Whoever thought the coronavirus pandemic would drastically change tech companies’ real estate plans in Silicon Valley, hasn’t met Google.
The Alphabet company has proposed a new tech campus in its historic home city of Mountain View, with plans to remodel 40 acres into a mixed-use center that includes housing, retail and community gathering spaces in a town-like tech campus, the company said Tuesday.
The Middlefield Park Master Plan envisions a campus that includes up to 1.33 million square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail-type use, up to 1,850 housing units, and 20,000 square feet of civic and event space, as well as 12 acres of open space.
Many colorful stars are packed close together in this image of the globular cluster NGC 1805, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The striking difference in star colors is illustrated beautifully in this image, which combines different types of light: blue stars, shining brightest in near-ultraviolet light, and red stars, illuminated in red and near-infrared. Space telescopes like Hubble can observe in the ultraviolet because they are positioned above Earth’s atmosphere, which absorbs most ultraviolet light, making it inaccessible to ground-based facilities.
America’s fractious and tragic response to the COVID-19 pandemic has made the nation look more like a failed state than like the richest country in world history. Doom-scrolling through morbid headlines in 2020, one could easily believe that we have lost our capacity for effective crisis response. And maybe we have. But a major crisis has a way of exposing what is broken and giving a new generation of leaders a chance to build something better. Sometimes the ramifications of their choices are wider than one might think.
The article talks about how New York and Chicago have bounced back from previous challenges.
“New York is built on disasters,” Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU, told me recently. “There’s the 1835 fire, and the construction of the Croton Aqueduct. There’s the 1888 blizzard, and the construction of the subway. There’s the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which killed 146 workers in Manhattan. Frances Perkins would say, ‘The New Deal started with the factory fire,’ because it was the disaster that led to a New York State commission on labor conditions, which in turn led to the eight-hour workday. In all of these physical disasters, New York City has responded by changing for the better.”
The Chicago fire enabled the rise of skyscrapers in three major ways. First, it made land available for new buildings. The fire may have destroyed the business district, but the railway system remained intact, creating ideal conditions for new construction. So much capital flowed into Chicago that downtown real-estate prices actually rose in the first 12 months after the fire. “The 1871 fire wiped out the rich business heart of the city, and so there was lots of money and motivation to rebuild immediately,” Julius L. Jones, an assistant curator at the Chicago History Museum, told me. “It might have been different if the fire had just wiped out poor areas and left the banks and business offices alone.” What’s more, he said, the city used the debris from the fire to extend the shoreline into Lake Michigan and create more land.
Selected from entries by 110 registered design teams, the winning design is Superbloom, a cluster of green pipes that rise to various heights before curving out to hold light fixtures and other elements. Able to be augmented with features like benches, electric vehicle charging stations, umbrellas, and solar panels, the design can morph into thousands of different heights and configurations depending on the specific place and its requirements.
Created by L.A.-based design collaborative Project Room, the streetlight is less a design than a system, according to lead designer Joakim Dahlqvist.
San Francisco is set to get its first pandemic drive-in theater at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture on Sept. 18.
Billed as Fort Mason Flix, plans are to have the pop-up theater staged in the parking lot on the northern waterfront of the city. The site will host a series of classic films six days a week through Oct. 18.
The films at the old Army site will be shown on an oversize 40-by-20-foot high-definition LED screen mounted to the festival pavilion, which organizers said is 90 times brighter than a standard movie theater projector. Kinsey added that this will allow them to show movies even during daylight hours.
Tickets for the drive-in series will be sold online only, with limited capacity at each show to ensure a safe physical distance between vehicles. Contactless check-in and concessions will also be available, with regular bathroom cleanings and personal protective equipment for the staff. Visitors will be required to wear masks any time they leave their vehicles.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Sam Noto,(Pic 1 - see appendix below for details of each) who I worked with at PwC in the early 90s. His Amazon bio says "Having spent much of his youth in the military and in business, Noto became a full-time art student in his early forties, earning his MFA in sculpture from the University of Maryland-College Park in 1995. Working directly with a wide range of media, a "persistent curiosity" about materials and techniques has directed him through an engaging stylistic trajectory over the past three decades, and continues to lead him toward new pathways of creative expression." Here he explains his passion for sculpting:
Sculpting is the second act in my career. Actually, more like my 7th or 8th. Let me explain. I first remember painting one of the by the number kits. I quite liked the experience plus I had a girlfriend, a painter. Somewhere there's a painting of me in a kimono. It was really, really cool. I always wanted to be an artist...but
...my family were doctors and lawyers and workers. ((Pic 2 on right.) My family wanted me to be either a doctor, a lawyer, a priest or an accountant. I didn't want to be a lawyer. I had no interest in that at all. Being a doctor was totally out of my realm of possibilities. With no family or friend to mentor me, I had to do it on my own and I did.
Accounting was not my favorite subject, but I toughed it out. I worked for two CPA firms. I got a job with the federal government. I was a systems accountant with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C. I was okay with it, so I did that until it was acceptable for me to change.
(Pic 3 on left) While I was at PwC I met Vinnie. Soon after I realized I was finished with the accounting profession, time to move on! However, I couldn't drop everything and become an artist. I couldn't be Gauguin who left his precious daughter. Gauguin was a stockbroker who wanted to turn his stockbroker coat in for an artist coat. That was something that was not going to happen to me. I'm not driven that way. I couldn't leave my wife and son. Family is first. The day my son graduated from Georgetown University and said he didn't want to pursue an advanced degree, I felt it was finally my time. My wife, Charleen had her own career and was doing very well, it was my turn.
I went over to the University of Maryland. I walked in the door and I signed up for whatever course they'd let me take, as a special student. I started taking sculpture courses. Maryland was the right place for me. It was truly a university. It was not a tech school. They didn't teach how to. I figured out how. I really was very, very comfortable with the theory part of art. Very comfortable, indeed, as a student, to follow the rigors of university system where I formed my own theories.
The “Courage to Create” by Rollo May was my bible. May taught me that limits are the source of creativity. I got through graduate school and I started driving around the Washington Beltway attending more courses and teaching others. I taught in high schools and colleges. As an adjunct professor you are a contractor and were paid by the number of courses you taught. I taught a bunch of Air Force guys. Actually, I wasn't teaching them how to sculpt, I was teaching them how to think, how to be an artist.
I did what came naturally and I had the best two and a half years of my life. I totally enjoyed graduate school. I was right where I needed to be.
My biggest fear of going into this was I didn't understand abstraction in a way that I could relate to. There are people who do abstraction intuitively. I had to approach it a different way because I had no background to absorb knowledge in this way.
The artist is a professional. It is a real profession just like being an engineer or an accountant. There's a common body of knowledge and there is an unique jargon. I understood that from my study of accounting.
Marcel Duchamp was a major influence on me because his words and thoughts resonated with me. I understood what he was doing and it made no sense at all. That's why I was attracted to it.
In art we have had a plethora of "isms". Impressionism was probably the most prominent “ism” because the artists wanted to brake all the molds from the past. They didn't want to follow formal paintings. Then surrealism came along, whose manifesto basically said, if it comes out of your mind, then it's real; it's art. Wow, heavy stuff!
All of a sudden, there was no more “isms”. Art was over as we understood it, new ideas came from everywhere. One of which was a movement in art called Dada, and Dada is anti-art. Thank you Marcel Duchamp!
I've considered four artists as being a major influence on 20th Century art: Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Joseph Beuys and the latest one is Banksy, a street artist who is famous for being invisible. His latest piece, a painting sold for $1 million at auction. In the frame that he used to present the work he built in a shredder. As soon as he sold it, the purchaser turned it on, and shredded the painting, and now it's worth $2 million.
If you can figure that out, does that makes any sense? It shouldn’t, that's what I like about this new era. Tradition is gone, so now it's up to you. You are free to do whatever you want. I like the Dada influence.
I have evolved from one material to another; rawhide, copper, marble, steel. When I see material, I see a sculpture and see what I can do, what it might possibly become. The material becomes my muse.
I started with rawhide and stone. I was into stone carving. I really liked that. I was becoming reasonably proficient. However, I didn't want to go any further with it. Mixing stone and steel are when I began to really get into doing some significant work. I had to teach myself how to be a welder. I took every class I could find and I learned how to weld and after a while I began to teach others the basics. Recently I purchased a TIG welder, the latest technology. While exciting, I am still learning to use it.
I usually work in a series format. Most of the pieces shown here are from the Anxiety series which was on display at the American University Museum Sculpture Garden from September 2014 to March 2015.
(Pic 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 below)
My friend, Dr.Claudia Rousseau wrote a book on my work titled Persistent Curiosity. She wrote the following about the Anxiety series.
"Looking and handling these pieces, I began to feel that the constructions I was making seemed to suggest anxieties in abstract form. Some connote nightmares (Bed, What is in Your Closet?) while others suggest betrayal (Whose Side Are You On?) and/or frustration (But I'm From New York, Blue Bird Can't Sing). Whose Side Are You On is all about balance—a healthy respect of its weight is required here—about being edgy but somehow centered. In a few of these works Noto has added color as an active element; some are just rusted steel. The "Anxiety" series closes with Lotus 2. The piece, whose curves nevertheless seem somewhat harsh with their textured and rusted surfaces. They seem to suggest that inner balance only comes with work, and perhaps through it."
The prime work is called "Anxiety". I was examining my own anxieties over a lifetime. When I began, it was about Catholicism and religion that a young boy had to deal with, I made the Immaculate Conception and all these symbols of Catholicism that I lived with. I went to a parochial school, so we got heaven and hell beat into us every day. I rebelled against it all and did all these sculptures about all those things that we were told that we had to revere. I didn't make fun of them. I just made my impression of them as they emerged out of the material.
I usually don't make anything from scratch. I just use the shapes the material comes in from the scrap yard. For example, the copper started with scrap from a roof of a historic building that burned down. The copper roof was salvaged and given to artists. I picked up a quite a bit of it, but it sat in my studio for ten years. I try to select metal from scrap yards and took five loads along with the copper as well as iron in my pickup truck and I brought it back to the studio. I made eight piles. Each pile became a sculpture. I didn't know what it was going to be, so for each pile, I applied the principles of art while assembling the scrap. I used a lot of arches and the circles. I used some straight lines, but not too many. Each sculpture developed on its own. Many times, I didn't know what it was until I was finished and sometimes that took me another year or so to figure out.
That in a nutshell is my last 25 years or so. Here is one of my still unfinished works (Pic 11):
If you would like to learn more about my work, my book is available on Amazon. Or if you find yourself in Washington, DC, I will be happy to give you a tour of my studio. Fair warning, as Vinnie will tell you I can talk for hours about my passion!
Appendix - Exhibits by titles, date, material and size
The last few months have been traumatic for all of us, and the reopening, return to work protocols are turning out to be white-knuckle. The media is only too glad to feed our anxieties. So, I thought I would share 3 inspirational sources I have had which have helped calm my nerves and have fed my optimism in the last couple of weeks.
I share a birthday - August 18 - with Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark explorer fame. So around this time of the year, I usually watch documentaries about their 3 year trek to the Pacific and back. It was soon after we acquired the vast swath of lands from the French as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Hollywood could not have written a more gripping story of their trek using primitive tools that we routinely do these days by plane or even by car.
Lewis was an assistant to President Jefferson. He had plenty of time to peruse his library which had a wide range of books speculating what the unexplored US West looked like back then. It was rumored to have woolly mammoths, live volcanoes, seven foot beavers and worse. Mere mortals would have refused the assignment. Instead, the Corps of Discovery went ahead and documented 122 previously unknown (to Western man) animal species like the grizzly bear, coyote, prairie dog and bighorn sheep.
With the President's guidance, Lewis prepared extensively for the journey. He learned mineralogy, medicine, astronomy and many other STEM disciplines. The trek itself was full of dangers - it took incredible courage, persistence, luck and diplomacy to survive the journey.
What I especially like about him was the fact that on his 31st birthday, he wrote in his journal how little he had accomplished and resolved ‘to redouble my exertions to live for mankind...as I have heretofore lived for myself’
Unbelievable - he had just become the first American to stand on the Continental Divide in Montana. When they eventually returned home East, their diaries opened up the West to generations that followed. His humility stands out.
Which brings me to my second source of inspiration. Between breaks in Zoom calls, I have been watching replays of the Smithsonian Channel's Aerial America. The 72 episodes show various parts of the US from a gyro-stabilized camera under the nose of a helicopter. While the imagery is stunning, I especially like the fact that they weave in history unique to various parts of the country.
You hear of the many who went West in wagons on the Oregon Trail, Mormons who took a different track to Utah, the 49ers who went to California. You hear of others who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. You hear of cowboys who took herds of cattle up the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. You hear of others who paraded and protested for Civil Rights. Each one of them was incredibly brave and faced their own uncertainties. The rumors they encountered were likely even worse than what we keep hearing about COVID. Yet, they persisted.
