Jen O - A Room of My Own

A tribute to Miriam Makeba

In this time of great joy around the world about the election of Barack Obama I have sadness in my heart.

The same day that the United States elected Barack Obama to be our nation's first black President, the state of California chose to discriminate against a specific group of people. I believe Proposition 8 will be found to be not only wrong, but also illegal. In the meantime, I share my friends' disappointment, sadness, anger and fear. Using ballot propositions to legislate discrimination is outrageous. And just think, if it can happen to "them" it can happen to "me" and "you".

Now, on to the next piece of sadness in my heart. This week Miriam Makeba died. She was an artist, an activist, a role model, an inspiration. She also had a very full and very rich life full of sadness and joy. You can read about it here and here and here.

What I do want to say is, I had a chance to know Miriam when John was her tour manager. It was a time of great change in another part of the world...in 1994 when South Africa elected Nelson Mandela to be its first black President. John accompanied Miriam and Hugh Masakela and their band members around the US and to the United Nations so that they could vote. I remember Miriam getting on stage and saying in that grand voice of hers, "I have beeeeen waiting over 30 years for the right to vote!!!"

Here is a video of Miriam talking about her life and singing with Hugh playing Soweto Blues, the South Africa freedom song.

I pray for freedom for all around the world. I wish Miriam peace.

Five friends...

In the spirit of the end of my last post, I share this video with you:

Once again: Register, watch the next debate, read, write, twitter, poke, blog, talk to people, knock on doors, give money (I just donated $250.00 to the cause - woohoo), THINK. And...vote.

Oh, and tell five friends.

P.S. I was telling my friend Ian Smith how I'm being told by certain readers that I'm being too emotional on my blog. Ian suggested that I recommend to my critics that they start their own unemotional blogs. Please send me urls should you take his advice!!!

I'm still all fired up...

about the current political scene. Nonetheless, I've found my outlet talking and twittering. So blogging has taken a bit of a back seat.

NOTE 1: to friends and family members who don't recognize Twitter. It is a microblogging site. One can only type 140 characters at a time. My handle is jenokimoto. If you're curious, you can find me here. Beware, you might get hooked too. I now get most of my news here. Tech news. IBM news. Political news. Comic relief. I even found out about Paul Newman on Twitter.

NOTE 2: The other day my friend Robert Newman (no relationship to Paul...well, I don't think so.) said to me, "I imagine you spending your entire day blogging." The truth is more like this...a blogging idea pops in my head. Or, I have an experience. Or, I talk to someone....AND a post forms AND if I blog I basically vomit it out...fast and furious. Once it is out I feel much better. If I don't let it out it hangs around in my head. Terribly uncomfortable. Twitter allows me to burp things out.

In the last two weeks I have facilitated a management development learning lab for my client in Bangalore. I delivered a workshop on knowledge & collaboration 2.0 to a group of my IBM colleagues in Bangalore. I traveled to Mysore to visit a goddess temple, shop, eat, tour a palace, take a horse and buggy ride, and hang with my colleague Usha. I learned all sorts of incredible things about India. (Small note to friends and family: I LOVE India, I've decided I might have been Indian in a past life, and pretty much the only thing I didn't like about India was walking in my stocking feet dodging the cow, monkey and dog dung. Cow dung was actually not so bad, monkey and dog is gross.) I've spent 24 hours on an airplane that traveled from Bangalore to Frankfurt to San Francisco. That was the flight home. The flight there was just as long. I had interesting conversations with the gentleman to my right who worked at Intel and may have one of the coolest jobs in the world, and with the Nokia fellow on my left who seemed to think my hysterics about SP were silly and there is no reason for her to talk to the press or the public or debate because it is so obvious she has nothing intelligent to say.

I read Kockroach: A Novel by Tyler Knox. It is a twist on Kafka...cockroach becomes man. I thought it was a bit too weird at first and I decided I REALLY liked it by the end.

I also drove to Humboldt County with John. He worked. I slept a fair amount. We saw the Taj Mahal Trio. No this is not Indian music. Taj Mahal is a blues musician.

I bought and read 50% of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. It just came out in paperback this month. If I could tear myself away from the TV I would finish the book.

This week I've been in San Jose delivering another management development learning lab for my client. Monday night John and I joined Penelope Gardner at E&O Trading Company to celebrate her birthday. Tuesday night we drove up to Redwood City and hung out with the Kling Wangness family including their two boxers. Emma, their daughter walked in. Kendra asked, "Do you remember Jen and John?" Oh course she said no. I asked, how old is Emma now?...I then said, "Oh wait, I know. You were at our wedding, you will be ELEVEN!" Kendra said. "Jen!!! She turns TWELVE!"

