I haven’t been able to put together a coherent blog-thought this week, because we’re installing a major portion of a major application this weekend. It’s pretty-much taken up all of my energy and it took up pretty-much all of my weekend, too. Even after an intense week (too much to do to get ready, too many other demands), which left me rather tired Friday night, I found myself excited to be going in to work on Saturday morning. Weird, huh?
But it’s because this – delivering a new application that will help people to do their jobs – is why I’m in this business.
Changes in my work over the last couple of years have left me questioning what I’m doing, so it’s very helpful to have had this weekend to remind me of what’s important. I know I won’t get any recognition from management (only this phase is on time, compared to my estimate six months ago, so I’m late, which is all that matters), but the people using the application will appreciate it. They’ve been great and it’s a pleasure to have worked with them.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
September 17, 2006
June 30, 2006
At Work, But Out of the Office
Last week, while at the Digital Government Summit, I was again reminded of that special thing that happens to me when I’m not in the office while at work. It can be some of my most creative, productive time.
There’s something about being at work, but not surrounded by the distractions and details and annoyances of the workplace, but presented with new information, in a training session or presentation on an interesting topic that gets my juices going. Leaving the detritus of my workplace behind is part of it. But going somewhere where I expect to learn is part of it, too. I open myself up to the new ideas and, as a consequence, find clarity and organization around work issues that had eluded me while embedded in the normal routine. And, I can attend to the session, as well, and bring back what I need to from that.
The effect is strong enough, though, that sometimes the most valuable things I bring back from a training session are not information about the presentation’s topic, but the new idea or the fresh approach to a problem that I had stymied me.
It’s not enough to just get away. When I do that, I find that I bring the distractions along. I need to have a reason to leave them behind. I also think I need there to be something positive to attend to, to create that openness to new ideas and ways of thinking, which loosens up the creative approaches.
I’ll have to try to figure out how to make this happen less by chance and more by plan.
There’s something about being at work, but not surrounded by the distractions and details and annoyances of the workplace, but presented with new information, in a training session or presentation on an interesting topic that gets my juices going. Leaving the detritus of my workplace behind is part of it. But going somewhere where I expect to learn is part of it, too. I open myself up to the new ideas and, as a consequence, find clarity and organization around work issues that had eluded me while embedded in the normal routine. And, I can attend to the session, as well, and bring back what I need to from that.
The effect is strong enough, though, that sometimes the most valuable things I bring back from a training session are not information about the presentation’s topic, but the new idea or the fresh approach to a problem that I had stymied me.
It’s not enough to just get away. When I do that, I find that I bring the distractions along. I need to have a reason to leave them behind. I also think I need there to be something positive to attend to, to create that openness to new ideas and ways of thinking, which loosens up the creative approaches.
I’ll have to try to figure out how to make this happen less by chance and more by plan.
June 29, 2006
Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center
Last week, I attended Government Technology’s Digital Government Summit in Tacoma at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center, a new building downtown. The “Summit” was interesting, I went mostly to find out where the state information technology organization was headed, as a defensive measure, and I thought the facility was very nice.
I grew up in Seattle and so was trained from an early age to look down on that city’s local rival for leadership in the region. We had Seattle history units at least twice in my grade school career and the major theme was the wonderful destiny that was to be Seattle’s. Tacoma, of course, suffered by comparison, even though it did win the first rail line to Puget Sound. It didn’t help that, between the pulp mills (since reduced to one and that cleaned up) and the smelter (since demolished, though the toxic legacy continues), Tacoma’s air quality was, well, it smelled.
That’s very different now. Tacoma has grown up, even as Seattle has greedily grasped the destiny and fame it always knew it deserved. Tacoma has renovated what was a pretty seedy downtown. (Seattle had its own strip of downtrodden, and still does, but it had other sections of downtown that weren’t home to the homeless and drunken. Tacoma had little else downtown.) Union Station was renovated years ago, the State Historical Museum went in next door, the new Art Museum and the Museum of Glass anchor the waterfront side, new condos are springing up, old warehouses are being torn down and replaced with buildings like the Convention Center or renovated as offices, and Sound Transit is running a streetcar line through the middle.
It’s nice and the big, gleaming Convention Center looms over the center of it. It’s five stories of steel and glass, with some nice touches, especially the flooring on the ground floor that suggests a duckweed-covered pond, with a connected street fountain outside. For art, there’s an installation of a half-dozen rough-hewn beams suspended above the walkways and stairs in the vaulting front-side windows. They were obviously removed from an old warehouse – they show signs of nail holes for flooring or ceiling material. It’s not much as an artistic statement, but it is a nice juxtaposition of Tacoma’s industrial past with its hoped-for technological future.
I grew up in Seattle and so was trained from an early age to look down on that city’s local rival for leadership in the region. We had Seattle history units at least twice in my grade school career and the major theme was the wonderful destiny that was to be Seattle’s. Tacoma, of course, suffered by comparison, even though it did win the first rail line to Puget Sound. It didn’t help that, between the pulp mills (since reduced to one and that cleaned up) and the smelter (since demolished, though the toxic legacy continues), Tacoma’s air quality was, well, it smelled.
That’s very different now. Tacoma has grown up, even as Seattle has greedily grasped the destiny and fame it always knew it deserved. Tacoma has renovated what was a pretty seedy downtown. (Seattle had its own strip of downtrodden, and still does, but it had other sections of downtown that weren’t home to the homeless and drunken. Tacoma had little else downtown.) Union Station was renovated years ago, the State Historical Museum went in next door, the new Art Museum and the Museum of Glass anchor the waterfront side, new condos are springing up, old warehouses are being torn down and replaced with buildings like the Convention Center or renovated as offices, and Sound Transit is running a streetcar line through the middle.
It’s nice and the big, gleaming Convention Center looms over the center of it. It’s five stories of steel and glass, with some nice touches, especially the flooring on the ground floor that suggests a duckweed-covered pond, with a connected street fountain outside. For art, there’s an installation of a half-dozen rough-hewn beams suspended above the walkways and stairs in the vaulting front-side windows. They were obviously removed from an old warehouse – they show signs of nail holes for flooring or ceiling material. It’s not much as an artistic statement, but it is a nice juxtaposition of Tacoma’s industrial past with its hoped-for technological future.
February 14, 2006
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions
We are finished with most of our NARUC meeting activities. The time has gone too fast. We had nine attendees and several guests at our sessions, which is always gratifying. I have a goodly list of things to do and to look at when I get back to work, which is the best reason for coming to these. We talked about Ed's RSS talk this afternoon and agreed that the face-to-face and discussion that followed is so much more effective than any e-mail exchange or Web page viewing, no matter how compelling, could ever be. That's why we come here.
We decided to hold the next meeting, later this year, on our own, in the hopes of some people who can't work their ways up the queue to attend meetings with the rest of their agencies' staff, can attend when it's not with the rest of NARUC. Coeur d'Alene and Seattle were mentioned as possibilities, so I'll start to work up possibilities for a Seattle meeting. It would be nice to pull in some of our staff to present and listen to our colleagues at such a convenient location.
We decided to hold the next meeting, later this year, on our own, in the hopes of some people who can't work their ways up the queue to attend meetings with the rest of their agencies' staff, can attend when it's not with the rest of NARUC. Coeur d'Alene and Seattle were mentioned as possibilities, so I'll start to work up possibilities for a Seattle meeting. It would be nice to pull in some of our staff to present and listen to our colleagues at such a convenient location.
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