For my birthday, my family gifted me a visit to Kennedy Space Center this weekend. That turned into my third source of inspiration. We saw man and machine which were part of the Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, today's Dragon, and upcoming Orion missions. But I was particularly struck by the bravery of the early astronauts. Like Lewis and Clark, they had heard every possible rumor about aliens and UFOs and being stranded in space.
In all the other things we saw during the visit, I happened to catch a short video showing the crew boarding Shuttle flight STS-114 on July 26, 2005. This was the first "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission following the Columbia disaster. I came home and Googled to see if I could find a longer video. It's below. Starting around 8.25 you see the crew in Hawaiian shirts at a press conference, then confidently boarding the Astrovan to get to the Space shuttle. Later in the video you see many of the changes NASA made as a result of the Columbia investigation.
As we navigate uncharted waters post-COVID we are hearing plenty of rumors and we have plenty of fears. We may not have the backing of a President or the resources of a NASA behind us. In some ways, however, we have much better. As I wrote here, Moore's Law is being applied to human beings with stunning results "In all the doom and gloom around the virus, it is easy to miss the amazing acrobatics we have witnessed both in healthcare and life sciences. Telemedicine, pop up hospitals, medical professionals parachuting in wherever needed. Healthcare professionals have learned so much from the Italy and NY experience - how not to overuse ventilators, how to flex ICU capacity. Therapies like Remsdesivir, Dexamethasone and Convalescent Plasma have kicked in. All kinds of vaccines are being developed, clinical trials being accelerated like never before." Our HCM and Facilities Managers have been exploring all kinds of physical site re-opening protocols.
Let me close with something else I saw at Kennedy Space Center. This was a quote from a speech by President Reagan consoling the nation after the Challenger shuttle exploded upon takeoff in 1986.
We have repeatedly bounced back from adversities. A tiny little virus is not going to hold us back.
I have done over 50 Zoom sessions with C level execs and practitioners in my "business acrobatics during the crisis" series. What's been wonderful is the range of executive titles like "Chief Equality Officer" and "Chief Customer Officer" in addition to many CEOs and COOs.
When I started the series in April, I thought I would likely end up 10-12 interviews and most of them would focus on leadership and resilience during the crisis. The conversations have actually ranged much wider from heroics in healthcare to facilities management to diversity. As months progress, the conversations evolve - many more are talking now about re-open protocols and changed markets.
While they are clearly stressed, I have been hugely impressed with their positive, optimistic tenor. In contrast, it has made me even more cynical of so much media which is mostly focused on doom and gloom. With their brands, they have access to many more executives than I do, yet would rather just feed on outrage. Oh well.
I have many more guests lined up in the series - they cover a growing list of industries and geographies. We should hear about many more heroics.
In addition, as travel starts to open up, I am going to try spend more one-on-one time with many more C level execs. Ideally over a relaxing drink or dinner.
I started this process with Mike Ettling, CEO of Unit4 this week. As it turns out both of us had birthdays this week and the restaurant thoughtfully ended dinner with a small muffin with a candle:)
We discussed software industry trends, but we also spent time on our respective global careers. It was wonderful to learn so much about South Africa (where he was raised), Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and reminisce about our favorite bird - the Boeing 747.
These executives have lonely, incredibly tough jobs and I am happy to mostly listen, off the record. No Zoom camera anywhere in sight.
It's a recognition of their incredible efforts and a small thank you for keeping me positive during the crisis.
Poor Tucker Carlson at Fox News. He pronounced Kamala Harris as Kamela, as in Pamela and has taken hell for that. I would similarly take heat - I have an aunt named Kamla, and I would pronounce Kamala without emphasis on the second a.
BTW, this has nothing to do with politics. I don't watch either Fox or CNN. Most of my TV watching involves sports, sitcom reruns and lots of Smithsonian, National Geographic and History channel episodes. I do love watching Jim Cramer on CNBC. If you did not know better, from his callers, you would think his first name is Booyah.
Continuing with names, I was born Vinod. In Sanskrit, the ancient Hindu language, I am told it stands for joy and humor. I liked those positive connotations. Then I arrived in the US in the late 70s, and I was taken by the Vinnie Barbarino character in Welcome Back, Kotter. So, I started introducing myself as Vinnie. Trust me, it was great as a single young man especially with blind dates. Of course, the letdown when they realized I was not John Travolta quickly negated that.
Then I read Lee Iacocca's (of Ford Mustang and Chrysler fame) autobiography where he explained why he changed his first name from Lido to Lee. Something about not needing two unusual names. I quite liked that logic and started formally using the name Vinnie. Yes, it involved a court visit to make that official. Now, I can carbon date people who knew me when I was Vinod - my family, school and university friends still use that name. A couple still call me Barbarino.
Vinnie has led to its own interesting issues. When I joined Gartner, HR assumed it was short for Vincent. All my payroll slips and tax forms from them show Vincent. I have a few friends who still call me Vincenzo,
What I did not foresee in the 80s was the influence of AI on voice transcription. Vonage's ML has faithfully transcribed voice mail messages for me for over 15 years. I don't think they have ever got Vinnie right. Vini, Winnie, Willy, Timmy, Freddie - there is a long trail of emails to remind me.
Starbucks has never got my name right either. They cannot blame their ML algorithms, but I always smile at the distortions. The funniest one came courtesy of my friend, Holger Mueller. We ordered coffees and as I was paying for them, they asked him what names to put on the cups. I didn't hear what he said and did not notice till we both got on a Southwest plane. Everyone laughed at me as I walked down the aisle. I was clueless till we sat down and he took this photo and showed it to me.
Heheh.
BTW, I love learning about people's last names. It reminds me of the dignity of work when we celebrate the occupations of our ancestors. It could be the Chinese Chong (derived from bow maker), the English Weaver, the Egyptian El Mofti (Arabic for legal expert), Baumgartner (German for orchard) and so many others. Mine comes from our ancestry in Sindh, which for religious reasons my people were forced to leave when the British divided India. I understand it comes from Mir which means chief, and chand which stands for a shining object like the moon. I will take that.
I do admire folks who have retained their birth given names, unusual as they might be. I recently interviewed Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh of Saleforce, and she kindly helped me with the phonetics. She did it with pride in her Thai roots. Similarly, my name sake Vinod Khosla has done way better than me as a venture capitalist.
You know what would be fun? I would love to invite both Tucker and Kamala to my Zoom show. No politics. I would love all 3 of us to just share stories about the trouble our names have got us into. I have shared a few of mine above. Trust me I have many more I could share if the 3 of us got together.
Lighten up folks - let's celebrate our diversity and yes, even make fun of it!
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Michelle Cuilla, former Morgan Stanley VP of Operational Risk, Balancing & Control, Stock Plan Reconciliation. Here she writes about how she turns vintage pieces of jewelry into amazing shapes and colors:
I have always been crafty, born with an artistic gene that I inherited from my Mother for sure. Over the years I’ve made my fair share of wreaths, ceramics, painting, needle point, sewing, cork crafts, decorating etc. I am always looking to find that something new to challenge my creative abilities. When I moved to Florida from New York City 3 years ago, I met a wonderful neighbor, Connie who like me enjoyed making things and is extremely talented. I knew she was doing a type of craft involving wood and jewelry and I was intrigued to see what that was all about. From the minute I laid my eyes on this beautiful piece she was working on I knew that I needed to make something similar.
From there my passion and love for this craft just exploded. I ordered my 1st wood shape, a 3 ft mermaid from a lady that Connie introduced me to who draws and cuts them. I had a dilemma - I had no spare jewelry to embellish and create my vision of this mermaid. It was then that I was introduced to the world of craft vintage and costume jewelry sales and shopping.
My 1st shopping trip was full of excitement. I really did not know what to expect or how successful this trip would be. Would I get the type of jewelry I envisioned, the colors of stones, the shapes etc?
My meeting with a woman who sells this jewelry out of her home was a wonderfully overwhelming experience. She had presorted bags of every color jewelry, bags of gold chains, silver chains, rhinestones - I was in crafting heaven! I left there that day with I believe 100 lbs of jewelry and immediately began adorning my mythical sea goddess.
Living in Florida and on the water is my inspiration, my love for the ocean and its creatures are what I enjoy to create. I now draw my own shapes or trace from other objects onto plywood, my husband Jimmy then cuts them out for me on a wood worker's scroll saw. Then I use a pair of needle-nose pliers to remove the hardware from the back of each brooch, earring or chain. Next I affix the jewelry onto my wood shape using a good craft glue such as Aleene’s or E6000.
The Art of the Sort:
It is exhilarating to get my hands on a bag of tangled jewelry. I can sit for hours sorting through it and finding those hidden treasures or what I call my inspiration pieces. These pieces are usually the starting point on my shape and I will build around them giving the piece new life. What I once considered trash is now a treasure. I’ve found new life for these vintage pieces by making a gorgeous handcrafted swoon-worthy piece of one-of-a-kind art. I see depths of beauty and color that I never observed before. Now my mind goes to all the wonderful projects that can be created, embellished and spruced up with just a few pieces of this jewelry. This jewelry is one of my passions and even if I’m turning those jewelry pieces into something completely different, I just love working with beautiful things.
Sourcing the jewelry:
Even if you don’t have a ton of costume jewelry on hand, you can find it at thrift stores and flea markets for just a few dollars. Be warned - a few dollars here and there and there do add up! There are even online vintage jewelry auctions and vendors on Ebay and Etsy that you can purchase from. Or in my case, make an 8 hour drive with my crafting friends Connie and Donna to buy jewelry from a vendor!
History of this craft:
I don’t know much about the history of about this type of craft, however, my research shows people have been using vintage jewelry to craft for decades. It is quite common to see framed pieces of velvet gilded with old brooches, earring and jewels representing a Christmas tree, a butterfly or a flower. A year ago, I was in a local flag store in Tampa and my eyes were immediately drawn to a large framed artwork on the wall. The piece was a tree of life on a piece of velvet. It was created by Grandfather of the shop owner in the 1950s. I was very interested to hear about it and the shop owner explained each piece of jewelry had a meaning in his Grandfather's life: a pin from a tractor which represented his farming upbringing, a thimble which represented his Mother's sewing, patriotic and service pins for his time spent in the military and so on. It apparently took this gentleman years to finish. His legacy now hangs proud in the business he started decades ago and is now run by his Grandson.
Each one of my creations has a personality of its own. Even if I work on a shape again, I look at each one differently, and try to find the distinctive pieces of jewelry that speaks to me for every individual creation. Since I became enamored in this craft, I have made around 25 unique pieces of sea turtles, dolphin, starfish, seahorse, mermaid, bunnies, cats and even a Christmas tree.
My latest undertaking is an Octopus - which is a work in progress.
Most of the creations adorn the walls of my home. It is nice to receive compliments. I have been told on countless occasions that these pieces should be in an art gallery, which is very flattering to say the least. My pieces have also made wonderful gifts for special people in my life including my Sister and a few dear friends. These gifts were made with each person in mind capturing their unique style and character.
Earlier this year, I was approached by a friend of my Sister’s who had seen a bunny and cat that I crafted for my Sister. This friend operates a 501(c)(3) Cat Rescue Group and hosts many fundraisers to cover the costs of veterinary bills, food, medicine and general care. She was so impressed and knew that these items could generate a fair amount of money for the animals at her upcoming auction, I was asked if I would make and donate a few pieces. I sprung to action right away. Not only did I commission a few pieces, my friend Connie also generously created and donated a few pieces as well. The fulfilling feeling of giving back is unparalleled. I am delighted to be able to help out knowing the money raised by our beautiful designs helped out this charity immensely.
Fair warning to HCM execs - make sure your employees don't see this - alternatively get ready to approve big budgets for WFH:)
Paul Greenberg gave me a sneak preview into his new home studio
"Brent Leary and I have had a lot of time at home lately - and that's given us the opportunity to regularize our CRM Playaz show - a show on the CRM, CX, and customer engagement industry we have been doing for twelve years. Because working from home is now what we are doing and will be for the foreseeable future, we decided to upgrade our production capabilities and ultimately, we each built studios that were based on a principle that Don Schuerman CTO of Pegasystems threw at us on the show - "We've got to move from the theatrical to the cinematic." As a result, thanks to an idea that my wife Yvonne had, I was able to dedicate an 8'X9'X8' room to become a studio and invested thousands of dollars into upgrading the equipment needed to have a professional level studio through the eyes of an amateur - that would be me. I spent hundreds of hours choosing equipment that would not only provide the best lighting and sound possible but would allow me to seamlessly switch camera shots, (I have three, with a fourth possible), and at the same time be able to stream to multiple channels via a single streaming platform. We use Streamyard. With the dual monitors and a pretty hefty machine I can not only record audio and video and but edit both on the machine. I made a point of investing in everything from a professional highly regarded broadcasting microphone (Shure SM7B) to a professional mic arm (Yellowtec) which cost me more than the mic - because a C-clamped boom arm wouldn't work on the desk that was using. There were hundreds of decisions that were major (the cameras and several different lenses for several different purposes, lighting and sound e.g. acoustic panels) to small (the cables and even the lengths of the cables and the power sources) to table stakes - running an ethernet connection and multiple electrical outlets to the walls and ceilings. There is still a lot to learn and the investment was hefty and still going - almost $10,000 I would say all in all but when all is said and done, I'll have what I want and a new area of knowledge that I didn't have and Brent with his setup and me with mine will be able to produce a show with extraordinary production quality - and not only is that valuable but its fun. A lot of fun."
