The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
These are the alternates to "blog" that Microsoft (MS) Word offers during Spellcheck. I had to add "blog" to my MS dictionary.
Got recharged by working offline on my remarks for the panel on Friday. What a re-energizing way to spend the bulk of the night pre-sleep!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Better to Post Vapidly Than Not at All?
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
At least, I'm feeling vapid right now because I'm tired. I'm in a train-the-trainers course this week and I forget how exhausting it is to be an active participant in a training program.
Certainly, I'm always alert to how exhausting, in a good way, it is to be an actively engaged learning facilitator (instructor), which is my typical role, but it's weird and refreshing at once to be a learner this week. And I'll get to learn a different program next week.
When I'm tired, it's hard to be inspired in any direction, including even writing. And yet I missed being out here, and felt the need to visit my own blog, even if briefly.
What exhausts you too much to do the thing you love?
At least, I'm feeling vapid right now because I'm tired. I'm in a train-the-trainers course this week and I forget how exhausting it is to be an active participant in a training program.
Certainly, I'm always alert to how exhausting, in a good way, it is to be an actively engaged learning facilitator (instructor), which is my typical role, but it's weird and refreshing at once to be a learner this week. And I'll get to learn a different program next week.
When I'm tired, it's hard to be inspired in any direction, including even writing. And yet I missed being out here, and felt the need to visit my own blog, even if briefly.
What exhausts you too much to do the thing you love?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
What Happens to Envy in the Future?
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Tonight in class, I was inspired by my classmate Zdravko's presentation on "Shift Happens: A Brief History of the Future." He was influenced by The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells and the scholars Jane Mansbridge and Michel Bauwens and Yochai Benkler and James Surowiecki among others.
Zdravko told us, "If I give you this bottle, I no longer have it. If I give you information, we both have it." Information is not a finite product to be given away or sold, or shouldn't be, was what he meant, I think.
McKenzie Wark, author of The Hacker Manifesto, Zdravko said, writes of the class struggle now between hackers, e.g., creators of software, knowledge and music, and the "vectoralists," who create a sense of artificial scarcity, and who try to control the vectors in which the product is realized, and who try to charge for the products of the creative hackers.
In the terrific Peer-to-Peer (P2P) future, Zdravko explained, all of us will participate. We'll have a panarchy, or government by all, along with sousveillance, where all of us will be recording what is said and done in the midst of our own participation.
We will be more open. We will be more generous. We will have a decentralized, even distributed, network and we will succeed together. OK. Zdravko didn't say the messages in this particular paragraph explicitly, but that's what I walked away hoping, until I had to acknowledge: I was jealous of Zdravko's presentation tonight.
In Zdravko's and all of those scholars' future, what happens when someone is clearly head and shoulders above the rest? How can I evolve to where I'm purely admiring and no longer feeling envy?
Envy produces in me a scarcity mentality, when what I need, always, is an abundance mentality. Zdravko's brilliance can inspire me in the creation of my presentation, which I need to deliver in two weeks.
God, if only I were as passionate about war's and trade's influence on the shaping of American politics as Zdravko is about P2P's potential! No excuses. I need to help the rest of the class care about the new direction of the field of American Political Development (APD), since that was the topic I was assigned based on my having told Professor Youngblood after the first class that I have faith in great corporations (like IBM) that they can affect positive social change faster than governments sometimes.
"I have just the book for you!" she responded.
Tonight, I went to Professor Youngblood's office hours before class and we had a spirited discussion about my impressions of the book, and then I saw Zdravko on fire and felt anxious, competitive and jealous. Stop. Be inspired by his messages, not paralyzed.
In fact, stop blogging and come back to 3-D life, where your suitcase is still waiting to be filled. I hope I'm able to blog while in my Coaching class on Wednesday and Thursday.
Will humans evolve to envylessness in the future? Will we stop being competitive? Will I? Can I? Will you? Can you?
Tonight in class, I was inspired by my classmate Zdravko's presentation on "Shift Happens: A Brief History of the Future." He was influenced by The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells and the scholars Jane Mansbridge and Michel Bauwens and Yochai Benkler and James Surowiecki among others.
Zdravko told us, "If I give you this bottle, I no longer have it. If I give you information, we both have it." Information is not a finite product to be given away or sold, or shouldn't be, was what he meant, I think.
McKenzie Wark, author of The Hacker Manifesto, Zdravko said, writes of the class struggle now between hackers, e.g., creators of software, knowledge and music, and the "vectoralists," who create a sense of artificial scarcity, and who try to control the vectors in which the product is realized, and who try to charge for the products of the creative hackers.
In the terrific Peer-to-Peer (P2P) future, Zdravko explained, all of us will participate. We'll have a panarchy, or government by all, along with sousveillance, where all of us will be recording what is said and done in the midst of our own participation.
We will be more open. We will be more generous. We will have a decentralized, even distributed, network and we will succeed together. OK. Zdravko didn't say the messages in this particular paragraph explicitly, but that's what I walked away hoping, until I had to acknowledge: I was jealous of Zdravko's presentation tonight.
In Zdravko's and all of those scholars' future, what happens when someone is clearly head and shoulders above the rest? How can I evolve to where I'm purely admiring and no longer feeling envy?
Envy produces in me a scarcity mentality, when what I need, always, is an abundance mentality. Zdravko's brilliance can inspire me in the creation of my presentation, which I need to deliver in two weeks.
God, if only I were as passionate about war's and trade's influence on the shaping of American politics as Zdravko is about P2P's potential! No excuses. I need to help the rest of the class care about the new direction of the field of American Political Development (APD), since that was the topic I was assigned based on my having told Professor Youngblood after the first class that I have faith in great corporations (like IBM) that they can affect positive social change faster than governments sometimes.
"I have just the book for you!" she responded.
Tonight, I went to Professor Youngblood's office hours before class and we had a spirited discussion about my impressions of the book, and then I saw Zdravko on fire and felt anxious, competitive and jealous. Stop. Be inspired by his messages, not paralyzed.
In fact, stop blogging and come back to 3-D life, where your suitcase is still waiting to be filled. I hope I'm able to blog while in my Coaching class on Wednesday and Thursday.
Will humans evolve to envylessness in the future? Will we stop being competitive? Will I? Can I? Will you? Can you?
Monday, April 9, 2007
थे केय इस तो पोस्ट फ्रेकुएँत्ल्य
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Wow. At some point, while setting up this blog, I received the unsolicited option of agreeing that my postings could be translated into Hindi, but this was beyond my expectations, that is, I don't know how my title "The Key is to Post Frequently" became "थे केय इस तो पोस्ट फ्रेकुएँत्ल्य." I guess globalization really is happening even more pervasively than I realized!
Powerful Pioneers
The TV show "Cold Case" was so touching tonight (we had Tivo'ed it). I never think of myself first as a woman, looking for more rights for women, but rather as a lesbian, seeking more human rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people.
Typically, I identify as lesbian and then as female, as I've not ultimately related to the issues women have championed in my lifetime, e.g., reproductive rights et al, but tonight's episode was about a suffragette who was murdered in 1919 and it touched me.
I never think about not having the right to vote, though, sometimes, Pat and I talk about how lucky we are not to have lived during the Middle Ages, when women really, really had no options.
The nicest touch was the flash of news on the squadroom TV, at the end of the show, where we got to see a brief glimpse of Nancy Pelosi. Seeing the shot of Nancy Pelosi, Pat said, "We've still got some distance to go, but we have definitely made strides."
I'm reminded of an article I saw in the current issue of "The Advocate" earlier today, while waiting to go to my colonoscopy appointment -- that's another posting, or maybe I'll spare all of us...and happily, the results were fine; it featured eight retired, decorated gay and lesbian servicepeople and I thought, How grim their lives must have been at times.
One of them, a West Point grad and 28-year veteran, if I remember correctly, talked about how having to lie reduces trust, which compromises unit cohesion, and I thought, How difficult for him -- for whom honor's arguably the biggest thing -- to have had to lie throughout his career about his sexual orientation. God, pioneers are powerful.
I'm reminded that one of my colleagues at work told me that he saw this blog, and to remember that beyond being a Jewish lesbian IBMer, I'm also an expert in Leadership and Human Resources (HR) and Learning, and that I could also blog about those topics. I was flattered at his assessment, and perhaps I'll comment on those topics along the way, too, but there are many Leadership and HR and Learning experts at IBM, but not many Jewish lesbian experts in Leadership, HR and Learning.
I felt the same way when IBMers were excited about e-business in the late-90s and early-2000s, and most were trying to figure out the next huge way to make it take off. I thought, Everyone I know is thinking about innovation in relation to e-business.
Not so many were thinking about how to more invitingly welcome the business of our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) business-to-business clients worldwide per se; and so I put my energy into how IBM could do that, and ultimately, we started up the GLBT Sales team, which I mentioned a posting ago, and which still thrives today, even as I've gone on to Management Development, training our emerging and new managers to be good leaders.
My identity is the engine of all of my creativity and innovation and so it is going to be prominent in this blog, as it is the energizer for my life offline, too.
My identity is my differentiator. For example, I'm honored to be a panelist at this event on Friday, at Teachers College (TC), Columbia University:
Title: Being LGBT in the Workplace
Description:
Join your hosts Queer TC for a panel discussion on "Being LGBT in the Workplace."
How do you find "gay friendly" organizations?
How do you best approach the interview?
How do you come out (or not) on the job?
Panelists include:
Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director, Lambda Legal
Nicholas Grosskopf, Doctoral candidate, Health Education, Teachers College
Edward Hernstadt, Partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz (and Columbia alum)
Dan Koifman, President, Koifman Consulting
Sarah Siegel, Global Program Manager, IBM and current MA student
Jennifer Williams, Director of Career Services & Leadership Development, Columbia University School of Social Work
DATE: Friday, April 13th from 12 - 1 (with time post panel for networking)
WHO: Open to entire gay (and gay friendly) Columbia community
Will include a Q&A portion and there will be snacks!!
Earlier, I was reading the Pew Research Center's "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007" because my professor sent it to us and it struck me that perhaps only the poll questions and responses on immigrants are more painful than the poll question and responses on same-sex marriage. That means that my work is not yet done.
That means that since I'm willing to be so visible, I wish to keep being so, since public opinion can change only insofar as people like me are visibly among the public.
This morning, I had an update from my friend Dana, who lost her partner Cathy suddenly and tragically last week. Both of them had been active in the Trans Community and I know that Dana still will be when she comes up from her grief, and probably prior. And my friend Sara Rook let me know that there's a great trans photo exhibit (she's the lovely one in red and black), running at Stages Theater in Houston for the play, "I'm My Own Wife."
All of these women, Dana, Cathy and Sara, choose/chose to be out as trans, rather than opting to pass -- as so many transpeople wish to do, understandably, once they transition into the people they were born to be -- as they feel and felt that they could do good by putting a friendly face on it for people, most of whom are ignorant, rather than malevolent.
Perhaps, I'll comment explicitly on Leadership, HR and Learning over time, but more likely, my postings will tend to focus on the topics of leadership I admire or try to exhibit; valuing every human, and a core mission of HR, i.e., examples I see or try of maximizing one's talent; and my own learning with a small "l," which complements the vast Learning in which IBM invests for our own employees at all levels.
For anyone who has gotten this far in the posting, how does your identity inform your life and how you lead it? I'd love to hear from a variety of perspectives....
