Plato's Gnat

Martin Luther King and Occupy

2011-11-13T13:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I blogged. Sorry about that. I've been busy relocating to Grande Cache, acquainting myself with the town and the new job, and getting used to the elevation. The view out my window is a bit of rugged bush, pretty average for this part of the country. The weather is unusual today; half the sky is blue and the other half is grim. We are on the grim half of town. A dusting of snow whips by.

Anyways, I am taking a moment to capture the big thoughts I had while finishing "Martin Luther King Jr., His life, martyrdom and meaning for the world" by Willaim Robert Miller. Written by a pacifist, this biography offers a balanced picture of Dr. Martin King. His stellar achievements and crushing doubts are described equally faithfully. Offered most sympathetically are Dr. King's views on pacifism. In short, push leaders to change - and change now - before the pressure cooker explodes. To the demonstrators, be generous in victory; suppress the urge for revenge. Only this way can positive change result. Here are a few quotes I am preserving,

"[On Mordecai Johnson] ...he had shown ho to harness the redemptive power of love to social issues, and through it, change had come." (p. 30)

"...but both Brightman and his associate, L. Harold DeWolf, had a permanent effect in shaping Martin's lifelong belief in a personal God and in the dignity and worth of every human person." (p. 34)

"King told the crowd that the was often advised to slow down the pace of the freedom revolution, that time would tke care of things. But time is neutral.'It can be used constructively and it can be used destructively. Unfortunately, the extremist, right-wing elements use their time more effectively."...Racism, he said, was a way of life for the vast majority of white Americans. The Poor People's Campaign had to control this ... The campaign would 'call attention to the gap between promises and fulfillment - to make the invisible visible.'" (p. 285)

"The death of Martin Luther King was not the cause of rioting but its occasion...King knew the reasons it was there, and he had pointed them out again and again. If this represented 'criminality', it was not something inborn but the direct result of continuous oppression, the denial of hope, the rejection of repeated appeals." (p. 293)

The big lessons in Dr. King's life are echoed today with the occupy demonstrations sweeping North America. The lessons learned when an oppressed people raise themselves up must not be ignored. Let's also not forget the danger to the unaware oppressors, of deliberate blindness, a dulling of the conscience, where stories of cruelty are suppressed or plainly disbelieved. It is too easy to polarize, demonize, belittle, and ignore change agents. If these people are our brothers, what does it say when we refuse to listen, to respond?

The same dynamics were repeated in the tumultuous modern history of Africa, that I read this past year. Ignorant oppressors are justifiably afraid of public demonstrations pointing out the less pretty side of society. Because the oppressed, once expressed, are on just this shade of violence. If they continue to be ignored.

I believe Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign was visionary. A nation that ignores it's weakest remains vulnerable. I believe these vulnerabilities have never been fullly addressed.

Just last week I posted my mixed feelings about the occupy demonstrators on a discussion board,

"There are shades of history that caution me from judgement. I'm wavering between admiration and annoyance.

•First of all, these kids are not the "other 99". They are a particular subset of society that for whatever reason, has time to check out from routine. I resent that they claim to represent me.

•I resent the 99 as much as I have come to resent the so-called "Moral Majority". As soon as the Religious Right DID gain power, they bankrupted the country. They also make poor losers.

•So I see a correlation between the "other 99" and the "Moral Majority". Both claim to represent an invisible and silent minority; both are more dogmatic than sensible. They should own up that they represent their own sectarian interests.

•To the protester's defence, I think the widening gap between rich and poor is a dreadful testament for a wealthy country. I studied the Human Development index published by the United Nations a few years ago. That widening gap is a pretty good darn indicator that at some point something was going to snap. It is not the richest who earn a nation's pride, it's the country's poorest. What are we doing for those most disadvantaged? There must be a rebalancing of wealth. If the wealthiest won't do it voluntarily, the government (vocal, voted majority) should intervene.

•Be cautious in accepting wild stories happening at these sit-ins. Remember that the boomers of today were hippie protesters of yesteryear. The establishement reacted badly back than. I would like my generation to show greater tolerance. We don't have to set out the dogs or tear gas, do we?"

In conclusion, even though I am doubtful that the demonstrators represent the "other 99", and skeptical of their choice of demons (Corporate America, Big Business), they do express a raging unmet need.

Leaders listen.

As a postscript, I found the story of Dr. King's emerging faith during college to be personally inspiring. It is encouraging to read how a man with highly individual and tested beliefs could find his way in his church of choice. I'm not so sure the denominations of today have fully taken up his challenge of social responsibility. I note that even the liberal churches today are content to passively petition their governments to do more. There must be personal involvement, I would think, for active change to come about.

The Glory of the Hunt

2011-06-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

People care about their files. They are attached to the personal systems they put in place to find what they need, and become anxious if they are taken away. The file system is guarded territory, as fiercly protected as a parking stall.

It became clear years ago that it is not enough, as a records professional to build a pure filing system - elegant in design and intuitive to use. If I have not engaged the very human customers where they work and live, the system will fail.

Quoting google advanced help, "Search engines use a variety of techniques to imitate how people think and to approximate their behavior. As a result, most rules have exceptions. For example, the query [ for better or for worse ] will not be interpreted by Google as an OR query, but as a phrase that matches a (very popular) comic strip. Google will show calculator results for the query [ 34 * 87 ] rather than use the 'Fill in the blanks' operator. Both cases follow the obvious intent of the query." This means rather than being straightforward, search support services spend a lot of time getting inside the heads of searchers, to help them get the results they want (not what they say they want).

So how do we stow away and find things? It could be that our personal classification systems and style of hunting (foraging) are as established as our hunter-gatherer brains. Web and corporate Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems have vastly extended our reach, but our searching instincts have not changed.

I will suggest that classifying and searching, tagging and recalling successful hunts, are part of our instinctive heritage. Steven Pinker in his book the Language Instinct, proposes fifteen instincts that are hard-wired in to all of us. Two of these instincts relate to searching and classifying:

4. Mental maps for large territories.

11. A mental Rolodex; a database of individuals, with blanks for kinship, status or rank, history of exchange of favors, and inherent skills and strengths, plus criteria that valuate each trait.

Imagining our forbear's steps, I imagined my ancestor following a familiar trail, noting edible plants along the way. She would retrace her steps later, when she knew the harvest would be ready; wild carrots in the summer, cattail tubers in the fall, and rose hips through the winter. She would have identified and classifed the edible plants, and remembered the trail to get there.

I couldn't find a comparable image on my google search, so I scanned my own, I did learn a little about the foraging habits of water pipits, larval green lacewings, and modern human urban foragers.
So in many ways, classifying and searching is instinctive. We care about the results of the hunt, and not just for the practical purpose of getting the job done. This is personal.

You know what I am talking about. Anyone in our business will have hit a tough search that evades early detection. We dig in ever harder, searching out the obscure places where it might have been put. To place that record in our bosses hands, sweet.
The hunt is valued. A swift and successful hunt gives value to the organization. A hunter who provides consistent results is an asset; not just from an empirical, practical point of view, but at an instinctive, visceral level. I suggest again that if the GARP(C) principles were to be ranked, Availability is at the top. Not so say that the rest may be discarded. Together, they complete the framework for a robust records system.

When converting to a new file structure, be respectful of people's need to find their stuff. Anticipate the anxiety that accompanies change, and prepare for it. Make sure they have time to orient themselves to the new system, and reassure them that the materials they need daily will be at hand.

Advanced Search in the New Age

2011-06-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

I've struggled with this subject all day. It's hard to pin down why. I enjoy running a great search, and I'm good at it. I think it must be because many of the tips and tools I'm highlighting, are as natural to use as breathing. It's tough not to step over my own feet when laboriously laying out all the steps. The problem these days - on google at least - is not the absence of results. The problem is too many results from a simple search.

When the internet was new, my girlfriend showed off her google search for "superman". Her son was a comic book buff, and she and her son marvelled at the speed of the return; four hits. When she demonstrated for me a couple months later, we found twenty sites. And goggled. My, how the internet was growing in leaps and bounds. Today, a google search on the same term gave me 168 million hits. My mind boggles at that number. In truth, I won't look past a couple pages. The likelihood that I would find a significant result any deeper is just too small.

To make sense of this mass of information at our fingertips has made search an art. Find a term significant and unique enough to bring back the result I need, but not so narrow that it filters out the gold. A way to develop this fine touch is to start with the narrowest search you can think of. Try enclosing your google phrase in quotation marks. If you get no results, broaden your search ever more slightly. After a while, you will develop a fine touch. Here are two google searches I conducted recently, that required several google tries to find me what I wanted:

There is an archeaological dig on she shores of Galilee, profiled by the Naked Archaeologist . There's evidence of a fishing industry, and early Christian activity. What was the name of the dig? I'd forgotten. I searched filtering only Naked results, and found the name of the fishing village. I then broadened the search for Bethsaida. Google corrected my spelling, of course. And there it was, in satisfying detail, the results of a dig briefly profiled on Naked.
A student mentioned BlueCielo as an Electronic Content Management (ECM) tool that manages engineering drawings in Computer Aided Design, (CAD) format. After checking out the official site, I wondered what the community is saying. I used advanced search to limit the results to "Discussion:". Google found me what I wanted, but the discussions were empty. What is it with the community? Do they sit around the water-cooler to chat? Is there no twitter feed, no chatter, no casual trail for me to follow? I remind myself that this is not all bad. People talking. In person.

Before I go any further, I'll briefly discuss the differences in a corporate electronic file search and the world-wide web. Most of the time when conducting an internal search, you are looking for something you know exists. You either put it there yourself, or it is a manual/report/document that you have referred to in the past. You resort to search because you've forgotten in the webonious structure where you've last laid it. If it is an Explorer search, a panting dog may wag his way through to help you.

Failure to find the document you are looking for will likely lead to a few hours of frustration. Because unlike a google search, you must find the document of your recollection. The average information worker spends 8.8 hours a week searching for information. (Ref. The Importance of Enterprise Search, slide 13, IDC Hidden Costs of Information Work (2005) ). It is therefore critical that the electronic information management system that you select is capable of masterful (and swift) searches.

Similarly, in an e-discovery (may you never be blessed), search results must be consistent and complete. Correspondence has an annoying habit of referencing past correspondence. Does the search find both? Missing key documents will challenge the comprehensiveness of your records, and the reputation of your corporation.

Now that my little rabbit trail is done, I can go back to discussing advanced searching techniques. Most of these help you narrow your search. As I've mentioned before, a dearth of answers is not our problem. If you don't believe me, try running a search for "report" (5 billion hits on google). Advanced techniques include wildcard searches (named after the Joker in our decks), boolean searches (AND, OR and NOT), and a few more I found during my google search today; fuzzy, proximity and range. Though google calls these features by another name, you can practice wildcard and boolean in advanced search. Google has a great help page for advanced searchers.

Wildcard is replacing a character or range of characters with a symbol ("*" on most of the systems I looked at today). I would have found Bethsaida sooner if I had typed Bet*da. I'd mistakenly looked for it as Bethseda.

The boolean link I've referenced is a great tutorial that graphically illustrates the different sorts of results you get. Google uses these same boolean terms, so check out the results. AND and NOT gives you a narrower result. If you care to check out my internet presence, try the google result "jgnat -java" (jgnat NOT java).

I've begun reading up on fuzzy, proximity and range when reading the features of Apache Lucene, an open source search engine. I won't try and pretend to explain them fully here. Range can be very helpful to narrow to a period of time, (i.e. Business Plans for the first three quarters of 2009) and tricky to get right. Fuzzy claims to bring back words that sounds like (but are not spelled like) what you've asked for. This might also have helped me find Bethsaida.

It is very worthwhile as information professionals to master these techniques. Information workers need all the help they can get to find their information swiftly and consistently. Be the expert, and we will demonstrate our worth to the organization many times over.

The Glory of the Hunt - Searchable Records

2011-06-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

Trending topics in the records world these days are e-discovery, security, and collaboration. I propose however, that the most valuable skills record-keepers have to offer in the 21st century is the the power of search.

Search falls in the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (GARP (C)) under "Availability", An organization shall maintain records in a manner that ensures timely, efficient, and accurate retrieval of information.

Why do I claim this is skill is valued over the others? Because any records system passes or fails on it's ability to deliver. If it can't promise to give your information back when you need it, why would you use it?

Over the next few days, I'll highlight the power of search; some of the advanced tools that we should be familiar with as records professionals, why the hunt is its own reward, and some technical marvels on the horizon.

Paper Reduction - It's the Green Thing to Do

2011-05-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

I got asked one day how many sheets of paper in a tree? (Over 8,000). It's the new benchmark of green-y; how many trees you can save from the chopping block. Hold off the printer, retire the copier, and read it online. As I tour offices with my Information Manager's eyes, I don't see stacks of paper any more. The signs of disorder are hidden away on e-mail and shared drives.

Reducing paper production - especially at source - is a great way for a company to go green and save money besides. I've posted a paper savings estimator on my site (www.platosgnat.com) that will show you how many trees you've saved and how many greenhouse emissions you've reduced. I've made counting easy, too. Add up the number of boxes of paper your area purchased last month or last year, and chunk in the number.

Using Shel Busey's good-better-best ratings, let's compare ways a corporation can reduce paper consumption.

Good
Switch to 100% recycled paper. Reduce the number of copiers in the office, and eliminate personal printers. You might consider an all-in-one printer/copier/scanner. Be sure you have procedures to confirm that the scans are authentic (CAN/CGSB-72.34), and have a plan where the scans will go. No use scanning if you have no place to put it.

Better
To get paper off the floor and everyone working online, scan your high volume collections. This will get you your space savings (if staff don't find new ways to fill it), but it won't save you a tree. Because to scan, you have to start with paper somewhere.

Best
Work with your IT and forms design to allow external customers to send you information electronically. PDF forms can be designed to submit directly in to your database. Set up e-pay with vendors who submit high volume transactions for payment (i.e. phone bills). Not only does this save the tree from source, you will start to see real savings in entry and handling of the information.

The Fate of Africa - A History of Fifty Years of Independence

2011-04-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've just finished the above titled brick-of-a-book by Martrin Meridith, who provides a dispassionate, and well-documented, account of Africa's recent history. I am driven to know more about Africa first of all because of my son-in-law's backgroound, and also to get a sense of our world-wide humanity. To understand Africa, it's heroes and faliures, is to understand ourselves. To turn a blind eye to failure is to guarantee repeat.

I'll first quote another reviewer, to get a sense of the breadth and depth of this book, "So many bad books receive extravagant praise that it's hard to do justice to a msterpiece when one finally appears. And the Fate of Africa is a masterpiece...This is living, breathing history that matters." - Ralph Peters, New York Post. In case after case, country after country, the author describes how the Big Men of Africa squandered the wealth and potential of their countries for personal gain. First-world countries bungled and amplified the problems by failing to grasp the depth of Africa's issues and rather imposing their own agendas and fears. As I descended through despair as so graphically outlined in this book, I wondered, when would hope arrive?

I live by hope. I must believe that goodness prevails. Yet over and over again I witness in this book persons of integrity, intelligent and brave - harassed and destroyed. The bullies won. They succeeded in raping their countries to the brink of ruin, and recovery is out of sight. How can the common person in such an environment dare to hope for a better day, that they will enjoy the fruits of their labour?

There can be no other way than hope and reconciliation. Yet it will take tremendous effort and insight - not by individuals - but by a collective world - to turn things around. It means being persons of integrity, altruistic, ready to spurn personal gain and power for the greater good. It means laying down treasured ideologies, trusting all that is good, and banishing the crooked.

For the rest of my blog, I'm preserving the quotes from this book that moved me, lest I forget.

[On the reckless speed that independence was granted to the Gold Coast] "A new governor, Sir Charles Arden-larke, was despatched to the Gold Coast in 1949, with the warning that 'the country is on the edge of revolution' and with instructions to implement a new constitution...in order to avert it. The new system of government was regarded as being in the nature of 'an experiment', one that could be carefully controlled and monitored...The reality, however, was different. One senior British official involved in the Gold Coast experiment later described the process as 'like laying down a track in front of an oncoming express.'" [Revolution's explosive power came from years of repression by the colonizers, who treated its citizens as inferior. Independence was granted late and poorly, not allowing for a steady transition of power] (p. 13)

[The error of divine certainty] "The architect of grand apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, a Dutch-born ideological fanatic, cast himself in the role of a leader chosen by God. 'I do not have the nagging doubt of ever wondering whether perhaps I am wrong.'" (p. 178)

"...a Methodist bishop, Abel Muzorewa, warned of the deep undercurrents of bitterness rising among the African population, 'the repressed fear, restless silence, forced tolerance and hidden hatred'." [The ruling leader, Smith, respondid with further repression] (p. 321)

"In sum, what the [World] Bank advocated was political liberalisation. Economic success, it maintained, depended to a large degree on effictive and honest government, the rule of law, open economies and policital democracy....."People need freedom to realise individual and collective potential...I fear that many of Africa's political leaders have been more concerned about retaining power than about the long-term development interests of their people. The cost to milions of Africans...has been unforgivably high.[Barber Conable]" (p. 376-377)

[Pastoral letter, eight Catholic bishops of Malawi on Banda's dictatorship in Malawi ] "...This is most regrettable. It creates an atmosphere of resentment among the citizens. It breeds a climate of mistrust and fear. This fear of harassment and mutual suspicion generates a society in which the talents of many lie unused and in which there is little room for initiative.[Banda responded by declaring the letter to be a seditious document. Riots and violence followed] (p. 407-408)

[Frederick Chiluba at his inauguration] "The Zambia we inherit is destitute - ravaged by the excesses, ineptitutde and straight corruption of a party and a people who have been in power for too long. When our first president stood up to address you twenty-seven years ago, he was addressing a country full of hope and glory. A country fresh with the power of youth , and a full and rich dowry. Now the coffers are empty. The people are poor. The misery is endless." (p. 411)

[Angola in 1992] "Overall there was widespread relief at the respite from war, but scepticism about wheter it would last. 'Will it be like 1975?' a market trader asked. 'It is not the people who make war, but the leaders.'" (p. 605)

[Mandela at the opening of the secont session of parliament, South Africa, 1995] "The government literally does not have the money to meet the demands that are being advanced. Mass action of any kind will not create resources the government does not have. All of us must rid ourselves of the wrong notion that the government has a big bag full of money. The government does not have such riches. We must rid ourselves of the culture of entitelement which leads to the expectation that the government must promptly deliver whatever it is we demand." (p. 651)

[The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the African National Congress (ANC's) claims of self-exoneration as a 'just war' on aparteid] "A gross violation is a gross violation, whoever commits it and for whatever reason. There is thus legal equavalence between all perpetrators. Their political affiliation is irrelevant." (p. 657)

[Archbishop Tutu on the dangers of a new tyranny in South Africa] "We can't assume that yesterday's oppressed will not become tomorrow's oppressors. We have seen it happen all over the world, and we shouldn't be surprised if it happens here." (p. 659)

[Mandela nearing retirement] "I am nearing my end", he told Afrikaner students. "I want to be able to sleep till eternity with a broad smile on my face, knowing that youth, opinion-makers and everybody is stretching the divide, trying to unite the nation. HIs legacy was a country which had experienced greater harmony than at any previous time in its history. (p. 664)

Open Data and the Information Manager

2011-03-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

The 1995 movie, "Lorenzo's Oil" tells the true story of a father who desperately searched for a cure for his son's (Lorenzo) terminal disease, Adrenoleucodystrophy (ALD). At the time, sufferers did not live past five years. Augusto Odone scoured the local medical library for answers and sponsored a medical conference to bring together experts in the field. It was at the conference that he first found a glimmer of hope. An oil - oleic acid - was able to destroy long string fatty acids, Lorenzo's Oil. Young Lorenzo lived in to his thirties, passing away in 2008. The oil is used to treat asymptomatic boys with ALD and has been shown to prevent the disease from taking hold.

For the sake of my topic, I'm focusing on the value of bringing together experts and information. I'll discuss the value of privacy controls another day. With the advent of the internet, we have even greater opportunities to share discoveries. Hence, the open science data movement.

The idea is to freely share without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The internet by design fosters sharing. Ever since it's explosion, however, controls have been developed to prevent unauthorized disclosure. When it comes to my personal banking information, I fully agree. But it could be argued that these restrictions do not fit well where we can benefit from free and open sharing of information.

"Numerous scientists have pointed out the irony that right at the historical moment when we have the technologies to permit worldwide availability and distributed process of scientific data, broadening collaboration and accelerating the pace and depth of discovery…..we are busy locking up that data and preventing the use of correspondingly advanced technologies on knowledge [1]

Here is open scientific data that I have sourced in th epast:

African Plant Database: (learning more about my beloved sprouting Gazania)
The database currently comprises 1,86,948 names of african plants with their nomenclatural statuts. Data capture, edition and broadcast are the product of a collaboration between the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève, Tela Botanica and the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Jstor
...trusted digital archive of over one thousand academic journals and other scholarly content. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship...

In other realms, we have Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg saying that privacy is "no longer a social norm" and a movement for open data of government information. I think it is no accident that is is the data community pushing for these reforms. These are the master-chefs of information, itching make new use of these rich sources. To be clear, open data is far more than publishing reports and final results. These new data-chefs want access to the raw data to manipulate and present in new forms.

Here in Canada, the open data movement has sponsored Change Camps and convinced the City of Vancouver to provide open data. It was at a Change Camp here in Edmonton that I was first made aware of the Open Data movement. The City of Edmonton provides raw transit information to google, for instance. Mobile Edmonton travellers can now plan routes through google. There are American examples how new open data applications are improving government. Microsoft has sponsored a competition to find new uses of Vancouver's data, like Vantrash to help users schedule and track their trash days.

An additional benefit of open data is to improve openness and transparency of government activities to the public. Where there is openness there is trust. For instance, I found an online air quality index for a neighbour concerned about a bad smell. I follow the blogs of Paul Levy, former CEO of a Boston Hospital and advocate for transparency of clinical outomes,. The Japanese government has taken some criticism this week for not being more forthcoming on developments at the failing nuclear plant. Open, honest and timely information reduces public anxiety.

Organizations are meeting he challenge of open data without infringing on rights. The international Open Data Commons has developed a set of licensing standards that an author can cite to protect their interests while providing free and open use of their data. The Commons has also provided definitions and principles to guide the open data movement:

"The Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) sets out principles to define ‘openness’ in knowledge – that’s any kind of content or data ‘from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata’. The definition can be summed up in the statement that “A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.”

Why bother about openness and licensing for data? After all they don’t matter in themselves: what we really care about are things like the progress of human knowledge or the freedom to understand and share.

However, open data is crucial to progress on these more fundamental items. It’s crucial because open data is so much easier to break-up and recombine, to use and reuse. We therefore want people to have incentives to make their data open and for open data to be easily usable and reusable — i.e. for open data to form a ‘commons’."

The Open Data Commons gives a special mention to government data:

"Open government data and content is material that is:

“Open” as defined by this site’s Open Definition– in essence material (data) is open if it can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone.
Produced or commissioned by government or government controlled entities."

In 2007, American advocates have developed eight principles of Open Government, and here in Canada, Open Data proponents are calling for the resolution of issues around licensing. In the realm familiar to Information Managers, the eighth principle of GARP is Transparency (A counterbalance to the third Principle of Protection).

In Alberta, the principle of open government is balanced against the citizen's right to privacy in the FOIP Act [2]. Most people are familiar with their privacy rights in this legislation, but the Act also allows open access to government information (sections 2 and 6)

"The purposes of this Act are...to allow any person a right of access to the records in the custody or under the control of a public body subject to limited and specific exceptions as set out in this Act... An applicant has a right of access to any record in the custody or under the control of a public body, including a record containing personal information about the applicant."

