Lately I’ve been going further down the rabbit hole of neuroplasticity. It is a fascinating topic. As you may know, my dad suffered a stroke and for the past few years I have been struggling to understand how it has impacted him and to understand if it ever will be possible for him to improve his mental function. He had a stroke that affected his right hemisphere near the brain stem. In some ways it is amazing that he lived and has recovered as much as he has. Unfortunately, he hasn’t recovered to the extent that he would like. It has been a few very hard years.
In order to better understand stroke and how it impacts an individual I thought that reading the book “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor would help. 
Jill is a PhD scientist who has extensively studied the brain, mainly with respect to mental illness. When she was 37 she suffered a major left hemisphere stroke. This book is her tale. It is an amazing story of recovery from a traumatic brain injury.
This book walks through her experience, from the morning she had her stroke through her recovery 8 years later. Since her stroke impacted the opposite hemisphere than my dad’s it gave me some perspective in terms of what voices were silenced in my father’s head. Strangely, a right hemisphere stroke probably is harder to recover from. The left hemisphere provides the daily “brain chatter” that causes many of us to not consider compassion and one-ness with the universe. The left helps define your sense of self and individuality. It also is the seat of negative thought processes that cause us all a lot of grief.
If you’re interested to hear her tell her tale – check out
Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk
Categories: Book Reviews · Personal
Tagged: Learning
I finally finished the book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” by Nicholas Carr.
Do you feel like the internet has made it harder for you to concentrate? Do you multitask *all* the time? When was the last time you sat down and read a book? Do you just skim reading material? How is your reading comprehension?
I admit it, I am not the reader I once was. Oh, I read online all the time, but it takes a lot more effort for me to read a book these days. If you look at my reading list on linkedin, you’ll see multiple books that I am reading all at the same time. I get bored, or I have a library deadline to meet and I put down the book I own and pick up one that has to go back. I definitely get distracted more easily and I find it harder to really get lost in the pages like I used to. I always assumed it was just my middle-aged brain getting older. Now, I can blame something else. The internet! SWEET!! My brain’s neuroplasticity coupled with the internet’s addictive qualities means that I am rewiring my brain to multitask rather than think deeply. Really?
When books first became commonplace, similar arguments were made. There was too much information available, it was stressing people out. Books definitely changed the oral history that humans used to amass. Memorization became less necessary. There was a fear that because of books people would no longer have to remember anything.
This reminds me of a saying I’ve heard recently – “I don’t bother remembering anything that I can look up”. Heck, the cell phone has had as much of an impact on me here as the internet. When was the last time you actually entered a phone number from memory? Seriously. If I didn’t have my contacts list on my cell phone I could only call 2 people, my husband and my dad. Is this bad? I’m not sure. It’s kind of nice to free up that memory space.
The one thing that really hit me is that using the internet tends to mostly use your short-term working memory. If you over tax that, it is much harder to make long-term memories. Is it a problem that I don’t remember all the stuff I read? Tweets? Blogs? Facebook statuses? The breadcrumb trail of hyperlinks? Junk e-mails? Probably not. How do you make long-term memories? Repetition. Reliving the memory over and over again. That’s why people remember the most important good and bad things that happen in their lives. They replay them. I know I do.
I think the author is a bit of a fatalist when it comes to this topic. Yes, the internet will change (I think it already has) our society and our brains dramatically. So did the book. So did the map. So did the clock. Are things better or worse today because of these items? I would venture to say better. Read this book and make up your own mind.
Categories: Book Reviews · Technology
Tagged: Culture, Learning
A former coworker, good friend, and fellow blogger has thrown in the towel on blogging. Honestly I was surprised. I always enjoyed reading his insightful posts. He did have a number of good points in his sign-off blog post. Like my blog, his following wasn’t huge. He felt that he knew most, if not all of his readers – and he could just converse with them via e-mail. Additionally, blogging takes a lot of energy and time. I’ll be the first to admit that when my life gets busy my blog gets forgotten. That sure doesn’t help with readership, but anyway, it happens.
This made me think long and hard about my blog as well. Why am I doing this? When I was in an executive position I thought it would be great thought leadership. When I was unemployed, I thought it would be a great way for potential employers to get to know me and my work ethic. It also gave me something to do that allowed me to express myself and my creativity. Now I’m working for a big, very stable, privately held software company. I’m not in a role that is outward facing, nor am I in an executive position. So why?
