I always look forward to seeing the speakers that my alma mater, Earlham College, brings to Richmond, Indiana because they often bring perspective, insight, and experience that you just can't otherwise get living in a small Midwestern town. Tonight's event was no different: William Kristol (neo-conservative pundit, editor of the Weekly Standard, Bush/Quayle advisor, and … Continue reading →

I had a nice call this morning from Nick, the local store manager of the OfficeMax in Richmond. I'd recently had some really poor customer service experiences in that store with them and had submitted a narrative of those experiences for their review. I usually don't bother going back to a place after such occurrences … Continue reading →

The forthcoming closing of Richmond's Target store, reported in the Palladium-Item on November 6th, is certainly a troubling development for the local economy. Jobs will be lost, the convenient shopping will need to be found elsewhere, and yet another "big box" piece of real estate will need to be filled.

This piece was written for submission to the Palladium-Item during my time on the board of Main Street Richmond-Wayne County. It never made its way to the paper, but I thought I'd post it here since it's still relevant. It still strikes me how little we knew about everything that goes into running a business … Continue reading →

I'm usually very much in favor of using local vendors, service providers, etc. instead of big corporate versions whenever possible and reasonable. Current cultural trends make that a challenge. But I've recently had an experience where the branch of a big corporate bank impressed me much more than that of the local bank that I … Continue reading →

I was actually looking forward to working late tonight. I had a client who'd asked me to do some work on a project related to some software I maintain. Because it's software I maintain outside of my usual duties at my company, I charge an hourly rate directly to the client, instead of going through … Continue reading →