Paul and Brent will be starting a regular segment on home audio/video technologies on their show. More reason to watch them! BTW if you want to see their "before" studios watch my interview with them here
Tamas Hevizi had walked me through his elaborate home studio and described it here
In addition to technology, Tamas has also invested in training "I enrolled in a course with Cornell called The Executive Presence course. It is taught by the theater program and, of course, delivered online. You record 15 video sessions. The faculty reviews them. In addition, your fellow students critique them. You could have dozens of students, in parallel, comment on your recordings. You get a lot of feedback about how you think you're presenting versus how you're actually presenting. You learn where your voice is, and how you're gesturing because if you don't have a physical experience, and you and I are not in the same room, some of that gets lost."
Jeremiah Owyang's studio is a permanently parked AirStream in his backyard. As he describes with his specs here, his tech goals were a bit different: "I had to research what’s the ideal gear for my setup, in this case in my existing backyard office, to maximize the quality, without filling the 130 square feet (39 square meters) with equipment. Simply put, I’m seeking the best quality for a small location."
Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG described to me his basement has been turned into what he called a "TV studio". Will have to get him to share more details.
Impressive as each of the setups above is, it will be tough to keep up with Troy Hunt. He describes his rigging in excruciating detail here
I am envious of each of them. But, honestly, I not sure I want to be tied to so much technology in one room. I cannot wait to try out all the other parts of the house, my wife Margaret has set up waiting to be used as backgrounds. I have largely done my interviews from the library (though you see many of the books I have authored, I need to emphasize it's her library - I rent it by the hour)
I must admit I am also enjoying POTS - meetings and calls with plain old telephone service. OK, not the old Ma Bell wired kind, the mobile kind. I like to get at least half my daily 10K FitBit steps walking around the house and talking on the phone.
During breaks, I also like to get steps while watching replays of the Smithsonian "Aerial America" episodes. Below is from an episode on Nebraska - a picture from space of the state's many farms and crop circles. The vast majority of the 72 episodes are shot with a gyro-stabilized camera on a helicopter. That makes for a relaxing set of steps and refuge from the Florida summer heat.
Besides it allows me to TFH - Travel from Home. I find I have less WFH Envy that way:)
Toto, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. Every day brings a new reminder of how sports and entertainment are changing in a COVID-19 affected world
Disney World in Orlando has re-opened to a whole new protocol
Aaron Dessner provided a glimpse into the making of Taylor Swift's surprise new record, Folklore recorded in quarantine
"I was excited and honored when Taylor approached me in late April about maybe writing some songs remotely together. I had been isolating with my family but writing a ton of music in the first months of quarantine which I shared. I thought it would take a while for song ideas to come and I had no expectations as far as what we could accomplish remotely. But a few hours after sharing music, my phone lit up with a voice memo from Taylor of a fully written version of a song -- the momentum never really stopped. "
It will be interesting as more details come out on the making of Folklore to compare to how Vittorio Viarengo of VMware described a composition with 30 of his colleagues from around the world
NBA players are in the "bubble" in Orlando to finish off their shortened season. This article shows the hygiene and care that league is taking.
MLB has kicked off the baseball season with a 101 page operations manual - including guidance on how the dugout should look to meet social distancing
Fox Sports is using "virtual crowds and pumped-in crowd noise for its MLB telecasts this season, creating the illusion of full ballparks for MLB games this summer and fall. Fox and MLB tested the augmented reality technology at Arizona’s Chase Field about three weeks ago and decided that the quality was high enough to use on its MLB broadcasts."
I interviewed Max Mueller and Chris Nilson of Daimani and they have a global perspective on sports, rock and other events as they package VIP experiences. They provide a fascinating pov on how events are likely to morph
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Vittorio Viarengo who has more than 30 years of experience in building and leading world-class product management, engineering and marketing teams tuned to succeed in fast growing markets. Vittorio currently serves as the Vice President of Cloud Marketing at VMware where he drives the go to market, thought leadership and demand generation activities for the fast-growing VMware cloud business.
He has many passions - including one as a master baker. Here he focuses on one of his other passions - helping amateur musicians produce professional quality music. More specifically he describes the production of this ensemble which brought together 30 VMware employees playing and singing virtually across 10 countries. The final product presented here looks so easy, but Vittorio describes the effort and passion that he and the team put into producing this inspiring video:
"I am originally from Genoa in Italy and while I got a degree in music from the local conservatory, I ended up with a career in a completely different field - technology. However, music has always remained a passion of mine. I sang in the VMware band, Elastic Sky, in my first stint here from 2009-2012. I returned to the company this April and Sanjay Poonen, the Chief Operating Officer approached me about an idea to inspire, unite and motivate employees during the pandemic quarantine. He plays the piano, he has a huge passion for blues music and wanted to record a soulful version of “This little light of mine” using a virtual band of employees. He wrote the lyrics and recommended the names of the musicians around the world. He knew many of them, and others heard of the project and asked to join us. At the end of the video you see credit to each contributor.
Knowing my musical background, he asked me to coordinate the production. I call it "il mio primo progetto", my first deliverable in my second time back at VMware. This is what he gave me to start (click on the image to enlarge font)
He thought we could do it using a popular mobile app but I knew that would not scale beyond 9 musicians. As I describe to Vinnie in the video below, I ended up using SoundTrap.com for distributed audio recording, Apple Logic Pro for audio post-production and Adobe Premier for video editing.
For the audio recording we used SoundTrap.com, which is a simple cloud-based recording service. To prepare everyone, I wrote instructions and recorded a couple of video tutorials. That's all the prep they had - we did not do any rehearsals.
I put the original song in the top track, which I lowered from the original key. I brought it down to G from B flat. Then each musician and singer added their track and sang/played over it. SoundTrap took care of keeping it all together in one place so that I could monitor progress from afar and download the various tracks for post-production at the end.
For the audio post-production I used Apple Logic Pro, a very powerful professional sound editing tool.
I downloaded the individual tracks that these 30 amateur musicians recorded around the world using their laptop microphone on SoundTrap.com and uploaded them into Logic Pro. Then, I cleaned up the background noises and took some of the voices to create additional third and fifth harmonies. There were multiple people who played the same instrument, so I had to make some choices and tradeoffs, while being fair in terms of exposure for everybody. Finally, I adjusted the various volumes and remixed the whole thing.
I ended up with 47 tracks!! Definitely the biggest music project I have ever produced.
For the video production, I used Adobe Premier.
I had the 30 videos of my colleagues singing and playing instruments recorded with their mobile phones. I used Premier to sync them. Next I followed Sanjay's vision to structure the video, starting with acapella solos, then the band, male voices, female voices, the guitar solos and the final ensemble that features 25 employees all on screen at the same time. I used a fake Zoom screen background to give the whole thing a Zoom call feel.
It was great to see our CEO Pat Geisinger sing the first verse. He works nonstop - wakes up at 4 am and I was so pleased and inspired he made time for this. Sanjay, of course,was very involved as producer, musician and singer, contributing, reviewing, providing feedback throughout the process. All the singers and musician enthusiastically embraced this project and given we were all amateur musicians, distributed across the world, using nonprofessional recording gear, the end result is pretty remarkable.
The passion and participation in this project reflects well on the internal culture of VMware. We launched the video at an all-hands virtual meeting we have been holding as everyone works from home. The video has had thousands of views and we have received a number of complimentary notes. People within and outside the company were touched, inspired, motivated by the team spirit that we exhibit in the song. Everybody who has viewed it has got a "lift".
What I love about this whole experience is that it shows off two things: the unifying power of the universal language of music, and the great collaborative culture within VMware. I am personally obsessed with good corporate cultures and I think this shows.
How can we improve on this performance? As Sanjay said "we will have to do it live." Maybe at the next physical VMWorld event when we are comfortable flying again?
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Tamas Hevizi, Global Head of Private Equity at Automation Anywhere. Prior to that he was in SAP's Private Equity group, and before that led its Value Engineering consulting group. He writes about his passion - turning analog settings like meetings, presentations, design sessions into digital format with participants spread around the world. As we all get "Zoom bombed" we can all learn from his passion.
I recently conducted a video interview with Vinnie as part of my Digital Value Creation series. I was in Philadelphia; he was in Tampa. Here is the end result:
Hope you agree it looks professional, but it reflects technology and technique I have honed over a decade. It all started fifteen years ago, when I took over a team that was completely decentralized, all over the world. I missed all the face to face things I was used to doing, which was sitting down with a team, grabbing a whiteboard, being able to coordinate work, plan out things. I was used to managing teams that were in the same office.
So, my goal became to be able to be as effective as I was when I was one-on-one with a team.
How could I effectively replicate the analog world in a digital world? It's not as simple as just applying technology. If you think about it, most of us do a ton of meetings. In an analog world, you go into a room and you block an hour. You're like, fine, we'll stick through it. However, nobody is trained to run digital meetings effectively. Nobody teaches anybody to do Zoom sessions. Therefore, we all experience pretty brutal Zoom meetings where people spend 20 minutes just talking about their dogs and the weather outside. No wonder, so many of us feel more exhausted these days.
I explained to Vinnie in this 8 minute recording the process I went through (sorry, it is a casual conversation, but you should get a good idea) to re-imagine presentations, brain storming and many other previous in person activities. An added benefit - I was much more efficient over the course of a workday.
My home "TV studio" has grown over the decade. Here are some elements. Fair warning - most items in the graph have become difficult to buy as the supply chain for electronics has been disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, you can start with "good enough" options and keep upgrading. My studio did not come together in a week - it has taken me years of experimentation and substitution. Like I am using Skype, not Zoom. Primarily because Skype allows me to record separate videos and audio channels (multitrack) for better post-production editing. I could go into all kinds of geek-talk to tell you why.
The key components of the setup are:
VIDEO
SOUND
SOFTWARE
Beyond the technology, I have also invested in training. I enrolled in a course with Cornell called The Executive Presence course. It is taught by the theater program and, of course, delivered online.
You record 15 video sessions. The faculty reviews them. In addition, your fellow students critique them. You could have dozens of students, in parallel, comment on your recordings. You get a lot of feedback about how you think you're presenting versus how you're actually presenting. You learn where your voice is, and how you're gesturing because if you don't have a physical experience, and you and I are not in the same room, some of that gets lost. Our ability to persuade or listen declines when you're not using gestures. You're staring at the screen. Maybe you're looking down versus up. All these small things take away from the experience of either being a good listener or being a good communicator.
I don't think anybody is born with a digital presence. I think people assume they can do it just by turning on the video. It doesn't work that way.
The other thing I have worked on is messaging. Most corporate communication gets so over-engineered that it loses its human touch. Messaging has to come across authentic, straightforward, pointed and short. I aim mostly for 5-minute-long videos.
Many businesses struggle with finding a voice that's not typical corporate-speak. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, for example, has an effective style whether he’s live or he's on video. It's really hard for companies to find key executives and have that persona show up the same effective way whether they're in person or whether on video and other means.
We have all seen commercials in last couple of months use terms like "In these difficult times." Everybody was basically using that same two, three phrases in every commercial. It was all engineered and it was not personal. The good news is we can learn from our kids. I have a 16-year-old. She told me once "Daddy, nobody would ever watch your videos. It's boring." That's sort of the point. She is watching YouTube creators as the benchmark. This generation will expect executives to be as engaging as the creators they have grown up watching.
I'm not saying we should all appeal to Gen-Z, but I think the messages that resonate with the millennial and the Gen-Z generation are usually authentic. They are not over-engineered.
I keep improving all the time. None of us was born for TV. But there are so many resources available today to become much more effective at digital communication. The technology, the training and the tone keep getting better, and I will keep evolving my passion to keep analog experiences comparable to their digital twins.
Well, may be not all experiences. You notice the cup of coffee in the graph above. I am not sure the analog experience of that taste, aroma and texture will ever turn digital!
We are going through a period of wild experimentation with so many working from home and presenting/conversing over Zoom, ON24, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and other platforms. I like to ask folks about their virtual backgrounds and related fun facts.
