I waited too long to go back to New York City.
The last occasion I had to spend any time there was 11 years ago, when New Yorkers seemed determined to confirm their reputation as brash, uncivil, narrowly focussed individuals in too much of a hurray to even concern themselves with the most ordinary of courtesies toward their fellow humans. It was "get out of my way or get run over".
Then came 9/11 and I really didn't have the desire to return. Perhaps it was the very same trauma that kept me away that should have led me back years ago.
This past weekend, I again found myself walking the streets of Manhattan and it was as if I had landed in a completely different city. People on the street were taking the time to stop and chat, saying "excuse me" while jostling through crowds and asking "how's it going?" to complete strangers.
We got caught in a thunderstorm in Times Square one evening. Each time the showers let up, whole groups of complete strangers would make the dash from one protective awning or doorway to the next, and the attitude quickly became festive as we shared laughter, umbrellas and advice. There developed a sense of community like none I had ever witnessed in the Big Apple and, to my surprise, I suddenly found myself feeling at home.
A stranger took the time to tell us about her arrival in the city as a Salvadorian refugee some decades earlier. She wanted to know if we were enjoying our trip, what landmarks we had visited, what we still hoped to see and experience, and offered all sorts of advice on what shouldn't be missed.
And she wasn't the exception--she was the new rule. Transit workers cheerfully explained how to negotiate the subway system. Store clerks took the time to converse about fashion, food and family. My traveling companion struck up a conversation with Tom from Hartford, who wanted to tell us about all the fantastic rock concerts he had attended over four decades. Even taxi drivers, despite their well-deserved reputation as the gruffest of New Yorkers, wanted to talk, seemingly desiring to make as many human connections as they could during each shift.
It is this new lightness that will stay with me as New York's most lasting impression, and I--like millions of others who are drawn to the art, architecture and culture of this centre of western society--will savour the memories of the friendliness of its people for many years to come.
And it won't be another decade before I return.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Old Steam Ginny
The old guy who has worked in communications for too long got pulled up short today.
Less than five minutes after alerting a select group of organizational leaders that an important contract announcement was coming, it was Twitter-alert heaven. Twitter followers suddenly knew more than we did. The media was calling while the news release was still being hammered out. Along with the giddiness of a major announcement, there was suddenly an overwhelming sense of trying to make the old steam ginny turn over one more time.
But the question is, when an organization believes there are certain interest groups who should get their information directly from the source without external mediation, how does it cope with the immediate transparency of a new information disemination model that practices from the opposite view?
Well, the simple answer is that it does or it fails.
Finding a balance between the expectations of the elite--whoever they might be and for whatever reason--and the realities of digital citizenry's real-time participation presents huge challenges to our traditional view of information...well, call it what it is...control.
So, does this mean the end of privilege? Does it mean lowering the expectations of those who rightfully believe they should be accorded certain information because they are "in the know" or perhaps even properly have rights as primary clients? Is this a good, bad, or unimportant consideration?
If the media is truly the message, then perhaps we need to rethink how we, as organizations, plan and execute those communications we consider to be important. Maybe we need to get over ourselves and redefine what is truly important. Perhaps we need to change not just the way we operate but the very expectations of those for whom we operate.
Otherwise, we will spend the remainder of our lives stoking an aging but one-time efficient firebox that in today's reality only belches air-polluting black clouds into what might otherwise be pristine air.
Less than five minutes after alerting a select group of organizational leaders that an important contract announcement was coming, it was Twitter-alert heaven. Twitter followers suddenly knew more than we did. The media was calling while the news release was still being hammered out. Along with the giddiness of a major announcement, there was suddenly an overwhelming sense of trying to make the old steam ginny turn over one more time.
But the question is, when an organization believes there are certain interest groups who should get their information directly from the source without external mediation, how does it cope with the immediate transparency of a new information disemination model that practices from the opposite view?
Well, the simple answer is that it does or it fails.
Finding a balance between the expectations of the elite--whoever they might be and for whatever reason--and the realities of digital citizenry's real-time participation presents huge challenges to our traditional view of information...well, call it what it is...control.
So, does this mean the end of privilege? Does it mean lowering the expectations of those who rightfully believe they should be accorded certain information because they are "in the know" or perhaps even properly have rights as primary clients? Is this a good, bad, or unimportant consideration?
If the media is truly the message, then perhaps we need to rethink how we, as organizations, plan and execute those communications we consider to be important. Maybe we need to get over ourselves and redefine what is truly important. Perhaps we need to change not just the way we operate but the very expectations of those for whom we operate.
