I like sites that have graphics that are small, hyper-fast loading.

I like sites that fit in horizontally - thus no left and right scrolling.

I like sites that paint a context of background white space around the content of the "electronic ink."

I like sites where "focus words" flow down the middle and you can read them with only two eye scans per line - maybe one if you are a practiced, fast surfer-reader.

I also like "long content" sites with something to say that requires more than one screen-full of display space. I only gain the interest of long-focus folks.

In short - I like sites that look like this one.

Now the content of a website matters - always your decision . . . to stay, or to go. It depends on what you're looking for and what you need.

If you'd like to write about what you think send me an email to: Roger(at)RogerGilbertson(dot)com
First change the "(at)" to "@" and "(dot)" to "." - a spam fooler, maybe. Might work until the spammers program around it.

I will try to respond. I've gotten some interesting e-mail from my sites and will pong to your ping . . . unless I'm swamped. Or your message gets confused as spam: although I try to scan the "junk." Write a subject line that is not spammy.

Why do I care? Modern civilization discounts most relationships - shallow and quick. So my interest is to leave a ripple of identity - as fleeting as it may be.

This is auto-biographic material. Look through it - if you have the time and interest. If not, enjoy your net surfing and have a great life. Maybe come back later.

I write for a literate reader - and I know dealing with the options, intentions, and contentions of web content can tend to warp something in the mind. The clinical term is continuous partial attention - interesting development.

Roger Gilbertson says:

"I have been told not to write about yourself in the first person. But that is what I would rather do."

So here goes. No more quotes unless someone else said it. The rest is me. But here and there I do use the third person - that might give my identity a little more emphasis.

Everything I write should be prefaced by "this is what I think." My writing, your writing, all writing . . . should be taken with a grain of salt.

Human development seems based on:

Incrementally Informed Personal Speculation.

About as good as we can do as individuals.

MANY AGES

Someone did say, "Roger, you have the curiosity of a 6-year old, the energy of an 18-year old, and the wisdom of a 109-year old - yet you still look like Mayor Koch."

I take most of that as complimentary.

A FATHER

My daughter, Gambi, and son, Erik, are now adults - I have the experience of being a father with all the joy and responsibility that goes with it.

The development of humankind over the last 5,000,000 years is a major personal research interest. I call the human cultural period before Civilization by a my own coined term: Primalization.

I study the detours we take as civilized people - side roads away from the survival skills, aptitudes, and culture we used to mostly thrive: for all but the last 10,000 years. There are effects everywhere in you, me, and the groups we belong to.

Because I am so sensitive to Primalization - I filter most of what I see around me through this primal metaphor prism - the detours stand out to me as highlights on the mosaic of humanity. There are foundation cultural implications for organizations, for leadership, for motivation.

I have been "mining" a book a day in the very early morning for much of the time since 1981. I seek and find the information "nuggets" in books that inspire me. My expertise expands. I try to sleep from a bit after sunset to a touch before sunrise - very primitive.

When the Sun sleeps, I sleep.

And when the expert hunter-killer predators of our long-ago yesterday's - on the east African savanna - slept around noon, I too take a nap. A 90 minute sleep cycle, if I can do it.

Because I don't need a lot of sleep I go to bed right after the Final Jeopardy Question at 8pm and get up, wide awake and ready to go, at about 2 or 3am. So I "mine" a book, or write, or ponder - just about every morning.

The human mind is naturally brightest from 4am to 10am. Our brain developed over many years when hungry, unsuccessful, nocturnal predators wanted us for their breakfast - and we needed to break our own fast as well. Hence I practice being a morning dove - exercising my mind when it shines the brightest in those early hours.

Most humans are natural morning doves - about 8 out of 9 - but many are converted into virtual night owls by artificial lighting, television, and recreation in the evening.

DOCTORATE

During 1984 to 1988 most of my reading was focused on doctoral learning at the University of Southern California. That gave me a chance to center on philosophy and psychology with some anthropology for leavening - and to write a dissertation on the long-term development of humankind - here is a truncated version from back around then:

"The Search for Wisdom Systems."

That's where I've put some incrementally informed personal speculations about conflicts between the light patina of civilization and our imbedded profound heritage from gathering hunting band living.