I interviewed Jason Blessing, CEO of Model N and he is a drone photographer in his spare time. He told me his background is of the west span of the Bay Bridge, shot on his Mavic 2 Pro launched from Yerba Buena Island.
Another Bay Area resident, Dave Watson of Health2047 fessed up that his Golden Gate Bridge is a stock Zoom background. But he has tricked others that it is the view from his office in the Marin headlands. He says "It took them awhile to figure out I was spoofing because it was a morning video call but the background shows an evening sunset..."
Alex Shootman, CEO of Workfront, does not need drone or satellite imagery. He routinely bikes up mountains in Utah. This is what he presented at his LEAP conference this week.
No heights for Paul Wright, CIO at Accuride. He has been working from his red barn in Michigan. I can report no farm animals Zoom bombed our session, and the connectivity was excellent!
Brent Leary of CRM Essentials has a real-life office background from his place in Atlanta. I have been on a few calls with him and the rotating fan never fails to mesmerize me. One way to stand out in a Zoom gallery with 200 other participants! More importantly, he is also what he calls a "bedroom DJ". He has a nice following of his virtual shows.
Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group is the Master of Disguise. No, not of the fact that he is a rabid Yankees fan. More in masking tens, may be even hundreds of Smart Home sensors and Alexa pods in his Virginia home. See how many you can spot.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce recently did a joint presentation with Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday. In a nice touch, he used the background of a Workday facility.
Aneel Bhusri, in turn, used the background of his favorite pizzeria in San Francisco in a session with me. He hopes the publicity will help them survive this tough patch for restaurants.
HPE had a burst of color in its virtual Discover broadcast this week.
But even better, it was nostalgic to see an industry veteran, John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco talk about leadership during a crisis. He was interviewed by HPE CEO Antonio Neri and John was extremely generous to his predecessor, Lew Platt. The background? Even more color.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Nick Hortovanyi, from Down Under. He wrote 6 years ago in this guest series about his cycling. This time he writes about his new passion - self-driving cars. No, not just turning on Autopilot on a Tesla, he is coding, working with more precise GPS, LiDAR etc. Get ready for some geek talk, but hey, that's his passion. And we can all benefit from how much he has picked up long distance from online courses:
Sitting down one day, having a latte, I had one of those fateful decisions where I’d decided that my cycling startup idea just wasn’t going to work. It was time to start thinking about something new to do. But what? I had decided a while ago, I wasn’t going to get back into the corporate IT world. It was mainly consulting and sales. Most of it had to do with recording data then reporting on the data.
I like to get my hands dirty with technology, I like to code, I like to see the results of own hypothesis & analysis. More importantly I could see that the focus of the future would be analyzing tons of data from sensors using Artificial Intelligence. This data would be collected in real-time, enabling agents to interact with their environment.
The main reason I’d given up on my previous startup idea was that I couldn’t find a large enough market to warrant further investment. So after a European holiday, while I was contemplating what to do, I received an email about the new Self Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree (SDCAR ND) from Udacity. I applied and luckily, I was accepted. The acceptance email arrived on my birthday. So, I was really happy with that present.
The global market size for self driving cars will be likely be in the trillions of dollars. When that generation of car arrives, they will have the most disruptive effect on society, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the arrival of the first automobile. Some say we are today at the same stage as when the auto started to disrupt the horse-centric world of the early 1900s. To me this is really exciting. It represents a lot of potential at so many different levels.
So yes, I have found a massive market. But first I needed to brush up my skills, starting with math. I spent time going over trigonometry, calculus, matrices and Euclidean geometry via the Khan Academy.
When the Udacity course started, I jumped online and joined the Slack & Facebook groups. Everyone was really supportive and vocal on Slack. I loved it. I had found a whole group of people that wanted to learn about using the latest technology. I was in techie heaven. Later I found out that the first few classes were all the over achievers, and the communication died down in later groups. However, I met some amazing people online.
The Udacity Nanodegrees are about learning practical skills through hands on projects. So first off we learn a bit about the theory, and then do a project. Self driving is a really complex area but to get us started, we created our first lane detection algorithm.
After about a year, and three terms, I finished the SDCAR ND degree in the first cohort. It was such a great feeling. I ended up going over to the Bay Area for the graduation ceremony and met people like Sebastian Thrun (founder of Udacity, but more importantly the Stanford Professor whose team won the first Autonomous DARPA challenge and then later formed Waymo, a spinoff from Google). He is the one in blue jeans. David Silver of Udacity is also in the frame.
Encouraged by the SDCAR ND, I wanted to be more involved in this area. So I set up a little side project [sdcar.ai]. Its aim is to use a simulator to train the car's brain. The environment inside the simulator is created from vehicle sensor data. Some of my friends joke that that I’m creating my own Google Maps car ... well I am :).
I knew I needed to know more about AI, Robotics and Sensors. A self driving car, is really just a robot that can carry things like us humans and freight. So in the years since I’ve also completed the Robotics Software Engineer, Deep Reinforcement Learning (think DeepMind and AlphaGo) and recently the Sensor Fusion Nanodegree.
My quest to learn more grows as I learn more. What is frustrating is when you think you are 80% through you realize your are have likely only defined what needs to be done. I’ve heard that this is the time to spend 10x the amount of effort. In this regard it is very different from corporate IT projects.
You can expect to fail often and to have to reapply what you learned to the next iteration. This might involve throwing out a lot of code, and rewriting things when you’ve used the wrong sensors (I started with cheap Chinese ones) or the wrong technology framework. Sometimes things don't move as fast as you thought they would. So you might need a new programming approach and/or hardware. I attempted at first to capture data on a Raspberry Pi. That was a mistake for images (its IO constrained so could only write two to three images per second).
My current in-vehicle data collection system can collect images, with header and nanosecond timestamps at 30 HZ. Following is an example video, where I’ve used a YOLO Object Detector to classify what can be seen in each image.
YOLOV3 Object Detection Surfers Paradise Traffic Lights from Nick Hortovanyi on Vimeo.
Another example - not all GPSes are the same. Most are not very accurate. If you plot their data, you often end up on the sidewalk or the other side of the road. Other issues arise about providing live error correction data from a known base station. I have now moved to the much more accurate UBLOX ZED-F9P .
I have now done close to 30 projects via various Udacity Nanodegree courses. I have learnt so much. The majority of my work is available from my github repository.
Recently, I splurged and bought a 16 beam 360 Degree LiDAR from Robosense (LiDAR uses light waves from a laser similar to how Radar and Sonar use radio and sound waves). It is capable of reaching an object at a distance of up to 200 Metres (roughly 650 feet). The Sensor Fusion Nanodegree has given me the confidence to play with that. So that's what I working on next...
Baseball is back. With a 101 page operations manual for the COVID-19 season.
The LA Times says
The 60-game regular season, during which players will receive full prorated salaries, is scheduled to start July 23 or 24 and end in late September before a standard postseason is played. The usual six divisions will remain intact and interleague play will be limited to the corresponding geographical division in the other league (i.e. NL West vs. AL West). So, yes, that means the Dodgers will face the Houston Astros.
The New York Times says
Coronavirus testing every other day for players and coaches. Wet rags for pitchers’ pockets to prevent them from licking their fingers. Masks in the dugout and bullpen for any non-players. And no public transportation to the stadium, communal food spreads, saunas, fighting, spitting, smokeless tobacco or sunflower seeds.
Here are just a few of the many guidance images from the manual. You can download the whole doc here - registration required.
Photo Credit below = MLB
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Charlie Bess, a repeat contributor to this series. 11 years ago, he wrote about another of his passions - mentoring youth in STEM disciplines. Here the Polymath writes about woodworking, just one of his passions today:
I have been a technologist for over 30 years, leading large groups of technologists at companies like GM, EDS, HP and most recently Raytheon. I was the Chief Technologist for a number of organizations, a fellow at EDS & HP and a licensed professional engineer.
I’ve known Vinnie Mirchandani for well over 10 years. We even attempted to collaborate on a chapter for one of his books – unfortunately, the lawyers at the company I was working for at the time had other ideas, so that effort could not continue. The material did end up as a Green IT chapter in another book though. Now that I am no longer encumbered by lawyers, I jumped at the chance to contribute in a small way to Vinnie’s blog on pursuing personal passions.
I retired back in 2018 and although I still play around with computers, my focus moved on to ham radio and maker activities like design, computer numerical control and 3D printing. Some people worry about how they will consume all that ‘free’ time when they retire. I have not had that issue since my days are packed learning to accomplishing new things.
Part of the reason for these new development opportunities is that my focus shifted to a creative, tactile and satisfying activity -- woodworking. If you have never had the chance to hand make an object in wood, you may not understand the limitless possibilities to dedicate yourself to the freedom, creativity and skill development required. Whenever you run into a limitation, it is a chance to try something new!
I grew up on a poultry farm in Indiana, so I have always had to figure things out and ‘do things’. As I used to tell folks, “When the tractor breaks down at the far end of the field – you are the only one who is going to figure it out, so just get at it.” Although I had the opportunity in junior high to take woodshop, that and 4-H were about the only experience I had using power tools with wood. I hate to think how the kids today are missing out on even that opportunity.
One thing that helped me shift my focus away from the rigor of work when I retired and develop my skills at woodworking was that I moved to Sun City Hilton Head. That has one of the larger woodshops of any over 55, active adult community. My wife and I are part of a woodworking and model making guild that has over 900 members. Like everywhere else, COVID has had its impact here and we were down for a few months. Our shop just started back up this week.
When I came to this community, I had a basic, ‘hammer and nails’ understanding of woodworking. This woodshop had all the hand and power tools I could dream of, with people ready, willing, and able to help tackle projects of nearly any size and complexity. I started by making some of the ‘standard’ projects that were required to get certified to use the shop – they have a real focus on safety. I then moved on to some furniture, like this joggling bench (a type of bench native to the Lowcountry of South Carolina) that sits on our front porch – I did take some liberties with that design and added cup holders.
Eventually, I moved on to art-oriented projects. The one pictured here is based on an Escher print – Reptiles. I designed the piece in a CAD system and used my CNC to cut the lizards out of bloodwood, curly maple and Peruvian walnut and then used epoxy to add a protective finish. Now I need to determine if I am going to make a tray or a wall hanging out of it. Six months ago, I likely would not have known how to tackle something like this. I’ve made other tessellations resembling sea horses and turtles as well.
Something that always puzzled me is that some artists view woodworking as craft, not art. If they knew how much imagination and creativity went into the process and the design, they would have a more enlightened view. The issue parallels the same discussions I had back in the working world of soft skills and hard skills. I always thought of this as: “If they can’t understand it, it must be a hard skill. If they can’t explain it, it must be a soft skill.” :)
I had the revelation as my skills developed that process and skill development can be more rewarding than the end result. Most of the designs I create I make myself and I model them in CAD tools. This focus on technique would be a valuable asset later on.
After I was here for a few months, tragedy struck and the leader of advanced training at the shop had a fatal sports accident. The woodworking guild needed someone to take over, become involved and help modernize the advanced training process, so with my background I stepped into the breach. I have been learning myself and trying to develop others ever since. Though I came to the group with a solid understanding of computing and computers, merging that background with CAD and computer-controlled machines in the woodworking space led me to develop numerous classes in 3D printing, CNC and other areas related to woodworking for our guild. Granted today almost every topic is covered on YouTube or the Internet somehow, it is not the same as being available to answer questions when they come up. The development of others eventually led to the creation of a technology-oriented special interest group and the investigation of creating a maker space in our community woodshop.
Keeping your passion fueled is not all about process, though. For me, it is about learning new things and expanding your horizons. All my hobbies have nearly infinite development possibilities, with dimensions of capabilities that you do not even know exist until you run into them. My passion is enabled by the exploration of the new, not the reiteration of things I have done before. To me that is part of the joy and responsibility of retirement – to keep expanding and sharing with others.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
One area I have recently started to develop is lathe turning. This involves spinning wood along an axis and cutting away material using various sharp tools. I have started to make bowls and pens, accenting them with epoxy and other finishes. Unlike most of my other woodworking projects, I can create a pen in just a few hours, so this relatively instantaneous gratification has added an incentive to continue to expand my lathe work. The pens shown on left are made out of acrylic, spalted maple and Padauk.
I have mentioned several different types of exotic woods (the end table above is made from the more common oak). In a global economy, it is relatively easy to get almost any species, it just takes time and money since no one can stock everything. Most of what I have shown in this post was actually made from scrap, the leftovers from my or someone else’s projects. A good woodworker knows there is no such thing as scrap. It is just a piece of wood you have not found a use for -- yet. Below is a Christmas display cut into a poplar board with a purpleheart base
Though I do not blog as much as I used to when I was working, I do try to continue to share my experiences when I get a chance on my personal blog so take a look if you are interested in these topics.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Eric Dirst, a repeat contributor to this series. 6 years ago, he wrote about his real passion - hockey. He is a technology and operations executive who figured out how to enjoy the quarantine by teaching his drinking-age sons how to make a few of the classic cocktails.This also allowed him to keep his family and friends entertained. And I mean entertained - check out this three minute video where they concocted the Painkiller. He generously embeds the recipes and images of many of their masterpieces throughout the text.
