Endless Knots

What Mom says

A very close friend with three kids sent this to me and a few other mamas. It needs to go to every mom on earth, regardless of nationality, ethnic origin, religion, age, or even gender (dads can be moms too). "The Mom" song, set to the William Tell Overture, by Anita Renfroe. "What a mom says in 24 hours, condensed into 2 minutes and 55 seconds!"

UPDATED: The original video has indeed been taken down - this is someone's taping of Renfroe's performance - even misspells her name. So ... am I breaking the rules by posting? I'm guessing yes.

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepyhead
Here's your clothes and your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now! Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where's your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat
Don't forget! You gotta feed the cat
Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it's the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today
Don't forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play
Don't shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, don't play rough, will you just play fair?
Be polite, make a friend, don't forget to share
Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare
Get along! Don't make me come down there
Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away
Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone! Get off the phone!
Don't sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table
No more computer time tonight!
Your iPod's my iPod if you don't listen up
Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you're coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You'll appreciate my wisdom someday when you're older and you're grown
Can't wait till you have a couple little children of your own
You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate
Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate
Use your fork, do not burp or I'll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, get the door, don't get smart with me
Get a grip, get in here, I'll count to three
Get a job, get a life, get a PHD
Get a dose of,
"I don't care who started it!
You're grounded until you're 36"
Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven's sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?
If I've said it once, I've said at least a thousand times before
That you're too old to act this way
It must be your father's DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straighter when you walk
A place for everything and everything must be in place
Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on
Get in bed, get up here, say a prayer with mom
Don't forget, I love you
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom's work never ends
You don't need the reason why
Because, because, because, because
I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so
I'm the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!
Ta da!!! (less)

Blogging for creative writers

In January, I will teach an elective on blogging as "special guest faculty" at the Pine Manor College MFA Program in Creative Writing, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Poet Meg Kearney directs the program as well as serving as the driving force behind Solstice Summer Writers' Conference, which takes place each June.

Faculty in both programs over the past few years has been stellar, including some of Boston's finest--Dennis Lehane (of Gone, Baby, Gone, and Mystic River, among others, fame), National Book Award winner Julia Glass (Three Junes and The Whole World Over), and Roland Merullo, whose name you, my dear blog readers, have seen on these pages before, and whose most recent book is enlightening, endearing, and downright funny: Breakfast with Buddha. I'm honored to be on the same list as these folks.

Glass, light, beauty

Ostensibly, we went to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts last night to see the Napolean exhibit. For those interested in the symbology of that particular empire or the accoutrements of imperial life, this show is for you. Much as I love our gorgeous museum, I was quickly bored by the show, as was the rest of our party. Artist Emily soon found a more engaging exhibit and by the end of the evening all six of us had dropped jaws.

Contemporary craft lovers with a fascination for conceptual approaches, make your way to the MFA before the strangely named show, Shy Boy, She Devil, and Isis, which to my mind bears no connection with this extraordinary collection of work lent by a California couple, closes. Wood work so fine it makes you gasp, ceramics unlike any you've ever seen, and the glasswork of Christopher Ries kept us there til near closing time.

We spent our final moments with our friends David and Judy--and a French museum visitor just as spellbound as we were--bending, craning our necks, and moving around Ries's work one more time, trying to figure out how a nicely shaped piece of glass (I think it was the one to the left, called After Glow) could cast so many internal designs, flowers, arcs, rays, mandalas, even, without encasing those very objects. I can't stop thinking about Ries's work and I'm guessing you won't be able to either.

In praise of carnivores

OK. I just lost a daughter, half my friends and three-quarters of my readers, no doubt. And all I'm doing is drawing attention to an article in this week's New Yorker (Dec 3, "Red, White, and Bleu: What do we eat when we eat meat?"). Bill Buford's piece is a book review in the sense that it's actually a fact-filled article about three books written by meat-cooker-eaters. Which Buford claims is finally--and again--OK having reclaimed some "moral ground" taken in the siege of the food chain by the truly good people of the world (the vegetables).

Two reasons I'm posting this:

1. Because Buford says near the beginning: "...no one has really come up with a persuasive rejoinder to the claim that a warm-blooded, pain-feeling creature’s life shouldn’t be taken for your supper" and;

2. Because he identifies one of the two co-founders of the famous River Cafe in London, where one of the book authors worked, as "one of the chefs" married to a famous architect.

My rebuttals:

1. Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist high-holy man of some repute, provided me with the rejoinder years ago at a meal in London. I was, of course, fixated on what he would order, thinking it would be, say, alfalfa sprouts and sesame seeds. Nope. Roasted pork. Then, we went to dinner, where the hostess was preparing chicken for the rest of us - and a vegetable casserole for Sogyal. Perplexed, I asked. "It's a tradeoff," she said, "between number of souls sacrificed and number of souls fed." Translation: If it's bigger than you, you can eat it; smaller, not so much.

2. The River Cafe in London was founded by Ruthie Rogers and Ruth Gray, both chefs there and cookbook authors in their own right. And, yes, Ruthie's husband is the famous Richard Rogers...but but but...talented as he is, he didn't start the restaurant.

Leading Virtually

Surinder Kahai, Associate Professor at SUNY Binghamton School of Management, has launched Leading Virtually, a new blog to address the growing need for good information about virtual team leadership:

In my experience, leading those engaged in virtual work requires more than just a simple adjustment to “regular” face to face leadership – it requires new knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of virtual teams. Leaders of a virtual team face many challenges when leading a virtual team, including team building, motivating and developing team members from afar, rewarding team members even when they have no authority over their pay, and facilitating shared leadership and team learning...This blog can gain from a dialog with those who “practice” and “study” virtual teams.

I agree. Good luck and let's stay linked, Prof. Kahai.

"If you died, would your online friends know?"

