Bird's Eye View

First Day of TED and Peter Gruber

What's the connection, you may ask?  Well, if Peter Gruber--famous for a bunch of stuff including his career as a film producer and his ownership of several sports teams-- were here at TED I would make a special effort to say hello.  In yesterday's New York Times, Michael Cieply wrote of his interview with Gruber in connection with Gruber's new self -help book entitled Tell to Win and I decided I'm a fan of the guy.

 

Gruber knows all about story telling and successful narrative.   He's the guy who gave us recent Oscar nominee The Kids Are All Right... and many other great films including Gorillas in the Mist. 

But here's what made me fall in love: his belief that to be successful in making a narrative pitch, you need to be face to face.  He says "To create that touch and feel you need to change somebody physiologically, psychologically--you need to be in the room."

 

YEEEES!  He goes on to warn, though, that once in the room, "any lack of conviction will out." He explains, "Truth is a point of view....but authenticity can't be faked."

Gosh I wish he were here.  But lots of other amazing people are. In fact the reason TEDsters keep coming back year after year as I do is that they know the conversations here can be transformative.  It's not about changing other people...it's that these conversations change each of us...not just the TED talks themselves but all that other in-between give and take discourse that--if you come totally open to new ideas--can be equally powerful, and provocative.

First session of TED U is this afternoon.  I'll be on a conference call at that moment (against my rule that nothing should interfere with TED sessions, but this call is important, sigh), but as soon as I'm off, it will be TED-time. Can't wait. 

Street Talk in Egypt and Libya and More

There is no doubt that recent events have changed the conversation in the Middle East.  And--outside the Middle East-- about the Middle East. 

Within the Middle East, the first-in-a-lifetime taste of freedom and independence has stirred an appetite for a new way of life that will not be satisfied with mere crumbs of concession thrown by dictators who have no intention to do more.  And as for tyrants like Gaddafi who use extreme force on their own people to keep them in line, it has to be a matter of time before they, too, will be thrown out.  At least that is the hope of most of the world.

Americans know well the enormity of current events.  Our own history--in this young democracy of ours--is founded on the refusal of courageous ancestors to accept any longer the structures of a ruler they considered tyrannous.  And what an instructive story America has become...and it is still being written.  For all the challenges and our often desperately difficult efforts to act as a united Nation, we remain an example to others of the glories of political freedom. 

I'm fascinated by reports that in the streets of Egyptian cities, women are speaking out against sexual harassment in ways that were rare before Mubarak was toppled.  They had gotten used to silent suffering, knowing that if they did speak up, their reports would be ignored or even punished.  The conversation about women's rights is changing there and the change is likely to be permanent.

The headiness with Tunisians and Egyptians have celebrated the surprising effect of their uprisings has been infectious.  There is much to be done, and their newly won freedom is fragile, but they now have hope which charges their conversations with a new urgency about the possibilities that lay before them as individuals and as members of a newly coalesced community.

To think that even in Libya, despite the terrible violence Gaddafi has unleashed--often using African mercenaries to do what his own forces refuse to do--citizens have thus far not backed down is thrilling, though also frightful.

Let's keep talking on their behalf.  Surely the world's words of support will somehow be heard despite the media blackout.  Their pleas must be heard.  It is a conversation that, if stilled, will cost us all.

 

Lost and Found in India

When I sat down in the New Delhi airport awaiting my flight back to the Western World last week, it struck me: I had left my gold bracelet behind in my room at the Hilton Garden Inn in New Delhi.  Oh, dear.  The bracelet is actually a customized man's gold watchband from the 30's.  In fact, it is the watchband worn by my husband's grandfather, John Smith, who was President of Pfizer and a co-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgersbefore the team left Brooklyn for Los Angeles.  Most important, though, is that my husband adored his grandfather and the bracelet, which bore John Smith's initials, JRS, was a sentimental reminder of him that I felt privileged to wear.

So I was upset.  I telephoned the hotel and waited while the most accommodating housekeeping staff checked the room thoroughly.  No bracelet.  For good measure, they voluntarily checked in the hallways, the lobby as well.  No bracelet.  I was sure I had left it in the room and figured that someone had simply not been able to resist that bright shiny and clearly valuable object.  I assumed it had been stolen.

Nonetheless I tried again, this time via email, from Heathrow, where I had a quick layover before the flight to JFK.  The hotel people were polite but firm.  No bracelet.