Wow. At some point, while setting up this blog, I received the unsolicited option of agreeing that my postings could be translated into Hindi, but this was beyond my expectations, that is, I don't know how my title "The Key is to Post Frequently" became "थे केय इस तो पोस्ट फ्रेकुएँत्ल्य." I guess globalization really is happening even more pervasively than I realized!
Powerful Pioneers
The TV show "Cold Case" was so touching tonight (we had Tivo'ed it). I never think of myself first as a woman, looking for more rights for women, but rather as a lesbian, seeking more human rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people.
Typically, I identify as lesbian and then as female, as I've not ultimately related to the issues women have championed in my lifetime, e.g., reproductive rights et al, but tonight's episode was about a suffragette who was murdered in 1919 and it touched me.
I never think about not having the right to vote, though, sometimes, Pat and I talk about how lucky we are not to have lived during the Middle Ages, when women really, really had no options.
The nicest touch was the flash of news on the squadroom TV, at the end of the show, where we got to see a brief glimpse of Nancy Pelosi. Seeing the shot of Nancy Pelosi, Pat said, "We've still got some distance to go, but we have definitely made strides."
I'm reminded of an article I saw in the current issue of "The Advocate" earlier today, while waiting to go to my colonoscopy appointment -- that's another posting, or maybe I'll spare all of us...and happily, the results were fine; it featured eight retired, decorated gay and lesbian servicepeople and I thought, How grim their lives must have been at times.
One of them, a West Point grad and 28-year veteran, if I remember correctly, talked about how having to lie reduces trust, which compromises unit cohesion, and I thought, How difficult for him -- for whom honor's arguably the biggest thing -- to have had to lie throughout his career about his sexual orientation. God, pioneers are powerful.
I'm reminded that one of my colleagues at work told me that he saw this blog, and to remember that beyond being a Jewish lesbian IBMer, I'm also an expert in Leadership and Human Resources (HR) and Learning, and that I could also blog about those topics. I was flattered at his assessment, and perhaps I'll comment on those topics along the way, too, but there are many Leadership and HR and Learning experts at IBM, but not many Jewish lesbian experts in Leadership, HR and Learning.
I felt the same way when IBMers were excited about e-business in the late-90s and early-2000s, and most were trying to figure out the next huge way to make it take off. I thought, Everyone I know is thinking about innovation in relation to e-business.
Not so many were thinking about how to more invitingly welcome the business of our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) business-to-business clients worldwide per se; and so I put my energy into how IBM could do that, and ultimately, we started up the GLBT Sales team, which I mentioned a posting ago, and which still thrives today, even as I've gone on to Management Development, training our emerging and new managers to be good leaders.
My identity is the engine of all of my creativity and innovation and so it is going to be prominent in this blog, as it is the energizer for my life offline, too.
My identity is my differentiator. For example, I'm honored to be a panelist at this event on Friday, at Teachers College (TC), Columbia University:
Title: Being LGBT in the Workplace
Description:
Join your hosts Queer TC for a panel discussion on "Being LGBT in the Workplace."
How do you find "gay friendly" organizations?
How do you best approach the interview?
How do you come out (or not) on the job?
Panelists include:
Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director, Lambda Legal
Nicholas Grosskopf, Doctoral candidate, Health Education, Teachers College
Edward Hernstadt, Partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz (and Columbia alum)
Dan Koifman, President, Koifman Consulting
Sarah Siegel, Global Program Manager, IBM and current MA student
Jennifer Williams, Director of Career Services & Leadership Development, Columbia University School of Social Work
DATE: Friday, April 13th from 12 - 1 (with time post panel for networking)
WHO: Open to entire gay (and gay friendly) Columbia community
Will include a Q&A portion and there will be snacks!!
Earlier, I was reading the Pew Research Center's "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007" because my professor sent it to us and it struck me that perhaps only the poll questions and responses on immigrants are more painful than the poll question and responses on same-sex marriage. That means that my work is not yet done.
That means that since I'm willing to be so visible, I wish to keep being so, since public opinion can change only insofar as people like me are visibly among the public.
This morning, I had an update from my friend Dana, who lost her partner Cathy suddenly and tragically last week. Both of them had been active in the Trans Community and I know that Dana still will be when she comes up from her grief, and probably prior. And my friend Sara Rook let me know that there's a great trans photo exhibit (she's the lovely one in red and black), running at Stages Theater in Houston for the play, "I'm My Own Wife."
All of these women, Dana, Cathy and Sara, choose/chose to be out as trans, rather than opting to pass -- as so many transpeople wish to do, understandably, once they transition into the people they were born to be -- as they feel and felt that they could do good by putting a friendly face on it for people, most of whom are ignorant, rather than malevolent.
Perhaps, I'll comment explicitly on Leadership, HR and Learning over time, but more likely, my postings will tend to focus on the topics of leadership I admire or try to exhibit; valuing every human, and a core mission of HR, i.e., examples I see or try of maximizing one's talent; and my own learning with a small "l," which complements the vast Learning in which IBM invests for our own employees at all levels.
For anyone who has gotten this far in the posting, how does your identity inform your life and how you lead it? I'd love to hear from a variety of perspectives....
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Participatory Citizenship Al Dente
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Delicious Company, Delicious Dinner
Last night, I experienced a new self-consciousness. I was going to tell our friends about having seen a former youth group advisee at Sabbath services the night before and I thought, I don't want to be repetitive. What if David already read about it in my blog? And I sat at the table, feeling thwarted by my own communicativeness.
And I lost track of the conversation around me as I sat, thinking about the implications of being an active blogger whose friends would be supportive and look at it. Where will I be living primarily? In real time, or in the blog? Will the blog make live experiences ultimately self-conscious? Will my friends be on alert whenever they're with me, since they know our exchanges could end up in my blog?
Don't they know it already? Haven't I been re-living inspirational times with friends and family in the IBM-intranet blog I've been active in since 1997? Yeah, but that was just behind our firewall. Ugh, stop. Come back and be present to what's going on here, now, at this delicious restaurant on West Street & W. 10th.
Women in Black vs. David and Me
And I did. And I heard Vinny's confidence that same-sex marriage will be legalized in New Jersey this year. And David's mother Judy's satisfaction at being able to be among the Women in Black in Woodstock, where she lives, rather than a Raging Granny.
"What do Raging Grannies do?" I asked.
"They're just outrageous," and as she described them, I knew they were not her at all. "I like simply standing silently with my sign, 'War Won't Fix It.' And then people walk by and say, 'You're right!' or I've had a mother ask to have her young daughter stand next to me, so she could take a picture."
As Judy spoke, her face took on an ennoblement aspect. She was proud of the power of silent, non-partisan protest.
"I've heard of the Women in Black," I said, "in Israel --"
"Right, they were the first [in 1988, protesting human rights violations during the occupation], and now, they're in Italy and here and...." It's all about being anti-war.
"And you wear black, right?"
"Yes, and I must say, I'm getting tired of wearing black." They stand out there in the middle of Woodstock for two hours every Sunday.
"God, I just couldn't do that."
"Not everyone needs to protest."
"But it's amazing that you do it."
I was thinking, What is it about Judy's generation and my mother's that both of them are so active politically?
"I don't do anything!" I said with my voice full of shame.
David looked right at me and said, "What are you talking about?"
And I smiled because he and I have consciously dedicated ourselves to helping make IBM an even more inclusive environment, including for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clients and IBMers. He's right. I do very local things, which I dare to hope could have a global impact.
Politics Are Not Sexy
Vinny said, "The word, 'politics,' comes from people [citizens, actually; I just looked it up], and so when you're trying to do good things for people, that's being political."
Still, I looked at Vinny and how animated he was as he described asking a New Jersey politician about his stance on same-sex marriage and I thought, I can't relate. And he's a guy. And six out of eight of the people in my Political Science elective course this semester are men. What is it about Politics that just doesn't attract me, as a woman?
Vinny spoke of how politicians often give off a very sexual energy and I recalled reading a memoir by a former Knesset (Israeli Parliament) member -- I read it only because she was lesbian -- and how she spoke of feeling very sexually powerful in every direction when she was active in Politics.
What's wrong with me? I just don't see politics as sexy. At all.
And my lens is so corporate. Most of the powerful people I'm exposed to are IBM corporate leaders. And I do see their power and charisma and political savvy and realize that I ought not to opt out of, and shut down, during larger-world political discussions, as they inform my local political arena as well.
The course I'm taking this semester, because it was at the right time of the evening, is definitely a stretch for me, Learning Democratic Practices, but I keep telling myself that becoming smarter about the way politics works, particularly about how democracies work, will serve me well in my own leadership roles at IBM, now and in the future. (Part time, I'm pursuing an M.A. in Organization & Leadership with a specialization in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.)
It's just so hard because the lingo and jargon is not intuitive to me, and not natively appealing. It is true, as the caption to the photo of me in Tiananmen Square attests, The farther I go, the more I learn, and it doesn't only refer to geographic distance. I am well-beyond where I ever meant to travel in the world of Political Science by having taken this course, and I'm probably learning much more than I would in a course that felt more natural for me.
My Lifelong and Lifewide Participatory Citizenship Learning
My professor, Dr. Janet Youngblood, did give us an assignment that appealed to me ultimately, of describing our participatory citizenship learning from early childhood to now. Initially, I said, "It's going to be a very short paper in my case," and then generously, she told us that it could include any sort of activism, in addition to whatever we might have done in relation to formal political parties.
This is what I wrote:
Early Learning:
McGovern-->Watergate-->the Israel Option
My first memory of being a participatory citizen was my mother taking me to the local McGovern campaign headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, where I added stamps to a McGovern mailing. My mother said I was four years old. This qualified as formal lifewide citizen participation learning, probably, since it was associated with a U.S. political party.
During Watergate, my middle sister Kathy, who was five and a half years older than I, created a game for the school science fair called “Schmutz: The Game of Dirty Politics.” Both of my sisters always cared more about politics than I. I was not even remotely intrigued by real-world politics as a child or teen. Informally, I gained a bit of a consciousness, at least, through the actions and interests of my sisters.
Growing up, I did not have a firm sense of my role as an American citizen, other than that we lived in a country of many precious freedoms, and that my father, may his memory be blessed, was proud of his World War II naval service as a radar technician, and that typically, we had a president for whom my parents had not voted, other than Jimmy Carter.
Indeed, I felt most like a Jewish-American citizen, hyphenated. In the formal environment of the Modern Orthodox Jewish day school I attended from 1st-8th grade, we were taught American history and also Jewish and Israeli history, and were encouraged to consider making aliyah with our families, that is, immigrating to Israel and becoming automatic citizens through the Law of Return, Israel’s law that grants instant citizenship to all Jews who choose to live in Israel permanently.
The encouragement to consider Israeli citizenship made an impression on me, along with our Jewish history learning, where we read how often Jews had lived in particular countries throughout history before invariably being persecuted, killed or expelled; I was dually-invested in the welfare of two countries from an early age – the country of my birth and the one for which we collected charity, so that we would have it as a second homeland if need be, as life insurance, as my mother put it.
I was born into a family of Democrats, all of whom were at least half a decade older than I, and my parents were 40 years older than I; never did I question the rightness of the Democratic Party. No one ever sat with me to explain its virtues, but rather, I just knew of my mother’s local leadership as a Democrat within organizations like Head Start and the League of Women Voters. Growing up, any of my citizenship learning felt more accidental than formal.
Adolescent Learning:
Freshman Class Office-->American Forum for World Affairs Radio-->Mondale & Ferraro-->the Israel Option-->Youth Group-->Cable Access TV Co-anchorship
As a fourteen-year-old, I ran for election as Freshman Class Treasurer and won. This was a formal citizen participation learning experience, since there was election protocol. I ran only because I was entering a public high school from a private school and I wanted people to know me as soon as possible, and so having posters up with my name all over school seemed like a good strategy.
