Gumption

Celebrating the Future Within ... Everyone?

Amy and I attended the Jubilee Women's Center's 10th Annual Benefit Breakfast on Wednesday, which had the inspiring title "Celebrating the Future Within" ... and a correspondingly inspiring program that included several women recounting their challenges, and now the Jubilee Women's Center helped them rise to meet those challenges. Our good friend, Mary, is on the Board of Directors for the organization, which is why we were there.

Jubilee is a transitional housing facility that offers homeless single women from ages 21 thru 60 a safe place in which to live and renew themselves. Women pay $250 / month for rent - the rest of which is subsidized through donations (such as those that are made during the annual breakfast) - and are offered a variety of training classes to help them become more self-reliant, both personally and professionally ... as Meeghan Black, of KING 5 TV, the MC for the event noted: these training classes sound like something everyone could use.

Deacon Steve Wodzanowski from St. Joseph Parish led the invocation, which was - synchronistically (for me) - based largely on a poem, The Journey, from Mary Oliver, a portion of which I'd referenced in my last post (on Blessed Unrest (which was based largely on Paul Hawken's book of the same name)), though he recited the full version, which I'm going to include here:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles. "Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

This, in turn, reminded of some of my earlier ruminations on Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings, which brought into focus my conflicting views on self-reliance vs. interdependence, inherence, adherence and coherence - essentially, the self vs. society. There does seem to be a conflict, or at least tension, between teaching self-reliance (independence) and yet preparing women to re-enter society (which is, by definition, highly interdependent). One of Emerson's observations closely aligns with Mary Oliver's poem (and the overall theme of the event):

Trust thyself: every heart every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Getting back to the event, it turns out that the average age of the women residents of Jubilee is 45. That fact, together with the unexpected events along their unanticipated path toward homelessness - for which I kept thinking "there, but for the grace of God the flying spaghetti monster, go I" (leaving aside, for the moment, the gender issue) - got me thinking about Dante, and his observation at the outset of The Divine Comedy:

In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in the dark wood where the true way was wholly lost.

Susan Fox, the Executive Director of the organization, noted the stigma often associated with women who are victims of domestic violence and/or homelessness, and stressed the importance of the positivism that pervades all aspects of Jubilee's programs. She encouraged us - and everyone - to look for (and celebrate?) the essential goodness within each of these women, a perspective I try to adhere to ... and, yet (as with so many things), often feel conflicted about.

I suspect that Susan would extend this suspension of negative judgment and appreciation of essential goodness to all women, not just those whose paths happen to lead to / through Jubilee. Returning to the gender thread I suspended earlier, this got me to thinking about whether we draw the line at women, or whether we ought to suspend negative judgments and appreciate the goodness in all people, men and women alike.

Pushing further along this edge, I wondered whether / how we can offer the same graciousness to the men who perpetrated violence on the women residents of Jubilee (not that I mean tot imply that all residents there are victims of domestic violence). Can we - ought we to - celebrate the future within every person (not just every woman)?

I find this to be an immensely challenging proposition. Philosophically, I cannot justify the drawing of lines of demarcation - this person is essentially good, that person is essentially evil. However, in practice, I do this all the time (I've noted several times before my personal challenges with seeing the essential goodness in George W. Bush, who, in my judgment, is one of the biggest perpetrators of violence - scaling back social programs, reducing protections for our environment, supporting capital punishment, war and [other forms of] torture - on the face of the planet). Who knows, maybe more obvious expressions of goodness lie in his future ...

As usual, I don't have any good answers ... just good questions ... or, at least, questions about goodness.

Data "Mining" vs. Data "Oursing": On the Integration and Integrity of Data, People and Organizations (Len Silverston)

[The following article was written by my good friend, Len Silverston, founder of Universal Data Models, who is an inspiring thinker, writer and speaker, but not a blogger (yet). It weaves together many threads I've touched on about before -- radical transparency, us vs. them and the business value of openness, integrity, vulnerability and compassion -- and introduces a marvelously evocative and potentially viral new term -- "data oursing" -- that captures the essence of the siloing practices by people and organizations. He graciously agreed to let me post this on his behalf.]

How can we truly develop integrated information? Data management groups have struggled with the realization of this goal. Many of the people in organizations that I have witnessed have said (and I paraphrase):   

“We need to understand and implement best practices from other organization who have succeeded.”
“We need top level management commitment.”
“We need business buy-in.”
”We need to demonstrate value.”
“We need proper incentives in place to motivate people and organizations to share and manage information on an enterprise wide basis.”

It seems like these are all intelligent and appropriate statements that are important in developing more integrated information.

I want to share a hypothesis with you - one of the biggest issues in developing integrated information is data “mining” and what is really needed, at the core of this issue, is data “ours”ing. You may be thinking of data mining as in, “the process of automatically searching large volumes of data for patterns”. I am not referring to this definition, but a new alternative definition for data mining meaning, “acting in a manner where this data is mine”  As an example, John did not share company information as he was “data mining”, declaring that the customer contact information was “his” own personal information that he collected and thus declared “this data in mine – not the company’s or anyone else’s”.

Data “mining” is a root cause of not being able to integrate data – data silos come from people silos.

While there is much written on the need for data integration, it also seems that people and organizations have had a great deal of trouble in integrating data. I have given talks to thousands of data management professionals representing hundreds of organizations and when I ask the question, “Who has successfully integrated their data?”, very few people claim huge successes. Why is this?

According to dictionary.com, the definition of integrate is “to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole” and the definition of disintegrate it is “to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate”. 

When people and/or departments within an enterprise act too often in a manner where “this data is mine” and thus are “data mining”, then people and organizations move towards separation and disintegration. When people move towards disintegration, data becomes disintegrated. Data silos come from people silos.

Consider one common example that occurs in many organizations. A sales person maintains data regarding their customer contacts. Perhaps there is an enterprise-wide customer contact database to facilitate sharing and synchronization to enable data consistency, cross-selling, collaboration, and more effective sales and service.   

