• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Scientific Ink

Dunrie Greiling Ph.D., Ann Arbor, MI 48105

  • Internet Marketing Start to Finish
    • Internet Strategy
  • Self-Aware
  • Posts
  • About Dunrie
  • Contact

Posts

Do you lead by coercion or mediation?

April 30, 2020 by Dunrie

But since Clark’s triumphs were those of a war leader, that is, the products of fear, pain, and opportunity, they were not stable. Clark’s mistake was to think them the larger triumphs of alliance.”

Richard White, The Middle Ground (20th anniversary edition, 2011) p. 371

I’m reading, at Dave’s cousin Toby’s excellent suggestion, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. The quote describes George Rogers Clark, one of many who overinterpreted their success in making war as leadership for other situations.

The book lists battles, betrayals, and atrocities. Yet, this history tells a parallel story of the peace leaders, the alliances, and diplomacy that avoided or slowed even more torture and murder.

The title of the work refers to a middle ground made of blended and new customs, sometimes based on shared misunderstandings. In this middle ground, mediation rather than coercion was the more productive form of leadership.

The French were at their strongest when they appeared, at least to themselves, the most weak. When they offered goods freely, when they mediated quarrels, when they stayed Algonquian hatchets and covered the dead, then they achieved a status that no other group could rival. They were, conversely, at their weakest when they appeared the most dangerous and powerful…[When they] abandoned mediation and deployed force, then [their] special status began to dissipate.”

White, The Middle Ground, pp. 182-3

Of course, I read this book through the lens of the fear and pain of this current moment. While White describes the history of a particular time and situation, he also describes the human condition.

Fear and pain may get valued results, but only temporarily.

When the pandemic crisis subsides (we are not there yet), let us build communities, maintain alliances, and foster respect among peoples instead of division, blame, and worse, revenge.

Let us hold up peace rather than war leadership as a metaphor for our actions and hopes for the future.

Filed Under: Life

Seen Online: When the Motor Stops

April 27, 2020 by Dunrie

Loved this video from Doner for its beauty and storytelling: poignant and resonant.

When the motor stops, the spirit continues. #staysafedetroit pic.twitter.com/y3QFxJG9qQ

— Doner (@doner_agency) March 30, 2020

Filed Under: Web

Wisdom of Trees – An Eternal Optimist Waits for Better Times

April 16, 2020 by Dunrie

In a difficult year, trees may increase their mass by less than one gram! During this time, the tree devotes its limited resources to maintaining the status quo. Like an eternal optimist, the tree concentrates on keeping itself alive until such time that conditions improve.

Peter E. Kelly and Douglas W. Larson, The Last Stand: A Journey through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment p. 75

This eternal optimist tree is the eastern white cedar, Thuja occidentalis. On the cliff-faces of the Bruce Peninsula and the Niagara Escarpment, some white cedars survive hundreds of years. There, these ancient trees form a scraggly and gnarled old-growth “forest.”

Challenged by gravity, root-limited, and exposed to weather, the cliff-face cedars escape competition from other trees. While they grow exceptionally slowly under these challenging conditions, other trees cannot survive at all.

For me, this shelter-in-place is not the time for productivity. I’ll take my cue from the cedars: persist, wait, and remain optimistic about better times ahead.


The Last Stand: A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment is a great guide to these fascinating trees.

Filed Under: Life

Leave the window open a little…

April 9, 2020 by Dunrie

If I limit my access to social and news apps and open the window to the outdoors, I do better.

The window lets in

  • the feel and sound of the wind,
  • the glint of water droplets on spruce needles,
  • the brown-eyed wariness of the deer,
  • the quick boldness of the robin,
  • the optimism of the daffodil nodding in the breeze,
  • the smell of spring emerging outside,
  • and a reminder of something larger than myself and my anxiety.

Let me be as vigilant for beauty as for threats.

Filed Under: Life

Posted Elsewhere

February 8, 2020 by Dunrie

Over the last two years, I have been focused on Matterhorn by Court Innovations, so my recent posts have been elsewhere. I am proud to stay on the Matterhorn team.

Here are posts I’ve written on the getMatterhorn site.

Here are our webinars and the customer testimonial videos.

I’ve also been a contributor to the following Joint Technology Committee publications, available from the National Center for State Courts:

  • Marketing a Court Website: Helping the Public Find the Court Online 2018 (open PDF in new tab)
  • Social Media Marketing for Courts (open PDF in new tab)

For more on the JTC and the NCSC, see the JTC Publications and Webinars page on NCSC.org.

Filed Under: Matterhorn

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 58
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

Latest Book

Self-Aware: A Guide for Success in Work and Life

View Book »

Internet Marketing Book

Internet Marketing Start to Finish

View Book »

Search

Share!

© Copyright 2006-2021 Scientific Ink · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy