Chasing the Dragon's Tale

Every day that the presidential campaigns stumble along, it becomes clearer to me that we're not likely to hear/see substantive debate on national issues. The internet may become THE place where positions and details see daylight and, as long as the mainstream media continues to binge on sound bites, that isn't likely to change.

Which brings me to an article in Inc. magazine that looks a little deeper into what we might expect from the two major candidates in the area of technology: Read the article. It may be one of the best definitions of the generational differences between a digital native and a digital immigrant.

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Yesterday, my family spent a delightful afternoon with Tom Turnbull in his Nashville studio. Tom is an amazing ceramic artist and entrepreneur and his hospitality proved to be on the same high level as that of his work.

During Tom's chat with my son, he encouraged Matt to take some business and marketing courses as part of his graduate studies. Advice like this is something that Matt has heard before (ahem), but coming from a successful artist and businessman gave that advice much needed credibility. Tom's advice to Matt gave me food for thought as well...

Over the last several weeks, I have been exploring online communities of artists just to get a sense of how they are using technology and social networking to connect with each other as well as their customers/markets. I have been amazed to see what is going on...almost like an undiscovered, online sub-culture. I am considering an adoption of sorts...this sub-culture of artists. These handmade communities appear to have many of the qualities one might expect in a learning community and their tales are worth the chase. Stay tuned.

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It's true! I am about to be escorted from campus (with a number of other Belmont employees) and will be asked to raise bail money. If you can help, go here (please). I do not look great in black and white stripes...no body wants that, really!

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There is some interesting commentary floating around the blogosphere regarding connected/disconnected vacations. This one, directed more at students, suggests that summer is a great time for, "From exploring a potential career field through volunteering or interning, to making valuable contacts, the more meaningful your summer experiences, 'the more confident you’ll become in both your own abilities and your career choices'.” I agree with that scenario...it worked decades ago for me and more recently for my daughter.

Oddly, my wife and I have talked at length about a similar approach to explore options for post-normal-working-career years (often referred to as retirement) to discover what the world has to offer in the way of an active, productive, satisfying, and fun engagement..say at age 67. I don't suppose it hurts that many of those conversations happened while lounging around a pool or on the beach.

And just for the record, porcelain clay dries extremely fast on the beach in warm gulf breezes (image on left)...that misting bottle for keeping cool is a necessary tool to keep your clay workable (my high tech advice of the day).

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We are encouraged to take the alloted days of vacation provided in the terms of our employment. I support that idea but admit that I (along with many other IT professionals) prefer to define vacation as a period of time when being connected to the office is defined by me rather than an administrative clock. A recent eweek.com article asks, "Has the Disconnected Vacation Become Extinct" suggests that 80% of IT workers check in with work while they are on vacation. Here is the kicker in the article:

More and more workers are lately stepping forward and suggesting that being able to unshackle themselves from their PDAs and laptops while on vacation is actually a sign that they're doing their job well.

According to the article, "The clear demarcation that once existed between work and personal life has all but dissolved." That is me and I am OK with that. It does bring some pause to ask what happens if one or the other is no longer fun. Can a disconnected vacation be resurrected from the entanglement of today's technology?

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For the most part, my posts here are apolitical...or completely void of politics. It is the romantic in me who holds out for a technically savvy federal administration. From a close friend who has dealt with the systems in use by federal regulating agencies for 15+years, the following list is not likely to happen (neither is a tech savvy administration). The slide show format on the 10 Things list at eWeek.com is not my favorite, however, I have to agree with most of the objectives...even if I'd rather the federal government not get involved in any of the 10 items. The list goes as follows

1. Launch a massive retraining program for IT workers
2. Create incentives to hire older IT workers
3. Work out a reasonable Visa Program
4. Create an energy policy for data centers
5. Create incentives for the adoption of unified communications
6. Drive the adoption of video conferencing
7. Clear up the Sarbanes-Oxley mess
8. Drive a health care IT reform act
9. Create a mandate for data portability
10. Learn to actually use the web (my personal favorite)

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Andersonville must have made an impression on the 10 year-old boy who walked among the headstones in 1960 searching for interesting names, dates, and places. He (that would be me, he) returned to the small town in southwest Georgia last week to find one specific grave marker. The staff at the park was extremely helpful with an electronic search of the POW database and finding William's grave marker was accomplished in minutes.