Our Information and Privacy Commissioner has spoken of openness and transparency during Right to Know week. At a seminar that same week, the City of Edmonton spoke of the benefits of routinely disclosing public information. Our snow removal crews took a big hit this winter, but I found their online schedule and status updates did a lot to relieve my concerns. I had a bet going with my husband if our "arterial" would be cleared by deadline, and it was.

So there you have it. For oppenness in information as mundane as trash days, to clinical outcomes in our health care systems, open data fosters collaboration, informs in new ways, and builds trust. As an information manager, keep an eye out for data sets of information that is already routinely disclosed in other formats. Introduce the principles of open data to your clients, and give examples how open data can improve transparency for their organization.

[1] John Wilbanks, Executive Director, Science Commons
[2] Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Alberta, F-25)

Tagging Touches Records Management

2011-02-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

On February 16, our local chapter of ARMA hosted Chris Izquierdo of DevFacto to speak about folksonomy vs taxonomy . A good argument was made to hand the reins of classification over to the users (folksonomy) with perhaps some controls in the background (taxonomy). When it was all over, a friend turned to me and asked, "What is tagging?" Goodness, I realized. I've been playing around with the internet for so long, I've forgotten that these concepts are new to some. Tagging works great with electronic documents and is virtually impossible to replicate in the paper world. So let's spend a few moments finding out what tags are and how they can help classify and search for our electronic records.

Tag has many definitions, and most have to do with adding more information to
an object. The tag on my new headband gives me information about the manufacturer. In the past, when a user sent records to file, they may add a file number to the corner. The user was restricted to the classification plan. The file number is a sort of tag, but it is limited in scope.

On an internet form, however, a as many tags as needed can be attached to a document to help the user sort their entries, and readers find what they are looking for. This blog, for instance, offers tags in the field marked "Labels:" and shows up on the bottom of my post. The software remembers what tags I have used in the past, so as I start typing, it offers me choices based on past use. Over time the tagging becomes ever more consistent to the way I classify things.

I tag my posted recipes, too. The site offers sort and search on my tags, offering new ways to find and manage my recipes.

Tagging photos is a huge hit. Flicr was a pioneer of photo tagging in

2004, but we can now tag on virtually all digital photo sites including Picasa and Facebook. Internet software is now sophisticated enough to recognized faces on a photo, and will often prompt the user to tag the person. I can now search for all photos that contain the tagged face of a friend or loved-one.

Besides personal tagging, there are tag cloud generators that automatically build graphical representations of your tags. The good generators should highlight by significance (i.e. tags with greatest weight are bigger). There are free tag generators available. I regularly generate a tag cloud of my blog. Every word is a link to the source that the reader can follow. http://www.tagcloud-generator.com/ Try it out for yourself.

So how does this change the Records Management world? Internet savvy users may demand the option to tag their documents for later retrieval. Tags (keywords) can be added as optional metadata entries in Electronic Records Management applications. In the future, tagging might replace formal taxonomies as the primary cataloguer of electronic records. You may offer new search options by offering tag clouds of frequently searched content.

The classic paper file manual, a true brick, able to stop a steel door in it's tracks, might soon be a relic. But people are still driven to classify and organize. We have the opportunity, as RIM professionals, to offer new ways to look and search; to guide our users on how to tag records for easy retrieval, and to show off our information in new ways. In the future it won't be just the linear thinkers who rule the day; our visuals and creatives have the opportunity to find what they need, their way, too.

Alfresco Test Day 10 - Freezing and Unfreezing Records

2011-02-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

The term "freezing" records is used by the US Department of Defence (DOD) to refer to the practice of putting routine disposals on hold for specific reasons. The holds most of us are familiar with is if an organization is involved in litigation or discovery. The court will order that certain records and files be maintained so that they may be accessible during discovery.

E-discovery is becoming a huge side-business in the RIM world, as it can become complex and expensive. From the point of view of the litigant, e-records can be a fruiftul source of candid and embarrassing revelations of corporate intent. Very often the costs of e-discovery outstrips the cost of settling, because e-records today are often unmanaged, unorganized, un-indexed. A business can reduce potential e-discovery costs by managing their e-records as stringently as they have historically managed their paper records. Records (electronic or not) should be routinely destroyed according to the approved schedule.

Anyways, back to freezing and unfreezing. A business manager should be able to put a freeze on a document or record that could potentially be part of a known lawsuit. In addition, Freedom of Information Request in the public sector impose a "freeze" on records requested by the public. The test today is to see if a freeze can be placed, and if so, will it prevent the disposal of the record?

To conduct this test, I created two new categories with corresponding folders, and put several files under each folder. I declared all documents as records, then froze one document in each folder.

Alfresco prompted me to state a reason for the freeze.

The result is that I could not cut-off or destroy the folder while a freeze was in place. Alfresco simply removed the icons from my use. I was given the option, when a folder contained a frozen document, to freeze the entire folder. Alfresco allows the user to freeze a record, folder, or entire category.

The freeze icon was replaced by an unfreeze icon.

When I unfroze the records, icons reappared allowing me to cut-off and destroy the record.

I rate this test an enthusiastic PASS

Records Manager

Freezing and unfreezing will be effecive only as much as the user base is aware of its' use.
Rather than depending on business users to identify related records at time of disposal, freezes allow you the flexibility to apply when known. This should prevent inadvertent disposals.
I suggest you prepare a list of existing freezes and confirm with business users that the related documents are protected from disposal.

Business User

Besides your obligation to make the records available for a litigation or freedom of information request, remember to put the disposal on hold, or frozen.
Use your RIM professional for advice and support during e-discovery, and involve them early.

Developer
It would be great to have a drop-down field for "reason for freeze", to control language and allow reports separated out by freeze reason. For instance, a large litigation hold could affect ranges and records and if the reason is all described the same, it is simpler to lift the freeze when litigation is resolved.

Notes
Testing DOD 5015.2 Features C2.2.7.4.1, C2.2.7.4.3, relating to the GARP principle of Retention.

Alfresco Test Day 9 - Schedule implementation up to disposal

2011-02-18T08:53:00.000-08:00

Today's test will be much like day 8 because yesterday I just couldn't help checking out how well Alfresco implements schedule instructions. I am limited by the cloud, due to it's 24 hour access limit, to test immediate disposal only.

We have a habit in the industry to create complex scheduling rules and I am eager to find out if Alfresco can handle them. There is a trend in the industry, by the way, to simplify scheduling rules so that systems can interpret our instructions.

I like the way Alfresco has interpreted the complex world of scheduling.

Cut-off is what starts every scheduling event. The concept of cut-off is part of the DOD standard.
The cut-off date is the signal for the system to begin counting down the retention of the record.
Automatic cut-off is date based; either monthly, qarterly, by year or fiscal year.
Event based cut-off requires manual intervention. Several events are built in to Alfresco and include all on the screen print below.

Multiple events can be added to a single file, and I can also set if all events must occur, or the earliest event to start cut-off.

After the cut-off is set, any number of intermediate steps can be added. For instance, transfer of paper records to a semi-active facility. Similarly in an electronic world, it could be possible to schedule archiving steps. ( I can't test how Alfresco handles content in multiple repositories).

I added a series/category/folder
I managed the permissions for all three to include my user ID.
I added scheduling steps, cut-off at the end of the year from publication date, then immediately destroy.

I then uploaded content, added the mandatory metadata for a few files, then declared the records, all with retroactive publication dates of December 14, 2010.
When I took care that I had viewing rights, the declared record did not disappear as before. Success!
I was expecting with a retroactive publication date for all contents the folder would update, showing it was ready for cut-off immediately. It did not.
I was able, however, to manually "Edit Disposition Date". This I did.
After editing the disposition date, I was able to cut-off the folder and then "destroy" it, as tested yesterday. Again, I was given two warning messages before destroy. The icon for the folder changed, and the content is gone.

I rate this test a PASS

Records Manager

Note that all subesquent steps are calculated from the cut-off date. If you are used to a schedule that says for instance, "Onsite for two years, then five years onsite, Destroy", the steps could be recorded as "1. Cutoff end of calendar year, 2. 2 years from cutoff, offsite, 3. 7 years from cutoff, destroy."
Alfresco appears able to handle complex scheduling requirements, multiple events, multiple steps.

Business User

As noted yesterday, if scheduling steps are working well, they should be fairly invisible to the regular user.
You would become aware of the scheduling rules if you request a file that has been destroyed. Your best assurance at that time would be to review the schedule and confirm that the record was destroyed on time, as authorized.
If you are ever asked for input on cut-off requirements, avoid event driven cut-off as much as possible, as they nearly all require manual intervention. Manual intervention equates to time-intensive management. Imagine receiving quarterly or annually a list of your folders, asking which can now be closed, or cut-off?

Developer
In an effort to simplify disposition actions, future schedule instructions may calculate retentkion from creation or "last modified" date. These may need to be added as cut-off conditions.

Notes
Testing DOD 5015.2 Features C2.2.2.7, C2.2.7.1.4, relating to GARP principle of Retention.

Alfresco Test Day 8 - Create and Edit Schedule

2011-02-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Completing disposition actions on electronic records is the final piece of the RIM puzzle. Regularly disposing of business records that have completed their useful and regulatory life accomplishes several things:

It reduces clutter in the system by removing obsolete material, making current records easier to find.
It extends the life of your assets (software and hardware) by managing the growth of the system.
It reduces risk to the organization by trimming the volume of records that may be available for discovery as a result of a lawsuit. Costs for e-discovery can be prohibitive, and costs increase, the more unmanaged information you have.

To test the create and edit feature:

I edited an existing category, changing disposal to "immediate".
I added a folder, added content, then changed the status of the folder to "cut-off".

I "destroyed" the folder. At this point, it still showed up as a nub on the Alfresco site, but the content was gone.
Note that you will be given two confirmation notices before Alfresco will destroy.

I then deleted the folder. After deletion, the folder no longer shows up on Alfresco, but the history of the deletion is maintained on the Audit log.

When created my own series and categories with associated schedule information, the documents I added to them disappeared after I declared them records. I will trouble shoot this tomorrow. (Edited to add - I solved the problem of the disapparing records. If I did not manage permissions to include myself, declared records disappeared from view. They were there, I just didn't have permission to see them)

The steps for adding and modifying schedule steps are laid out in the Alfresco Wiki, "Setting up a Disposition Schedule".

I rate this test as a PASS

Records Manager

Folders must be cut-off before disposition action can occur. Usually retention starts from the cut-off date.
As a consequence, the schedule instructions for any category will have a minimum of two steps.
Alfresco guides you through this process by forcing the first step to be either "retain" or "cut-off"

I noted that a step cannot be deleted once created.

Business User

Most of the disposition activity will work in the background so you don't need to be actively involved in the process...unless you want to.
If a schedule has not been developed for your area, a RIM professional may ask for your input on how long you need your records for business purposes (be reasonable; pick something shorter than forever, and longer than "now").
Note that your preferred retention may be overriden by legislative requirements.
If your unit is affected by impending litigation, any disposition activity is suspended, or "frozen". There is a "freeze" feature in Alfresco that I will test on day ten.

Developer

I need the ability to delete a step in the scheduling process after it has been saved.
When created my own series and categories, the documents I added to them disappeared after I declared them records. I will trouble shoot this tomorrow.

Alfresco Test Day 7 - Authorizations - only authorized individuals can view portions, edit file plan and schedule

2011-02-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

Today I test the authorization features of Alfresco, where users are given access based on their role. There's an instructional video in the Wiki under "Alfresco Records Management Administration Console", which I recommend to anyone with the Administrator role. In addition, "Try - Create Record Categories, Set Security and Configure Disposition Schedules" shows how to grant access to a category.

Individual series, categories, and folders can be configured to limit access. This allows business users to post their record content with the assurance that only those authorised can access the record. Here are the roles out of the box:

As a "Compliance Trial User" in the Alfresco cloud, I do not have access to the "Management Console"

I set up a new series and added permissions.

I added a new category under the series and gave a different permission to the category. I wanted to test what a user would view if they were NOT added to the series, but were added to the Category. I gave this user "Read and File priveleges".
When I opened the folder, I found the user had been given the same access rights as the parent category. This is good; it will save a lot of administrative time.
As a test user, I am not able to check if the users given their various access rights indeed only see what they are supposed to.

I rate this test as a conditional PASS
With my access rights, I am not able to test all access controls. The "Manage Permissions" feature was where I expected it to be and it performed as expected. It appears also that the Permission choices I am given are dependent on the role that is identified with the user.

Records Manager

If you have more than a hundred potential users, I recommend that access groups be set up to reduce the labour required to administer permissions (i.e. Science Faculty Group, Administrative Support Group, Human Resources Group).
I say potential users, because even if you roll out Alfresco to a pilot group at first, organization wide implementation may quickly follow and you don't want to be caught flat-footed.

Business User

Establishing access rights (permissions) lets you control who sees what, and who contributes where.
Be prepared to list the initial categories/folders and the access rights required in your group and across the organization.
Controlling who has reading rights releases you to open files to viewing that can't be tampered with.
There are records that have corporate-wide value, so consider what folders you would grant read access across the business.
Setting the controls and access in a structured system like this can reduce duplication and copying while improving security. Instead of sending a copy of a document on an unsecured e-mail system, you can provide a link. (The link is shown under the "Share" properties of every record.) The receiver must have the appropriate permissions, ID and password to access the document.

Notes
I tested compliance to features

DOD 5015.2 C2.2.1.1 to C2.2.1.6, C2.2.2.1, C2.2.8.1, C2.2.8.5
MoReq 3.1.4. 3.1.25, 3.3.6 , 3.3.7, 3.3.15, 3.3.16, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3, 3.4.4, 3.4.6, 3.4.18, 3.4.19, 4.1.2 , 4.1.3 , 4.1.4 , 4.1., 4.1.10, 4.1.11, 4.1.12, 4.1.13, 4.1.14, 4.1.17, 4.1.18, 4.1.19, 4.1.20
and relates to the GARP principle of Integrity.

Alfresco Test Day 6 - Searching and Retrieving

2011-02-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today I tested Alfresco's search capabilities, including wildcard and boolean searches. These extended search capabilities are especiallly important for long or inconsistent record file names. Every file plan succeeds or fails on the strength of it's search ability. Trust of the system is dependent on the user knowing that when they transfer their record to our repository, they can find it again.

Wildcards allow you to replace a character or string with a replacement wildcard. For example, if I were looking for the "New York Giants Football Club", but was uncertain if the full title was given, I might try "N*Club" to catch "NY" and records with or without "Giants" or "Football".

Boolean web searches use AND, OR, and NOT. A memorable boolean search I attempted a few years ago was for a friend who wanted to open an online antique teacup store. After my first steamy hits on google, I narrowed the search to "buttercup NOT sex". What is it about buttercups and babes? I don't get it.

Anyways, back to testing. I created a few files and downloaded my thirty-nine test documents in to these three files. I then searched for the title, using the complete title and portions only.

After several days of effort, I discovered that I had failed to give myself access to the records I created! When I updated the permissions to the folder, my searches worked.

This is a search for any folders with the title, "Agreement:, and here is the result:

Using a wild card (*) for the title "Contract" worked as I expected, finding me more records.

I rate this test as a conditional PASS
I am still testing Alfresco's ability to conduct boolean searches.

Records Manager

The search feature appears robust, allowing us to narrow the search to any metadata element we've collected.

In addition, the search results can be customized to show us the elements we want to see, and in the order we want to see them.

Successful searches can be saved and re-used. This allows us the flexibility to build reports as needed to perform RIM functions (such as folders due for review or disposal) without having to customize Alfresco, or start an IT ticket for a custom report.
Note that depending on the permissions set-up, different users will obtain different results based on their rights. A user without permission will not even receive notice that the record exists. This is good.

Business User

Insist on a product with great search features. Test it out for yourself.
Test your own system regularly and follow up for the cause for any failed searches.
The ability to find what you need is critical to the trust of any repository.

Developer

Add help screens to describe wildcard and boolean searches.

Notes
DOD 5015.2 Features C2.2.7.8.2 to C2.2.7.8.5, relating to the GARP principle 5, Availability.

Alfresco Test Day 5 - Destroying

2011-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

On this day of testing I am checking the destroy feature. Can I delete/destroy a record that does not allow reconstruction? This checks the integrity of the system.

To test delete and destroy, I created a new category with a disposal conditions of Immediate after Cut-off event. I added a few documents, then recorded the cut-off event.

The folder and it's contents did not immediately delete; not what I expected. I'll test more when I get to the scheduling stage. Below is a list of "events" for that folder, which includes the cut-off.

I then simply selected the "Delete" feature for the folder, and it immediately disappeared from the File Plan. All the "child" documents similarly disappeared. However, when I checked the audit log, the creation and deletion of the file was recorded. This is good. An ECM system should record all events, including deletions, as long as the contents are not maintained.

I rate this test as a PASS

Records Manager

Cut-off is the first step in conducting disposition actions in the DOD standard. See the definition of cut-off under notes, below.
When a parent folder is deleted, the child documents/records are deleted as well.
The folder is completely removed from the file plan, but the audit log remains. This is good.

Business User

Delete works, and destroyed is truly gone.
The history of creation and deletion is retained, however, and this is good.

Notes:

This is a test of DOD feature C2.2.7.6.3, Relating to GARP Section 2, Integrity.

Definition of Cut-Off: DL1.28. Cutoff. To cut off records in a file means to break, or end, the record at regular intervals to permit disposal or transfer in complete blocks and, for correspondence files, to permit the establishment of new files. Cutoffs are needed before disposition instructions can be applied because retention periods usually begin with the cutoff, not with the creation or receipt, of the records. In other words, the retention period normally does not start until the records have been cut off. Cutoffs involve ending input to old files and starting input to new ones at regular intervals (Reference (f)). Cutoff is sometimes abbreviated as COFF and is also called file cutoff or file break.

Alfresco Test Day 4 - Transferring - documentation of transfer activities

2011-02-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

Today I am testing the feature allowing documentation of transfer activities in an electronic format that can be saved as a record. This feature is important as it provides an automated audit trail of movements, and relates to the Generally Accepted Record Keeping Principles (GARP) of Complaince and Integrity.

If a record were ever transferred for inappropriate reasons (unathorized disposal of a valued or controversial record), this audit trail should identify who, where, and when it was transferred.

I created two folders under different categories, downloaded multiple documents to one folder, then used the "Copy to...", "Move to..." and "File to..." actions to move several documents to the other folder. I then viewed the audit log for the copied document.

Both times I tried to copy, my initial attempt failed, but worked on second try. I was unable to successfully Move a document. Below is the error message I received. There must be a bug in the system and I will be forwarding this problem to the Alfresco community page for a fix. I'll update this page if it gets worked out.

I rate this test as a conditoinal PASS
The "Move to..." action failed. However, the audit logs tracked all changes and was available to view and print, as required.

Records Manager

There are audit logs for Series, Category, Folder, and Document. Here is as sample audit log for a document.

The audit log at the category level, the first row describes the current metadata for the category. Below that, all moves, adds and changes, including added folders, and action to all folders, is recorded. This would be a useful report showing folder activity.
The audit log at the folder level, similarly the first row describes the current metadata for the file. Below that, all moves, adds and changes, including added documents (records) is recorded.
The audit log at the document (record) level shows all changes to the document.

Business User

"Copy to.." and "File to..." allow you to copy your document to a different folder. Every time I tried this, I had to do the action twice to get past the fail.
"Move to..." failed every time I tried it. I will report this bug to the developers.
Thankfully the audit log function is for your reassurance only. Your Records and Information Management professionals are responsible to monitor the logs for complaince.

Developer

The "Move to..." activity fails, that must be fixed.
I would like to see a new summary audit log of all activity (for a specified time period) including series, category, folder, and document. The columns might be: Time stamp,Unique Record Identifer, level (Series, Category, Folder, or Document), Type of change, and User. The Records Manager then could then scan the list for audit checks and reference the Unique Record Identifier for details.
I noted that a copied record did not track it's source as a "previous value". This reduces the value of the audit log as there is no way to track back copies to their original source.

Notes
Checking standard DOD 5015.2, Feature C2.2.7.5.5, C2.2.9.1.3, C2.2.9.1 and MoReq 3.4.15, 3.4.16, 3.4.29, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.4, 4.2.6, 4.2.8, 4.2.9, 4.2.10, 4.2.11. Relates to GARP Compliance, Integrity.

Alfresco Test Day 3 - Transfer Record Elements - Parse metadata elements from ingested data using GUI

2011-02-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

Today I chose to review the feature to "Parse metadata elements from ingested data using Graphical User Interface (GUI)." What this rather awkward sentence is trying to say, is that metadata should transfer along with the document. Alfresco should recognize metadata and put it where it belongs (parse). GUI simply means as users we have an easy to use entry screen. While I was at it, I also checked if additional metadata from e-mail messages transfers (date received, addressee, other addressee)". My special interest in these features is to confirm that source metadata transfers seamlessly, in the hope that we can reduce or eliminate the need for human intervention.

For this test, I manually updated the metadata of a word document and uploaded it to a folder. I also uploaded an HTML and MSG format e-mail to see if their additional metadata elements transferred.

The updated metadata element, author, did transfer; the metadata element for "Company" did not. The additional HTML and MSG metadata elements did not transfer either.

The metadata elements that do transfer are Name, Title, Author, Creation Date, Size and Mimetype. I notice in the Wiki instruction, "Records Management Administration Console", that the Administrator has the power to map metadata elements from E-mail to Alfresco, and also allows for "drag and drop" of e-mail in to Alfresco. Though I cannot test this, I suggest that it be an important feature to be reviewed at initial set up, with all mandatory metadata elements mapped.

I rate this test as a bare PASS
It looks like it is possible to map automated transfer of metadata elements, but it is unavailable to test in the cloud.

Records Manager

Warn your users that the current Alfresco requires some manual intervention to populate mandatory metadata elements.
Talk to IT about bulk populating the documents in your system; for instance, Originating Organization with your business name. This should be possible as the opportunity to bulk populate is listed in the DOD standard (C2.2.7.5.6).

Business User
You can view the metadata elements of your Word 2010 document at any time under File>Info. Microsoft calls the metadata elements "properties".

Developer
Build additional links between the metadata elements of documents and Alfresco; for instance,

Company to Originating Organization
Author to Author AND Originator
E-mail, Correspondence - Date Received, Addressee, and Other Addressee.

This should be done at setup, but I can't test in the cloud. The Wiki tutorial describes mapping elements from IMAP e-mail clients.

Notes
DOD 5015.2, C.2.2.4.7 and C5.1.6 for parsing metadata elements from ingested documents.

Alfresco Test Day 2 - Declare a Record

2011-02-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

This is day two of a ten day trial of Alfresco RM, the next step to a paperless office by allowing you to file records so that your electronic record is authentic and defensible. Today I am testing the "Declare a Record" feature, which includes uploading documents in to folders, updating mandatory metadata, and declaring (or publishing) the record.

The act of declaring the record flips the switch to authenticity. You are declaring, "On this day, this is what is said, by me." (Who, What, When).

I tested uploads in the following formats:

Graphic Interchange Format Image (GIF)
HyperText Markup Language document (e-mail) (HTML)
Joint Photographic Experts Group Image (JPEG)
Microsoft Excel (XLX)
Microsoft Power Point (PPT, PPTX)
Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)
Outlook Item (e-mail) (MSG)
Portable Document Format Document (PDF)
Portable Network Graphics Image (PNG)
Text Document (saved e-mail) (TXT)

The upload feature worked beautifully until I tried mixing Outlook and HTML formats with other types. The upload did not show as being completed, but the documents did load after a couple tries. (On subsequent days I had no problems uploading or mixing types). The Outlook format MSG did upload but is not readable within Alfresco. When I downloaded, however, the current version of Outlook opened the document for me. The MSG format fails the authenticity test, as the document must be readable for the lifetime of the record and cannot be dependent on outside software.

