The marathon teaching session in Denver at Executive Forum

Dateline: United flight from Denver to Indy, 22 September 2005

I will say, I have never encountered an executive teaching organization as slick or as professional as this one here in Denver. Good pay, good coordination, good accommodations and travel, great site, great students, great food and AV support, and I got to finally visit Denver for at least a few hours on a nice day.

I only wish all my speaking gigs went this smoothly.

Actually trotted out a bunch of "enterprise resilience management" stuff today at the end of the brief, in a final section entitled "getting down to business." It worked pretty well, giving me yet another chance to learn by speaking on the subject.

Signed some books after the event, then had a nice meal with the Executive Forum staff before heading back to the stunning airport, where I snapped that photo of Jack Swiggert, the Apollo 13 astronaut played by Kevin Bacon in the popular movie by Ron Howard.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Wanted for nation-building: actual nations, not pretend ones

■ Barbie meets her Middle Eastern match!

■ The kidnap industry reflects the individualization of insecurity-just like warfare

■ The return of China's barefoot doctor: a flu-driven stop-gap measure

■ The magnificent FCS looks awfully Leviathan-like

■ Wolfowitz: either low-key mastermind of change or academic out of his depth

■ Brazil matures to the point where scandals don't much matter anymore

■ Why U.S. tertiary education still leads the world