It is appropriate on this Memorial Day the we remember the sacrifices of family members who served in our armed forces...and even more appropriate for me as I continue research on a grandfather who commanded a WWI MASH unit, an uncle who served in Nicaragua (only to be murdered later), a father whose military record includes mysterious references to WWII activity in Italy, and two distant cousins whose names are engraved on the Viet Nam Memorial. May they, and their comrades in arms, rest in the peace they fought to preserve.


There is something much bigger in Andersonville that I'd classify as a hidden gem in our nation's history:

I am still torn as to a complete understanding of why the National Prisoner of War Museum is located in such an isolated plot...but understand equally as well as how appropriate the place may be due to the infamy of the Civil War POW stockade where nearly 14,000 Union soldiers died.

The debate over the war trial of Henry Wirz, commander of the Andersonville camp (the only confederate officer to be tried and executed), has recently received additional daylight in a contemporary context. With even a little reading, I find myself able to both condemn Wirz and defend Wirz...'good stuff for classroom research and discussion.

The National POW museum is still relatively new (remodeled and re-opened in 2007) and equals quality memorials and collections that one might expect to find in Washington, D.C. Wandering through interactive exhibits, reading letters of POW's from several conflicts, and generally trying to grasp man's inhumanity to man illustrated in video, sound, and exhibit is sobering. It is worth the trip...I'd recommend adding Warm Springs and Plains to an itinerary of the historic area.

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There was a good turnout of Belmont students for the training session lead by Christy Ridings, University Ministries. The images of the destruction on Union's campus made for a quiet room. Volunteers on this trip will be doing manual labor. The team departed early this morning for Jackson and should return to campus around 8:00PM tonight.

There have been other responses by Belmont (and many others) and I suspect that there will be other opportunities for service, giving, and ministry.

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It was a fun night of well played basketball here at Belmont. I am pretty well fried from 6 hours in the video controll booth...but this image certainly eases the aches and pains. Congratulations to Belmont's men on a great win over Jacksonville University.

Attention Lipscomb...this group is headed your way Saturday and they are a buzz saw looking for a place to happen.

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Tuesday night while the storms in west Tennessee were hammering Union University, IT people (that would be me) were watching another large storm cell take aim at Belmont's area of Nashville. Fortunately, Belmont was spared the disaster and a live run on a disaster response plan. Sometime around 7:00PM, Union's web site went down down...damage to power lines, Internet connectivity, and internal networks seems the likely culprit from the images coming in from Union's campus. Union's primary web site went down, but something else happened:

1. Pastor/blogger, Steve McCoy, posted a brief story at 8:18PM that same evening on his blog. Video was added the next evening.
2. Twitter users began sharing information about news coverage, emergency contacts, and which cell providers were still functioning...some posted Tweets from cell phones on Union's campus.
3. Flickr.com images from web applications and cell phones began showing up online...there are well over 200 amateur images online now.
4. By 1:12AM following the 7:00PM storm, the uuemergency blog was online with links to news reports , drawing a flood of comments from readers.
5. Tim Ellsworth from Union University's media relations department was working feverishly to respond to the traditional press...and blogged his personal experience with an image of the disaster. (By the way: whatever Union University is paying Tim, it isn't nearly enough to cover his level of dedication).
6. The Red Cross blogged information about Jackson area shelters with information regarding support for dispaced students.
7. Several facebook.com groups popped up...most of which were created by students attending colleges other than Union. Less than 48 hours following the storm, the Pray for Union Facebook group lists 3,338 members.

Not to diminish the mainstream media's coverage of the storm and the events at Union, but I believe it is noteworthy to look at the above list and understand what individuals are able to contribute in the way of information, coverage, and support that is in addition-to/beyond to the scope of television, radio, and print media. Chris Turner at LifeWay Christian resources has already posted Blogs in a crisis. I consider it a must read for anyone involved in creating a disaster response strategy at the corporate level...and particularly in the area of higher education. It is a conversation that we need to expand when there are calmer, reflective days.