I then added mandatory metadata fields for selected records, and declared them. Note the updated documentation for a declared record.

Another test of authenticity is to check if a declared record can be subesquently changed or overwritten. Alfresco does allow me to download and modify a declared record. If I try to upload the modified document under the same name, however, Alfresco modifies the title (i.e. DeclaredRecord.doc and new DeclaredRecord-1.doc). When I tried to modify the title to overwrite the declared record, I was given an error message, below (red text mine). This is good.

I rate this test as a PASS

Records Manager
Work with your IT support to confirm that all users are identified on the system (full name and originating document) to support autofill of mandatory fields. Here are the mandatory fields. Originator, Originating Organization, Date, Publication Date, Name of Document, and Title of Document. Some of these fields are autofilled by Alfresco from the source document.

If your project includes any significant scanning, make sure your scanning process includes capture of the mandatory record characteristics: Originator, Originating Organization, Date, Publication Date, Name of Document, and Title of Document.

Posting of e-mail as records is cumbersome, turning a three-step process in to four steps (save as HTML to shared drive, upload, add metadata, declare).

I first saved an e-mail on to my drive in HTML format then uploaded it. The HTML appeared to fail but it uploaded anyways.
The Outlook format (msg) fails the authenticity test as it is software-dependent (Outlook)
The (txt) format fails the authenticity test as all formatting is lost.

I notice in the Wiki instruction, "Records Management Administration Console", that the Administrator has the power to map metadata elements from E-mail to Alfresco, and also allows for "drag and drop" of e-mail in to Alfresco. Though I cannot test this feature, I suggest that it be an important feature to be reviewed at initial set up, with all mandatory metadata elements mapped.

Because the RM product distinguishes declared records from drafts/copies, I recommend that you do not set up the Records Management module for drafts and working papers. Rather, use Alfresco Document Management (DM) or Collaboration (Share). If users require structure to manage your working documents, create a similar structure to your RM in DM or Share.

I estimate perhaps 5% of total unstructure documents maintained by a system (e-mail, shared drive) would need to be declared a records in RM. An exception to this would be transactional and case activities such as applications and client records, where nearly all documents created would end up as records.

If an organization adopted the tight ISO 15489 definition of a record (evidence of a business transaction);
Publishes Records and Information Management (RIM) policy including the role of every employee to identify and declare their records to the file plan;
Instructs every employee on their obligation to declare business records (evidence of work completed, decisions made, commitments);
Audits the RM system for compliance, following up where gaps are found;
THEN the organization can make a strong argument, if ever involved in e-discovery, that scrutiny be limited to the official record only (5% of total documents held). Draft, informal, reference, and incomplete information, with potentially inconsistent or embarrassing content, would be excluded from prying eyes.

This managed use of the RM system could be very good for the organization, making RM achievable again.

Business User
From within a file folder, uploading a document and declaring it as a record is a three step process:

Upload: Click "File" from your top bar. You are prompted; "Are you filing an electronic or paper record?" Select electronic.Click on the button "Files to Upload" and browse to the location to upload files. Select by double clicking, and when you have all your files selected, click OK.
Add Metadata: Your documents are now loaded in the folder, "Undeclared Record". You may have the option to "Declare as Record", but most likely you will need to add metadata first. Click on the "Add Metadata" option on the right of the document, add all mandatory fields (starred), and Save.
Declare Record: Click on the "Declare Record" option on the right of the document. You will notice that the yellow "Undeclared Record" warning is removed, and date filed, publication, and originators are all recorded.

The advantage of declaring a record:

You can distinguish the original, official, or "master" record from drafts.
You always know where your original is.
Declared records help you manage all your commitments, evidence of work promised and done.
If ever challenged through litigation, you could argue that discovery be limited to your official record repository, reducing risk and cost to your organization. (This could only be argued if you can produce evidence that declaring records is the stated and followed process for all records in your organization).

I am compelled to list these advantages because this three-step process is cumbersome. There are too many mandatory fields to be entered manually. This is not the fault of the developer; these are all mandatory entries as identified by the DOD and Dublin Core standards to confirm and maintain the authenticity of the record (see notes below). A solution would be to build intelligence in to the software to autofill these mandatory fields.

Because of this distinguishing of declared records and drafts/copies, I recommend that you do not file drafts and working papers from your unmanaged content (shared drives and e-mail) in the Records Management module. Rather, use Alfresco Document Management (DM) or Collaboration (Share). If you need structure to manage your working documents, create a similar structure to your RM in DM or Share.

Developer
The manual entering of mandatory metadata elements is cumbersome.

I see that Title autofills with the Name, with the option to ovveride. This is good.
Wherever possible, the system should autofill mandatory elements. Publication Date, for instance, could default to the current date (with the user having the option to override).
Can we tighten up the metadata page to one screen?
Put "Declare as Record" button at the bottom of the Metadata entry screen to eliminate a step.
Does the enterprise version allow for drag-and-drop? This would be especially useful for e-mail.

Notes
Can a declared record be modified or overwritten? DOD 5015.2, C2.2.3.7.
Dublin Core for Metadata, cross referenced to DOD 5015.2 and Alfresco field names as listed below.

DOD 5015.2	Dublin Core	Alfresco Field
C2.T3.5	contributor, creator, publisher	Originator (mandatory)
C2.T3.6	contributor	Originating Organization (mandatory)
C2.T3.4	date	Publication Date (mandatory)
C2.T3.2	subject, title	Name, Title (mandatory)
C2.T3.1	identifier	Unique Record Identifier (mandatory)
	rights
C2.T3.11	relation	Addressees
	coverage
C2.T3.3	date
C2.T3.10	date	Date Received
	description	Description
C2.T3.9	format [MIME]	Format
	language
C2.T3.13		Location
C2.T3.8	type	Mimetype, Media Type
C2.T3.14
C2.T3.12	relation	Other Addressees
	relation
	source
C2.T3.7		Supplemental Marking List

Alfresco Test Day 1 - Implement File Plans

2011-02-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

This is day one of a ten day trial of Alfresco RM, the next step to a paperless office by allowing you to file electronic records so that your electronic record is authentic and defensible. Today I am testing the "Implement File Plans" feature which should allow me to create a file plan, edit, sort and view. With each test I will declare a pass or fail, recommendations for the developers, RM community and business user, and lessons learned along the way.

In two clicks from the Alfresco cloud, I am at the Records Management Site.
Note the Wiki and File Plan options from the banner.
The Wiki contains some tutorials; a good start for new users.
I quickly built a couple series, categories, and folders. I uploaded documents in to a couple folders with little difficulty (I received one error message that an entry had failed, but when I tried again it succeeded).
I uploaded seventeen documents of various types (jpg. pdf, xls) all at once. It took a few minutes in the cloud, but it also tracked my progress by green bar.
I also edited category names by changing the metadata.

I rate this test as a PASS

Records Manager

New Series - show up in the left Navigation pane after refreshing the screen (F5).

Add first your Series, then Category then Folder.
If you are using a functional file plan for your organization, then Series would relate to Function, Category to Sub-Function, and Folder to Activity.
If you are using a block-numeric subject classification system, then Series would relate to Block, Category to Primary, and Folder to Secondary.
Records can then be imported in to the folders you have made. This is the first level where documents can be added.
Schedule information is added at the Category level.
The term "Expression" is referring to a scheduling function, the number of days/months/years after an event when the records reach final disposition action.
All mandatory fields are starred (*). Alfresco won't let you move on from an entry window until all mandatories are completed. (good).
The system will not allow a Category to be saved with a review period of "Not Set", and if "None" is selected, it will not allow the expression field to be completed. (good).

Business User

Before you can upload documents, the File Plan Series, Categories, and Folders must first be set up.
You may or may not be granted permission to edit these, so see someone with those permissions (Out of the box, this would likely be the Administrator, Records Manager, and Power User)?
Documents are added to folders.

Developer
Is there a way for a complete file manual to be imported? I suspect this may be available in the full version - not in the cloud - as there are greyed out buttons on the RM site. I expect an import document would need to be in a specific format (i.e. tab delimited) with a one-to-one relationship to all mandatory fields. It looks like there would need to be separate imports for Series, Category, and Folder.

Notes:

This test checked compliance to DOD 5015.2 requirements C.2.1.1.1 to C.2.2.1.6 and MoReq 3.1.4

Ten Days of Testing

2011-02-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

Starting tomorrow, I will undertake ten days of User Acceptance Testing of Alfresco RM 2.0, designed to manage an organization's electronic records. Products like these pave the way for a green, paperless office. I must know if it lives up to its claims before I actively promote it, and by dedicating these ten days I will build a list of recommendations and tips that will help business users implement with a minimum of fuss.

Implementation Enterprise Content Managment (ECM)/Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) can often exceed the cost of the product itself, as successful implementation depends on the business having a clear understanding of what it does and how work flows. There are frameworks to build, decisions on accessibility and security, and intelligent roll-out with plenty of hands-on training. You just can't take away a man's files without giving him a sensible replacement.

So let's reduce the fuss and make these products easy to implement.

I've picked ten critical features to test that are identified on both the DoD 5015.02-STD and MoReq standards. You can request a copy of my comparison matrix by popping me an e-mail.

Over ten days I will test the following features:

Implement File Plans
Declare and file - prevent subsequent changes (integrity of the record)
Transfer Record Elements - Parse metadata elements from ingested data using GUI
Transferring - documentation of transfer activities including system audits
Destroying - deleting in a manner that prevents reconstruction
Searching and Retrieving - including wild card and boolean searches
Authorizations - only authorized individuals can view portions, edit file plan and schedule
Schedule - create and edit schedule
Schedule - implementation up to disposal
Schedule - freezing and unfreezing records

With each test I will declare a pass or fail, recommendations for the developers, RM community and business user, and lessons learned along the way. RIM professionals must remember that the end result must be a support to the business, rather than a barrier. Let's not allow our native passion for order blind us to the gutsy reality of daily use. Even if imperfect, it must be easy to use.

The Recipe for Influence

2011-02-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

One of the great skills for the Records and Information Management (RIM) professional to build is influence. For the sake of this article, I am talking about inflluencing your boss or organization to take the leap for your next great idea or to recognize the importance of managing our information assets. Inflluence has value beyond the executive team. Because ours is often a quiet, overlooked discipline, everyone from the new hire in the file room to the Senior Records Officer has a role to play in promoting and inflluencing excellent RIM behavior.

There are so many ways to try and influence people, but with very different results. Nagging and whining, for instance, is learned from childhood, is well understood, and garners a predictable result. But if you want to be heard, it is time to learn new techniques. A format I have grown fond of is a recipe style, or pattern, that names the technique, places it in context, describes the problem, forces that could make or break the technique, solution, rationale, and resulting context (that is, postitive and negative consequences for applying the technique). You have the opportunity then to flip through the patterns and pick the best style to match your situation. I acquired a whole book of forty-eight patterns, Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas and if you want to learn more, I encourage you to check it out.

Before you blurt out your next great idea, analyse the situation considering these factors.

1. Know your audience. Who will you be presenting your idea to? What matters to them? Do they have a stated vision and mission that you can help them achieve? If so, show how your idea will help them meet their needs and goals. Also, pay attention to their listening style. Does your audience the reflective type that needs to see it in writing to take your idea seriously? Then put it in writing. If your idea is for the executive floor, also provide an executive summary. Respect their time. Or alternatively is yours a person of action, impatient with power point? If so, condense your message to a sound byte (an "elevator pitch").

2. Consider timing. This could be as simple as approaching your supervisor when they are at their peak energy. If your boss needs two cups of coffee to be civil, don't pitch first thing in the morning. For an organization-wide idea, know the rhythms and cycles of your company. When does their planning cycle start, when your boss will be looking for new ideas? When is fiscal year-end approaching? Often year-end funds become available for a short window of time. Be ready with an idea if an opportunity comes up. Slow cycles might be the best time to implement some new ideas, to minimize disruption.

3. Seeing is believing. You may have a complete visualization on how your idea will help the organization. The barrier often is communicating the idea effectively so that others can see what you do. If your idea is a new tool, bring one in to the office to generate interest. I once asked a vendor for a sample shredding bin to sit in my office for a few weeks. The office had never seen such a thing, so a lot of interest was generated by walk-by traffic. Curiosity led to questions led to new interest in an improved way of disposing of shredding. Try before-and-after pictures, diagrams, napkin conversations (ref. Paul Lauterbur, inventor of MRI), several different visualizations to help your audience to see what you see.

4. Moving past resistance. In every organization you have a spectrum of interest from your early adopters to active resisters (laggards). A great idea, adopted by the innovators in your office, may still not be adopted by the mainstream. A book that addresses this is Crossing the Chasm by Goeffrey A. Moore. As difficult as active resisters can be, they provide the voice to the majority of people who worry that change will bring new problems. Use them as a voice to the potential problems and address them. Make sure participants and their issues are heard (Covey's fifth habit, Seek to Understand). Present your ideas informally and at brown bag functions to curry out your innovators and resisters. Ask your innovators to pilot your idea, and then to promote to the majority of the organization. If your boss is the resister, make sure all concerns are heard and addressed.

In conclusion, you can improve on your influence by listening, being prepared, developing your idea in to various formats including written, sound byte, and visualizations, addressing concerns and tying your ideas to the vision of the organization. There are then dozens of recipes, or patterns to influence change that you can apply to success.

Bureaucracy Truisms

2011-02-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Janet's list of bureaucracy truisms.

Never blame conspiracy when incompetence will do.
A leader who has achieved perfect obedience will never see the group exceed her intelligence.
Those in charge are no smarter than you or I.
Competency is rendered powerless in an incompetent structure.
The primary goal of government is to avoid embarrassment. The primary goal of bureaucracy is to sustain itself.
In a culture of scarcity, hoarding will occur.
The gears of bureaucracy grind slowly.
Fear of embarrassment hinders change.
In an incompetent structure, embarrassment is inevitable.
Incompetent structures transcend governments

The public service here in Alberta is so lean, so hard working, so invisible to the average citizen. It has sustained significant cuts to it's work force and maintained services in the face of growing demand. Yet public perception is decades behind the reality. Government is seen as too big, too bulky, too slow, unresponsive. Why is this?

Obama suggests a few reasons in his book, "The Audacity of Hope". "I am convinced -- although I have no statisical evidence to back it up -- that antitax, antigovernment, antiunion sentiments grow anytime people find themselves standing in line at a government office with only one window open and three or four workers chatting among themselves in full view." (p. 73) and "Just as too many corporate managers, shielded from competition, had stopped delivering value, too many government bureaucracies had stopped asking whether their shareholders (the American taxpayer) and their consumers (the users of government services) were getting their money's worth." (p. 185)

I like also Jim Diers' perspective in his book, Neighbor Power. "Voters are reluctant to approve additional resources because they feel a sense of alienation from their government at all levels...This deep sense of alienation is often misdiagnosed as apathy...This analysis, I believe, blames the victim. Citizens don't vote because they have seen little evidence that their votes matter...I quickly realized that public officials felt as powerless to address these issues as did the citizens." (p. 18-27)

So here we have an endless catch-22 (or catch-44). Citizens won't spend more if they don't see value. Politicians won't approve more without public backing. The public service can't offer more as they are constrained in the bureacracy they are in. The bureacuracy can't change in a culture of scarcity.

I refuse to end here because I believe that improvement comes from positive action. The way out is for each stakeholder; citizen, politician, public worker and bureaucracy, to take inventory of what is in their power to do towards positive change. Then each must build trust towards the other toward our common goals.

Obama's administration has matured in it's first year, and has collected it's share of detractors. The complaint that bothers me most is those who criticize Obama for not doing enough to bring the nation out of financial crisis. Those who followed Obama's campaign and the hope he gave the nation should remember that he never claimed any superhuman power. A nation must save itself. The hope comes from everyone pulling together. "This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those ... who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless men and women, slaves and soldiers and sailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.

It is this process I wish to be a part of." (p. 427)

Getting the record in - and managed - through Getting Things Done (GTD)

2011-02-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

Getting Things Done (GTD), developed by David Allen, is a personal management system designed to clear your mind, focus on what is most important, and get things done. My big aha moment was Allen's approach to the masses of information we receive in a day. Much of it is FYI or for reading/reference later. It is important to separate this stuff from actionable items. And Allen has a great method of organizing and managing those actionable items.

What if you were to adopt GTD; what would be the impact on your records system? First of all, the great majority of incoming information won't hit the records system at all. All that great reading/reference will be organized in a personal management system and disposed of if not referenced regularly. This leaves the smaller volume of actionable items to be managed and controlled. All of a sudden, records become manageable again, in this ballooning information age.

Allen provides only sketchy suggestions on how to organize records. He does suggest a Dumpster Day to purge unneeded stuff (p. 102). As long as he is referring to the reference collections, my Records and Information (RIM) hackles aren't raised. What warms my cockles is his description of an organized office, which those of us in the industry will quickly recognize, "I especially noice this when I walk around organizations where in-baskets are either nonexistent, or overflowing and obviously long unprocessed. These cultures usually suffer from serious 'interruptitis' because they can't trust putting communications in to the system. Wher cultures do have solid systems, down through the level of paper, the clarity is palpable. It's hardly even a counscious concern, and everyone's attention is more focused" (p. 234).

The principles outlined in GTD highlight the criticality of personal management in the successful implementation of any records system. If a corporation structures iteslf well and promotes a culture of personal organization, their information systems will serve them well and serve them long.

Decline of Paper and the Records Manager

2011-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking how technological advances such as photography, the internal combustion engine, television, and portable electronic devices such as the iPad and MP3 forced radical change to affected sectors (artists, draft horses, radio and paper publishing).

The sectors mentioned above have faced massive change. They had to adjust their purpose in order to survive. Radio lives alongside it's more technologically advanced cousins, carving out a niche for itself. We still see draft horses...much reduced in population...in parades. An "artist" today is another beast entirely; giving over reality to the camera and redefining itself. We will see a radical change to the print industry in my lifetime, thanks to the new portable devices. But books will remain as an ornament, a novelty. Newspapers will shrink; expanded content will have to be referenced online.

So what does this mean for the profession of Records Management? Are the skills honed for paper transferrable to the information world? Are we true Information Managers, ready to tackle a virtual world of information? I worry that there is so much focus in my industry on security and protection; cautionary tales about the new technologies. We must not forget that our primary task is to help our business find what they need, when they need it. Can we blame business if they question our value when there is no apparent intervention of the Records Manager to access their information? Could we marginalize our own profession by presenting ourselves as a barrier rather than a support to daily business?

The skills I see as being replaced or made obsolete by the new technologies include packaging by file, indexing and classification, and sorting. Perhaps I will expand on these later.

The skills the information world will continue to demand include disposition (regular disposals to extend the life of our assets, remove clutter, and reduce risk). An emerging support is to assist users in effective self indexing and searching. We will be needed during the transition to the "paperless" office, to help businesses define their information assets.

The lesson from radical change is that we must be flexible as a profession, take note of emerging needs, and be prepared to redefine ourselves to the new world.

If you don't understand, blame the professor!

2010-10-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've always read more than my peers - both in volume and in content. I won't pass up a good book, whether it's the latest best seller or something a little deeper. As I became older and more confident, I took on some scholarly articles, and suddenly felt stupid. Some of that stuff took four or five readings to divine the meaning. Then I read some well-written articles and books on esoteric topics, and I had my aha! moment. It wasn't my competence in question; it was the talent of the author!
Here are some well-written books that cover the deep stuff without putting you to sleep:
Education of a Wandering Man
by Louis L'Amour - he manages to slide in a lifetime reading list.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleby Stephen Covey - it took me over a year to finish - not because it is a heavy book as some have claimed - but because the book demands life change. It's one of those books I wish I had read in my twenties. That and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. I know this book is important because I keep referring back to it when I have my Big Ideas.

One of Betty Friedan's autobiographies, Life So Far: A Memoir I keep going back to her book, too. She keenly observes the broad reach of societal change and targets the tickly spots. A true prophetess of our generation. This is only one of Betty's autobiographies, because like the energizer bunny, she keeps on going! I intend to re-read her section on health and excercise as I graduate through to my senior years. Also in this category are the first two books by Malcolm Gladwell.

Modern prophets are people who make a prediction - sometimes at odds with popular opinion - that also happen to come true. I sit up and take notice of these people. What is it that they see that we miss? The authors of the generational books, Strauss and Howe, are also frequently, broadly, right.

Children and Fairy Tale Monsters

2010-07-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

I was sorting through my favorite quotes tonight, and this one floated to the top:

"Fairy tales don't teach children that monsters exist. Children already know that monsters exist. Fairy tales teach children that monsters can be killed" - G K. Chesterton

I am reminded of the hours spent reading stories of the brothers Grimm , Hans Christian Anderson and Aesop . I remember well my budding political awakening as I realized that Aesop's moral tales could reverse themselves depending on circumstance. At twelve, I realized I was reading a court advisor! I'd think we had done our children a disfavor by sanitizing these old tales; with poisoned apples, imprisonments and beheaded trolls, but then I realized we now have video action games that do the same thing.

I think also of what I've seen in my years as a Sunday School teacher, as toddlers mature to school age. The little children are not quite sure about the shadows behind the puppet. Is it real or not? But by about four or five, the children are well in on the joke and readily approach mascots, puppets, santas, clowns, and other imaginary monsters we foist on our children for entertainment.

Don't be fooled, our children are sophisticated social beings. They know a tall tale when they hear one. The longevity of our tall tales through the ages suggests that our children need to hear them, if only to suggest, by proxy, that the scary adult world can be navigated with wit and spunk.

Canada Understanding Itself

2010-07-20T09:56:00.001-07:00

I read with dismay our government's plan to cancel the long census this coming year. I was one of the lucky participants of the long census four years ago. Now, Maxime Bernier, Conservative MP, calls it "invasive". Maybe so. But it is invasive and anonymous.

My deep concern is if the government is not interested in the shape and trends of it's own people, how can it govern intelligently? Good, solid, hard-core facts are needed to make solid decisions.

To get a handle on the trends on our society, there needs to be some consistency in the questions asked from year to year. I read with interest StatCanada's report on marriage. Divorce rates are down, a reversal of a long trend and largely held belief that divorces continue to rise. The report suggests that as couples wait later to marry, they have a better chance of success. That's an important bit of information, and policymakers should sit up and take notice. I don't want an inept government chasing fading issues. I want my government to be current, timely, and on the ball.

Another example of our silent nation is a dearth of information on our food supply. Erik Millstone's The Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why has a wealth of information from around the world including the UK and the United States. Canada, by comparison, is bare. Why? I checked the references and bibliography in Erik's book , and Canada either doesn't collect or won't release aggregate information on our food. Again, as a nation, are we deliberately blind?

There are reports that Canada is weathering this world-wide economic storm relatively intact. That's a cosy thought, and it will help me stay warm as I wrap myself in my flag this winter. But if I were a policymaker, I'd like to know why. Is there more than spunk and grit involved in our relative success? Knowing why we are doing so well can help our government know when they can step in to help, and when they should get out of the way.

Getting in to the zone on Whyte

2010-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back from two days of painting on Whyte Avenue, as a participant of the Art Walk. I painted, painted, and painted some more. Interested passers-by asked me about my technique. I handed out all my business cards. The last time I was there was thirteen years ago...would you believe it?

For two days I flowed in the zone, so eloquently described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (P.S.) . I immersed myself in the moment, the images, the brush, the behavior of the paint. The result is I have one commission completed, and another more than three quarters done. Oddly I was barely hungry while in the zone, though I did take breaks to eat and drink.

Two days later, I am still mellowed out from the experience. Boy, if I could design my workaday to live in the zone, that would be something. A life of hard, enjoyable work, reminds me of the hard working centenarians of Sardinia.

