Author Archive

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.

Posted on April 12, 2009 - by amy senger

The Northeasterly

A subtle wind teased,
northeast it came
down behind around me,

reticent and righteous, rife with
egalitarian flair,
withdrawing at its leisure as if playing with the air.

My senses took a notice, of its
continuous resurgence
as northeasterlies often do,

for the subtle winds that blow with
ease repeat their acts
elusively until you’re noticeably moved.

,

Posted on March 22, 2009 - by amy senger

My SXSW All-Stars

South by Southwest…what can I say that hasn’t been said. I felt like the bumble bee girl in the Blind Melon video “No Rain.” For someone who is unable to sit through a meeting without thumping her leg/foot 98% of the time, who gets lambasted for not following “the rules” on a regular basis, who sleeps with her iPhone and wakes up in the middle of the night to google something that surfaces in a dream, and whose biggest buying addiction is books, I felt reunited with “my kind.” SXSW is like a giant bazaar for starving geeks to greedily consume and share knowledge and information.

As much as I learned, the event would be not be what it is without the personal interaction. So here are my SXSW All-Stars, the people who made my SXSW experience stellar:

Most Beautiful: Qui Diaz, @beautfiulthangs

Qui and I knew of each other through Twitter but had never met in person or even exchanged tweets. When we were introduced, she was wearing a cowgirl hat & emanated a certain light and joy that felt completely familiar to me. Mary Oliver said, “Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue…” and Qui’s Twitter bio speaks to her virtue: I heart nonprofits, blog about social media for social good & see beauty everywhere.

Most Refreshing: Guy Kawasaki, @guykawasaki

This guy was in the Blogger’s Lounge passing out Alltop stickers like a band promoter in a parking lot. Humility and modesty are a rarity in our culture and this web celebrity lacks the bravado and hubris too many of the “big names” possess.

Most Passionate: Sheri Graner Ray

Sheri, a Senior Game Designer for companies like Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, Sony Online Entertainment and Cartoon Network, spoke on the panel “Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology” and her passion is infectious. I hope companies listen up and understand that we need to get and keep girls in tech and gaming is one of the best ways to do this. The ones that do WILL dominate the market.

Most Interesting: David Heyman, @davidheyman

David makes geography & cartography cool. He’s hung out with lions and elephants in Kenya, does improv/stand-up comedy and has a vast amount of baseball knowledge.

Most Energizing: Gary Vaynerchuk, @garyvee

Gary Vee is like doing a triple shot of expresso while listening to AC/DC. If you get the chance to hear him speak in person, take it.

Most Impressive: Andy Carvin, @acarvin

As National Public Radio’s senior product manager for online communities, Andy understands news, journalism and the web 2.0 world. Since joining NPR, he’s been working to develop a new online strategy for the organization, including citizen journalism, social networking and user-generated content.

Most Sauce: Laura Fitton , @pistachio

I bonded with Laura over Twitter (I admit, mostly making fun of Andy McAfee). In person, she’s smart and down-to-earth, with a dollop of dead-on snark. She’s the type of person with whom you want to do business AND go grab a drink.

Most Hustle: Larry Chiang, @larrychiang

Good god, does the man ever stop working a room? I’m almost certain he sleeps in a collared shirt, cradling both his blackberry and iPhone in hand, mumbling thoughts about venture capital and credit scores. Check out his tips on “How to Work a Conference.”

Most Surprising: Christopher Barger, @cbarger

Christopher Barger, Director of Global Communications Technology at General Motors, was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone from an American Motor Company at SXSW, yet alone on the panel “Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds.” I’m still skeptical. It’s got to be a new way of doing business for how the United States approaches transportation or bow and parish at the feet the innovators of the industry.

Most Thought-Provoking: The panel for “OpenID, OAuth, Data Portability and the Enterprise”

• Kaliya Hamlin (@identitywoman)
• Bob Blakley (@bobblakley)
• Danny Kolke (@etelos)
• Joseph Smarr (@jsmarr)

The twitter stream from the panel paints a pretty good picture of the discussion: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+%23sxswid

Joseph Smarr, Chief Platform Architect at Plaxo, gave a choice quote when he described the future of online identities and content: Ownership of user-generated content via open platforms is a “slippery salamander.”