I said a few prayers to Saint Anthony, a favorite tactic of my mother, who lost --and found--many things.   She was a regular communicator with Saint Anthony, whom she referred to as "Tony."  As in "Tony helped me find my wallet after I left it in the taxi..."

So even though I'm not a regular, I dropped my pride and made a special request to Tony. 

Then I asked Laura Kim, my colleague here at Wf360, to make one last effort to reach the Hilton Garden Inn people in New Delhi and inquire once again about the bracelet.

Laura came back with the good news: the lost bracelet had indeed been found.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that the Hilton people told her they could not ship the bracelet because gold objects cannot go through FedEx or DHL or other usual delivery methods because of strict customs rules.

What to do?  We called our friends at our client, Ameriprise, who hosted the Inner Circlea few days earlier in New Delhi. They are truly terrific people.  "No problem," they said.  It turned out one of their executives was traveling to the States this Friday this week and would be happy to make the delivery.  So Ameriprise staff arranged to pick up the bracelet at the hotel and give it to the executive flying to the States who would in turn get it to me.

Speaking of conversations, Laura and I both noticed that everyone with whom we talked was exceptionally kind and generous in their willingness to take time to look for the bracelet, to make the arrangements for its delivery and all the other details it required to get it more than half way round the world.  Would the same conversational tone have taken place if I'd lost it in a U.S. hotel?

In any event, how lucky am I?  Very.  Usually when something challenging occurs in my life, I am quick to call my husband and share the news, seeking his advice.  Something told me to hold off on this news until it was certain the bracelet was indeed gone.  I just didn't want to upset him (although I knew from experience that his concern would be more for me than about the bracelet).  This time the right decision was not to initiate that conversation. 

Someday I'll tell him, I guess.  It's just good to know that Mom was right; Tony always seems to come through.  Especially when he has help from the wonderful people of Ameriprise and New Delhi Hilton Garden Inn.

Avenues.org And Global Network Of Schools

For the past several months I've facilitated Inner Circles among senior executives and thought leaders in places like London, New York, Hong Kong and New Delhi.  I'll be doing another next week among fellow TEDsters in Los Angeles, the day before TED begins in Long Beach.

In all those we've conducted thus far, there is a point in the discussion--no matter the venue--where participants turn to education.  Particularly to lower school education and why it is so critically important to their particular culture's ability to be innovative.  Without a pipeline of curious thinkers, kids who question authority in the right way, who are encouraged to try things that do not have a guarantee of success, and to celebrate failure as a step in the learning process, everyone tells me their country, their culture will not be able to compete globally.

 

In many countries outside the United States, they believe that Americans who are fortunate enough to receive expensive private school education get a start that is superior to the education their children receive, at least in public schools in their country.  But they suspect--and in some cases know--that most American kids who attend public grade schools and high schools are not getting a great education (there are exceptions, of course, where certain public schools are amazingly effective and are serious about their mission).  And the people I talk to from outside the US have not yet seen the film Waiting for Superman, which boldly exposes the underbelly of American public school education and how badly it fails so many of our kids, giving them crowded schools with lousy uninspired teachers and administrators who care more about protecting their jobs than educating kids.  Nor have they seen Two Million Minutes, the film that compares the high school experience of three kids: an American, an Indian, and a Chinese...all teenagers living through the two million minutes that are the time we spend in high school. That's not a pretty picture of American public school education, either.

Our Inner Circle participants invariably talk of the need to move beyond the bricks and mortar of physical school buildings and expose kids--using technology--to the global thinkers who can help them build their lives in ways appropriate for the 21st century.  These global schools will also use technology to connect these kids to others like themselves around ther world--other curious kids excited about the academics they need to become fully activated global citizens with something meaningful to offer the world around them.

 

Today, a full page ad appeared in the New York Times for Avenues: The World School.  This is it.  At least it looks like it.  It says that when avenues opens its doors in Manhattan next year, "it will take its place as one of the most rigorous and innovative schools in the city."  Now here's the exciting part: "It will also be the first of 20 or more campuses, which together will form the world's first global school serving children ages three to eighteen."  They are talking of a connected community of faculty and students in New York, Shanghai, London and Sao Paulo and more.  This is what I've been hoping for. 

Check it out at www.avenues.org.  Wow!

 

New Delhi Inner Circle

I'm sorry I've been silent for a while.  Am still absorbing the Inner Circle experience in New Delhi, where fifteen business and thought leaders grappled with the same topic--Innovation--that we've covered in previous Inner Circles over the past several months in places as disparate as London, Hong Kong and New York. 

