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The Photograph of 63. A short story by Stephen Tranter

It gives me a lot of pleasure to introduce this podcast. It’s a prize-winning short story written by and read by Steven Tranter. 
He says it’s partly biographic. I’d say it’s a fine example of a creative work from an experienced author. If you like what you are about to listen to, you will be able find examples of Steve’s novels drawing on his legal experience, via Dr Google or Amazon.
Tudor Rickards

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‘Institutions under siege: Donald Trump’s Attack on the Deep State’ , by John Campbell, A review’
Prepared by Tudor Rickards, Monday 14 October, 2024.

The most debated political question of the year is arguably ‘Will Donald Trump win the Presidency of the United States for the Second Time? (Or for the third time, as the question might be posed by Trump’s MAGA supporters).
Let’s stick to ‘for the second time’.
The question has increasingly dominated media attention this year, as the likelihood of a second term grew during polls after the Trump v Biden debate. 
Then came the period of increasing pressure on Biden to resign. When reluctantly he did resign, vice President Kamala Harris showed as an initial boost in polling numbers, until around two months before polling day on November 5th. 

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Wit and wisdom, October 2024

This podcast could have been dominated by the Middleton East crisis. Instead, the Nobel prize announcements caught my eye. The posts about Netanyahu capture rage, anger, frustration, and scapegoating, but unsurprisingly no wit, and not a lot of wisdom. 


@TollytB
I just asked my girlfriend, "Is it just me, or is the cat getting fat?"
"No, it's just you."

@bbclaura
While prepping to interview Boris Johnson tomorrow,  by mistake I sent our briefing notes to him in a message meant for my team. That obviously means it’s not right for the interview to go ahead. It’s very frustrating, and there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing, as there are plenty of important questions to be asked. But red faces aside, honesty is the best policy. See you on Sunday
Me, [in reply]
The BBC faces another dilemma of leadership in dealing with the aborted interview with BJ. Some possibilities:
The Ostrich solution
The Victoria Derbyshire solution
The Shakespearian solution 
The Boris and Laura Xmas Special solution 

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An innovator describes his process of Invention.

This morning, I received a email from an old friend, Ram Kumar Saxena. We have kept in touch for many years since he wrote an article about his invention processes for the then new journal, Creativity and Innovation Management.
He kindly updated me on his thoughts, which he hoped would be of value in my current efforts at updating my textbook Dilemmas of Leadership.
He was right. 
To explain, I have to go back to his early article with its somewhat formidable title. ‘ The Greeks had a word for it: ‘PGP-J’, a logistic model of the innovation process, and a case example of successful innovation '.

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To my chess students and parents. A ‘Sunday sermon’.

I came across a summary of my often repeated message to chess students. It’s useful, too for parents wanting to encourage them. 

Here is the advice from Marks Meadows a chess coach,  which I hope is already familiar, and could have come from my ‘Sunday sermons’. The advice comes in two parts.

To get better, Mark says:

'Memorize the core opening principles: Develop pieces as fast as you can, only one or two pawn moves, don’t move a piece more than once if you can avoid it, castle early, develop knights then bishops then Queen, control the center, threaten something.
Concentrate HARD on what your opponent just did. He’s the meanest person in the room and is trying to steal your lunch and spit in your soda. Pay attention to his moves. No, he is not “fooled” by your plan. He is doing everything in his power to trash you and should never be left alone. Kick him…use your knight, it kicks harder. I’m totally amazed at the number of players who think they can ignore what the opponent just did.' 
So that’s it. 

My Sunday students are all showing progress at the first part, the basic principles.
The second part is taking longer. The most important step is to start practicing seeing what your opponent’s move might mean, what it changes. Does it threaten to take one of your pieces? You won’t get it right every time, at first. But you will get better and better.

So that’s it, the end of my Sunday sermon. Hope you remember it next time we meet over the chess board.

Why not play it to your 'chess students' before the next chess lesson?

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How to explain Social Constructionism to a Scientist, and why it matters

Together with a team of teaching colleagues, I have been introducing  participants on business courses to an approach for developing leadership skills. The results of earlier courses turned into the book Dilemmas of Leadership which reached its third edition in 2015.
I am now considering what would be needed for such a course a decade later.
There are obviously changes in the challenges faced or about to be faced by participants.
There are also ways of improving the contents with the benefits of hindsight.
One particular challenge struck me. It is what you might say when you discover something you should have seen before. The discovery of the bleeding obvious... 

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Did the Vice Presidential debate swing the needle in the swing states?
Written and narrated by Tudor Rickards

October 2 2024
The debate between Vice Presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance was billed as a possible electoral game changer.

Whatever else it did, this was a real exchange of views around matters of interest to the public. And within the debate, there was a reasonable level of acceptance of the rules of engagement. Would there be enough straws to break the camel’s back and swing the result of the election?
For the democrats, Walz has been polling positively, Vance less so. Walz may have already made a contribution to the result of the election with his attack line that Trump and  MAGA supporters are weird.
Vance has done little to dispel the weirdness accusation, and his personal rating in polls has been far more negative. 
So, how did the debate go?

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The worst weather of this miserable late-summer turned dripping autumn. I give up on my target steps of the day, driving the short distance for groceries fording the rising water levels.

Settle for quiet evening ...

Doorbell. Some Amazon product  I had forgotten?

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I have completed 0.001% of the text of the new edition to my book

Friday 27 November 2024

This is a brief account of how I wrote the first sentence to the planned fourth edition of Dilemmas of Leadership.
Tudor Rickards

“In this book, I show how effective leadership is a form of creative problem-solving applied to resolving important dilemmas”
In a typical example, I struggled late into night looking for a way of explaining what the 4th edition was all about.
At 5.30am I awoke and wrote down the result of my resolution of the dilemma..

Why typical?
Reminded me of the famous story of a creative thought emerging from a period of what creativity writers describe as incubation. This is often attributed to the stage theory of creativity by Graham Wallas in his book The Art of Thought, Harcourt Brace, NY 

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Wit and Wisdom Mid September 2024

Posts dominated by political news so let’s start with more news from the era of AI

@demishasabbis
Advanced mathematical reasoning is a critical capability for modern AI. Today we announce a major milestone in a longstanding grand challenge: our hybrid AI system attained the equivalent of a silver medal at this year’s International Math Olympiad!

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