“[an Ontario-based bus company] Trentway-Wagar was arguing that because carpooling used to be inconvenient, it should always be inconvenient, and if that inconvenience disappeared, then it should be reinserted by legal fiat. Curiously, an organization that commits to helping society manage a problem also commits itself to the preservation of that same problem, as its institutional existence hinges on society’s continued need for its management. Bus companies provide a critical service—public transportation—but they also commit themselves, as Trentway-Wagar did, to fending off competition from alternative ways of moving people from one place to another.”

— Clay Shirky

Cognitive Surplus : Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010)

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Clay Shirky 19

American technology writer 1964

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

Russell v. The Mayor of Devon (1788), 1 T. R. 673.

“Part of America's industrial problems is the aim of its corporate managers. Most American executives think they are in the business to make money, rather than products or service…The Japanese corporate credo, on the other hand, is that a company should become the world's most efficient provider of whatever product and service it offers. Once it becomes the world leader and continues to offer good products, profits follow.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

Source: Out Of The Crisis (1982), p. 99

“Management problems are not respecters of the company organization, nor of the talents of the people appointed to solve them.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 5, It Works, p. 117.

“Most companies are saddled with institutional constraints. A company's history, for example, may commit it to an industry that now offers limited opportunity. A more common problem is a shareholder constituency that pressures its manager to dance to Wall Street's tune. Many CEOs resist, but others give in and adopt operating and capital-allocation policies far different from those they would choose if left to themselves.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

2003 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2003ltr.pdf
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

International Society for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=505&invol=672 (concurring opinion) (26 June 1992).

“You should deny facts if they're inconvenient.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Juél J. Juél
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

“One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door (2001), p. 146
Context: One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.

“There is complete transparency, no bureaucracy or bribery, and people are provided with a cultured service. In fact, this is the way it should be. "ASAN xidmət" is a very important institutional center not only in the field of public services, but also for society as a whole.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

During the opening of Qabala regional “ASAN xidmət” center (10 August 2016) http://en.president.az/articles/20790
Anti-corruption policy

“I hope that this assignment will not prove an inconvenience,” Doc continued.
“All duty is inconvenient to a greater or lesser degree, or it would not be duty.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 648)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

“Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Source: The Living Company, 1997, p. 3

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