Bird's Eye View

Secret Santa

What is with this phenom, the world's largest Secret Santa network, now numbering around 20,000 people, each of them getting, wrapping and sending a gift to a total stranger.  Does that strike you as odd?

Is it another signal that despite all our technology through which to communicate with others, some people are lonelier than ever?  Is it so tough to find someone at work, next door, at your church, at Starbucks, with whom to strike up a friendship?  Or is this global Secret Santa mob an example of nothing more than "because we can do it, we do it."  Obviously, without the Internet, the global Secret Santa wouldn't work.

Dunno.  What I do know, though, is that I prefer giving gifts to and getting gifts from people I know.  There is something creepy to me about this total stranger gifting biz.  Maybe it's the "stranger Danger" gene in me.  But it strikes me as, well, weird. 

Of course, I remind myself that Santa himself (it's a "he," right?) is a stranger and look at the effort goes to in order to get gifts to every kid in the world.  Oh but wait, he's not a stranger.  By saying that he knows who's been naughty or nice, and that he has a list of gifts and kids who wants them...and checks that list at least twice, we remove the stranger creepiness.

So I guess I'll stick with friends and Santa. 

 

Hans Rosling At TEDWomen

Anyone who has been to a TED program is most likely a fan of Hans Rosling.  He's one of the most popular TED speakers and has appeared probably more than any other speaker.  His presentation is always fresh, highly provocative, true brain candy.

Hans Rosling is a doctor and a researcher.  What has put him on the map (yes, it's a pun in this case) is his truly amazing trend revealing software which enables him--real time--to give you a moving pictorial understanding of specific trends in the world and how they impact populations, land usage, economies.  You should definitely check out his several TED talks on the TED site.

Hans made a briefer than usual appearance at TEDWomen and once again he did not disappoint.  He challenged the audience to consider that one of the most transformational events to occur in the last century was...hold on to your seat...the invention of the washing machine.

 

No kidding.

He had a real wash machine delivered on-stage at the beginning of his talk.  He had an assistant (visible only at the end when she revealed herself, dressed totally in black) whose gloved black hand would put things in his hand as he opened the front loading washer to make a point...and his hand would emerge with a box of detergent, clothes, whatever he was using to emphasize his point.

Most poignant was the story he told about being a young boy in his grandmother's home when her new washing machine was delivered and installed.  He watched, entranced, as the technicians hooked it up and took the old wringer washer away.  (Have you even seen a wringer washer?  When it was brought into the market many, many years ago, it was hailed as an advancement because it relieved the person doing the wash (usually a woman) from having to wring the clothes out by hand.)

So this advancement over the wringer washer was wheeled in, and after effort to hook it up, the technicians left.  "So," said Hans' grandmother, "Now...you and I can go to the library."  In other words, since she was no longer needed to do the laundry, she could attend to her greater interest, namely intellectual pursuits.  And she planned to take her grandson along on these adventures in knowledge.

 

Maybe Hans is right.  Maybe the electric wash machine was a big step forward not just for women but for the intellectual life of our nation.

Something to ponder.  Makes thinking of going to the laundromat take on a level of importance you hadn't thought about, right?

Replacing "But" With "And"

There is magic in the word "and" and if you have not discovered its power over the word "but" here's a simple tip to help you on the road to becoming a conversational diva or a discussion dynamo:

When it seems natural to use the word "but," try saying "and" instead, and see what it does to your statement--and the way it is received.  "But" usually turns the words that follow it into a negative; "and" turns them into a positive.  For example, when you ask the ticket agent whether there are any flights available over the weekend, when she replies "yes, we have seats, but only three are left on the Cleveland flight at noon" it comes off as a negative.  If, on the other hand, she replies "yes, we have seats and there are three left on the Cleveland flight at noon," it somehow sounds like it's your lucky day.

 

Or if you're asked whether you've finished that report, if you say "I've been working on it, but only have 3 pages complete" it sounds like you've been a slacker.  Much different from "I've been workin on it, and I have 3 pages complete..." (this latter approach makes me eager to see the finished report).

There are many times during the day when you can engage others in a positive way by substituing "and" for the "but" that turns things into a downer.

 

Try it.  And here are two ways for me to finish my thought: 

Try it, but be prepared for others to see you in a new way.  (Sounds negative, right?)

Try it, and be prepared for others to see you in a new way.  (Sounds positive, no?)