We did not make campaign speeches, but I created clever posters with hopeful promises and hand-drawn pictures of plump money bags. It was simply put to a vote, and my advantage was that no one knew me, whereas they knew my opponent from junior high, and disliked him.
At the end of the year, when I was supposed to organize an event to raise money for the class – for a future reunion that never took place, and so perhaps, I contributed to an advisor’s or fellow student’s corruption unwittingly at the time, since I never learned nor sought to learn what happened with the funds – I decided we would be bused to a roller-rink and have a roller-skating party.
None of the students in my Honors classes thought it was a fun idea, or that it would make any money, but it was a huge hit with the majority of the school – the students in the less advanced classes apparently appreciated it greatly. We made hundreds of dollars. From that experience, I learned that the privileged elite, that is, the minority of the school’s top students, did not necessarily represent the wishes of the majority, the many average students. So far, I have never again run nor been an elected official in any arena.
My mother reminded me that I used to be among a teen panel on a local radio show sponsored by the American Forum for World Affairs; we interviewed political leaders when they came to town, who discussed current world events from their perspective. I hardly remember anything about it. Again, I participated only because I thought it sealed my social standing among the smart kids in my high school.
I participated in activities to enhance my resume for college, and yet my single most fun activity in high school was that roller-skating party, where I was surrounded by average students.
Once I got to college, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for my junior year, I day-dreamt about someone to love; wondered what to pursue as a career post-graduation; studied; labored at work-study jobs; and while in Israel, waffled back and forth in my head on whether or not I had the fortitude to emigrate from the United States and become an Israeli citizen, as most of my father’s family had done in the ‘40s.
Could I simply stay at Hebrew University and finish my degree there, and become absorbed into the society that much more quickly? During a school-break, the Israeli Army offered an opportunity to non-citizens to experience Basic Training and as a prospective citizen, I took advantage of the opportunity with a number of male and female American-student counterparts. We were stationed at an army base in the north, at the border of Israel and Lebanon. We wore Israeli Army uniforms, learned to load, shoot and clean M-16s and played war games (without guns). I relished the experience, until during one of the war games, I leapt from too high onto a pile of loose stones, breaking my left ankle. That was the end of my formal citizen participation learning in Israel.
I left the base and spent the rest of the school-break with my Aunt Tovah, may her memory be blessed, in Beth Herut, the moshav (collective village) of which my grandparents, may their memories be blessed, and she were among the founders.
Ironically, my grandparents and aunt, who were ardent Socialists prospered far more so financially, working with the other villagers in a collective industry, than my father ever did, working as a Capitalist industrial designer of toys and games. Like me, he tried living in Israel in his twenties, and opted after a few years to return to the States; it was a time of austerity in Israel and simply, he was bored by life there.
He met my mother at a party in New York City that was hosted by one of her sorority sisters, they married and moved to Greenwich Village, and within less than a decade, they moved with their kids to suburban Stamford, where I was born.
Ultimately, I chickened out of remaining in Israel, and felt guilty and relieved to come back and finish my B.A. in the States. I told myself that I could always choose to return post-college, but I think I knew I would never be able to give up the home I knew for one that was ultimately more foreign to me.
The bulk of my undergraduate experience took place in Ann Arbor and during sophomore year, I recall watching a Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro appearance and rally in the Diag, from an open window on the second floor of the Graduate Library, and so I was not actually at the rally, and so my participation was not direct, nor formal.
The content of Mondale’s speech did not compel me as much as considering the power of his presence. I thought that he was not nearly as charismatic as Ronald Reagan. Ferraro, too, attracted and repelled me at once, triggering some internalized homophobia. At the time, I was fighting my own lesbianism and seeing a strong female of any sort was appealing and distasteful in parallel.
Naturally, being an unquestioning Democrat, I voted for them in any case; it was my first presidential election and my second formal activity related to a U.S. political party – the first, being the McGovern campaign stamp-licking afternoon 12 years prior. In 1988, I voted for Dukakis. I gave no money, nor did any campaigning for Mondale or Dukakis.
By the time Dukakis lost the election, I was 22 and already living in Chicago for a year. With singular focus, I turned the city into a lab for building my self-esteem through community participation. This was the period where I solidified my hyphenated identity further, as a Jewish-American lesbian citizen. The following experiences either were non-formal or informal lifewide citizen participation learning, considering my gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) community participation and activism as a form of participatory citizenship:
In the history of Horizons, Chicago’s GLBT community center and social service agency, I became its youngest-ever youth group advisor volunteer; that was informal citizen participation learning, since I learned on the job how to help GLBT and questioning youth expand their self-esteem through helping them (and myself) build their (and my own) self-acceptance of their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
Next, I co-anchored a cable access TV show, “The 10% Show,” which was a monthly, hour-long GLBT news and entertainment program of the Chicago bureau of Gay Cable Network. It was started by Chicagoan Jack Ryan, who was moved during the 1987 Gay & Lesbian March on Washington to do his part locally, particularly around HIV and AIDS activism.
The couple dozen episodes we produced as volunteers could be classified as non-formal citizen participation learning, as really, we were not at all formally organized, and most of us, other than the camera people, were not formally educated in Broadcast TV; everyone had a day-job and participated as time allowed. Certainly, I had never before co-anchored a TV show. I had simply written occasional Arts features for my high school and college newspapers.
Grass-roots though the program was, we were internationally-syndicated (aired in Vancouver, too)! I was so fortunate to interview many GLBT personalities – local, national and international – and perhaps my radio show time in high school was a bit of preparation, though I found myself wholly invested in helping these interviewees be more visible than I did with the more universally well-known political leaders I interviewed during high school.
Co-anchoring “The 10% Show,” I saw a wonderful up-side to GLBT culture, and televising so many leaders and role models of the GLBT community inspired me to commit to living my life openly as well.
Within a couple of years, unfortunately, we were hired into all-consuming day-jobs and our major funder, Jack’s partner, died of AIDS, and so we stopped producing the show. The tapes are now among the Gerber/Hart GLBT Library archives in Chicago.
Adult Learning: IBM’s GLBT Community-->Clinton; Clinton; Gore; Kerry-->Synagogue’s and the Course’s Influence on My Political Activity
Shortly after joining IBM, I was invited to become part of IBM’s GLBT Task Force and was honored to do so. In addition, IBM has employee networking groups for eight constituencies, including GLBT people. The leader of the local chapter of the GLBT employee group asked me to take her place soon after I became an IBMer; I told her, “I love belonging to the group, but I don’t want to lead it.”
“But it has to be led,” she said, and so I took it on. We were not elected then, but rather anointed by the outgoing leader. My learning was formal insofar as the group had bylaws and a mission and informal in that I learned so much about my own leadership style simply while actively participating in both the Task Force and employee networking group.
In 2000, I joined the IBM delegation at the Millennium March on Washington for GLBT Rights. Doug Elix, executive sponsor and direct report to our CEO, flew down to host a reception for us and said that IBM’s involvement in GLBT rights was not only a matter of attending to *all* of our customers and employees, but a matter of “social justice.”
Hearing one of our senior leaders use the phrase, “social justice” even further inspired my investment in helping advance GLBT clients and employees; I worked with Task Force colleagues on proposing and helping start up IBM’s GLBT Sales Team, with Doug Elix’s enthusiastic sponsorship. Though I have moved on in my career, now delivering leadership development training to our new and future managers, the GLBT Sales Team continues to thrive.
In my experience with GLBT human rights, IBM has helped advance social change faster than a number of governments around the world. My contribution to that advancement has felt politically substantial in that some of it has even had, “…the intent or effect of influencing government action…” (Verba et al., p. 38, 2002), for example, my being part of the Task Force, which recommended that IBM advocate for the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA), which it did, and by helping recommend that IBM join the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which it did, too, as a founding sponsor.
In ’92 and ‘96, I participated formally as an American citizen by voting for Clinton; in 2000, for Gore; and for Kerry in ’04, though I don’t know how much I learned, as I did not follow the races closely at all. During the dozen years, I did contribute money to national GLBT organizations that lobbied the presidential candidates for GLBT human rights, and in 2004, because my brother-in-law was volunteering with MoveOn.org, I gave a contribution directly to MoveOn.org; this was a formal case of a recruitment network. If Gary had not engaged me in MoveOn.org’s mission through his involvement, I would not have written a check.
Some months ago, my rabbi asked every congregant to consider joining the synagogue’s Green Team, which was made up of members who switched to more environmentally-friendly service from the local utility company in order to decelerate global warming, even though it was more costly. Since beginning to learn how my citizen participation makes a difference during this course, we have joined the Green Team.
Will I become a more participatory citizen as a result of taking this course, Learning Democratic Practices?
In fact, I believe that I will never be the same; already, I find myself reading stories about political engagement in newspapers and magazines when previously, I would have flipped past them; always, it seemed a sacred opportunity and responsibility to vote in any election for which I was invited to vote, yet historically, I deferred to my partner’s judgment in telling me the candidate for whom I ought to vote. Now, I have more curiosity and am grateful for my new maturity.
References
Verba, S., & Lehman Schlozman, & K., Brady, H.E. (2002). Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
How do you participate most fully? And why? And where? Are you most active in the blogosphere, or in 3-D?
Delicious Company, Delicious Dinner
Last night, I experienced a new self-consciousness. I was going to tell our friends about having seen a former youth group advisee at Sabbath services the night before and I thought, I don't want to be repetitive. What if David already read about it in my blog? And I sat at the table, feeling thwarted by my own communicativeness.
And I lost track of the conversation around me as I sat, thinking about the implications of being an active blogger whose friends would be supportive and look at it. Where will I be living primarily? In real time, or in the blog? Will the blog make live experiences ultimately self-conscious? Will my friends be on alert whenever they're with me, since they know our exchanges could end up in my blog?
Don't they know it already? Haven't I been re-living inspirational times with friends and family in the IBM-intranet blog I've been active in since 1997? Yeah, but that was just behind our firewall. Ugh, stop. Come back and be present to what's going on here, now, at this delicious restaurant on West Street & W. 10th.
Women in Black vs. David and Me
And I did. And I heard Vinny's confidence that same-sex marriage will be legalized in New Jersey this year. And David's mother Judy's satisfaction at being able to be among the Women in Black in Woodstock, where she lives, rather than a Raging Granny.
"What do Raging Grannies do?" I asked.
"They're just outrageous," and as she described them, I knew they were not her at all. "I like simply standing silently with my sign, 'War Won't Fix It.' And then people walk by and say, 'You're right!' or I've had a mother ask to have her young daughter stand next to me, so she could take a picture."
As Judy spoke, her face took on an ennoblement aspect. She was proud of the power of silent, non-partisan protest.
"I've heard of the Women in Black," I said, "in Israel --"
"Right, they were the first [in 1988, protesting human rights violations during the occupation], and now, they're in Italy and here and...." It's all about being anti-war.
"And you wear black, right?"
"Yes, and I must say, I'm getting tired of wearing black." They stand out there in the middle of Woodstock for two hours every Sunday.
"God, I just couldn't do that."
"Not everyone needs to protest."
"But it's amazing that you do it."
I was thinking, What is it about Judy's generation and my mother's that both of them are so active politically?
"I don't do anything!" I said with my voice full of shame.
David looked right at me and said, "What are you talking about?"