How long can it take...

2010-07-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

How long can it take to get your movie tickets?

I had the opportunity to test out the efficiency of the movie ticket line versus computer carousel last night, and the electronic lost. My daughter and her family entered the (longer) traditional line the same time I joined the (shorter) carousel line. She got her tickets before I did. How could this be? I estimate my line was at least ten times shorter than hers. Could it all be blamed on my compatriots' relative computer illiteracy? I think not. They were as motivated to get through the line as quickly as I was.

This is important stuff, because as businesses incorporate larger electronic solutions, their expectation of course is that efficiency will follow. When I ponder the GARP© principle of "Accessibility", which I rate as the most critical, I am convinced that turnaround times are critical to success. People are sensitive to waiting times, as we can see as a ten-to-one preference for the longer line at the cinema. If the electronic "solution" hinders, people will find their human work-arounds. The possible consequence is failure or abandonment of the e-solution.

What went wrong?

First of all, I think we underestimate the efficiency of the human interaction. We have eye-contact with the ticket-taker. I smile ingratiatingly. I lean in to the hole in the plexiglas, "Twoforsexinthecity". She hears ....sexxxx.... and sees me hold up two fingers. A few practiced pecks on her screen, and the tickets spit out. In seconds we are sending and receiving a hundred signals at once. Sound, expression all play a part. The ticket-taker infers and fills in the gaps in context.

The computer carousel by comparison is a passive receiver. I must learn it's patterns and behaviors and adapt to it. Will it first ask me for my SCENE card, or which movie do I want to see? How and when will I fill in the amount? And is it adaptable enough to accept my bank card? I think with tweaks the computer carousel will become faster - if the cinema is motivated to reduce the human element in ticket sales. And I think it is.

The lesson for business is to pay attention to their turnaround times. What is the turnaround for the average human-orchestrated transaction? Does the electronic solution compete? Does the computer ask the questions in natural order? Check speed in testing, and tweak, tweak until the e-solution can match for speed.

I notice the cinema now offers print-at-home tickets, which I am ashamed to say I haven't tried yet. How much you want to bet they print out in color? My cartridge is gold, and I squander it for no man ... even in the interest of research.

Chasing down the predator

2010-06-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

I followed a furious blast of robin-noise this morning, and caught sight of three robins chasing a sparrow hawk. The hawk silently darted on arrow-wings around the corner of the house and swiftly was out of sight, the robins following behind. Chicks are fledging now, and will soon be making their first forays out of the nest. These babies are vulnerable. The parents know it, and so do the predators. Hence, the angry, noisy parents.

Then I got to thinking; three robins? Robins nest in pairs, and are territorial. What bird was the third? Sure enough, I googled it, and I found out that robin parents will collaborate to chase a predator out of territory. Makes perfect sense to me.

I noted also that predators, though noisy at other times, (the sweet whistle of the sparrow hawk and the raucous calls of the magpie come to mind) are deadly silent when on the hunt.

The lessons for us in all this? Feel free to call on your neighbour to repel a common threat. Watch out when predators go quiet.

Diarizing changes perception

2010-06-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

When I was first diagnosed pre-diabetic, I indulged in three months of intensive tracking and diarizing; my blood sugars, my diet, and how I felt. This sort of furious activity temporarily impresses the professionals. I come in to my appointments with my reams of charts and graphs. So organized. So, dedicated. So... geeky. I don't keep it up forever, though. My inner hedonist wrestles free in time.

Those three months did me a valuable service, though. The connection between my eating and how I felt could no longer be ignored. I began to look at sweets and sugary drinks in a whole new way. They now blaze red flashing signals of misery. I easily pass them by.

My perception of portions and what full means were permanently changed as well. A good portion of meat shrunk to the size of a pack of cards. Vegetables swelled to half my plate. I no longer kept eating until I could hold no more. I became much more aware of my body and at interpreting it's signals.

My recent flurry of diarizing, to track medication and exercise and their effect on my blood sugars, yielded similar results. Again, I'd avoided the obvious. Regularly portioned exercise directly improves my ability to process sugar. My body aches were cries for more exercise, not a call to relax.

Which got me to thinking of the value of diarizing. Not all of us can do it all the time. But it pays to set aside a packet of days to pay attention. The exercise may just change your perceptions.

A great online tracker can be found at http://thecarrot.com. Registration for the basic service is free, and you can track through your iPhone. There are dozens of trackers to choose from, and you can select those you are following now.

The other side of Yahoo! - complexity simplified

2010-06-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I hope to have the opportunity to implement a few e-records structures this winter that should resolve whether a heirarchal, designed file structure is needed at all. I've heard both sides of the argument; records professionals arrayed against chaos, and IT gurus challenging why we bother at all.

What inspired me to write twice in one day is a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes on page 141 of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity:

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity - Oliver Wendell Holmes

I believe it may be possible to implement highly simplified structures for an organization, made up of no more than a dozen major categories, and a few places for non-record creations like drafts, reference materials, and templates.

In order to implement simple, however, the organization has to be committed to following clearly outlined business rules, such as regularly filing and keyword indexing business commitments. Everyone must understand what their obligations are in order for all this to work.

Why so much emphasis on the basics? Because with a tightly defined definition of a record, large volumes of incoming information can be cut out of the flow, being redirected to non-record buckets like Reading/Research. I figure with a good definition only about 5% of incoming information needs to be filed. With a reduced volume to organize and structure, records managers and business users have some hope of managing their business through an e-records system.

Building a New Habit

2010-06-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

I am so excited that I am successfully incorporating a new habit - regular exercise - in to my routines. A measurable, positive effect of this change is that I have managed to reduce my A1C from 7.0 to 6.6! My doctor says that most often patients are unsuccessful at incorporating lifestyle change, and that the family doctor usually adjusts by modifying medication. I credit the group instructors of Force and Zumba at World Health, Darcy at the Primary Care Network, and the lay instructors for "Live Better Every Day", Bill and Lorraine, for enthusiastically supporting me towards my goal.

I've targeted regular exercise as my chief bugbear since hitting the third habit in Stephen Covey’s book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ”. This third habit is “Put First Things First”, managing yourself. The idea is that before you can be effective and influential in your job - out there - in the world - you need to conquer your internal, personal world. Covey asks the reader,

What one thing could you do (you aren’t doing now) that if you did on a regular
basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?

Covey’s book, originally launched in 1989, was hugely influential and often quoted. I’ve heard anecdotally that fewer people have actually read it from cover to cover. When I read the book in 2008 I found it to be hugely helpful, but I put the book down for a few months when I hit the third habit, putting first things first. The book demands action, and I wasn’t ready to make the change.

That question for habit three put me on hold. I believe it is Covey's call to change personal habits that makes the book difficult; not that the principles themselves are hard to understand.

Once I began the journey to conquer my personal new habit of fitness and exercise, I was able to finish the rest of the book in a few weeks.

Starting new habits and breaking old bad ones is tough. Our bodies quickly get comfortable with routines, and resist change. But regularly raising the bar and incorporating new habits builds strength and invigorates the mind. Have you seen those spry eighty-seven year olds? Wonder how they do it? They’ve incorporated this important lesson of continuous self-improvement.

These days, when the "powers that be" recognize a social problem, their first plan of attack is to educate the public. But personally, I don’t need more education. I know what is good for me. The problem has always been a matter of application, the incorporation of new habits.

My recent discovery is in the application of some tried and true practices to help me build new habits. I attended a once-a-week, six weeks course called “Living Better Every Day ” sponsored by Alberta Health Services, and developed by Stanford’s Chronic Disease Self-Management Program . The tools I practiced in the past six weeks have effectively helped me build new habits in to my daily routine. Here are ten steps gleaned from my learning and living in the past few years and months:

Are you ready to change?
Develop a SMART action plan for the next week.
Write your action plan down.
Keep a log or diary of your progress. I use the carrot.
Recruit accountability partners (family or friends).
Review and reflect on your progress weekly, and make adjustments as needed.
It takes about twenty-one days to turn your new activity in to a new habit.
Continually review your action plan and targets to keep away boredom, and within a few months you have established a new routine.
Remember that relapses happen to nearly everyone. Anticipate possible causes for a relapse (i.e. interruptions to routine like holidays) and adjust your plan. After a relapse, create a new action plan without guilt.
Trust the process. To keep from being overwhelmed, focus on the next action rather than the ultimate goal.

That's it. The work is in the doing, not in the reading. Steps one and two, I would say, are the most critical to success. Be ready and set small, achievable goals and you are well on your way. Occassional intensive diarizing has helped me connect behavior with consequences; first with food, and now with activity. I can no longer brush off that achey, lazy feeling as being "tired". My body, rather, is begging for movement.

Whatever stage you are at in your change journey, I wish you all success and great supporters along the way.

Pulling Together Through the Tough Times - Apple vs Microsoft

2010-06-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Having recently purchased my first Apple toy and then lost it, I've felt the effects first-hand of the uneasy marriage between Apple, Microsoft, and Google. The failure of these giants to speak to each other in the clinical language of machine code has caused me more agony than a new business owner should have to bear.

I also learned first-hand that my inability to manage without a mobile electronic calendar and contact list verges on obsession. On the other hand, should a business owner tolerate the breakdown in service and communication that have consumed my last few days?

First of all, I love my Apple iPhone. Installation of apps of all sorts and description, is screamingly easy. My favorite personal management tools for my iPhone include:

thecarrot - for diarizing my health and fitness,

rememberthemilk - for all my to-do and action items, and

calengoo - out of sheer desperation. More about that later.

All of this worked wonderfully until the iTunes store on my Microsoft PC stopped operating. Something about the security settings. Which I failed to find after days of searching. Which was OK because I could continue to download directly from my iPhone. I was starting to suspect that the sync with Microsoft Outlook was imperfect, as the in-box on my 'phone and PC did not match, and my 'phone calendar entries were not picked up by Outlook. Then I lost my beloved iPhone.

I asked Apple if with the built-in GPS if they could locate the phone for me. The service call cost me $25 only to find out that they cannot...unless I had first installed MobileMe. A little hard to install after the fact. After I dried my tears, I got myself another iPhone and tried to bull my way through the failure of iTunes Store on my PC. Failing that, I installed iTunes on my laptop. Which meant switching my e-mail to the laptop, too. Which is where the calendar and contacts list failed to upload, Outlook to Outlook 2010. I found an online user group where I commisserated with a dozen others. It was small comfort that I was not alone in my frustration.

To keep this story short, my calendar and contacts now reside on google apps. I found an app for my iPhone which synchronizes with google, calengoo.

Can you feel my frustration as a small-time customer, squeezed between giants who just don't get along...perfectly? Now, I am not one of those people who believes that big equals bad. I staked my career with a big organization, faults and all. There are good, hard working people in large organizations. With size also comes standards and influence, and the glory of mass production. If a large corporation fails to capture it all, however, it ends up with at least one rival. I call it the Coke and Pepsi effect. Both are big enough to resist absorbtion by the other. Competition can harden in a no-holds-barred, give-or-take-all hostility that sucks energies away from cooperation and improvement. Customers respond by taking sides, praising in the advantages of their choice over the other guys. We have ourselves a granfalloon.

I suggest that this failure to cooperate is damaging to everybody in a hard economy. Whatever is happening behind the scenes for these big organizations, it is high time they get over it and get along. I am reminded of the history of the small town of Blairmore in the Crowsnest Pass, which once was considered a prime crossing point for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A dispute arose over the ownership of a prime bit of real estate in Blairmore. By the time the dispute was resolved in the courts, an alternate route through the Rockies had been chosen. Little Blairmore is permanently bypassed by the commerce highway.

Fast, Cheap, and Beautiful But Never All Three

2010-06-06T06:13:00.001-07:00

So wrote a designer on planning a kitchen. You can build it fast and cheap, but it won't be everything you dreamed. You can build it fast and beautiful, but it won't be cheap. Or, you can build in everything you ever wanted and at a fair price, but it will be a long, slow process. I love this description because it warns the buyer that there will be compromises, but they still have the power to decide which way they want to go. (Here's a book on kitchen renovations that looks like it provides decent value for the money, Kitchen Redos, Revamps, Remodels, And Replacements: Without Murder, Madness, Suicide, Or Divorce )

Another favorite slogan of mine, from Shel Busey, home repair guru, is "Good, Better, Best". When offering solutions to a caller on his Saturday morning show, he gives them the good, better and best options, and what they get for their money. Again, the power is left in the consumer's hands, and they get a sense of what they are getting for their money.

I wonder as records and information management professionals, if we fail to engage our customer when we demand that the offered solution (such as an ECM implementation) have a perfect score. It may be that the consumer can settle for a less than perfect solution, if it meets their needs and budget. Which leads to the question, can we provide a heirarchy to the principles that an offered solution must meet up to?

I think we can, and while reviewing the eight principles of Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (GARP), I propose the following order of criticality - Availability, Integrity, Protection, Retention, Disposition, Accountability, Compliance and Transparency.

Why did I pick availability as the most critical principle? At the end of the day, if you can't find what you need, you might as well pack it in. This is the reason businesses buy in to our solutions. But even within this principle, we need to engage our customer to find out what level of availability is critical. Can they tolerate delays in locating some types of information? How long can it be; seconds, minutes, hours? Very likely though, if some information falls in to the black hole of "never found again", the proposed solution fails.

About integrity of data, if we can't trust that what we put in stays the same, the system fails. I might point out that even in the paper world, we've never achieved perfect integrity. Check out files that have aged more than ten years. Check the quality of heat-sensitive paper like the receipts from the store, or ageing, brittle newspaper. We have coffee stains. We have bleeding markers. We have illegible handwriting, bad copies, ripped pages. If we have always lived with some degree of failure, can't we tolerate at least the same level of risk in the electronic world? Of course with data, errors loom large. A slip of a key and thousands of records can be lost.

All systems need some protection against unauthorized access. When I relate to levels of protection, I think of the various online registration processes out there. The general process is to provide your e-mail address, some personal information, and a password. Some verifying information is asked for, such as your mother's maiden name. An e-mail is sent to the provided address, confirming the person and place. When you respond by the link provided, you are registered. It is the registrant's responsibility to keep the password private. As hackers and 'bots have gained sophistication, new verifying elements have been added, such as those funny wiggly words.

I'm fairly comfortable in the e-world, and have registered and shopped all over the web. I've breezed through some registration processes, and wept bloody tears through the painful ones. If you would like to sample my pain, try out the Canada Revenue Agency registration process. You will be asked verifying personal information to a degree that reeks of paranoia. Can I even remember the name of my first love? Perhaps their degree of protection is justified. I wouldn't want my tax refund to go to someone else.

Applying Shel Busey's good-better-best principle, a consumer must evaluate their risk of exposure. If there is no money involved, and the personal information mundane (Harry registered for a fishing license), the level of protection does not need to be as secure.

I rated retention and disposition next, for the longevity of the system and protection of the organization in case of litigation. Contrary to the pack rat's base instincts, it is usually not in the organization's best interest to have random aged records hanging around. Once hit with litigation, all disposals are halted, and these bits and pieces of ancient history become potential evidence. Besides the high cost of managing, cataloguing, and referencing this old information, there may be bits of embarrassing comments buried in the muck. So there has to be a facility to retain records only as long as is needed for business purposes. As information professionals, we should be encouraging our businesses to develop simple retention schedules, easily applied. The simpler the schedule, the simpler the application developed to support it.

Accountability, compliance and transparency all have to do with the human element of managing a system. Here are the systems to make sure everyone knows what their responsibilities are and are doing what they are supposed to be doing. They are all critically important in supporting a high quality information management system. If these principles are critical, why did I rate them last? A consumer is not buying a product to be a watchdog on their own behavior. The assumption always is that everyone knows what they should be doing, and are honorable in fulfilling those duties. Checks and balances are there to catch the exceptions to the rule, the cheaters. Aside from audit logs, the checking of behavior is a matter of good written policy, consistently applied. Don't fault the system for a human failing. Businesses who are dealing with money, personal information, or attractive assets, must have more stringent checks and balances.

Beyond "The Customer is Always Right"

2010-05-31T06:12:00.001-07:00

Last week I had an errand day where I had the opportunity to check out six counter services and two phone desks. As I walked the blocks between two of them (I had gone to the wrong counter) I pondered again the customer experience. I did not mind being redirected so much, as if I had been given no option at all. Papers in hand, time and energy marshalled for my day, I did not want to hit a wall.

At the City Hall counter (the wrong counter), I was impressed again by the angular architecture, the zebra terazzo floors, the imposing ranks of stairs reaching two stories, all intended to impress and hush. The counter is tucked in behind and to the left. There was just one gentleman ahead of me, shifting gently from foot to foot. As I have become more aware of mobility, I realized he is likely nursing some pains as he waits. He was gently advised that they no longer accept utility payments at that location, and was told where he can go to pay. I imagine his disappointment as he decides his next action. I realized that barriers become critical as mobility becomes an issue.

At my turn, I too find out that I am at the wrong location. The counter clerk helpfully supplies me with a map and describes how to get there. As I make my way out of City Hall, I wonder if administration has reduced counter service there in order to preserve the atmosphere. There's nothing like a long line of sweaty, noisy, impatient petitioners to ruin the classic lines of a building.

So there I am, walking between the buildings, and I ponder again the core needs of the customer. Like I said before, I did not want to hit a wall. I wanted to get my errands done in the time and energy I had. I thought of unreasonable customers I'd seen, who wanted full refunds without a receipt, or other demands outside of what the counter staff could do. They also had come with plans, and were frustrated when they were not met. The counter staff used what skills they had to calm the customer while standing their ground. So is the "customer always right"? Not quite so. If a worker has no recourse to stand their ground in the face of unreasonableness, how can they maintain their dignity and self-respect?

The answer, I believe, is to build a better relationship between petitioner and receiver. Seek to build win-win opportunities (Covey's fourth habit). Foremost on the customer's mind, is if their request is going to be met. They don't want barriers. If there will be one, they at least need to know that they have been heard, and what options are left open to them (where do I go now?). In the face of disappointment, the petitioner may resort to aggression or emotion in order to push their way through (Dinosaur Brains). Bernstein helpfully provides tips to calm the dinosaur and bring the conversation back on a cognitive level. Those tips just happen to be the same as those Covey describes. Which makes me think we are dealing with some fundamentals in human interaction.

The person first needs to be heard, acknowledged. They need a new course of action. But then, once calm has been achieved and the petitioner's core needs are met, follow up on how they can better meet the needs of the service provider, such as bringing the necessary documents. If the encounter is too short, take the lessons learned to improve the next experience.

I believe if counter staff are trained and empowered to create winning opportunities, they can stay strong and confident while providing great service.

P.S. The service counters I visited that day included Alberta Health Services, City Hall, City Planning Department, Scotiabank, Future Shop, and the YMCA. I also spent some time on the phone with the ever energetic Shaw desk service and my Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Christophe Serdakowski graciously gave permission to show off his interior shot of City Hall.

Selling the Hole

2010-05-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

First Ethernet Cable

Starting my own consulting business had led me to view my services in a different light, as a marketer. On one of my business courses I was asked, “are you selling drill bits or the hole?”
After spending some time in deep thought about my profession, I believe businesses want to find what they need, quickly. If my profession fails them on this critical need, the rest is moot.

I admit to some reservations about the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (GARP) ©. I worry we are missing the boat (or the hole) by focusing on documentation. I continue to worry that we will not engage our customers enough in its design. If we only consult with ourselves, we will end up with a beautiful product, elegant, complete and only valued within our own community.

One of my strengths is a habit of “jumping the fence” and talking to people in other disciplines. I have my Information Technology (IT) buddies, my librarian friends, purchasers, facility managers, dentists, and entrepreneurs. They broaden my perspective on what information should be doing for them. I feel the pain of their unexpressed guilt if they are behind in their filing. Not that they can hide it. Just as a dentist reads the roadmap of inattention in a person’s mouth, I can gauge the state of a records program with a quick glance around the office and on the shared drives.

One of my IT buddies tells me that we (as Information Management professionals) need to de-mystify the process. Business managers do not have the time to absorb our terminology and methodologies. They need quick, one-page guides to get them to where they need to go. So I set about drafting some tip sheets. I quickly realized that it takes ten times as long to write something simply as it does to go the long way around. I also acknowledged that before there can be a simple process there needs to be some fundamental principles on how the whole system works. Like documenting who is responsible. Which led me back to GARP©

Now that I’ve come full circle, I figure the trick might be to treat GARP© as a necessary means to an end – secure management and fast finding of information for the business user. If the ultimate goal is kept in sight, this could be a valuable tool for the Information Manager and business.

I’ve included a picture of the world’s first Ethernet cable to show how demand forces simplicity. The first cable was engineered (over-engineered) to protect signals from all interference. However, the cable was nearly an inch thick! It could not be run for long distances, and it did not take corners very well. The new standard (Cat 5) compromises shielding to take care of these other factors. When building the fundamental principles that information management stands on, let’s be sure we engineer it for what is fundamentally needed and no more.

Launching Plato's Gnat Ltd.

2010-05-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

That's it; I've done it. I've created my own corporation, "Plato's Gnat Ltd." If I can say the name without blushing, I might just have myself a winner.

The focus of my Plato's Gnat Ltd. will be to help businesses develop lean information systems. I am an expert on the content and management of the information, rather than the technology that supports it. This is the chief difference between Information Management (IM) and Information Technology (IT). I love working alongside my IT buddies and the work they do to keep businesses running. They typically want to work with the tools of the business, rather than retooling the businesses themselves. This is where I step in.

Why Plato's Gnat Ltd? I had help with the name from Wordlab, a wonderful - and free - naming group. If you want to be entertained by words, check them out some time. You might see my friend sigi wandering about the place. The talents at Wordlab made a very convincing argument that my company's name should be unique to stand above the crowd.

So what does Plato's gnat stand for? There was an ancient greek philosopher who was nicknamed the "Gnat of Athens" for his persistent questioning of the heads of state.

"I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you."[Apology (Plato)]

I also believe that persistent - and kind - questioning can help businesses and organizations challenge their routines. Is there a better way to get the job done that empowers the worker, humanizes the experience, and offers a better result?

Not Knowing Where's the Next Paycheque

2010-05-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

It's been about two months since I left the public service, and I've barely taken the time to record what it has been like. It's been a very interesting time. As uncertainty has grown, so has my confidence. It took a while to figure out why.

What have I been up to? It turns out I am task driven, and that has followed me right in to my new life. I'm incorporating the principles of Getting Things Done (C) (GTD), and making myself a model office. My first job was to send out feelers to every employer and company I've wanted to work for. Then I took a week's break in Banff with hubby, not knowing if I would have any calls waiting for me when I got back. I became a member of ARMA, after I realized that my work relationships just won't "happen" any more. The local records folk have been unfailingly welcoming and supportive.

I signed up for classes I've always wanted to take. You are now looking at a certified instructor for NAIT. I've taken a series of workshops at BusinessLink. I'm following wherever my nose leads, and I am writing.

AND I've become more active in my community, on the boards for the Clareview Crime Council and Clareview Youth, and volunteering to instruct art to a gaggle of lively children through ArtStart. I am also more physically active, signing up for Live Better Every Day (Stanford) and the local health club.

As for job prospects, there have been very few. Mine is a specialty field with a defined industry. This can be both good and bad. My expertise can be afforded in large companies such as government, petroleum, educational, health, and financial institutions. I've concluded that I may have to sell myself as a consultant. The prospect of short-term projects, with no certainty where the next job comes from, is more and more attractive. It affords me the flexibility and variety I've craved. When presenting myself to prospects, their positive reactions confirms that I am an established expert in my field, with real solutions to offer.

