Is it Dementia or is it Data Overload?

Is it Dementia or is it Data Overload?

So I find myself at an interesting juncture in my career.  I've done a lot, seen a lot, thought deep thoughts and worked with many smart, driven fellow travelers along the way.  Right now I work at a company that is in love with data.  This I'm certain is not unique to my company.  It is a product of our time.  We love our data.  We slice it and dice it and slice it again.  We do one analysis and that begets a whole new raft of requests for deeper analysis and more numbers and information.   It is hard for even the best of us to keep up.  So what's a girl to do?

Cut to the scene in my house just this morning.  I was sitting working on a photo album, trying to label some of the photos of a fabulous wedding that we threw this September.  And as I am looking through the pictures, I came to one which is a picture of my sister and my nephew playing a game.   The game is one that I have played no less than a hundred times.  It is a game that was incredibly popular at the summer camp that I worked at for so many years.  It is a game that involves a pole with a rope on it and a ball at the end of the rope.  The object is to whack the ball in one direction so that you finally wrap the rope around the pole so many times that ... well... eventually.. you win.  So I know this game.  I've played this game.  I LOVE this game.  And there I sat looking at the picture, trying to label it and I could not for the life of me remember the name of the game.  You may be shocked that I am making this confession.  Seriously?  You couldn't think of the word tetherball?  Nope.  I couldn't.  It took me all of five whole minutes to finally summon the word.

I was not happy about this. The conversation that was happening inside my head was not a happy one.  I was disparaging to myself.  I was frustrated. No, what I really was, was fearful that there is something really profound happening to my brain.  I was fearful that I am truly losing it.  Is it all catching up to me? Is it all of those years of fun and frivolity?  Was it the trips to Burning Man?  Have I simply tapped out what little capacity is left in my brain.  Am I washed up?  Is it over for me in the world of big data?  You can imagine, in my fragile state, where my thoughts started to take me.

And then my son appeared.  My son who is so wise and thoughtful and remarkably centered for a 24 year old.  And I confessed my deepest fears to him.  I said, "Dewey, I think I have Alzheimer's."
And he laughed and said, "Mom, that stuff happens to me all the time.  My friends just look at me, waiting for me to spit out whatever it is I am trying to say."  hmmm.  The plot thickens.  Is it possible that it's not me?   This, by the way, is a lesson I am working mightily to learn.  Most of the time-   "it's not about me".

Well, phew.  That was incredibly reassuring.  Really?  This happens to you kids too?  That is beyond reassuring.  It saves me from myself.  It allows me to move on with my day and get back to the office where the crush of data will keep coming at me.  There will be countless spreadsheets and analyses by very smart people on my team.  Thank God for the smart people on my team.  And I will keep trying to stay on top of the avalanche.  I think perhaps the best prescription of all will be for me to give my brain a break later this month.  I think I should let my brain slow down a bit and not work too hard.  I think I should put my computer away for a few days.  Maybe I'll actually read some books that are fun and frothy.  Maybe I'll spend some time outdoors, despite the cold.  Maybe I'll sing with my friends, and celebrate with my family all that we should be so grateful for.  Yup.  I think I'll celebrate that I don't have Dementia or Alzheimer's... at least not yet.

The Lull Between Parenthood and Grandparenthood.. a Holiday Reflection

'Tis the season when the world seems to go into a frenzy of consumerism.  We are between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  There are ads everywhere tempting us to the malls and stores with sales.  One begins to feel somehow grinch-like or just plain "not in the spirit",  if you don't get on board.

But I am not on board.  Sorry.  I'm just not feeling it.  I know it's early.  There is a chance I will rally late in the game.  But I sit here and reflect on other holidays and remember what it was to be so completely invested in the season.  Decorating the house, baking the cookies, planning and shopping for just the right gifts for family and friends.  In more recent years, I have often summoned a burst of creative energy at this time of year to make something homemade.  Some inspiration would strike and I would enlist my very handy and capable husband to help me make bird houses or bath salt holders or "A New Years Eve celebration in a glass".  And it was lots of fun to share those gifts.  I still love to make things and I certainly love to cook as well.  But having the energy to do this requires time and this year it just feels that I don't have enough of that.  With a very busy job and lots of business travel coming up, something's gotta give.

When our kids were small, the shopping and planning was incredibly intense and elaborate. But I don't feel that pressure any more. I don't need to do anything that I am not motivated to do.  Perhaps that is the gift of this time of my life.

