If you'd told me I'd be the regular reader of a business blog, I'd have thought you crazy, but Eric Schultz is Chairman of the Board at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and once wrote a genealogy-related post that hooked me. Hiis blog, The Occasional CEO, is about business, yes, but more about people and history and innovation and instersting ideas. Best of all, he writes really well. This is old news to regular readers, as I've quoted from The Occasional CEO several times. Here, in brief, are five of his posts—spanning more than a year—from my backblog.
The Erie Canal was 363 miles, 83 locks, 675 feet up and down, and cost $7,143,789 to build. A calculation of the ROI [Return On Investment] on the project would show that the construction cost was paid in nine years. In 1882, when tolls were finally abolished, the canal had produced revenue of $121 million, more than four times its operating costs....But, what did the Erie Canal really do? How do we, in retrospect, measure the incalculable ROI?
It Turns Out You CAN Buy Happiness
[O]ne of the best predictors of happiness is a strong social network; spending money on others is the one thing sure to make us significantly happier. “Money makes you most happy if you don’t spend it on yourself”—not giving it all away, but “just reallocating as little as $5 on a given day can make a difference in happiness.”
The Great American Export: English
[If you] ask the question, “What did the Americans ever do for us?”...there will likely be a strong argument that the single greatest export in American history turned out to be the English language, with an obvious and major assist from the British Empire....If you wish to land your jumbo jet at an airport, or practice any kind of international commerce, you’d best do it in English. Over 80 per cent of the world’s electronically stored information is in English and two-thirds of the world’s scientists read in English. English is an official language, or has a special status in over 75 of the world’s territories....It will be a truly bizarre day when the entire world conducts its business in English, except for the United States, where one can get by swimmingly without ever having had to learn the mother tongue.
Focusing hard on a stuck bolt allows us to peer 4 billion years into the future. Driving our car into a 34-foot pine tree destroys Western Civilization. Multitasking makes us stupid, especially behind the wheel of a car. It’s not exactly a recipe for life, but—it does give you pause, eh?
It's Beginning to Look (A Lot Less) Like Christmas
According to our local stores, who have already put out Christmas merchandise, we're nearing that time of year when I gripe about Kwanzaa as a made-up "holiday." This is a good reminder that while Christmas is a bona fide "holy day," commemorating an event of incalculable historical and spiritual significance, much of the American secular holiday of the same name is as contrived as Kwanzaa.
Santa...was essentially invented in the 1820s and co-opted almost immediately by the rising material tide in the early Republic. He did...help to soften the season, which was violent and drunken in post-Revolution America. But Santa was and is part and parcel of our economic history, and has been intimately bound to our financial fortunes for two centuries.
John Pintard was a prominent NYC merchant and civic leader...and a major player in establishing Washington’s Birthday, the Fourth of July and even Columbus Day as national holidays....[F]rom 1810 to 1830 or so Pintard took the responsibility of inventing Christmas rituals to try to create the perfect-remembered holiday. He led the effort to bring St. Nicholas to America....