TEDWomen in Washington DC

It's been a week since TEDWomen.  I wanted to let the experience settle in before I wrote about it.  I'm such a TEDster that I was enthusiastic at the drop of a hat about all things TED.  But somehow this effort was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

 

I'm still pondering the reasons for that.  Perhaps among them was that it seemed at times the end goal was not clear. On the one hand the program took on the aspects of other women's conferences in an earnest effort to examine women's progress thus far in the world, as well as the challenges to women everywhere due to poverty, discrimination, prejudice and many other factors that have been discussed in many venues.   That's worthy activity, but not what--in my opinion--TED is all about.

My expectation, which was met in some ways, was related to what appeared to be the other goal: that this would be another TED Conference, i.e. a collection of people at the top of their game in fields of interest to us all and the only difference from other TEDs was that the audience and speaker population would be mostly women.  Following this scenario, rather than spend time talking about gender issues (covered well elsewhere) these speakers would talk about the work they do about which they are so passionate and so informed and just so outright amazing that we'll all be mesmerized.   We'll walk away with things most of us had never known of before and about which we want to know more, much more.  That's what happens at TED.  Brain candy.  And you can't get enough of it; after four days you're exhausted but ready to learn even more.

 

There were some TEDWomen speakers who met that standard.  Others did not, where it appeared that the selection process had not aimed high enough to get the best of the best.  In a few cases, they seemed to be capable of having carried off a true TED talk, but their topic was so focused on gender issues we didn't get to hear about what they do.  One who comes to mind here is Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook.  Wow!  The movie is barely out, we've all got questions and opinions about the impact of Facebook and the world of social networking itself, so I was eager to hear her take on it from the inside.  Instead, Sheryl gave a speech about how women with corporate opportunities often miss the mark because they fail to meet the challenges in ways that would promote them more advantageously.  That's a speech I've heard many times from others; in fact, I've given it myself more times than I can count.  So this was not news (but in fairness, it may have been news to others in the audience) and I felt cheated out of the chance to get to know more about Sheryl Sandberg and her perspective on the global impact her company is having on all of us and our communities, even the very personal way in which we live.

 

Let me tell you, though, about some of the truly impressive speakers whose comments have stayed with me every since DC:  One was Deborah Rhodes, a physician and cancer researcher at Mayo clinic who with a another scientist has developed a gamma ray camera that can detect breast cancer tumors that are not detected by mammography.  This is huge.  Dr. Rhodes began by explaining that there are four quartiles of density in women's breasts.  If you fall into the least or next to least dense quartiles, mammography works well on you.  But if you fall into either of the last too, not so much.  And most of us in the audience took this news seriously.  First of all, those women sitting around me--and me, too--didn't have a clue about the density level of their breasts, so until we heard Dr. Rhodes speak, we did not know that if our breasts are in the dense category, those "You're fine" pronouncements after our mammograms may have been not true.  This is a big deal.  Believe me, I'm planning to find out where this gamma ray based procedure is being performed in New York City.  Rhodes is the real deal.  She explained at the beginning of her comments that she will not benefit financially from the success of her gamma technology so, as she indicated, "I will tell you the truth."  Her talk is sure to spur conversation about the radiology lobby and the force with which they may attack efforts by Rhodes and her colleagues to change the setup that has all women running for mammograms every year, even though for some of them they are probably a waste of time.

I'll let you know of more of these terrific TEDWomen speakers later. 

Give The Gift Of Conversation For Christmas

If you had to think of a person you realize you've avoiding talking with, whether by phone or across the hall, who would that be?  Maybe there are several...your Mom?  Your son?  Your boss?   the barister at Starbucks who is always so nice to you?

What about initiating a conversation with him...her...all of them?  Maybe make a little Christmas gift list of the people who would appreciate your initiating a conversation with them.  Then you can go down the list, make the calls (or leave voice mail messages) and, each check off their names, one by one.  Your message can be as simple as "I've been thinking of you and didn't want the year to end without my telling you I've been thinking about you."

They'll be pleased.  You'll feel good about it.  You'll have made the world a more connected place.

And you didn't have to pull out your credit card.

 

Richard Holbrooke Conversationalist Extraordinaire

What made the late Richard Holbrooke such a remarkable negotiator?  How was he able to get people who hated one another not only speak to each other but ultimately--most famously in Bosnia--to agree to peace accords the world assumes are impossible to achieve?

Holbrooke was a master conversationalist.  He had a reputation as a spin-master (see, for example, journalist Carla Anne Robbins remarks on today's New York Times editorial page) but it was all in the service of his ultimate goal: achieving peace in corners of the world where America had an interest.  And apparently, in Holbrooke's view, America has an interest everywhere because it has the unique capability to bring peace and the promise of prosperity to virtually any place.  He ventured into situations others chose to avoid, most recently as Special Ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan (speaking of two countries who hate each other). 

