1 – Ties are out. The men’s tie business must be dying a slow death. Of 13,000 people at the Congress and Expo, you might count the number wearing ties on one hand. OK, maybe on both hands. Business casual rules, no doubt. Many attendees are comfortable in jeans and sports shirt. You don’t see many suits at all. Mostly it is the speakers in suits. And certainly not all of them.
2 – Astronaut Mark Kelly, wife of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona, made good points in his keynote address. He related the many safety ramifications that can arise from the decisions we make all day long. Kelly flew fighter missions over Iraq during the war and conceded making decision errors that could have cost him his life. And he was involved with a team of doctors tending to his wife after her near-fatal shooting at a Tucson mall; many of their discussions centered around the risks of various proposed procedures.