ARTICLES BY JIM LAURIA

• A Tale Of Two Movies: Brave Blue World And Dark Waters

  It was the best of water, it was the worst of water, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the year of COVID and Brave Blue World and the year of Dark Waters. Two films on water bridged the gulf between Charles Dickens' spring of hope and darkness of despair, showing audiences two sides of the ongoing evolution of the water industry.

• Water Quotes From Famous People

  In my last post, Water Quotes from Movies and Films, and during our Water We Talking About? podcast with Paul O’Callaghan, I give a big thanks to actor Matt Damon for his efforts around water. In the hopeful documentary Brave Blue World, Matt expresses my sentiments and those of many of my fellow water professionals… "How lucky are we that we are the ones who get to solve this?"

• Water Quotes From Movies And Films

  My favorite book of 2020 was about one of my favorite movies of all time, water or otherwise, Chinatown. In his book The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, author Sam Wasson gives the perspectives of screenwriter Robert Towne, producer Robert Evans, director Roman Polanski, and lead actor Jack Nicholson in the making of the 1974 film. The movie was inspired by the California Water Wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley.

• Water Quotes From Chinese Teachings

  Recent LinkedIn posts have highlighted the tensions building up between India and China over Chinese control of the water supply flowing out of Tibet. Will Sarni posted the South China Morning Post headline “India and China gear up for a new battle, this time over water” and Stuart Shapiro provided a link to a Byline Times article “War Over Water: The New Flashpoint in the India-China Stand-Off”.

• Water Quotes From Song Lyrics

  For as long as I can remember, I have felt a deep connection between water and music. From mix tapes (remember those?) to my current iTunes playlists, water themes have dominated my song selections.

• Water Quotes From Around The World

  During my recent webinar “How to Stand Out on LinkedIn: Tips for Water Professionals”, I talked about my extensive collection of water quotes. Recently I posted my favorite water quotes from Leonardo da Vinci.

• Leonardo da Vinci Water Quotes

  While reviewing a mind map (a practice I picked up from the Maestro himself) for the article What Leonardo da Vinci Can Teach Us About Water, I came across a list of my favorite Leonardo water quotes.

• You Shouldn’t Splash That S**t Around

  The novel coronavirus pandemic has brought a wide range of health issues into sharp focus, including the spread of pathogens through aerosols, tiny droplets of liquid that can hang in the air for minutes or even hours.

• When It Comes To Water, Is Hindsight 20/20?

  Back in October 2018, when I started looking to the past to gather wisdom from what people have said about water through the ages, I figured when it comes to water, it’s 50/50 that hindsight is 20/20. So I needed a large sample size. I started collecting quotes from all sorts of people — scientists and screenwriters, poets and philosophers and politicians and pop singers — hoping to provide insight into water and the issues around it. (For more details on my journey, see last year’s World Water Day post.) Some of those quotes can even help us peek into the future.

• Dangerous Waters In A Changing World

  Americans and Canadians got a peek into the future when the City of Toledo shut its drinking water taps in 2014, issuing a do-not-drink order on the municipal water supplies serving 500,000 people. Levels of microcystin, a potent liver toxin produced by blue-green algae, were more than double the World Health Organization's safe limit. More than 700 square miles of the Lake Erie surface was covered by a harmful algal bloom (HAB), and drinking water plants couldn't remove the algal cells and the toxins they produced.

• Irrigation Consumer Bill of Rights: Smart Irrigation Starts With Smart Choices

  As we celebrate Smart Irrigation Month, it's a great time to highlight not only smart technologies, but the smart people and smart decisions behind them. One remarkably smart tool that ties all three of those elements together is the Irrigation Consumer Bill of Rights by Dr. Charles Burt of the Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo.

• How To Introduce New Products Into The Water Space: A Case Study

  Innovation is vital in the water industry and continually moving ahead is a must — even if the company you're trying to surpass is your own. By listening to a wide range of customers and distribution chain partners, Mazzei Injector Company upgraded its revolutionary Pipeline Flash Reactor (PFR) and introduced it to the marketplace with great impact.

• How To Cannibalize Your Own Technology

  Business people love to talk about "disruption." They pride themselves on eating their competitors' lunch. Where their markets used to be about raving fans, now it's about inspiring craving fans, fueled by "hunger marketing" and the fear of missing out. There's a lot of dog-eat-dog philosophy...which is why it's important for companies to be willing to cannibalize their own technologies.

• And I Quote: "To Know Water Is To Love Water"

  It all started with Mark Twain. Or someone who actually wasn't Mark Twain after all.