Author Archive
Posted on October 25, 2009 - by amy senger
She’s Geeky…It’s Personal
My story: I was born on a Sunday afternoon to Linda and Charlie Senger. My parents met when my mom was transferred to my dad’s division when her boss wouldn’t promote her because she was…a woman. My dad had a package on his desk addressed to his good friend from college, who turned out to be the beau of my mom’s best friend in high school. I don’t believe in coincidences. I do believe in the virtue of tenacity. A couple marriage proposals later, my mom finally said yes and here I am.
A few important notes: 1) my mom had been married before, which produced my awesome brother 2) my dad is kind of a geeky guy and a total sports fanatic – I mean FANATIC and 3) my dad always said he wanted a little girl. When I was old enough to inquire, I asked my dad why didn’t he want a boy. He said matter-of-factly he already had my brother and all the things he wanted to do, he could do with me. And it’s true. He taught me how to throw a ball and swing a bat as soon as I had the coordination. I grew up playing every sport under the sun.
I also grew up with an older brother who was an engineer, straight out of the womb as my mom likes to say. I probably ruined more of his train sets, stereo, computer and guitar equipment than he’d like to remember. My brother is a smart, successful man but of all his accomplishments, his greatest achievement, in my opinion, is my niece. I adore her. If I never have children, I’m okay with it because my brother and sister-in-law already created this amazing human being who I have the great privilege of loving.
Which brings me to the point of my story. Over the years, I’ve watched my niece grow up. The kid is notably smart, clever, funny, observant, well-mannered, talented…all-around perfect. Not that I’m biased:) She’s taught me that children are either able to become the person they are meant to be or they’re taught to become mirrors of the world around them, no matter how distorted or tainted that world might be. The first time this point was blatantly thrown in my face was when she was six years old. We were talking about what she wanted to be when she “grew up” and she said a princess. Walk into any girls section of Toys-R-Us and it’s no surprise why. I told her she’d probably have to marry a prince to become a princess because although she does descend from royal lineage, she’s not in line for the crown. I said an alternative is President of the United States. And this is when she said the words I will never forget:
It was at this moment I felt the Maleficent boiling up with rage inside of me. The anger, the outrage, the sheer insolence I felt at the notion that this child, so capable of being anything she wants to be, would inherent the idea that she couldn’t be leader of a country known by the rest of the world as the land of opportunity. I told her, in a very serious tone, that girls can be President and she would see a woman President one day. And then she did the unthinkable. She apologized. For saying it. It crushed me. She apologized for the ignorance and discrimination and bias of the rest of the world.
Two years later, I experienced a second illuminating incident. We were at the mall and my niece requested a visit to the book store. I said okay and asked her what she wanted there. In a very soft whisper, she answered. I had no idea what she said, she uttered it so quietly. I leaned down and asked, “What did you say?” Again, this time looking around like a cagey KGB agent, she whispered, “Pokemon.” “Pokemon?” I repeated. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Why are you whispering?” I asked. “I don’t want anyone to hear,” she replied. I started to think. “Do your mom and dad not want you reading this?” I asked. “No,” she answered. “Then why are you being so weird?” And this is when my niece, who has never been into dolls, has never gotten anythings but A’s in math and science, who can figure out any gadget faster than I can, made the second statement I will never forget:
The way she was acting, you would’ve thought she was running drug shipments for the Colombians. I proceeded to have a little talk with her. I told her if anyone ever questioned her interest in Pokemon, she would aptly inform them: That’s just how I roll.
My niece is now ten years old and there are three responsibilities I feel very earnestly because of her:
1. I must leave her a world that isn’t trashed, literally.
2. She will see a woman President of the United States.
3. My niece will be able to grow into the individual she’s meant to be, without the confines of gender stereotypes.
The third responsibility is the reason I am supporting and promoting She’s Geeky. It’s why I’m being vocal about events I see as gender-biased and why I won’t be spending money on any company, product or event that even appears to discriminate against women. It’s why I participate in Ignite DC and the BvB DC charity football game. It’s why I started 1×57. I can’t expect somebody else to make the change happen. I’m responsible for clearing the path for whatever my niece is meant to be. God help you if you get in my way.