I am reminded of the reflections of a farmer's wife, whose husband grew Timothy for the Japanese market. The quality of the grain and their consequent prosperity was utterly dependent on the weather. They needed rain to make it grow, and then they needed the rain to stop for the crop to mature. My friend the wife talked about faith, and how her prayers used to tumble from hope through despair depending on the depth of cloud in the sky (reminds me of the despair of lottery and bingo players). Then she had a revelation that faith is the confidence that all would work out, regardless of the weather. She found a new calm.

Leaving Alone

2010-04-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

I'm reflecting further on some techniques I learned from the course, "Becoming a Master Instructor". One particular module discusses conflict resolution, and how to deal with disruptive students. I've struggled like most of us have, both in the classroom and in the office, on when to confront and how hard or soft to come down on the receiver. I agonize beforehand and regret afterwards, sometimes for years. Could I have handled it better? I worry almost as much if I let the behavior slide. Am I a walkover, a chump, a patsy?

Some of the worry comes from wondering if I am doing more harm than good. Perhaps I would worry less if I reminded myself that confrontation can lead to great outcomes. The best outcome, of course, is improved behavior, restored relationship, or a smarter, kinder human being.

A new relief is the first action as described in a five step process in my course. The five steps, LEAST, are:

Leave things alone

End action indirectly

Attend more fully

Spell out directions

Track participant progress

My revelation is that it is often appropriate to leave alone mildly disruptive behavior the first time I see it. It may very well be that the person had a minor slip-up or has simply had a bad day. It is fine to give people the grace to recover on their own.

This first step also gives me permission to listen to my first instincts, without feeling like a pushover. I was reminded of my daughter's dog, Ariel, a sweet tempered Afghan. Ariel is now in her senior years. She's also a big dog and as an Afghan, alarmingly fast when she wants to be. It's a pleasure to walk this beautiful animal. I might as well be walking a cloud, she floats along so easily beside me.

On our walks we sometimes come across less disciplined dogs. Ariel and I don't always know, with these little wild dogs, if the outcome will be good or bad. They've sometimes run circles around us, snapping, yipping, and dodging. I've watched with interest Ariel's response. Her first action is to quietly run away. If that doesn't work, she swiftly moves in, much faster than the little dog expects, and gives a warning snap. The little dog leaves or submits. That's all this sweet, old, arthritic Afghan has had to do.

During her long doggy life, I think Ariel has figured out a thing or two. There's no use looking for a fight, especially when an old girl has enough aches and pains to worry about. But if that doesn't work, give the ignorant a swift lesson. But make it as fast and as painless as possible.

Soggy Potato Chips

2010-03-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I completed a facilitator training course called, "Becoming a Master Instructor (BMI 100). At one point in the course I'd moaned about those people who refuse to budge from a job they hate, making themselves and their bosses miserable. My instructor, Dan Jelinski from Wisdom Speaks, told me about the soggy potato chip theory. Give a child a choice between crisp potato chips and soggy, and he will take the crisp every time. Give him a choice between a soggy potato chip and none at all and he goes for the soggy. (I've found the source, How to Discipline, With Love: From Crib to College by Fitzhugh Dodson).

It's like a light bulb went off in my head; of course! This ties in also with my thoughts about selective observation, how some people miss obvious opportunities. If we aren't primed to find the good in situations, we'll miss our chance altogether.

I'm very lucky that way. My mother taught me to be a bird watcher, and I see more birds in the bush by the chirps and rustles and flashes of brown and red. My art teacher taught me to see the complex play of light, shadow and color that brings objects to life. My deaf friend taught me to catch flashed hand signals, the language of emotion that plays across the face. My dad taught me by patient sanding, to find the play of grain glowing across fine wood. The world is a much richer place if one is taught to see.

For a person who has allowed the job to grind them down, who are convinced that their leadership is at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile, they can't see the opportunities presented them. In that sort of compromised existence, a paycheque is better than nothing at all. I am reminded also of an old preacher who said to try and take a dirty old bone away from the dog and he might just bite you. Throw down a big, juicy steak and he will be happy to drop the bone. (Remembered from The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson). For those who are blinded to the opportunities around them, they first need to find new ways of seeing the world around them.

We spend far too much of our lives at work to put it all to waste. Make sure you love what you do.

I borrowed the picture from Granny's Old Fashioned Common Sense blog.

Taking Care

2010-03-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

Well, with the changes these past few weeks; unemployment, changes in benefits and services, and my son finally discharged from the hospital today, I've had an avalanche of intake experiences. I am living in uncertainty. I am not sure what the future holds, I don't know which applications will succeed, and who will get back to me. Most of the time I keep my sense of balance, but it is awfully easy to be pushed over the edge. This happens very quickly if a service representative is cool, or if I sense the crushing gears of bureaucracy grinding ever closer....

So far, no calls from potential employers. The pleasant strangers I have been talking to are all bureaucrats. It's a sad state of affairs, isn't it, when the bureacracy is a well-oiled and efficient machine, quick to snap me up? In the past couple weeks, I've talked to two insurance representatives, Blue Cross, Shaw, nurses and physiotherapists at the University of Alberta Hospital and the General, and Service Canada.

Most of the service representatives were sensitive that I was in some degree of anxiety, and behaved accordingly. Their tone was kind and they gave me their full attention for our short time together. A notable exception was one of a pair of counter clerks at Service Canada Northgate location here in Edmonton. I headed for the kind looking one. His bouncy, pimply-faced partner, however, still managed to distract. The other one bounced in and out of his chair, up and around the counter several times. During my sixty minute stay as I worked through the online form, he bounded down the row of terminals...checking...on our progress...I guess. I wondered how a hyperactive like him could have been so mismatched.

I received a mildly disturbing call from Service Canada within a day. They found a mismatch on my last name. Not surprising as I haven't accessed their services in over two decades. The operator would not say what the mismatch was - I understand why - they want to take care that no fraud is taking place. I explained my change in name and I was advised to get it updated, in person, at the local Service Alberta counter. Be sure to bring two pieces of ID, my birth and wedding certificates. So I get another opportunity to observe pimple boy. I wonder if I will get him to "help" me next time, just to see how he holds up.

The Shaw support technician could not have been nicer. I'd struggled to re-establish internet service for over an hour and the technician guided me through the steps in short order. What struck me most of all is he sounded genuinely happy to help me, that he was having a great day, and he was glad to help me have one, too.

What is the moral in all this? These service encounters are critical, both for the peace of mind of the people seeking help, and to the image of the organization. Do they care? Do they show that they care? The service representative must be empowered and motivated to provide the kindest, most helpful service possible.

The picture comes from a YouTube clip, "Bureaucracy" by dudayadna.

Best Women's Fashion Store

2010-03-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

Imagine a women's fashion store where every taste and every size is accommodated. Imagine racks and racks of clothing to choose from. Imagine the feeling as you slip on a great dress for the first time and it fits.

I was reminded of this shopper's paradise as I reconnected with an old friend last night. It really does exist, and it is centrally located in downtown....Stettler.

Lou’s Fashions Ltd. Stettler
4811 50th St
Stettler AB, T0C 2L0

Lou's does not have much of a web presence. It doesn't have to. It's the place to go for women's fashions for a good part of central Alberta. I credit Lou's success to location. Stettler is just far enough away from the major centres to be competitive. Combine that with a fine sense of it's market - providing a variety and range of sizes and styles to accommodate the entire community - and you have a hit.

Stettler is best known for it's railway tours in the summertime. If you happen to be in town, ladies, take a tip from me and check out Lou's.

Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions

Cork on the Ocean

2010-03-09T04:44:00.000-08:00

I resolve to blog a little more often, now that I am at home looking for work. Today I thought I would record one of my frequent illustrations on life. The cork on the ocean.

Too many people go through life as victims of the winds of circumstance. Like a cork on the ocean, they bob up and down, happy or sad, based on whatever life throws at them. Down in the trough of the wave, they are sad. Raised to the peak, they are happy. Then sad again. When asked how they got where they are, they can't tell you. Life is something that happened to them. These people could write fantastic autobiographies of all the things that have happened to them.

Compare the movement of the cork to a small boat. I sailed as a teenager, and I vividly remember how a light boat responds with the lowering of the keel. Instead of floating wherever the winds pushes it, the keel gives the boat force and direction. Combined with the sail and the rudder, the sailor now has control. If the wind pushes harder, the boat surges forward. If it pushes in the direction you want to go, you may tack in to the wind, back and forth, and slowly make headway. Combine your little boat with intent, and you may go wherever you want to go on the high seas. You respond to the winds and storms that come our way. People with intent and purpose treat life as an opportunity.

We all have storms. Circumstances change. The world economy rises and falls in big waves. The difference between success and victimhood may be as simple as the choices we make in how we respond. At the very least, paying attention to the winds and waves, and responding in kind, will push is in the way we want to go.

Take, care, however, not to blame all victims as corks. Even the best built boats can be overwhelmed.

I borrow the picture from Euphoria sailing.

Transit Nightmare

2010-03-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

This is a story of my late night attempt to use Edmonton Public Transit (ETS). I am a fan of public transit, comfortable with the system, but during the day as a rush hour commuter. This is a story of missed signals that is so painfully funny that if it happened on daytime television, we'd all be rolling on the floor laughing.

I must give some context for this story. Two weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon my son was hit by a car when riding his bike. His shoulder was seriously damaged and he underwent surgery that night at the University of Alberta hospital. I am happy to say he is now at a rehabilitation facility and well on his way of recovering use of his arm. I am now relieved enough to write lightly of my trials as a mom visiting her son.

I live in northeast Edmonton close to the Belvedere Light Rail Transit (LRT) station, and the University of Alberta hospital has a convenient station on the same line. When I got news of my son's injury, hubby and I rushed down to the hospital on the LRT. No use, we thought, of making the tangled journey by car, or worry about parking. The trip on transit was fast and efficient. When we got to the hospital, my son was already wheeled in to surgery, and was expected to be there for some time. I decided to stay, and I sent hubby home. He promised to pick me up from the Belvedere station when I was ready.

I was still dressed in my Sunday best, including girly-girl shoes not meant for much travel; but then I didn't have very far to walk, did I? I found the visitor's pod with a stiff couch and a television with no cable. I settled in and made calls to family on my blackberry until it ran out of juice.

I now had three strikes against me for a late night Canadian winter; light clothing, dead blackberry, and wobbly shoes.

The surgery took longer than expected, lasting seven hours. It was 1:30 in the morning when I came out of rumpled slumber and got a good first look at my son as they wheeled him back to his room. The orderlies gave me a moment to hold my son's hand. I looked him deep in the eyes and told him it would be all right. After they got him settled in his room, I bustled with the necessary things. I asked what he needed. His chief concern were his clothes, blood spattered. The hospital would burn them unless someone took them home. I offered to wash them and I told him I would see him the next day. He asked if hubby would be taking me home. I told a white lie. Yes, of course he is picking me up (from Belvedere station). We said our last endearments, and I picked up the two hospital bags of clothing. I called hubby at a phone booth and asked him to meet me at Belvedere, and I made my way to the hospital entrance closest to the transit.

Are you keeping track? I am now a sleepy bag lady, in light clothing, a dead blackberry, and wobbly shoes.

The first entrance I tried was locked for the night, so I made my way to the doors farther south. I crossed the now barren street and made my way to the empty station. I bought a ticket. And I waited. I read the poetry etched in the glass panels of the shelter. A cold wind blew through the cracks between the delightfully etched panes of glass. I huddled under the cattle heater. I shivered. And I waited.

It must have been about twenty minutes when I realized something must be wrong. I went to the free transit phone to ask about late night travel times. The reception was so bad, we couldn't hear each other. As I huddled closer to the mic, I noticed posted travel times over the phone. Uh, oh. LRT service ends after 1:30. I needed a new plan. I thanked the fuzzy lady for her inability to help, hung up, and headed back to the hospital.

Phone. Must find a pay phone. Call a cab.

I tried one set of doors back in to the hospital. Locked. So is the second set. There is no pay phone on the exterior of the hospital. The only open entrance, declares a sign, is on the other side of the huge building. And I am in my girly-girl shoes. I look back over at the transit station, at the only pay phone in shoe distance. I make my way back to the station.

I call directory assistance to get the number for a cab, and murmer the number under my breath so I don't forget. I put my last change in to the phone, and the machine eats my change. No call.

I am now desperate. I call 411 and ask for help. The phone has eaten my last quarters and I need to call a cab. The operator patiently explains their policy; no free calls. If I give her a number she can charge the call to, she will gladly reimburse me for my lost quarters. I tell her I can't charge it to my home number; there is no-one there to confirm the charges. Hubby is waiting at Belvedere station. I give the only other number I have memorized. I ask the operator to charge the call to my daughter. I make the call.

I hobble back across the street with my bags. In short order a cab is at the hospital entrance. I have a pleasant late night conversation with the cabbie and he takes me to my patient hubby waiting at the Belvedere station. Twenty dollars and twenty minutes later, I am back in my warm bed, rubbing my sore feet.

The next morning, my daughter checks in with me. What happened? Uh, oh. She had feared the worst from that late-night call, and worried all night if everything was OK. Well, sort of. I have a flash of role reversal. I get these flashes more and more these days.

To add insult to injury to my intimate relationship with the University of Albert LRT station that night, ETS was testing the system. I watched three trains pass through without stopping, my lonely shivering bag-lady self having no effect on the drivers.

This city is becoming more cosmopolitan by the day, no longer a rural outpost. Surely it is time to offer round the clock LRT service. Ridership may not pay at first, but surely to save a stranded passenger or two, it is worth it?

3, 2, 10...Takeoff!

2010-03-03T04:12:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, March 2, '10, was my last day of work with my employer after twenty-five years of service. The timing was impeccable, and the decision was mutual - the company must downsize, and I must follow my life's path. As I cleaned out my office, I came across a bundle of quotes on change.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave
behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter
another - Anatole France

There has been deep emotion threading through past week, as my friends and colleagues come to terms with the enormity of this change. This is twenty-five years of relationships! I know myself; the full impact of this decision has not hit home yet, because I am too busy readying myself for the road ahead. We'll have ourselves a good cry later.

This blog is in to it's third year, now, isn't it? Though the audience is not large, it has given me an opportunity to sharpen my vision and share my thoughts. In the past few months, I have been engaged with my community as never before. I see new opportunities for improvement, to make life better for the whole neighbourhood. I must see what is possible with what I am able to give.

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance -
Harrison Ford

I'll never forget the story of Harrison working as a carpenter when work as an actor did not pay. To have a strong sense of self, to know what I am good at and what I can do is a gift. I'll do my best to put it to good use.

Elevators from Hell

2010-02-28T06:35:00.000-08:00

Before I launch my light-hearted rant about elevator vagaries, I better give some context for this story. A week ago my son was hit by a car when riding his bike. His shoulder was seriously damaged and he underwent seven hours of surgery that night. He now has donated bone and a metal plate in his shoulder. I am happy to say that every day he is stronger and we expect him to be discharged for rehabilitation soon. He has been at the University of Alberta Hospital and the care and professionalism of the staff is top-notch. I have less kind words for the elevators.

There's a bank of four of them, the glass "north glass elevators" centrally located within the complex. Those that are in operation hum quietly with seeming efficiency, weights and cables bobbing up and down industriously, the overhead arrows pinging their arrival.

On the main level is a small crowd of visitors. It takes a few minutes for the newcomer (me) to realize that only one of the four elevators is working. The two to the east are "resting" with no explanation. The west elevator is stuck in the parkade with a blinking "P". The remaining elevator passes the main floor to take care of the mysterious parkade, then skips us altogether on it's return. Some of my fellow lobby waiters curse softly. Others exclaim loudly. There is irritation and impatience on all our faces. A small joke is murmured to break the tension. The hospital wants us to make healthy choices; where are the stairs?

A staffer pops by and presses both up and down button. She comments on passing that we will have a better chance of catching one that way.

When the elevator finally arrives, we pile in, arranging ourselves carefully, considering the impairment of some of our riders. The crowd follows a tacit courtesy, to make the ride more bearable. We're almost there.

Later on in the day, one of the northeaseast elevators is pressed in to service. It buzzes constantly through it's trip.

Urban dwellers must have a sixth sense how long it should take to wait for an elevator, for a building seven stories high. The wait at the "north bank" is interminable.

Not a good start for visiting family and friends already stressed and uncertain. I'll emphasize again that the staff are unfailingly helpful and polite. It's the elevators I hate.

For an organization as competent as the University of Alberta Hospital, the elevators are an anomaly. I bet they were an expensive purchase, highly touted. It would take a brave bureaucrat indeed to admit to their failure and to expend even more to make it right.

A little out of step

2010-02-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

Pop quiz, what do the following have in common:

The Outliers in Gladwell's book,

Michael J. Fox,

Farm Town,

Lefties,

Vietnamese boat people, and the

The Beta Isreal from Ethiopia?

(Picture from Omar Gallaga's blog, All Tech Considered.)

I'll start with Farm Town. As I became more involved in my little plot, building a pleasing design, I found that regular patterns and shapes are calming. One plot abuts directly on to the other in a reliable, predictable pattern. The eye and the mind is reassured and knows what to expect. There are a few exceptions. Too much regularity is boring, like entire farm made up of a single crop. If a regular pattern is broken up to a few focal points, using compostional rules about big, medium, and small and following diagonal paths that lead the eye, the entire design provides movement.

But no irregularities. Irregularities disturb.

People like their farms to be regular, predictable. They like their food to stay that way, too. I am reminded of an old pastor coming back from one of his trips - he did not travel well - who missed the McDonald's burgers back home. The Japanese Big Mac, he claimed, tasted "fishy". I'd heard a similar anecdote from the first Vietnamese boat people, who were first fed American chinese food. The refugees couldn't eat it. The food was alien to their experience, but just close enough to be disturbing. The American workers found it was better to serve regular dinners to the new refugees than to try and imitate what they did not fully understand. I read similar accounts of the fascinating African Jewish refugess of Ethiopia, Beta Isreal. The first meal they were served in their host country they found hopelessly bland. Used to the spicy food back home, they covered their meals with a thick coating of black pepper - to the astonishment of their hosts.

Which got me to thinking about my life, and how I've often felt a little out of step with my world. I am not so very different, but perhaps out of sync in small, indefinable ways that makes the observer work a little harder. The differences are small, indefinable. They are just possibly different enought to disturb. I vividly remember a moment in Junior High, in the busy hallway between classes, where I stepped left to pass instead of right. The school jock grumpily did the "pass dance" with me. How could I explain in that short exchange that I was only doing what was natural for me, and not for him? I vowed ever afterward to be patient with the awkward. I also take a second to think before I pass.

The other sense where I feel out of step is where I fit between the generations. I am technically a boomer, born in '60. But I was too young for Woodstock, so my early teen angst was definitely polyester "hippie wannabe". The next big generation were the Gen X'ers, which on many levels I relate to, but I am less cynical than marks their age. I am generation Jones. Haven't heard of generation Jones? That's not surprising. We struggle to be heard over the roar of the big generations, who dominate by population. I am an unfailing optimist, winding my way through an uncertainty, bobbing and weaving and surviving. Me and Michael J. Fox. But as Michael has demonstrated so well, spunk can be very appealing. Don't stop paddling or you might drown.

So how do I get heard when my attitude, reference, history is different than those around me? I provide reference points, illustrations that will be understood by my audience. I adjust. I weave right instead of left. I do what does not come naturally, in order that others can relate. As a result I have become comfortable with uncertaintanty, more than most.

Which brings me finally to "Outliers". This "is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience" (Gladwell). When it snows in Paris in August, the event is worth studying. In Gladwell's book, he studies outstandingly successful people. It turns out the common factors that bind are not what our society has subscribed to them (such as "rugged individualism", "grit", "determination"). What these successful people had in common was an oustandingly supportive community, great timing, and ten thousand hours of practice. That's what I remember. There may be more.

Which brings me back to those people who may be just a little out of step from their generation. Where they succeed, ask yourself how they did it. Learn a little from their perspective, their observations, and you may learn a little more about yourself.

Urban Chicken Farmer

2010-01-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

I had another great idea the other day; raise chickens! In this rapidly changing recessionary world, I cast my mind back to stories of the depression. Farmers fared better than urban dwellers. In a pinch they could eat from their land (if their dirt didn't turn to dust). Those of us in an urban setting have a harder time of it, that is for sure. This last year I planted a few more vegetables in my little yard. Obviously pigs are out. And then it struck me; chickens! Even if I haven't the heart to eat them, I can gather their eggs. When I googled my great idea, it turns out I'm not the first to think of it. Check out these popular pages:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/

http://urbanchickens.org/

http://urbanchickenunderground.blogspot.com/

http://www.urbanchickens.net/

Why has urban chicken farming taken off? Well, likely the very reasons I am considering it. Also, there's the local eating trend inspired by the desire to know more about what we eat, eating organic, to reduce stress on food animals in transit, reduce our carbon footprint, and as a reaction to the highly networked, industrialized, and interdependent society that we live in. You can't get better control on the food you eat than if you raise it yourself.

From the National Geographic blog: "The current recession and farm-to-table movement have taken the trend further still. 'Just get a few chickens and you can feed yourself,' says AbuTalib of the Bronx’s Taqwa Community Farm. 'He who controls your breadbasket controls your destiny.' "

This magazine tells us how to be an urban chicken farmer in five easy steps, or read Chicken Rearing 101 for the real poop.

I'm not so sure I'm ready to dig in to the chicken business, now that I find out I'm a rather late follower on a trendy trend. On the other hand, it looks like there are lots of blogs and "experts" around to help me, if I do decide to take it on.

Heroes in Haiti

2010-01-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

As the news rolls in on the devastation in Haiti, it is great to hear the stories of professionals rushing in to provide support. One of my favorite bloggers, Paul Levy, provides reports from doctors on the scene at http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/

Could the aid be faster, more coordinated? Paul Sullivan, contributor to the Metro, asks the same question. He challenges the legitimacy of the stars at the Golden Globes displaying ribbons when they are robed in luxury. I disagree on that point. Everyone does what they do best, and celebrities are good at encouraging fans to care and give. Many of the starlets donated their gowns, and other big donations were announced.

But back to the questions; could the aid be faster, more coordinated? I watched with horror the molasses-slow response in the New Orleans disaster, until, finally, the military were invited in. Armies go where they are called, and there is a clear line of command. There is focus in their actions, and they know the job is to get-er-done. They are prepared to handle chaos, broken communication, and broken infrasture. They have their own corps of engineers to build roads and bridges where their are none, and to do it quickly.

Paul Sullivan asks, "Haven't we learned anything about nature's capacity to kick the poor of the world in the teeth, and can't we get there with food, water and rescue faster? Why does it always seem that the governments of the world have been taken by surprise, and it's up to you and me to bail them out? Isn't it time to challenge the script?"

I agree. And in the developed world at least, there are domestic government departments dedicated to handling disaster. These are the disaster preparadeness folks, and they have gone to considerable effort to develop plans in case of disaster. The idea is that the assigned people can open their manual, follow the chain of command, and swiftly respond to any emergency that may emerge.

These departments emerged after World War II first as a response the threat of nuclear strike, and gradually expanded to handle all possible threats. These days there are plans for pandemics, plans for terrorist threats, floods, fire, and others. The H1N1 provided a test to these plans, and natural disasters such as the Quebec ice storm. Bureaucrats will do that. When their original purpose begins to fade, they create new reasons to keep their jobs.

When I considered the origins and makeup of these disaster preparadness groups, I worried that their very design has a fatal flaw. The leaders and committee members of these agencies by nature and career are not risk-takers. They are meeting mavens and manual makers. When disaster hits, response by their very nature is cautious, slow. What we need people who know how to get-er-done when the job is not orderly. Right now these are the people of the Red Cross and the army. Why? They routinely work in chaotic conditions. The job attracts a whole different kind of person. They are experienced and ready.