When Eric isn’t crafting cocktails, he advises small and medium size businesses on their technology strategy, product roadmaps, security and risk mitigation, and talent development. Eric also enjoys his board of director roles at Carrington College, Brent Sopel Foundation, and ThingLogix
The quarantine in March had started to really sink in and the food bills had started to skyrocket from having my three sons back home due to college closing, furloughs and work-from-home requirements. I was thinking how we could inject just a bit of ‘fun at home’ into our family life, while also sharing some of that ‘fun’ with others. Now, my sons had expressed interest in learning more about cocktails, because they were tired of consuming craft (if they could afford it) or cheap beer (really, Natty Light?).
I had recently read an article in Bon Appetit (no I do not subscribe, but somehow got on their email distribution) about the 25 best cocktails you should learn how to make. I suggested we have a Family Quarantine Cocktail Night to try these out, and everyone agreed. Of course, to make it more social, I initially decided to post pictures of the finished drinks on Facebook, along with the recipes. I was quite amazed at the positive feedback I received from friends and family. People told me they looked forward to seeing the posts, and got upset if I skipped too many days in between postings.
Here's the Whisky Smash
Soon, other friends started their own cocktail posts along with drink shot and food pairings. Certainly, leveraging social media and pictures was easy. However, after a couple posts I was asked to up-my-game and add videos showing how we made each drink. I conscripted my sons to help with video prep and sometimes the actual preparation. They also helped me pick out background music for the videos…to match the theme of the drink (e.g. smooth jazz for Manhattan).
I have not moved to FB Live yet, since pre-recording and uploading seems to work just fine. The only challenge was how to upload 450 Meg video files recorded on your phone to FB. If you use the phone-native ‘send to Facebook’ feature it does not usually work with files this big. So, thanks to cloud drives I was able to save it to Microsoft OneDrive from the phone and then upload it easily from OneDrive to Facebook.
Here's the Tequila sunrise.
Gladly (ok, sadly), due to my profession, I have access to many cloud storage options. I could have saved it to Box.net, iCloud, Google Drive, or DropBox, since my customers use all of these options. Of course, any cloud drive would have worked just fine, since they all integrate well with your iPhone or Android phone.
On a separate topic, I received quite a bit of feedback on how stable the videos were and questions about whether we used a tripod to create the videos. Nope, thanks to technology in the iPhone X we were using, the non-jitter and stabilization tech made it seem as if we were using a tripod. Actually it was my oldest son filming…and he shakes a bit because he is a high-energy young adult. No one ever noticed his shaking, which he certainly thought was cool.
So, overall, it was a fun way to learn new things, share a topic I enjoy with family and friends, and use the power of video and social media to quickly get feedback from the community…even when we had to stay quarantined for our safety.
Finally, here's one that some of you may not have heard about - the Boulevardier.
Cheers!
Plenty of software vendors and systems integrators have amplified their digital transformation messages during the COVID-19 crisis. Understandable - cloud applications have made work-from-home easier, eCommerce has exploded, video has become the killer app.
In the interviews I have been doing with various C level executives and presentations I have recently seen there are plenty of use cases where digital technologies have significantly changed the rules for many sectors
- Dave Watson of Health2047 says during this crisis, the UC San Francisco health system saw 50% of outpatient visits move to telemedicine. It was 2% prior to that.
- Doug Belden of Hillsborough County talks about how driver testing has been transformed by mobile and thermal technology
- Listen to Christian Klein of SAP and Lutz Meschke, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board at Porsche describe in the SapphireNow keynote how the auto industry (more broadly, mobility now) is being electrified and digitized.
- Daru Phirozkhanavala, former CTO of BP had talked about how digital technologies have been reshaping the energy giant. The new BP CEO, Bernard Looney talks extensively in this interview about how digital technologies have allowed for more remote drilling at significantly lower economics (see starting at 28:30) and also about zero-carbon efforts and electric vehicles.
Emphasize digital, de-emphasize brick and mortar would appear to be the path forward. Starbucks has launched a new store format: "Starbucks Pickup is tailored to customers who prefer to order ahead and pay through the Starbucks mobile app for pick-up, or those who want their Starbucks delivered to them by placing an order through Uber Eats". A concern is accountants will see the lower real estate costs (and related hygiene costs) and over emphasize this format. Starbucks could risk damaging its "third place" brand. If all you compete on is your product, the barriers to entry your music, your wifi, your social gathering place, your digital nomad workplace concepts have given you in the past will be reduced. I have already seen it in the behavior of my daughter as she scopes out other coffee shops which allow for dine-in with appropriate distancing. I can see my wife disappointed as Barnes and Noble opens up but does not allow for people to linger or re-open their cafes.
I see, however, plenty of companies which are also re-imagining the physical, brick and mortar experience (some would add the spiritual and social experience) - for customers, employees, suppliers and others. We are already seeing an explosion of experiments blending CX, SCM and HCM disciplines, and adding to that mix medical and automation expertise.
Drive-thrus and store pickups
Drive-thrus have been a fixture of American fast food since they were first introduced in the 1930s. But look how they keep evolving. Today, they are tech savvy with digital displays, intercoms, conveyor belts, bar code scanners and credit card readers. Chick-fil-A is one of the chains that already moved to two lanes of drive-thru at some of its stores. During this crisis, they have taken drive-thru to another level. More of their order takers are "outside" the store. They go up to cars to take orders and process payments. That of course, means much of the hygiene and the technology has also moved out.
A variation of drive-thru is in store pick up technologies. Walmart has giant Pickup Towers in its bigger stores which scan barcodes on your mobile app and deliver boxed products.
Walmart also has a grocery curbside pickup service - you order through the Grocery app, then select a pick up time. There are multiple lanes where they bring your order to the car. The towers and the curbside pickup have helped Walmart's eCommerce efforts significantly during the crisis.
I have tried both options. The Tower is easy enough, but in one case a pack of Starbucks Via could have easily been delivered via the Tower, but I was told I should have ordered it through the Grocery app and picked it up outside. So I had to reorder it, and when I went to pick it up the order had been cancelled. However, while waiting curbside I spoke to a couple of customers and they said they loved the service as they could plan a drive around the pickup time.
Banks and pharmacies adopted drive-thrus a while ago. Now the reach may be spreading. Valvoline allows you to stay in the car for your oil change, and not go to the waiting room. The techs don't come into your car or touch the keys. You can pay via mobile phone. In reverse, Carvana is making the used car purchase and delivery experience much more digital. I have written this post two years ago, but the experience is even more relevant today
Home deliveries
Every time I have left home in the last couple of months I have seen an Amazon Prime truck in the neighborhood. I talked to one of the drivers. He told me his first delivery is often at 5:45 am, his last one at 9 pm. Another driver allowed me to look inside his vehicle - a marvel of using every square inch. Their mobile apps help then navigate, organize their delivery manifest, take photos of delivered items. In many ways, they are remarkable in their simplicity compared with massive investment UPS and Fedex made in the past in automating their trucks. The Prime truck is, however, a small cog in the Amazon distribution network which includes nearly 50 cargo planes, over 20,000 tractor trailers, and 75 massive distribution centers, I had written about the impressive automation at one of the fulfillment centers here. Amazon is spending billions on hygiene in its physical infrastructure during the crisis - see details here.
We have long been used to pizza deliveries. Papa John's and other chains have taken the concept to the next level - contactless delivery
Services like Instacart which shop for you and make home deliveries have been on a tear during the crisis. Their CEO told BusinessWeek “In a matter of a couple of weeks, we were already ahead of our end-of-year goal (of shopping volume). A week later, we were ahead of our 2021 goals, and a few days after that, we were ahead of our 2022 goals. And so, at a certain point, we stopped counting.”
We are starting to see increased interest in drone and autonomous deliveries.
In the meantime, human delivery has to navigate a new set of challenges. With so many people working from home and kids not at school, a postman told me his biggest worry used to be people's dogs - now it is kids playing and people bicycling in their neighborhoods.
Physical work places
As communities start relaxing their lockdowns, offices, plants and warehouses are starting to open up. That is requiring its own version of careful planning. Some providing essential services never completely shut down.
Jeff Robertson of Maxar Technologies described in this interview the reopening protocols he has been factoring as they reopen physical sites. Cushman and Wakefield has come up with their concept of a "six feet" office with temperature checks, distancing, disinfectants. Designers are re-imagining work spaces and surfaces to be anti-microbial and easy to disinfect. Salesforce describes its elaborate office re-opening plans here. They also have a new offering called Work.com to allow customers to formalize their own re-opening protocols.
As someone pointed out - decades ago, the big question used to be whether men should take their hats off if there was a lady in the elevator. Now, Disney's FastTrack concepts and mobile apps are being used to ensure appropriate social distancing in that cramped space.
Vendor virtual events
Most technology vendors have moved their events to a virtual format. Apple's WWDC next week will be one of the largest (over 23 million registered across 150 countries), and likely one of the most innovative.
We are going through an intense period of experimentation. Either as presenter or participant I have been used ON24, Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet and StreamYard. Facebook Messenger Rooms, Zoho Meetings and many others will soon join the party.
On the CRM Playaz show last week, there is a section starting at 55:00 which discusses how vendors events will likely evolve. Paul Greenberg comments they will move from "theatric" to "cinematic").
Continued physical world experiences
Rahul Samant of Delta Airlines described to me contactless check-in, HEPA filters, electrostatic foggers, empty middle seats, masks and other changes in the flying experience.
Sarvesh Mahesh of Tavant described how the mortgage refinancing market has been on fire. But that notoriously paper intensive process refuses to be completely digitized. It has led to notaries using side by side cars in the homeowner's garage and in "porch signings".
Mobile banking app usage has rocketed during the crisis but has led to a FBI warning about fake apps. Don't give up on your coins and notes yet.
Unlike Amazon or Walmart, Costco is still very dependent on brick and mortar and it has been fascinating to watch the subtle and not so subtle changes at the store. Carts being disinfected after every use, signs outside showing out of stock items, masks required inside store, no dine-in allowed in the food court, Plexiglass dividers everywhere including the restrooms, distancing markers on the floor and fobs to pay for gasoline.
Finally, need to point out many tech vendors screaming digital transformation had offices which used to be playgrounds for millennials and many had Michelin quality buffets for them. I hope they now don't end up with a nursing home vibe. If for no other reason than that, I hope folks make re-imagining brick and mortar and omni-channel experiences as important a priority as their digital transformations :)
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Bill McNee, technology industry analyst and a former colleague of mine at Gartner. Bill writes about birding, photography, nature, and his travels near and far:
Thanks for the invite, Vinnie. I prefer to think of myself as both a “birder” and increasingly as a “naturalist.” I’m the son of two avid gardeners. Both mom and dad grew up on the farm during the 1920s and 30s prior to adopting a traditional urban / professional life after WWII. Dad became an economic / urban geographer, who was equally adept in geology as he was in his specialty of location theory analysis. I vividly remember “Professor Bob” teaching us about rock formations, topography and habitats during our many extended family camping trips – often lasting more than a month at a time.
In the mid-1960s, mom and dad were on the vanguard of the modern “environmental movement” – although they wouldn’t have called themselves “environmentalists.” They merely taught us the importance of nature, and the need to have kinship with it. As kids, we composted. We recycled. We would only eat fresh (or fresh-frozen) vegetables. Each fall, we would pick apples and peaches. Mom would organize an amazing canning operation that would supply us for the winter! It was fun learning from them – whether in the car on our many sojourns, or at the dinner table where dad would hold court.
What does this have to do with birding? Again, it traces back to my mother. She had these little 4”x6” Golden Field Guides strategically placed on key windowsills throughout the house to spot check who was visiting our feeders that day. We didn’t have spotting scopes or binoculars back then. It was pure old-fashioned backyard birding.
Fast forward to the late 1990s, and the dawn of digital photography. I was an early adopter, and still have some shots on my hard drive from 20 years ago! Over the years, my digital photography has evolved dramatically, especially as I began to focus on birding fifteen years ago. Luckily, my career allowed me to travel widely – although most of it since 2005 has been in the US and W. Europe. What I would give to have become more active with my birding photography 10 years earlier, when I was traveling extensively in S. America, S. Africa, Australia and Asia! But that’s just water under the bridge now.
I’ve had so many fun birding adventures over the years, whether it be at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival (the largest of its kind), a visit to the Parc naturel régional de Camargue in Provence, the Yum Balam Reserve near Cancun, or Yellowstone National Park, to name just a few.