Posted on September 11, 2009 - by amy senger
The Gov 2.0 Showdown
It was the event we had been waiting for. From the West: Silicon Valley. From the East: the Beltway Bandits. Dueling for a new frontier: Government 2.0. Here are my thoughts on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Gov 2.0 Showdown Expo Showcase & Summit.
The Good
If there’s one word that isn’t typically associated with government, it’s the word innovation. Which is unfortunate, because some of the best innovations we have today are the result of government pursuits and investments, such as GPS. While leaders like Vivek Kundra are changing this antiquated image of government, the problems that we face as a country are not ones that will be solved and addressed by a single person or organization, so when someone like Tim O’Reilly rolls into town and wants to get in the game, it’s good for us all. The fact is, government isn’t relegated to just those appointed to a position nor is it confined to district lines. At a time when our world economy is volatile and facing downward, making times tough for more and more folks, we need creative solutions to do more with less, and this is where technology presents a great opportunity. Relying on the same players and same molds of thinking can only ensure that government performs and delivers in a same ol’ same ol’ kind of way.
The Expo Showcase did a fantastic job highlighting some great innovations and efforts across the country, from the City of Santa Cruz’s feedback portal that’s using the power of citizen input to tackle the City’s fiscal problems to a collaborative effort by two Senior Fellows at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs to use Virtual Worlds to understand Islam to engender greater diplomacy. These are the types of initiatives that need to be promoted to provide greater awareness.
At the Summit, to hear from luminaries like Vint Cerf, who worked 7 years at DARPA, and Carl Malamud, who founded Public.Resource.Org, attendees were exposed to a wisdom that is gained from years of experience and dedication. We were also reminded that there are issues that are too ubiquitous not to have government participate. The need to have clean data will be as important as having clean air and water, and our digital identities will require the same level of protection and rights as our physical bodies. This is the future of government.
The Bad
First, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more time allotted for questions and answers, specifically during the Expo. I would’ve like to have seen less presentations and more conversations. The rapid-fire “Ignite-style” format of the Expo was fine but there was a need for in-depth conversation of the presentations. People want to hear the nuts and bolts – the challenges, the keys to success, the pitfalls to avoid, the nuggets of insight. Which brings me to my second point: the rapid-fire format might be more suited for the selection process, where the submissions are mandated to a 5-minute presentation that can then be voted for online before the Showcase. This would embody the essence of Gov 2.0, encouraging everyone to participate and have a voice.
Finally, the cost. There was lots of chatter about the cost of the event. While I won’t get into the nuances of pricing an event like this, I was told by an organizer that Tim O’Reilly feels so passionately about Gov 2.0, he would have done it for free. Sounds like a great idea to me. If the intent is to repeat the Showcase/Summit format next year, I would make the Expo Showcase a free, sponsor-subsidized, “first-to-register, first-to-attend” affair.
The Ugly
Last but not least, the diversity of presenters for the Summit left something to be desired. This was so much of a sticking point for me that I made the decision not to attend the Summit but after several conversations with some of the key organizers, including Tim himself, I was extended a complimentary pass to the Expo and Summit. To be fair to Tim and the O’Reilly and TechWeb staff, I have organized a conference (the 2008 WIRe/ICES Enterprise 2.0 conference) and I know first-hand how difficult and trying it is to orchestrate an event such as this, coordinating speakers with times and dates while achieving the desired content, discussion and outcome. However, I look at the Summit Program Committee and I see 8 white men and 1 white woman. The first day of the Summit featured 5 women out of 35 presenters (15%). Many have argued the benefits of heterogeneous ensembles, citing evidence of how homogeneous groups, like Wall Street and the American Automobile industry, can go astray. The fact is if government is the platform, the platform should represent its constituents and users. Diverse people offer diverse values. While I hear Tim’s argument that there are simply less women and minorities in leadership positions, we’ll be stuck in a perpetual chicken or the egg loop if a homogeneous group of decision-makers determines what constitutes a leader and who is qualified to be one. We can do better.