My personal SXSW MVP: Michael Bassik, @mbassik

Michael is the reason I attended SXSW. I highly recommend listening to his panel “What your Startup Can Learn from Barack Obama and Howard Dean.” Thanks, Michael, for showing me the SXSW light:)

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.” ~William Blake

Posted on March 12, 2009 - by amy senger

Spying 2.0: What I will & won’t be saying at SXSW

Tomorrow (Friday) I’ll be speaking at SXSW Interactive. I’ve never been to SXSW (yes, I’m a SWirgin) and I have no expectations. The truth is I’m not one of the people you see on the “panel circuit” – in general I prefer to listen and learn – and then assault panelists/speakers with my typical barrage of questions:) My friend submitted the topic and when it got accepted, he asked me to speak and I said yes.

The topic of my talk is Spying 2.0: Can America Compete With Web-Savvy Enemies? For the record: I’m not a spy, most defintely not a Mrs. Smith. I’m a senior research analyst for LMI, a not-for-profit strategic consultancy committed to helping government leaders and managers reach decisions that make a difference.  We work with every federal department, agency, and military service on a broad spectrum of issues and opportunities.  At the beginning of my talk, I will be making the disclaimer that I will not be speaking for any of the clients LMI represents. As a contractor, I cannot refer to any of the projects I work on and as an employee of LMI, my thoughts and opinions expressed during my talk are strictly my own and do not represent those of LMI nor any of the clients LMI serves.

I have a “robust” set of restrictions on what I can and cannot say but the best part is the format of my talk is a Salon, which I’m told is a “tad less formal” and  an alternative to the rigid speaker versus audience format. If you ask me, it sounds like a cocktail party discussion (refreshments will be available) where I present a topic and the objective is to stimulate some good discourse amongst the participants.

I am not an “expert” in anything detailed in my Salon description:

Accelerating technology cycles leave the US intelligence community gasping. Twitter, cloud computing, folksonomies, Loopt… can America’s sclerotic intelligence machinery compete as our enemies adopt cheap, fast-evolving open-source and web 2.0 intel strategies?

Fortunately for me, I don’t have to be. My experience has shown me my network, more times than not, is smarter than the expert.  I do plan on tweeting during my talk and I’ll have my peeps @immunity & @robotchampion in the room. I hope to see some other familiar faces but really I want to generate solid discussion and ideas on the topic.

I have some general thoughts on what I plan on saying, including asking what it means to be a “spy” in today’s day and age when everyone and anyone can take a picture with their cell phone and post it to the internet. And I also want to share something Rod Beckstrom said when I first met him last year: “We’re not safe until we ALL are safe.”  This is not limited to just Americans and our allies.

Dennis Blair, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, recently made the following statement about cybersecurity: “It’s a crew race. The offense pulls ahead -– you find out -– then the defense pulls ahead. We’ve got to keep stroking, faster, better, with more teamwork.” This doesn’t seem to be, in my opinion, a very good long-term strategic plan.  Something has to change.

If you look at the current U.S. administration’s agenda, the breadth of intelligence issues has broadened to include things such as the economy (the President now receives an Economic Daily Briefing) and energy and the environment. My plan for the talk is to share what I can, ask questions, listen and have everyone tweet the hell of it during and after:)

Excuse me while I get my boots on…

Posted on March 2, 2009 - by amy senger

The Currency of Integrity and Goodness

Lately I’ve become consumed with a topic I see as an inevitable trend in social software and digital identity on the Internet: the currency of integrity and goodness.

First, I thank my colleague Fred for unknowingly interjecting goodness into my ponderance of the notion since my original focus was simply integrity. The fact is, a person can be honestly, wholly and consistently bad yet still have integrity.

Lately social media has become, in my opinion, obsessed with online influence and predominance. Sites like Twinfluence that measure things such as reach, velocity and social capital are amusing to me if only because I look at the lists and think “so what?”  Take for example the Twitterer who at this time has the *most (based on the site’s calculation) Reach, the number of followers a Twitterer has (first-order followers), plus all of their followers (second-order followers). At this time, it is Scot McKay, self-described dating coach, author, podcaster, firestarter, karaoke hack, Dannie and Micky-Mac’s dad and @emilymckay’s knight in shining Under Armour. If Scot McKay says the milk section of the grocery store is the best place to meet a potential dating interest, do people flock there? (PLEASE NOTE: I do not know or follow Scot McKay and to my knowledge he did not tweet this).