Enter data “mining”. The salesperson may think “I understand the benefits of an enterprise-wide customer database but this customer data is mine!”.  I even brought in some of this data from a previous employer and this is how I make my livelihood for my family. I am doing a good thing by providing to my family and by protecting my personal customer contact information. If I share it with others who I don’t even know then they could mess it up, misinterpret it or misuse it.

This type of thinking makes a customer data integration effort very difficult and I believe that it is a core underlying issue that results in lost power for the enterprise. If we each think separately, our data will be separate. I have worked in many organizations where there are over 100 sources of inconsistent customer information and after many years of efforts, they have still been unable to integrate customer information across their enterprise.

This type of thinking happens in many different circumstances. Here are a couple, but this list could go on indefinitely.

• A department not wanting to share “their” department’s data into an enterprise data warehouse, master data management system, or enterprise data management effort. Sound familiar?
  
  
• Government agencies not wanting to share critical information about counter-terrorism. This illustrates that lives are sometimes at stake if we don’t appropriately share. For example, in the September 11th incident, there were two hijackers that were on the FBI’s most wanted list and another two hijackers who had expired visas and the airlines did not have access to this information. There may have been regulations, privacy, and security considerations that hindered sharing. But could we have shared this data more effectively and were there motivations of not wanting to share?

I want to stress that there are many good reasons and situations where people should not share data freely even in the above scenarios or, for example, in a human resources department that is responsible for securing sensitive information.

Be the change you want to see in the world

What can we do? Mahatma Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".  If we each share more and consider data to be “ours” as opposed to “mine” more often, then I believe we will move towards data integration as opposed to data disintegration.

Here is an exercise that you can do and that you can share with others to do:

- Identify one of your most valuable pieces of data.   
- Ask the question “Do you completely own it?”
- How willing are you to share it and under what conditions will you share it?

The point of this exercise is to experience the feeling of data “mining” and get a clearer understanding of how data separation occurs, our underlying motivations, enabling us to act wisely and influence an appropriate level of data sharing.

So I invite you to conduct this exercise with me. What is one of the most valuable pieces of information that you own? Look at this data that you declare that you “own” and that is “your” data. For example, I have spent decades of my life working on a repository of re-usable data models that my company publishes and licenses called the Universal Data Model Repository. I would consider this one of the most valuable pieces of data that I own. What type of data is valuable to you? Is it personal data, intellectual property, corporate data, confidential data or some other type of data?

Do you completely own it?  I am not saying that you don’t - it may very well be your data. However, is this data really “yours” and not “ours”? Are you absolutely sure that this is “your” data or is it “our” data? Could it be that others own it, for example, your employer? Could it be that no one really owns it? For example, is the Universal Data Model Repository of template data models something that I, Len Silverston, own? Or is it something that my organization owns? Under intellectual property law, my organization has copyrights and trademarks, so there may be legal ownership. However, others have
contributed many ideas to these template models for which I am so grateful. So at a deep level, are the ideas contributed by others owned by me? I must admit, that right now as I write, I feel a certain amount of discomfort (and data mining). Hey, I spent a great deal of my career on this repository of models! I own this. I have paid for this by paying others and with my time. So, data “mining” arises. I do have certain legal rights regarding this data and at one level there is ownership by my company, Universal Data Models, LLC.

On another level, I cannot personally claim ownership to many of the ideas and if I spend too much energy towards these being “my” ideas and “my” data, then they would not be as shared and integrated into the industry where they can be of greater benefit.

How willing are you to share “your” data or information? A thought that runs through my mind is that, ooh, the more I freely share “my” data the more I am at risk of losing power! For example, I may have to trust someone or some organization not to copy these models indiscriminately! 

Some people have said to me, don’t publish your ideas so easy, it is a competitive advantage to offer these through my consulting practice. My personal experience has been that sharing these models through books and publications has been so gratifying to me in so many ways and has benefited so many people and organizations around the world. Sometimes I charge for sharing this work and sometimes I don’t. Data is an asset. So when to charge and when not?  What do you need in order to share your valuable data?

The benefits of information sharing and data “ours”ing can be realized and cultures can be changed to produce extremely positive outcomes. For example, a Fortune Magazine article [Seagate's Three-Day Revolution] told the story of how Seagate Technologies returned to financial health based on a change in culture from being “divided into vertical silos” to “putting group genius to work”, a buzz phrase from Matt Taylor, who developed a collaboration process called DesignShop that was used by Seagate and many other firms to help change culture via Capgemini’s Accelerated Solution Environment.  As a consultant, I have been involved in a few remarkable examples of the power of sharing information and data “ours”ing. For example, in a large financial services organization, the healthy environment that was developed enabled an enterprise wide system where there was appropriate sharing of client information throughout the enterprise, as well as with the clients, resulting in much better service levels.

Invitation to Share

Perhaps the next time someone is reluctant to share their data in a data warehouse, master data management or data management effort, we can better understand the behavior and influence more powerful and collaborative behavior. 

I invite us to share more and be an example of moving towards data integration versus data disintegration. I invite us to see data more as ours and less as “mine”. I invite us to move from people silos towards people integration and thus move towards data integration. I also invite us to share ideas about this topic with each other. I welcome any feedback from you and any thoughts regarding how we can move from data “mining” to data “ours”ing. Thank you.

[Thank you, Len!]

Radical Transparency: Revelation, Reputation and Reciprocity

The current issue of Wired has a great feature on radical transparency, highlighting the benefits that accrue to CEOs who are open to revealing their shadows, and exposing the risks to the reputations of those who continue to embrace secrecy and/or duplicity in their self representations. As with many Wired features, it is provocative ... and rather biased ... and just happens to align well with my own biases. I want to explore some of the issues raised in the article, blend in some issues I and others have raised elsewhere, and ruminate a bit about the prospective breadth and depth of radical transparency.

In preparing the lead article, The See-Through CEO, author Clive Thompson walked his talk by posting an entry on his blog outlining his plans (focusing on three themes: "secrecy is dead", "tap the hivemind", "reputation is everything"), and inviting comments. He received over 50 responses, with very high signal-to-noise ratio; several of them are explicitly included in his article (others are presumably implicitly included).

