Exemplary Communications

Getting the Black Flag at Indy

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 05:47:51 -0700

It was Memorial Day weekend in 2012 - and a beautiful day for a car race in Indianapolis.

I was wearing my Indy 500 VIP lanyard, proud to be at the celebrated Brickyard to promote the Entergy “Nuclear Clean Air Energy” car.

Entergy Nuclear had announced earlier that year it was sponsoring an Indy car with a Lotus engine that would be driven by the Swiss-Italian phenom Simona De Silvestro. Nicknamed "The Iron Maiden," Simona was rookie of the year at the previous Indianapolis 500.

Entergy Nuclear was using the car to raise the visibility of clean, low-cost and reliable nuclear energy. As a side note, it required ninja-like PR contortions to justify the use of an Indy car with its carbon footprint to tout nuclear's clean air benefits.

I had barely settled into my seat in the stands of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Simona got the black flag and was stopped — after completing only 10 laps in the 200-lap race.

Not being an avid racecar fan, I didn't know what a black flag meant. But I quickly learned it meant there were concerns her slower car could become a dangerous impediment for the faster cars.

And it meant I was going to watch the remaining 95 percent of the race with no one to root for. This gave me time to ponder the wisdom of stepping onto a very large stage with a very underpowered car. Using a slow Indy car to promote nuclear energy, well, uh... backfired.

It turned out that both cars with the lackluster Lotus...Read More

On Scorpions and Operating Experience

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 15:46:34 -0700

When we lived in Arizona, my wife was stung by a scorpion. It was a bark scorpion, a small critter with venom that packs a wallop. The pain scorpions inflict is inversely proportional to their size. It’s the only species of scorpion whose venom can be lethal.

We only saw two scorpions in the eight years we lived in Arizona, which was cause for some celebration. I know people who moved into houses on “The Scorpion Trail,” migratory paths that weren’t altered just because someone decided to plop a house in the way. For those people, seeing scorpions was a daily trauma.

It’s a fact of desert life that just about every living thing out there is designed to sting, bite or prick you. From the tiny bark scorpions to cactus to the thorns of sweet acacia trees — the flora and fauna of the desert are evolutionary examples of “the best defense is a good offense.”

When my wife got stung, she called the Poison Control Center in Phoenix, and was connected with Jason, our scorpion sting answer man. He called back every couple of hours to check in on her. They have a wealth of operating experience to share on what to do when scorpions attack. (Okay, maybe that was a little melodramatic. Scorpions don’t really attack — but something about scorpions calls for hyperbole.)

After such an experience, it’s natural to want to learn from the event — but it’s important to learn the right lesson.

As Mark...Read More

Talk to the Ear

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 11:57:47 -0700

A colleague once told me about a large drawing of an ear hanging on the wall in her daughter’s preschool room. The teacher directs the kids to “talk to the ear” if they have a gripe about Jacob not sharing his toy or some other preschool drama. The teacher makes it clear that unless they are hurt or bleeding, the ear is their first stop.

At first glance, this seems like dereliction of duty — a pre-K version of the dismissive “talk to the hand.” But according to the teacher, more often than not, the child wanders off happily after unloading on “the ear.”

Apparently, a five-year-old suffers a multitude of injustices throughout the day and many of them are easily resolved by simply walking up to the ear on the wall and pleading his or her case. Otherwise, the teacher is inundated with the incessant protestations of her cherubic charges who feel compelled to “tell” on offending classmates.

I wondered if this was an isolated practice, so I Googled it and found examples of this approach at preschools across the country.

So why does it work? Is it just that preschoolers are gullible enough to fall for the old “talk to the ear” trick?

It appears there’s more going on here than meets the eye, so to speak. By sharing their grievances, even with an inanimate ear, children seem to talk themselves through potential plans and actions, as described in Speaking and Listening for Preschool Through Third Grade