Side Note: March Madness



Hello, Mister...

March Madness has several meanings apart from the popular American reference to some kind of baseball thing that has to do with college teams, presumably in March. To me March Madness is two things: first the mating season for rabbits (need I say more) and secondly this March for sure, a hole slate of weird ‘stuff’ – and don’t tell me that is because whichever planet is in retrograde.

 

Under ‘stuff’ I would file the funky weather for instance. That is, it’s been freaking cold and snow has been falling in all the wrong places, like South Jersey wants snow, really!  Dump it in Lake Placid please.

 

Next on my ‘stuff’ list:  MH370, the plane that disappeared, crashed, was blown up, hijacked by aliens, or swallowed by David Blaine who will spit it out in a month.  The ensuing madness of cultural “lost in translation” miscommunication, obsessive über-sharing of information of the wrong kind by the media, and the rampant conspiracy theories make it that more baffling that in our world today a plane could disappear mid-flight to never (?) be seen again.  

Panna Cotta Recipe for Cook-o-Phopes and Kitchen-Adverse Production People

Crazy Creative

No clue whose car this is. Found it on Saturday on Central Park West in the low hundreds. Funnily enough: once I started taking pictures (unfortunately the inside pix didn't turn out) a whole bubble of other passersby took the time to stop and take pictures too.  Why did they need the license to take a picture by watching me? Maybe they didn't want to be 'left out', or didn't think to take one until they saw me pull out my phone?  It prompted a few fun exchanges about the "craziness", the possible message of the car and whodunnit?  To me the message was, that we as New Yorkers took a moment to stop our hurried (yes, even on a Saturday) lives and interact and smile at each other. I think that in itself is mission accomplished.  Thank you to whomever so lovingly decorated the car.  

Where to Hide? Part 2

In “Where to Hide? Part 1”I talked about finding people online without much information to go by.  The story to follow  talks about the ‘other’ direction; being found.

It’s early 2008, the world is still in order and people go to work at Lehman Brothers:  I had a conservative client who apparently was close to circles that where close to the pope… kinda one, or two degrees of separation.  This just to make the point in what way the client was conservative.

I was working as a media consultant for the CEO. After a few months Clock Wise’s role was to be expanded into producing video content.  Since it was a sizeable budget Clock Wise needed to be vetted.  With nothing to worry about, I foresaw no problems.

Where to Hide? Part 1

I’ve written a bit about on-line privacy in the past months, and how can one ignore the topic with the N.S.A. scandal and the Snowden leaks.  In this and the next post I want to share a story each of on-line privacy issues from opposite directions.

 

The first and most recent story begins with a conversation I had over dinner with a guy who told me about his ex (which wasn’t all that “ex” as it turns out, but that’s a hole other topic and not for this blog). From the conversation I had gathered the following information:

New Year's Wishes

I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions - resolutions to do better should be an all year activity in my opinion - but let's pretend for a second... 

I came across a poem many years ago - it was a prayer actually - and I love its message and I find it befitting for a New Year's message. I went looking for it on-line to make sure I had the wording right and had to laugh; I found it on a German teen-girl site. I now remember learning the poem the summer I was 16 and working in a senior home run by Deacons. So, here goes:

"May you have the courage to accept what you cannot change, the strength to change what needs changing, and the wisdom to know one from the other." 

All I can add to that is: "Cheers for a sensational 2014 with all the right changes!"

Outsourcing

Do you know the feeling that the universe is trying to tell you something when a topic keeps coming up and up and up again?  Well, I do and it just did these past days.  The New York Times had several articles on outsourcing.  One in particular, Outsource Your Way to Success, talks about how a couple invested in a housekeeper even when they were starving students to be able to focus on their studies and be more productive. I wish I had that kind of singular focus, actually, no, I do not. I’m interested in just about anything; at least for a while.  But you get the gist.  I get excited.

So, the other day I decided that it was silly to pay programmers and designers to do all the work on my websites and I could go ahead and learn with the help of templates and WordPress, or Square Space how to set up and implement websites myself.  I signed up at General Assembly for a two day class called “WordPress Bootcamp”. Our teacher Nate Cooper was awesome (that is patient, humorous, and of course, super hero knowledgeable) and off we set into the sunset.

