Blogs
Working with Jim
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/26/2007 - 12:48Back in January, I wrote a blog post about managing transitions and a new company called CenterNorth. They specialize on the human side of technology leadership and work with companies of all sizes.
Today, I found an article about Leadership Near the Summit. It speaks about an MIT grad climbing his way up to CTO and then facing a difficult annual review. I saw many aspects of myself in that article and at Toomre Capital Markets, we work with some of the brightest engineers out there. We see stories like this all the time.
I’d encourage you to read the article, and if you see characteristics of yourself or people that you’ve worked with in this article, please contact CenterNorth to assist them in their qualitative research into the “best practices for leaders of technical all-stars” You can respond in writing or they will talk to you one on one and will keep all data you provide completely confidential, even in the write up of the report.
(Cross-posted at Toomre Capital Markets)
“Right up her ass”
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 03/25/2007 - 09:31It is hard to imagine that I graduated from Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown, MA, thirty years ago this June. Mount Greylock is a great school in a great town, but I rarely reflect back on my experiences there.
One experience, however, has come to mind twice this week for different reasons. It is one of the most memorable experiences I had, one which taught me so much more than many other hours in the classroom.
The year was 1972. America was mired down in an unpopular war abroad. Many people considered the man sitting in the White House a crook. In many ways, it was a year not much different than today.
Back then, there was a draft, and people found different ways to avoid the draft. I had a bunch of longhaired teachers, whom everyone said had become teachers to avoid the draft. Williamstown was a fairly liberal town, so they got away with things they might not have in other towns.
Miranda is now in eighth grade and is reading Lord of the Flies for school. I remember the day that my eighth grade teacher passed out copies of Lord of the Flies to our class. He said he had an important lesson for us and asked us to turn to page 123. I don’t remember the page exactly, but it seemed like a strange place to get introduced to the book we would be reading. About a third of the way down, there was a phrase that had been crossed out by a black magic marker.
“This is called censorship”, the teacher explained. He spoke about how people had complained about the language in the book and gotten the school to cross out the phrase. Visions of teachers, in the teachers lounge, crossing the phrase out in book after book and muttering about the idiocy of the school administration came to mind.
Amity High School Peace Vigil
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 22:06
This evening, around sixty people gather at Amity High School in Woodbridge Connecticut for a peace vigil. Two of the things that made the vigil so important to me was that it was organized by high school students and that after the vigil we all talked about additional things we can be doing to stop the war; sort like a twenty first century teach-in talking about blogs, and Facebook and Rapid Response networks.
For other pictures of the vigil, click here
(Cross posted at My Left Nutmeg)
"There's a trick to being strong…"
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 09:26During my vacation, I found some time to start reading an advance copy of Jeffrey Feldman’s upcoming book, Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (And Win Elections). It is a great book that I hope anyone interested in politics spends some time reading.
We would do well to spend more time reading speeches of former leaders. The first speech analyzed is George Washington’s first inaugural address. He spoke about being called by “the voice of my country”. Feldman talks about the “humble servant” frame, of great leaders responding to a call by the country and a recognition that they it takes much more than just a great leader to solve our country’s problems, it takes the strength of the American people.
When my wife ran for State Representative in 2004, she reflected upon this theme in an address to the local Democratic Committee.
Perhaps I’ve been more involved than many people my age. I have always made it to the voting booth. However, other than voting, I never thought too much about my responsibility in the political process.
Then George W. Bush became president, and suddenly the America I grew up in seemed to be losing itself. A booming economy slowed to a trickle, and environmental legislation seemed to go backwards. September 11th happened, and then it seemed possible, for a brief moment, that we would come together as a nation and rally once more. We had the world’s sympathy and support. But that only lasted for a moment, and then we slipped even further into economic downturn and world isolation.
As I’ve watched the current presidential campaigns, I’ve wondered if anyone will embrace the humble servant frame. For the past forty years, our candidates have seemed to shun this frame. They have been caught up in the hero worship and the idea that if you vote for them, they will solve all our problems.
Fiona on the Beach at Chatham
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 20:09
Another day of taking it easy and heading off to the beach. Monday we went to Chatham, where this picture of Fiona is from. Tuesday, we went up to Provincetown and today we went to a beach near Falmouth.
This evening we had lobsters. Tomorrow, we wrap things up and head home.
I've posted a little bit to the blogs and thought about a bunch of other things which I hope will show up in future posts.
For other pictures of our trip, check out the pictures tagged Cape Cod.
Note: Miranda took a lot of these pictures.