The final point I will make is that no matter what label it is given, government is undergoing an amazing transformation. I have spent my entire career in government and it’s truly an exciting time. Quibbling over the term Gov 2.0 doesn’t serve much of a purpose. I don’t see how vilifying or denigrating govies or contractors or technologists does anyone any good. There are people who work hard on all sides of the fence and openness and transparency does and will continue to show this.
Posted on September 7, 2009 - by amy senger
The Weavers
No one saw the weavers
The makers of the golden shrouds
Designed for insularity
And woven for posterity
Theirs was a lovely secret
Kept in mirrors and the clouds
A culture based in couture
A foundation built of mortar
Their garments such a finery
And yet were worn by all
The crimson crest embroidered
In pockets no one saw
The fabric bore a fine sweet scent
The product of such sudor lent
A softness born of optic fears
Twice ripened over prudent years
No one saw the weavers
Toiling at their looms
No one saw the weavers
Not even in the tombs
Posted on July 9, 2009 - by amy senger
The Dance of Community Management
At the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, a consistent theme I heard was the importance of community management (Dion Hinchliffe gave an excellent session to a packed room on Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Exploring the Tools and Techniques of Emergent Change) and yet I heard little discussion on the specific keys and components of community management. After years of watching, participating in and managing several successful Enterprise 2.0 implementations, I know well enough you just don’t stand up a wiki and get an active, contributing community of members.
Community management is comprised of managing the technical environment as well as the social environment and it’s virtually impossible to grow and maintain a healthy, vibrant space without both. The ideal community manager personality has been described as “Passionate, but without letting it get out of control. Thick-skinned, but not cruel or insensitive. Driven, but still interested in helping others. Personable, but always professional.” It’s also essential for community managers/management to understand and be proficient in the online environment in order to quickly adjust and adapt it in response to user needs. This confluence of skills and capabilities is a dance, with four basic steps: Keep it Loose, Keep ‘em Tight, Keep it Hot, Keep ‘em Cool.
1. Keep it LOOSE
* The environment must not be Fort Knox or Hotel California. People need to be able to enter, move around, and leave the community (with what they bring to it) with ease and even if there are security challenges, there must be clear and responsive measures in place to enable this. I’ve visited more SharePoint community graveyards than I’d like to know this is the case.
* Have standards, processes and procedures but keep them flexible and open to change. Absolutes can kill the evolution of an community. The members of the community must be able to sculpt the space into what they want and need. In competitive environments where users and customers have options for where they participate, disenfranchisement can cause swift backlash (as was the case with the Facebook user information policy). And in communities where members are not able to express personal preferences, the results can be disastrous. Facebook, who secured its dominance over MySpace in the United Kingdom early last year, can attribute it’s success simply to MySpace’s too little, too late realization of this.
2. Keep ‘em TIGHT
* People will leave the community but you can still maintain the relationships. One of the hardest realities for communities and enterprises to accept is that people will leave. But by encouraging members to share information that facilitates mechanisms of communication outside the community (i.e. including a Twitter handle or non-work affiliated email in an enterprise profile) the enterprise is opening channels for contribution. And benefits will be reaped.
* Maintain integrity through data. Keeping community members tied to data is key – the more they have access to, the better; the more the can do what they want with it, the better. And from the perspective of a community manager as a facilitator, keeping users linked to data can be one of the most effective ways to mitigate verbal mud-slinging that can sometimes occur in communication channels.