Otherwise, we will spend the remainder of our lives stoking an aging but one-time efficient firebox that in today's reality only belches air-polluting black clouds into what might otherwise be pristine air.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Soaring like an eagle
I took flight on Monday. I spread my arms and soared in slow motion; laughing all the way to the ground at the sudden joy of being freed from gravity. It was an immediate and strangely welcoming escape from earthly bounds, but gravity won in the end and exacted its usual price.
Let me explain. Between April and November, I spend as much time as possible at our 120-year-old farm house near Kejimkujik National Park. My father-in-law mapped a two-hour radius around Halifax back in the early seventies and he and his partner spent several years searching for the perfect get-away.
What they found was a 20-acre piece of woodland with a long stretch of lakefront on Pretty Mary Lake, complete with an aging farmhouse surrounded on two sides by a long verandah. Over the years he, and eventually we, upgraded the wiring and installed plumbing, new roofing and worked away at shoring up crumbling foundation sills. There is no insulation and only a kitchen wood stove, so when the freeze sets in we mournfully shut it up for the winter, cross our fingers and walk away for four months.
Two years ago, the contractor who was re-shingling the main roof advised us that he had forbidden his workers from standing on the verandah roof--it was too rotten to be safe. We did what country folk do…we called our neighbour.
Our neighbour was eight years old when he met my father-in-law. His own young parents had given him up as an infant and he had been taken in by the widow down the road. RJ, who had three daughters, immediately took him under his wing, and Dave has been the country cousin ever since. He is also one of the most meticulous carpenters we have ever met.
A few years ago, at the height of fears about West Nile Disease, I spent two weekends screening in the old verandah. It turned out to be the most popular space in the house. The only problem was that it was a screened space of about 12 metres long by just over a metre wide. A contract was struck two years ago, and Dave took on the destruction of the old verandah and the building of the new, including a three by 12 metre screened room.
Life moves at its own pace in the country. A year later and the structure--unroofed--was mostly complete. By July 1 weekend, the roof was on and then everything stalled. Being the old guy with time, I began the task of cladding the posts and headers, painting the trim and tightening up the screening. It was this that took me two metres up a step ladder Monday morning, and this that saw me do a perfect swan dive when the ladder collapsed.
You read about life flashing before your eyes at these moments. I instinctively knew there was nothing in that brief time period that would prevent a perfect belly-flop to the ground. Still, part of my mind slowed my perception of time enough that I actually enjoyed the freed feeling that enveloped me.
The landing, however, was directly across the ladder but, as the nice ER doctor told me, luck was on my side…I missed the rib bones and merely bruised the cartilage around my heart. A largely immobilized left arm and a significant--although largely unavoidable--fear of coughing, sneezing or hiccuping for the next couple weeks will be the price exacted for the day I soared like an eagle.
Let me explain. Between April and November, I spend as much time as possible at our 120-year-old farm house near Kejimkujik National Park. My father-in-law mapped a two-hour radius around Halifax back in the early seventies and he and his partner spent several years searching for the perfect get-away.
What they found was a 20-acre piece of woodland with a long stretch of lakefront on Pretty Mary Lake, complete with an aging farmhouse surrounded on two sides by a long verandah. Over the years he, and eventually we, upgraded the wiring and installed plumbing, new roofing and worked away at shoring up crumbling foundation sills. There is no insulation and only a kitchen wood stove, so when the freeze sets in we mournfully shut it up for the winter, cross our fingers and walk away for four months.
Two years ago, the contractor who was re-shingling the main roof advised us that he had forbidden his workers from standing on the verandah roof--it was too rotten to be safe. We did what country folk do…we called our neighbour.
Our neighbour was eight years old when he met my father-in-law. His own young parents had given him up as an infant and he had been taken in by the widow down the road. RJ, who had three daughters, immediately took him under his wing, and Dave has been the country cousin ever since. He is also one of the most meticulous carpenters we have ever met.
A few years ago, at the height of fears about West Nile Disease, I spent two weekends screening in the old verandah. It turned out to be the most popular space in the house. The only problem was that it was a screened space of about 12 metres long by just over a metre wide. A contract was struck two years ago, and Dave took on the destruction of the old verandah and the building of the new, including a three by 12 metre screened room.
Life moves at its own pace in the country. A year later and the structure--unroofed--was mostly complete. By July 1 weekend, the roof was on and then everything stalled. Being the old guy with time, I began the task of cladding the posts and headers, painting the trim and tightening up the screening. It was this that took me two metres up a step ladder Monday morning, and this that saw me do a perfect swan dive when the ladder collapsed.