Luckily, my wife and I live right along the Atlantic Flyway – and we’re able to enjoy the seasonal migrations up and down the east coast. We split our time between Northeast Florida and Rhode Island – each of which has a terrific diversity of birdlife.
Locally in Florida, we have so many cool birds that visit our backyard birdfeeders and community, including a terrific array of Songbirds, Woodpeckers, Raptors, Shorebirds and Waders.
In early May, I created a new Facebook group called Birding in Ponte Vedra and Beyond that readers might enjoy checking out. I post fairly regularly – and encourage all to sign up regardless as to whether they’d like to add photos themselves, or just receive the feed. One of my recurring posts lately is called Birding on the Links, with action shots taken while playing golf with my wife, usually later in the afternoon. Here’s a fun shot of one of the dozens of Ospreys that nest in our community.
While there is a rich pallet of birding hotspots nearby, one of my favorite places to visit is the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, in Titusville, Florida – which is two hours south of us right near the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Within the MINWR is the Black Point Wildlife Drive, a special 7-mile route that is one of the best places in the world to see and photograph birds up close. I encourage everyone to visit if they can. I also post to other Facebook birding and photography groups where you can see some amazing wildlife (Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Photography or Florida Birds and Wildlife).
We also have a diversity of birdlife near our house in Rhode Island. While I’m somewhat active with the local Audubon chapters in Florida, I am much more so with the Audubon Society of Rhode Island (ASRI). It is one of the oldest Audubon organizations in the US. I love going on the Wednesday morning bird walks run by Laura Carberry. I have learned so much from her – not only in better seeing birds but listening to them as they speak their special language of the woods. She has such a sophisticated ear – and regularly IDs birds by their calls 10 minutes before we ever see them on the trail. This has encouraged me to sign up for a Bird Song class through the Bird Academy at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While they charge a small fee for the course, there are many other resources available for free.
One of my favorite spots is Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge. It has a wide range of habitat (among its 800 acres), including both fresh and saltwater ponds. Its southern boundary is a barrier beach with one of the few nesting sites remaining in RI for Least Tern and Piping Plover. I can’t wait for our planned trip to Block Island in late September to visit the Lewis-Dickens Farm Wildlife Refuge (managed by Audubon) during fall migration, when more than 70 species of migratory songbird can be seen as they fall out of the sky for a brief respite on the journey south.
Over the years, I’ve probably seen more than a thousand bird species. While my trusty Sibley Field Guide is always nearby, a couple of years ago I began using the excellent tools offered by Cornell Lab – including Merlin (bird ID app), the Macaulay Library (with recordings of 18,000+ bird calls) and eBird, which has fast become an online industry standard to track birds. Before that, I built spreadsheets based on hand-written notes! The Audubon app for iPhone is excellent as well. I also recommend using the ABA’s What’s this Bird? Facebook group when in doubt. It is truly amazing how technology has improved the experience and made it much more accessible for the broad public.
The cost of optics and photographic equipment has dropped significantly over the years, while quality has dramatically improved. We now have digital scopes, iPhone clip-ons, and lighter-weight telephoto lenses. My basic kit hasn’t changed much for a few years – so I’m probably due for an upgrade (LOL), specifically a more modern camera (as my Canon EOS 6D is nearly 10 years old).
The primary lens I use for birding is a Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary telephoto zoom (f/5-6.3) – purchased when it first came out 3-4 years ago. It is not only lighter than the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L zoom that many birders use, but it is a lot less expensive and has a longer focal length. To give the Sigma something to balance on, I often use my ultra-lightweight (< 1 lb) monopod from Manfrotto that collapses to only 16".
Technology is opening up all sorts of new avenues of discovery. The use of light-sensitive geolocators, as well as small GPS transmitters (combined with satellites) have brought breakthroughs in tracking bird migrations. We better understand how weather is impacting birds today, and how climate change will dramatically alter their migratory range and habitat tomorrow.
Going forward, we will continue to see major advances with our smart devices in bird identification (and conservation), as well as the advent of using Augmented Reality combined with Artificial Intelligence to deliver a much more powerful birding experience.
For those interested in getting additional information about the intersection of technology and birding, check out this excellent article published by the Cornell Lab. I also encourage readers to read the excellent pieces by Mary Keith and Jim Caldwell in this Passion guest series.
I don’t consider myself an “expert” birder or digital photographer – I still have a lot to learn (especially in the digital darkroom). Photo editing is so very different from the days I almost minored in photography back in the late ‘70s. Instead, I think of myself as an enthusiastic / advanced amateur. One of the things I love about birding is that it demands that you remain a lifetime learner. To me, it is less about tallying up huge life-lists and more about understanding birds in their natural environment. I’m especially excited to gain a better understanding of bird language. I’m fascinated by their mating rituals and migratory patterns and captivated by their beauty. I look forward to slowing down and becoming more aware and in-tune with nature. Two books I recommend are: How To Know The Birds (by Ted Floyd, Editor of Birding Magazine), and What the Robin Knows (by Jon Young).
In the coming months, I’d like to plug into one of the major conservation organizations, while I continue to work part-time with a handful of long-time clients at McNee Associates. Limiting the destruction of natural habitat and minimizing the impact of climate change is a legacy worth fighting for.
Photo Credits:
Photos courtesy of Bill McNee. All rights reserved.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Nancy and Jim Richardson who talk about their autistic son Michael and how the joy and challenge of raising him has led them to found Neuro Diverse Living. This nonprofit has focused on creating safe and secure housing, community, and job opportunities for autistic kids after they grow up. As Jim says "Adults with autism and other IDDs, (intellectual and developmental disabilities), is a demographic that is way overlooked. As a nonprofit, our singular mission is to provide safe and sustainable housing to families who are dealing with the very issue we've dealt with: What's going to happen to my child when we're gone?"
As career Fortune 1000 executives and serial entrepreneurs, Jim and Nancy Richardson have created vast network of connections that enable and support their life-long focus of leaving a legacy for their three children and four grandchildren. As active members of the Central Bucks Rotary, they also give back to the community that they have called home for the past 21 years. In their spare time, they love riding their motorcycles, spending time with family and close friends.
Stacey Fish of SAP introduced me to Jim and Nancy. This is what she has to say about them
"I have known Jim and Nancy for 30 years. I had the fortune of meeting them at work and actually saw their love blossom, attended their wedding, and have just been remarkably close friends for 30 years. In that time frame, I had the pleasure of watching them raise Michael along with the struggles of raising an autistic child.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to babysit several times. I was there when Jim had serious back surgery and stayed with Michael so Nancy could take care of Jim. Again, hands-on, real-time seeing the struggles they were dealing with.
Although we don't live close to one another, we never lost touch and reconnect every time we see each other without skipping a beat. I've always stayed in touch, always wanted to learn what they're doing with Michael in as much that they pushed the boundaries of research and doing what's best for him and being his advocate.
I’m blessed to not have the struggles they do with schools and activities of daily living raising an autistic child. But watching and learning what they have had to overcome and do things on their own has been inspirational. When I heard about then building a nonprofit to address the lifetime needs of autistic adults for those like their now grown son, I was immediately and passionate about helping them."
Here's a young Michael and the wonderful adult he has grown to become
Here are notes from my conversation with Nancy and Jim
Nancy
"Michael has so many skills. He's got empathy and compassion for others that have just really shone through in his development over the years. We are just so thrilled to see his future unfold, which is why we developed Neuro Diverse Living as there are literally no options for these young individuals - a place for them to live, thrive, and develop as great contributors to a community and be in safe hands.
In the right environment, Michael can live independently but is not a great self-advocate and like many with autism, are vulnerable in ways that their neurotypical peers are not. This is a primary driver behind our goal of providing safe and sustainable housing for Michael and felt that if we could solve this for Michael, we could solve it for other families in the same situation. We see technology as an enabler to make independent living more successful.
We're taking this to the next level where not only can these individuals work at companies like SAP and around the state, but where can they live? They truly can grow as independent contributors to society. This is the component that we're focused on is helping these individuals, these unique, beautiful individuals live a happy and successful life."
Jim describes how technologies keep improving to support autistic kids as they grow older.
"Although Michael is my stepson, I've raised him since he was two. I got to see, from the very beginning, the challenges that parents with an autistic child face.
Getting a diagnosis of autism for your child changes everything about your life and you’re pretty much on your own trying to figure things out. We have always been "take charge" people and knew we had to take matters into our own hands.
There wasn't a lot known about autism 20 years ago. Diagnosis and early treatments have gotten much better. Michael is brilliant in his own way but has challenges interacting with others. He's come a long way from socially isolation to a point where he has blossomed into a kind and caring human being.
I believe that individuals with intellectual disabilities like autism have unique gifts. I think it's up to the family to find those gifts and pull them out.
The biggest fear for a parent with a special needs’ child is safety. We live in a world where people don't always have the best intentions and sadly prey on those that can be taken advantage of. Certainly, Michael falls into that category.
As we think about not only about how to ensure he is safe for the rest of his life, change is one of the things that really is not good for someone with autism. We’ve also decided the other issue we need to tackle is employment, because these ‘kids’ can be productive members of society if given the opportunity.
From a technology standpoint, a lot has changed in 26 years since Michael was initially diagnosed. Tools like smartphones that can help them communicate and interact in social environments. From a housing standpoint, having cameras, motion sensors, and instead of physical keys, having electronic key cards or devices so they can get in and out while ensuring people who shouldn't be in the home can’t get in.
The amount of technology that's available today is incredible. There are also technologies that will help autistic individuals who struggle with sound and bright light. I think we've just begun to scratch the surface of how we can introduce technology to ease the transition from life at home to a life with others who have similar traits and characteristics.
We are laser-focused on tackling this challenge head-on. How we accommodate each individual's uniqueness, their idiosyncrasies, their quirkiness, and certainly the issues that they deal with and struggle with on a daily basis is imperative.
Many with autism are non-verbal or they're not great communicators. Imagine having touchscreen technology as a way to communicate with the caregiver to take control of their day. And there’s benefit for the parent in the family home to be able to check-in and communicate with their son or daughter from a technology standpoint provides a sense of safety and comfort.
There’s also immersive technology. One of the things we’ve been looking at is Google Glass, a technology that can help people who don't have the level of empathy. Using technology like Google Glass to sense a person's facial expression - if they're happy, they're sad, they're angry, helps from a social interaction standpoint – an immersive reality.
It's incumbent upon us to figure out the appropriate technology that's going to work for Michael, as well as what’s going to work for Sally, Timmy, or Tommy, and then incorporate that in our personal care homes.
There are systems available today that would allow the parent or family members of the resident let us know in advance that they're stopping by or planning a visit.
There are massive regulations about how the ‘Smart Care Home’ needs to be run and managed, along with the records that we need to keep. Years ago, all those records were maintained manually, but now we can maintain them through systems. It will keep our level of compliance up to date so that when the state does pay an unplanned inspection, our systems and reporting are available so that we can stay in compliance. This also provides additional comfort for the parents as they consider having their son or daughter live in one of our community homes.
We also think that being a nonprofit will allow us to take advantage of leading-edge programs and new technologies and incorporate them into our homes.
We're making great strides and are very excited about opening up our first Neuro Diverse home this year here in Bucks County, PA. As a nonprofit, we will share our model so that others throughout the region, and hopefully, throughout the country can do something similar. The autism tsunami is here and it’s only going to get more pervasive. The government is not going to figure this out, so it's up to parents like us and great friends like Stacey to make a lasting impact."
I encourage everyone to donate to the Neuro Diverse Living center here
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Minal Neuman, banker by day, and an extremely generous host in evenings and weekends. Here she writes about one of her passions, table settings and the lengths she goes to in her quest for the best.
"For years I have enjoyed entertaining and I believe in what I call the 5Gs (no, not the network) that make for a successful gathering. They are good presentation/ambience, good food, good wine, good friends and good conversation!
My passion has always been the focus on good presentation and by that I mean creating the ambiance and presenting a great table setting! Its like fine dining, but at home! Call me old fashioned but someone once said when you make an effort to set the table you are not only making your guests feel welcome and feel special but its also showing them that they are respected. When someone walks into your home everything should be warm, welcoming and charming!
I look at the table as a blank canvas ready to paint and I create as I go. No two table settings are ever alike! Over the years I have amassed a vast collection of dishes, silverware, glasses, tablecloths, runners, napkins, chargers, table mats, napkin rings, vases, candles, etc. And behind each find there is a story to tell!
I have traveled extensively over the years and have “stuff” from various parts of the world! I have lugged (or should I say husband Tom has) heavy terracotta, brass and stainless steel dishes, artifacts etc as hand baggage all over the world for me! I never check in my precious cargo should it get lost or damaged!