* Build trust through communication. Last year, Twitter had to learn this the hard way by failing to communicate the issue with its service disruptions but quickly rectified the situation by posting frequent status updates both to the site and to its blog. People are more lenient and forgiving if you keep them informed.
3. Keep it HOT
* Be a fire-starter. Keep it fresh, by bringing in new ideas, new capabilities, new people, new data. People go to where the action is and will leave a stale environment, even if it has all the right technical elements. Like the empty restaurant syndrome, even if your community/environment is serving up something great, people are inherently adverse to empty spaces.
* Keep the synapses firing. Communities grow through relationships and need mechanisms to constantly making new connections, either data-to-data, people-to-data or people-to-people. This can be achieved by people, processes or tools but they need to be there.
* Turn up the heat. Constantly watch or listen for opportunities to fan a spark. Community managers and management need to nurture new ideas, new members and new technologies that, without assistance, might never take off due to a simple lack of support.
4. Keep ‘em COOL
* Isolate or contain fires. People are people, with emotions, opinions, egos and unpredictable actions; sometimes community dynamics can get too hot. Again, listening and watching the space is critical, to identify and address causes of disorder or unrest. Sometimes this means reaching out to disaffected individuals personally or even exorcising them from the community. The same thing goes for the technical side of the environment. If something isn’t working, turning it off as soon as possible can prevent it infecting the continuity of operations for the rest of the environment.
* Consciously model and identify best practices behavior. People do as people see. “Let people know what’s expected of them in advance. Check in to see how people are doing. Project enthusiasm and energy. Applaud team and individual achievements both large and small.” (Facilitate Proceedings)
* Play and humor has it’s time and place. Communities (especially those belonging to an enterprise) sometimes frown upon play and humor. And yet it’s one of the best ways to attract and retain members. Play and humor can not only bond community members but can also be the best facilitators of innovation and creativity.
Community management can be done both formally and informally, but it is beneficial if it is identified as an essential enterprise component and someone has it written in their job role to ensure it gets done with regularity. From an enterprise perspective, the most important factor to consider in terms of organizational alignment is the affordance of flexibility and autonomy in the role. Actions of community managers can range from SYSOP to BarCamp organizer. I’ve had the benefit and pleasure of working with people like Andrea Baker and Steven Mandzik who both have been paid to be community managers, but also do it naturally in whatever environment they participate, and I know how essential and valuable their roles are to the community. While the individual components of community management are not necessarily difficult to achieve nor extremely unique, the totem can be rare but highly effective when in place, with the greatest factor of success being presence – having dedicated resources in place who show up and are committed to the health and growth of the community.
Posted on June 8, 2009 - by amy senger
Creating a Culture of Collaboration – Part II
Several weeks ago, I posed a question to Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky in Twitter) about tweet attribution and I was glad to see the variety of responses it generated. The question was prompted by something I tweeted and something he tweeted subsequently – which I’ve provided below. In Mark’s defense, I posted the original blog without providing specific details, on purpose. I was interested in his response (and I simply wanted to get the question out there since I was leaving for a 10-day cross-country road trip the next day!) If you notice, in the example I provided, Mark’s tweet is very similar to mine but he clearly changed a few words so it is not verbatim.
I asked the question out of curiosity. My intention was most definitely not an attempt at a light smear campaign. Mark has over 7,000 followers, ranks in the top 30 Twitterers in Washington, DC and is on the program committee for the upcoming Gov2.0Summit – he is clearly one of the top Twitterers for Government 2.0. And I am not passing judgment on what is considered right or wrong for social software behavior. In the case of the example tweet I provided, I don’t particularly care that the essence of my tweet was re-tweeted without attribution because the information was shared with a larger audience (Mark’s 7,000+ followers) – and this is a good thing. But I do care why he did what he did so we can learn – Mark clearly could have just re-tweeted verbatim and still had enough characters to include a RT @sengseng but he took the time to rearrange some of the words and add the location. Perhaps he felt including the venue was more important than providing the source. This doesn’t seem unreasonable. (I am curious about tweets that are re-tweeted verbatim without attribution. Do they all fall under the category of a character constraint or redundancy due to a link to the source’s website?)