He was brilliant in finding the right words to say and in eliciting words from others that would lead to raphrocement, even peace accords.

Who will take his place?  If you review his career, Holbrooke wove the world's of journalism, diplomacy and finance in truly singular fashion.  I am concerned that people don't envision career paths like his.  Journalism has moved from a profession to amateur hour on the web, where anyone and everyone can declare themselves "media" and publish whatever they wish.

No doubt there are future Holbrooke's out there.  I hope they come forward soon and teach us how to converse intelligently with people with whom we disagree.

 

 

Conversations With Larry King

So Larry King steps down and so passes an age of a certain kind of televised interview.  He appears to be the last of a breed.  Maybe that's not so true.  He was a unique persona and ran a particularly singular format.  While other TV "interviewers" appear most interested in talking about themselves, or at least in controlling the direction of the discussion ("Well, as I see it, isn't this true?"  "How can you say that?  Did you see the way Obama did XXXX?"), King's approach was to have a conversation, one in which the outcome was not pre-determined nor engineered. 

Even though I didn't particularly like him personally, I admire his ability to get people to talk about anything, and to let them take the conversation in a direction that was their own, often in surprising ways, and always in revealing ways. That's a singular skill and King, who conducted maybe 50,000 of them (is that possible) in his career was a master. 

Never have we been more in need of true conversation than now.  There's lots to talk about and we should have as many opinions brought up as possible, to get as diverse a set of views as possible.  That's the way to reach an innovative conclusion.

 

  

 

 
I heard Dean Nitin Nohria, the new Dean of Harvard Business School talk last night here in New York.  What a remarkable man.  No question about his intellectual prowess: he's written 16 books, countless articles, is a distinguished intellectual in his own right.  But what thrilled me is that of his five goals for the school, one was the need for increased inclusively since, as he said, that's how we'll get the best brains and the best thinking.  We don't care where people come from; we want them to be extraordinary and capable of learning to be great leaders.  The conversations that take place in an academic institution that truly fosters that kind of diversity of thought are much different from the Harvard Business School of old that focused on American companies and on the white male leaders who ran them and who were being groomed to run them.

 

How wonderful that HBS's new dean is Indian, educated in India until his graduate work here in America.  He exemplifies exactly the direction Harvard and other great academic institutions need to take in order to groom the global leaders our world so desperately needs. 

Maybe Dean Nohria should invite Larry King to conduct conversations on a regular basis at the school, showcasing students from a variety of global backgrounds.  They all have so much to learn from each other, both in and out of the classroom.

Creative Christmas Giving

In his Sunday sermon, Galen Gingrich at All Souls in New York talked of the amount of money and effort that goes in to giving and getting Christmas gifts.  It's sobering.  Especially when we consider that 90+% of all things manufactured in this country end up in a land fill within six months of their purchase.  (Is that possible?  He quotes this source as saying so...).

 

After hearing stats like that, it's tough to get enthusiastic about the gift giving/getting frenzy in which many of us find ourselves at this time of year.

I've had a few conversations, though, that have fascinated me and may be worth your consideration as you put together your gift list.  One was an accidental conversation with a woman standing in line to pay for items at the Pain Quotidian here in my office neighborhood.  She commented on a jar of jam, apparently from Italy, that she wanted to buy and that struck up a conversation during which I learned that for the past six years, her family has selected a geographical theme for their extended family Christmas holiday.  Each year they select a country that has some connection to their family, through their shared genealogy.  She said they have forebears from Sweden, France, Germany and a few other places including Italy, this year's theme. 

 

Someone does the homework to select the country they want to celebrate and sends everyone the information as to what relevance it has to the family, i.e., which grandfather or great uncle or the like was born there, lived there, served in the war there, whatever the connection.  The protocol they've set up is that all the gifts they exchange have to reflect in some way that shared heritage.  And the food served at Christmas dinner has to reflect the same theme, so that if it's a Christmas turkey, it is prepared in a way it would be done if they were all together in that place. 

So she is finding all sorts of condiments to complement their Italian Christmas dinner this year.  She said since they started this approach, everyone has been excited about it from the youngest to the oldest.  And over Christmas dinner, they share stories of the families connection to the chosen country, and what their ancestors did there.

