Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

  • Ducking Trade Offs In Public Life

    I love the first day of the month. There are two things I do on the morning of every first day. First, I say “Rabbit, Rabbit.” That’s a tradition that I learned sometime back in the eighties: if, on the first day of the month, the first words out of your mouth are “Rabbit, Rabbit,”…

  • Useful Resources For Solo Startups

    As most of my readers know, my wife Andrea Jarrell and I are both “solopreneurs” — she has been at it a lot longer than me, but we are both quite accustomed to this way of working. Andrea is preparing for a panel where she will be talking about the trials, tribulations, and rewards of…

  • Will You Support Me In Running For Annie?

    As you may know, the Marine Corps Marathon is coming up in October — October 25, to be exact. I plan to run in it again this year. I am excited! Last year I came very close to my goal (I finished at 4:13:58). This year I hope at least to beat last year’s time,…

  • The Social Media Backlash And What I Had For Lunch

    Yesterday an article titled “How Facebook Ruins Friendships” predictably made the rounds of social media as people debated its pros and cons. The article’s argument hinges on three points: 1) that people say inappropriate things on social sites; 2) that much of it is trivia; and 3) this is annoying because no one wants to…

  • How To Be A Nice Person Online

    Humans are social beasts. They are driven to form groups. Every group has its own set of rules — its etiquette. Social media is no exception. A stable set of norms is emerging that governs online behavior. Some of it is adopted from the etiquette of early online environments — like DON’T USE ALL CAPS…

  • The Value Of Focusing On Something Else

    Last night, on vacation with extended family, a few of us stayed up late playing Risk. As players of this game know, these episodes can go on for hours and hours. We laughed harder than I had laughed in a long time. As I went to bed (of course the game is not finished, it…

  • Cash For Clunkers: When Paces Collide

    The White House has announced that it will divulge details shortly about how it will wind down the seemingly successful Cash for Clunkers program. As of July, car dealers nationwide had done $1.8 billion in deals under the program, and are on track to exhaust the $3 billion available for the program. The initiative has…