Hmmm.

Tonight I'm in the Hilton. I just ate room service. I'm watching TV. I never watch TV at home. I've watched more TV the last two weeks than I have over the last 10 years. Right now I'm watching Rachel Maddow. She's AWESOME!

Finally. Watch the debate tomorrow night. Read. Talk to people. Write. Give money. Knock on doors. Make phone calls. THINK. Vote.

GET FIRED UP TOO!!!

Connecting dots between my work and my politics

Yesterday I responded to a LinkedIn question about "What's the most useful thing you learned at PW?" (Price Waterhouse, a company that no longer exists, where I started my consulting career.)

I mentioned two things:

I learned that good projects results in 5 things: 1) We make some money, 2) I learn something, 3) I teach someone something, 4) Our client is very happy and willing to be a reference, and 5) We have fun! I still refer to these success factors when assessing how it's going on the projects I lead and work on.

The other thing I mentioned, was in response to someone who had commented earlier: Personal integrity is the highest value. The client must trust you, your colleagues and team must trust you, you must be able to live with yourself and your actions!

So, as you probably noted, I'm rather obsessed with the current political environment. This morning I started connecting the dots and it dawned on me why I'm so upset about this whole situation.

The Republican candidates represent values that are diametrically opposed to my own. I can distill my priorities down to integrity AND learning.

Thus, the fact that McCain and Palin have decided to repeat stories that are either outright lies or manipulations of the truth causes me to shudder. In my world you don't lie. You own up to the truth like a real man or woman, even if those truths make you feel uncomfortable, even if they make you look bad, even if others don't like what you're saying. Stand by the truth and deal with it. In my book, only when honest about the truth is progress and movement possible. I believe this is true in business and I believe it is true in government, policy, and yes...politics. That's what leadership is all about.

Now, I understand that there are Democrats who lie too. Another thing I learned early in my business career is that there are "good guys and bad guys" on both sides of the aisle. However, I think the Democrats own the truth more than the Republicans do. This is why they get painted with the flip flop brush. Changing one's mind, should not be a bad thing. It is an honest thing. Own up to it!

Which gets to my value about learning. I believe learning, education, reading, writing, thinking, thoughtful discourse, reacting, conflict, and expanding one's frame of reference are all critical to analysis, problem solving, and innovation. What really bothers me is the anti-intellectualism of the Republican Party, or perhaps it is the anti-intellectualism of the American people. It might have been tongue in cheek, but the other night Bill Maher (yes, I was in a hotel room with the TV on) said something along the lines of, "Americans are so narcissistic that they think their presidents have to be just like us, not very bright."

You know what? I want to work with smart people who I trust. I want this even more amongst my leaders. I want a President and Vice President who are honest about themselves, honest about their actions, and honest about America. I want them to be thoughtful and demonstrate intellectual rigor. I truly believe, by demonstrating those capabilities, the next President and VP just might be able to competently deal with the mess they will inherit from the current administration.

24 hours of strangeness...

Not 30 minutes beyond 24 hours ago, my friend Rob and I were wrapping a WebEx with a bunch of managers in India, China and San Jose. We were discussing how the topic we covered, team dynamics, didn't get a lot of conversation. I was wondering if it was just a bit to abstract versus so many of the other topics we've covered that resulted in a group of Chatty Cathies.

As we were saying adieu for the evening, Rob made a comment about a visa. Visa? We're traveling to Bangalore in a week. Visa? I don't have a visa. It crossed my mind...and after all the trauma of applying for a Chinese visa last month, I just plumb forgot. AIYO! I'm supposed to get on an airplane in one week and I haven't even started the visa process.

Needless to say, I've spent much of my day working on pulling together all the paperwork for a business visa to India. I've communicated with expediters and HR folks. Rob has helped me get invitation letters signed. He told me that when he went through the process that he was told by his expediter that both invitation letters, one from US and one from India plus the India visa application all had to indicate that the visa is for the same time period. However, one of my letters indicated my visa was for one time entry. One letter indicated my visa was for one year, multiple entries. My application only gave me the option to apply for 1 year, 5 years or 10 years.