Here's a thought-provoking, if not a bit chilling, article, If you died, would your online friends know?, from Esther Schindler, who writes for, among other places, CIO magazine (Nov 14, 2007, issue). Her friend died and she didn't find out until nearly a year later. Why? Because nowadays few of us keep a hardcopy address book anymore and in our paranoia most don't even allow anyone else to have the password to our computers. Think about this:

For the last 25 years, I have lived in TCP/IP packets more than I do in the real world. I do have personal connections; I'm involved in community activities, and I have warm-blooded friends who would notice if I quit breathing. Those people have my phone number and physical address... but my virtual correspondents do not. If I disappeared from one of those online communities, would they notice?

I knew Elliot for 15 years. He showed up at every user group meeting of the Phoenx OS/2 Society, he participated in its discussion forum, he always wanted to help. Elliot died during an open heart operation. Now, a year later, his mom wants to invite people to the unveiling ... and she has no idea how to reach his friends. Elliot's computer was, of course, password protected, and she didn't know where he stored his contact information. He didn't have a "regular" address book. So she spent hours on switchboard.com and other services trying to find addresses for people. I got a plaintive phone call last night, asking if I was Esther and I used to know someone named Elliot...?

And the winner is...

Harvest Soup. Exit poll showed the overwhelming favorite at this year's Thanksgiving meal.

It's always Thanksgiving somewhere

Well, while everyone else was enjoying Thanksgiving dinner here in the US (and abroad for those die-hard Americans), we were still planning. Illness struck a family member late Wed night and so, being nothing if not flexible, we quickly remade the arrangements. So while the rest of you are enjoying your turkey sandwiches and sneaking forksful of pie from the fridge, we will be sitting down to our meal. Hopefully the patient will be able to join us. Just one other thing: IT IS REALLY HARD TO GET A DOCTOR ON THE PHONE ON THANKSGIVING! Took two hours for a callback, a bit freaky when a temperature is in the "call the doctor immediately" range.

Giving

Yesterday, we stopped by Karma, the beautiful shop run by our friends, Phuni and Wangchuk Meston. We were there to buy some gifts for a family of friends. Four of their five (wait, now there are seven of them with marriage and birth) birthdays are within this two week period so, for as long as I can remember, we've been attending parties at their house on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They are so wonderful they deserve their own post but ... this is about Phuni.

Phuni has a great sense of style and exquisite taste - and always looks terrific. Yesterday, she was wearing a beautiful long brown sweater wrap with light cabling, just the kind of piece I've been considering knitting (Vogue Knitting has something akin to it in the current issue). "Phuni, that's so gorgeous," I said. Whereupon she took it off and put it on me. "Take it," she said. "It looks so great on you. Look in the mirror."

We can dispute whether what she said is true but it was one of those moments that causes you to look deep inside. A torrent of quick questions and a mouthful of rejections. Does she really mean it? How can I take it? I can't take it. People don't do things like this. I can't take anything from Phuni - she's younger than me, has had a harder life, blah blah blah blah...and then I just looked in the mirror and realized what she had done. Literally the shirt (well, almost) off her back, given without registration in the great book of "I did this for you" and "you did that for me."

I wore it all day, will again today, and for many days to come.

Thank you, Phuni. Being wrapped in the love of a friend is magnificent.

Jeff Stamps on Teams of Practice

Jeff Stamps has taken the time to reply at length and in depth to Mike Gotta's response to my post on Teams of Practice. Here's Jeff's thinking:

Mike, this is a terrific post on "Teams of Practice". I'll take a crack at it in the knowledge management context in which we coined the term.

At a high level, we see KM in three phases of collaboration. 

Phase 1 is the capturing, storing, and making accessible knowledge objects generated elsewhere in the organization, the Knowledge Base, for shared use.

Phase 2 added Communities of Practice to source knowledge directly from people. CoP systems of conversation follow Etienne Wenger's observation that people pass practices, their "how-tos," along informal pathways of tacit knowledge exchange, propelled along by questions and answers and held together by social relationships of community. Here, the conversation itself is the knowledge base.

Phase 3 adds Teams of Practice to source knowledge directly from teams. We mean to capture both what "a team of practice" is, and how they inevitably connect as "teams of practice," a network of ToPs.

Teams are the working units of the organization, both strategic (executive) and tactical (line) teams at all levels. The team context allows people to collaboratively pursue concrete goals, test ideas, make decisions, develop and execute tasks, and produce output. As teams go online, they create and capture knowledge objects, generate focused conversations, and produce a wealth of contextual "how-tos" in agendas, task lists, time lines, etc. Hence, knowledge captured in the context of an online team room is the actual tacit practice of the organization.

Organizations are inherently networks of teams, starting with the hierarchy, which is a network of interlocked management teams of direct reporting relationships. Today, many more types of teams are added to that basic set of groups to get the work of the organization done. All these teams are producing output used by other teams in the organization in a sequence of upstream-to-downstream and supplier-customer relationships feeding teams delivering to the organization's ultimate customer(s). The horizontal connections among working teams are the ones that produce large-scale organizational results. This network of teams exists whether recognized or not, and is not a stage on the way to a CoP of individuals.

What's historically new to us as a species long familiar with the complexities of small groups, as with the first two phase of KM, is the online part, the externalization of memory and learning in the global cloud of virtual spacetime. As more of a team's daily life occurs in or passes through online places, more concrete practice is captured in its natural, role-based, context. This is increasingly happening whether the team is collocated or not.

However, teams are jumping online in all manner of KM containers, most groups happily isolated from one another. The challenge is to network them in the meaningful pattern of their work, not just randomly (i.e., search across team spaces). Teams of practice would not only share across teams, but enable learning and problem-solving at the teamnet (network of teams) level of producing organizational results.