"I love you; you're perfect; now change"

Yesterday I had an epiphany of sorts.  At the kitchen sink no less.  Of late I have been thinking a lot about people and their behavior and the realization that people do not change. Not fundamentally so. I think a person can learn to modify certain behaviors, but our basic wiring is our basic wiring. Of course we learn along the way and modify behaviors and change our opinions (or not) and hopefully become more attune with our surroundings and wiser in our decision making, we might mellow and be more forgiving, but we will fundamentally and with our gut always be “who we are”.  

My Future

All this talk about trends makes me think about what I would like to see happen in the future. 

I had a talk with my friend and editor of my film, Terry Katz about what the next ‘big’ thing is going to be.  He agrees with me that Big Data will continue to capture our imagination for some time to come, but he’s hot on 3D printers.  I still have to wrap my brain around that. I’m thinking of cartridges in my house that contain, glass, plastic, metals, paper, poop?  At what temperatures are these 3D printers ‘printing’ if they work with metal – how safe are they?  I can go and BUY glasses I do not need to print one each time I wish to enjoy a glass of wine.  

Big Data

Big Data has been holding my attention for a while, as it might by now be obvious. I was lucky enough to accompany a group of C-level executives from Germany on an East Coast trip to industry leaders in Big Data to gain a glimpse at the cutting edge this spring. 

 

The question I think is less, what Big Data is, but where Big Data is, because it’s everywhere, literally.  Think George Orwell’s 1984 on steroids times infinity plus one. Big Data is the information the NSA requested from Verizon, Big Data is the advertising pushed to your screen after doing research for blue socks. You get to see are blue socks for the next few days, until your next search and then you see LED light bulbs everywhere. Big Data is all the information we output all the time with the many devices we use and the endless apps on them. Keep a training log online? Play solitaire on your iPhone? Upload your photos with geo-tagging, as default, courtesy of your camera? Your metro card? Your built-in car GPS? And that’s just the simplest of lists from our consumer world.  

Context – Part 1

After posting Part 2 before Part 1 – I should get with the program, so eight months later, here’s Part 1 with some more general thoughts about context.  It’s really about content within context. 

 

I think content and context are intrinsically linked. We watch plays or listen to an opera today with the understanding that when they were written there were other times. We take them as a social comment on their times and within that context they become understandable. Of course there are the great classics that tell us truths that hold true to this day. And I take the word truth in its broadest sense, as there is no absolute truth as we so well know (or should know).  

Reading and Responding

Patience is not one of my strong suits. It serves me well in the heat of production to be comfortable to make quick decisions and to act on instinct. And I am usually right.  But I do have some ground rules. 

 

I have learned (yes, the hard way), to never respond to an email that elicits an ‘emotional’ reaction, or a complex answer on impulse, or as I might rather call it, with efficiency. Best case scenario I can afford to sleep on an answer, or go for a walk in the park.  If not, I get up from my desk and wander around the office for a bit.  We are so trained to answer immediately, be it because we feel it’s expected – the 60 minute rule - or be it that we desperately try to stay ahead of the curve on our in-boxes.  We’ve all come back from a meeting or lunch break to the mother-load of all inboxes.  That’s the moment we are thankful for the few spam messages that eluded the filter.

Storytelling

Attending the event I posted about last time was an amazing experience. My friend Susanne Mueller put on this evening at the PSYA at Marymount College where 15 of us where sharing stories about our lives involving holistic women’s leadership and mentoring. Each had about 2 minutes to share. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I had prepared the thoughts and story I shared in my previous entry called “Mentoring”.  

 

The evening was powerful. The fact that 15 people shared a story without holding back and the other panelists and the audience listened captively created an amazing energy around the room.  The women came from nearly all continents and backgrounds; some from academia, some from the arts, or with business backgrounds; a real hodgepodge of ethnicities and the ages ranged from students to retirees.  

 

Mentoring

I’m speaking at a panel tonight at the Marymount Manhattan College’s Psychology Alumni Society on Women and Holistic Leadership.  The topic is Mentoring. I’m curious to see what I learn, and in the interim, here some thoughts on the topic. 

