (especially as we obsolete them at an every increasing pace).

Take, for example, digital and high-definition television technologies. The promise of hundreds of truly life-like HD channels is upon us. Within 2 years, HDTV will become ubiquitous, as the broadcast spectrum of the 20th century is retired. Within one generation, labels such as "VHF", "UHF" and "broadcast networks" will have become long forgotten.

So, on this night, let's remember one of the ancestors of modern entertainment technology.

In 1963, a revolution in television was taking place as color was replacing black and white. Television programming was just beginning to move into this uncharted territory, and the number of shows that were filmed in color would depend on the adoption of this new technology in a market that was filled with black and white television sets. RCA, in its continued reign as a television technology pioneer, began to market a line that would help guarentee that color would replace black & white as the standard set in every home.

It was not the first time that "Vista" swept the nation...

Getting rid of our shelves...

I was commenting on an article I saw this morning about how modern society puts blindfolds on innovation research, whether its schools that ban students from using WikiPedia, or companies that ban engineers from reading patents.

Traditional barriers, organization, ways of doing things, (etc) all have one thing in common - they provide a structure that for better or worse, limits change.

After I published my comment, I caught up on a bit of work-related (knowledge management) reading and came across an interesting video that elegantly documents the changes that are happening all around us when it comes to organization, sharing, and creating knowledge.





I'm reminded of a quote given to me by a person who used to work for our company. She would often remind me, whenever a company would espouse a way of doing business, research or anything else as a sacred cow, that:

"Sacred cows make the best burgers."

Gleaning wisdom from Stephen King's cocoa...

Everyone needs a place of intellectual refuge, from time to time.

At the end of most weeks, usually bracketed by air travel to centers of industry I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see once, let alone with any frequency, I look forward to spending an evening with my wife, a stack of periodicals and books, and a hot drink or two at Borders Books & Music in South Portland, Maine.

So what makes this particular location of the national big-box bookstore so special?


For starters, this Borders has a unique combination of size, layout, and selection. It has one of the largest collections of British technology and art periodicals I've seen anywhere. The music department has one of the largest and most diverse collections of opera outside of Harvard Square. It even has accurately forecast the most recent recession and is indicating the onset of another, using the 'end-cap economic indicator' theory (developed by my wife), which states that the end-caps in a book store are a good (albeit subjective) indicator of future buying trends and needs of its customers. When a majority of the high-visibility end-caps are sporting "self-help" and "start your own business" books, you should plan for harder times in the next six months.

Another important attraction that our Borders of choice has, is the staff. Being close to the University of Southern Maine (Gorham Campus), the store employs its share of students who are figuring out what directions their lives and post-retail careers will take between ringing registers, stocking shelves, and serving lattes. For the most part, these students are a microcosm of the digital native vanguard who will be moving on to take leadership roles in all aspects of society, and as such, are a really important group of people to get to know right now. The non-student population working at Borders are just as interesting. In addition to the advice on books and music they share tempered by years of experiences, they offer a most unique reflection of the outside world that passes through the store, day after day.

Getting to know some of the staff at this Borders has been a real treat. Whether its the art history student from New Jersey, the accountant who works on Fridays, the economics major who grew up down the street, or the new, first-time home owner (who is scared to death right at the moment), these are some of the most interesting people you're ever likely to meet.

One of the staff, however, is keeper of a very interesting secret, who shared it with me just the other day.

(In the interests of privacy, and perhaps even to generate a little mystery, I'm not going to list a name or give a detailed description of the staffer in question. However, for any of the Borders management that might be reading this blog posting out of concerns for customer relations, let me just say that everyone working in the South Portland store is great. In fact, you should just come right out and double everyone's pay. You have a great business model, hiring voracious readers who dump half their paycheck right back into the store within a week to satisfy their common addictions. Your margins may be wider than you realize.)

Suffice it to say, before she (ok, that narrows it down a bit) worked at this location, this staffer used to work at the Borders in Bangor, ME. It was here that she would chat with a particular customer who would come through the store on a regular basis - a local writer, none other than Stephen King.

"Stephen", she told me, (already the story is interesting - not 'Mr. King' or a personal pronoun, but 'Stephen') "kept the Bangor store going, with all the books he would buy. He'd get a huge pile of books and sit down at one of the tables to go through them. When I was working in the cafe and he came in, I'd make him cocoa - he (often) ordered cocoa - which he liked the same way each time."

Now what a thought that is. One of the most successful writers of the 20th century regularly escapes to the local bookstore to quietly unwind, get ideas, or even just grab a dependable cup of cocoa. The very person with whom he strikes up friendly chats about what he's reading, thinking, and who knows how to prepare one of his comfort foods, could be the same person you might encounter when you make a similar escape.

It's a very cool thought, and it makes one thing very clear to me:

The next time I want to go to Borders and sit in the cafe, read, get new ideas, and contemplate the mysteries of the universe, I'll know exactly how to order the cocoa.