I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I do this more for me that for anyone else. I’ve always enjoyed writing. Practicing writing makes it easier. I believe that the longer that I blog, the better I become at expressing my thoughts. I’ve always wanted to write a book. Maybe someday I will, but for now I am a little afraid of the time commitment. Blogging is way easier than planning an entire book. One blog post is about one page. That’s doable on a semi-regular basis. I guess for now I will keep on blogging – well, at least until it isn’t doing anything for me anymore.
Categories: Personal · Tactical
Tagged: Communication, Motivation, Social Networks
On Friday I heard a couple words from my manager that really helped a lot. The gist of it all was “thank you”. Boy did that make a difference. I don’t consider myself a needy person when it comes to affirmation at work. That said, having started a job recently after nearly a year of unemployment has made me a whole lot more self conscious.
I knew going into this that my new manager was pretty hands off. Personally I like it that way. I have had managers that were in my back pocket and quite frankly I find it irritating. Leave me alone, I know what I am doing. I will get done what you need me to do, just make it clear what my priorities are (and if you don’t, I will – so don’t be surprised if I don’t do what you think is the most important thing first). I’ll come to you if I run into problems that I can’t solve by myself. If I don’t ask for help, please stay out of my way. I’ll tell you what you need to know so that you don’t get caught unaware.
I guess what I am trying to say is that even if you have very independent people working for you remember to acknowledge what they are doing. They may not need guidance to get their job done, but an occasional pat on the back to let them know that they are on target is invaluable. Some of the folks that report to me have been working some crazy hours lately. It was pretty obvious based on what was accomplished over the last week. I’m hoping that my couple of words (thank you) meant as much to them as my manager’s meant to me this week.
Categories: Leadership
Tagged: Attitude, Confidence, Empowerment, Public Speaking, Taking Responsibility, Trust
I think that everyone has heard the tale of the frog and the pot. If you put a frog into a pot of cold water and place it on the stove, the frog will happily sit there until it is cooked. If you attempt to put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will do its best to jump out.
I recently read a blog post entitled “Why Newcomers Often See Things More Clearly Than Old Hands” by Bob Sutton. FYI – he’s also the author of “The No Asshole Rule” which is an entertaining read.
I liken the newcomer to the frog placed into a pot of boiling water – the newcomer will have a reaction (either good or bad) to the host of interesting things that don’t even phase the long term employees. I know that I’m still in that place right now. I’m about 6.5 weeks into my employment now. There are things about my new place that still leave me starstruck. My goodness, the walking trails and rec center are amazing! I work with some people who are totally passionate about what they are working on. Now, on the dark side… it’s been a very long time since I’ve worked for a big company. Small companies are very nimble. I’m used to grabbing a few stakeholders and making important decisions quickly. These days I am feeling my way around – trying to understand which groups need to be included in what decisions. I’m learning all sorts of new processes – and some of them leave me scratching my head.
I think that a manager can always benefit from listening to what is causing a new person concern. So far my new manager has been pretty open to my comments, and I’m thankful for that.
Categories: Leadership · Tactical
Tagged: Culture, Empowerment, Innovation, Leadership, Listening
I just took an interesting workshop at work related to determining what my strengths are. As you all know, I’m always up for a personality assessment. I take them all with a grain of salt, but I always learn something from them. This workshop was based upon this book (which you can buy on Amazon)
The online assessment comes included as part of the cost of the book. Yes, that means if you buy the book, you can receive the personal assessment without taking the course. The assessment really is personalized – I compared mine to a couple of coworkers with the same strengths and we received significantly different data.
After some reflection, my strengths were pretty much on target.
- Relator – I develop close relationship with people and my friends trust my judgment when they need advice.
- Learner – I am curious and dig deeply into topics that attract my interest.
- Command – I push people to excel.
- Significance – I need to be be independent and for people to take me seriously.
- Input – I collect information like some people collect shoes.
The one that really resonated with me is the last one – Input. I am currently reading 3 books at once. I have a stack of 4 more on my “to read” list right now and my library due date is looming large. I have more interests than I can count. I’ve always been frustrated when I hear “just take your favorite hobby and turn it into a business and you can be successful.” I think that’s because I don’t know where to start. My short list for favorite hobbies is a crazy laundry list. Weight training and nutrition. Sports cars. Volleyball. Investing. Cooking and using local produce. Business strategy. Leadership and management. Social media. Chronic disease management. Photography. Gardening and landscaping. Birdwatching. Kayaking. Eldercare. Wine. Construction. Green technologies.
