Recent View from the Prairie Articles

November 2025

Cybercrime and Resiliency

Cybercrime is growing year after year. It is a big business and the major players in cybercrime operate as a business. They even have research groups, user manuals, and "franchises" for people who want to start up their own cybercrime business. AI has reduced the cost to commit cybercrime and is allowing many opportunistic attacks. Are you ready to be attacked? The costs of a cybercrime attack can be in the millions and many businesses have failed after such an attack.

What is your time line??

Warren Buffet is known for stating that he wants to own a stock forever. Yet, his company sells stock on a regular basis. Public companies are under pressure to perform quarter by quarter. Other companies have gone private to avoid the short-term thinking on Wall Street. Short-term thinking can seep through a company and cause all sorts of challenges. There can be pressure to cut corners, short change business ethics, and more. What is your time line?

Resilience Under Stress

Floods, fire, and drought. Starting around 1450, Texas had a 37 year long exceptional drought that decimated the population. Disasters have happened time and time again. Faced with these disasters some communities folded, others rebuilt, and still others redesigned how they lived. Once thriving towns are now abandoned ghost towns. What makes for community resiliency? What makes an organization able to handle problems? What makes for bouncing forward through problems? In business, often the breaking comes from not just one little problem, but when problems cascade building one upon another.

What if what we know is wrong?

The most dangerous knowledge is that which we "know to be true" but are wrong. It is not true. We do well to question our assumptions. History has many examples of leaders "knowing" that they could beat another country only to be defeated in war. Many an inventor "knew" that they could succeed only to disappear into history. Question the assumptions and make plans for if I am wrong. The illusion of knowledge is most dangerous knowledge;

Surveillance Downsides

Cameras, keystroke monitoring, eye movement monitoring, and more. When companies switched from the office to working from home, a number of companies added surveillance systems. These systems can increase productivity but only when the right choices are made. The problem is that such monitoring increased cheating and breaking of rules. Surveillance can make things worse, not better. The costs are now being acknowledged. Surveillance has a real downside.

AI Boom Hiding Real Problem

Albania recently announced that a government minister is being generated by AI. Business CEOs are believing that AI can replace junior people and many recent college graduates are having trouble finding jobs. People are believing the hype about Artificial Intelligence and overlooking the real problem. We need real solutions based on humanity and creativity. The more AI advances, the more human traits of creativity, integrity, empathy, and trust, become differentiators and the way that businesses will make money. As aways, those that don't follow the herd will find paths that the herd does not.

Fear, Trust, and Success

Monte Python had a famous scene where three cardinals burst in proclaiming, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." While we may laugh at it now, the fear created by the Inquisition caused economic issues. In Italy, the fear of the inquisition caused a number of scientists to leave the country and bringing economic growth from Italy to where they settled. Some claim that they can measure in places reduced business activity and less investment in people hundreds of years later because of that fear. A climate of fear is bad for business. Fear causes reduced innovation and taking of risks.

Ads Polluting AI

AI can't continue to be free for everyone. When the investment to make AI is running far more than $50 Billion per year, someone will eventually have to pay for that. AI will either become a subscription service or be paid for by ads. Most people assume that AI will remain neutral but it can't continue this way. AI companies might not be trustworthy partners. The economics of AI are starting to come home. Right now, almost nobody is paying for AI but the costs are rising. AI companies are going to face a tremendous pressure to make money.

Boycotts

Captain Charles Boycott was the focus of a social shunning organized by the Irish National Land League. He acted as the land agent for Lord Erne in County Mayo, Ireland. In 1880, there was a bad harvest and Lord Erne started evicting tenants from the land for not paying their rent. The social shunning was so effective that Mr. Boycott could not get workers for his fields and the post refused to deliver mail. The news about this action spread quickly and soon, we had the word "boycott" in our language. What would happen if your customers suddenly went "on strike" against your company? The best defense is

Flooded by Risk

The recent floods in Texas and elsewhere and the recent meme about the concert couple remind us that risks eventually do happen. Eventually what we risk will happen. Being caught on the Jumbotron might be the smallest of consequences. There are two types of people who take on lots of risks, those who simply ignore or are ignorant of them, and those who constantly take on risks. A proper evaluation of risks helps survival.

Sea of Propaganda

We swim in an ocean of propaganda and advertising. AI is making it worse. Nearly anyone can post their beliefs online for all to see. With AI faking pictures, videos, or "recordings" of someone saying something, we can no longer trust any of them. One way to deal with such is to ask, "what if this is false?" In business, we often need to make good decisions without much data. We make these decisions based on our own beliefs and values. It is important to have clear connection to values that build a better future.

Hiring and Retention

Elon Musk called for people to work 80 hours per week. Rarely is that the way to get the best people. The team he assembled is full of people without experience, not knowing where mistakes are commonly made, and are making mistakes that our enemies are exploiting. Hiring and retaining the right workers challenges many companies.

Prairie Trail Software offers a complementary newsletter, A View from the Prairie.

These newsletters are our chief form of marketing. But beyond letting our clients know that we exist, they also provide a great source of information about consulting in general.

Our newsletters are completely free and available on request. Recent newsletters are available on the web after print publication.