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.
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.
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
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
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.
Image credit
August 06, 2020 in COVID-19 related agility/innovation, Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)