I was granted a doctorate on 7 December 1988 at the age of 52. In this culture having that doctorate gives me a form of credibility - at an age when I have at least the potential for wisdom.

ADMIRAL

I realigned, "retired," as a 2-star Rear Admiral - from the United States Naval Reserve. That was in 1998.

I miss the virtual, gathering-hunting tribal-clan that was the Navy for me . . . I often use references to primitive bands and tribal-clans. We have foraging, scavenging, gathering, scrutinizing, walking, and hunting as fundamental parts of our physical and mental legacy - embedded over 5,000,000 years of survival success.

What did I do as an Admiral? I was the leader of the High Tech Brain Trust of the Navy. We are the Naval Reserve officer scientists and engineers working on projects as fundamental as ship-building and as esoteric as basic computer research.

I led 5,000 people in 200 units. About 1,000 of them were officers with at least a Master of Science degree - 100 had doctorates and another 100 had MBA's. It was an honor to be a member of that group for 37 years. And to lead it for the last 7 of those years.

In the parallel corporate world I would have been titled, "Chief Executive Officer" - of a scientific and engineering consulting firm - with 200 branch offices distributed around the United States: wherever scientists and engineers tend to bunch. Except that my compensation was not dollar-intensive. Satisfaction was my real pay as the High Tech Brain Trust Admiral.

The true profit from that calling was a stronger, surviving, United States - the leadership experience was priceless - way beyond dollars.

I miss the Navy. It built solid competence for me in mentoring, leading, doing, thinking, and persuading . . . a calling worthy of using the energy of my lifetime.

Over my years as an Admiral I had a
$1,000,000,000
responsibility. I like writing the number out - words make it seem less real, too abstracted. How pale it is when you read the contrasting
"one billion dollars."

See?

There's a different texture to it. I try to write most numbers as numbers and not as words. They are easier to understand that way - no need for the extra translation step in the mind to shift meaning from words to numbers.

Are numbers more linear left-brained and word-written numbers more random right-brained? Could be.

Just think - before the Web Explosion $1,000,000,000 was a lot of money. It may not get back to that even after the Web Implosion - the bursting of the DotCom bubble.

I love learning. You can tell it by my school education. But I have also had a lot of lessons learned in experience - probably with better understanding based on real, not virtual, reality. In fact, my education was earned in parallel with experience. I tend toward being a generalist through multi-specialty.

My lifetime fits the idea of "multi-tasking" - doing many things at the same time, in parallel, rather than doing things one-after-the-the-other: like a string of pearl tasks, along a thread of time.

Life is just too short.

An example is my undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech. I was a cooperative student. That meant that I spent Winter and Summer calendar quarters working at Bendix Radio in Baltimore, Maryland.

My academic quarters were in the Fall and Spring at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I earned all the money to pay for my degree and understood both values - "ivory-tower" academic educational and "street-smart" pragmatic business.

LOTS OF EDUCATION

Here is my life-long pattern of formal education. Although these cultural credentials ease life in civilization, my real education has been the selection, evaluation, and assimilation of each new experience within the cascading memory of all my previous experiences.

BS from Georgia Tech - 1958

MS from Purdue University - 1959

"One Semester MBA" Program for Management Development from the Harvard Business School - 1972

Masters from the University of Southern California - 1986

Doctorate from the University of Southern California - 1988

A masters level equivalent from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces - 1990

Graduate work in Political Science at the University of Colorado - 1961

Officers Candidate School at OCS Newport, Rhode Island - 1961

2/3rds of the course work for a JD from the George Washington University Law School - 1964

Operations research courses at the American University - 1966

Psychology courses at UCLA - 1975

Economics and Entertainment Law and Finance from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Graduate School - 1978

Capstone Course for Admirals and Generals at the National Defense University - 1993

Reserve Flag Officers program at the Army War College - 1993

Flag Officers course at the Defense Systems Management College - 1995

Russian Generals and Admirals Executive Development Course at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government - by special invitation as an American Admiral - 1997

I started my "higher education" career by taking the freshman year of college in high school - the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute Accelerated Program: the Poly "A" Course - 1954.

That's
5 Civilian Public Schools and
5 Civilian Private Schools and
5 Military Schools -
I like the symmetrical emotional "feel" of those numbers in balance.

Turns out that I've also lived in 15 of our United States.

