Recently while staying in NewYork City, I found myself on the 31st floor of a building off Fifth Avenue. Peering out of a small window down at rooftops and decks of the few buildings that were not as tall, I was struck by something that really stood out: fans. I’m not talking about ordinary fans,

Recently, while I was staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, an elevator got stuck with a bellman trapped inside, and the fire department had to be called in to free him using equipment like I have never seen before. In fact, I had never observed anything quite like this before in a modern

What a glorious day in L.A.! We — or at least I – tend to forget what a wonderful place this is in summertime. I know I have written some Pollyannaish-sounding blogs lately, but for some reason, I find myself appreciating the planet, the place I’m in and the summer like never before. Concerts in

Last Sunday, while soaking in the wonderfully therapeutic salt water off Seal Beach, California, catching the frothy breaking waves and riding them in without a board, I got to wondering what such an exhilarating experience would actually be worth if it had been designed by some commercial enterprise. What would I be willing to pay

This past Friday, I had the luxury of watching the news –or make that the pain of watching the news — and then finding a safe haven from all the negative events in the world at, of all places, the Food Network, which I appreciated even more than usual. (And yes, I know this may

“Big” is not bad in itself when we’re talking about increases in growth and consumption – it’s how we design the systems to accommodate such expansion that is critical. Adaptation of our technology is also a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs both to do good and to do well at the same time – the kind

Talk about turning a lemon into lemonade. As it turned out, “Carmeggedon” has been a great learning experience for all of us –with an incredibly great outcome for the City of Angels. To me there were three key lessons that we should take with us from this experience, whether we are building a bridge or

As I write this, it is the eve of “Carmageddon” here in Los Angeles — the 53-hour shutdown of the 405 Freeway, the city’s central traffic artery. What a wonderful event! While to many, it may be an extreme inconvenience, and in a weird kind of way, even have the appearance of a natural disaster,

The historic agreement between the United Egg Producers and the Humane Society of the United States, which I talked about in my previous blog, has led me to reflect on how much people with seemingly divergent viewpoints and interests can accomplish by sitting around the table together. In a kind of “eureka moment,” it hit

Today (Thursday) marks a very special and exciting occasion for those of us involved in working cooperatively with industry to make it more sustainable – the announcement of a precedent-setting agreement between the United Egg Producers and the Humane Society of the United States on the joint creation of a national humane standard for laying