This opened my eyes. My favorite hobby is processing information. Weird way of looking at it, but that’s exactly what it is.
The book is small and a quick read and I’d recommend it.
Categories: Book Reviews · Personal
Tagged: Creativity, Personality Types, Relationships
Well, last week you got to hear about the pigeon roosting nightmare at our house, and this week it became even more interesting. There was one place where we didn’t replace the bird netting with aluminum screening due to its inaccessibility. Upon hearing pigeon noises yesterday morning my husband leaned over the railing to take a look. Both of us were dismayed to find a poor little (about 3′ long) corn snake totally wound up in the bird netting. It looked hopeless, at first glance it appeared that the snake had sliced himself with the netting it was so tight. Never mind that the piece of bird netting was mounted in a wooden frame screwed to the side of our house three stories off the ground. It was hung using an extension ladder, which happens to be at our other house…
The difficulty factor of this rescue clearly was high, so we didn’t take any pictures while it was in progress. We figured we had less than a 50% chance of success and didn’t want any reminders of a botched attempt. Besides, time was of the essence, the poor little fellow probably had been stuck there overnight. First step – remove the wood frame from the house. This had to be done blind, my husband had to lay face down on the deck with one arm stuck through the railing with a crow bar. I leaned over the railing from the top and helped guide him so that he could pry off the frame without hurting the snake. Once that was done, the “snake in a frame” was lowered 3 stories by a rope to the ground below.
This is where I stepped in with a pair of scissors. Luckily the bird netting was easily snippable and i started to free the snake from the tail end up. As I cut him loose he started to wiggle, which made things a bit harder to deal with and he kept trying to insert his tail back in the netting. Silly snake, stop that. At this point hubby had to hold him still. Snakes are strong, even little skinny ones like this guy. Corn snakes are constrictors so they can be tough to straighten out. I wasn’t convinced that he would be ok, there were parts of him that were protruding and bulging through the netting, but as I carefully unwrapped him and clipped the tight spots he started to look like a regular snake again. Whew! It was such a satisfying feeling to put him on the ground and watch him happily slither away. He was such a beautiful creature.
My husband and I have a habit of being in the right place at the right time to save critters in distress. We have two cats that surely would have died if we hadn’t rescued them as kittens. The youngest one was trapped (and howling) in a storm drain. It took us two days, some tuna fish as bait and a squirrel trap to get her out. We also learned the delicate art of getting a hummingbird out of a garage. That could have been a disaster, because they beat themselves silly against ceilings and can die in a few short hours without nectar. Untold numbers of turtles have been rescued from the roads in our area. Neither one of us can stand by and watch an innocent animal in trouble. It just isn’t in our nature.
So, we saved a snake, but we gave the pigeons a great access hole. DOH! It was time to fix the pigeon problem correctly. Down came all of the aluminum screening. I washed all of the guano out of their favorite roosting location. That in itself was an hour long miserable, dirty, smelly task. Out came the mitre saw and up went custom cut and fitted pressure treated wood barriers. We will never have a pigeon problem in this spot again. We should have just fixed it right the first time. Less time, less money, and no traumatized snake would have been the result. Ah well, another lesson learned.
Categories: Personal
Tagged: Culture, Taking Responsibility
This past weekend at the beach once again we were faced with a pigeon problem. The pigeons used to be our neighbor’s problem, but they have migrated over to our place over the last year. It isn’t pleasant, they make a stinky mess. Why are pigeons at the beach anyway? Don’t they belong in Trafalgar Square in London?
A few years ago we watched our neighbors battle the roosting pigeons and laughed. Their house has (ummm, had) a lot of little nooks and crannies under eaves that were perfect perches for a pigeon or two and their little nest. Our place didn’t have the amenities that they provided. Slowly but surely the neighbors had carpentry work done to deter their feathered squatters. They also acquired a couple of little dogs that like to bark at intruders. I’m sure that helped expedite the move.