And I smiled because he and I have consciously dedicated ourselves to helping make IBM an even more inclusive environment, including for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clients and IBMers. He's right. I do very local things, which I dare to hope could have a global impact.
Politics Are Not Sexy
Vinny said, "The word, 'politics,' comes from people [citizens, actually; I just looked it up], and so when you're trying to do good things for people, that's being political."
Still, I looked at Vinny and how animated he was as he described asking a New Jersey politician about his stance on same-sex marriage and I thought, I can't relate. And he's a guy. And six out of eight of the people in my Political Science elective course this semester are men. What is it about Politics that just doesn't attract me, as a woman?
Vinny spoke of how politicians often give off a very sexual energy and I recalled reading a memoir by a former Knesset (Israeli Parliament) member -- I read it only because she was lesbian -- and how she spoke of feeling very sexually powerful in every direction when she was active in Politics.
What's wrong with me? I just don't see politics as sexy. At all.
And my lens is so corporate. Most of the powerful people I'm exposed to are IBM corporate leaders. And I do see their power and charisma and political savvy and realize that I ought not to opt out of, and shut down, during larger-world political discussions, as they inform my local political arena as well.
The course I'm taking this semester, because it was at the right time of the evening, is definitely a stretch for me, Learning Democratic Practices, but I keep telling myself that becoming smarter about the way politics works, particularly about how democracies work, will serve me well in my own leadership roles at IBM, now and in the future. (Part time, I'm pursuing an M.A. in Organization & Leadership with a specialization in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.)
It's just so hard because the lingo and jargon is not intuitive to me, and not natively appealing. It is true, as the caption to the photo of me in Tiananmen Square attests, The farther I go, the more I learn, and it doesn't only refer to geographic distance. I am well-beyond where I ever meant to travel in the world of Political Science by having taken this course, and I'm probably learning much more than I would in a course that felt more natural for me.
My Lifelong and Lifewide Participatory Citizenship Learning
My professor, Dr. Janet Youngblood, did give us an assignment that appealed to me ultimately, of describing our participatory citizenship learning from early childhood to now. Initially, I said, "It's going to be a very short paper in my case," and then generously, she told us that it could include any sort of activism, in addition to whatever we might have done in relation to formal political parties.
This is what I wrote:
Early Learning:
McGovern-->Watergate-->the Israel Option
My first memory of being a participatory citizen was my mother taking me to the local McGovern campaign headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, where I added stamps to a McGovern mailing. My mother said I was four years old. This qualified as formal lifewide citizen participation learning, probably, since it was associated with a U.S. political party.
During Watergate, my middle sister Kathy, who was five and a half years older than I, created a game for the school science fair called “Schmutz: The Game of Dirty Politics.” Both of my sisters always cared more about politics than I. I was not even remotely intrigued by real-world politics as a child or teen. Informally, I gained a bit of a consciousness, at least, through the actions and interests of my sisters.
Growing up, I did not have a firm sense of my role as an American citizen, other than that we lived in a country of many precious freedoms, and that my father, may his memory be blessed, was proud of his World War II naval service as a radar technician, and that typically, we had a president for whom my parents had not voted, other than Jimmy Carter.
Indeed, I felt most like a Jewish-American citizen, hyphenated. In the formal environment of the Modern Orthodox Jewish day school I attended from 1st-8th grade, we were taught American history and also Jewish and Israeli history, and were encouraged to consider making aliyah with our families, that is, immigrating to Israel and becoming automatic citizens through the Law of Return, Israel’s law that grants instant citizenship to all Jews who choose to live in Israel permanently.
The encouragement to consider Israeli citizenship made an impression on me, along with our Jewish history learning, where we read how often Jews had lived in particular countries throughout history before invariably being persecuted, killed or expelled; I was dually-invested in the welfare of two countries from an early age – the country of my birth and the one for which we collected charity, so that we would have it as a second homeland if need be, as life insurance, as my mother put it.
I was born into a family of Democrats, all of whom were at least half a decade older than I, and my parents were 40 years older than I; never did I question the rightness of the Democratic Party. No one ever sat with me to explain its virtues, but rather, I just knew of my mother’s local leadership as a Democrat within organizations like Head Start and the League of Women Voters. Growing up, any of my citizenship learning felt more accidental than formal.
Adolescent Learning:
Freshman Class Office-->American Forum for World Affairs Radio-->Mondale & Ferraro-->the Israel Option-->Youth Group-->Cable Access TV Co-anchorship
As a fourteen-year-old, I ran for election as Freshman Class Treasurer and won. This was a formal citizen participation learning experience, since there was election protocol. I ran only because I was entering a public high school from a private school and I wanted people to know me as soon as possible, and so having posters up with my name all over school seemed like a good strategy.
We did not make campaign speeches, but I created clever posters with hopeful promises and hand-drawn pictures of plump money bags. It was simply put to a vote, and my advantage was that no one knew me, whereas they knew my opponent from junior high, and disliked him.
At the end of the year, when I was supposed to organize an event to raise money for the class – for a future reunion that never took place, and so perhaps, I contributed to an advisor’s or fellow student’s corruption unwittingly at the time, since I never learned nor sought to learn what happened with the funds – I decided we would be bused to a roller-rink and have a roller-skating party.
None of the students in my Honors classes thought it was a fun idea, or that it would make any money, but it was a huge hit with the majority of the school – the students in the less advanced classes apparently appreciated it greatly. We made hundreds of dollars. From that experience, I learned that the privileged elite, that is, the minority of the school’s top students, did not necessarily represent the wishes of the majority, the many average students. So far, I have never again run nor been an elected official in any arena.
My mother reminded me that I used to be among a teen panel on a local radio show sponsored by the American Forum for World Affairs; we interviewed political leaders when they came to town, who discussed current world events from their perspective. I hardly remember anything about it. Again, I participated only because I thought it sealed my social standing among the smart kids in my high school.
I participated in activities to enhance my resume for college, and yet my single most fun activity in high school was that roller-skating party, where I was surrounded by average students.
Once I got to college, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for my junior year, I day-dreamt about someone to love; wondered what to pursue as a career post-graduation; studied; labored at work-study jobs; and while in Israel, waffled back and forth in my head on whether or not I had the fortitude to emigrate from the United States and become an Israeli citizen, as most of my father’s family had done in the ‘40s.
Could I simply stay at Hebrew University and finish my degree there, and become absorbed into the society that much more quickly? During a school-break, the Israeli Army offered an opportunity to non-citizens to experience Basic Training and as a prospective citizen, I took advantage of the opportunity with a number of male and female American-student counterparts. We were stationed at an army base in the north, at the border of Israel and Lebanon. We wore Israeli Army uniforms, learned to load, shoot and clean M-16s and played war games (without guns). I relished the experience, until during one of the war games, I leapt from too high onto a pile of loose stones, breaking my left ankle. That was the end of my formal citizen participation learning in Israel.
I left the base and spent the rest of the school-break with my Aunt Tovah, may her memory be blessed, in Beth Herut, the moshav (collective village) of which my grandparents, may their memories be blessed, and she were among the founders.
Ironically, my grandparents and aunt, who were ardent Socialists prospered far more so financially, working with the other villagers in a collective industry, than my father ever did, working as a Capitalist industrial designer of toys and games. Like me, he tried living in Israel in his twenties, and opted after a few years to return to the States; it was a time of austerity in Israel and simply, he was bored by life there.
He met my mother at a party in New York City that was hosted by one of her sorority sisters, they married and moved to Greenwich Village, and within less than a decade, they moved with their kids to suburban Stamford, where I was born.
Ultimately, I chickened out of remaining in Israel, and felt guilty and relieved to come back and finish my B.A. in the States. I told myself that I could always choose to return post-college, but I think I knew I would never be able to give up the home I knew for one that was ultimately more foreign to me.
The bulk of my undergraduate experience took place in Ann Arbor and during sophomore year, I recall watching a Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro appearance and rally in the Diag, from an open window on the second floor of the Graduate Library, and so I was not actually at the rally, and so my participation was not direct, nor formal.
The content of Mondale’s speech did not compel me as much as considering the power of his presence. I thought that he was not nearly as charismatic as Ronald Reagan. Ferraro, too, attracted and repelled me at once, triggering some internalized homophobia. At the time, I was fighting my own lesbianism and seeing a strong female of any sort was appealing and distasteful in parallel.
Naturally, being an unquestioning Democrat, I voted for them in any case; it was my first presidential election and my second formal activity related to a U.S. political party – the first, being the McGovern campaign stamp-licking afternoon 12 years prior. In 1988, I voted for Dukakis. I gave no money, nor did any campaigning for Mondale or Dukakis.
By the time Dukakis lost the election, I was 22 and already living in Chicago for a year. With singular focus, I turned the city into a lab for building my self-esteem through community participation. This was the period where I solidified my hyphenated identity further, as a Jewish-American lesbian citizen. The following experiences either were non-formal or informal lifewide citizen participation learning, considering my gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) community participation and activism as a form of participatory citizenship:
In the history of Horizons, Chicago’s GLBT community center and social service agency, I became its youngest-ever youth group advisor volunteer; that was informal citizen participation learning, since I learned on the job how to help GLBT and questioning youth expand their self-esteem through helping them (and myself) build their (and my own) self-acceptance of their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
Next, I co-anchored a cable access TV show, “The 10% Show,” which was a monthly, hour-long GLBT news and entertainment program of the Chicago bureau of Gay Cable Network. It was started by Chicagoan Jack Ryan, who was moved during the 1987 Gay & Lesbian March on Washington to do his part locally, particularly around HIV and AIDS activism.
The couple dozen episodes we produced as volunteers could be classified as non-formal citizen participation learning, as really, we were not at all formally organized, and most of us, other than the camera people, were not formally educated in Broadcast TV; everyone had a day-job and participated as time allowed. Certainly, I had never before co-anchored a TV show. I had simply written occasional Arts features for my high school and college newspapers.
Grass-roots though the program was, we were internationally-syndicated (aired in Vancouver, too)! I was so fortunate to interview many GLBT personalities – local, national and international – and perhaps my radio show time in high school was a bit of preparation, though I found myself wholly invested in helping these interviewees be more visible than I did with the more universally well-known political leaders I interviewed during high school.
Co-anchoring “The 10% Show,” I saw a wonderful up-side to GLBT culture, and televising so many leaders and role models of the GLBT community inspired me to commit to living my life openly as well.
Within a couple of years, unfortunately, we were hired into all-consuming day-jobs and our major funder, Jack’s partner, died of AIDS, and so we stopped producing the show. The tapes are now among the Gerber/Hart GLBT Library archives in Chicago.
Adult Learning: IBM’s GLBT Community-->Clinton; Clinton; Gore; Kerry-->Synagogue’s and the Course’s Influence on My Political Activity
Shortly after joining IBM, I was invited to become part of IBM’s GLBT Task Force and was honored to do so. In addition, IBM has employee networking groups for eight constituencies, including GLBT people. The leader of the local chapter of the GLBT employee group asked me to take her place soon after I became an IBMer; I told her, “I love belonging to the group, but I don’t want to lead it.”
“But it has to be led,” she said, and so I took it on. We were not elected then, but rather anointed by the outgoing leader. My learning was formal insofar as the group had bylaws and a mission and informal in that I learned so much about my own leadership style simply while actively participating in both the Task Force and employee networking group.
In 2000, I joined the IBM delegation at the Millennium March on Washington for GLBT Rights. Doug Elix, executive sponsor and direct report to our CEO, flew down to host a reception for us and said that IBM’s involvement in GLBT rights was not only a matter of attending to *all* of our customers and employees, but a matter of “social justice.”