When it comes to social media and collaboration, what is the formula, the nuances, and the components for getting a message out to elicit participation, as well as growing a large, vibrant, active community of members? More importantly, what are the personal gains and losses versus the community gains and losses of our actions in these online social forums? At the end of the day, I want the leaders of this brave new 2.0 world to be asking and answering this question. We create a social conscious based on our actions in these virtual environments and in my opinion, we cannot afford to experience the same failings of the finance industry or the real estate market or the automobile industry with Government 2.0.
Posted on May 22, 2009 - by amy senger
Creating a Culture of Collaboration
This post is inspired by Dr. Mark Drapeau (aka @cheeky_geeky).
In the business I work in, changing the culture of a community of people who do not have a history of sharing information freely isn’t easy. One of the common complaints I hear is when hard-working individuals consistently see their efforts re-packaged as someone else’s (imagine an analyst who writes an amazing paper only to discover that another analyst at a different agency has taken that paper and passed it off as his/her own). The beauty of working in an inter-agency, enterprise 2.0 environment is it’s more difficult to do this because work is transparent. One of the principles I espouse to all the students I teach and train is attribution and how necessary it is in order to create a culture of sharing; because when you take credit for things other people create, it sends the signal that individual gain is above community gain as opposed to being equal.
My question to @cheeky_geeky is: how do you decide when to give Twitter attribution? I and others have noticed that @cheeky_geeky will post tweets verbatim from someone without giving ReTweet (RT) attribution. I can understand it happening once in a while but it happens more than that (I’m sure a script could do analysis on this). Does this become a slippery slope? A tweet here, a blog post there? Perhaps this is part of experimentation. I don’t know. I do know that integrity is consistency…of actions, principles and outcomes.
Posted on May 18, 2009 - by amy senger
The End of My Affair
Most affairs don’t begin with a person saying “I’m going to have an affair” for the sake of having an affair. That’s just not how it works. Mine began a year and a half ago. The situation practically begged for it – it was that attractive and tempting. And yes it felt wrong. But it also felt good. Really good. Like the kind of heavy release you have after being under water for an extended period of time, coming up for that first gasp of air. It was such a facile conquest.
It feels trite to attribute it to work circumstances – I could timorously say that had I not been in the position I was in, I wouldn’t have started the affair. But I can’t say that. I chose to be in that environment, driven by something shiny, tempting, and new. The affair was a coping mechanism – a blinder – to avoid dealing with what was really going on. But isnt’ that how all our vices take life? As a distraction from reality. Even as I commenced writing this not-so-easy admission, the craving returned.
Adderall is a stimulant drug used to enhance cognitive performance and “treat” Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). If you’ve ever sat next to me in a meeting, you’ve noticed my leg thumping at an accelerated speed, like an industrial-style sewing machine hard at work. Ostensibly I meet all the criteria for ADHD. I say ostensibly because I’m not convinced not liking to sit and participate in an activity that offers little benefit or stimulation (aka boredom) qualifies as a disorder. In the first grade my mom had to demand my new school test my IQ when a teacher wanted to place me in a “problem student” group – she said I wouldn’t be a problem if I wasn’t so bored. She was right.
The catalyst for my affair was a new job role – with new responsibilities – including sitting through three and a half hour long meetings. I felt like a lioness trapped in a six-by-six foot cage. The worst part was it didn’t have to be a long meeting – it was the result of ineffective and inefficient processes, tools and management (which eventually were addressed). I did a little research on ADHD and the drugs to treat it, then made an appointment with my doctor. He asked me some questions and prescribed it. And it worked. I was able to perform tasks with an element of physical detachment that I had never experienced before.