Clive opens his article with a story about how Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, was faced with mounting challenges to his company's attempt to disintermediate the real estate business by empowering home buyers and sellers through a rich (and enriching) Internet application. Redfin provides an easy-to-use window into the real estate market, offering a map-based interface for prospective buyers to see a wealth of information about homes for sale in a given market (I imagine a similarly powerful interface for home sellers, but have not yet explored that side of the house). Faced with resistance by realtors who understandably feel threatened by this introduction of disruptive technology that [somewhat ironically] renders transparent many aspects of a complex and lucrative market in which they once enjoyed a clear hegemony of information, Redfin was in danger of failing.

Glenn created a blog to reveal some of the challenges he was encountering internally and externally. While initially hesitant to being so open about the challenges, he found that "instead of discouraging customers, being open about our problems radicalized them ... they rallied and started pulling for us". Glenn's move, and the response, hardly surprises me, given his inspiring recommendations on 10 Steps for Building a Company at NWEN's Entrepreneur University 2005 (one of which was "be open and honest and respectful") and his more recent presentation on Fortune Favors the Bold (one of which is "radical openness: the truth will set you free"). I'm also reminded of Glenn's recommendations for hiring employees -- "find the maniacs and give them a reason to believe" ... and given how he has, in effect, invited his customers into the pool of maniacs and believers, I'm thinking that my earlier rumination on everyone's a customer might be due for an update, as it appears that, increasingly, everyone's a partner.

I was [further] reflecting on how openness and vulnerability tends to breed reciprocity, and that if businesses want to build strong relationships with customers, that has to be built on a platform of trust, and the best way to get others to trust you is to trust them (demonstrating trustworthiness by trusting). I've written before about the business value of integrity, openness, vulnerability and compassion, but at that point was thinking more about how those principles might be applied internally. As Web 2.0 progessively erodes the barriers between us and them, there may be more business value to practicing those principles in "external" relationships as well.

Clive notes that

Google is not a search engine. Google is a reputation management system ... here's the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates and incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it ... network algorithms do not favor the cagey or secretive. They favor the prolific, the outgoing, the shameless.

However, I started to wonder how widely this radical transparency really applies (or could apply). Redfin is clearly a company that is setting out to empower its customers, and it's little surprise to me that some of those customers would help Redfin help them. Microsoft is another company that was profiled in this feature, where Fred Vogelstein [who, surprisingly to me, does not appear to have a blog] explored Operation Channel 9, the internal project wherein a small group of radicals went around creating impromptu videotape interviews with Microsoft developers and posting them on an external web site, and observed that "no large company - with the possible exception of Sun Microsystems - is as far along in understanding how the Internet changes the way employees connect with suppliers, customers, shareholders and peers". By promoting openness and vulnerability -- sometimes at the risk of being fired (reminding me of the risk / reward tradeoffs between thriving and surviving discussed -- especially in the comments -- in my last post) -- the Channel 9 crew helped Microsoft establish a new [virtual] front porch, making itself more approachable by its network of third party developers ... and, I suspect, a significant number of its end-users. This channel is also augmented with over 4,500 other channels (external bloggers), giving Microsoft one of the highest [external] blogger-per-capita rates (6.3%) of any company I know of.

So why does Microsoft have so many external bloggers, and why does, say, Nokia have so few? The blogroll at Stephen Johnston's ThreeDimensionalPeople blog has the most complete listing I've seen anywhere, but at 15 of 55,000, we have a blogger-per-employee ratio of 0.02%. There are, of course, a number of blogs sponsored or at least promoted by Forum Nokia, but as the forum is invitation-only (and the invitation can presumably be revoked at any time), I'm not sure how high these blogs would score on the radical transparency scale. I realize that many of the Microsoft blogs are primarily "promotional", but many of them tend to play closer to the edges with respect to what they reveal about the company and its practices, policies and personnel.

I know Nokia is very proud -- and protective -- of its brand, and so I started wondering about whether there is a fundamental tension between branding and blogging? According to Business Week's listing of Top 100 Global Brands, Nokia's brand is #6 and Microsoft is #2, suggesting that blogging does not adversely affect the brand (or at least not necessarily so). IBM, which has an extensive array of internal blogs (3,600 as of a report 2 years ago) and wikis, is #3 among brands, and seems to have hundreds of external blogs (judging from a few lists). On the other end of the spectrum, Coca-Cola (the #1 brand) has one rather infamous flog (fake blog), but very few "real" blogs (that I can find).

Does the discrepancy between external blog adoption rates have anything to do with a company's dedication to the empowerment of its customers? Nokia's mantra ("connecting people") certainly implies a level of individual empowerment, though perhaps not in the same way as Microsoft's mantra ("your potenial, our passion"), and I would argue that neither large company empowers its customers as clearly as Redfin does. It would be interesting to do a more comprehensive assessment of the correlation between brands and blogs, and even more interesting to investigate the causal relationship(s) between these two factors (and other factors such as size, vision, mission, values, industry, customer bases and business models). Meanwhile, in the spirit of Clive's openness, I welcome any insights anyone has to share on any of this.

Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you

David Whyte's poetry and narratives in the 6-CD collection, Clear Mind, Wild Heart: Finding Courage and Clarity through Poetry, continue to inspire me. The title of this post is taken from his poem, Sweet Darkness, in which he writes about darkness, tiredness, belonging, freedom and coming alive.  This past week, I recognized that I have come alive [again] in my work -- a resurgence, of sorts -- and I was reminded of an earlier period in my research career where I felt very much alive ... closely followed by a period of darkness, tiredness and confinement. Before reflecting a bit more on personal (and professional) history, I wanted to include the poem, Sweet Darkness, (found here) for reference.

Sweet Darkness

 

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

 

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

 

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

 

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

 

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

 

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

 

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

 

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

 

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

 

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

 

is too small for you.