 

I’ve met some pretty fantastic people, men and women, both in my personal and professional lives. Some I only realized later had been mentors; some were clearly in a mentor role to me from the start. I thrive to emulate what I admire or value in a mentor the most and try to apply it to my own live where possible. I feel however, being “infatuated” with a person and wanting to be just like your mentor, no questions asked, is not a mentor relationship, that’s just being a groupie or member of a fan club.

Right from Left

I have a pair of socks.  One with an “L” on it, the other an “R”.   Some days I bother some days I don’t’. You see, I have to THINK which sock goes on which foot.  When I see the “L” and the “R” it’s not an automatic process there is a bit of guess work and some thinking involved.  Maybe it’s because I’m dyslexic. 

 

The other day I was sitting on a hotel bed about to put my new iPhone 5 headset into my ears and yes, it now matters if you put them on right to right and left to left ear, or not.  I happened to look at my socked feet and voila – the thinking part had been taken care of in the early morning when THEY were put on.  “R” to “R”, “L” to “L”…. awesome.  That I needed my reading glasses to see the miniscule “R” and “L” on the ear buds is an entirely different matter.

New Year Musings (Handkerchief Alert)

Granted 2013 is already 15 days old which is 4.1% of the year already – poof – gone, and I’m not one to ponder much on things past – a habit I gladly accepted from American culture – unless they were very good – the things passed that is.  

 

2012 was a very good year – which reminds me of the Sinatra song of the same name. I came to the full realization how fast our lives have become when I was driving to my parents’ house from our holiday vacation and had to listen to the full rendition of the Sinatra recording “It’s been a very good year” on the radio – had I not been doing 140 km/h on the Autobahn I would have jumped out of the car. I had to force myself to listen to the entire thing and while I listened I had time to dream up a seven-part science fiction youth novel – no, wait – that’s been done already. I could have changed channel, right, but I didn’t. I did need some time to think slower thoughts.

TED Talks

TED talks are highly addictive and the most welcome, educational and inspiring time sink I can think of.  Last weekend I indulged and revisited some old friends and found some new ones I wanted to share. 

 

For those of you who are new to TED, TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design.  Since, TED talks have spread in many directions and in particular onto their amazing website onto which all TED talk videos are uploaded. 

Sandy - The Perfect Storm 2012





Tag! You're it.

A perfect storm, first 1991 and now 21 years later… I understand the semantic description of a perfect storm – which is when different weather systems, geographical and thermal elements coincide to make a big storm bigger; and bigger is apparently perfect – we are in America after all. But I do not entirely understand the technically of it. I do know that we are in a low pressure system. What I don’t understand is why my building’s hot water boiler doesn’t work because it is a low pressure system. We also have our gas stove not working properly – for the same reason: low air pressure…? I need to revisit my middle school text books. There was a time where we learned all of this ‘stuff’.

The perfect storm to me is being nervous about water leakage (anybody say Hurricane Irene 2011?), busted windows (neighboring idiots who leave their patio furniture on the balcony) and fear of losing power (I’m diligently, constantly charging everything and anything). It also means many hard boiled eggs in the fridge, lots of water and even more wine in the house.

Doping and the End of an Era

Remember, cheating as a kid, or that little white lie, or the half-truth or just leaving something out? We all have done it and will do it again unless you’re a saint and if you are and are reading this blog, please do introduce yourself – I’d be honored to know you.  

 

But back to the rest of us; as the saying goes (bible I think): “he who is innocent cast the first stone”. I don’t want to throw the first stone, but as it is I’m a bit late anyway to the stoning of Lance Armstrong, but never the less let me throw my pebble too.

Aunting

I’m aunting, starting Monday – for 11 straight days.  My sister is giving me her most prized possession on temporary loan, arriving as an unaccompanied minor on Swiss flight LX014 on Monday at JFK.  Then, for the first time in my live, I will be in charge of something (somebody, sorry) more complex than my plants – the only living thing I own.  Although I have quite a few of them (plants), but I think somehow it does not compare. 

 

My friend Silvia cautioned me today: “you better not break him”. In my head I added: “or lose him”. The pressure is on: he’s also the only grandchild. Imagine I’d lose him in the subway or in a shuffle in Times Square, or a bike rider ran him over, or a truck struck him crossing the street. I’m stressed.