I think it's hard to have a brand portal and an economy of trustworthiness in one of them that sloshes over into another. But saying that there will be only a limited number of these giant brand portals doesn't mean a limited number of companies; it doesn't mean that everybody's going to be working for these companies. Quite the opposite. Most of us will be working through much smaller entities that simply use these portals as vehicles for getting and identifying customers.

Averages don't always reveal the most telling realities. You know, Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of 6 feet.

You and I and almost all Americans are beneficiaries of the new economy. But we are also losing parts of our lives to the new economy - aspects of our family lives, our friendships, our communities, ourselves.

If you ever want to get a sense of your own personal failure, look at yourself trying to get across a point that nobody is listening to and the situation gets worse and worse.

The intellectual equipment needed for the job of the future is an ability to define problems, quickly assimilate relevant data, conceptualize and reorganize the information, make deductive and inductive leaps with it, ask hard questions about it, discuss findings with colleagues, work collaboratively to find solutions and then convince others.

There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions.

In the '90s it was irrational exuberance. Now it may be irrational doom and gloom.