WORKED MY WAY THROUGH COLLEGES

Except for government sponsored short courses all was paid for by me. Yup, I continued the style learned at Georgia Tech and worked my way through various colleges.

I always had a job in parallel with my educational stuff. I've tried not to be an over-educated, under-experienced dilettante. I never applied for any scholarships because I felt that the "easy money" was for those who could not earn enough on their own.

If anything, I suspect I was a hyper-active child who became a channeled, super-active adult. People who know me recognize how my energy spills out into groups where I am engaged. I energize and enliven them. I am usually optimistic, usually energetic, usually authentic - despite the "Fog of Civilization."

I am a Certified Seminar Leader (CSL) - that gives me enhanced skill in empowering human groups to navigate into new ideas and to act.

That gives me added scope in the development the concept of cultural detours from Primalization into Civilization - and the effect on how human groups work.

I only talk to groups when I have enough time and information to know what that gathering of people "needs."

I've got lots of things to say about leadership, micro-cultures, and meaning - as well as communications, technology, and motivation. I enjoy talking to large groups of people - with interactive dialogue, so they can talk back.

I incorporate context sensitive humor: just enough to add unexpectedness and the relief of a smile or a laugh. This is an accommodation to the rhythm of human interaction.

Attention and distraction are a continuing human cycle. As prey our individual attention could only be narrowed for a quick evaluation and an appropriate reaction response - then we needed to return to general surveillance of our surroundings . . . looking for the dangerous exception.

We memorized all the environment around - to force exceptions to stand out. That's one of the long detours of civilization . . . the accelerating flux of changing data, information, knowledge, intelligence around us demands a personal search for meaning: hence, your own crafted-through-a-lifetime micro-culture.

I cast ideas with an entertaining story.

I become part of an audience, not apart from it. I have a rich understanding of what it means to lead, but also what it means to participate - as an equal - in a group with an intention to act, with a mission. All of us have a common task of collecting, cooperating, and maximizing our blended learning - and discovered meaning.

People in my audiences participate and engage - move, talk, listen. I don't preach: we exchange, think, do.

SEND ME A MESSAGE

I do thinking - keynote speeches - seminars - consulting.

What is your benefit?

People in my audiences come away with more ability to achieve balance in life. You tell me what expert exchange your audience needs from me. If we agree I can do that - let's find a way to do it.

CIVILIAN EXPERIENCE

My over 30 years of civilian experience is also deep and broad. I spent the first 20 years in a variety of mental specialties, navigational challenges - from computers to international trade to management-labor relations.

From 1973 to 1975 I went into the private sector in the President's Executive Interchange Program. I was the Director of Planning for a major West Coast bank, the United California Bank - now a part of Wells Fargo.

Living in California was a major life shifting experience. There was a sense of freedom and adventure there in the 1970s. And I was in my late 30s. Great Time - Great Age!

I treasure all the days of my life - yet those California days were special.

I participated at the White House from 1976 to 1980 in the President's Reorganization Project - part of President Jimmy Carter's hope to improve government.

The last decade of my civilian career was spent as a Program Manager for Basic Research. I sponsored and mentored over $200,000,000 in research conducted in universities and non-profit organizations - for the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The goal was to improve the ability of American enterprise to compete in the global marketplace.

I've had two demanding full-time callings at the same time, together - my Navy and civilian careers were in parallel from 1968 to 1998.

In the Navy I was in the "Cold War" at the International Trade Administration I observed the "Hot Peace."

Oh yes, and from 1990 to 1995 I also taught as an adjunct member of the MBA faculty at Shenandoah University. So I've seen Academia as student and as teacher. The courses I taught were organizational theory, organizational development, ethics, and public management.

That's two and a half careers in parallel.

FOR FREE OR FOR A FEE

Time is not money.
Time is much more important.
Time is your life.

Money is not first. Other human considerations are really higher priority - time, trust, authenticity - you can list others.

I speak for free or for a fee. If an organization you care about normally has volunteer speakers I am willing to explore that.

If your interests focus on an organization that habitually pays for speakers then I do have a fee - about the same as anyone else who is competent in communicating important ideas to human groups.

I am careful about what speaking I do. Life is just too precious to fritter away - I don't want to waste your time, my skill, or our reputations.

How's that for a soft-sell - at the bottom of the website - abstracted - nuanced.