Today is my day for sniffling and wheezing with a head cold, rather than taking the road trip I had planned to Kitchener for a needlework show. Instead, I dropped into a recent tech conference in California via YouTube for Tim O’Reilly’s talk while I knitted a sweater ordered recently from the net, based on a blogger’s recommendation. I need to remember what I did with my life before it was driven by the network, so I am going for a walk.
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An old iMac (very old, but still runs OS X) found a new home today, from my mother’s basement into the hands of the seven-year-old daughter of a friend. My sister, the original owner, used it daily for years to do her work as a publicist for theatre, TV shows, films and assorted celebrities. After she moved on to a faster machine, it served as a backup for family members and ultimately a handy email machine for my uncle who visits in the summer. I spent part of today doing minor maintenance on an old iBook, which will take the place of the iMac in the basement. Only challenge with this one is that the letters have worn off the keyboard buttons. No problem for my mother, the touch typist, but not so easy for me, who needs to hunt and peck. I might need to hook up an old external keyboard for my uncle; I’m sure I have one or two. We don’t like to waste technology. Today I went for a wonderful hike in a nearby forest, not just for myself, but for my mother, whose declining health makes it impossible to do some of the things she loves. The woods were alive with sprouts of trout lilies and wild leeks, and there were blooming hepatica, bloodroot, and coltsfoot and even a solitary trillium in bud. I took pictures of all of these, plus the hart’s tongue fern, the holly fern and the walking fern. With each sunlit step, I thought about the ease with which I moved along, and even when the going was tough, I was thankful for the hard-won breath and aching muscles. It’s the simple things we lose when we’re not ready. I shared my pictures with my mother and we pledged to go out together, at least as far as she can, while the weather is good. Commemorating 19th century geek Ada Lovelace is as good a reason as any to (1) start blogging again after a long hiatus and (2) honour two people I know who are admirable examples of women who embrace technology and science with enthusiasm. I am very blessed to know them personally – they are my mother and my daughter. My mother is herself an active blogger and wastes no opportunity to coach and mentor her peers so that they too can enjoy the world wide web, a world she delights in every day for keeping in touch with friends and family and always learning something new. It’s no surprise that my daughter is comfortable with technology. Her generation grew up with computers and as a world traveller she counts on skype and texting to keep track of people back home. She has pursued a career in animal behaviour, but now she is expanding her knowledge of the sciences by studying conservation biology, while still working directly with animals at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. Both of these women have had very different influences and experiences from the genteel countess, “The Enchantress of Numbers” Ada Lovelace, but I think they both share her passion for learning and delight in what technology can make possible. Julian Treasure, who is in the business of making sounds work better, especially for people who sell things, gives a quick primer on how sounds affect us in this short TED talk. I especially like his closing comment, offering bird sounds, which he prescribes at a minimum of 5 minutes a day. We often hear people say, “go with your strengths” but usually it’s said in jest. Most common approaches to self-improvement focus on personal weaknesses, finding out where you have shortcomings, so you can improve those and do well in all areas. Marcus Buckingham has a different idea. He proposes that it is our strengths that hold the key to living our most satisfying and successful lives. His new book, Find Your Strongest Life, makes the case for figuring out what you really do well, then altering your career and personal path to capitalize on those strengths. Only by intentionally imbalancing your life to do more of what you excel at can you achieve the happiness you deserve, he says. He speaks directly to women, because, as he quotes from compelling survey data, we are not as happy as we could be, and we are certainly not as happy as we were 40 years ago. To help sort out our strengths, he offers a free online quiz that defines a lead and supporting role. The book goes into some detail about the roles, so you can figure out what to do with the answers you get. This book is a quick read and a fresh take on self-help that I found convincing and useful. However, it falls down badly in the final section, Strong Life Tactics. Rather than a compelling action plan, he gives us a hodge-podge of questions and answers that seem far less organized and persuasive than the rest of the book. But take the quiz and read about your roles – you may be surprised. I had some great conversations with people I don’t normally see while I was away in Toronto. One friend recommended a conference called Gel, short for Good Experience Live, usually held in New York. Its user experience focus brings together creators and thinkers from various fields, making it somewhat like TED, but more affordable. Here’s an example from one held in Europe in 2006: Ted Dewan talks about his efforts to slow traffic with art events on his street in Oxford. I’m back from almost three weeks on a semi-vacation in Toronto. I started with a two-day conference, then spent the rest of the time meeting with family, friends and colleagues from a comfortable base in the west end. I like a change of venue now and then to get into fresh thinking about what I have been doing, or to contemplate doing different things. I achieved both and hope to write about that more often here. I spent my birthday away from home, but doing things I liked: reading, knitting, walking a dog, and finishing the day with an exceptional dinner accompanied by a delightful jazz trio, plus one. Thanks to dear family friend Vena for great conversation and very fine dining, and to Claire, for joining us! The next couple of days will be an immersion in what I do for a living, mostly, because I’ll be at the Idea Conference 2009. It’s all about social and experience design and you can bet that much of the conversation will centre on online communities and technologies. |
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Copyright © 2010 Lynda Sez - All Rights Reserved |
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