The last few years have forced us into a new flexibility about what gets celebrated when.  We have had a medical resident in the family who has had to work several of the last Christmases.  So we've moved it up or back.   Of course with small children in the household, it would be impossible to do that.  When kids are counting the days and everyone around them is doing the same, throwing your Christmas on Dec 24th or 26th would just not fly.  But for us over the last few years, it hasn't really mattered. So I feel myself slowly but surely letting go of so many of the trappings of the holidays.

Will I get it back?  I'm considering that I might if I have a new generation of small fry with which to  celebrate the holidays. (By the way- no pressure kids)  I know from the friends in my life with grandchildren that the joy returns.  The holiday shopping takes on new meaning.  There is no end to the joy of buying adorable clothing or wonderful children's books or toys. So perhaps this is just a lull between the joys of parenthood and the joys of grand-parenthood.  I like to think that's it.

I also think that moving to Vermont has given me a new appreciation of keeping things simple, of moving away from a life of too much consumerism and excess. When you live somewhere with so much natural beauty, the need for "things" seems to recede.   So this season, whatever you celebrate, I wish you simple pleasures and the joy of doing only what you are moved to do.  If it's all about homemade gifts, do it.  If there is some special gift that you are excited to give to someone you love, then give it with pleasure.  If you are motivated to be generous and to give to people and causes who need the help, I applaud that too.  There is so much need in the world.  However you navigate the season, do it from a place of generosity and appreciation all that we are lucky enough to celebrate.

A Day in the Life of a Thankful Marketer

A Day in the Life of a Thankful Marketer

Tis the season to be grateful and to give thanks.  Thanksgiving is one of my all time favorite holidays.  It’s a time of year when I give thanks and yes reflect a bit on what’s important.  What lights me up?  What inspires me?  So as I sit and ponder these thoughts in my office at BiddingForGood, I watch the good news stream through my email box.

Every day, oftentimes many times during the day, I get an email alert about another nonprofit or school that has decided to work with my company to help raise their much-needed funds.  It would be so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work and stress (stress?  Who me?) of running a marketing team and of reaching out to customers and partners and prospects.  There is plenty of work to keep us all very busy indeed.   Most days we’re thinking about email campaigns and social media posts and web site conversion rates.  We’re trying to support our sales team and our client services team.  We’re trying to open new markets and forge new partnerships. But it’s way too easy to forget about the impact of all of the work that we collectively do every day.

So today, I peruse my inbox and see a long list of schools- charter schools and Montessori schools, public schools and private schools.  I see corporations like Kimberly Clark who are doing phenomenal employee auctions to benefit their charity partners.   Companies like Kimberly Clark and AT+T are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars through the generosity of their employees.

I see arts organizations like Inner City Arts and The ChoralArts Society of Washington DC. I get particular delight from organizations like this.  I sit back and imagine children getting exposed to the arts, or musicians sharing their gift of music with their communities.   I see temples and health organizations and nature conservancies.   I see organizations like Girls for Africa that exists to transform the lives of orphans in Ghana.   What is not to love about helping organizations like this?

If I visit our website, I find auctions for organizations like Art To Beat Cancer which is supporting new therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer.  And I find Home for the Howlidays.  This organization raises funds to rescue, heal and find homes for abandoned or homeless dogs and cats in high kill shelters.  I don’t linger too long on this site because I am desperately yearning for a dog in my life.  Our old dog, Gussie, died a couple of years ago and there is a big hole for me with no devoted friend to sit patiently by my side.  The timing is not right for a new dog now but I can take great pleasure in knowing that my company and our work is helping an organization like Home for the Howlidays. 

So I am grateful.  As I look forward to my favorite holiday and I ponder the brine I will use on our turkey this year, or the stuffing recipe that we will try this year,  I think also of how lucky I am to have family and friends who will be with us.  I  think about how lucky I am that we will have food on the table.  And I am very grateful indeed that the work that I do has such impact in the world. There is great need in the world and it feels so satisfying to be doing something about it.   What are you grateful for?  And where are you having impact?  I’d love to hear from you.

Finding Meaning and Having Impact

Finding Meaning and Having Impact

I have the great pleasure of working for a company that helps worthy organizations raise money for their good work.  So this week, a very unusual but serendipitous event happened which involved an artist named Banksy who mysteriously “vandalized” and then returned a painting to a thrift shop in NYC.  The organization was quick to reach out to my company BiddingForGood and put this painting up for auction.  The auction culminated last night and the painting went for a cool $615,000. As I watched the bidding move up almost $300,000 in under 10 minutes, I was first struck with questions like “Who are these people?" “Who really has the kind of money to jump into a bidding war and spend over a half a million dollars on a painting in one night? “ With that kind of money, what else do they care about?  What are the causes they support?  What is the good work that they do in the world?  The good news about this particular auction is that a worthy non-profit, Housing Works, in Brooklyn, NY will be the recipient of the proceeds.  Housing Works stated mission is to address the dual crisis of homelessness and AIDS that still plagues our city streets. 