Hearing one of our senior leaders use the phrase, “social justice” even further inspired my investment in helping advance GLBT clients and employees; I worked with Task Force colleagues on proposing and helping start up IBM’s GLBT Sales Team, with Doug Elix’s enthusiastic sponsorship. Though I have moved on in my career, now delivering leadership development training to our new and future managers, the GLBT Sales Team continues to thrive.
In my experience with GLBT human rights, IBM has helped advance social change faster than a number of governments around the world. My contribution to that advancement has felt politically substantial in that some of it has even had, “…the intent or effect of influencing government action…” (Verba et al., p. 38, 2002), for example, my being part of the Task Force, which recommended that IBM advocate for the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA), which it did, and by helping recommend that IBM join the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which it did, too, as a founding sponsor.
In ’92 and ‘96, I participated formally as an American citizen by voting for Clinton; in 2000, for Gore; and for Kerry in ’04, though I don’t know how much I learned, as I did not follow the races closely at all. During the dozen years, I did contribute money to national GLBT organizations that lobbied the presidential candidates for GLBT human rights, and in 2004, because my brother-in-law was volunteering with MoveOn.org, I gave a contribution directly to MoveOn.org; this was a formal case of a recruitment network. If Gary had not engaged me in MoveOn.org’s mission through his involvement, I would not have written a check.
Some months ago, my rabbi asked every congregant to consider joining the synagogue’s Green Team, which was made up of members who switched to more environmentally-friendly service from the local utility company in order to decelerate global warming, even though it was more costly. Since beginning to learn how my citizen participation makes a difference during this course, we have joined the Green Team.
Will I become a more participatory citizen as a result of taking this course, Learning Democratic Practices?
In fact, I believe that I will never be the same; already, I find myself reading stories about political engagement in newspapers and magazines when previously, I would have flipped past them; always, it seemed a sacred opportunity and responsibility to vote in any election for which I was invited to vote, yet historically, I deferred to my partner’s judgment in telling me the candidate for whom I ought to vote. Now, I have more curiosity and am grateful for my new maturity.
References
Verba, S., & Lehman Schlozman, & K., Brady, H.E. (2002). Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
How do you participate most fully? And why? And where? Are you most active in the blogosphere, or in 3-D?
Friday, April 6, 2007
Reunion...Redemption
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Has Jane created a monster? I am inspired to post again, already.
Tonight at shul (synagogue), I saw a woman who looked familiar and it wasn't till I heard her voice at the kiddush (reception) afterwards that I remembered that I knew her from Chicago. I thought we knew each other from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) synagogue in Chicago, Or Chadash, and I said, "Of course, you remember Pat, " and she smiled, but said no, "It was Horizons [the GLBT community center]."
"I was your GLBT youth group advisor!" I exclaimed.
She smiled. It had been 18 years. Of course. It flooded back. "Do you remember the Saturday when we studied Flirting in Literature?" She had missed that one. It was my favorite time I ever spent with the group.
I had looked through own my library at home and had photocopied favorite sections of GLBT fiction, where characters were flirting, and then had cut and pasted them into a booklet that I photocopied for each of the youth.
It was so safe, to *study* flirting, and it was so remote from what the rest of the world invited them to *do*, i.e. to flirt with one another, as GLBT and questioning youth. They ate it up.I wish I had saved a copy of it. Probably, it's somewhere.How gratifying, to remember being a facilitator/instructor back then, just naturally.
Looking at the woman's face, and actually, she was only two years younger than I -- I was the youngest youth group advisor in the history of Horizons to that point -- I remembered myself at that barely adult time of my own life and how I was gaining self-esteem right along with the youth who came to the program.
Talking about the unit we did on Flirting in Literature, two single women, who were listening, and one of whom I knew already, said, "Could you do that for the [LGBT] Center [in Manhattan]?" They thought it sounded great at any age.
How fun, to have people be so receptive to an educational program I designed. How fun, to have the continuity of getting to see one of the "youth" nearly two decades later.
I feel good because I'm reminded that even as my much-less-than-fully-formed self back then, still, I was able to be of creative service to people who needed, like I did, to feel more self-assured.
This Passover season is designed, I feel, to remind Jews of our freedom [originally, from Egyptian slavery] and our redeemability, and thinking about tonight's accidental reunion, I feel so much freer than when the now-grown woman knew me as her youth group advisor, and also, that I am, human or humane service by human/humane service, steadily earning a thrilling sort of redemption.
What are you doing/what have you done that earns/has earned you your version of a thrilling sort of redemption?
Has Jane created a monster? I am inspired to post again, already.
Tonight at shul (synagogue), I saw a woman who looked familiar and it wasn't till I heard her voice at the kiddush (reception) afterwards that I remembered that I knew her from Chicago. I thought we knew each other from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) synagogue in Chicago, Or Chadash, and I said, "Of course, you remember Pat, " and she smiled, but said no, "It was Horizons [the GLBT community center]."
"I was your GLBT youth group advisor!" I exclaimed.
She smiled. It had been 18 years. Of course. It flooded back. "Do you remember the Saturday when we studied Flirting in Literature?" She had missed that one. It was my favorite time I ever spent with the group.
I had looked through own my library at home and had photocopied favorite sections of GLBT fiction, where characters were flirting, and then had cut and pasted them into a booklet that I photocopied for each of the youth.
It was so safe, to *study* flirting, and it was so remote from what the rest of the world invited them to *do*, i.e. to flirt with one another, as GLBT and questioning youth. They ate it up.I wish I had saved a copy of it. Probably, it's somewhere.How gratifying, to remember being a facilitator/instructor back then, just naturally.
Looking at the woman's face, and actually, she was only two years younger than I -- I was the youngest youth group advisor in the history of Horizons to that point -- I remembered myself at that barely adult time of my own life and how I was gaining self-esteem right along with the youth who came to the program.
Talking about the unit we did on Flirting in Literature, two single women, who were listening, and one of whom I knew already, said, "Could you do that for the [LGBT] Center [in Manhattan]?" They thought it sounded great at any age.
How fun, to have people be so receptive to an educational program I designed. How fun, to have the continuity of getting to see one of the "youth" nearly two decades later.
I feel good because I'm reminded that even as my much-less-than-fully-formed self back then, still, I was able to be of creative service to people who needed, like I did, to feel more self-assured.
This Passover season is designed, I feel, to remind Jews of our freedom [originally, from Egyptian slavery] and our redeemability, and thinking about tonight's accidental reunion, I feel so much freer than when the now-grown woman knew me as her youth group advisor, and also, that I am, human or humane service by human/humane service, steadily earning a thrilling sort of redemption.
What are you doing/what have you done that earns/has earned you your version of a thrilling sort of redemption?
Freed from My Shyness
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
God bless Jane Harper!
Jane is a mentor of mine at IBM. "Do you blog?" she asked during our monthly phone discussion earlier this afternoon. She's the second person to ask me in a week. I told her how I came out here and posted something, and then felt totally self-conscious and frustrated by sudden shyness.
"Jane, I've been blogging since before there was this term for it, on our internal online community at IBM, but something about going external just froze me."
"I get that and it's true that you'll probably need a thick skin, since you didn't get many rude respondents within IBM, I'm guessing, due to our culture, but if you can have a thick skin...like Irving [Wladawsky-Berger] in his recent Golden Rule posting had to before it turned around and a number of people said positive things, then I think it would be so great for you to do it."
Ultimately, I'm being brave and trying it more so in earnest now due to Jane's encouragement and Irving's great example with his blog; and because I did all the internal writing for nearly a decade so far because I was excited at the prospect that what I was feeling someone else in the world might relate to and feel kindred as a result.
Here's a a cut-and-pasted posting from the internal community posting I did earlier this week:
Impressions of two marvelous seders:
Monday night at my sister Kathy's:
What I found inspirational:
All six of the older people, in their late-70s and early-80s, made it up the two flights of stairs
Our eight-year-old nephew Sam's mohawk haircut as an ultimate expression of individuality; he's an identical twin
The speed with which our 14-year-old nephew Zach can play the sitar -- and that he was expressing himself with it as background music while the rest of us talked; typically, all of us stop what we're doing to listen, but this time, he played while we talked and help set the table
My mother's loveliness to one of the guests; my mom simply rubbed her back gently for a bit without trying to speak with her, as she is now in a bad stage of Alzheimer's; it's like her soul's missing and almost just the casing remains...shocking and unbelievable to witness
Her son's relatively gentle coaching of his mother on how to stand up and walk; she needed to be reminded of the mechanics
One of our nephew's accidental(?) spilling of his cup of ceremonial wine and the quiet efficiency with which our 14-year-old niece Zoe wiped it up and replaced his plate, with no shaming or superiority or apparent resentment
Kathy's and Elliot's inclusion of a friend from their synagogue, who was at our seder table in the absence of having family of her own to be with
The twins' Max's and Sam's premier reading aloud from the Haggadah (story of Passover) for the first time
Zoe's voice added onto my sisters' and mine during the songs, and how great all of us sounded; I'm the one without the beautiful voice, but I always sound good when singing with my sisters, and now Zoe, too
Zoe's enthusiasm over Scary Kids Scaring Kids, her favorite band; she had been to a concert the week before -- her first -- and I told her that her mother and her aunt, Kathy, took me to my first-ever concert when I was around her age, to the Pointer Sisters, in Central Park. "Who are they," she wondered. Oy! "He's So Shy," I offered and then her father, "I'm So Excited...." Neither song registered with her
Zach's delicious Indian lamb dishes; he didn't want to be part of the seder, as he feels more Hindu than Jewish, but his mother reminded him of the food element of it, and how he could do some of the cooking, and so there was matzohball soup and other traditional dishes made by Kathy and lamb ghosh and saag(spinach) prepared by Zach; I don't eat red meat -- haven't for years, as I don't like it -- but I made an exception and it was truly terrific, and Zach smiled at me and my praise almost as hard as when I taught him to ride a bike
Kathy, reciting the final "Who Knows One" section of the Haggadah in Hebrew, and in a single breath; last Passover, we did not know if she would survive her breast cancer and this year, she was hosting 16 of us and showing off her lung capacity, just like she's always done, since we were kids.