To give you an example, I went to India last November to visit family and spent an afternoon with my cousin Reena who had recently started dabbling in mandala art. She was showing me some of her canvases and I fell in love with her work. She showed me a stunning black and white square canvas board that she had painted. I asked her if she could repeat the same design and paint five more so I could use them as place mats. I remembered I had a set of clear glass plates that would work perfectly so that her artwork would be seen through the plates. In a few days she had not only place mats but matching coasters all ready for me! Check out her website on Instagram. She is amazing and so talented. Some of her canvas boards I even use as runners! Makes for a great centerpiece.
Another time I visited an art festival in Stuart, FL and one of the vendors had made these interesting ceramic vases with floral arrangements in them. That got me thinking why not bring some nature to the dining table. I bought two vases and with the flowers and foliage in my garden, I use them to make Japanese ikebana arrangements!
On a trip to Goa, India I happened to visit the Saturday market and I bought two ethnic bed covers there that make great tablecloths and go with my “Indian” thali set ( stainless steel grooved plates) that I bought in Pune, India on my previous trip there!
I remember once when my friend Linda, my partner in crime ended up at the Bonefish Grill restaurant after a junking trip ( visiting thrift stores). I noticed that their wine glasses had a fish etched on them. I talked to the bartender and asked him if he would sell the wine glasses to me for a price, of course. Needless to say I am now the proud owner of those wine glasses! You see, I have a set of fish placemats that I use with my clear plates.
On another occasion I was desperately in need of black cloth black serviettes and could not find any at the last minute to complete the look I was going in for and time was running out! Then I remembered Bonefish grill had black napkins and went back there. I ran in and introduced myself to the manager, explained my dire situation and showed him a picture of my table setting. I came home with 6 black napkins. Yes, I have no shame when it comes to my table! I will go to great lengths!
A few years ago we were in Sarasota, FL at a Greek Restaurant called Blu Kouzina. Their tables had blue glass water bottles in little basket like containers. I knew I had two similar blue bottles at home that I had bought at Stein Mart so those would be perfect! This time I did not ask the waiter! Instead on the way home, I had Tom stop at every store I could find to find the right pot to make my own. Sure enough we found some at the local Goodwill! I got home that night and stuck some burlap on the pots and made my own version. A few months later I found identical baskets in the flower pot section at Walmart. Now I have two sets!
When I went to visit a friend in St. Thomas, we bought shells that I use to serve shrimp cocktail. You can also use them for baking seafood.
Needless to say I get really excited when I entertain because it brings out the creativity in me and I enjoy it! My husband Tom has supported my hobby over the years and even though he cringes every time I buy another dish or napkin, I know deep down he is proud of the artist in me!
Whenever I see something I like, I visualize my table and immediately my mind goes into overdrive as I think of all my dishes, table mats etc that would complement what I am about to buy and only then do I purchase it! I find my self frequently at stores plucking things from shelves and doing mini arrangements on various surfaces before I buy it so see how it looks! I am sure I look crazy on security cameras but I don’t care!!!
For accents I will sometimes create or copy an idea I have seen or have someone else make something for me if an idea pops into my head. That’s why Tom and I make a great team. I came up with the ideas and he makes them happen or in some cases has to make them!
A few ago when we lived in Dallas, TX I happened to go to a estate sale and saw a set of gold plated silverware. That was one of the few times Tom put his foot down. What do you need that for? Where are we going to keep them? So I relented and have regretted it ever since. This past Mothers Day he surprised me with a set of 8 gold plated silverware. And as he said it was because I never let him forget it. He knows better now! This man has built has three large closets in our garage for all my dishes and I hate to admit it but even that is not enough! Almost every corner of our house is full of dishes, glasses every aspect of table dressing you can imagine.
My friends too are aware of my passion and some of my collections have been gifts from them.
A dear friend in Germany, Uschi once gave me a Italian tablecloth with all the colors of my dishes, red, yellow and green. I even had napkin rings with olives to complete the look! And pasta dishes of course!
Several years ago I bought these cute little china appetizer plates at Crate and Barrel first given to me by another German friend, Heike with matching cocktail napkins. I then bought an additional set along with matching coasters. I have used those for ever and still get compliments when I use them!
My Italian friend, Joe (a great cook by the way!) gave me a fish net to use as a décor in my family room. Instead I use it as a tablecloth. At Christmas it works as a tree skirt for my nautical Xmas tree! Joe has over the years also given me dishes to help complete my sets. HomeGoods is one of his favorite stores as well and no visit to his house is ever complete without us paying homage to HomeGoods! Such are the effects of my passion! I suspect he uses this as bait sometimes!!
Naturally I have dishes for my seafood theme. One time to create a centerpiece I painted old wine bottles and covered them partially with burlap and hot glued some shells. Added some foliage and it made a great centerpiece. I also used burlap to make napkin rings and stuck some shells on them
On another visit to Goa India we were dining at a local beach restaurant and they had these terracotta napkin holders made to look like a shell. Of course I had to have it to go with my seafood theme. Again I convinced the waiter to sell it to me for a price! By the way, just in case you are wondering, they always check with management before they succumb to me!
On that same trip, I stayed at my cousin Vikram’s beautiful home in Pune, India. At a dinner party held for me one night, his wife Anjali served the meal in some ethnic terracotta dishes that she had bought several months before. I fell in the love with the dishes so she promised to find some for me. For months she searched to no avail. Years later when she came to visit me in Florida she brought me her the set of serving dishes as a gift from across the seas! She did not forget! I don’t know who I was more excited to see my family or the dishes!
On that same visit in Mumbai while dining at a restaurant called Copper Chimney, I liked the colors on their paper table mats. I knew I had the perfect set of dishes for them here in Florida. Tom said he would laminate them for me so again I asked the waiter and so it should be no surprise that we have a few!
If we have visitors stay over, you can rest assured every meal has a different table setting. For instance once dinner is over and everyone has gone to bed, I will typically stay up until the wee hours setting the table for breakfast! I know this sounds crazy but it is something I really enjoy. As I said before this gets my creative juices going. I have an off white table dining table and there is a reason why I bought that! There is so much you can do with it! It’s a blank canvas just waiting for me!
I discovered Lowe's sells square pieces of mirrors and those have become another favorite of mine. I use them as chargers and a runner sometimes. The centerpiece is reflected in the mirrors giving it some depth.
I have shopped at flea markets, thrift stores and garage sales. But my favorite stomping grounds have been Pier One ( am crushed they will not survive this COVID crisis), HomeGoods, TJ Maxx, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Marshalls, Bealls and Stein Mart. As I mentioned earlier my partner in crime Linda is a junking pro, knows about my obsession and she too has jumped on the bandwagon. Whenever she is out junking and comes across a “find” she will pick it up for me much to Tom’s dismay!
What can I say except that I am a bit obsessed. But that my friends, is my passion. It's all about the presentation and of course good friends, good food, good wine and good conversations. I live for it! Now I just have to find a way to turn my passion into a new career path perhaps in hospitality or interior designing. Who knows I might even start a new trend “Tables to Go”!
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Sophie, the Lemon Beagle. Here she bays:
Hi, I am Sophie. My humans often call me Sophie Bean. Ask them why, I don't know - I am not very fond of beans to tell you the truth. Let's get a few things straight. I know this series is for human contributors. But I have an inside track. One of my humans, Susanne (who is holding me in the photo. My BFF, Gracie is also there. Beth is missing.) wrote about Stained Glass a few weeks ago. And my walker, Vinnie told me his own dog, Peanuts wrote in this series a long time ago.
I would have liked to meet Peanuts - sounds like a very wise dog, especially in his viewpoint about nasty cats.
Vinnie told me I had to include some technology angles in this column. Yawn. Well, Einstein how do you think this was written? There is an undocumented feature in Amazon Alexa which understands Beagle talk. Then I used Google Translate to convert that to English. I next raided his iPhone and Susanne's Android phone for photos and videos.
There you go, now can I talk about my passion? I want to get on the David Letterman Stupid Pet Tricks show. I mean Gracie and I are so much better than the clowns they usually have on the show.
(Vinnie's comment - don't ruin it for Sophie that Letterman retired long ago)
I am going to talk about 3 tricks. Keep score - at the end I will ask you your favorite I should play for my appearance on Letterman
Trick # 1 - The Butterball
Vinnie lives 6 or 7 houses down from us ( I am not that good at math, so don't be picky). Every morning I eagerly await his arrival.
As soon as I see him approaching, I alert Gracie. Both of us get in about 50 barks to wake up our humans so they can put a leash on me.
I drag Vinnie half way down the street. Then he lets me the run the final 4 houses (or is it 3? I told you I am not good at math).
Why do I run? There's some turkey waiting for me in his garage. I have heard him say Boar's Head is better than the Costco version. I tell him - why not both? Heheh. Anyways, I inhale the turkey, then I run to the door and leap to try and open it. Man is he slow, takes him forever to catch up to me and open the door.
Then there is another sprint into his kitchen to get to the cat's butter. Cat, as in Shadow, who lives 2 doors (or is it 3?) away from Vinnie but seems to be always at his place when he is not lurking around the neighborhood
Shadow is one strange dude, but he has good taste in butter. The Irish grass-fed cow, premium kind. I finish off what he does not every morning. If I am lucky, Vinnie lets me also finish off what's left on the Kerrygold wrapper every few days.
Turkey + Butter = Butterball. Get it? That's Trick 1. Keep score.
Trick # 2 - The FitDog
Once I am fed, I am ready for a long walk. I am a FitDog champion. Here are my trophies.
OK, it is Vinnie's FitBit but with my 4 legs multiply his score by 4 (OK, OK by 2 but that is way more than what you can say about Shadow who somehow snuck into the photo below pretending he walks with us)
(Vinnie's note - don't want to bias reader voting but those badges were earned over 6 years. Sophie is only 2. Also Shadow does not walk much when there is light. At night, he likely outwalks Sophie. His owner has talked about putting a tracking device to see where he prowls but is afraid to find out)
Here's Google Maps with the neighborhood we walk every day. There you go - more technology as Vinnie requested.
We have so much water around us I wish he would take me swimming, but he says we have alligators and sharks in our canals. Whatever.
You humans can be weird in other ways. Vinnie used to disappear every few days. I hear he flies a lot. He must be one big bird. Recently though his wings must have been clipped. He has been around a lot. The other thing I have noticed is humans are staying several feet apart. Some of them are even covering their noses and mouths with masks. I mean what's a world without smells? Like I said, humans are weird.
I doubt the Letterman studio will allow me to walk for miles. I will ask him for a treadmill. Now, let's move on to Trick 3
Trick # 3 - Circular Logic
You humans make fun of circles.
You guys have no idea how much fun they are. Here's me celebrating my dinner. EVERY NIGHT. I would like a human to try that without getting dizzy.
So, which one do you vote for - Trick 1, 2 or 3?
I really want to impress Letterman, though honestly the competition above is pretty underwhelming. Thanks for helping me out.
And anytime you want to compete with me around a crop circle, it's game on!
I have interviewed over 25 C level executives in the last month about acrobatics during the COVID-19 crisis, WFH and re-open physical site protocols and the "new normal" in their industry.
Most have done these interviews from their home offices, and I have been fascinated with all the Zoom backgrounds they have been using. Lots of creativity. (The links allow you to watch the complete session with each)
Jeff Robertson, COO of Maxar Technologies, lives in the Denver area. I thought he had a view of the Rockies in his background. It's actually a picture from one of his earth observation satellites of Mt. Fitz Roy in Patagonia in S. America - "taken from the horizon thousands of miles away." BTW, I half expected his twins to Zoom bomb the session. Apparently, his staff have issued them Maxar badges:)
Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday, had a background with his favorite pizzeria in San Francisco and hopes it survives the dine-in restrictions most states have had on restaurants
Ray Lane, Managing Partner at the VC firm, GreatPoint Ventures, started his interview from his "man cave" with some of his trophies in Silicon Valley. He then moved to another part of his house with better wifi connectivity for the session.
Mike Ettling, CEO of Unit4 had his corporate green screen as background. He looks charming, but told me they are moving to a more neutral color for future recordings.
Mike Laven, CEO of Currency Cloud, tried to do his session from the balcony of his flat in London. It was unusually bright for London (imagine!) and he moved in for the recording.
Tara Gambill of MOD Pizza, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh of Salesforce, Alex Shootman of Workfront and Jerry Foster of Plex, showed off their home offices in WA, CA, UT and MI, respectively.
The fact they are doing this from all over the country is so calming. It is so different from the doom and gloom in the media - nice to hear and see people on the ground.
Andre Blumberg of CLP Power has been the only interviewee so far to do the session from a corporate, not a home, office. He forgot there was a motion detector in the boardroom in Hong Kong. We had a momentary loss of lighting and you can see him wave his hands to trigger the sensor :)
My wife has set up several different backgrounds for me to use. The one I have mostly used is in the library as in the ASUG Virtual Summit where Tom Wailgum interviewed me. (For a change we used the ON24 platform, not Zoom.)