I spent much time with a nice man in Raleigh who was communicating with people in India to get one time entry changed to 1 year. After 8 hours of going back and forth, the final response was, we only do multiple entry visas for regular employees. Sorry. I'm going to India for my client.

So...at the last minute, John and I decided to skip the expediters, make a quick stop at Kinko's to get passport photos taken and copies made, run into San Francisco, and go try to submit the paperwork with what I had.

We arrived in SF at 4:15. India, interesting enough, outsources all of its visa processing to a company. I knew that they took applications until 4:00. I didn't know they were closed from 4 to 4:30. At 4:30 people can come and pick up their visas. I took a chance, walked in the door, walked up to a woman who turned out to be very pleasant and helpful...and asked her if I could ask her a few questions about my paperwork. She looked through it all, stapled stuff, marked stuff, checked stuff...and said, I was okay. However...I couldn't submit it until Monday morning. Sigh. I will be facilitating a learning lab beginning Monday morning in San Jose. It looks like John will be my personal expediter.

In between work, a run to the gym, and my visa woes...I've been obsessed with our current political events. In fact, tonight I pretty much let it envelope me as I've read blogs, tracked journalists and pundits, and watched the online news. I feel like I just binged on a large bag of Lays, a half a pound of peanut M&M's, a gallon of mint chip ice cream, and a six pack of Coke. Hopefully, I don't bring it back up (maybe that is what this is?) and hopefully I've gotten the craving for all these empty calories out of my system.

While I was binging, I forgot that I still had SameTime, my work instant messaging on. At 8:40:08 a Lotus friend of mine pinged me with, "Hi Jennifer - you there?"

I thought, oh dear. What does Martin want? I'm really too busy to deal with work. But...I pinged back.

It turns out he'd just come home from the airport and he was hoping to find his Blackberry at home. AND, he couldn't find it. So, he was asking me to call his number to see if he could hear the ringing.

Note: This guy is an example of the thousands of young (and not so young JCHH and PMO) people around the country who do not have landlines. And thus, I learned this from my binging today, are not part of the political polling process. It is one theory that a large majority of these people are natural constituents for Mr. Obama...and thus the polls are under estimating Obama's support. I have NO idea if this is a legitimate point or wishful thinking.

Back to story. I call Martin's phone and a nice man with an interesting accent answered. He proceeded to tell me that I'd left my phone in his cab. I'm simultaneously pinging with Martin. It was hard to explain to the cab driver that I wasn't the owner of the phone but that I was pinging with the owner. Martin was asking me to beg the driver to give the phone back. He was offering money. The driver just said, "go to Yellow Cab at Cesar Chavez and Mississippi...you can pick it up there." Martin can now go there anytime, the dispatcher is always there. Thank you's all around.

Pinging ends at 8:48:58. I go back to binging.

Somewhere around 9:00 there is a strange noise and what sounds like animals running across the concrete downstairs. Really, I don't know why that's what it sounded like, but it did. It was brief. I didn't think much about it. I did notice it.

At 9:06:07 my SameTime pings me again. This time it is my friend Sheila. Her opening line is, "I don't think you're really there - but we just had an earthquake. I am still sitting in the door jam."

I was like, wow, is that what that was? As we chat about the earthquake I find some official looking geological service that tells me it was a 4.1 magnitude and 2 miles from Alamo. Sheila tells me she's practically sitting on it and that must be why things are falling off her shelves.

We then proceed to ping about SP, JM (or JSM as he has been dubbed recently), JB and BO. Sheila brought up the fact that IBM stock was at 129 last week and is now at 113. Ouch. I've been so distracted, I hadn't even noticed. I mentioned that it is all a huge diversion from the real issues but that the election is now firmly rooted in the Britney/Lindsay/Paris dimension...and from the video I saw, Paris might just have better policy ideas than SP.

Of course, we might never know because the handlers might never let her speak independently when not on a script. And the script reading is weak. Both for her and Mr. McCain. I was watching a series of CNN clips of all four candidates. Obama and Biden speak from the heart, they speak extemperaneously, they speak with conviction. Both McCain and Palin were reading speeches, stumbling over lines. They read with conviction...but it is clear it ain't there words. They're both being scripted and handled. Our new Manchurian candidates?

I'm done binging and purging. I'm going to try to go on a political diet until the debates. At a minimum I'll try to take a breather over the next 24 hours. Wish me luck.

P.S. And with that...I share with you a trailer for Milk a new movie about a politician from another era. My friend Bernie just posted it on his blog. I love the tagline, "his life changed history, his courage changed lives." (THANKS TO BERNIE FOR CORRECTED URL FOR HIS POST!)