 

~ David Whyte ~

In the accompanying narrative that Whyte offers to provide some context for the poem, he invokes the spirit of Dante ("in the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood where the way was wholly lost"), and encourages us middle-of-the-roaders to relinquish our clinging to a "climate-controlled existence" and embrace an investigative vulnerability as we cultivate a relationship with the unknown,  with whatever lies over the horizon.

Earlier (in Disc 1, "Our home is so close to us"), Whyte observes that

We're meant to hazard ourselves, to hurt ourselves, to be disappointed, to be on an edge in which you will discover what is you and what is not you.

and later

We naturally gravitate to the corners of creation in which we belong and in which we're supported in doing our work.

Whyte describes poetry as "the art of living at a frontier in life", offering a place of renewal, rediscovery and reimagination. Poetry is as much listening as it is speaking, creating a context in which "you can hear yourself say things you didn't know that you knew." He shares a profound example of this in Sweet Darkness, when he wrote "You must learn one thing..." and wondered, with keen anticipation, just what that one thing would turn out to be.

Further on, Whyte talks about the true nature of humliliation ("to be returned to the ground of your being") and the tendency for many of us to enage in work that we have no affection for, doing it out of our desire for belonging, i.e., doing what we think we should be doing in order to be liked, and often becoming exhausted in the process (reminding me of a recent NPR Talk of the Nation segment on Understanding Burnout, and the high cost of employee disengagement I've written about earlier). A wise Benedictine monk, Brother David, a friend of Whyte's, then shares his insight that

the antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness

Whyte concludes the session with the observation that we're all creatures of belonging, and that by articulating all the ways we feel lonely, we're already on the way home ... reflecting insights shared by others regarding the most personal is the most general, and my own sense that by openly sharing our inner secrets, we are better able to connect with others.

And so, inspired by all of this, I decided to start writing, albeit more prosaically than poetically, wondering what, exactly I would say ... how I would say it ... and how deep I would be willing to delve into some of the shadows of my past. I'll start with some recent events, and revisit a few related events in the more distant past -- and the feelings and judgments they evoke[d] in me.

This past week was a particularly wholehearted nd exhilarating week for me, with a number of engaging meetings with interesting people, and culminating in a personal peak around an internal presentation (at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto) I gave on the past, present and future of proactive displays. In preparing and presenting the slides, I felt more alive than I have in quite some time ... and was offered an opportunity to reflect back upon a period where I experienced a spiritually deadening blockage in my work.

At the outset of the last episode of my assumption of the role of a researcher, I felt very much alive. I had joined a new research lab, I was co-chairing CSCW 2002 (with my dear friend, Elizabeth Churchill), and I would soon be chairing UbiComp 2003 (with lots of help from another good friend, Dave McDonald). In between, I was co-creating a research agenda that would align my passion for using technology to help people relate to one another with my role as conference chair. With the help of Dave, three fabulous interns (David Nguyen, Al "Mamun" Rashid and Suzi Soroczak), and a host of other supporting actors, we designed, developed, deployed and evaluated a suite of three proactive display applications at UbiComp 2003. Our primary goal was to foster a greater sense of community among attendees by sensing people near large displays and showing content relating to those people on the displays. While we encountered challenges of various kinds before, during and after the event, and everything did not go as planned (as anyone who has deployed large-scale sociotechnical interventions "in the wild" can probably relate to), I felt that the project was largely successful, and on the Wednesday night at the end of the conference, I felt like I was at the pinnacle of my career ... and I suppose the next few days, weeks and months only reinforced the perception that that night did, in fact, represent a peak.

I took a much-needed vacation the following Thursday, and when I came in on Friday, I had a meeting with the [now former] lab director and [now former] co-director in which I was told, in effect, that I -- or at least, my work -- wasn't good enough. My approach to research was judged unacceptable, and the work was not well-enough aligned with one of two recently annointed projects, and the goal of the director was to subsume all the research in the lab under these two projects. The proactive display project was cancelled, effectively immediately (to this day, there is no reference to the work on the web site of the lab), and I was told to work on another application, involving the creation and use of place tokens in blogs, that had been largely defined by a [then former] colleague who had left the lab, and that would align with one of the two approved projects. Unfortunately, I didn't believe in the value of the application --  or the project -- and the more I researched it, the less compelling I found the value proposition(s).

The six months following my "success" at UbiComp 2003 was the most soul squelching period of my professional life, as I continued to work on my assigned project, and I finally decided that what I really wanted to do was realign with my heartfelt mission and renew my pursuit of the proactive display agenda, of which I felt we'd only scratched the surface. Although the director would not agree to support the work, I was allocated a grace period in which to explore whether / where / how that work might be supported elsewhere in the firm, or outside of the firm. Unfortunately, while many people were supportive of the idea, no one was willing to allocate "head count" to support me in pursuing the idea. I decided the only way to realize my dream was to create a firm, Interrelativity, Inc., to support its development (with key development support provided by Khai Truong at the outset).

As I've written before, I felt very much alive in my entrepreneurial period, which was filled with fabulous rewards in nearly every dimension ... except the financial one. So, when I joined Nokia last fall, I hoped to achieve a more comprehensive spectrum of fulfillment (pursuing work aligned with my mission ... while getting paid). After six months of devoting much of my time and effort to playing a supporting role with respect to what I would characterize as cultural and organizational development, the presentation last week marked the first time I'd publicly articulated the research (and/or development) agenda to which I aspire, with the help -- and within the framework -- of the Context, Content and Community team.

Listening to Whyte's second CD ("In the middle of the road of our lives") on Friday evening -- for at least the fifth time (I've listened to all the CDs many times) -- it dawned on me that the work I am doing and the people I am working with are helping to bring me alive [again], and that my idealistic initial intuition about belonging -- in a firm whose mantra is "connecting people", a lab dedicated to inventing the future mobile Internet experience, and a team whose mission is to create large scale experimental systems for large scale social change -- increasingly appears to be grounded in reality. In writing this, I am aware that I had similar perceptions and judgments at this stage in my last research position, but I will continue to hope there are some key differences in me (now) and / or the new[er] lab that will enable me to enjoy some time in the light ... and to help me / us bring light to others.