Eagle eyes will notice that only one small portion of the library has copies of my 7 books. Like I said it's Margaret's library. I am only allowed to periodically use it:)
The ASUG event was scheduled to be in-person in Orlando. I wanted to use my deck and dock as background to provide the Florida vibe. I realized, however, I would only annoy viewers who were watching while a freak May storm dumped snow in their yards.
I have found French Blue shirts show best on these videos so in case you are wondering how fresh they are, here's proof of plenty of reinforcements. My dry cleaner has been pleased to see me even as my travel needs have dropped. :)
Many more sessions coming up so I will likely have more interesting backgrounds to share.
With the research I do for this innovation blog, I started to notice beginning in January governments and companies were performing acrobatics defending against COVID-19. Drones being used for disinfection, deliveries, thermal imaging and public information sharing. Auto companies jumping into making ventilators. Last mile logistics getting turbocharged. Construction of pop-up hospitals. Accelerated clinical trials for vaccines. Naturally, I started to blog about them and figured that innovations from the global battle would become the theme of my next book.
Books, however, take a while to publish. I like to include 30-50 case studies in each. Those take weeks to get approved. To polish a book with multiple edits, footnotes, indexes etc takes many more weeks of effort and a village of people who support me. Honestly, that would not reflect the warp speed at which these customers and governments have been moving. I mean after years of slow growth, it took a snap of POTUS fingers to waive HIPAA restrictions and for Medicare to pay for telemedicine and it has taken off. Zoom is generating 7 petabytes (million gigabytes) a day of video traffic as many of us work, learn, play from home. A day!
I said I need to capture the moment on film. I settled on Zoom video interviews with executives in various sectors and geographies. Here is a growing index of my daily interviews.
I wasn't new to Zoom. I have been using the tool for most of my book and other interviews for a couple of years now. But I largely used it as a audio recording tool. Video is a whole lot different.
I got plenty of advice on technology, bandwidth, format of interviews, green screens - all valuable. But try easily getting 1080p HD or 4K webcams in this market (took mine 2 weeks to arrive but the vendor kept me informed of progress. Big thanks) Try to get your ISP to send a crew to fix fiber which has been mangled (they sent 3 different crews over 5 days to do the job while we were all quarantined. Even bigger thanks) Try to convince them to not throttle bandwidth when your entire neighborhood is at home (not much help there, but my Google WiFi pods allow me to prioritize a device for up to 4 hours and deliver most of the bandwidth there). I did ignore couple of pieces of advice - keep video length under 5 minutes. I am interviewing C level execs. They deserve the 20-25 minutes I am giving each. The other was about green screens. My wife has several excellent backgrounds for me - her library, her Egyptian section, her Buddhist section, our deck overlooking the canal in our backyard.
All set? Guess again.
Some interviewees insisted I not use Zoom because of security concerns. So I had to adapt to MS Teams, Skype, ON24. Many vendors had moved their events to virtual delivery which meant exposure to even more tools. Even though most of my interviewees are C level executives, they don't often have the best lighting or bandwidth. Many use their laptop cams which tend to only support 720p resolution.
It hit me we are in the middle of a giant experiment. We are seeing the democratization of the TV studio. Like with many consumer grade technologies, we will live with "good enough" for a short while. Plenty of innovation will make this better.
In the meantime, the good news is all my interviewees have been talking about their agility and acrobatics. There is no script for a crisis this deep and wide. There is authenticity in their voice. These are not cowboys - when they talk about risks of bringing back to work, they are being extremely thoughtful. You may think certain sectors are dead - oil and gas, airlines, hotels. Listen to counter perspectives from execs who have a front row seat.
Here's the even better part - everyone talks about kids and pets Zoom bombing their meetings. I have not had those, but I am enjoying all the variety in backgrounds. One CEO had his favorite pizzeria he hopes survives this phase. One did it from his man cave. One had imagery from his company’s satellites. One did it from his London balcony. One went dark for a split second - his motion sensor did not detect enough activity and turned his light off. I wanted to do one overlooking our canal but that would have been cruel to viewers who had snow this week!
Yes, the videos are not perfect, but they are timely. They reflect the heroics we are seeing across industries. A decade of change in a few weeks. Call it Fail Fast or Good Enough. I call it Agile trumps Perfect.
I had an early dental appointment this morning and noticed even at 630am the traffic was busier than it has been the last several weeks. Our county is in Phase 1 of its gradual re-opening.
I have been doing Zoom interviews with many C level executives around the country. They are all talking about prudent opening of their facilities. They will continue with work from home wherever possible. Where physical locations need to be open ensure distancing, temperature checks, enhanced hygiene routines.
Ray Lane in one of those interviews said "..look if we are going up the open up our economy again the responsibility now transfers from the government to us...Get out ...get back to work... bring all of these great technologies that we have seen during the COVID crisis ..bring them forward. I think you can operate in the month of May being socially responsible but let's get the economy going again."
We have already seen early signs of changes in workplace routines and hygiene. I wrote about those at Costco 5 weeks ago here. As of today, they have had many other process changes including requiring customers and employees to wear masks in their stores.
Amazon has procured so far more than 31,000 thermometers and 1,115+ thermal cameras, 100 million masks, 48 million ounces of hand sanitizers among other protective measures for its workplaces.
OSHA has guidelines for re-opening manufacturing plants. In an interview last week, Plex executives told me they have been facilitating a number of customer conversations about shop floor level safety protocols.
Cushman and Wakefield has a concept called the "6 feet office" for when people return to physical offices from their work from home settings
The NYC subway is going to be much more sanitary in the future.
Similarly when we start flying again we will find most US airplanes require passengers to wear masks, will reconfigure seats, change boarding processes, disinfect planes early and often. International flights will likely need temperature checks and health certificates. We may also see concepts like Glassafe that Aviointeriors has developed - a Plexiglass like screen to cocoon passengers, to separate them from their neighbors.
Designers like Yves Behar are thinking further ahead. "Providing a sanitary safe environment will become standard in office design, with surface materials that are anti-microbial, security robots like Cobalt (which we designed), daily deep cleans, non-touch gestural interfaces, and more personal space. Office design is always changing, and this is a new opportunity to design for maximum health: a physical and mental wellbeing approach of the most precious asset of any business—its people,"
Salesforce is offering a site called Work.com to allow for collaboration to help safely reopen your workplace.
A final request as we re-open the economy. Focus on your own community, not giving advice to others. I posted this rant in social media on behalf of my state last week
"No other state is more respectful of computer models than FL courtesy of the National Hurricane Center. I have written case studies about the satellites, buoy sensors, Hurricane Hunter flights and other data capture tech and the supercomputers used to create track models.
Floridians are pretty systematic about our evacuations. There are escape routes clearly marked in every town. Toll roads become free. Our utilities start moving equipment to likely where the landfall will happen. FEMA is on standby. Neighbors help each other - they will make sure the elderly are ok. People walk around with chainsaws to help with fallen tree limbs.
If anything, every state should have applied our script in reverse for their CV19 lockdown. We have very few panic attacks unlike the chaos we have seen around this.
Here's the irony. We were told we were fxxked because we were not listening to the IHME and other CV19 models. Now that those models say our peak passed over a week ago, we are being told ignore the models, stay shut down. As of now we are only at 52 CV19 fatalities per million - compare to the NY/NJ/CT area which is at over 2300!
But, wait we have Florida Man so we are country bumpkins - what do we know?"
End of rant :)
Re-open your communities smartly. We all have lots and lots of work to do in the next few months - let's mirror the many smart folks who are working feverishly on vaccines, antibody tests, contact tracing and other innovations which will gradually make us feel safer and safer.
I look forward to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letters and I have excerpted from many over the years on this blog. Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor, but I enjoy even more the historical perspective he brings.
So, it was a treat to watch the webcast of the shareholder meeting on Saturday. The travel restrictions during the current crisis worked to the benefit of all of us who cannot go those annual events in person.
Just the fact that at 89 he could present and answer questions for 4 straight hours is inspirational. He also keeps his sense of humor. First time in his life he says he has used slides. And points out his long term partner, Charlie Munger, who is even older at 96 is now a big Zoom user:)
He kept talking about the "American Tailwind" ...how we have bounced back many times, usually much stronger than the stumbles we have had. It was calming to see his slides about the losses of young, productive men during the Civil War. Puts in perspective the mortalities during the current crisis. He also compares how much we have bounced back economically since the Great Depression. And how, since the founding of the country, our wealth, diversity and other metrics have dramatically improved. Here are some of the slides he presented.
I would recommend watching his entire history lesson. It starts around 1:00 in the replay video at bottom and goes for about an hour. The rest is about his investments and procedural stuff since it was a formal shareholder meeting.
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer
OK, let me start off by emphasizing I am not retiring. Don't start any rumors. However, in the last couple of weeks I have had a chance to reflect on my career, and the crazy last few months.
I cry with so many who have lost friends and family to CV19. I get angry and elated and scared with others about our bipolar economy (Wall Street highs in the midst of historic unemployment), the divisive politics, the intense protests, the continued CV19 spikes. However overall, I think I have managed to stay reasonably balanced.
I have had a long, colorful career. Hundreds of wonderful clients, many a Magic Quadrant, 7 books, travels to 45 US states and 70+ countries, 12,000 + blogs, failed startups, way too much time away from family. So, how could 4 months in quarantine compete against those highs and lows? 5 things make this phase stand out
A focus on business acrobatics
Like most, I was traumatized in the middle of March - how could you not be with all the fatalities, the lockdowns, the Wall Street meltdown, the massive layoffs? But my New Florence research was also showing an amazing amount of innovation and heroics in business. I knew there would be enough material for my 8th book. However, I made a fateful decision to not wait for months it takes to produce a book. I decided to record executives on Zoom or MS Teams talking about how they were scaling up or down massively, how they were pivoting to new opportunities, how they were rapidly innovating products and services. I have done many of those sessions, nearly 50 of them are public in this series. I have fed off their stressed, but positive, energy. I have heard awesome expressions from them like "pain is real, suffering is optional". As importantly, it has helped me as an analyst. It has introduced me to how rapidly WFH technologies and related social issues are evolving. It has allowed to track how quickly the healthcare system has learned about overuse of ventilators, how to rapidly increase ICU capacity, how to handle surges with medical personnel across states, how therapies like Remdesivir and convalescent plasma are having a significant impact in acute CV19 cases. That has allowed me to be relatively calm while much of media (and social media) has been hysterical about the recent spike in positives in the Sun Belt. I have been saying - don't look at June/July positives from a February/March Italy/New York lens. I have heard how executives are rebalancing their technology, R&D and other budgets. I have participated in many vendor virtual events with that lens. Some are rapidly evolving, others are still trying to sell what they had in their bag in January. That's a semester of learning I could not have had at any university.
Positive passions matter
I had already restarted the Passion guest series to celebrate the start of a new decade. Starting in March I accelerated the pace. Nearly 50 have contributed about their cooking, birding, charities, I have helped guest writers with background research on how STEM has helped evolve their area of passion. Not only has that kept me and thousands of readers positive, it has given me a more nuanced perspective on how technologies are reshaping various aspects of life, play and work.
Honoring everyday workers
As most of us tech folks focus on digital acceleration, I have actually become much more appreciative of people who have allowed us to easily migrate to WFH. They work near our homes, they bring stuff to our homes, they operate stores, warehouses, plants we could not survive without. We should all be glad they don't WFH. I have been running an Instagram series honoring many of them. As an analyst, it has made me much more aware of the need to balance our enthusiasm for digital with the continued reality of analog/physical capabilities.
TFH - Travel from Home
My wife is a wizard at packing in a variety of activities in a day trip. Read about her passion here. Given travel restrictions we have become skilled at day trips on the FL Gulf Coast. There are so many pretty small towns we have rediscovered which allow us to safely be out and about, then return to the comfort of home. I have been posting in my "West Coast on the East Coast" series on towns like Dunedin, Sarasota, Sanibel, Tarpon Springs, Venice and many others on Instagram.
During breaks in the work week, I have also getting many of my daily 10K FitBit steps while watching the Smithsonian Aerial America 72 episodes on various US states. Between this and our weekend trips, my restless travel genes have stayed in check.
Each visit and episode has also re-introduced me to history. Our people and places have repeatedly bounced back from unbelievable adversity - no reason we will not from this one either. More positive thoughts.
Quality family time
The last time I did not get on a plane for this long was in 1982. This has meant plenty of time and meals with my lovely wife and daughter. My son is working from home in Colorado, and we have managed to play more card and other games with him virtually. We are very blessed.
I am glad the last few miserable months have brought out my internal summer. They have made me a more rounded adviser and analyst, and a much more optimistic human.
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August 06, 2020 in COVID-19 related agility/innovation, Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)