Cognition performance meds like Adderall and Ritalin have become the drug de jour of such illustrious groups such as Hollywood celebutantes and Ivy Leaguers. Lindsay Lohan was recently outed in Us magazine for using it to lose weight and it is widely accepted as the norm at college campuses to give students the boost they desire at finals time. 95% of these drugs are sold in the United States, with the biggest geographic consumer being the Northeast. There was even an episode in Desperate Housewives where one of the moms tapped into her child’s Ritalin stash to become Supermom.
So if everyone is doing it, what’s the big deal? It has become as common as athletes using steroids – who doesn’t do it? Roughly seven percent of all college students, and up to 20 percent of scientists, have already used Ritalin or Adderall to improve their mental performance (Wired). And several prominent ethicists and neuroscientists for Nature recently published a paper entitled, “Towards a responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy.” So why would I end my affair with Adderall?
Because as with all “quick fixes” in life, there is always a catch. There’s always a cost. Sometimes it takes longer to discover all the costs. The first and most apparent one I noticed was the impact on my heart. I started experiencing chest pains and irregular heart beats, just every now and then, but enough to impact my ability to workout and be active. As an athlete and someone who has maintained a lifelong commitment to physical well-being, this was disturbing. If I know one thing it’s this: when it comes to matters of the heart, you don’t mess around.
And then there’s the bigger cost, one I didn’t fully realize until after returning from SXSW. It was my first time at the “Springbreak for Geeks” conference. I attended along with two great friends and colleagues (Andrea Baker and Steve Mandzik) and we had a blast (Steve’s write-up best explains why). After returning, Steve and I were standing in the middle of a bar (RFD) and he asked me how I felt now that we had returned from Southby. I paused for a moment and said, “I didn’t take my Adderall. I didn’t need it.” He asked me a few questions – why I started taking it, how it makes me feel – then let out this maniacal laugh – the quintessential Steve laugh, like the jokes on you and he’s thoroughly enjoying it. And finally he said it – You’re trying to fit into a world that doesn’t cater to people like us.
I started to tear up because I knew he was right. The fact is, I wasn’t taking Adderall to lose weight (FYI: I know people who are on Adderall who are not skinny) and I wasn’t on it to give me more energy (for someone like me, it tempered what I consider my natural buoyancy). Maybe it helped me slug through the more menial tasks at work but I don’t think it helped me perform better. (Side comment: if college students need to use it to get through finals, a process that does nothing to promote actual learning, maybe it’s time we actually address education in this country).
I’ve been Adderall-free for 3 weeks now. When I first went off, I felt…like me, which can probably be most easily conveyed by The Tigger Song. I’ve been able to “manage” my Sengrrr-ness by doing “radical” things like moving to a different desk so I can concentrate without constant interruptions and distractions, taking walks throughout the day, working hours that take advantage of my most productive period in the day (which is not the morning), reading work material on the elliptical and treadmill at the gym (which is where I do some of my best thinking), bringing a balance ball chair into work to encourage proper posture at my desk, bringing job-related reading material to meetings so I can utilize the time during the attention-not-critical segments, having clear and defined objectives for any meeting I attend and organize and sticking to them, and working by myself in a conference room when I need space to be creative and think big. Do any of these activities seem radical?
I wrote this post without Adderall. I’m concerned that people are being sold a bill of goods with cognition performance drugs, mainly because I don’t believe I thought any better on Adderall nor performed better. I wasn’t more creative or innovative and quite frankly, I have more energy and passion when I’m off of it. It did keep me up at night and for me, sleep and rest is key to mental and physical performance. Maybe some people like being an automaton. Maybe there are people who want a country of automatons. Maybe being able to do menial tasks for longer periods of time is a competitive advantage and I say if you want this competitive advantage, go for it, by all means, because my advantage will be that I’m not on it. I can’t say I won’t fall off the wagon and take Adderall again. But I can say I refuse to live a life where I need a drug to feel less like me in order to get through the day and I when I do feel the urge to take it, I’ll pay attention to the cause and deal with that instead of addressing the symptoms.