Somehow this conversation was different from the others in a special way: people's comments were infused with a kind of generosity towards others at the table.  Not politeness so much as a kind of caring about others remarks and a genuine interest in bringing as many alternative points of view to the table without being argumentative, aggressive, or hostile.  The group was highly diverse: three of the men were Sikhs, who wore their traditional turban with business suits.  Two senior executive women (one from IBM, another from HSBC) came in saris.  And still others exhibited a variety of dress styles.  All were provocative where both informative and provocative in their comments.  Many were willing to say "I disagree...and here is why" and that added to the richness of the exchange.

Among the most fascinating of the group was a man named Chanchalapathi Dasa, who (thank Heaven, since I found the pronunciation of that name daunting) calls himself "CP."  CP is a Hindu and has a shaved head except for a round area on the back of his head which has a long, coiled braid.  He was dressed in traditional Hindu robes.  And when he spoke, he had a manner that was at once totally captivating and commanding, while being unassertive in the traditional Western sense.  When he spoke, there was a visible shift in everyone else's posture, bending forward at the waist in his direction so that we could more easily hear him and focus on his words.  His message was, as someone said later, transformative.

 

 

CP leads an organization called Akshaya Patra that--astoundingly--feeds a hot lunch daily to over 1.3 million poor Indian schoolchildren.  Think of the logistics behind that declarative sentence.  Akshaya Patra has had to be highly innovative in order to make such a huge undertaking--on a daily basis--possible.  Among other things, when they realized their ability to make at least two hot roti breads (a traditional part of Indian meals) for each child was being challenged by the sheer numbers and time requirements of the job, they invented a new roti baking machine that bakes 50,000 rotis in one hour.

Nothing seems to have overwhelmed them.  And the demand for their hot meals has expanded exponentially because in some rural villages (50% of India's population still lives in villages) the school districts have asked Akshaya to expand their offering to include their schools because that is the reason the parents will send their kids to school: to get a free lunch.  The education is secondary.  So as a consequence of Akshaya's work, they are not only feeding kids, they are expanding the numbers of kids that go to school (still a challenge in India where many children remain illiterate because their parents don't value education, or can't afford to let their children go to school instead of helping to do work that will put some food on the table.

 

 
CP's sense of purpose, of mission, was highly influential on the group as we moved forward with the conversation.  The person who spoke following CP's remarks said "This is difficult.  Compared to what we just heard, I feel my own business is too frivolous and my company's challenges seem to pale in importance."

CP's comments were confirmation of the adage that necessity is the mother of invention.  The reason they developed the roti machine is that they needed it.  The reason they have designed an innovative distribution system including fleets of trucks able to keep the food warm before it arrives at each school is because they needed it.  And because they believe so strongly on the importance of what they do, they simply are not stopped by the words that many others find daunting, i.e. "That has never been done;" or "You can't be serious.  No one could do that..." and the like.  They figure out a way to do things no one had figured were doable.,

Innovation in the name of India's poor.  Pretty impressive.

Matt Long and The Long Run

I've had my fill of motivational speakers.  Have you?  I have gone to way too many breakfasts and lunches and even dinners where the speaker is someone who has overcome some major challenge, risen about it, then gone on to write the obligatory book that will garner him/her speaking engagements.  So the speech is usually a pretty canned affair that wows you for a minute ("You too can scale Mount Everest!") and then you go back to your regular, less motivated life.

Yesterday's breakfast was an exception.  It was an 85 Broads breakfast to which Janet Hanson, the Founder and CEO of 85 Broads had invited her nearest and dearest women friends form the financial community as well as a bunch of other folks.  It was to hear Matt Long tell his story and I feel privileged to have been there.

 
This is no ordinary story of overcoming challenge.  This is a way-over-the-top tribute to human endurance and courage and stamina.  And perseverance.

Matt Long was a New York City firefighter for years.  Yes, he was on duty at the World Trade Center on 9/11. 

Four years after 9/11, Matt Long was cycling to work because of a transit strike and he was run down and sucked right under a 20-ton bus making an illegal turn on a busy New York City street.  Matt was so seriously injured he lost nearly all his blood.  The doctors gave him, initially, one percent chance to live through the accident.  Forty two surgeries later, he was alive but doctors told him he would be lucky to walk without a cane.