P.P.S. Hillary cartoon courtesy of Daryl Cagle. He's pretty funny, check him out.

Small town values and leadership experience

A couple of days ago I blogged that conservatives were touting Sarah Palin for her small town values and leadership capabilities. Well, it turns out that her family is like a lot of families in America. She has a 17 year old pregnant daughter. Bristol has been carrying around Trig to cover up her bump.

I feel sorry for this girl who is being thrust on the national stage like this. Why isn't she home in Alaska, taking care of herself, getting ready for her baby, starting her new family, rather than acting as nanny to her mama's baby (or hers?) and being dragged around on a campaign bus?!?!?

Small town values. Isn't it every small town girl's dream to see her names up in lights? Sarah Palin is just another example of the realization of the American dream. Sigh.

On the leadership front, check out what these conservative talking heads have to say about Ms. Palin prior to the confirmation that she's their choice!

Give me two glasses of wine...

and an interesting, or infuriating, conversation going on at the next table and look out!

For those of you who don't know, we in the enlightened state of California have joined Massachusetts to recognize same sex marriage. The Supreme Court in California ruled that excluding same sex marriage is unconstitutional. Why? They cited the 1948 California Supreme Court decision Perez v. Sharp that reversed the interracial marriage ban.

What I do know is two nights ago I was enjoying a lovely dinner with John in downtown Mill Valley when I started paying closer attention to the conversation at the table next to us. (Note: we were all practically sitting in each others laps, so it wasn't that hard to listen in.)

Back to the story - It was a couple, man and woman. I'm not quite sure what their relationship was. They might have been married, on a date, or father and daughter. It was not clear. However, I do know they were discussing Proposition 8. Prop 8, if it passes, would add a constitutional amendment to the California Constitution that states "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

The conversation that I blatantly eavesdropped on went something like this:

• Man - You can't change the definition of marriage
• Woman - Well, I agree with you. Why call it marriage, why not stick to civil unions?
• Man - You know, the Knights of Columbus just donated $1 million to the support Prop 8. That is just great!
• Woman - Well, Prop 8 is okay, but I think gays should have all the rights that heterosexual couples have. Just not call it marriage.
• Man - We've got to stop this gay marriage trend...

Okay, so I'm sitting there thinking...hmmm...the definition of marriage has changed a lot. What if the antimiscegenation laws of the last century would have been held up. First, my folks would never have been married legally. Or perhaps, they would have entered into a "civil union" to live together and build a family of little hapa children.

I'm also thinking about how I spent time last weekend with my friends Jen and Kelly whose wedding I missed while in China. They are so incredibly happy. They are planning a family. They are the type of women, people, human beings who should be parents in this crazy society of ours.

Then there is that thing about having the same rights. Depending on who is counting there are between 1,049 and 1,400 benefits conferred on heterosexual married couples that are denied to gay couples in civil unions. These include little things like: parental rights of children, next of kin for hospital and medical decisions, inheritence rights, tax returns, social security and medicare, etc., etc., etc.

So at some point, I just leaned over and said, "Sorry to interrupt, but the definition of marriage has been quite fluid in this country. For example, when my parents were married 45 years ago, it was illegal for a white and non-white to be married in 16 states."

The man looked at me rather surprised and said, "Well, of course that was wrong. They were a man and woman who wanted to be married."

I replied, "No, it was about how people saw them as people. And, and there were whites who saw non-whites as something different, not deserving of the same rights. Just as in times past women haven't had the same rights as men in marriage."

The woman said, "well I as long as people have the same rights."

I said, "but you realize, that right now they don't have the same rights or benefits. Only marriage provides that."

She replied, "Oh, well I assumed they do. Well, we're in agreement, people should have the same rights and benefits."

The man started paying much closer attention to the 49ers game on the TV above our tables.

John was looking at me like I am a freak. But, I honestly couldn't help myself...and I think I might have done the same thing two glasses of wine or not!

And remember:

Politics is distracting me from finishing China blogging...

nonetheless, this pretty much summarized my feelings:

 

Cartoon by Dan Wasserman of Boston Globe.

The Republicans are trying to say that Sarah Palin might not have a lot of political experience, but that she demonstrates small town values (more on that below), and has the attributes of a leader. As someone who thinks a fair amount about leadership (since I deliver management development training to corporate citizens around the world), leadership is good. But leadership is more than a pretty face and a nice demeanor. Leaders inspire, they have vision, they have a broad world view, no matter their politics. I've read a lot about Ms. Palin and I've watched a number of videos of her speaking, and well...she seems like a nice enough person. But a leader?