Tuesday night, the second seder, at our friends' Kathy's and Julie's:
What I found inspirational:
The little, round glass vase of dark purple tulips and some other purple spray of flowers we found on the way to their home, at our local florist
That they were still willing to host us, even as their flight from Chicago, where they spent the first seder with Kathy's father and siblings and their families, was delayed, which meant getting home with just enough time to cook a sponge cake and throw the rest of dinner in the oven
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument that I could see from their Hudson River-facing windows; this semester's course talks about how American politics were shaped by war and trade, and I enjoyed being at an event, celebrating freedom from slavery (Passover) and then seeing a monument about a war that helped lead to the end of slavery in the United States (I imagine that the Civil War is still a tender topic for a number of people and I mean no disrespect; I'm just speaking from my perspective)
Their two little dogs' spirited and homey behavior -- very lively and protective as always at first, and then sleeping under the dining room table and in their little dog beds as we sang, read aloud, talked about the reading and ate
The seder plate we brought, which was my nana's and which was copper, and made in Israel in the '50s
The feminist version of the Haggadah -- Julie said it took her seven months to get them -- in its inclusiveness of all people, including lesbian people; it mentioned an idea by scholar Susannah Heschel, that an orange be added to the ceremonial seder plate, to signify the contributions of Jewish GLBT people to Jewish life, which I loved -- another example of a heterosexual supporter, looking to help with our inclusion
Julie's gorgeous voice during the song, Oseh Shalom -- she's in our synagogue's chorus and is a songwriter herself, too
Dinner, including rosemary on the organic chicken; roasted beets; chunky chopped liver; and the necessary appetizer of fresh maror (horseradish) mixed with charoset (fruit and nut mixtures meant to signify the mortar of the pyramids that the slaves built in Egypt); fresh strawberries and freshly whipped cream with no sugar, plus a sponge cake necessarily made from potato starch, which I didn't taste, but which looked beautiful -- in honor of Kathy's upcoming birthday, the next day, and in memory of Kathy's mother's traditional Passover sponge cake, which her mom had shown Julie how to cook in years past; Kathy's mom died last year, prior to Passover
Dinner conversation, including:
One of Pat's first impressions of me, at a community seder 17 years ago, where I was proud to be the youngest in the room and so eagerly volunteered to sing the "Four Questions"
Julie's kindness in response, where she remembered my rushing over to Kathy at a High Holiday service nearly 10 years ago to introduce myself, saying that I recognized her from IBM's diversity booklet that had been published at the time; "It was that same irrepressibility..." that was responsible for our becoming friends, she said
My recent disappointment at some writer's block I felt when trying to create this blog out on the external web; I had thought to do it only because of my friend Scott writing recently and asking, "By the way, do you blog?" And I thought, Do I blog? Yes! (I was thinking about my habit of actively posting on our internal site.) And so I went and read the blogging guidelines on our intranet because I imagined myself wanting to write about my life out there, including mentions of IBM, and started one, and got stuck quickly and stopped; Julie was respectful of the block and also said, "You're a writer because you can't not write...You're a good writer," and then she said something along the lines of: who understands the weight of your words and it's understandable that you'd suddenly be overwhelmed at the public-ness of it, and it will happen when it's meant to. I was so thrilled that she called me a "good writer" that I couldn't really fully hear the rest
Telling amusing -- though not at the time -- stories of mostly unwittingly homophobic relatives; there's power in the solidarity of holding up family's homophobic comments to the mirror of our strength as a group of friends; ultimately, the homophobes reflect poorly only on themselves
Discussing the beauty/poignancy of the concept of the additional item on the seder plate in honor of the GLBT among our Jewish community
Hearing Kathy recite "Who knows one" in English by heart effortlessly and with poise; it's a series of 13 miracles that God gave us and very hard to remember....I guess that's why she went to Yale Law School and I didn't
Listening to Kathy sing the chorus of "Chad Gadya"/"An Only Kid [aka Goat]" with gusto and on tune, though she wears a cochlear implant.
What has helped you to feel free lately?
God bless Jane Harper!
Jane is a mentor of mine at IBM. "Do you blog?" she asked during our monthly phone discussion earlier this afternoon. She's the second person to ask me in a week. I told her how I came out here and posted something, and then felt totally self-conscious and frustrated by sudden shyness.
"Jane, I've been blogging since before there was this term for it, on our internal online community at IBM, but something about going external just froze me."
"I get that and it's true that you'll probably need a thick skin, since you didn't get many rude respondents within IBM, I'm guessing, due to our culture, but if you can have a thick skin...like Irving [Wladawsky-Berger] in his recent Golden Rule posting had to before it turned around and a number of people said positive things, then I think it would be so great for you to do it."
Ultimately, I'm being brave and trying it more so in earnest now due to Jane's encouragement and Irving's great example with his blog; and because I did all the internal writing for nearly a decade so far because I was excited at the prospect that what I was feeling someone else in the world might relate to and feel kindred as a result.
Here's a a cut-and-pasted posting from the internal community posting I did earlier this week:
Impressions of two marvelous seders:
Monday night at my sister Kathy's:
What I found inspirational:
All six of the older people, in their late-70s and early-80s, made it up the two flights of stairs
Our eight-year-old nephew Sam's mohawk haircut as an ultimate expression of individuality; he's an identical twin
The speed with which our 14-year-old nephew Zach can play the sitar -- and that he was expressing himself with it as background music while the rest of us talked; typically, all of us stop what we're doing to listen, but this time, he played while we talked and help set the table
My mother's loveliness to one of the guests; my mom simply rubbed her back gently for a bit without trying to speak with her, as she is now in a bad stage of Alzheimer's; it's like her soul's missing and almost just the casing remains...shocking and unbelievable to witness
Her son's relatively gentle coaching of his mother on how to stand up and walk; she needed to be reminded of the mechanics
One of our nephew's accidental(?) spilling of his cup of ceremonial wine and the quiet efficiency with which our 14-year-old niece Zoe wiped it up and replaced his plate, with no shaming or superiority or apparent resentment
Kathy's and Elliot's inclusion of a friend from their synagogue, who was at our seder table in the absence of having family of her own to be with
The twins' Max's and Sam's premier reading aloud from the Haggadah (story of Passover) for the first time
Zoe's voice added onto my sisters' and mine during the songs, and how great all of us sounded; I'm the one without the beautiful voice, but I always sound good when singing with my sisters, and now Zoe, too
Zoe's enthusiasm over Scary Kids Scaring Kids, her favorite band; she had been to a concert the week before -- her first -- and I told her that her mother and her aunt, Kathy, took me to my first-ever concert when I was around her age, to the Pointer Sisters, in Central Park. "Who are they," she wondered. Oy! "He's So Shy," I offered and then her father, "I'm So Excited...." Neither song registered with her
Zach's delicious Indian lamb dishes; he didn't want to be part of the seder, as he feels more Hindu than Jewish, but his mother reminded him of the food element of it, and how he could do some of the cooking, and so there was matzohball soup and other traditional dishes made by Kathy and lamb ghosh and saag(spinach) prepared by Zach; I don't eat red meat -- haven't for years, as I don't like it -- but I made an exception and it was truly terrific, and Zach smiled at me and my praise almost as hard as when I taught him to ride a bike
Kathy, reciting the final "Who Knows One" section of the Haggadah in Hebrew, and in a single breath; last Passover, we did not know if she would survive her breast cancer and this year, she was hosting 16 of us and showing off her lung capacity, just like she's always done, since we were kids.
Tuesday night, the second seder, at our friends' Kathy's and Julie's:
What I found inspirational:
The little, round glass vase of dark purple tulips and some other purple spray of flowers we found on the way to their home, at our local florist
That they were still willing to host us, even as their flight from Chicago, where they spent the first seder with Kathy's father and siblings and their families, was delayed, which meant getting home with just enough time to cook a sponge cake and throw the rest of dinner in the oven
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument that I could see from their Hudson River-facing windows; this semester's course talks about how American politics were shaped by war and trade, and I enjoyed being at an event, celebrating freedom from slavery (Passover) and then seeing a monument about a war that helped lead to the end of slavery in the United States (I imagine that the Civil War is still a tender topic for a number of people and I mean no disrespect; I'm just speaking from my perspective)
Their two little dogs' spirited and homey behavior -- very lively and protective as always at first, and then sleeping under the dining room table and in their little dog beds as we sang, read aloud, talked about the reading and ate
The seder plate we brought, which was my nana's and which was copper, and made in Israel in the '50s
The feminist version of the Haggadah -- Julie said it took her seven months to get them -- in its inclusiveness of all people, including lesbian people; it mentioned an idea by scholar Susannah Heschel, that an orange be added to the ceremonial seder plate, to signify the contributions of Jewish GLBT people to Jewish life, which I loved -- another example of a heterosexual supporter, looking to help with our inclusion
Julie's gorgeous voice during the song, Oseh Shalom -- she's in our synagogue's chorus and is a songwriter herself, too
Dinner, including rosemary on the organic chicken; roasted beets; chunky chopped liver; and the necessary appetizer of fresh maror (horseradish) mixed with charoset (fruit and nut mixtures meant to signify the mortar of the pyramids that the slaves built in Egypt); fresh strawberries and freshly whipped cream with no sugar, plus a sponge cake necessarily made from potato starch, which I didn't taste, but which looked beautiful -- in honor of Kathy's upcoming birthday, the next day, and in memory of Kathy's mother's traditional Passover sponge cake, which her mom had shown Julie how to cook in years past; Kathy's mom died last year, prior to Passover
Dinner conversation, including:
One of Pat's first impressions of me, at a community seder 17 years ago, where I was proud to be the youngest in the room and so eagerly volunteered to sing the "Four Questions"
Julie's kindness in response, where she remembered my rushing over to Kathy at a High Holiday service nearly 10 years ago to introduce myself, saying that I recognized her from IBM's diversity booklet that had been published at the time; "It was that same irrepressibility..." that was responsible for our becoming friends, she said
My recent disappointment at some writer's block I felt when trying to create this blog out on the external web; I had thought to do it only because of my friend Scott writing recently and asking, "By the way, do you blog?" And I thought, Do I blog? Yes! (I was thinking about my habit of actively posting on our internal site.) And so I went and read the blogging guidelines on our intranet because I imagined myself wanting to write about my life out there, including mentions of IBM, and started one, and got stuck quickly and stopped; Julie was respectful of the block and also said, "You're a writer because you can't not write...You're a good writer," and then she said something along the lines of: who understands the weight of your words and it's understandable that you'd suddenly be overwhelmed at the public-ness of it, and it will happen when it's meant to. I was so thrilled that she called me a "good writer" that I couldn't really fully hear the rest
Telling amusing -- though not at the time -- stories of mostly unwittingly homophobic relatives; there's power in the solidarity of holding up family's homophobic comments to the mirror of our strength as a group of friends; ultimately, the homophobes reflect poorly only on themselves
Discussing the beauty/poignancy of the concept of the additional item on the seder plate in honor of the GLBT among our Jewish community
Hearing Kathy recite "Who knows one" in English by heart effortlessly and with poise; it's a series of 13 miracles that God gave us and very hard to remember....I guess that's why she went to Yale Law School and I didn't
Listening to Kathy sing the chorus of "Chad Gadya"/"An Only Kid [aka Goat]" with gusto and on tune, though she wears a cochlear implant.
What has helped you to feel free lately?
Saturday, March 31, 2007
My Debut
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.
For nearly a decade, I've been posting on an internal online community for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender IBMers and our colleagues. I've been blogging since before blogging was born -- exclusively internally only...until today.
The only boyfriend I ever had, from ages 17-20, sent e-mail to me earlier today, asking if I blog. I went to the blogging advice section of IBM's intranet to learn how strict or not we are about blogs that contain IBM references and felt encouraged to be bold and post externally.
This is my posting premiere.
If you have a blog, what gave you the impetus to create it? If you haven't yet created one, what would it take to motivate you to do so?
For nearly a decade, I've been posting on an internal online community for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender IBMers and our colleagues. I've been blogging since before blogging was born -- exclusively internally only...until today.
The only boyfriend I ever had, from ages 17-20, sent e-mail to me earlier today, asking if I blog. I went to the blogging advice section of IBM's intranet to learn how strict or not we are about blogs that contain IBM references and felt encouraged to be bold and post externally.
This is my posting premiere.
If you have a blog, what gave you the impetus to create it? If you haven't yet created one, what would it take to motivate you to do so?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Reflections: Going to Grad. School -- Part II
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Note: Originally posted on the EAGLE online community site, behind IBM's firewall on 19 August 2006, at 12:38 pm, and posted here on 24 May 2007:
Dear God,
Please let me thrive at Teachers College. Let me strive for excellence without being self-defeatingly competitive. Let me collaborate and become part of the community, and not try to be a star out of insecurity, or for any reason.
