Seat 1A

Personal weblog of Alan L. Nelson
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About This Site

  • I'm Alan Nelson. By trade I'm a Partner at CRA; for an avocational bio go here, for a vocational one go here. This site is my personal weblog, is a hobby, and is not affiliated with CRA or its clients.

    It's updated frequently, travel permitting. The most recent entries are at the top of the page, and older content is organized by category and date in the archives.

    If you'd like to contact me I'd welcome the note; you may do so at alan.l.nelson [at] gmail [dot] com. Finally, my Facebook page is here.

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I POSED TO KATE, a third-grade teacher, the one-sentence challenge. Her response:

"Each child is unique: As a learner, a thinker, and a community member."

SINCE REBECCA BLOOD tagged me with Paul Kedrosky's one-sentence challenge (my response here), I've taken to asking folks the same question about their particular fields. I think it's a wonderful device for distilling and clarifying essential knowledge, and I'm truly digging the answers I'm getting -- enough so that I've created a regular Seat 1A feature & category for the responses I gather: One Sentence To Tell The Future.

Yesterday I had opportunity to ask an astrophysicist the question. His response: "Space is big." Add that to the list.

MY FRIEND and Eve of blogging Rebecca Blood has tagged me with Paul Kedrosky's One-Sentence Challenge:

Physicist Richard Feynman once said that if all knowledge about physics was about to expire the one sentence he would tell the future is that "Everything is made of atoms". What one sentence would you tell the future about your own area, whether it's entrepreneurship, hedge funds, venture capital, or something else?

Examples: An economist might say that "People respond to incentives". I had an engineering professor years ago who said all of that field could be reduced to "F=MA and you can't push on a rope".

Personally, I'm not worthy to be added to a list that includes an esteemed nanotechnologist, futurist, people helping to change the world, and Malcolm Gladwell. Still, here's my contribution. If all knowledge about communication was about to expire the one sentence I would tell the future is:

"Everything sends a message--your eyes, your watch, whether you're on time for meetings, what you say, your silences, what you serve in the company cafeteria, what you eat in the company cafeteria, what you reward and ignore, the decisions you make and refuse--everything."