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Josh Knox

Just Joshin' #183 (Kings)

Published 26 days ago • 5 min read

Family Photo:
Kingdoms

Orlando is a land of many kingdoms: Disney's Magic Kingdom, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and the lesser-known (not Disney-affiliated) Chocolate Kingdom. The kings of these respective kingdoms aren't explicitly named, though we can speculate—Mickey? Simba? Ozempic?—Real power here probably lies somewhere between the consumer and the stockholder.

With that in mind, this week the full membership of Cooptimize (all seven of us!) flew to Orlando for Community Summit.

Community Summit is the big trade show in our industry. We did a little experiment by sponsoring a booth this year. The hypothesis: "Maybe it's worth our company sponsoring a booth."

Walking the show floor this week, it occurred to me how many consulting companies are run like kingdoms: owners and managers atop little throwns demanding the fealty of consultants below them.

I've been a consultant at several previous companies during company acquisitions. The first order of business during an acquisition is usually an all-company meeting to review the updated org-chart. Managers must think the rank-and-file's top priority is knowing who's in charge of who, and to whom those people report.

During one acquisition, the acquirers presented an upside-down org-chart. "We put the C-suite on the bottom...because we believe it's our job to serve you," they said with a straight-faced—as if there was any doubt where the power and excess profit of the new organization would accumulate.

Our worker-cooperative experience with Cooptimize has been very different. "Everyone has a voice," is more than corporate jargon. The decision-making requires genuine consensus, not just consent of the governed.

On the last day of the show, we had to decide whether to sponsor a booth again next year. Some were in favor; some opposed. One member observed, "it's interesting—there seems to be a reverse correlation between time spent at the booth this week and desire to sponsor a booth next year—the people who spent the most time at the booth seem least interested in sponsoring one again."

That argument won the day. The people most affected by a decision should have the most say. So we decided as a group not to sponsor a booth again next year.

This week wasn't a failed experiment—we successfully tested our hypothesis and found it incorrect. Relative to other things, it's probably not worth sponsoring a booth again. Though there is value in attending the conference and many of us will likely be back again next year.

Democracy at work!

Dad Jokes:
Heavy is the Head

Why did the king go to the dentist?​
To get his crown checked

Source: Dad[AI]Base

Highlights:
No Kings

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (2016)

“A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman with a desk.”

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America (1776)

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
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He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
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He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
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He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
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He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
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He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
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He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
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He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
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He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
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He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
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He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
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He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
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He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
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For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
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For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
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For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
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For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
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For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
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For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
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For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
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For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
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For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
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He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
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He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
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He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
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He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

iamJoshKnox Highlights:

Summit 2025

Load of the Rings: The Two Tools–D365 Excel Add-In and DMF​
(Slides from my presentation this week for Summit 2025)

btw, I updated my website's About Me page with links to all my professional (and a few non-professional) presentations.

Want to Be Interviewed?

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​Please REPLY if you'd like to do a 30-minute interview with me for a Podcast that doesn't yet exist.

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Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​

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Josh Knox

Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇

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