I don’t find number of followers interesting. A person can be a celebrity, make a lot of noise, but not get people to act. Influence is the ability to affect a person, thing, or course of events and I’m more interested in the integrity of a person and his or her motivations for doing what they do. I’m more interested in people like Laura Fitton (@pistachio in Twitter) who, when she asks her readers/followers to support a cause she is passionate about, they contribute.

As more and more light has been shed on economic/financial power players like the Bernie Madoffs, Phil Gramms and Allen Stanfords of the world, I’ve been contemplating the price society pays for a lack of integrity and goodness. This weekend I attended several sessions at Transparency Camp in DC and I found two sessions extremely interesting: one on Social Network Analysis by Valdis Krebs, Erin Kenneally and JC Hertz and the other by Kevin Connor, a developer of LittleSis.org, a site that helps spot the symptoms of corruption and cronyism in the political process and promotes government and corporate accountability.  I think we will be seeing a trend of companies, organizations and citizens taking a greater interest in how much integrity a person or entity has and the relative “goodness” of their pursuits since the current trajectory of social transparency means it will be more and more difficult to “behave badly” without folks knowing about it. The price of things such as blind greed or even prejudice might get significantly more expensive. This could benefit societies at large since the culmination of an individual’s lack of integrity and solely self-motivated pursuits has the ability to hurt the greater good. Take for example former executive director of the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo who had a record of misconduct that stretched over 20 years. When the public reads stories like this, I guarantee his association with the agency does not go unnoticed and very likely denigrates the integrity of the agency as a whole.

People are social creatures. We like to conform, as shown by studies like the Asch conformity experiments, a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. The danger in this lies in the fact that just as quickly as something or someone can become popular, the reverse is true and if you look at social markets in the same light as financial ones, then the predisposition towards large “unexpected” fluctations should hold true. For this reason, I think we’ll start seeing people and entities question their associations with more rigor than in the past, or potentially pay a price.

Posted on February 15, 2009 - by amy senger

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game

Madoff, the SEC, hedge funds & the IC

After reading the testimony of Harry Markopolos, the whistleblower in the Madoff Ponzi scheme who crafted such a compelling reconstruction of events he deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature simply for the writing itself, I thought, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Markopolos’ 58-page confessional and call to arms illustrates a process so painstakingly onerous, it invoked an image straight out of Kafka’s A Message from the Emperor:

Markopolos began investigating Bernie Madoff in 1999, but due to consistent inadequacies and roadblocks, he was unable to elicit any action that could stop Madoff from his carrying out his odyssey of deceit. As easy as it would be to burn Madoff at the stakes and line up all the individuals guilty of inaction and ignorance for the firing squad, I’m more interested in the future of hedge funds.

For over a decade I have been fascinated by hedge funds – mainly due to the lack of transparency and oversight they have enjoyed since their inception in 1949. In reading Mr. Markopolos’ testimony, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the Intelligence Community, who after 9/11, has been accused of “failing to connect the dots” (even though the dots in many ways were connected). Like the Intelligence Community, hedge funds are a dark market in that:

My greatest curiosity concerning hedge funds revolves around who benefits from them (and how greatly) and how have they continued to operate in such opaque circumstances after bombastic failures such as Long-Term Capital Management which required bailout supervision by the Federal Reserve. Whenever staggering amounts of money are involved, as is the case with hedge funds and the intelligence community and national security/defense, I sometimes wonder if the breadth and reach of the implications of who benefits and how becomes such a quagmire that any effort to address them with transparency seems disastrous and humiliating at the level of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

In his 30-page course of action to address securities fraud, Mr. Markapolos offers insightful, well-defined, and reasonable solutions; however, he omits two important components: 1) hedge fund transparency/regulation (which is currently being tackled by the Grassley/Levin Hedge Fund Transparency Act and 2) information technology.