Let me be humble, open, creative and disciplined. Thank you for helping me reach this occasion. Amen.
Love,
Sarah
Yesterday, I wrote out the prayer above, and then, getting way ahead of myself on the one hand, or doing advance-planning on the other, I spent an afternoon of my vacation, playing with ERIC (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/databases/2552765.html) and Columbia University Electronic Dissertations (http://digitalcommons.libraries.columbia.edu/dissertations/). I wanted to start thinking about what it could be like to create a dissertation, to do a huge piece of original research. Of course, I have to earn the M.A. first, which will take at least two and a half years, since I'll be working full-time while studying part-time. Still, it was fun to do a bit of dreaming and free-associating.
The following essay, which I submitted with my M.A. application, provides context for a number of searched items in the list below:
Sarah Siegel’s Personal Essay for the Teachers College Application
Why would I wish to pursue Adult Learning and Leadership as a formal Masters, and ultimately Doctorate, when already, I have done my best to live the name of the program during much of my career? I want to go beyond my good hunches.
I want to understand the building-blocks of how adults learn and how they lead organizations effectively. Most of all, I care about inspiring leaders to be brave and authentic, and I am in need of further inspiration myself now. The Adult Learning and Leadership program, I feel, would add significantly to the inspiration I’m seeking, and I believe, too, that I would be a useful member of the Teachers College student community.
At IBM, I have had several careers, the majority of which have required some fundamental self-reinvention. How have I made the transition from each one of the careers to the next? Practically, it feels like tacit knowledge and I want it to be explicit. What if my experience were broadly, consciously replicable? An academic framework would help me see the possibilities. I feel ready to go beyond on-the-job learning – valuable as it has been, and as well as it has served me so far.
How can I share lessons learned about brave and authentic leadership in a way that inspires other leaders? It is not enough simply to tell my story, that I helped start up the first sales team of its kind in the Fortune 500 – dedicated to serving business-to-business gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) and GLBT-friendly clients worldwide; and that the team is now more than twice its size, and so has not only lived on beyond me, it is thriving; and that it is facilitating a culture-change, encouraging an unprecedented openness and authenticity in the business world. My hypothesis is that the openness is leading to more courageous leadership, and to more leaders reaching their potential. Perhaps it would be worth researching and trying to prove my hypothesis.
Another big research topic for me could be how leaders among varying cultures learn, and become brave, along with what it means to be authentic from their particular cultural perspective. In my current role, I have facilitated (instructed) leadership development programs in Asia, Europe and the United States, and would like academic, industrial-strength help in determining the value of the insights gained during my travels.
For example, while facilitating a program in China, there was no budget for break-time snacks, but rather for books; every day, the class voted on the most active participant, who won a book on Leadership for his or her contributions. In other geographies, there was a budget for snacks, but not yet for books! Some kvetch about jobs going to Asia, but whose hunger is greater for education than for snacks?
Or what about leaders in India, who in my experience of training them, due to explosive growth, necessarily are called to leadership earlier in their careers than leaders in most other countries? What bravery is involved there? And how can they learn quickly what most of us around the world learn over time?
Earning the Adult Learning and Leadership Masters degree would validate or re-shape my instincts, and would inform my judgment, increasing my ability to inspire leaders to lead bravely and authentically. In my current and future roles, it would also let me consider more than simply delivery of leadership development programs; I would be able to understand their backstory and finale, that is, I would be able to explore program design as well as senior leadership of organizations. The M.A., and ideally, the Ed.D. ultimately would help me be of greatest service in the adult learning and leadership arena.
* * *
Columbia dissertations that include these keywords or keyword-phrases and amount of dissertations that correspond:
Diversity in the workplace 14
Corporate culture 78
Minority executives 13
Globalization 82
Adult education 294
Experiential learning 21
Storytelling 14
Transfer of training 52
Management 607
Decision making 309
Bravery 0
Courage 23
Change 975
Leadership Development 181
Leadership 350
Lesbian 14
Homosexual 17
Jew 15
Jewish 109
Authenticity 36
Identity 541
IBM 36
Global business 184
Learning 844
It feels like the revelation I had with "e-business" all over again. In the late-90s, I remember thinking, so many IBMers are thinking about how to get to the next level of e-business adoption, trying to think of the next great e-business innovation. So much imagination is being channeled in that direction. Why channel mine likewise when, instead, I could channel it in a direction that far fewer IBMers are taking: how to reach the business-to-business market of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) business decisionmakers, i.e., current and future clients....I'm likelier to make a more visible contribution to the company doing so than continuing to focus on e-business like so many others are doing.
Notice the number of Columbia dissertations, for example, that have been written on the topic of, say, "Management" and then compare it to the number that have been written on, say, "Courage" or even "Globalization" relatively. It's interesting to write all of this at this embryonic phase of my grad. school education. Let's see how my thinking and learning changes over time.
Meanwhile, among the specific dissertations that looked particularly interesting yesterday, I found the following sample:
The journey of becoming a diversity practitioner: The connection between experience, learning, and competence
Terrence Earl Maltbia, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE
Faculty Advisor: Victoria Marsick
Date: 2001
The impact of gay identity and perceived milieu toward gay employees on job involvement and organizational commitment of gay men
Richard Randall Rogers, Columbia University
Faculty Advisor: Peter C. Cairo
Date: 1998
And during a previous session of columbia.edu web-trawling, I found the following organization to join:
http://www.tc.edu/students/queertc/index_files/page0003.htm If it turns out to be rewarding, I'll write about it in a future journal entry.
Note added on May 25, 2007: I did join QueerTC and was fortunate to serve on a panel for the organization this spring.
Before, during and after school begins on September 1st, I ought to check out a site that was recommended as a link from Teachers College's web site: http://gradschool.about.com/od/survivinggraduateschool/.
Note: Originally posted on the EAGLE online community site, behind IBM's firewall on 19 August 2006, at 12:38 pm, and posted here on 24 May 2007:
Dear God,
Please let me thrive at Teachers College. Let me strive for excellence without being self-defeatingly competitive. Let me collaborate and become part of the community, and not try to be a star out of insecurity, or for any reason.
Let me be humble, open, creative and disciplined. Thank you for helping me reach this occasion. Amen.
Love,
Sarah
Yesterday, I wrote out the prayer above, and then, getting way ahead of myself on the one hand, or doing advance-planning on the other, I spent an afternoon of my vacation, playing with ERIC (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/databases/2552765.html) and Columbia University Electronic Dissertations (http://digitalcommons.libraries.columbia.edu/dissertations/). I wanted to start thinking about what it could be like to create a dissertation, to do a huge piece of original research. Of course, I have to earn the M.A. first, which will take at least two and a half years, since I'll be working full-time while studying part-time. Still, it was fun to do a bit of dreaming and free-associating.
The following essay, which I submitted with my M.A. application, provides context for a number of searched items in the list below:
Why would I wish to pursue Adult Learning and Leadership as a formal Masters, and ultimately Doctorate, when already, I have done my best to live the name of the program during much of my career? I want to go beyond my good hunches.
I want to understand the building-blocks of how adults learn and how they lead organizations effectively. Most of all, I care about inspiring leaders to be brave and authentic, and I am in need of further inspiration myself now. The Adult Learning and Leadership program, I feel, would add significantly to the inspiration I’m seeking, and I believe, too, that I would be a useful member of the Teachers College student community.
At IBM, I have had several careers, the majority of which have required some fundamental self-reinvention. How have I made the transition from each one of the careers to the next? Practically, it feels like tacit knowledge and I want it to be explicit. What if my experience were broadly, consciously replicable? An academic framework would help me see the possibilities. I feel ready to go beyond on-the-job learning – valuable as it has been, and as well as it has served me so far.
How can I share lessons learned about brave and authentic leadership in a way that inspires other leaders? It is not enough simply to tell my story, that I helped start up the first sales team of its kind in the Fortune 500 – dedicated to serving business-to-business gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) and GLBT-friendly clients worldwide; and that the team is now more than twice its size, and so has not only lived on beyond me, it is thriving; and that it is facilitating a culture-change, encouraging an unprecedented openness and authenticity in the business world. My hypothesis is that the openness is leading to more courageous leadership, and to more leaders reaching their potential. Perhaps it would be worth researching and trying to prove my hypothesis.
Another big research topic for me could be how leaders among varying cultures learn, and become brave, along with what it means to be authentic from their particular cultural perspective. In my current role, I have facilitated (instructed) leadership development programs in Asia, Europe and the United States, and would like academic, industrial-strength help in determining the value of the insights gained during my travels.
For example, while facilitating a program in China, there was no budget for break-time snacks, but rather for books; every day, the class voted on the most active participant, who won a book on Leadership for his or her contributions. In other geographies, there was a budget for snacks, but not yet for books! Some kvetch about jobs going to Asia, but whose hunger is greater for education than for snacks?
Or what about leaders in India, who in my experience of training them, due to explosive growth, necessarily are called to leadership earlier in their careers than leaders in most other countries? What bravery is involved there? And how can they learn quickly what most of us around the world learn over time?
Earning the Adult Learning and Leadership Masters degree would validate or re-shape my instincts, and would inform my judgment, increasing my ability to inspire leaders to lead bravely and authentically. In my current and future roles, it would also let me consider more than simply delivery of leadership development programs; I would be able to understand their backstory and finale, that is, I would be able to explore program design as well as senior leadership of organizations. The M.A., and ideally, the Ed.D. ultimately would help me be of greatest service in the adult learning and leadership arena.
Columbia dissertations that include these keywords or keyword-phrases and amount of dissertations that correspond:
Diversity in the workplace 14
Corporate culture 78
Minority executives 13
Globalization 82
Adult education 294
Experiential learning 21
Storytelling 14
Transfer of training 52
Management 607
Decision making 309
Bravery 0
Courage 23
Change 975
Leadership Development 181
Leadership 350
Lesbian 14
Homosexual 17
Jew 15
Jewish 109
Authenticity 36
Identity 541
IBM 36
Global business 184
Learning 844
It feels like the revelation I had with "e-business" all over again. In the late-90s, I remember thinking, so many IBMers are thinking about how to get to the next level of e-business adoption, trying to think of the next great e-business innovation. So much imagination is being channeled in that direction. Why channel mine likewise when, instead, I could channel it in a direction that far fewer IBMers are taking: how to reach the business-to-business market of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) business decisionmakers, i.e., current and future clients....I'm likelier to make a more visible contribution to the company doing so than continuing to focus on e-business like so many others are doing.
Notice the number of Columbia dissertations, for example, that have been written on the topic of, say, "Management" and then compare it to the number that have been written on, say, "Courage" or even "Globalization" relatively. It's interesting to write all of this at this embryonic phase of my grad. school education. Let's see how my thinking and learning changes over time.
Meanwhile, among the specific dissertations that looked particularly interesting yesterday, I found the following sample:
The journey of becoming a diversity practitioner: The connection between experience, learning, and competence
Terrence Earl Maltbia, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE
Faculty Advisor: Victoria Marsick
Date: 2001
The impact of gay identity and perceived milieu toward gay employees on job involvement and organizational commitment of gay men
Richard Randall Rogers, Columbia University
Faculty Advisor: Peter C. Cairo
Date: 1998
And during a previous session of columbia.edu web-trawling, I found the following organization to join:
http://www.tc.edu/students/queertc/index_files/page0003.htm If it turns out to be rewarding, I'll write about it in a future journal entry.
Note added on May 25, 2007: I did join QueerTC and was fortunate to serve on a panel for the organization this spring.