You read about life flashing before your eyes at these moments. I instinctively knew there was nothing in that brief time period that would prevent a perfect belly-flop to the ground. Still, part of my mind slowed my perception of time enough that I actually enjoyed the freed feeling that enveloped me.
The landing, however, was directly across the ladder but, as the nice ER doctor told me, luck was on my side…I missed the rib bones and merely bruised the cartilage around my heart. A largely immobilized left arm and a significant--although largely unavoidable--fear of coughing, sneezing or hiccuping for the next couple weeks will be the price exacted for the day I soared like an eagle.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Back in Montréal
After 20 years, I am back in Montréal...and it feels good.
Despite the awful idea that my colleagues are currently grooving to some pretty mediocre 1980s disco; despite not enough time to explore, to absorb all that this wonderful city has to offer...it still fits. It still feels good.
The daughter of a colleague was beaten within an inch of her life just blocks away from where I am staying only a couple years ago. Yet, on the corner of Sherbrooke and Aylmer, the vibe still feels safe to me, a gawky skinny kid in an old guy's body who cannot help trusting everyone unless proven wrong. And the knowledge that I might be wrong and it could cost me dearly only adds to the spice as I saunter along with a short Cuban cigar (a dangerous past-time in itself) clenched between my teeth late in the evening.
The linguistic tensions that felt so urgent two decades ago are largely gone. Perhaps it's part of a post-modern "reality" that makes our Trudeau-era politicians seem so out of touch with my children's lives and experience. Or, more likely (to my mind), it was a mid-twentieth century construct to keep the votes coming. Today, the languages I hear on the street--equal amounts of Creole, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French and English (to name the few I recognize) are just remnants of who each of us was; not who we can or will be. And this city oozes with possibilities; just screams the potential of the future.
I met an eighty-something year old in the elevator tonight. He was holding pamphlets published by school boards from across Canada in his hands. He asked "are you attending this conference?"
"The one with education communicators from across the country?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "I'm a literacy volunteer from the US, in a neighbourhood with close to 70 percent adult illiteracy...this stuff is wonderful." It was an accidental encounter that perhaps will make a bigger difference to some unknown person's life than a whole career of intentional acts.
If you believe in accidents rather than the old-fashioned idea of destiny, it was a life-affirming encounter.
Personally, I think too much evil has been done in the name of destiny. I believe our children have it right when they live each day as if there was just now, as if each minute was only a gift that should not be wasted.
And Montréal, despite the recent brutal economic conditions, despite whatever harsh realities, still emits a joie de vivre that is there for anyone who has the time to stop, take it in and breathe deeply. Old guy, breathe as deeply as you as you can.
Despite the awful idea that my colleagues are currently grooving to some pretty mediocre 1980s disco; despite not enough time to explore, to absorb all that this wonderful city has to offer...it still fits. It still feels good.
The daughter of a colleague was beaten within an inch of her life just blocks away from where I am staying only a couple years ago. Yet, on the corner of Sherbrooke and Aylmer, the vibe still feels safe to me, a gawky skinny kid in an old guy's body who cannot help trusting everyone unless proven wrong. And the knowledge that I might be wrong and it could cost me dearly only adds to the spice as I saunter along with a short Cuban cigar (a dangerous past-time in itself) clenched between my teeth late in the evening.
The linguistic tensions that felt so urgent two decades ago are largely gone. Perhaps it's part of a post-modern "reality" that makes our Trudeau-era politicians seem so out of touch with my children's lives and experience. Or, more likely (to my mind), it was a mid-twentieth century construct to keep the votes coming. Today, the languages I hear on the street--equal amounts of Creole, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French and English (to name the few I recognize) are just remnants of who each of us was; not who we can or will be. And this city oozes with possibilities; just screams the potential of the future.
I met an eighty-something year old in the elevator tonight. He was holding pamphlets published by school boards from across Canada in his hands. He asked "are you attending this conference?"
"The one with education communicators from across the country?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "I'm a literacy volunteer from the US, in a neighbourhood with close to 70 percent adult illiteracy...this stuff is wonderful." It was an accidental encounter that perhaps will make a bigger difference to some unknown person's life than a whole career of intentional acts.
If you believe in accidents rather than the old-fashioned idea of destiny, it was a life-affirming encounter.
Personally, I think too much evil has been done in the name of destiny. I believe our children have it right when they live each day as if there was just now, as if each minute was only a gift that should not be wasted.
And Montréal, despite the recent brutal economic conditions, despite whatever harsh realities, still emits a joie de vivre that is there for anyone who has the time to stop, take it in and breathe deeply. Old guy, breathe as deeply as you as you can.
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