I included the url so maybe you could check it out and comment on the use of blogs in the classroom. They’ve been pretty pleased with the response from their “parent” bloggers, many of whom have responded to their comments.

Hope to catch up with you soon (Orlando, perhaps?)

Susan Dobscha, Associate Professor of Marketing, Bentley College

And what about all those American corporations that are withering before our eyes, like the auto companies that are anything but “nimble” and “dynamic”, especially compared to some of their non-American competitors?

There probably are great American corporations, and no doubt a corporation with great leadership and a dynamic workforce could go a long way to solving political problems (in the USA as well as any of the countries you mentioned for comic effect)if directed to do so … but they won’t because political problems are not what corporations are designed to solve.

And torturing Phil Mickelson into the mix … not all that helpful. He still seems successful as much in spite of himself as because of himself. He is changing, though, and I suppose that is a sign of a successful corporation, too … the willingness and ability to change to thrive.

Okay, I’ll give you the Mickelson thing. But the blanket enthusiasm for corporations? Not so much.

For some, golf is indeed a bucolic recreation, nothing more. But the game is difficult enough that most who play it seem to be continually frustrated (and thus fascinated) by it. Since it is difficult, and since the physical ajustments required to play well are so minute and difficult to control, it is a highly mental game. Two competitive individuals playing a friendly round might appear to the oobserver to be relaxing on an artifically green island, but are likely to be struggling internally with course strategy, shot visualization, swing mechanics, and trying to hold down their own feelings of frustration which could destroy their tenuous grasp of technique.

These frustrations can lead players to forget the playing, and retreat into a hyperfocus on technique, but such a move rarely helps their play and these people usually abandon the game. In business, this might be the equivalent of becoming deadwood or holing up in a compliance-oriented part of the organization.