If the SEC can learn one thing from the IC, it is the benefit of an integrated information technology system. The SEC, with its twelve offices across the country, along with agencies such as the IRS and DoJ, needs a better way to “talk to each other” (akin to an Intelink) – so the organizations can fluidly share information and utilize communal services to detect fraud. Markopolus’ idea of providing all employees access to a Bloomberg machine (a top-of-the-line financial, regulatory, and market database) is a plainly obvious one, noting that “most SEC offices are lucky to have even one Bloomberg machine for the entire region’s use.” The IC, via the DNI’s Intelligence Community Enterprise Services (ICES), is provided a set of solutions that include enterprise search, a commnunity-wide wiki, blogs, instant messaging, social bookmarking, document sharing, video sharing, image sharing, and more. Our regulatory agencies need a common suite of tools, the same ones used by private/commericial financial institutions, that allow for greater analytic and data access capabilities.

If the IC can learn one thing from Markopolos and the SEC, it’s that if speaking truth to power is tough, bringing action against power is damn near impossible. Markopolos notes factors such as fear, lack of competence and vested interests as contributors to the abject failure of the regulatory system. His recommendation of creating an Office of the Whistleblower to “centralize the handling and investigation of whistleblower tips” is something the IC could implement to solicit and centralize anti-collaboration activities that would allow all IC members to contribute encountered instances of hoarding and/or resistance to knowledge-sharing in a systemic, protected manner. This would be in line with ICD 501 that strengthens the “sharing, integration, and management of information within the Intelligence Community (IC), and establishes policies for: (1) discovery; and (2) dissemination or retrieval of intelligence and intelligence-related information collected or analysis produced by the IC.”

If the IC and SEC can learn one thing from each other, it’s that while black markets will exist, there needs to be mechanisms to shed light on them.

Posted on February 14, 2009 - by amy senger

25 things…

You may or may not know about Steve aka the @robotchampion:

1. He wears black socks to gym. Somehow he manages to make this look good.
2. He wears a pink sweatshirt with a lion on it and doesn’t understand why guys hit on him.
3. He’s completely monogamous.
4. He is an office lady-charmer.
5. He does get jealous but tries to never let it show.
6. When he’s really excited, he says “omigod!” with a Brooklyn accent.
7. When it comes to our relationship, he has repose. I’ve been with him after his car’s been towed, while I’m freaking out about how closely he is driving behind another car on the beltway on route to the WIRE/ICES conference, and after I’ve yelled at him for failing to communicate with me – and he did not respond with the typical human knee jerk response of anger or aggravation.
8. When he’s stressed or completely engrossed in figuring out something, he gnaws on his fingers.
9. He likes to touch – almost like a blind person communicating through his fingers (I think this is why he loves Apple products so much).
10. He denied my advances not once but twice and is the only man (that I recall) who has done this.
11. He’s able to organize virtually anything in a wiki (and is known as “Wiki Steve” by colleagues).
12. He is insecure about his body.
13. He’s intimidated by pretty girls.
14. He cried upon receiving churros at the Mexico/California border and during Obama’s acceptance speech.
15. In California, he was a boogie board surfer, not a long board surfer.
16. He will be an amazing father.
17. He loves that he gets the pretty girls and guys have no idea why.
18. He intentionally asked me to hold his passport at the airport b/c he knew my ex always handled everything, including the holding of the passports and was psychologically challenging my historical construct of relationships.
19. He’s an incredible teacher – one of the best I’ve seen.
20. He has an amazing family (and his brother Spence is quite possibly one of the coolest, most “truest” people I’ve ever met).
21. Sometimes he’s afraid of me.
22. He feels so deeply that he’s trained himself not to.
23. He’s the only man besides my dad who I never get bored talking to and is able to throw humor at me from left field.
24. He thinks I will somehow help him become President of the United States.
25. I met Steve the day after I had given back my engagement ring to my then fiancée. It was a point in my life when everything was in flux and I knew what needed to change and where I wanted to go but I wasn’t sure how. I had spent too much time trying to please other people, to be something I wasn’t or didn’t want to be, and without trying, by just being himself, Steve showed me how to be me. I am who I am today because of him.