Before, during and after school begins on September 1st, I ought to check out a site that was recommended as a link from Teachers College's web site: http://gradschool.about.com/od/survivinggraduateschool/.
Reflections: Going to Grad. School -- Part I
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Note: Originally posted on the EAGLE online community site, behind IBM's firewall on 19 August 2006, at 12:37 pm, and posted here on 24 May 2007:
Returning to the Ladies Locker-room at the YMHA (Jewish Community Center) after swimming this morning, I am unable to use my favorite shower because the woman who had been sharing my lane has taken it...even though my towel and shampoo is hanging on the hook right outside it. My routine is disrupted. Now what?
She hears me move my stuff and says, "Oh, sorry."
"It's fine," but the alternate shower I choose has no soap, and really, it isn't fine. It's my shower. Every morning that I swim. At least when I'm not on vacation and arrive there super-early.
Noticing her shampoo-bag is a plastic shopping bag with "Graphos" written on it in Hebrew, I call from my shower to hers: "Did you live in Israel for a time? I noticed your bag."
"Yes. I just got back from a year there."
"How great." I step over to the next empty shower-stall to pump a handful of liquid-soap, saying, "I lived there for a year, too, a long time ago, in Jerusalem." The shower-water's louder than I'd like, but I talk over it, "What took you to Israel for a year?"
"Oh, I was in a seminary."
"Neat." So she's a rabbinical student maybe.
"Where were you when you were there?" she asks me.
"I was at Hebrew University during my junior year of college, and we used to have to take a cross-town bus every morning to the Givat Ram campus to swim. And now, there's this gorgeous pool, an infinity-style one, where the water spills over the edges on purpose, but not when I was there. Right on the Mount Scopus campus. Where did you swim while you were there?"
No answer. Oh, she left to dry off. For how long have I been speaking to myself, I wonder.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you," she says, apparently returning to hear my question and then answers:
"There was a pool in a building called the Soldiers' House. And I went there. There were soldiers everywhere on the main floors, and I went to the bottom of the building, where the pool was. It was nice, actually."
Typically, during vacation, my partner Pat would be with me and I'd talk with her in the locker-room, but she's volunteering at the soup kitchen today and so I'm alone. Or when I'm working, I get there earlier than Pat and my routine is simply to rinse off in the shower quickly, and then swim my laps and shower afterwards, all-the-while speaking with no one -- and there are far fewer people to choose from at the earlier hour in any case -- but the Graphos bag causes me to reminisce. She happened to have picked a locker near mine and so we continue the conversation.
"Are you working toward ordination?"
She looks at me oddly.
"I thought that since you were at a seminary, maybe you were a rabbinical student. Which seminary?"
"It's called Midreshet Rachel [http://www.darchenoam.org/mr/mr_home.htm], and no, I was just there to learn how to live according to the Torah [Jewish Bible]. I studied Hebrew and read in the original, which was just so great. Do you read Hebrew?"
Oy. I wonder what she'd think of my rejection of traditionally-observant Judaism, and how friendly she'd feel if I told her that after substantial Jewish education until high school, I opted to live a non-Orthodox life ultimately. "I do read Hebrew; I went to a [Modern Orthodox] day-school, growing up, and it is really rewarding to be able to read the text in the original, I agree."
I could finish getting ready and just leave, or I could introduce myself and maybe make a new friend. "I'm Sarah. What's your name?"
She tells me and I say, "Typically, I'm not here this late, but I'm on vacation this week."
"From what are you on vacation? What do you do?"
"I train our managers to be good leaders. I'm an instructor. I work for IBM, doing Leadership Development training."
"I love leadership development stuff. I worked for [a major U.S. airline] for five years, and I was a sales exec., and was always talking with HR on how to motivate the sales force further. But now, after 15 months away from it, and being back to work again -- this is my first week back -- it's just so hard....I did the year of study just for personal meaning. I mean, I didn't want to be one of those people, who says, 'I wish I had done XYZ....'"
"That's terrific. I'm going back to school part-time myself in a couple of weeks, for an M.A. in this field, actually: Adult Learning and Leadership." I see that her bag's packed. "Are you leaving now?"
"Yeah."
"Me, too. I don't have to worry about drying my hair, since I'm on vacation."
"My mother tries to make her hair look like that. It's cute."
We're walking down the hall, which is decorated with children's art from the summer camp associated with the Y and I'm thinking about their stage of schooling and then fast-forwarding to my first experience with Higher Education, and it's as if she reads my mind:
"You are going to enjoy this education so much. When we went to college, we didn't really know where it was leading, but now, you've been in the field and you'll see that you'll be able to focus and learn so much better."
"You're right. When I went to college, I didn't know what it was going to be in service to [-- my Comparative Literature / Humanities degree] -- had no idea, and this feels so much clearer."
We approach the exit and reflexively, I follow the ritual of putting my hand on the mezuzah [the small rectangular casing on all the doorposts of Jewish homes or institutions (with the exception of bathrooms), which contains the "Shema,"the central prayer of Judaism, and which is meant to protect the inhabitants from harm] and then kissing my fingers as I pass through the doorway. She misses carrying out the ritual herself. I must have distracted her. As we wave goodbye to each other, walking to our cars, I smile to myself, considering how my early Jewish education really does seem to have stayed with me after all; I was first taught to kiss the mezuzah when I was six years old, if not earlier.
On the way home, I call my mom on my cell-phone and we talk about how school is around the corner, and about the swimmer I met.
"She sounds terrific; she said everything you needed to hear at this stage." It's true. My sister Kathy, whom I've mentioned before in communiques to my Leader Readiness facilitator community, is a professional educator (principal of Brooklyn International High School http://www.brooklyninternational.org/), with a Masters in Education and another in Applied Linguistics, and she says the same thing to me, or Master Trainers Lynne Cummins and Jim Soltis offer similar encouragement, fortunately, and yet hearing it from a stranger/angel(?) seems to help me the most.
Note: Originally posted on the EAGLE online community site, behind IBM's firewall on 19 August 2006, at 12:37 pm, and posted here on 24 May 2007:
Returning to the Ladies Locker-room at the YMHA (Jewish Community Center) after swimming this morning, I am unable to use my favorite shower because the woman who had been sharing my lane has taken it...even though my towel and shampoo is hanging on the hook right outside it. My routine is disrupted. Now what?
She hears me move my stuff and says, "Oh, sorry."
"It's fine," but the alternate shower I choose has no soap, and really, it isn't fine. It's my shower. Every morning that I swim. At least when I'm not on vacation and arrive there super-early.
Noticing her shampoo-bag is a plastic shopping bag with "Graphos" written on it in Hebrew, I call from my shower to hers: "Did you live in Israel for a time? I noticed your bag."
"Yes. I just got back from a year there."
"How great." I step over to the next empty shower-stall to pump a handful of liquid-soap, saying, "I lived there for a year, too, a long time ago, in Jerusalem." The shower-water's louder than I'd like, but I talk over it, "What took you to Israel for a year?"
"Oh, I was in a seminary."
"Neat." So she's a rabbinical student maybe.
"Where were you when you were there?" she asks me.
"I was at Hebrew University during my junior year of college, and we used to have to take a cross-town bus every morning to the Givat Ram campus to swim. And now, there's this gorgeous pool, an infinity-style one, where the water spills over the edges on purpose, but not when I was there. Right on the Mount Scopus campus. Where did you swim while you were there?"
No answer. Oh, she left to dry off. For how long have I been speaking to myself, I wonder.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you," she says, apparently returning to hear my question and then answers:
"There was a pool in a building called the Soldiers' House. And I went there. There were soldiers everywhere on the main floors, and I went to the bottom of the building, where the pool was. It was nice, actually."
Typically, during vacation, my partner Pat would be with me and I'd talk with her in the locker-room, but she's volunteering at the soup kitchen today and so I'm alone. Or when I'm working, I get there earlier than Pat and my routine is simply to rinse off in the shower quickly, and then swim my laps and shower afterwards, all-the-while speaking with no one -- and there are far fewer people to choose from at the earlier hour in any case -- but the Graphos bag causes me to reminisce. She happened to have picked a locker near mine and so we continue the conversation.
"Are you working toward ordination?"
She looks at me oddly.
"I thought that since you were at a seminary, maybe you were a rabbinical student. Which seminary?"
"It's called Midreshet Rachel [http://www.darchenoam.org/mr/mr_home.htm], and no, I was just there to learn how to live according to the Torah [Jewish Bible]. I studied Hebrew and read in the original, which was just so great. Do you read Hebrew?"
Oy. I wonder what she'd think of my rejection of traditionally-observant Judaism, and how friendly she'd feel if I told her that after substantial Jewish education until high school, I opted to live a non-Orthodox life ultimately. "I do read Hebrew; I went to a [Modern Orthodox] day-school, growing up, and it is really rewarding to be able to read the text in the original, I agree."
I could finish getting ready and just leave, or I could introduce myself and maybe make a new friend. "I'm Sarah. What's your name?"
She tells me and I say, "Typically, I'm not here this late, but I'm on vacation this week."
"From what are you on vacation? What do you do?"
"I train our managers to be good leaders. I'm an instructor. I work for IBM, doing Leadership Development training."
"I love leadership development stuff. I worked for [a major U.S. airline] for five years, and I was a sales exec., and was always talking with HR on how to motivate the sales force further. But now, after 15 months away from it, and being back to work again -- this is my first week back -- it's just so hard....I did the year of study just for personal meaning. I mean, I didn't want to be one of those people, who says, 'I wish I had done XYZ....'"
"That's terrific. I'm going back to school part-time myself in a couple of weeks, for an M.A. in this field, actually: Adult Learning and Leadership." I see that her bag's packed. "Are you leaving now?"
"Yeah."
"Me, too. I don't have to worry about drying my hair, since I'm on vacation."
"My mother tries to make her hair look like that. It's cute."
We're walking down the hall, which is decorated with children's art from the summer camp associated with the Y and I'm thinking about their stage of schooling and then fast-forwarding to my first experience with Higher Education, and it's as if she reads my mind:
"You are going to enjoy this education so much. When we went to college, we didn't really know where it was leading, but now, you've been in the field and you'll see that you'll be able to focus and learn so much better."
"You're right. When I went to college, I didn't know what it was going to be in service to [-- my Comparative Literature / Humanities degree] -- had no idea, and this feels so much clearer."
We approach the exit and reflexively, I follow the ritual of putting my hand on the mezuzah [the small rectangular casing on all the doorposts of Jewish homes or institutions (with the exception of bathrooms), which contains the "Shema,"the central prayer of Judaism, and which is meant to protect the inhabitants from harm] and then kissing my fingers as I pass through the doorway. She misses carrying out the ritual herself. I must have distracted her. As we wave goodbye to each other, walking to our cars, I smile to myself, considering how my early Jewish education really does seem to have stayed with me after all; I was first taught to kiss the mezuzah when I was six years old, if not earlier.
On the way home, I call my mom on my cell-phone and we talk about how school is around the corner, and about the swimmer I met.
"She sounds terrific; she said everything you needed to hear at this stage." It's true. My sister Kathy, whom I've mentioned before in communiques to my Leader Readiness facilitator community, is a professional educator (principal of Brooklyn International High School http://www.brooklyninternational.org/), with a Masters in Education and another in Applied Linguistics, and she says the same thing to me, or Master Trainers Lynne Cummins and Jim Soltis offer similar encouragement, fortunately, and yet hearing it from a stranger/angel(?) seems to help me the most.
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