The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for Logorrhea.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 31,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
May you live in interesting times – Apocryphal Curse
This year certainly was interesting.
Some travel: New York. Boston. Houston. San Antonio. Orlando. Nashville.
Some recognition: Top 100 Social CIO on Twitter.
Made the local paper a few times.
A few presentations, and conferences: HEEMAC. Arkansas IT Symposium. MIT CIO Symposium. Arkansas Technology Summit.
Now, looking for another.
As for 2015, it is an unwritten book.
And I’m ready to start writing.
I can distinctly remember thinking “I’ll never scrape another windshield again” during my last stint in Florida.
Just another “never” in a long list of “nevers”, that turned out to be not so “never.” Still scraping windshields (add to list: never thought I’d write that).
There’s a great Television commercial out right now that also illustrates these types of “nevers”: I’ll never get married; We’ll never have kids; we’ll never live in the suburbs; we’ll never drive a mini-van; we’ll never have another child.
Our ability to imagine and foresee the future keeps us from realizing all the fantastic possibilities that lie before us, and keeps us from getting needed comfort when trouble seems to stretch immeasurably before us.
Life itself is transitory; and, nothing is so uncertain as to what any day holds.
Never say never – because happiness is often found in the far reaches of Neverland.
Over lunch today, I recounted a story about a project I had completed at a prior job.
We had spent many months designing a teleconferencing student recreation and learning suite, complete with state-of-the-art teleconferencing codecs, microphones, cameras, and control interfaces.
We spent months meeting over the logistics of working with A/V vendors, electricians, and building contractors, getting people working on their part of the project, on time and at the right time.
We met regularly with our finance people, to make sure we were on track and on budget.
We met throughout the project with the people who would be using the space, to make sure all of the elements were going to meet their need, and that all of the elements going into the space met the stated intention of the room.
Finally, we outfitted the room with a wonking huge flat-panel display, to finish the room setup (I know. You’re already way ahead of me).
The day came to turn up the equipment, check out the networking, and test everything in the setup.
The codec worked beautifully. The sound was phenomenal. The microphones picked up every nuance in the room. The control interfaces were intuitive, and precisely what we described to our A/V vendor. Check. Check. Check.
Finally, this: “Where is the control for Basic Cable TV?”
Crickets.
Dozens of people involved in the process. Months of planning. Detailed oversight throughout.
No one had thought to ask to install cable TV. In a student recreation lounge. With a TV that covered the side of a barn.
No one – including myself – thought to ask the most elemental of questions, concerning function over form.
Fortunately, we were able to easily correct the issue, and had cable installed in short order, before students arrived on campus.
The only real casualty was our embarrassment. And, a little “stupid tax” we paid.
Even if the question seems obvious, Ask. Always.
Ask.
Last Wednesday’s visit to Johnson Space Center for the Orion EFT-1 #NASASocial event was jam packed with unique access and VIP tours of facilities, on and around JSC in Houston. I’ve finally gotten around to loading some of my videos from the day.
First, John McCullough, Chief Flight Director at JSC, gives the members of the JSC #NASASocial group a tour of the Apollo Mission Control Center (video credit: John Miller):
Below, you will see and hear Lee Morin, MD, Phd, talk about radiation and Orion. Lee is heading up the team that is using 3D printing to design the human interface elements of the Orion capsule.
Next Up: John McCullough, Chief Flight Director at JSC, gives us a walkthrough of the Orion EFT-1 Flight, discusses the Exploration Mission Timeline of the Orion Program, and talks about potential pitfalls with the EFT-1 mission
I’m at NASA Johnson Space Center for a #NASASocial event for the #Orion EFT-1 Test Launch tomorrow morning (12/4/2014) at “dark thirty” (7:05 EST).
NASA Director Charlie Bolden said today that “Orion EFT-1 is a BFD.” You can truly sense the excitement that this new flight system is bringing back to NASA.
I will be posting much media later in the day… the fine Public Affairs folks at NASA are keeping us hopping; I hope to share more, when they let us up for air!
Looking forward to my first visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center tomorrow for the Orion Test Flight on Thursday. #NasaSocial
Logorrhea 