Now, the pigeons are roosting at our house. Last year we put up bird netting to block the holes they used. They’ve managed to wiggle past that. This year, we moved on to aluminum screening. We’ll see. I hope we don’t have to resort to carpentry. I suspect we might, but we keep trying to fix the problem as cheaply and as quickly as possible. I’m getting sick of the mess on my deck.
There are a lot of “pigeon problems” in business.
- Competitors… just like neighbors, they can turn a pigeon problem into your problem. A well timed release can make the press or your customers poop all over your product. Sometimes a media darling can make your life very difficult as you’re always asked when you’ll be able to match their features.
- Customers… sometimes they ARE the pigeon problem. There are customers that you want to hold on to, and there are customers that you want to fire. You know the ones – they cost 10 times as much as a comparable firm in support and maintenance costs. They keep coming back for more. Over the long term you keep having to make concessions (repairs) to keep them happy.
- Employees…if they are doing a half-assed job. I hope this isn’t a reflection on our pigeon wrangling techniques, but fix it once, and fix it well. Don’t just cobble it together or the pigeons will come back – in software pigeons can be bugs and they can be performance problems.
Categories: Corporate Strategy · Personal · Uncategorized
Tagged: Problem Solving
Geez, has it been almost 2 weeks since I’ve even been out here? I guess it has. I’m still drinking from the firehose known as the new job over here and I don’t have a lot of mental energy for deep thought after work. My dreams are weird enough these days – I don’t want to provoke the beast without reason.
One thing that I am very thankful for is that one of my new peers is in exactly the same situation that I am. In fact, (shhh) I think that he might be somewhat worse off. I’m starting something from scratch and he’s trying to piece together all of the old history of something with a tight deadline. There is nothing like being in the trenches with someone that understands what you are going through.
What have a I learned in the last 2 weeks?
- I have some really smart and dedicated people on my team who are doing the architecture and the prototyping. They will get it right.
- My product manager is amazing. He knows the industry, he knows the clients, and he knows what we need to accomplish.
- My project manager only cares about doing the right things to get the product shipped. Between the two of us we’ll balance tasks anyway we can to be successful. No egos, just get it done.
- I’ve got a lot of organizational bridges to build. I’m doing my best to get to know people across the company who can help this product succeed. It will take some time.
- My team has recently been put together. We *need* to create our own team culture.
- I still have a LOT to learn. A humbling amount. But. I. Will. Get. There.
Categories: Leadership · Personal · Tactical
Tagged: Learning, Team Building
Starting a new job always means getting to know the company that you now work for. The company also has to get to know you too. Everyone is usually on their best behavior during the interview – and this does not just mean the interviewee. As a company, when you have a good candidate, you want to show off the team in its best light as well. Once the new person starts, there typically is a nice honeymoon period. In some ways it is like dating someone new – you’re focusing on all of the good things to justify your decisions (both on the hiring and on the deciding to work there sides). During this honeymoon period a lot of time and energy is spent on learning.
When I was an engineer starting a new job my focus was always on the technology. I almost always came into companies that were launching new products. In this respect I was really fortunate. I was part of the team that was defining the design, and a lot of times the technologies that were being used. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything new and different to learn right up front. For example – almost every company that I have ever worked for used a different code management system. I’ve used proprietary, PVCS, Clearcase, CVS, and Perforce. On the bug tracking side I’ve used ddts, bugzilla, and devtrack. I’ve utilized a number of programming language environments, and dealt with a lot of different processors and operating systems. The good news is that unless you’re coming in as the architect of a large project the scope of what you need to learn is rather focused. You will own something specific and hopefully manageable.
As a manager the scope of the things to learn is much greater. Not only do you need to have a high level understanding of the technology and the product you are building, you need to understand some of the more amorphous details.
Who are you managing? Did any of them aspire to the job you were hired to do? Are any of them unhappy and looking to leave? Any performance problems to suss out? How do you build trust? When you lead them, will they follow?
But this is just the beginning. Who are you peers? How do you need to interact with them?
Still not enough – what other groups are stakeholders in the technology you are managing? Project managers. Product managers. Sales. Marketing. Consulting.
It’s time to drink from the fire hose.
Categories: How Tos · Leadership
Tagged: Leadership, Management, Relationships
Jill is a PhD scientist who has extensively studied the brain, mainly with respect to mental illness. When she was 37 she suffered a major left hemisphere stroke. This book is her tale. It is an amazing story of recovery from a traumatic brain injury.
