Endless Knots

Eliza dot com

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

ink on paper
4.5" X 5"
2009

New website from Daughter #2. New work. New projects. New band. New cookbook-in-the-works. Etc.

Now I'm really nervous

Emerging Web Memo (not his real name, I'm jussst guessing) is looking forward to our upcoming panel at Enterprise 2.0, "How Twitter Changes Everything." Apparently, the post's wonderful author was inspired by our blogging panel last year - to the extent that his blog got going as a result. Now what if we flop? Patti Anklam, Bill Ives, Clara Shih, and Isaac Garcia and I are partners in crime in this one. We had our planning conference call today and I think, judging by the energy of the conversation, it might be not a flop. In fact, quite good. Come. Everyone.

GeekDoctor: Leading by clicking around

I'm doing a webcast on virtual leadership in a couple of weeks for eighty people, all situated virtually and all around the world. The link between the executive sponsoring the event and me  will be via Cisco's Telepresence -- though for everyone else, thank heavens, I won't be in high def.

In preparing for the webcast, I asked a few questions of one of my virtual leadership role models (scroll down for some great pics taken the same day this one was), John Halamka, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose answers I thought others would enjoy seeing:

Q: You're on the move constantly. How do you maintain strong relationships with your direct reports?

*I live by Blackberry, laptop and conferencing technologies (Webex, iChat, Telepresence)

Q: What do you find most difficult as a "virtual" leader?

*Managing communications while constantly traveling is challenging.   My goal is to reduce the hours spent in airports through more virtual work

Q. What do you find to be easier when you're virtual?

*I eliminate many hassles - Parking, traffic, airport security lines, delayed flights, and lack of places to recharge my devices

Q. In terms of your reporting to your boss, how has your non-face-to-face presence affected your relationship?

*Paul [Levy, BIDMC's CEO] is just as virtual to me - we live in the world of social networking and web connectivity

Q. What advice on maintaining virtual connections with customers do you have for others who are very tech-savvy but whose customers may be less so?

*It's a journey. Start by eliminating as many face to face meetings as you can and set a goal of less travel/less in person meetings each year.

Confirm or ignore? Facebook by the book

My friend Clara Shih uses this video in her Facebook Era presentation. First saw her include it at Webcom Montreal 2009 and thought it so funny that I asked her where she got it. If you're on Facebook, you want to see it. Comes from the BBC Three show "The Wall." The very first person I sent the link to instantly posted it. You might too. 

Mirabile dictu: Phish phans @ Phenway

Fotos by Eliza Stamps

Given the large number of Phish fans (and the hilarity that sweeps the phamily recalling the time I repherred to the band as "The Phish") and given that one such phamily member* went to the concert, I must repher phans to Sarah Rodman's review, "Phish and fans come back together for a pledge of mutual allegiance," in today's Boston Globe. I love her lede (the word phormerly known as lead but somehow transmuted in recent years):

"The Star-Spangled Banner" felt like an appropriate opener for the Phish show at Fenway Park last night, as the members of the Vermont rock band reconvened with one another and their nation of fans to pledge allegiance to the jam.

If band members were seeking a good omen for this reunion, following a five-year hiatus, they had to look no farther than the sky. In the time it took them to get back from the rain-soaked infield - where they performed an intricate a cappella version of the anthem in Red Sox jerseys - to the stage for the start of the show proper, the sun had broken through and a rainbow appeared over the outfield.

 

View from pitcher's mound

*First-hand report of small miracles: due to phamily scheduling conphlicts, said member was phorced to take a taxi to the T into Boston in a horrible downpour. As she departed the cab, the taxi driver gave her an umbrella. Moments later, she emerged from the T to phind her concert-mate at the appointed spot. The rain stopped, the clouds parted, the sun emerged, and as they took their spots, centers seats on the phield, the rainbow appeared.