Posted on May 10, 2009 - by amy senger
A Letter to My Mom
Dear Mom,
I know time together is the best gift I can give you, right? But I thought this Mother’s Day I’d share with you some of the things you’ve given me…
I know you’ve had to work hard and fight for the things in your life, in ways I will never know or experience.
I know that being a girl in a patriarchal family must have been like being a second-class citizen in your own home.
And I know that Grandmom said some pretty mean things growing up. But there hasn’t been a day in my life when I haven’t thought of you as my beautiful, intelligent mom who has tremendous grace and fortitude. And even for her downfalls as a mother, Grandmom was a grandmother who always made me feel loved and adored.
And I know Grandpop was not affectionate but what he lacked in affection, he made up for with an emphasis on family. And by god did you give me the most loving, openly caring and expressive dad.
And I know watching your three brothers be supported to attend the universities of their choice while the girls were expected to get married and raise children was not fair or right. But I’m so glad you went to college anyway; doing it on your own and not having any support must have been difficult. But you’ve taught me that education and lifelong learning is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
And I know that getting a divorce at a time when it was not en vogue and being a single, working mom must have been tough, and being the parent who is there and doing the raising is always going to be the most trying role. But I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.
And I know I wasn’t the easiest child to raise: strange, precocious and having a mind of my own are all kind ways of saying major pain in the ass. But somehow you were able to feed and nurture all my interests, needs and eccentricities – through food and art and dance and travel and music – and a lot of patience.
And I know it’s important to nurture all the relationships in our life – with our parents, our children, our friends, and our partners.
And I know we’ve had our differences and sometimes we don’t see eye-to-eye on things, but you taught me how to have a mind of my own:)
And I know a rich life is not measured in dollars.
And humility is not about being lowly but being connected to each other on one basic, human level.
And strength is not exercised by how many people we triumph over but how high we lift ourselves and others.
And grace may seem effortless but it takes effort.
And beauty is all around us but we still must seek it out and create it.
Thanks for everything you’ve given me. Happy Mother’s Day.
Posted on May 9, 2009 - by amy senger
The Story of 1×57 & A Clean Life
On Monday, August 7, 2006, I started a new role as an instructor for a sabbatical program that is, what I consider, the gold standard for how enterprises should educate and teach its employees how and why to use social, web 2.0 software. I know the date, because 4 days prior, I called off my engagement and showed up to one of my best friend’s wedding, without my fiance. My friend reminds me of this and the date on a regular basis. I share this only because it is a turning point in the history of my life, a crossroads of sorts, when I decided to deviate from everything I knew and thought I wanted.
Enter Steve.
Steve and I were the first set of instructors to support what has become the Sean and Don show – the creators and pioneers of the program. If there is one thing that stands out in my mind about Steve and my initial impression of him, it was his total state of ease. I guess when you’ve spent time as a high school teacher and a software manager at Blizzard, teaching the intel community how to collaborate and share knowledge virtually isn’t a difficult transition.
Steve and I spent a year together in the lab, teaching and running the sabbatical. If I am considered by anyone today a good instructor, it’s because of him. During that time, we talked, a lot. Sometimes we would spend hours just talking, and debating. Most of the time his logic didn’t make sense to me. But that’s what I liked. The lab was the place where you could vent, learn, regenerate, geek-out, trade and argue ideas and thoughts, lay in the middle of the floor in the dead-man’s upward-facing floating position in total exasperation with the world.
1×57 is an inside joke. What it stands for is a foundation, a base…the place where it’s okay to be the renegade, the radical, the rebel, the dissident. That’s why Steve and I started it – our virtual home to be us.
