Ravenweb 2006 Year in Review

As 2006 is closing down, I thought I would highlight some of the major Ravenweb posts from the past year. 2006 was really the first full year I maintained a blog, so I'm pleased (and a little surprised) I posted regularly throughout the entire year.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the past twelve months of Ravenweb, and I look forward to posting more in 2007.

Ravenweb 2006 Year in Review

I was introduced to the fabulous SF of Iain M. Banks and read Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, and Use of Weapons.

Author James Frey admits that he fabricated and falsified information in his memoir A Million Little Pieces.

Nick Hornby's new novel A Long Way Down comes out.

Cecily and I visited Santa Fe, New Mexico. The visit inspired a slideshow and a column.

I discovered rising SF star John Scalzi and his breakout novels Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades, as well as his long-running blog, Whatever.

I reread Elie Wiesel's Night.

I started using Ebay to sell some collectibles.

Clerks II arrived in theaters and I offered some comments.

I finally read Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and now understand why the novel is such a beloved classic.

Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man exceeded the hype.

Cecily and I visited Ireland. Again, we post pictures and a column.

Ravenweb blog moves to Blogger.

My column "Rob" aired on WBFO 88.7, the NPR radio affiliate in Buffalo, as part of its "Listener Commentary" series.

The Ravenweb Superhero Survey helps people find out which superhero they most resemble.

IE7 is released.

The Democrats recapture the House and the Senate.

Scrubs returns to NBC for a sixth season.

The James Bond franchise goes back to its roots, with an origin story and a young and untested Bond.

We buy a new 2007 Volkswagen GTI!

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When Weak Connections are Valuable at Work

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As a culture, we strive for personal transformation. Whether it's eating better and getting fit, redefining our professional value proposition through training and education, or simply trying to be kinder and gentler, we're constantly reinventing who we are and what we can do. We may not be successful all the time, or achieve breakthroughs like those featured on The Biggest Loser or facilitated by Tony Robbins , but millions of people successfully transform and reinvent themselves every year. Unfortunately, the very organizations where we work generally do not do the same. As Saul Kaplan elaborates in The Business Model Innovation Factory , most organizations struggle to transform from their core, initial business models and tend to become stagnant and vulnerable to disruptive competitors. The example Kaplan leads with is Blockbuster, which for a time owned the brick and mortar video and DVD rental space, until they were "netflixed" by a disruptive competitor (...

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