With each wake-up call (Tulane-Katrina, VA Tech-shooting, Union-tornado, etc.) comes new challenges to put in place strategies to respond quickly and professionally with the new media tools available. The Union disaster highlighted a role for bloggers and responsible social network users to become part of the reporting and supporting of those who are in the midst of crisis situations. The days of a single, tightly controlled message (from traditional media sources) in times of crisis...are gone.

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I have probably whined before about the lack of local television coverage for local college teams (excluding Vanderbilt, of course). Last evening's news was all about Vandy's losing streak on the road, the Preds Toootoo extension, PacMan getting a break in court, plus some predictable hype over the upcoming Super Bowl commercials. Meanwhile, Belmont and Lipscomb continue to battle things out for positioning in next month's Atlantic Sun basketball tournament (at Allen Arena), and, both had significant road wins last night...totally ignored by local TV. TSU played a double-header at home but lost both games...also ignored by local TV. That's pretty sad.

Anyway, when scouring the Atlantic Sun web site this morning to check out the standings (see below), I discovered an interesting conference ranking situation (ok, so it is really a math problem, but hang in there with me). Campbell's conference record of 3 wins and 5 losses displays as a .400% record...while Lipscomb's 3 win and 5 loss record displays as a .375% record. I have heard the 2+2=5 for really large values of 2.... but I don't recall a win (or loss) in a basketball record affecting the mathematical percentages. Perhaps one of Lipscomb's losses was a really large value loss. Yes. That makes sense (spins head wildly).

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I didn't make it to the end of the game before cold medications sent me to inspect the backs of my eyelids...but I have read the aftermath of stories from the pundits and armchair quarterbacks (and I am smiling). Two fine football teams hit the field last night in what I had hoped would be a battle settled at the last moment by some nail biting, dramatic, overtime-heart-stopping play. Apparently, someone forgot to advise THE Ohio State that the rules of the game require them to play beyond the first quarter *chuckle*. As an SEC fan, I am proud of the record that the league achieved in this season's round of bowl games. As for THE Ohio State, they are still a fine football team with a fine coach and a history of greatness on and off the field of play...last night just wasn't their night.

In recognition of last night's defeat, I award THE Ohio State University the "CLOBBERED" award and respectfully request that player references to Ohio State University henceforth cease to refer to themselves as THE Ohio State University. THE OSU was CLOBBERED (Caps Lock Off - Better Beat Exceptional Rivals Every Day).

See also: Ohio State - THE Runner-up University

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Whew! In the name of keeping Belmont University blogs open for freely exchanged ideas/discussion, we accumulated roughly 20,000 spam comments and trackbacks... mostly on blogs that are what I shall politely call dormant. Today was the day for housekeeping...*bleh*.

Life-cycle of a blog
Allow me to walk around this dormant blog concept for a moment. Most of the time, the demand for a new blog here at the university comes with a level of urgency (plus an occasional name-dropping of some dean-level-or-above individual). Blog construction generally follows very shortly along with a round or two of blog basic training sessions. The first posts follow within a week or so... and then the pace tapers off to oblivion within 6 weeks. The questions follow shortly thereafter, "Why isn't anyone reading my blog?", "Can we do a launch so that we'll get more traffic?", "Why aren't my posts showing up in XYZ's aggregator?" And then, finally...dormancy and abandonment (insert bugler playing taps here)...'yet another blog statistic.

Continue reading "Blog Maintenance Rant Time or..."Fruitflies live longer than most blogs"" ...

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Not to complain, but it is quite cold here in Nashville and on the campus of Belmont University. Most students and faculty are still in Christmas hibernation mode.... and the few staff members rattling around campus seem to be scrambling to get things done before next week's surge of students hit the classrooms again. We've done exports, updated reports, re-published web sites, prepared catalog PDF's, and a host of minutae that is tougher to do when the campus is buzzing.

This was the scene around 7:30AM this morning on campus. The sun was just peeking over Wright-Maddox and beginning to illuminate the Beaman Student Life Center. The fountain speaks for itself.

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Heartvalve Too 1/365 Originally uploaded by Paul Chenoweth Posting from Flickr for the first time using the post to blog feature.

Time off without hours reading and doing research have been (temporarily) replaced with some fun activity...in this case a heavy dose of movie watching combined with a bit of clay construction. I still have my hopes up for snagging a personal copy of Barry Hall's From Mud to Music..the original inspiration for my clay flute obsession.

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