But Matt was a serious athlete.  Before the bus accident, he had competed in super-tough events like Ironman triathlons and the like.  He had qualified for the Boston Marathon.  Now he is facing a life of pain and loneliness and all without hope for true physical recovery. 

His story of how he got himself out of severe depression and got on with his life in stellar fashion is amazing.  It revolves around his determination that instead of looking at himself in a mirror and saying "I want..." or "I wish..." he would say "I will..."  And he decided that what he willed he would simply get himself to do.  He got himself to walk again and within three years competed in the New York City Marathon, then even more serious athletic events challenging everything he had both physically and emotionally.

His story of the many people who went on the journey to recovery with him is exciting and, well, motivational.  I sat there thinking of the things I thought I'd like to do but had never made a goal.  Or the things I complain about. 

Someone asked Matt how, when others said he couldn't do something, he was able to ignore them and move on.  (The questioner said that she, too, had lofty goals but that people close to her would tell her she was unreasonable and didn't encourage her.)  Matt's response?  "Get new friends."  And, he said if some of your naysayers are members of your family, "stop talking to them about your dreams."  He told us that on the way to the breakfast this morning, he got in a taxi and asked the driver how things were going.  "Oh, not so good," said the driver.  "The economy sucks, my fares are down 30%, the weather's been a killer, etc., etc."  So then Matt asked the driver, "Well, what about the rest of your life?"  The driver responded the same way..."It's not good."  And he began to list a litany of woes.  "Pull over the cab," said Matt.  "I can't ride with you.  I can't have your kind of negativity in my life."  And he got out.

 
Matt suggests that if a conversation is dragging you down, get out of it.  He says others may find it rude, but you've got things to do.  You need to make your life the best it can be and if others don't want that for you or are threatened by it, get them out of the way.

I leave on a flight tonight for London.  Am taking The Long Run with me.  I have a feeling I'll have finished it before I land.

Quitting Facebook Cold Turkey

This morning I went to a breakfast to hear Matt Long, the New York City firefighter who made a triumphant comeback from being a crash victim.  Quite a story and I'll fill you in tomorrow.

First, I was struck by the conversation at my table before Matt spoke.

There were two guys--brothers--in their late twenties who grew up in South Carolina and are now entrepreneurs living in the Big Apple and loving the adventure.  One of them, Dave, talked about how a couple of years ago he threw out his television set and found it liberating.  He said he realized he had been spending way too much time watching shows he couldn't remember minutes--not to mention hours--after he saw them.  So he threw it out and didn't look back.  (Big deal, I say to myself.  I did that, too.  But fact is, I see a lot of stuff on Netflix so I can't say I've sworn off watching television shows.)

 
But then, the kicker.  He said, "Better yet, about six months ago I fixed my Facebook site so now it is merely informational.  No conversations, no opportunity for people to friend me, nothing.  And I love it."

He explained that he found that before he took action, he was spending hours checking out people who had friended him, following up on threads of conversations, distracting himself from the stuff he really wants to do with his life.  Wow.  Several people at the table caught the fever and said that now that he brought it up they, too, found themselves disgusted (in the words of one woman) with the amount of time she wasted on Facebook.  "Basically, it's a time suck.  Plain and simple."  Dave's brother Eric said that he was thinking doing the Cold Turkey approach to Facebook too.  He said people he knew in grade school had looked him up and that he enjoyed reconnecting, but otherwise thought it was basically a waste of time.

I can't imagine that people will back away from Facebook in sizeable numbers.  But, then, it's possible.

 
We had gotten on to the Facebook topic when talking of meaningful conversations as opposed to those that are a waste of time.  Dave said Facebook at first "seemed like a series of conversation, but ended up being mostly meaningless chat."  So be it.

Let's see if Anti-Facebook fever spreads. 

 

Chicago Is Big Talk

As a little kid growing up in Wisconsin, I always thought of Chicago as the Big City.  It was the metropolis.  My family would drive there once a year to shop at Marshall Fields, go the the Museum of Science and Industry and the Chicago Art Institute, and generally be in awe.

 
In his Op-Ed in today's New York Times, David Brooks entitles his remarks "The Splendor of Cities."  And he writes it from Chicago, talking of Rahm Emanuel's run for that city's Mayoral spot.  He's apparently in his element, door to door meet and greets to rake in votes.  It's a face to face business.