Since I’ve known him, Steve has always been a “trash man.” My earliest memories include him not throwing away a single scrap of paper. And making sure we were first to have a recycling bin as part of a facilities pilot. And him ALWAYS using a ceramic mug and bowl for his morning tea and “mush.” And him reusing his plastic salad container, washing it out EVERY single day. And him rarely buying new clothes – instead opting for trips to Buffalo Exchange, the “hip” thrift clothing exchange store. If there is one thing most people will agree on about Steve, it’s that he’s not wasteful. He has mastered the art of efficiency and resourcefulness. This is who Steve is.
So when Steve told me he was leaving DC to start a non-profit to reduce waste in our country, I thought, “What a great idea,” – but that quickly changed to, “What the f$ck!?! You’re supposed to be my partner in 1×57.” I realized, however, that Steve is doing exactly what 1×57 is all about. He’s following his own truth. People have asked me why I’m helping him with A Clean Life. It’s difficult for me to understand why the question is being asked in the first place. Since when does helping a friend require an explanation? Actually, since when did not trashing your home go out of practice – shouldn’t we all be participating? I could say that my concentration in college was “Environment” and that the thesis I wrote is being used today for JMU’s Sustainability program. Or that starting at age 10, I was asking my parents what happened to all the trash we produced and shouldn’t we care about it? Or that “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”(~Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Ultimately, though, I believe in Steve. From the day I met him, I’ve felt this need – this pull, this push – to help him. I can’t explain it. Our relationship doesn’t make sense to a lot of people and it has changed over the years. But what hasn’t changed is how I know whenever we’re together, whether we’re talking, or fighting, or whatever, it’s worth more than anything material I can ever possess.
Posted on April 21, 2009 - by amy senger
Why I Twitter…and why I am Twittering less…
Recently I’ve come to re-evaluate my love affair with the world’s most perfunctory channel of noise. Several weeks ago, after recovering from a violent case of the stomach flu, I realized that lately Twitter tends to stress me out in the same way diatribic diner menus and multi-level department stores do – too much going on, too much to process, too much noise. Upon recovering from the 24-hr purge-fest, I underwent a cathartic purging of my material belongings and in the process asked myself what had value and what had meaning. Not to my surprise, a lot didn’t and I ended up donating over 50 books to the public library. One book, however, that made the cut and I’m currently reading is “The Power of Now.” Twitter seems to perfectly illuminate how NOT present I am – it is simply a snapshot of the past or reminder for the future. But it is not me living in the NOW.
I’ve since scaled back on the number of people I follow and will probably continue to do so even more. I like being lean. But even more, I like being in the moment. If I’m twittering, I’m not present. To be present in a 140-character, a-thousand-voices-speaking environment is like being a tiny buoy bouncing up and down to the whims of the ocean’s waves, never knowing that an entire world exists below it.
I’m not abandoning Twitter. I still plan on using it for the most self-serving, basic purpose – as a microblog of my life. Verily, I want my life and the people who I care about captured, so that (and this might sound unorthodox to some) when say my dad is no longer physically present, he will persist. And if my niece or perhaps, in the event I do have children, my children want to know about me or the people in my life, I will have left a trail of breadcrumbs. (Which reminds me, @Ev, maybe you should spend less time on Oprah and more time on the archiving and access issue – I want ALL of my tweets archived and accessible).
Andrew McAfee said in his recent writeup of twitter that “humans like to be altruistic” and I responded that humans have a need to be relevant – altruism is simply a bi-product. How can we be relevant if we are not present in our own lives? Can I truly be present in the moment if I’m twittering away? The fact is, I don’t tweet the most memorable moments of my life because either I won’t forget them or a 140-character line of text cannot do the moment justice. And what does this mean? Do I simply tweet the forgettable moments? What does that say about Twitter? In order to be memorable, I need to be present and for me, that’s the only relevance that matters.
I will also continue to use Twitter as a bookmarking tool to information sources of interest to me (and other folks who might be interested as well). But it’s really about me. And all the minutia I said has meaning, I need to appreciate more.