My assessment of McCain's choice is that he's not the man of character, independent maverick of 8 years ago. Instead, he's pandered to the right wing of his party. I can think of many, many women who have served in politics, government, and business who would have been better candidates for Vice President than the one John McCain chose. Senators and Governors with substantive experience, Cabinet Members, Corporate CEO's. Women who would have augmented the McCain ticket AND, caused some of my on-the-fence colleagues or pissed off about Hillary friends to vote Republican. But all I'm hearing is...WHAT THE HECK? Is this woman someone who will be able to negotiate with the Chinese or Russians, let alone the folks in the House and Senate? Is this someone who can lead the country out of the economic situation we're in? Is there any reason to believe that this person has a point of view on healthcare, education, housing, immigration, the federal budget, homeland security, or disaster preparedness and response?

Back to the bit on small town values: This part may be very true. In the crazy world of the Internet, I've read that Sarah Palin may have celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary, but she was already pregnant with her son when she and her husband eloped. We've all seen references to Troopergate and the messy divorce of her sister and ex-brother-in-law. Then there is the SURPRISE annoucement at 7 months that she was pregnant with her fifth child. Even her staff hadn't noticed (Note: I watched videos from a Alaska show from this era, and she has the figure of a 40+ woman in reasonably good shape, not one who is 7 months pregnant!!!!). But then, I read that Sarah Palin's really a grandmother acting as mother to cover up for her pregnant daughter...well, okay, that pushed everything into the just plain weird category. Those of us who grew up watching Northern Exposure know that folks in Alaska are a bit quirky and weird, But the good folks in Northern Exposure were entertainers. No one was looking to them to be the future leaders of the free world.

P.S. This is one of the more interesting sources of information that I found on Ms. Palin. A Washington Post reader exchange with Gregg Erickson, a reporter from Alaska, who has been following Palin since she was elected to Governor.

P.P.S. I've really got to quit trolling, but I just found this blog called Mudflats on Alaskan politics from an Ed Brill tweet. Here's the link to all posts on Sarah Palin.

Wordle view of Michelle Obama's speech

So, I was having a chat with Jerry, my brand new employee, and I suggested he buy a book I'd read called "Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart." I originally heard about the book in Wired Magazine and then I heard an interview with the author on the BBC. The interview just happened to be when I was driving home from SFO from meeting with a prospective client who is interested in some of the same concepts. I made a sharp turn into Borders and bought the book. What's even better...it looks like the book was just released TODAY in paperback!

Anyway, I then mentioned that Wired is a good source for interesting tech news. As I mentioned this, I went to wired.com. First I grossed out at the picture of a guy on steroids. THEN, I found this...a wordle view of Michelle Obama's speech last night at the Democratic Convention.

So, this is one of the reasons I love working at IBM. Wordle is the brainchild of IBMer Jonathan Feinberg. How cool is it to work for a company that has people who create such cool toys!?!?

The Press and the Hillary Clinton Death Watch

So...if you haven't seen it, this is kind of funny. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and Akira Hakuta make fun of the press and their continual desire to announce the death of Hillary Clinton's campaign to be the Democratic Party's candidate for U.S. President.

Only kind of funny.

I think the press really hate Hillary and they really believe that each and every time this will be it. AND what happens? The U.S. people do something unexpected. I LOVE that part of democracy. The unexpected. Actually, it is the part about democracy that I hate the most too. Sometimes the people do really silly things. Hmmm...like re-elect a guy whose middle initial is W?

So, why do I write about this? Because I really want Hillary Clinton to win. I think she will make a GREAT president. I think she can beat John McCain. And, I went and donated enough money to her campaign that it is going to show up if you Google my name when the next quarterly report is submitted.

So, I figured I might as well out myself. That's the weird part. The Obama supporters have been so up front and righteous about their candidate. No outing is needed. There are a number of Obama supporters in my family. They tend to be pretty up front and righteous. I've noticed that the Clinton supporters have been much more reserved, cautious, almost afraid to get our hopes up.

But my hopes are up. I preceded the 100,000 good people who donated money to the Clinton campaign on Tuesday. I donated last Saturday. However. Someone else in my family. A registered Republican...was one of the 100,000.

Hillary - YOU GO GIRL!