And that is much of Brooks' point in today's piece.  He talks of how when the flow of information is more and more global, we feel our need for physical connection to other human beings more keenly than ever.  He says cities have become even more important than ever because "humans communicate best when they are physically brought together."  He talks of research done at the University of Michigan in which two different groups of people were engaged in a difficult cooperation-based game.  One set of people were brought together face to face; the others communicated electronically.  The "face-to-face groups thrived," he reports, while "the electronic groups fracture and struggled."

 

He talks of cities like Detroit, where they tried to revive their downtown by building towers and development projects, but found it didn't work.  Here's my favorite sentence in Brooks' piece: "Cities thrive because they host quality conversations, not because they have new buildings and convention centers."  (italics are mine.)

Small towns, too, know how to do that, to host quality conversations.  Right now in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, they are talking about the Packers.  But I know from first hand experience they also talk about global events, about politics, about health care about great food, about fashion and design and brain surgery. 

Here's to towns of all sizes that know how to go beyond talk to conversation. 

 

The Packer Phenom: Cheeseheads Rule

So you saw it all yesterday.  The community owned Packers came through.  Because of...or in spite of...their fans' wearing those Cheesehead hats?  We'll never know.  What we do know is that no other conversation subject is given any attention in Wisconsin today.  It's all about the Packers.  And I don't blame them. 

 

Tough Talk on Delta

I'm on a totally packed to the gills flight from Laguardia to Palm Beach for a meeting. 

It looked like we would leave on time.  Delta had done an efficient job of getting everyone on and in their seats in record time.  Only problem for some of us towards the back of the plane was that by the time we were wending our way down the aisle, it became evident that all the overhead space was already taken.  The flight crew was doing their best to help passengers stuff their stuff into the bins but for the unlucky few--like me--there was simply no more room in the bins.

 

So they scooped up our bags and checked them, meaning I'd be inconvenienced when landing by having to wait for my bag at the carousel (I avoid checking my bag with every ounce of my being because I hate to wait and I hate even more having to track down a lost bag).   But I figured things could be a lot worse.  For example, I could be trying to get to this Florida meeting from O'Hare...and we all know that means I'd never get there at all, bag or no bag.  So I chalked it up to the challenges of air travel and took my seat.

But oops.  There is an altercation starting between the woman right across the aisle from me and one of the flight crew.  Noisy.  Nasty.  Not pretty.  The woman was furious because she was one of the people whose bags wouldn't fit overhead.  And she was having none of that.

She let us all know that her bag had been damaged the other day and she was afraid they would mishandled the bag and the six Hermes scarves and the Van Cleef and Arpel jewelry and...and...and...would possibly be lost or damaged.  She had a point.  Some years ago I checked a bag on Delta and when I got it back, it was minus an expensive jacket and the piece of jewelry that had been pinned to that jacket.  In fact, a brooch my husband had given me and for which I am sure he paid too much in his effort to show his ardor for me.

But she made a loud fuss.  She demanded that they give her the microphone so she could ask someone to take their bag out of the overhead bin and have that bag checked, in order for hers to ride in the plane with us.  She was not gracious.  She screamed.  And the flight crew was increasingly unhappy as well.  They suggested she take another flight which they would arrange.  They had several other suggestions, all of which she turned down because she wanted that bag with her and felt someone else should be inconvenienced to make that possible.

 

 
By this time, she and the flight crew were arguing loudly in the front of the plane.  Mostly it was the passenger who was loud; the crew was doing its best to contain the situation.  But meanwhile, our flight was no longer leaving on time.  In fact we were now ten minutes into a late departure and counting.

The pilot got on and announced that we would be "taking off shortly as soon as some baggage issues were sorted out."  The woman got louder.  Finally, they told her she was no longer going to fly on this plane with us, bag or no bag.  They escorted her and the bag off the plane.

And the plane applauded.  The flight attendant in charge of the situation said "I tried to make this work but we just couldn't delay the rest of you any longer."

Wow!  God knows if she got on the next flight.  Or the plane after that.  Or any flight at all.  But given her anger and her sense of entitlement, attorneys will surely be involved soon.

One thing is clear.  If you make a fuss on a plane today-at least a Delta flight--keep in mind that the flight crew feels empowered to boot you off the plane.

Hmmm.  I'm still thinking about how that conversation could have been mediated.  But every solution I think of requires this woman to be less demanding, less spoiled, less Mrs. Got Rocks in her approach. 

I'll be thinking of her when I go to pick up my bag at baggage claim.