Notes from Florida: Reviews of Tampa Area Attractions, Detractions and Distractions

We went to Florida for a family vacation last week, visiting my mom and stepfather in Clearwater, and engaging in [more common] tourist and consumerist activities. Although I didn't take a vacation from email during the trip, I did take a full vacation from blogging (and I still feel backlogged in both dimensions ... not to mention the much longer-standing Flickr backlog).

We enjoyed seeing Mom and Fred --  even though each had colds of varying strength and duration -- and getting together with some of Fred's family (unfortunately, we did not get to see all of our friends and family in the area ... maybe next time). It was [also] nice to see where they spend about a third of their year (other thirds being spent in suburbs of Cleveland and Hartford ... intermingled with various travels to more distant locales).

Our first day there, we drove down the coast from Clearwater Beach to John's Pass. Our first stop was the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores, where we saw a wide variety of captive and free birds (e.g., pelicans, herons, hawks, vultures, mockingbirds and even crows). The captive birds were either irreparably injured or indelibly "imprinted" -- we were told that often birds form their self-impressions within the first 24 hours of life, and if the first living being they encounter is a human, then they think they are human ... and are [thus] often unable to survive in the wild. The vast majority of injuries are manmade -- hooked, lined, sinkered, shot and/or poisoned (intentionally or unintentionally). Any birds that can be rehabilitated and released are kept in a separate area where they do not interact (or see) the visitors. The free birds tended to flock to the sanctuary due to its relative safety ... and, I suspect, free food [scraps].

The next stop was John's Pass, where Amy shopped for sandals at Natural Comfort Footwear -- which had the most extensive collection of Teva's and Naot's I've ever encountered -- while I took the kids out parasailing at Jack's Marina (where they offered to give them an 800-foot [length of rope] ride for the price of a 400-foot ride, for $55 vs. $75 ... and I suspect all such offerings are far more negotiable than I normally tend to expect).

We visited Busch Gardens the next day. We did not attend any shows, and only Meg tried the rides -- including Gwazi, Montu and SheiKra -- which I think she enjoyed more than the animals. Unfortunately, the posted wait estimates for rides were often not well synchronized with real wait times, and so we stopped trusting them. If we were to visit again, we would definitely take advantage of some of the up close tours, e.g., the Serengeti Safari, but we found out about them too late to sign up for any that day. The highlight, for me, was seeing the baby gorilla at Myombe Reserve ... the lowlight was seeing the lionness pace back and forth incessantly at the Edge of Africa (I suspect she would have preferred to be elsewhere).

The next day, Evan and I got up early to go "deep sea fishing" at Hubbard's Marina. In the five-hour half-day fising trip, we saw a few people of the 30+ people catch a few fish (I suspect the total catch was less than a dozen). It was a nice day for a boat ride, and it could have been far more crowded, but Evan was disappointed -- he only caught one tiny fish (that we had to throw back), a far cry from his fishing experience off Cabo, Mexico, two years ago. Perhaps the fishing is better at different times of the year, but we both agreed that this was the last time we'd try "deep sea" fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Although we had hoped to feast on our catch for lunch, the silver lining was that Fred took us out for what was the best restaurant meal of the trip, at Guppy's on the Beach (which is not on the beach) in Indian Rocks Beach, a few miles north.

Our next destination was Sea World in Orlando. The highlights there included the killer whale show, Believe (during which I became surprisingly, and [nearly] embarrassingly, emotionally choked up), the sea lion and otter improvisational comedy show, Clyde and Seamore Take Pirate Island (where the mime who "escorted" late arrivals before the show was just as funny, if not funnier, than the main act), and feeding fish to the seals, sea lions and seabirds at Pacific Point Preserve. Much to Meg's delight, Evan decided he liked roller coasters (again), and so she had a buddy with whom to enjoy Kraken ... several times. Among the things I would not do again is see Blue Horizons, a peformance that combined dolphins with birds and humans in a show that seemed too theatrical and not enough animal, and pay the extra $5 for the "preferred parking (which only saved us a few dozen steps).

Our last day there, Mom was feeling well enough to join us for an outing, and we headed up to Tarpon Springs, a largely Greek community that is / was based on sponge diving. On the way there, we stopped at Howard Park, which includes a small island at the end of a causeway with nice beaches and areas for fishing and/or windsurfing. After playing frisbee for a while, we headed into downtown Tarpon Springs and had lunch at Mykonos, purportedly among the best and most authentic Greek restaurants in town (it was OK, I guess, but I'm not really a fan of Greek food anyway). The downtown area was a bit too touristy for my / our tastes, and so we didn't stay long.

That evening, Amy and I went out to dinner at Frenchy's Rockaway Grill (on the beach at Clearwater), enjoying the views of the sunset from a corner spot on the patio -- though not enjoying the smells of cigarette smoke wafting through the air from the nearby bar area (Florida seems to have a much higher proportion of smokers than other states, or at least left coast ones). The food and drinks were reasonably tasty (Amy especially liked the rich and creamy "She Crab Soup"), and very reasonably priced (given the location). Afterward, in a fitting close to the last evening of our trip, we strolled along the beach where, a little over 19 years ago, in another episode of being emotionally choked up, I proposed that Amy marry me ... and her acceptance then -- and now -- has been a source of great joy for me.

Great Customer Care from United Airlines and Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Yesterday morning, I was dismayed to hear the voicemail of the United Airlines' automated flight change notification service telling me my flight to San Francisco was cancelled. The message said I'd been rerouted, and would not arrive until much later in the day. I called United Reservations, but the human operator I finally got through to (with a strong Indian accent) was not helpful at all.

As a struggling entrepreneur, I had cut way back on air travel and lost my United Premier status this year, for the first time in about 8 years.  After my experience yesterday morning, I was starting to think that maybe this would be a good time to switch allegiance to another carrier. Then last night, I received a call from an extremely helpful agent, Karen Luna (from Chicago), who called my home number.  Karen helped me get on another flight, routing through LAX, that got me in to SFO shortly after I was originally scheduled to arrive.  With my new job, I expect to be traveling enough to qualify for premier airline status again over the next year, and thanks to Karen's timely and effective intervention, I'll be staying with United.