Then my thoughts quickly turned to the appreciation I feel for working for a company that can have this kind of impact in the world.  Ok, granted, we are just the software guys that provide the platform for this fundraising to occur, but we make it possible.   We make it happen and that has meaning for everyone who works for the company. 

So I reflect on having work with meaning and having impact.  Where and how does this happen in our lives?  If we are entrepreneurs, we create businesses that have impact.  We build companies around transformative ideas.  We are fueled by passion that drives us to work as hard as we do.  Where else do we see impact?  Teachers have impact.  Think about the great teachers in your life.  Doctors and nurses have impact.  For those who have battled illness of any kind, they know the difference that doctors and nurses can have in our health and recovery.  Artists certainly have impact as we saw from the auction tonight. As I reflect on my career, some of my most satisfying work has been at companies where there was tangible impact and meaning.  An unlikely example is Walking Magazine.  This magazine came at a time when the notion of walking for fitness was a new idea.  Companies like Nike and Reebok were just beginning to recognize walking as a legitimate fitness activity. We did a lot of work to shine a light on this practice and to show how beneficial it was becoming to so many different kinds of people.   I used to see a fitness walker bustling down the street and feel a strange sense of pride, as if we had actually had something to do with that.  Another chapter in my career that was perhaps even more profound was being at AltaVista in the very early days of the internet.  For those who remember, AltaVista was one of the first and most powerful search engines on the web.  We were a central part of the story during those early days. It was incredibly exciting to be part of something so profound that it was changing the way we live and learn and connect with one another.

Having been married to an architect for many years and having visited some of the beautiful buildings that he has designed- homes, libraries, university student centers, I have often been inspired by the imprint that he leaves behind.   How incredible to create something that lives on for years and years and breathes life into families, universities and even entire communities.

In really simple ways, we create meaning by growing gardens, by baking cookies, by cultivating friendships, by nurturing teams.  We create incredible meaning by having babies and raising happy and healthy children.  So today as I ponder who this person is who will spend over $600,000 in one night on a painting, I also reflect with appreciation on the opportunity to have impact in the world.   It’s a good way to make a living. 

Worthiness

Worthiness.. or What Happens When You Get a B- at Work

Once upon a time, a Board Member for an organization that I was working for, told me that it was too bad that they had hired a B- player when what they needed was an A player.  He was talking about me and I honestly think in that moment, he forgot who he was talking to.  At the time, I thought it was possibly the most stunningly insensitive thing anyone had ever said to me in the workplace.  I mean as a student, I always was pretty darn conscientious and always worked to get good grades.  A B- grade was never what I hoped for- with the possible exception of Chemistry that I felt lucky to simply pass at all.

There have been other bumpy periods during my career when I felt similarly maligned.  The most traumatic was after moving my family across the country for a job, I was replaced by someone that I had hired.  At the time, I was outraged, I was deeply hurt, but mostly I was just plain angry.  That wound has yet to fully heal.

But now I am beginning to see something that I could not see at the time.  Now I see that no matter what our skills and our gifts,  sometimes what we have is not what our organization needs at that time.  We may have had exactly what the company needed at one time, but things change, companies change.  And at different points along the way, the organization may need different kinds of skill and different kinds of people at the table.

Of course we all aspire to bring a range of gifts and skills that will continue to deliver value to our organizations, no matter what the circumstances.  When we're lucky, we can adapt with the needs of the business.  When we're really lucky, our companies will continue to align our responsibilities with our unique gifts.  More often than not, our egos get in the way and our pride does not allow us to adjust as the situation requires.   Sadly when we are unable to adapt, it's usually time to move on.

Here's the lesson that has been the hardest to learn.  Just because we are judged to be a B- player (or worse) at work, that does not mean that we are a B- player in life. No matter how people judge or criticize, we are still worthy.   How hard it is to hold onto our conviction about who we are, what we believe and what we know we can offer.   How hard it is to hold out to find the right place to share our energy and our gifts.