I've always thought that developed countries should have disaster response teams geared to help anywhere in the world they are needed. Then, if disaster should strike at home, these same experienced teams are ready to provide swift response. Right now we have the army and the red cross, doctors without borders, and others. When Haiti is restored to some sort of order, perhaps we should ask them what such a team should look like.

Janet's Proverbs

2010-01-18T06:37:00.001-08:00

I'm having one of my morning brainwaves, and I'm catching here some of my home-made proverbs. I'll explain in a later post.

In doing, don't delay.

Taking longer than I expect is not failure. Sometimes the journey is just as important.

Habits are easier to make than to break. Build great new habits.

Puppies, Kittens, Dolphins and Wolves

2010-01-18T05:23:00.000-08:00

Puppies, kittens, dolphins and wolves. Cutness is charming. Cuteness sells. Well, wolves aren't cute per se, but they do have a wild beauty that is mesmerizing. Wolves are in the same category as soaring eagles. Dolphins, too, for their apparent freedom, their charm, intelligence, and friendliness. It can't hurt that their mouths are frozen in a permanent grin. Puppies and kittens, well. They elicit that strong urge to mother and protect. Their large brown eyes gaze in to ours, trusting, secure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LX9LlPms98

From these obsessions, it would seem perhaps that our daily life has a deficit of opportunities to nurture, to be free in our individualism, to be strong yet caring too. City life, with it's crowded streets of humanity, paradoxically removes us from our brother. Since there is no way to develop a significant relationship with everyone we see in a day, we retreat within ourselves. There are our spouses, our children, perhaps some extended family. A little farther removed, there are our co-workers. Life is routine with few opportunities to break out in to caring. How often in a day or week to we gaze deeply in to the eyes of our neighbours? Do we have opportunities to genuinely connect?

I suggest that the puppies, kittens, dolphins and wolves provide a sham substitute for our yearnings. Besides that, I have the snob's prejudice against bad art. If one poor puppy's eye is off kilter, or a wolf's cheek is missing, the discordance is disturbing rather than warming.

Then we have the huge back-market of mass produced statuary - cutness sprayed on in a sweatshop in some nameless part of the third world.

Let's not even get started on puppy mills. Removed from their shady origins, the puppies and kittens frolic in a pet store enclosure, selling themselves. The puppy mills would close tomorrow if the market died. But too many of us respond viscerally to their charm, putting aside for a moment any qualms about origins.

Am I an insensitive boob, or so attuned that exploitation makes me shudder?

Making Do When You Don't Have Enough

2010-01-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

This is a baseball story that pleases me. It illustrates the challenge of putting together an organization when there are not many options available; with spunk we can make it through. Perhaps the joke will be lost in the explaining, but here it is.

It was 1933, and Casey Stengel was a rookie manager for the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were low on the list for Rule 5 draft picks that year, and Casey picked Ray Berres, a 170 pound light hitting catcher. When asked why he picked the lightweight Berres, Casey replied,

“You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls.”

Think about it. If no-one is there to catch the ball, you don't have much of a game.

When faced with tough choices, ask yourself what sort of business you are in. What is it that you absolutely must do, or shut your doors?

Casey's Dodgers only won four games that year, and the Dodgers failed to make the playoffs. Casey's career as a manager was a spotted one. He won some and he lost some. What he never lost was his sense of humor, and his ability to warm the crowd. He loved what he did and he made sure people loved playing his game. A plaque dedicated to him at the Yankee Stadium's monument park reads in part,

"..baseball for over 50 years; with spirit of eternal youth."

Rising Tide of Dementia

2010-01-05T04:13:00.000-08:00

The Canadian Alzheimer Society has released a report called "Rising Tide", estimating that there will be a new diagnosis of dementia once every two minutes by 2038. Right now a new diagnosis of dementia happens once every five minutes. The reasons for this prediction are the increased life expectancy of the population, and ageing baby boomers. The implications of this prediction is that there will be an ever increasing burden on the health care system and caregivers as our population ages.

My gut reaction to this news was, "Well, cure it then!" It's about time we knew more about our brains. We have new imaging techniques, stronger analysis tools, and a greater understanding of the finest structures in our bodies. Consider how computing power and technological advances dramatically reduced the time required to decode the human genome.

I am reminded also of Michael J. Fox's ambition to find a cure and better treatments for patients with Parkinson's disease. His ambitious goal was to set up a foundation intent on finding a cure. This foundation has enjoyed spectacular success. I'm reminded also of a recent article about the Brain Observatory where a donated brain has been dissected, slice by slice, to better understand it's operation "Building a Search Engine of the Brain, Slice by Slice".

Do I really want another reason to dread the future, where an overburdened caregiving system sees me as yet another lump to be carried through the system? Wouldn't our time and money be best spent looking for causes, prevention, and cures? I wish all success to the Alzheimer's society. I hope our society sees this wake-up call as an opportunity to change our future, rather than with passivity.

You Have a Lot to Say

2009-12-31T03:22:00.000-08:00

After education comes application. If you have been on the job for a couple years, you've learned some valuable lessons on how book knowledge applies to real life. Experience counts. I bet you can think of a few things you wished you could have told your younger self. All of us could save this next generation so much heartache and waste, if they only knew what we know now.

Which gets to the next big lesson in life, how to be heard. The bible's King Solomon spoke of the folly of wisdom at Ecclesiastes 9:14-16. In Solomon's story, the poor wise man was heeded but then forgotten. Or take this blog for example. I write, but I do not have an audience. Then again, I haven't deliberately gone out to find one.

How do I speak up? It depends on how critical my information is, isn't it? There is some pleasure in watching our children make the same (little) mistakes we did. My daughter credits my advice on driving, to look at each near miss as a lesson, as helping her become a more confident driver. She says she no longer focuses on the mistake but rather what she can learn from it. If we shared all we knew, all the time, we deprive this generation the power of life lessons learned.

When I speak up can be just as important. When an issue is shared around the boardroom table, it pays to wait until everyone has shared their part of the whole. If a conclusion or solution is offered too soon, it may be drowned in the torrent of fact sharing.

A late lesson in life I have found that it can be just as important who said it. Shockingly, not everyone has pegged me as an expert. It pays once in a while to quote an expert in the field in order to make a point.

I've blogged before about the significance of children's literature as a cultural indicator. I am guessing that my inspiration came from Dr. Sandra Williams. In my last blog about children's literature I talked about Munsch's book, "Jonathan Cleaned Up..." There's another little known book by Dr. Seuss, and his last, "You're Only Old Once!" , a satire of hospitals and the geriatric lifestyle.

I dread a future of ill health, where my time and place are not of my choosing, where patience is the final virtue as I wait in waiting rooms for intrusive tests. Reviewing her book, "Life So Far" the other day, reminded me that Betty Friedan used her considerable research and observational skills to tackle old age. Her most obvious point is to avoid ill health in the first place. Have a vital old age. Keep the mind and body limber.

Good advice.

I'll keep blogging.

In the meantime, I intend to buy a couple of children's books to help make my point.

The Iconography of Middle Age

2009-12-29T05:26:00.000-08:00

At every stage of her life, mom took her cues from society on what she should be. We were raised on Dr. Spock. She followed her neighbour in to a lifetime of bird watching. As we grew, however, she swiftly floundered, and aged. Though our world understands and defines what a grandma is to be, there are few examples to follow for middle age.

Which got me thinking to the icons we use as a society to guide us through the phases of our lives. Few are as extreme as my mother, but I think it is no accident that the "crisis" happens at mid-life. Consider the images we are given from the media. We have our babies; so many cute and bubbly babies. Then the "terrible twos". When we hit the elementary years, Disney has provided us the fat kid, the genius, the jock, the bully, the popular schemer, the pretty girl, or if the child is very lucky, the protagonist with angst. Heaven help the child who does not fit a stereotype. That child is slotted in to "weird".

These images, or icons, are a kind of visual short-hand which help us swiftly categorize people and fit them in to a world view. Icons are comforting because they follow a pattern, are predictable. Icons are easy on the eye and the mind. Think Currier and Ives, and Thomas Kinkade.

Teen movies, college movies, and chick flicks follow. Singleness is a temporarily wild condition quickly remedied by marriage.

What icons are left for the adults? There's the parent, funky uncle, exciting career in emergency services, lawyer, law enforcement, media relations executive, and suburbanite.

Then we have grandma and grandpa. Freedom at 55. Golf, travel, buy a hog, and play with the grandchildren. Why are the images always of fit, pink-cheeked and silver-haired seniors? Where are the streaks of grey?

This leaves a huge vaccum of images for middle management, middle age. Even for those of us with greater flexibility than my mother, that shortage of images can leave us floundering. There's Jane Fonda working out. And we have The Office, an image of quiet desperation. I don't know about you, but I know I am no Jane Fonda. And I hope I am not half the fool that Steve Carrell plays so well.

What am I left to guide my way? Mid-life can be an opportunity for reflection. Though the dreams of youth may fall short, I also have a wealth of experience to share. I can revisit early dreams and now that the obligations of parenthood are over, start a second career. There's many years of middle-age to come; there are many more years than there used to be thanks to the advances in medical care.

One great model for ageing well is Betty Friedan in her book, "Life so Far". This astute woman pointed her sharp finger at the "Feminine Mystique" and the hollow promise of suburbia. Now she tackles old age with the same vigor. From her book, page 346, "All my research was showing that in age as in youth the important things are work and love. Not surprisingly, the longest-lived people were in professions in which there was no forced retirement, among them symphony conductors, Supreme Court justices, artists, and rabbis. "

Well, I think Supreme Court Justice and symphony conductor is out. But I am still left with my own way and "weird". Funky grandma. I like that.

Parenting is not for Cowards

2009-12-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

So says Dobson in his book, "Parenting isn't for Cowards". I was reminded of this as hubby and I finished painting our bathroom last night. Wiping the sweat from his brow, hubby asked how long we would enjoy it. I told him we'd be noticing the flaws for years to come. Moaning, he asked why we bothered in the first place.

It came to me that the ability to look at flaws straight in the face is one of the rites of passage of parenting. I have raised two children. Hubby has not. Being a parent is a humbling experience. Even if you "everything right", each child grows in their own way. Then they hit puberty and they go through this delightful differentiation phase where they become their own people, separate and apart. You realize that all your hard work is only tiny part of who they have become. Even so, they bear the marks of every success and failure in their raising. Just like bumps in our painted wall, or the blob of excess caulking, the flaws show. Chances are, though, visitors won't notice.

I've seen parents take this reality with varying degrees of success. Some reject the flaws, refusing to accept the tarnished reflection they see in the face of their children. It takes a great deal of willpower to resist trying to always set it right. Once our children are adults, the rest of the road belongs to them. If we keep grabbing for the steering wheel, we will kill their confidence and possibly send them permanently off track.

If on the other hand, we can reconcile ourselves to an imperfect life, and even the beauty in nature's flaws, there can be peace. Our spruced up little bathroom is a testament to a hard days's work. If we remember that our bathrooms - and our children - are each beautiful in their own imperfect way, we can relax and enjoy them for what they are.

I've borrowed the picture from another blogger, Out-of-the-Way.

Bumping Places

2009-12-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

In his book, Neighbor Power, Jim Diers speaks of "bumping places", those spots in a community where people meet. We get a sense of our larger community by greeting familiar faces in these places. This reminds me of family identities and the importance of seasonal gatherings and traditions to solidify, in our family, who we are and gives us identity.

I've been on the prowl for Clareview's bumping places.

Londonderry Mall. We don't have our own, so we go there.
In the mall is the Library, which hosts programs for tots, childrens and teens, toastmasters, and english language learning.
Also in the mall is the Tae Kwon Do facility. A crowd of proud parents gather outside the large glass wall.
In the mall there's a gathering place with leather seating and television monitors. There's a police information station. There's young folks and old. Why aren't the children in school?
The "Town Centre", touted by a Clareview Outline Plan. This is where we have the Superstore, the big box stores, strip malls, and Wal-Mart. Where in this "Town Centre" can people gather? That plan is beginning to depress me. It speaks of large developers, and land cheap for building affordable housing. Our community has been planned for "basic" from the very beginning. Are we understood?
The Belvedere station. I see a gang of young black men hanging out by the washrooms and impressing each other with their toughness.
The Belevedere heated shelter, which has the bus driver's rest stop. No-one in the shelter looks at each other.
Our own strip mall has the Mac's store. There's a new book exchange store, "Never without a Book." Farther down is a popular dance studio, Dance Theme. This place is swarming with parents on Saturday morning.
The hockey parents, I imagine, gather around the Clareview arena and Homesteader community league outdoor rink.
There's usually several bargain hunters gathered around the second hand drop off in the Giant Tiger strip mall. This is a very busy strip.
All the Tim Horton's are busy. The now defunct Conversations cafe is closed for lack of business. Why? Does name recognition carry that much weight?
The Belmont town centre has vacancies. The McDonald's is undergoing renovations. I do know children from the local school swarm the facility at lunch hour. The dollar store is closed. It had dire warnings to the children on the consequences of shoplifting.
I'm told we have a community garden. I must go see it.
We host the one of the big indoor soccer fields for the city.

Reading what I've written and observed, it seems that the natural bumping places are Timmy's, Londonderry, and the Giant Tiger lot. Hockey parents rule. Bargain hunters rule. This is a young family community These locations weren't identified on the community plan. Do we build up the natural gathering places, seeking to understand their popularity, or do we build assets within the "Town Centre" that was planned for us?

P.S. How could I forget? Movies 12. I see young couples arm in arm strolling along the grassy curb through industrial Belvedere, groups of friends, families, and caregivers with their charges, all off to the movies. Bollywood is making an appearance, a nod to our growing Indian community.

Frou Frou Flounces and Suits

2009-12-02T04:45:00.000-08:00

In the spare corners of my mind, I've been tossing around how our generations will influence the future in fashion and design. I've learned a lot lately about the next big generation coming up, the Gen X and the Gen Y. Contrary to demographic prediction, the babies of the boomers are not a boomlet, but boom-bigger. Birth rates continue to rise. It turns out that boomers kept having children even as they've aged, and that Gen X started having families earlier.

So what is this newest generation? They are scheduled and watched over and cherished by helicopter parents. They run in packs. They dress alike. Think golf shirts, chinos and jeans.

Which got me to thinking about how this newest generation will influence fashion as they hit the work force.

There's another little nugget on how this generation will change us. The girls are continuing to secondary education in record numbers, and boys' attendance is dropping. It will be the girls running our corporations, not the boys. Where will our young men go? I predict they will go to the trades, where there will be flexibility and freedom. It will be the young fathers, I suspect, who will be picking up their children from school.

Another pondering in my crowded brain is the difference between frou frou flounces and suits. Why have men perfected an office uniform, while women continue to flit through the spectrum of color and design? I suspect it has to do with the gender biases regarding power and control. A man in a pack must establish his conformity and dominance early. This means a power suit, which exudes confidence, dominance, wealth, and intelligence. For a man in our current culture, these are attractive attributes. A woman in a severe suit, however, is mildly terrifying. I quote Marlo Thomas, "A man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless. All a woman has to do is put you on hold." So the woman's attire at the office is a little frillier, sillier, and impractical. The message here is that "I am harmless, creative, and sweet. You want to help me."

But this dynamic will change as women in packs start to take over the office. Power for a woman will be in her ability to work her team. As much as this makes me shudder, think Gossip Girl all grown up, strutting down the hallway with her posse.

So I predict that this next generation of women will dictate a new uniform for the office. It will be softer, it will be easy maintenance, but it will also be more alike. I'm thinking Chanel classics here. Not the latest stuff, but the suits of the fifties and sixties.

I cite two sources for my new-found knowledge, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation by Neil Howe, William Strauss, and R.J. Matson and a presentation by Bani Dheer, Futurist.

When Those We Admire Fall Short

2009-12-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

There are people who achieve greatness, like Tiger Woods, who inspire our admiration. This is natural, considering the work and discipline it took to get where they are. It is natural, also, to assume that they are not only able in their area of expertise, but also capable of integrity and character.

So it is a shock to us all when Tiger Woods gets caught up in something silly this past week, and is obviously lying about it.

But does it follow that greatness in one area means greatness in all? I think of what I've learned from other greats, and I wonder. Perhaps for some, after achieving strengths in one field, they are either incapable or don't bother to be good at everything. Consider the diaper toting astronaut, Lisa Nowak, who resorted to extremes to try and get her lover back. Her calculation and intensity of purpose reminds me, chillingly, of the intensity required to be successful in her chosen career.

Then there's Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch. I'd always admired the man before that. Heck, I just admired looking at him. But his ignorant spurtings around that time, like his comments about Brooke Shields did it for me. He is no longer attractive. Looking back at his body of work, I wondered if I confused attractiveness and luck with achievement. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to hire a fantastic publicist.

Anecdotes about other greats have surprised me. The public persona of Bill Cosby as the lovable Dr. Huxtable, and his obvious comic genius is undenied. Comics by profession understand human nature. Great comics understand us greatly. How could someone with that degree of understanding, fail to be great in all areas? Yet I hear on set he can be remote and dismissive of newcomers. I wonder sometimes if my premise is flawed. That even for comic greats like Mr. Cosby, his achievement in one area does not necessarily follow in all others.

Heck, I have been accused of not listening, not caring. I know it comes from my analytic nature, which I resort to in times of stress. Approach me when I am in that state, and I will tell you exactly what I think. Or I might fall silent in deep reflection. When I am in that state, you might as well be wallpaper. I am not being dismissive or mean; this is just part of who I am. When I come out of that state, I may be fully engaged again. For those who don't know me well, might they assume that I am faking my interest?

As a postscript, Albert Schweitzer is on my list of heroes of all time. I hear that starry-eyed visitors were given short shrift if they didn't follow his instructions. Tourists suffering heat stroke were a distraction. Again, I suspect the visitors wrongly assumed that this man's generosity flowed in all directions. His achievement, I am guessing, was rather a result of his intensity of purpose than depth of his warm and fuzzies.

Telling the Truth Through Children's Books

2009-11-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

I was at my sister's graduation from medical school over twenty years ago, and the keynote speaker was an expert in children's literature. My sister graduated just fine, by the way. As she says, "I didn't trip or anything." Besides finding out that my sister graduated near the top of her class (apparently a well-guarded secret), I was convinced that children's literature is often ahead of the adults in providing cultural indicators and trends for our society.

I wonder if that speaker was Dr. Sandra Williams.

I was thinking of that speaker and what she had to say when I wondered how to describe government's interaction with the public. Jim Diers warns us not to confuse public apathy with alienation. I do encounter those who believe the worst in our government, applying sinister motive or applying various conspiracy theories. Distrust in government is rampant. I counter that the situation is worse than they think. No-one is in charge, and those running the show are no smarter than you and me. The injustices and failures that people see are not sinister, but accidental.

I envision an entity built so large, it has forgotten it's purpose.

Which brings me to a children's story, "Jonathan Cleaned Up - Then He Heard a Sound" by Robert Munch. You can hear the story by following the link. In the story, City Hall makes a mistake and runs the final subway stop through Jonathan's living room. Jon marches down to city hall and runs in to various officials - and the computer - to try and solve the problem. He discovers the whole show is being run by a lone little man behind the computer. "Don't tell the Mayor the computer is broken. He spent ten million dollars for it." Jonathan solves his problem by applying a little blackberry jam.

There are so many truths in this little tale, I don't want to ruin it by explaining them all. I do think the story does hint at where the solution lies. We have to snoop around and acknowledge what we see as the truth. Something this big won't be fixed right away, but individual heroes can fix what they see. We have to find ways to make big government small - not by literal downsizing - that little man was mighty lonely and mighty hungry - but by bringing the services closer to the people.

Privacy laws bite bid for doggy justice

2009-11-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

A Calgary dog owner seeks damages after her border collie cross was attacked by another dog. Trapper was left with a gaping chest wound but has recovered after about $1,300 in vet bills. Shirley Poole, Trapper's owner, seeks compensation. Calgary bylaw officers will not release the name of the attacker's owner, citing the FOIP Act. Shirley's son, Phil Towler, sought legal advice but he was told that the costs of identifying the owner through the FOIP Act is prohibitive.

My best wishes to Trapper for his full recovery. For Shirley and her son, I do hope they find the attacker's owner is so that they can seek some compensation. It should not be so hard to find out who the other owner is. Outside of the FOIP Act, there's a long history in law that courts are to be open to the public, and that our rights to court information supersedes any right to privacy. The principle behind this is that justice cannot be perceived as being just and fair unless it is open to scrutiny. Shirley and her son are obviously interested members of the public, and are entitled to this information.

All they have to do is attend court on December 3 and look for names and courtrooms for the related charges.

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has given greater recognition to the constitutionally protected right to open courts than to the fundamental value of privacy. Discussion Paper, Judges Technology Advisory Committee on Open Courts, Electronic Access to Court Records, and Privacy, May 2003 (See 5)

See also FOIP Guidelines and Practices, Section 1.5, Records Excluded from the Act

Torture Resonates with Me

2009-11-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

I am responding to an editorial by Peter Worthington on November 26 in the Edmonton Sun that issues of torture would not resonate with the Canadian public. I would like to go on record that this issue does resonate with me, and I am deeply ashamed of our military and our government. Until the news of this latest cover-up came to light, I was in support of Canadian presence in the war in Afghanistan. I was convinced by an ethical giant in our country, Sen. Romeo Dallaire. His position for being there is that we were invited through United Nations. Dallaire’s lesson, which I am unsure we have fully accepted in this country, is that we must never step away from a moral fight. Oppression, if it is allowed to exist, degrades all of humanity; even if it is perpetuated in the farthest corners of our world.

Worthington in his editorial suggests that “…as long as our own guys don’t indulge in abuse, we don’t have much control over what Afghans do…” and “Nor should we put ourselves in a position where we dictate cultural behaviour.” Tolerance of abuse is not cultural. It is always wrong - even if we are not participants but passive observers. With that reasoning, the world allowed the Rwandese genocide to continue unabated, ignored.

Besides the murky moralilty of turning a blind eye to torture, I am also deeply concerned that this information was first covered up, then denied. I can guess at the motivation. Our leaders wish to maintain the Canadian mythos of an army that extends the olive branch and works with the locals to improve conditions to raise confidence in democratic intervention. With this shameful breach in ethics, however, the locals know the truth. The Canadian soldier has an olive branch in one hand and a blindfold in the other. How could the common people trust that anything can be any better in their country, if we have given away the moral high ground?

The only resolution is for our government to come clean, take it’s licks, and reform. I also wonder if the trust has been breached in Afghanistan to such a degree that we might consider withdrawing.

I borrow the picture from General Brock's blog.

Putting all your eggs in one basket

2009-11-21T04:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a phrase I'd love Fred Shapiro of Freakonomics to parse, "putting all your eggs in one basket". I've used it to describe my decision to put my calendar all in one place - first on my Palm, and later my Blackberry. Not that the phrase is the best choice when you think about it.

I imagine the smart farmer's daughter would not want to risk transport of her entire investment in one basket. Better to split up her product in to smaller bundles, in the hope that most would make it to market in one piece.

But when it comes to calendars, I love my big basket. On my e-calendar, I can put in re-occurring events like birthdays without fear of skipping a year. When work life and home life complexified ten years ago, and I was living off my Outlook calendar and my Day Timer, I was missing personal appointments during work hours, and skipping work assignments during home hours. I could no longer operate off two books. Kind of like my financially challenged friend who tried to take charge of her finances by purchasing not one, but two beautifully bound cheque registers. You can imagine what happened next.

(Picture of the Saskatchewan Palm Pilot, borrowed from Ollie's London Pub Choice, olpc.ca)

When I got my first Palm, it was the new thing on the block. People wanted to know why I bothered switching. I would use the phrase, "put all my eggs in one basket", to describe that glorious master calendar that watched over all the events of my life.