Upon arriving at SFO this morning, I had another pleasant surprise.  I had made my first reservation with Enterprise Rent-A-Car over the weekend (signing up for their Express Lane service), and was surprised that the check-in at the counter was so quick, and even more surprised when I approached the Enterprise section of the garage and Travis came out of the small office to shake my hand, warmly greet me, and introduce me to Michael, who then personally took me to my car, guided me through the checklist and cheerfully bade me farewell as I drove away.

This was in stark contrast to my recent -- and first -- experience with Dollar Rent A Car (also at SFO), where I also signed up for their Dollar Express service, but not until after I'd made an online reservation.  I contacted the Dollar customer service through email, and was assured that my reservation had been recategorized as a Dollar Express reservation.  Unfortunately, when I arrived at the counter at SFO, the agent told me there was no record of my reservation.  When I explained what had happened, she told me "you can't do that", and then proceeded to re-enter all the information I'd entered earlier on the Dollar web site.  For reasons I don't understand -- possibly having to do with the fact that a customer in Rockland, MA, has the same name and driver's license number (though different state ... which presumably is not a field in their database key) as I do -- she had to re-enter all of that information a second time.  I finally got my car, but the experience was totally different ... as is the probability that Dollar will be the first place I'll look in the future.

Upon reflection, I'm sad to admit that my experiences with the first United agent and the Dollar agent were rather in line with what I had expected ... after all, I don't have "status" on United, and Dollar is a budget rental car company.  My experiences with the second United agent, and all the Enterprise employees, help remind me that there are still people -- and organizations -- that really do care about their customers ... and that I often find what I expect to find.

The Dance of Leadership

A healthy community is like a dance, with different dancers stepping forward to take the lead at different times, and others following those leads.  Even followers are leaders, as we lead ourselves along paths or sequences illuminated by those who we consciously or unconsciously agree to allow lead us.  A leader creates a safe space within which others can more effectively recognize and express their magnificence.

These are some of the insights that emerged for me over the weekend, as I participated in a leadership training course (LT1) offered by the Mankind Project.  As with other MKP trainings in which I've participated, I don't want to reveal the specifics of any of the exercises -- as that may diminish the impact for any future trainees -- but will elaborate further on some of the results (for me).

The notion of leadership as a dance arose as I noticed that all of the participants are leaders[-in-training], and recognized that if none of us was willing to step back at times -- and allow others to step forward -- little would be accomplished.  As I became more conscious of this dance, and who was stepping forward in different contexts, I ruminated on what distinguishes a leader, and wanted to be able to encompass a range of leaders from Ghandi to Hitler. I arrived at the following definition of leadership:

Leadership is the modeling and communication of passionate commitment to an inspiring goal, principle or path.

Throughout the weekend, I was reminded of related wisdom shared by others, including Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Dee Hock and Dan Oestreich. 

In the Prelude to Oriah's book, The Dance, she asks some provocative and insightful questions, including:

What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do whatever you do?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in
the world will arise from deep within and guide you every time you simply
pay attention and wait?

These help me remember that it doesn't necessarily matter whether I am leading others, but that in leading my self, I stay fully conscious and true to my self, and that it is in trusting my own instincts that I can lead my self -- and others -- most authentically.

I've written about Dee Hock's inspiring principles on Chaordic Leadership before.  His insights into power, listening and judgment repeatedly came to mind over the weekend, and his prescription for leadership was resonating deeply for me:

Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.

I also had occasion to practice his advice for recognizing, admitting, correcting, learning from and rising above mistakes over the weekend, as I became painfully aware of how much of my father's patterns of leadership in marriage and parenthood I have adopted.  Although my father had many wonderful and admirable qualities -- many of which I hope I am perpetuating -- there are other characteristic that I have unconsciously adopted.  I renewed my commitment to making mistakes wakefully.

Dan Oestreich, an inspiring leadership coach (and friend), has shared many insights into the gold and shadows of leadership in his Unfolding Leadership blog.  Many of them were reverberating through me during the weekend.  Perhaps most poignantly, I was ever more aware of the path on which he has helped me embark toward my unfolding radiance.  I will invoke yet another element of Oestreichian inspiration, and apply the representation of a möbius strip, which I first used in ruminating on preaching what I want to practice, to the paradox of leadership (and followership):

There were other sources of wisdom invoked by the leaders of the leadership training, including

• Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, by Robert Greenleaf
• King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
• Leadership from the Inside Out, by Kevin Cashman

A quick search of Amazon reveals that there are other books related to the dance of leadership, including

• The Dance of Leadership: The Art of Leading in Business, Government and Society, by Robert B. Denhardt and Janet Vinzant Denhardt,
• Dance of Leadership by Robin Denise Johnson,
• The Leadership Dance: Pathways to Extraordinary Organizational Effectiveness, by Richard Knowles (Director of the provocative sounding Center for Self-Organizing Leadership)

For the moment, however, I am content to follow the beat of my own, inner drummer, dancing with the shadows and gold that were illuminated for me over the course of the weekend.

Hearts and Minds, Us and Them, War and Peace

Curtis Johnson shares some insightful -- and potentially inciteful -- views on new ways of thinking about -- and acting on -- the issue of terrorism in an article entitled "Towards Effective Global Influence".  After starting off with a quote from Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson

"Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people"

Curtis notes the "obsessive reversions to what they know and understand" typically followed by the United States' Defense Department and State Department (and indeed, almost every organization I've ever known), and highlights three key weaknesses in current strategies:

1. Confusion about the Target Population
2. Bi-Polar Thinking
3. Focus on One-Way Influence

He goes on to propose a "robust, integrated, strategic relationship strategy ... requiring deliberate, thoughtful, and costly study; sober reflection; humility; and a flexibility in policy and mindset " ... actions that are extremely challenging for any organization -- or individual, for that matter -- to apply.

