Second Fiddle to Dave Warlick?

Innovation.

Encouraged, demanded, rewarded, and necessary.

In final preparations for the Near East South Asia's Educator's Conference, I knew I wanted to do something I've never done before. I am so over PowerPoint, even on an interactive white board.

I remembered Amanda's "sexy" presentation courtesy of twitter-buddy DearLibrariAnn. I knew a good deal of the final touches could be done on the 21 hour flight to Cairo, and was quite pumped to see that Prezi.com offered a downloadable version. I know Delta offers inflight WiFi, but I want everything ready to go when I hit the ground and reconnect with my husband.

Interestingly enough, my twitter world was abuzz as colleagues attended the EARCOS Teachers' Conference in Borneo AND Dave Warlick was presenting in his normal integrated, multi-techno function. I wasn't streamed in, but everyone was raving about his prezi presentation at the same time I was working with this startup to get my access code.

It's in beta testing, but I've worked with an internet-based software company long enough to know that a good thing is a good thing! Period!

I let Prezi know that they were getting a lot of love in twitter.

Encouraged a twitter search of "dwarlick" to see the PR he was giving their "startup".

Suddenly, the line went quiet, the call had an urgency to end, and my log-in seemed to be an issue of the distant past. To Patrick's credit, everything was launched and good to go, but I could see that their philosophy of accepting those with lots of cash or lots of influence was right on.

So all those rankings in social media mean something afterall, as my tech mentor Jeff Utecht shared over three years ago! It was a passing moment, but made me vastly aware of how interconnected everything is - the fact that I could simultaneously work, follow conference chatter in Borneo, and be whelmed by Dave Warlick in Saskatoon at an IT Summit just made me feel infintiely finite.

And connected.
screenshots from Tweetdeck and Prezi.com
Photo from takuya miyamoto's flickr

17 is an Odd Number

I think of Seven (8) Habits of Highly Effective Leaders, the top 10 List of David Letterman, the eight Beatitudes, even the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by the same author and wonder why does 17 in numbering the essential qualities of a team player strike me as an odd number?

It is an odd number.
It's the first prime number after lucky 13.
A team can be five on the court or 9 on the field.

But Seventeen?

And then I thought of leadership from within - being a part of a team while being the one, de facto or de jure, who leads the team. While integral to the teams success, culture, image, and effectiveness, to leaders sometimes have to stand alone, a separate number apart from that perfect square, that 2- squared-squared?

And what if the challenge is to lead great leaders? John Maxwell advises that essential team players are:

1. Adaptabile
2. Collaborative
3. Committed
4. Communicative
5. Competent
6. Dependable
7. Disciplined
8. Enlarging
9. Enthusiastic
10. Intentional
11. Mission Conscious
12. Prepared
13. Relational
14. Self-Improving
15. Selfless
16. Solution Oriented
17. Tenacious

That's a long laundry list of desirable characteristics. Number 11 stands in the forefront of my mind, the need not only to know and embrace the organization's mission, but one's personal mission with many opportunities for reflection.

So how does one adapt to the high demand for competency in a solution-oriented, tenacious field?

By counting on insights from friends and family around the world who inspire and challenge.

Have a great weekend!