"What happens if you lose your Palm?"

"No problem," I replied, "because of sycing, all I need to do is buy a new Palm, and may calendar is downloaded again." We'll cast a blind eye for a moment to the heartbreaking loss of an attractive asset, and the lurking fear that my password would be breached.

So perhaps one basket is not the best way to describe the joy of the mobile electronic calendar, because in the electronic world, there never is just one copy. There's my PDA, of course, and the mainframe for backup. The mainframe in turn is backed up regularly. Backups upon backups protecting my eggs.

I see the attractiveness of one basket in other places. My IT buddies tell me the mainframe is coming back (one big basket). Personal PC's become dumb terminals, or thin clients, logging up to one big beast. From a maintenance point of view, the IT guy's job just got a lot easier. Put everything in to his big basket, and watch that basket.

It happens in the world of bulk purchasing, too. The idea is that the corporation offers an exclusive contract. It is expected that vendors will be motivated to offer the best price in exchange for the big score. My dad offered this cautionary tale from the seventies. His company (Bell Canada) accepted an exclusive bid from a hotel for all their conferences in Montreal. They received a very competitive rate. Dad says the outcome was horrible. Having snagged exclusivity, the hotel was no longer interested in providing quality service. After all, they had captive customers. Besides, the hotel wasn't making that much on each individual sale.

So are we better off putting consolidating all our valuables? In the e-world at least, the risk is low. There are copies upon copies of our basket squirreled away in those mysterious places that backups go. For things like eggs and hotel rooms, though big, exculsive contracts might just get us egg on our face.

The Psychology of Waiting in Lines

2009-11-20T05:58:00.000-08:00

A twitterer, Jess McMullen, twigged me on to a paper on this very topic. I am thrilled! The paper is by Don Norman, and I've also found a fine review by Bryan Hurran in his blog, "Social Graph Paper". Aside from the strong odor of mansweat from three male minds, the concepts are a sweet breath of - - - goodness - - - reality - - - looking - - - caring about the little things that make or break our day. It's more than just a line. It's where people gather and interact.

Invigorating Organizations

2009-11-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

What happens when two great ideas collide? We could get a new element or a nuclear explosion. The two great ideas that came together for me was when I was considering the problem of invigorating an organization that is disempowered and hobbled by age and size.

I'm speaking generally, of course, of a pattern of any organization of a certain size that is old enough and battle worn enough to have lost it's way. Individual employees simply do not believe that or understand how they contribute to the whole. Leaders are flummoxed by the scope of problems, and are tempted to throw bandaids at them. Flying bandaids don't exactly inspire the staff, but the staff also have no voice to say so.

The revelation when considering the problem is a combination of ideas from Jim Diers and Malcolm Gladwell when they consider community. What if we were to view an organization as a collection of communities with assets that can be harnessed for the greater good?

Why assets?

Asset based assessment is based on the idea of energizing a community to contribute what it can, rather than pouring resources in to it's weaknesses. The first step to reform is to find out where our great assets are in the community and engage them. People are involved, rather than passive participants. I compare this to the traditional organizational assessment where it's weaknesses are identified. Any one of us could go home depressed if our weaknesses are exposed and analysed. Not to say that such assessments have no value. We do have to take stock once in a while. But the trick is that resolution is not based on what we don't have, but on what we do.

Why community?

What does an organization have in common with a community, and why would we engage communities rather than, say, indivitual change champions or consultants? Organizations have a lot in common with communities. It is a collection of people with common (sometimes) interests, gathered at a place and time. Gladwell and Diers point out that communities can be nurturing places that allow people to be great. In his book "Outliers", Gladwell shows how apparently "self made men" and women were given a great boost by the environment they were raised in. Communities make a great contribution towards individual health and development. Revitalized communities attract.

We need consultants, too. Sometimes we need those kind outsiders to gently point out what we already know. But anyone who has worked on a project with a change champion or with a consultant will know; reporting or consulting on the problem, and coming up with a list of recommendations, is only the very start of the show. We still have an organization to engage. And they haven't been invited to the party yet. All they've seen so far is flying bandaids, and how do they know that this time it will be any different? How do we engage every person in the organization towards positive change?

What does community do better?

When I heard Jim Diers speak this week, he gave a handy list of what communities do better.

Care for the earth

Power to prevent crime

Care for one another

Demand justice

How could this translate to an organizational community? Well, right off I could see that energized groups of staff would be great at:

Implementing green solutions in the workplace

Increase compliance with internal checks and balances (reduce white collar fraud)

Care for one another (more positive interactions with the public)

Alert their leadership to weaknesses within (before, say, it gets public)

I am reminded also of the principles of Kaizen, where individuals are engaged to make small, incremental changes in areas they can control, and leadership is engaged to promote the large scale innovations that will help the organization leap forward. Middle management, as usual, are in the middle, helping both groups stay engaged.

Ideal Size and Bumping Places

A spin-off idea from all this is in the engaging and implementing of such an idea. What is the ideal size of an organization or community so that individuals are engaged? In Gladwell's book, Tipping Point, he suggests the ideal size is 200 people. Jim Diers says the ideal size of a community is about 6,000 people. Any bigger, and people are not engaged. Within that community, however, there must be gathering places, or bumping places, where we see the same faces and meet the same people on a regular basis. It's this sense that we are part of a larger community that helps people be engaged rather than be a faceless sojurner.

I'm running out of time but not ideas. I must pick up this thought and expand on it. Where, in a large organization, can the communities of practice bump in to each other and engage? I don't know about you, but the idea of energizing a large organization, as Diers did so effectively in the city of Seattle, inspires me. I think we've got a new element here. Not an explosion. And certainly not flying bandaids.

Civility and Humanity

2009-11-02T04:22:00.000-08:00

I've just finished Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. If you are unfamiliar with the book, Griffin modified his skin color to walk as a Negro in the deep south in 1959. He journalled his experience, and his deeply moving account is described in this book. What struck me is the dehumanizing effect of withholding simple civilities like a smile, a hand-shake, eating together, cautions (watch your step), and looking a man in the eye.

Withholding economic opportunities also, no matter how politely rebuffed, oppresses ambition. I once witnessed a native couple walking hand in hand, initially hopeful, making their way down a row of apartment buildings displaying vacant signs. When I exited my building a couple hours later, they were walking dejectedly, less hopeful than the start. How many times must a person face rejection - or worse, the "hate face" as described in Griffin's book - before he gives up and believes the lie? I am reminded again of Gladwell's comments on meaningful work. Griffin also describes in detail how the persecutor demeans himself by stooping to cruel behavior. To deny another his humanity is to diminish your own.

An afterword in the book describes the violent upheaval a scant decade afterwards, in the race riots of the late sixties. Mr. Griffin describes the pattern of oppression and explosion, as whites heeded rumor rather than the blacks in their on community and in the white community's reaction to a phantom threat, sparked the black communities in their midst. In the subtext is a suggestion that a lot of this could have been avoided with simple communication. In helping the black man, ask him. Provide an atmosphere where he will be honored and heard.

I can't help thinking in the general neglect, the failure to offer simple courtesy, and the polite refusal to allow a sub-group access to good housing and good jobs, that we as Canadians continue to do a disservice to our native communities. I overheard Shawn Atleo, head of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) that it is the First Nations responsibility for instance, to develop a response to the H1N1 virus. I think he is talking about upending the paternalistic response to "the problem" (As Griffin speaks of in his book), and allowing this community to speak for itself and take care of itself.

__________________

On another note, I stumbled across this article while investigating online acquisition of queue. Guess what? Other people took it before me. At queue.ca, a Canadian IT company, they speak about Customer Relation Management (CRM). Like most things, it's not the tool that makes the company, but the application. Guess what? Just like community interactions, a company will also be much more successful if it listens to it's customers, and is willing to make changes to their process in order to make it better.

The technical issues with CRM are not unlike those of any software development project. First, objectives and specifications must be well defined and documented. Tools and technology must be selected based on relevant criteria (features, cost, etc…). Implementation milestones are then set according to business timelines and availability of resources. A significant testing phase is recommended to ensure functionality, so problems can be corrected on schedule. Final delivery of the application should also be accompanied by a maintenance plan for regular housekeeping issues (backups, synchronization with remote locations, database maintenance, etc…). E-CRM is not EASY by Alex Lee, 2002 http://www.queue.ca/publications.aspx

Efficiency 101

2009-10-28T05:01:00.001-07:00

Today I make notes for myself and you are along for the ride. I'm drowning in work. I've been in this place before, so I know what to do. Some of us think we're busy but it's because we're running fast. But are we being effective; are we doing the things that really matter? Busy busy is running to get the important things done. I'm in that second place.

I am compelled to dust off those techniques I know that work, use them to their potential, then wave the white flag. If I've done all I can and I still can't keep up, I gotta let people know.

What works?

Do what matters. Absorb the principles of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
Use my time well. Self-diagnose my weak areas and learn new techniques. I've about incorporated all the techniques in Leave the Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time...and Feel Great About It by Laura Stack. Her diagnostic quizzes are great.
I have just been twigged to the Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, which intrigues me to learn more
Also worth investigating are techniques to avoid inbox overload. Thanks Paulflevy On managing email http://bit.ly/xIKxx for twigging me to this article. The goal is http://inboxzero.com/ and 43 folders.

Well, off to it, then. I have my marching orders.

P.S. Found another one on my google foraging expedition. Email: The Variable Reinforcement Machine

I'm going to try this: http://www.gtdagenda.com/page.php?p=next

Random Act of Kindness

2009-10-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

I witnessed a random act of kindness the other day, and seeing it turned a bunch of assumptions on their heads. While another couple helped out a young girl, my husband and I watched from a block away, laughing at her predicament.

What had happened is that she backed up too fast, throwing one back tire over a curb. She was very lucky she did not twist the frame. But now, how was she to ease the car forward back over the curb without doing damage to her frame or her suspension? I watched an older couple approach and with some pointing and waving of arms, the man took the wheel of the car. The older woman took a position at the side of the car to keep an eye on the action and to motion if he were to gun it or to take her easy.

I imagined the man as her father, and imagined the girl's loss of driving privileges that night. I laughed.

He did a commendable job easing the car forward, first with the tire blanced on the curb, back end of the car pointing jauntily in the air. Then, with infinite care, he eased the car forward and back to the ground.

I shuddered at the thought of the rear back scraping against the curb.

Then, to my surprise, it was all over and there was hand shaking all around. The couple continued on to the store, and the girl drove away. My assumptions, turned on their heads, was that the couple knew the girl. They did not. These were strangers who took the time to help a young woman in distress. And hubby and I had the opportunity to watch an act of kindness in private. Kudos to the couple who took the time to help. I imagine the young woman felt a little bit better about humanity that day.

What' Wrong with Webmaster?

2009-10-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

Webmaster, another word that emprisons. Even the way the word rolls from the tongue. Web-master. The word brings to mind wizards or black belt instructors. "Grasshopper, you have much to learn." The imagery is of complexity, mystery, exclusivity.

In older organizations, web content is managed and posted by this one person. In any process, one assigned person equates to a bottleneck. Bottleneck imagery is pretty easy to figure out too. There's a whole bunch more content to post than one person can handle. You end up with good content put in a holding pattern as it is reviewed and converted to the new format.

As the web has evolved, it becomes the "source of truth" and the first place that the web savvy look for their information. For organizations that are controlled by a webmaster, however, it may be the last place that is updated.

There's software, however, that can distribute the job to the content authors, such as Red Dot of Open Text. Even more open are wikis, where content, moderated, may be opened up to the web. Some of my peers sneer at wikis, having read the articles in conventional media where a wiki page was temporarily spammed with false content. Here's a list of some of the biggest wiki blunders. I think these examples should not overshadow the huge step forward that open content has blessed this planet with. We now have 77,000 contributors to the biggest encyclopedia ever. Even bigger is the reader community - 48 million.

Emprisoning Words - Metadata. Webmaster.

2009-10-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Meta kind of sounds like mega; like big. Or many. Marry it with data and you have a supersyllable tongue twister. I swear some use it just to test the word out in conversation. I swear people's eyes go big as soon as they hear it, as if they had just spotted the sabre toothed tiger crouched on the ledge above. "Yes, but what about the metadata?" asks the square-glassed geek in the corner. The crowd is hushed in to submission.

But what is metadata really, and why do we attach so much significance to it?

Metadata are all the little invisible bits of information that is stored about a record that you don't see. For instance, in this blog you normally don't see the html hash that tells one computer to another how to read what I've written. Also in the background is who wrote it (well, my sign-on ID), and when.

I'm saying, it's no big deal. Records people get excited about it because in the replacing of one media to another (paper to electronic), metadata allows us the certainty that the electronically generated information has as much reality as a printed piece of paper. "This is what happened on this day." We have put the information in context of time and place. Some metadata features allows us the freedom to replace paper.

Other metadata elements have the potential to let us do new things with information; sorting and sifting it in new ways. Consider google earth, and the potential to tag photographs (metadata) with where they were taken.

What I resent is that metadata is used as a show-stopper rather than an introduction to freedom. People don't understand it, so they avoid it. Paper persists.

I'm running out of time so I'll discuss why I see "webmaster" as an emprisoning word later. I've borrowed the geeky text from Jamtronic and the map from Flash Artist.

Transit and Mobility

2009-10-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was thinking of a great advocate in Edmonton for transit riders. His name is Brian Gould and he writes for the Metro. He organized the Transit Rider's Union of Edmonton (TRUE) and has held several positions with that organization. He twitters, too http://twitter.com/bagould

He's vocal, he's bold, and now he is heard. This is democracy at ground level.

Finding young advocates like Brian and Mack encourages me for the future. Let's not waste their energy. Let's give them resources, support, encouragement as they advocate for a better city.

_______________________________

Riding to work yesterday and watching a senior make it down the stairs got me thinking about painful mobility. With twinges forming in my own knees, I am starting to get a sense of the tenacity and the courage of these seniors, when their entire body must be screaming to stay at home in the la-z-boy. When every step counts, location matters. When every step counts, clear directions have to be there. Retracing steps at my age is annoying. Retracing steps on borrowed hips is harrowing.

Government Gets it Right - Mental Health Act

2009-10-19T04:15:00.000-07:00

The Government of Alberta has proclaimed an amendment to the Mental Health Act, loosening involuntary admissions criteria to "likely to cause harm to self or others, or to suffer substantial mental or physcial deterioration or serious physical impairment."

Bravo for implementing a much-needed change.

I know the government has been under fire lately with news that a wing of Alberta Hospital will be closing; but in the storm of criticism, mustn't we also pause to thank them when they get it right?

With so many close family members who are mentally ill, and having spent many, many hours with mental health professionals, with the police, with the court system, I can say with a great gust of relief that this change was needed. The burden on family members I can tell you; when everyone knows that your parent/child is ill but you must stand by and watch their fall - until their fall is so terrible that they are in immenent danger - it is a horrible feeling. How close do you want your loved one to get to the edge before you yank them back?

Which is probably why I won't watch horror movies. I don't need the vicarious thrill. I've lived it, and it's not nearly as thrilling in real life.

A new book to try

2009-10-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through one of my favorite blogs today, Running a Hospital, and a quote and a new book caught my eye:

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. The opening of the book reads "It's possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control."

Boy, would I like to maintain that sort of balance.

Those closest to me know how I've been freaking out lately because of my insane work schedule. There are just so many things that must be done, and precious few things that cannot be delegated without sitting someone down for an hour just to get them oriented.

The Book of Odds

2009-10-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

A new site launches, giving us the odds for everyday events. http://www.bookofodds.com/ I can build the odds of me, and the "search by odds" can give some very odd results.

Here are the "odds of me" so far.

1 in 12.28 The predicted odds a white woman aged 49 will live to be at least 97 years old are 1 in 12.28 (US, 7/2004).

1 in 12.5 The odds a woman 45 - 64 has been diagnosed with diabetes are 1 in 12.5 (US, 2000).

1 in 12.5 The odds a female 40 - 49 eats candy at least once a day are 1 in 12.5 (US, 4/1987 - 8/1988).

1 in 21.28 The odds a female volunteer will volunteer by engaging in music, performance, or other artistic activities in a year are 1 in 21.28 (US, 9/2007).

Book Review - Neighbor Power

2009-10-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

How did I get hooked on this book? I stopped at an information booth set up in the Giant Tiger parking lot. An invitation to help spend $10,000 caught my eye. The invitation came from the local Crime Council. I and a friend went to the meeting, and voila, we are board members. *sigh*. We were shown tons of resources and materials that I hardly knew of. Another invitation caught my eye:

Neighbourhood Engagement
People are the answer!
November 17, 2009 at Santa Maria Goretti Centre (11050‐90 Street)
5‐9 PM
A Light Supper will be provided. No Cost. Parking available .
Registration is required, seating is limited
Please call (780)442‐4972

I signed up for that. And I got to asking myself, who is this Jim Diers and what is this talk about Neighbour Power? So I got the book. I've just finished it. In all my wanderings, why am I pursuing this? Because my gut says that neighbourhood engagement builds genuine human interaction between those who need help and those who give it. I am wandering full circle back to the reason I started this blog in the first place. What follows are marked passages and my own comments from sections of this book.

"organizers organize organizations" - When inspiring change in a community, don't run the show. Listen. Otherwise the initiative is dependent on you. When you go, the reforms will go too. Empower people to bring about the changes they want.

"Asset Based Community Development - ...Government, like social service agencies and other institutions, tends to disempower communities by focusing on their deficiencies and fostering dependence on outside interventions. Asset-based community development, on the other hand, builds on the resources that are found in every community. These assets include a community's associations and all its members, even those members who have been labeled and dismissed: the disabled, welfare mothers, at-risk youth, and elderly; all persons of every description have skills, knowledge, and passion to contribute to their community. (p. 13)" This sets me to wondering; what assets do we have in Clareview? We definitely have families, sports parents, ethnic, immigrant communities, at-home seniors. I've just discovered that we have a strong interest in city farming. It would be great to build an inventory of assets. For further reading, I should check out the Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD, get it?).

[Local governments]...resources are not keeping pace with increasingly complex social issues...voters are reluctant to approve additional resources becasue they feel a sense of alienation from their government at all levels...this deep sense of alienation is often misdiagnosed as apathy....Citizens don't vote becasue they have seen little evidence that their votes matter....I am convinced that people still yearn for a sense of community and want to contribute to the greater good...it [has to do] with rediscovering democracy. (p. 18, 19) Now this resonates with me. Much is ballyhooed in the press about Canadian apathy at the pollls. If politicians want to see greater voter turnout, more work has to be done between elections to convince citizens that their involvement counts. It seems to me that this strikes closest to home, close to home. This means potholes, graffitti, community revitalization. This means listening and engaging people in a meaningful way. No lip service.

Whose decision was it to treat the community of Southeast Seattle as second class?..We discussed the growing drug and gang problem and concluded that the city had already tried nearly every solution that money could buy. Affordable housing was amajor neighborhood issue, but there was little the city could do, especially when the state legislature had outlawed rent control. Likewise, the city had no jurisdiction over the schools...Traffic congestion and inadequate parking were equally perplexing. I quickly realized that public officials felt as powerless to address these issues as did the citizens (p. 27). Again, resonating. Which takes us back to the foundation of the book; asset based community development. Any one of us can be terrified in to inaction when trying to handle the beast that is bureaucracy. Instead of focusing on the failures, however, why not take an inventory of our assets and build from those?

McKnight told me about his friend who is a duck hunter. The friend has different kinds of calls for different kinds of ducks. Organizations, McKnight said, should do the same thing, adding that "too often the only call that organizations use is the loon call, and then they wonder why only the loons turn out for the meetings." For organizers, as for duck hunters, a variety of calls is essential. Some people will answer the call to rally around a particular issue. Some will turn out for work parties or to pitch in on a particular project in their neighborhood. Others will be attracted by a dance or a festival or by freshly baked brownies. The more calls an organization uses, the more broadly based its membership will be. And the more broadly based the membership, the more power the organization will have to address whatever issues matter most to its members. I knew it. Bring food. I wonder, what is with all these afternoon meetings? Are working people excluded? Perhaps for the Clareview Crime Council sake, we need to team up with other groups in our community to get a broader based plan on how to spend the $10,000. Maybe we need a party, and everyone is invited.

Overcoming the Betrayal of Myth, and a Public Service Announcement

2009-10-13T04:41:00.001-07:00

I was going to talk about Susanna Wesley and her son, John Wesley yesterday, but I chickened out. Instead I will pass on a public service announcement. Get your regular flu shot today; I am.

Yesterday I was going to talk about the betrayal of myth, when a hero turns out to be tarnished. This happened to me for the first time when I read the personal journals of John Wesley. If you are unfamiliar, Susanna Wesley, especially among evangelical circles, is held up as the perfect mother. She home schooled all her nineteen children. Her private sermons were so influential she was soon teaching practically the entire village. Her son John was the unintentional founder of Methodists, which eventually merged with the present-day United Church. John Wesley taught an experiential faith, which of course evangelicals love.

So what knowledge shook me to the very core? It turns out that Susanna had a breakdown of some sort, and had to go away for a while. I should not be surprised. Nineteen children. As for John, he was a failure in the New World when he tried to apply his Church of England principles on a raw populace. His strict principles failed in practice. He came back to England a humbled man and was better for it.

Now the principles I'd lived by were shaken, and all of a sudden I was alone on a rocky shore. I wondered, are there any heroes? There's a sense of betrayal, too. Both by the idols on their pedestals, and the institutions that put them there. Why have their flaws been glossed over?

These unhappy emotions were followed by relief. Maybe these perfect models cannot be followed, because nobody's perfect. Perhaps the endless search for perfection is the burden I am to put down. Of course no-one is superwoman. There's a price to pay by trying to do it all. Now that I have a clearer picture of these "perfect" models, I can give myself, and my principles, a break. I am now much more ready to put aside a cherished principle, if it proves to fail in practice. Instead of blaming the victim, blame my application. Try again.

Now, why have the institutions glossed over the flaws and for the casual observer, these heroes are modeled as perfect? I think this tendency comes from our desire for order in the universe. It would be so much easier to make it through this chaotic world if there were a list somewhere of do's and don'ts. The alternative is to weigh each decision examining personal motives, make the wrong decision anyways, and apologize a lot. The alternative is to be human.

Anyways, enough about what I wasn't going to talk about. I notice that the announcers for the flu shot are careful to preserve personal choice. It's up to you if you want to get your flu shot and your H1N1 shot later.

For those who don't want to take any risks at all, I guess you will be spending the next few months in the basement wearing an N95 mask eating tins of beans out of your emergency stash.

Some risk takers are hoping to get the real flu and get it over with.

I've weighed the relative risks and decided to go with both vaccines.

I notice that our slightly neurotic society doesn't like any risk at all. We prefer choices without ambiguity. Unlike our ancestors, we are unacquainted with death and tragedy and would prefer to skip that lesson altogether, thank you. If the story of generations is correct, however, our youngest generation will become all too familiar with overcoming adversity. We face a pandemic and a serious economic recovery at least. For a season, gone is the luxury of a hazard free life.

I guess the Wesleys and the flu shot do have something in common. There are no perfect choices. We all must bumble through the best we can, and apologize a lot.

Changing our Town

2009-10-10T08:19:00.001-07:00

I just found out about http://www.changecampedmonton.ca/ on October 17 about participatory government. The event will be inviting participants to ask the question, “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?” By participation they mean connecting through the monstrous, chaotic, glorious web.

On the web, the founders have a great site, http://changecamp.ca/ On twitter you can find out more about Change Camp by following them here:

http://twitter.com/changecamp

On twitter you can follow along on the progress of the Edmonton event by searching under #yegchange and you can post a comment by replying @yegchange. As you can see, I am new to twitter.