Curtis' own organization, the Advanced Concepts Group of Sandia National Labs, is a rather unique collection of individuals who "think different" and thrive on challenging conventional wisdom in a variety of domains that in some way affect the health and/or security of the nation.  Central to Curtis' critique is the prevailing us vs. them (or, perhaps, U.S. vs. them) perspective that appears pervasive among the policymakers in the U.S. government.  Curtis points out that there are many who are neither with us nor against us (yet), and therein lies the opportunity to influence, rather than control, opinions of the moderate majority.  By employing hard-nosed, single-minded, pure-push attempts to control the relationships we have with [people in] other countries, we risk further alienation, isolation and and retaliation.

I came upon Curtis' article after reading about a workshop on "The Warfare System and Beyond" led by Sam Keen, in which he helps participants recognize, and [hopefully] reverse, the tendencies of people, tribes and nations to dehumanize our enemies.  This reminded me of one of the ACG's focus areas, Future of Warfare, and a "think-fest" they held on the topic recently; one of their observations was that "control is illusory and short-lived" ... a point which Curtis significantly expanded upon in his article.

Personally, I think that Web 2.0 and The Wealth of Networks offer very promising emerging technologies, ideas and models for addressing the problems that Curtis raises.  Unfortunately, given the natural organizational tendency toward "obsessive reversions to what we know and understand", these new trajectories may not be welcome at the Departments of Defense or State, or even Sandia National Labs (though perhaps more welcome at the relatively free-thinking Advanced Concepts Group).  Of course, it's also a question of priorities, and whether the powers that be really want to embrace the hearts and minds of people and achieve real peace, or continue in a state of perpetual war.

Update: Gene Becker has a recent post that reminds me that at least one government agency is willing to implement a "pull" (vs. push) model of interaction:

Revolution: the Business and Brand of Sustainability?

The Seattle Times recently ran a Washington Post article on how Steve Case pushes symbiotic relationship of business principles, green ideas.  This was particularly interersting to me, given that a few days earlier, Case's new company, Revolution, LLC, had flexed its muscles to grow Flexcar, whose [now] former CEO, Lance Ayrault, had shared some of his insights into and experiences with social entrepreneurship at a Northwest Entrepreneur Network breakfast a few days before that.  During the Q&A session at the NWEN breakfast, Lance had noted the delicate balance of being a small (and growing) business with a majority stakeholder (Case / Revolution) with an entirely different sense of scale ... and, from the announcement, it looks like that balance may be shifting.

According to the Post article, Case, and his CEO, Michael Crooke, want to position Revolution as a meta-brand of environmentally friendly but mainstream products and services, targeting consumers who value "lifestyles of health and sustainability."  However, the company web site describing what Revolution is about focuses on control and convenience, with no mention of the environment or [planetary] sustainability.  While the article quotes Case as saying that he wants to avoid any product or service that is "too fringy", the web page states "We don't play it safe - we play to win".  One of the investments that Revolution has made is in Gaiam, "a provider of information, goods and services to customers who value the environment, a sustainable economy, healthy lifestyles, alternative healthcare and personal development" whose founder reportedly lives in a shack without running water; another is Miraval Resort, an exclusive "destination for body, mind and spirit", which appears to be at the opposite end of the housing spectrum from a shack ... and very distant from the dramatic stories of social entrepreneurship highlighted in the PBS series The New Heroes.

It will be interesting to see whether and how Case, Crooke, et al., can bridge the gaps between the ecology and the economy, and between alternative lifestyles and mainstream business.  I'm reminded of "The Tough Choice", a great essay by David Batsone in the March 2005 issue of Worthwhile Magazine, in which he reviews the tradeoffs between profitability and conscience faced by a number of founders of socially responsible businesses, with segments on each of the following:

• Gary Hirschberg, "CE-Yo" of Stonyfield Farm, now majority owned by Groupe Danone: "Looking at the Big Picture"
• Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, now majority owned by Unilever: "The Soul Has Been Lost"
• Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar, who rejected a bid from Quaker Oats to buy the company: "Clinging to Independence"
• Greg Steltenpohl, co-founder of Odwalla, who was forced out when the Odwalla board sold the company to Coca-Cola: "The New Gospel"

In each case where an [initially] socially responsible company chose a path of "growth" -- several of which are also covered (and available online) in an article on "To Drink or Not to Drink?" by Brooking Gatewood in The Dartmouth Green Magazine -- the price paid for growth was a diminishment of the commitment to social responsibility that motivated the founders.  It will be interesting to see what happens in this Case ... and whether the eco-friendly brand sought by Revolution is achievable ... and sustainable.

Social Entrepreneurship at Zino Society

The Zino Society Roundtable meeting had a social entrepreneurial flavor -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say several such flavors -- this month.  Two of the four companies presenting their plans to the Zino investors (SoilSoup and MadreMonte) had goals of creating greater social and/or environmental welfare, and another (Jookster) was incorporating social and community dimensions into an important technology application area.  Moreover, during the discussion after the presentations, it's clear that new ventures that seek to "do well by doing right" are appealing to this group, which, as one member put it, has a predilection for "noble purposes and high ideals".

One of the best definitions of social entrepreneurship, and some of the most compelling examples of this energy in action, can be found on the web site for the PBS miniseries The New Heroes:

A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value.

Although the ventures being pitched at the meeting may not [yet] have the level of impact exhibited by the examples shown in The New Heroes, some of them offer a local opportunity for socially responsible investing.

Cathi Hatch, Zino Society's founder, CEO and Primo ZINOrina, started things off by introducing Kay Syrrist, Director of Operations and CFO of Small Vineyards Imports (a company I wrote about after attending an earlier Zino Society Roundtable meeting).  Small Vineyards has organized a consortium of small wine producers in Italy that creates economies of scale in a way that offers a win-win value proposition for all stakeholders (producers, retailers, consumers).  There is a social entrepreneurial aspect to their efforts, given their focus on wines that are "customarily hand harvested, earth friendly, and always of superior quality".  Kay announced that, as a result of their presentation at the January Roundtable, they were able to secure investment to continue their efforts to bring "the wine, the stories, and the passion of these Italian winemakers to America", and so represent one of the early success stories for the Zino Society.