Perhaps this is a skill that comes with experience.  It is no doubt harder to learn early in your career.  But as a manager and a colleague I hope to always remember to acknowledge people's gifts and unique contributions and to never make them feel unworthy.

What Does a Facebook Birthday Say About Your Life?

Many a pundit has waxed on about the transformative power of social networks.  Many of the people in my life have marveled at the joy of Facebook birthday love.  It is really quite stunning in its simple power. But today I am thinking about what the disparate group of birthday well-wishers say about my life and the nature of my relationships. After celebrating yet another big milestone yesterday, I am reflecting about the outpouring of good wishes and love.  I know there are mapping apps that show you where your network is coming from- what companies, what industries, what geography etc. but my method was much more scientific.  It involved a pen and a piece of paper.  I decided to map where all these folks had connected with me in my life.

There are some very significant buckets- business colleagues/friends, friends from my former life (hometown, high school, college), camp friends, theatre friends and of course people from my current life and community.  As I was tallying the results I was thinking about how I would characterize each group.  Of course that exercise is absurd because each and every one of these people are gloriously unique and human, but since I was trying to be scientific, I wanted to see if I could draw some broad correlations.

Did the business category "win" because I have spent so much of my waking life working at companies and have naturally developed real friends who will stay close to me (thank you Facebook) for years to come.  That's kind of a glass-half-full theory.  Is there something more fundamental about the way, in my business, people commit to staying connected to their broader networks.  After all, we all know that a well-placed phone call to a former colleague can open doors to business deals, job opportunities.. the possibilities are endless.  Is that it?  I wonder. I do have many memories of being part of a team that was innovating and inspiring each other.  I remember feeling that the work we were doing was important. I'm very happy, by the way, to report that I still feel that way.  The shared experience of building a company,  of launching a new product, of evangelizing a new way for people to connect in the world brings with it great camaraderie,  great satisfaction and great memories.

Of course hearing from family and friends always feels great.  There's something particularly heart-warming about hearing from my nieces who I adore.  They are spread across the country but sending me a birthday greeting tells me that they know that I am always cheering them on, no matter where I am or no matter what is happening in their lives. In their own ways by remembering me on my birthday, they are cheering me on too.  I love that!

I naturally thought that my camp friends would have a strong showing in my oh so scientific poll.  There has really been nothing more transformative in my life than my many years as a camper, as a counselor and later a camp parent. I have observed it's profound impact on my own family and how it continues to be a gift in the lives of so many.  My many years as a counselor have been particularly transformative for me.  In my college years, just the act of putting my campers before myself was an eye-opening and ultimately incredibly rewarding experience.  Later as an adult with small children of my own, returning to work at camp meant dropping out of the rest of my life for 4-8 weeks (depending on the year), immersing myself in a phenomenal community, working really hard, living simply and joyfully.  The singing alone makes camp a truly joyful place to be.

And then I considered my wonderfully passionate and oh so creative theater friends.  I of course include my musical friends in this category.  This has mostly been an avocation for me but one that I have been deeply passionate about since I was putting on shows in the basement of our house with my sister.  Believe it or not the "Theater" bucket was almost as large as the "Business" bucket.  So now that's interesting.  If I put my scientific discovery hat back on and do the math about the number of hours I have spent on stage or rehearsing or teaching the arts, the hours will not come close to the number of hours/weeks/months/ years that I have spent working in business.  And yet... the times spent with my theater peeps have been the most intense, most creative and most joyful in my life.  Don't get me wrong, not every performance is stellar, not every production is all you hoped it would be.  Certainly every audition comes with plenty of angst and often heartbreak.  There are unpleasant people in theater just like there are in business and in life.  But the passion that people bring to the creative arts is downright inspiring.  Are theater people more naturally drawn to Facebook as a way to share their successes, advertise their performances?  Is there something naturally outgoing about theater people that draws them to a platform like Facebook.  Maybe.

I have heard from people as far afield as my Chilean sister whose family I lived with in Santiago, Chile while on an exchange program in high school.   I heard from our dear sweet au pair Camilla who lives in Sweden.   To be able to stay connected with these women in addition to so many other important people from every chapter of my life is a gift.  So I am here to report that my scientific study was not conclusive.  I considered sharing the actual stats here but then decided the numbers are unimportant.  I know, I know I have been trying to be ever so scientific.   My conclusion is this.  The bigger your life, the broader the tendrils that reach out across geography and across time.  I feel enormously blessed to have the full, rich life that I do.  And I appreciate the connection with every last person in it.  So here's to you Facebook. We couldn't have stay connected this way without you.