I learned of another approach yesterday when I had lunch with my friend Laurie Coots.  Laurie said this year she announced to her extended family that she was not going to send gift certificates ever again: too boring, too void of emotional connection between the giver and the gifted.  She asked everyone to send her their wish list on which they noted the experiences they would love to have this next year (whether it is tickets to a movie, or a bicycle rental somewhere, or a cooking class).  Additionally, they could indicate things they would like in their life, but she only wanted to see on the list things that have a shelf-life of at least five years.  Laurie says this approach has gotten everyone in the family talking about what is really important to them (no more requests for sox) and the idea has spread so that everyone is following this approach, not just with her but with everyone else in the family as well.

 

It will be interesting to hear from Laurie how Christmas morning differs this year from others.  I'll bet there is a significant increase in interest as to what people asked for and why.

How about your Christmas?  Could one of these approaches work for you?

 

Office Christmas Party Conversation

Apparently, I am the only person in the world who had not heard of the group gift exchange which involves each person providing a gift and each one getting a gift in return...with the twist that as each person selects a gift, he may take the gift already selected by someone else...who then, in turn, can take a gift someone else has selected, or choose a new one from the pile.  No gift can be "rotated" more than three times.  It's in promoting the taking away of a gift from someone who may have grown attached to their selection that makes this exchange unpredictable and fun, even raucous.

 
 

I observed such a gift exchange last night at an office Christmas party where I was an outside guest, so not a participant in the exchange.  There is something primal about all this.  It seems like a natural human response to feel one "owns" the random gift one has been given and to want to protect it from poaching by others.  In this game, though, poaching is encouraged.  It was interesting to see who in the group was first to poach, and how others responded.  There was a palpable sense, although unspoken, that the first poacher was the "kind of person who would do that," implying that she is a trouble-maker, out for herself, etc.  But her act of poaching in fact liberated the rest of the group to feel they could-and should- do the same when it was their turn.  In some cases there appeared to be "defensive" poaching, in other words, it was more important that someone else not be allowed to keep the gift in question than that the poacher get it.

The conversations around this gift exchange was great fun.  People remarked at how they would use the gift, most often a reference to the office.  I'll bet that most of the gifts show up at the office today...where even more poaching may take place.

A great icebreaker.  I noticed, for example, that a man who appeared to be shy was one of the most active poachers, once it was clear that poaching was encouraged.  I'll bet he may be a little more assertive today than otherwise...because he had so much fun keeping the group guessing about his selection, and motives.

Have you taken part in such a gift exchange?  What fun it would be to conduct one around the Christmas table with relatives and friends...and see how the group dynamics works.  Will the uncle no one likes be an aggressive poacher?...or will others take the opportunity to poach from him?

Actions speak louder than words.  There appeared to be some fascinating messages being exchanged last night.

 

Washington DC vs NYC: Civil Rights and Wrongs

It's my third day in a week-long stay in our Nation's Capital.  It's different from New York.  In ways both big and small.

 

 
For starters, there is the fascinating irony that although it is incredibly diverse (you see every possible nationality here) it has the earmarks of a "company town" where everyone speaks the same language, focused on the central core of what makes this place tick: government.  It's what runs this town and you are well aware of it everywhere you look.

Then there is the Metro, DC's impressive subway system.  It is clean, well lighted, easy to use, quiet.  Over the past three days,  I've taken it back and forth from the place I'm staying in Arlington to the TED Women conference at the International Trade Center in central DC, not far from the White House.

Here's what I've observed on my trips using public transportation.  First of all, the subway stations and the trains themselves are attractive and clean.  Directional signs are easy to read and even easier to follow.  People wait leaning against railings set about five feet away from the tracks and do not crowd the door when the train arrives. 

The stations and the train cars are (shhhh) quiet.  There is no shouting along the platform, no loud conversations.  The public announcements are succinct and audible.  It's all quite civilized.  Once on the train, one has the sense of sharing the subway car with other grownups.  Many people are reading, some are listening to iPods or the equivalent.  But you don't hear their music.  They keep it to themselves, a major departure from my daily commute on the Lexington Ave #6 in New York where I'm invariably subjected to the noise of second hand music blasting from a stranger's iPod and often several different iPods at once.  The train cars have upholstery on the seats.  There is no graffiti. 

 

And people are dressed differently on the Metro, as compared to NYC's straphangers.  There are few people in jeans.  Very few.  These are people on their way to work.  A minority are in business suits.  Most are dressed in slacks, often chinos.  And they have on lace-up shoes or loafers.  Of the few people I've seen in jeans, not one has been of the the "pants on the ground" variety ubiquitous on the streets and subways of New York. 

The few conversations I've overheard on the Metro are about work.  And they are not loud.  If I stay much longer I could get used to this.  Am already beginning to feel it is my "Civil Right" to enjoy public transportation like this.  The whole place is, well, calm.