The keynote for the April meeting was delivered by Jeffrey Parker, Consul General of Canada for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.  Jeff spoke primarily about his prior role as Executive Director of Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC), a Canadian government program for providing early stage investment in companies engaged in research and development of advanced technologies.  This seed money is intended to attract later stage private sector investment and eventually produce "tangible economic, social and environmental benefits for all Canadians".  As might be expected, some of the investments have not yielded the desired results, but there have been some notable successes, such as Research in Motion, who was able to use the TPC money to create the Blackberry pager.  Jeff also noted the strong ties across the U.S./Canadian border, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, and his interest in strengthening those ties, especially along the entrepreneurial dimension.

The first company to present was Formotus, which offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to "enable enterprises to easily create and deploy mobile data applications for their employees."  Joe Verschueren, the co-founder and CEO, shared some details about pilot deployments, but as I don't see any information about these on the company web site or elsewhere on the web, I won't say more here.  Formotus co-founder and COO, Adriana Neagu, was one of the creators of Microsoft Office InfoPath.

SoilSoup President and CEO, Ken Hunt, was next up, sharing some of the environmental and economic benefits of their Organic Liquid Compost Brewing Systems.  As an erstwhile homebrewer (of beer), I appreciate the Do-It-Yourself nature of their current product line, and as an environmental advocate, I appreciate the benefits offered through using biology (beneficial bacteria derived from worm castings) rather than chemistry for nourishing soil.  Ken referred to an Ohio State University study that demonstrated the positive effects of using SoilSoup on a field planted with winter squash: a 40% increase in marketable yield and a 50% increase in the percentage of marketable fruit.

Kapenda Thomas, Founder and CEO of Jookster, presented his company's goal as combining the best of MySpace and Google.  Jookster users can identify an interesting/useful site by "jooking" it -- a one-click operation via a browser plugin (the Jookster Toolbar) to add it to a favorites list.  If a user has a community of Jookster friends, their ratings can be used to order the results of a search, as can information about the location of the user (e.g., via geotagged IP addresses) [Update: Kapenda clarified that localized search results were a natural outgrowth of their community-oriented ratings, e.g., if a user's friends tend to jook sites in a particular locale, such as the Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle, then searching for the term for "Queen Anne" is more likely to return results relating to that neighborhood than, say, a member of the British Royalty] providing what Kapenda calls context through community.  The revenue model is based on contextual advertising, and so they will need to build a critical mass of users; as noted in the Q&A, if they are able to demonstrate better contextualized search results, they may be able to command higher advertising rates.  An interesting exchange on various approaches to -- and assumptions about -- community search, including those embodied in Jookster and Wink, can be found on this post at TechCrunch.

The last presenter was the first presenter, Joe Verschueren, this time representing another venture, MadreMonte Coffee, whose mission aligns most closely with the examples of social entrepreneurship highlighted in the aforementioned PBS series ... and shares some similarities to Small Vineyards Imports.  MadreMonte markets fair trade organic coffee grown by small family farmers in the Cauca Valley of Columbia.  The goal is to foster peace, economic development, sustainable agriculture, food security and organic farming in Columbia, which is the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.  The company seeks to leverage the high quality of Columbian coffee -- Joe said it was finest in the world (I am rather partial to Indonesian Sumatra, myself) -- and a "girl scout cookies" marketing strategy channeled through the Jesuit network (two Jesuit priests are the other co-founders).

After the presentations, and an investors' discussion period, all the participants were offered a chance to partake of wine and wisdom, and as usual, both dimensions were exemplary.  The wines included

• Robert Sinskey 2003 Los Carneros Pinot Noir: one of the darkest, full-bodied and long-finishing Pinot Noirs I've tasted (though I admit to not drinking much Pinot, given my preference for big reds).
• Baer 2003 Ursa: a predominantly Merlot / Cabernet Franc blend that was my favorite (while still in the barrel) during a vertical tasting at Baer Winery of the 2001, 2002 and 2003 vintages a year and a half ago.
• Kennedy Shah 2004 Auntie Meredith's Picnic Blend & 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon: the Picnic Blend, consisting of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc, tasted like it would be an ideal accompaniment to a picnic on a hot day, but I liked the full-bodied cab, which was a blend that also included Merlot and Cabernet Franc, much better.
• Marchetti 2001 Rosso Conero Riserva: a blend that I believe is primarily Rosso di Montepulciano, whose name derives from "cherry" and is grown in small vineyards that are typically surrounded by cherry trees ... and thus there is a strong cherry component to the nose and taste of this full-bodied red.
• Giuseppe Lonardi 1999 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico: my favorite of the tasting.  As Kay was opening up the first bottle, he described Amarone as "sex in a bottle", and so I pointed to the proactive display in the corner and noted that my "ticket2talk" image was a bottle of Amarone, and my caption read "Amarone: Ecstasy in a Bottle" (and I swear I didn't know Kay would be there, nor that he would be pouring an Amarone).

 

Unlike the earlier Zino Society meetings I attended -- at one of which we deployed our proactive display -- some of the wine was offered as people were arriving and before the presentations began, and so conversations and connections were already flowing rather well by the time the "wine and wisdom" hour rolled around.  We did a better job of highlighting sponsors this time, thanks to the active engagement of Mary Holmes, Zino Society's VP for Business Relations, and I saw some people paying some attention to the display during the event.  However, I'm not sure there was much room for improvement in creating opportunities for interactions using technology: the wine and inspiring presentations offered pretty good tickets to talk.

Coming around full circle, I view Interrelativity itself as an example of social entrepreneurship.  The motivation behind Interrelativity is a fundamental belief that we are all kindred spirits on some level, each interesting in his or her own way, with untapped value we can offer -- and receive from -- others.  Strangers are simply friends who haven't met yet, and so our goal is to introduce technology into settings where it can help introduce people, by revealing interests and passions -- that people have chosen to share -- that go beyond what might be gleaned from faces, names and affiliations.  If this approach and capability to facilitate connections gains traction, it will help transform society in ways that benefit everyone.