For facebook users, there's an event page.

You can also join the google group, Change Camp Edmonton.

There is even a change camp wiki.

For all of this exposure, I am finding little dialogue about how we might accomplish the stated goal. A great deal of the discussion is about organizing the events themselves. It seems a little cold. I wonder if perhaps critical mass has not been reached, where swarms of Canadians are drawn together to build, grow, learn, talk.

I am drawn like a moth to flame, though, at the prospect. Anything that helps connect those in need with those who can help.

Shakespeare and Never Passing on a Compliment

2009-10-06T03:59:00.001-07:00

I got a compliment on my writing style yesterday, "You have a way with words." I'm still glowing. As I do with compliments, I analyse it, turn it around, savour it.

There are a few things that I do that make my words better. There are principles in the book "On Writing Well" by Zinsser, that still run through my head in everything I write. First of all is to write what I really mean. I always take one more look through my writing to see if anything can be cut. The result can be lean and hard-hitting. When I first started doing this, I even shocked myself. Did I really mean that? If I did, I sent it. Sometimes we couch in extra words in the hopes of softening the blow. But even cutting words are cleaner if they are sharp. No-one wants to be cut with a dull butter knife.

I can't help thinking also of Gladwell's description of talent acquisition. All it takes is 10,000 hours. I don't know how many hours I have racked up, but I do use my business writing skills every day.

Another great habit, even in business writing, is to never pass on a compliment. If someone has impressed me, I say so. And I tell them why. Look how a few nice words gave me a glow for a day. So is it for others who I pass on a compliment. And it's free.

As for Shakespeare, I was watching an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio" that got me thinking what it would be like if I had taken up acting. This is a good sign. If I am giving time to let my mind wander, that all-consuming project at work is beginning to lose its' hold.

Anyways, as we will do at mid-life, I wondered if it is too late to pursue a new activity. My body shape also is not exactly a casting ideal. Unless I were to be an extra on a fat farm or something.

But then I got to thinking about a role I've always relished; the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. I've always imagined her to be warm, round and jolly. She has the crudity of the common people, reminding me of Art's wonderful mother. She used to grab her breasts and roar how wonderful it is to be here in Canada. Look how she had grown! Anyways, I wonder if I might be able to take on a persona so completely, to be that person so completely that the audience would be carried with me through the story.

Let's see if I will add this to my lifetime achievement (or bucket) list, along with driving a race car and playing the piano.

Photo borrowed from Paul Dry Books.

Volunteering for the Homeless

2009-10-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back. I volunteered for the first time with Homeless Connect, Edmonton. This event is sponsored by Homeward Trust, Edmonton, and follows the example of the first Homeless Connect in San Francisco. The idea is to put all the sorts of resources that homeless and the street poor need in one place, like a large trade fair, and let these people know where to come. Connect.

A large army of volunteers work to make the experience as comfortable as possible. There are greeters at the door, and there are guides to personally escort the homeless to the services they are interested in.

In my pursuit of excellent examples of intake experience, I was curious what this event would be like. As a volunteer, I found the experience revelatory and profoundly satisfying. The event has no problem attracting volunteers. The place was swarming with blue volunteer t-shirts.

Revelatory because I had to get over my reservation to approach people I usually avoid. For their sake, I welcomed, directed, brought coffee, reassured, and gave eye contact and a smile. The experience was satisfying because I made the leap to humanity, and I felt cleaner for it. I had signed up for just half the day and I had a very, very hard time saying goodbye.

Not to say that there were no jarring notes. These are people living on the edge. Some have problems that make it difficult to relate in a social situation. The paranoids wanted to know what the catch was. We had a few rebel street kids there to goof and stir up trouble if they could. But the vast majority are so grateful for the leg up.

There were a few images that will haunt my memory, demonstrating how close to the edge some of these people are living. For sake of their privacy, I won't record all I saw.

I noticed a few opportunities for improvement, but we also got smarter as the morning went on. A coffee and muffin station was offered to those in line this year, and it quickly became clear that it was smarter to bring the treats to them. This led also to some mess near the doors, which kept the cleaning staff busy full time. I could tell that this task did not thrill the Shaw staff.

I did see a chance to even out the intake process. This is the biggest delay in getting the homeless hooked up with the services they are so patiently waiting for. Intake workers filled out a double sided questionnaire for every applicant. Some of the paranoids in my line questioned why they were being asked for so much information. A few were certain that the information was being kept on a big government server somewhere. It speaks to their great need that they persisted in spite of their fears.

Now, I understand an administrator's desire for more information on the homeless. The more you know about the makeup of those you are trying to help, the better you can focus your efforts. However, the organizers now have detailed information from three events like this. Perhaps it is time to put the forms down.

Taking examples from the big retailers (Wal-Mart, E-Bay, Amazon), don't get between the customer and the service. Also, take care with the questions that are asked. The questions, though anonymous, are highly personal, and could evoke a deep emotional response. Are we ready to deal with all that - forcing these people to face how dire their situation really is?

What is the minimum you need to know? Perhaps the same amount of detail could be provided by having a couple of head counters (one for male, one for female) at the door with clickers, and providing the arm bands like you do now to prevent re-counting. (By the way, the form allowed for male, female, and transgender). Roving surveyors could ask for detailed information from, say, one in a hundred. And perhaps the event could learn a few things from improvement tools like Kaizen, which teaches that the best way to get to the source of the problem is through direct observation, or gemba.

The next even is in May and if I can make it, I will be there.

A Caretaker's Rant and other things...

2009-10-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

A Caretaker's Rant

Oh, my. It was a tough week with my son. He had a slip-up and used drugs. I was alert enough to notice the signs and I called him on it. He's apologized profusely and he promises to hook up with resources for help.

We went out to a movie together last night and afterward I told him how hard it is on me to follow him on his trips down. Most of the time he is struggling on a path of slow improvement. I drew a long, slow slope up the mountain with my finger. I help him along and encourage him on this path. Then he drops. My finger dropped. If I am following him on his progress, news of his failure drags me down, too. I made it clear I don't want to follow him on his path downward. It is too hard for me. He remembered that I'd said in the past that it is not fair for him to use me as his confessional. He might feel better, but I am left with the burden of another failure. And the worry.

As encouragement I did remind him it was much worse years ago, when months would go by where I would not hear from him, he did not admit to any problem, and I would not know if he were alive or dead.

Evangelical Snobbery

When I first caught wind that my son might be having a bad, bad week, I considered calling his assigned case worker. This man is an evangelical Christian and has encouraged my son to rebuke the devil (reminding Schizophrenics of demons and devils makes me shudder), study his bible more, and attend church regularly.

Now, I come from an Evangelical Church background, so I understand where this man is coming from. But, reader please be patient with me. Regardless what your belief system is, be careful in your beliefs that you don't try and fit all problems in to your mold. I've seen this error in the secular world as much as with the devout.

As a veteran Christian, I am coming to dislike that peculiar type of evangelical snobbery that suggests that there is only one answer and only one way. I am sure this counsellor would dismiss my suggestions if there were the slightest whiff that I might be "unsaved". I've exchanged the evangelical code words that should settle him on this point. Thank God I won't be held hostage to a conversation about my spiritual state.

But also, with the colored glasses of the evangelical, is this counsellor missing the obvious? My son's previous case worker was so practical in her approach. She spoke to my son about respect - showing for appointments on time - his dress - washing regularly. Her approach worked. My son is now religiously punctual. Just imagine how reassuring it is to me that he will show up for his appointed meetings and be speaking to a professional about how his week is going. What a relief for me. How much progress my son has made.

So, as a veteran Christian, I have no patience for mis-applied principles or beliefs. If the principle does not work, we don't blame the victim. Revisit the application of our beliefs. I may have to have a frank conversation with this case worker.

A Great Volunteer Space

Signing up for Homeless Connect yesterday, I was treated to a wonderfully designed volunteer sign up page. The questions were well-designed and in the right order. I received a prompt call-back and I have clear on expectations on my job. While they were at it, the volunteer page collected a lot of information on my interests, which may connect me to similar events and agencies in the future. The website is My Volunteer Page, and it is powered by software called Volunteer2. Kudos to the developers.

I'll be sure to document my experience with Homeless Connect. They are expecting over a thousand visitors to this one-day event to help hook up the street poor with available services. All I've read suggests that this is a world-class intake experience.

Allowing myself the freedom....

2009-10-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

...to make mistakes.

I'm pretty sure my first response when someone is unhappy with a result is to do better next time. I don't think too hard about whose responsibility it is; I just jump in to do my part.

There is some logic to this approach. I will only have limited success in changing others. After all, I only have full control over changing me.

But - if I do not hold others accountable to do their part, or don't take the time to explain how their approach hurt me or hurt the situation - am I not doing them a disservice? Even though I may be able to see their error clearly, it does not follow that they do, too.

For my sensitive friends who are afraid to bring up the tough subjects, I ask if they would let a friend walk down the street with a tag sticking out of their collar. Or even worse, their skirt hiked in to their waistband when they leave the washroom? Of course not. A true friend helps out a friend with what they can't see. Kindly of course.

So why do I beat up myself so bad, if I failed to hand a situation perfectly? Cannot I allow the same generosity I give my friends, and promise to do better "next time"?

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

2009-10-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm capturing some key thoughts from this book to keep in mind when I take on future projects. The chasm is the gap between Early Adopters and Early Majority (pragmatists). Early Adopters troll for innovations across industry (horizontal). They are easy to find and convince. However, these mavericks represent a very small segment of the population. Pragmatists, on the other hand, network amongst themselves (vertically), and are naturally suspicious of change. Change comes with the inherent risk of disruption and failure. Pragmatists therefore won't adopt innovation until it has been proven in their industry.

The innovator's challenge, therefore, is to invade a new market similar to the invasion on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Pour all resources on establishing a beach-head. Then move on from there.

How do you decide where to invest your resources? "First you divide up the universe of possible customers into market sgements. Then you evaluate each segment for its attractiveness. After your targets are narrowed down...you develop estimates of such factors as the market niches' size, their accessibility to distribution, and the degree to which they are well defended by competitors. Then you pick one and go after it." (p. 89)

Sounds easy, right? The problem is making such a high risk decision in a low data arena.

"[Statistics] is like sausage - your appetite for it lessens considerably once you know how it is made...when you hear [the marketer] saying things like, 'It will be a billion-dollar market in 1995. If we only get 5 percent of that market...' When you hear that sort of stuff, exit gracefully, holding on to your wallet." (p. 91)

I look forward to reading more, to see if there are pitfalls to avoid, or new ways of reading the pragmatist's market. How do we help them relate to new ideas? How do we help them make the leap to adoption?

Picture borrowed from Blend Gateway.

Mind blank...

2009-10-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here's some great quotes:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." BrainyQuote - Barack Obama

"If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost." BrainyQuote - Barack Obama

"...for down through history death has come to all men, (and yet society survives); but the people who have no confidence (in their rulers) are undone." Janet's Home Page Confucious (p. 23, xii 7)

"Moral power does not live alone. It is sure to have neighbours" - Janet's Home Page Confucious (p. 21, iv 25)

By the way, the work that absorbs will be done on October 9. Then I come back, mind and soul.

If I had no time left...

2009-09-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is what I would tell those I love:

Be excellent in your treatment of others. Regardless of any other achievement, honor, or award, be true in this.

There will be those who will seek to take advantage of your generosity, or may perceive you as weak as a consequence, but pay them no mind. The advantage lost from conceding to a petty difference is more than taken up by the good you will generate.

Do not be afraid. Fear brings out the worst in all of us.

A New Day at the Eye Doctor

2009-09-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

A year ago, when this blog was young, I documented my visit to the eye clinic. Yesterday I had my annual checkup. Experiences are vivid, maybe because the eye is so vulnerable. I am hyper-sensitive during these visits. I bring hubby along and I am grateful that he drives me home. Drops are put in my eyes that keep my eyes dilated and keep me from focusing. For a brief time, my frenetic pace just stops. Until I can see again.

I noted some improvements from my last visit. Stations are now clearly marked with large signs, POD 1, POD 2, and POD 3 (large signs in an eye clinic. What a concept). But I get ahead of myself. I must first "report to the nursing station". Like last year, I take a number. I am 99. They are serving 98. Service was very fast.

I was directed to POD 2; much easier to find this year. There was still a hand drawn sign with a bold arrow, "Put your paperwork in the basket." the nurse was brisk, placing my paperwork in the basket and redirecting me to the POD 2 waiting room. I did note that she did not spare a moment for eye contact. So, despite the improvements, I still felt like a number.

The improvements needed now are human, and not as quantifiable. How many times a day are these nurses asked the same question? I can imagine how monotonous it can become...for them. For me, all is novel. How can they be engaged in their day so the experience is humanized?

As a side note, one of my favorite bloggers, Paul Levy, promotes Grateful Nation. Apparently, gratefulness is good for me. This I believe. I must learn more.

I am grateful that the tests for glaucoma so far come back negative. I treasure my eyes. I am grateful for a patient husband, who dreads the hospital even more than I do. I treasure him, too.

Ten Thousand Hours and Talent

2009-09-27T07:58:00.001-07:00

I am wrapping up Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers. His convincing conclusion is that the experience of those who have achieved great success "...at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy." (p. 285)

His conclusions are reassuring in many ways. With ten thousand hours of practice, any one of us with even middling talent can become proficient. To become leaders in our field, we need a little more. We are helped by a supportive community and being in the right time and place. "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings." Proverbs 22:29.

My daughter, passionate about dogs, send me an editorial by Cesar Millan, dog whisperer. He is one of those people who has excelled in his line of work, and also had the good fortune to have a community, place and time to build great influence, or as Gladwell describes it, meaningful work.

On the twentieth of this month, he talks about how dogs have taught him.

"But that's not all dogs have to teach us. They educate us about the value of consistency. If you apply Exercise, Discipline, then Affection every day without fail, your dog will reward you with loyal companionship. And they show us how to live life to the fullest by being balanced and celebrating every moment.

Through my pack, I have experience birth, life, and death, and they have shared fundamental lessons about going through this natural life cycle. How do they pass from one phase to the next? How do they stay together all their lives as a family? They have taught me to value the simplicity of life itself. They intensify every moment that I am with them. And for that, I am eternally grateful."

Yes, I can learn a lot from hanging out with our dog friend, Ariel. She knows when it has been too long between visits. A quick exchange of affection is all that is needed. How many times do I neglect that simple thing? What price do I pay, mentally and physically, by ignoring this basic need?

How about celebrating the moment? I've seen that theme repeated over and over again as well. There's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on Flow. I bet dogs and ten thousand hours champions enjoy many flow moments of intense concentration.

Drugs or Time?

2009-09-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

Mental illness is an issue that hits close to home for me. My mother is bi-polar. My son, ex-husband, and son-in-law all show signs of schizophrenia. I've seen the devastation of these diseases up close and personal. We depend on our minds to self-assess our condition; to let us know when we are not well. Mental illness strips us of even this basic freedom and family, friends, or the state must intervene. In a delusional state, the mentally ill may blame family members for the indignity of forced care. The only comfort I get is to see them recovered, back home, and able to smile again.

Don't get me wrong; psychiactric medications have changed the face of care for the mentally ill. Gone (or nearly gone) are the ice baths, restraints, incarceration, and shock treatments. The attached article provides an extensive list of past treatments. I don't buy in to this author's assertion that true cure is blocked by the drug companies. We use drugs because they are the best solution yet available. We also still have short term incarceration when a person is so far gone they are a danger to themselves or others. And a very few are too dangerous to ever have in the population at large. But for the most part, these medications help people live out in the community and relatively independent lives.

I've often wondered, however, in the aggressive pursuit of lower costs, or by simple ignorance or neglect, if we do the mentally ill a disservice by characterizing their disease as only a drug problem. Bipolar Disorder responds beautifully to medication. There's a specific deficit in the brain, and medication replaces it. Schizophrenia, however, does not respond as well. All the medications do right now is to keep the worst symptoms in check. I suspect that Schizophrenia is really a bundle of brain flaws all of which present similar symptoms (delusions, paranoia) if left unmanaged long enough. Even my bipolar mother presented delusions and paranoia when she was very far gone.

From "The economic burden of mental health problems in Canada": By Stephens T, Joubert N.

"This study provides a comprehensive estimate of the economic burden of mental health problems in Canada in 1998. In particular, it estimates the cost of non-medical services that have not been previously published and the value of short-term disability associated with mental health problems that were previously underestimated according to the definitions used here. The costs of consultations with psychologists and social workers not covered by public health insurance was $278 million, while the value of reduced productivity associated with depression and distress over the short term was $6 billion. Several data limitations suggest that these are underestimates. The estimated total burden of $14.4 billion places mental health problems among the costliest conditions in Canada."

There are precious few classes and counselling sessions freely available to the mentally ill. There are clubs and group sessions. My son visits his support worker as often as once a week. But those sessions are primarily a check-in, to monitor if my son is better or worse. There's a wonderful program at Ponoka that helps people with combined mental health and drug issues. But it lasts only six weeks. Follow-up is minimal.

WHO Optimal Mix for Mental Health Care

Here in Canada, the burden of care falls on the family doctor, who spends up to half their time taking care of mentally ill patients. I suspect most are patients suffering from various depressive disorders. Why? Because psychiactric counselling is not fully covered by our health care system. Drugs are.

Mental illness in itself is a socially isolating disease. Treating the illness with drugs alone does not resolve the isolation. Some of my family members carry the burden of their illness, fears and anxieties unresolved, weighted down. My psychologist friend describes a day in the life of a person in depression as wading through jell-o. The effort to dress, to go to the store, to walk down the hall, takes all they have. Imagine for the schizophrenic getting through a normal conversation while ignoring the dozen other conversations or so competing in his head.

It seems to me that it could be possible that many mentally ill could experience greater empowerment over their disease, and less medication. The mentally ill might be coached through new coping techniques that would help them reduce their dependence on medication.

There's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for instance, that takes less time than the old psychotherapy. Greater community supports are needed as well, and supports for the families with mentally ill members.

The World Health Organization recognizes the need for better care for the mentally ill. Governments across the world need to see mental health as a vital component of primary health care. We need to change policy and practice. Only then can we get the essential mental health services to the tens of millions in need”, said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

The world health report 2001 - Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope

I'll stop now. My researcher's gene has been activated and I'm having trouble putting this article to bed. To answer the title of this blog, I think we need drugs and time...much more time. We need to think about and talk about these issues openly. We need to be there for family members who are mentally ill. Help them out of the confusing maze of their illness. Help them find greater fulfillment and happiness from living.

Fighting Crime

2009-09-26T05:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy-busy week. Work absorbed, which I think I've talked enough about now. But also I've been busy with condo board stuff. Sharlene and I both attended the Clareview Crime Council meeting to learn more about what can be done about crime in our neighbourhood.

Sharlene and I attended because there is a fair bit of petty crime activity in our back parking lot. Cars are broken in to or stolen. Shady deals are passed between cars with darkened windows. So we went to this session to learn more about what is available. Unbeknownst to us, the meeting was also a recruitment drive. We're both signed up. *sigh*. Ah, well. If it proves too much, I can always bow out.

But wow, so much we learned in that hour and a half. There's all sorts of crime prevention associations out there. There's all kinds of resources available, too. I got a phone number for "report a drug house". We can get a "safety audit" done for our property. There's a Coalition of Crime Councils. I met social worker who works in our neighbourhood. There's Safe Streets and Neighbourhood Empowerment Teams and Safe Edmonton (this looks good).

There's an expert on Neighbourhood Empowerment, Jim Diers who will be coming to town to speak on November 17, 2009. He has a book and now I am eager to hear from him in person. I bet a lot of what he talks about ties in to my ponderings on how we can humanize intake experiences.

It all comes down to people, doesn't it? Why haven't I heard of all these councils, resources and associations? Is it because I had bought in to the apathy and assumed there is nothing that can be done?

By the way, as I browsed the internet to confirm links above, I found InformAlberta.ca. It appears to be a self managed site to link all sorts of services in a mega-database The Safe Streets link was bad. The "contact us" form was markedly worse, consisting of over a hundred fields to review, two tabs, and obscure instructions...in red. God help me if I filled out the inquiry wrong. Will the internet police be after me soon?

Oh, and I should mention that the Clareview Crime Council provided FOOD and COFFEE. Coffee was compliments of our local Mac's owner, who recognized me and greeted me as I came in. It is heartening that he is so involved in our community.

Edmonton Call Center Frustration

2009-09-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

Last December I watched with interest as Edmonton launched a new call center, 311, with ambitions to improve service response. The target at the time was to respond to 80% of the calls within 25 seconds. But in the first six months, the average time waiting for an operator was two minutes. ($10-million phone service source of frustration By Frank Landry, City Hall Bureau, Edmonton Sun)

The idea was a good one. What went wrong?

I am most concerned that the "fix" quoted in the article is to hire more operators and add Interactive Voice Response. Beware of techie fixes, especially if the problem is not fully understood. Those of you who know me will agree; I like gadgets. Especially if they make my job easier and faster. But gadgets aren't always the solution. For instance, I have resisted the urge to buy a food dehydrator, a showtime rotisserie, and an electric meat slicer. A girl has only so much counter space.

So if buying a new gadget is not the solution, what could the call center do to improve it's service? First of all, the agency needs to find out why it takes so long for an operator to conclude the call. I suspect they have many of the problems experienced by Alberta Treasury Branches (ATB) when they decided to improve their call center operations. ATB is now a "best practice" model on how to improve the customer experience.

Here is a quote from the Customer relationship management systems handbook
By Duane E. Sharp (2003) (P 152, 153)

"ATB’s cumbersome contact center system lacked the functionality to service customers quickly. Often, customers who thought they were phoning a local branch office had their calls redirected to the centralized contact center, where the customer’s transaction history was unknown. To find the answers the customer needed, the contact center representative would have to bring up any one of several different screens, a laborious, time-consuming process….[now] when a call comes into the contact center, a profile of the customer will pop up, giving the representative information about who the customer is, the customer’s address, a full listing of the customer’s holdings, and a description of the customer’s last contact with the bank."

I would respectfully suggest that the city would do better to hold off on the purchase of the interactive software, learn more about the business of responding to city calls and the number of screens their operators must flip through, learn more from the best practice models like ATB, and then come up with solutions.

I'll throw in one more plug for the Fish! philosophy. Here is an article by John Christensen on the implementation of Fish! at Sprint's call center, "A Call for Change".

Call centers are important. Call centers are where front-line interaction with the customer happens. The customer's opinion of your offerings are made here. Set aside the statistics for a moment, as summaries and statistics may mask the cause. Executive should take a day off and sit in and listen in at the call center. How does the public really feel about your agency?

If this is where customer relations are made or broken, why would you put any barriers, such as automated response, between the caller and you? As I learned from webpagesthatsuck.com, the smart guys such as Wal-Mart, E-Bay and Amazon give the customer a smooth experience. Doors of entry are wide open and there are no barriers between customer and product.

You know the kind of day....

2009-09-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

...where the breeze through the window a shade cooler than mild blessing the skin in puffs scented softly of damp leaves, the sky a gentle blue with the faintest haze of high cloud, trees lightly dusted in gold, sounds of children playing out of sight, a magpie chuckling to itself at it's own joke, the swish of car cruising lazily past our street.

This is my fall morning.

The potted tomato yields a few red cherries every morning. The zucchinis have worn themselves out. Thumbelina carrots pop out plump and ready. I've pulled all the leeks save three. Flowers are resting except for my geranium which is bursting in a half dozen broad red blooms. Hubby asks if we can have "more of those" next summer. Parsley overflows in it's own pot, ready to be brought inside when the cold weather comes.

It is as if the land waits in stillness for what is sure to come.