Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Jan 04
Heading To The 2016 USA Curling Junior National Champshionships!
Yea! Our daughter's curling team is heading to the 2016 USA Curling Junior National Championships this month! Her team will be one of the top 10 junior women's teams competing for the championship in Willmar, Minnesota, from January 16-23. She and her team are SO excited!
Over the holiday break her curling team competed at the regional "GNCC Playdowns" where three womens teams were competing for two slots at the Nationals. Starting on Sunday, December 27, 2015, it was a very tense set of days, but on Tuesday morning they were able to win their final game and get the second spot.
They will now be "Massachusetts 2" in the list of qualified teams for the Junior Nationals.
The "Massachusetts" name comes from the state where the skip (captain) of the team is located. In our case the skip, Rebecca Rodgers, curls out of the Petersham Curling Club in Petersham, MA, as does our daughter Chloe. The other two girls curl out of the Cape Cod (MA) Curling Club and the Nashua (NH) Country Club.
WE LEAVE ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 15! So this is all happening in a whirlwind of activity in a short time.
If you'd like to follow along with their activities, we've set up a Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/TeamRodgersCurling
It is a public page, so you do NOT need a Facebook account to view the page.
At the Junior Nationals, they will be up against some of the best Juniors teams in the USA, and with the Junior age range being ages 12-21 ... and our girls being 13-15... there are definitely some teams out there with more experience. (And the "High Performance" team in the list is composed of top players chosen by USA Curling and groomed for Olympic competition.) Regardless, the girls are looking forward to playing against these teams and getting experience playing at a national level! It's going to be great!
Of course, as a parent (and in my case also the team coach), there's also the cold, hard reality that it costs a good bit of money to move 8 people (4 players and their parent chaperones) from New England to western Minnesota and feed and house them for 9 days! In fact, our budget shows that it's going to be between $9,000 and $10,000!
We parents are going to make this amazing opportunity happen for these girls however we can... but this is definitely a financial stretch. As a new team[1], we don't yet have any kind of sponsorship, but we're looking into seeing what we can do. I also set up my first ever GoFundMe page at:
https://www.gofundme.com/teamrodgerscurling
And we've had wonderful generosity from so many people that have already helped push us past the 25% mark! It's so great to see so many people wanting to help send the girls to Nationals! (And more donations are definitely welcome!) We are so incredibly appreciative of all the donations to date, as well as the many other ways that people have offered to help.
Now... the countdown is on... in 11 days we'll be on planes to Minnesota for an amazing week of curling!!
P.S. Our daughter Chloe is on the right end of the photo. For those who know curling, she plays "Lead" on the team. (And the photo is arranged in order of Skip, Vice, Second and Lead.)
[1] This is the first year these four girls have been curling together as a team. However, they have each been curling for 5-8 years and one of them (Rebecca) was an Alternate on a Nationals team last year and three of them (Rebecca, Anna and Elizabeth) were in the regional playdowns last year as part of another team. All four of them have been playing on teams in youth tournaments (bonspiels) for the past five years, very often playing against each other! So it's fun to have them all together on one team.
An audio commentary is also available:
Jan 01
TDYR 279 – My Three Words for 2016
As I have for the past few years, I've recorded a New Year's Day episode about my "Three Words" representing my aspirations for 2016. Read more at: http://www.danyork.com/2016/01/my-3-words-for-2016.html
Jan 01
My 3 Words For 2016
So here we go for 2016...
STRATEGY
I've found myself quite "busy" this past year, but the question is whether I've been "busy" with the right things. And more to the point - has there been a reason for some of the things I've been doing.
Not that you absolutely NEED a reason for everything... but we live in an age of distraction, and if we aren't careful it's easy to find that we've frittered away time that we could have spent otherwise.
In 2016 I want to think a bit more strategically about the various activities I'm involved in. To make conscious choices about what I'm doing - and for whom - and why.
And to have a bit more of a plan in some cases.
Some common phrases come to mind:
- Connect the dots.
- Think of the big picture.
- Do fewer things better.
- Less is more.
In some ways this is perhaps a continuation of, or a refinement of, the "Essentials" that I talked about in 2015.
The point is that I want to think and act a bit more strategically this year.
HEALTH
In the chaos of 2015, I let my health slip down in my list of priorities. I haven't been making the best choices in terms of eating or exercise. Sadly, I've gained back 25 of the pounds I lost over the past few years. I didn't run a single race in 2015 - and in fact ran a measly 213 miles over the entire year... not even running at all in the entire month of December, and only a pathetic 6 or 7 miles in both October and November. There are other examples.
I need to change this.
I need to put a priority back on taking care of my health. Because if I don't do it, who will? And I want to be around in the long term for my wife and kids.
REFLECTION
I want to make time this year for more reflection. Caught up in the maelstrom of being "busy", I haven't been taking the time to...
Pause.
Think.
Contemplate.
Reflect.
It's hard to carve out that time to just think about things... to think about how all the dots are connected.
But we need to do so... or at least *I* feel the need to do so.
This time of reflection feeds back into the "strategy" word above... and indeed into the "health" word as some of that reflection can happen while, say, running.
These are my aspirations for 2016... what are yours?
P.S. There is, of course, a fourth word that will consume a great part of 2016 for me... CURLING! Particularly given that my 13-year-old daughter will now be going to the 2016 USA Curling Junior Women's National Championships in two weeks in Minnesota...
An audio version of this post is available:
Dec 26
TDYR 278 – An Example Of My Weekly FIR Podcast Reports
For the past 10 years I have contributed a weekly report into the "For Immediate Release" podcast (a.k.a. "FIR") focusing on technology and PR / social media. In this TDYR episode, I provide some context and then include the 6-minute report I contributed to FIR episode #14 - http://firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-14-where-does-employee-news-belong/
If you are interested in listening to more of the great series of FIR podcasts, visit http://firpodcastnetwork.com/
Dec 21
Talko’s Purchase By Microsoft Shows The Challenge Of The Directory Dilemma
After Talko first launched, I wrote about my initial experience - and the problem I had of Talko working through my home firewall. But I was intrigued by the possibilities laid out in a Medium article about how Talko could change communication and integrate voice, chat and messaging in interesting ways.
The reality, though, was that Talko was a classic case of suffering from the Directory Dilemma - as I said in that article:
People will only USE a communication application if the people they want to talk to are using the application.
And that was true for me... I tried out Talko, as I try out many apps. I used it for a while. And then... I stopped.
The people with whom I communicate were not regularly using Talko.
You can see the recognition of this dilemma in today's front page of Talko's web site:
However, as engaged as many of you have been, the reality is that the broad-based success of communications apps tends to be binary: A small number of apps earn and achieve great viral growth, while most fall into some stable niche.For all the value and enjoyment it's delivered, and for all the team's listening and perseverance, Talko was largely on the path to filling a (passionate) niche. We're in this to have great impact, so it's time for a change.
and:
We deeply appreciate the commitment that so many of you made in betting on Talko. You invested your time and your reputation to convince your friends and co-workers to use the product with you.
This is the reality that messaging / communication apps have to face today. Either somehow build that massive directory - or be happy (and financially stable) within the certain niches and communities in which your product can thrive.
What's next for the Talko team (minus Ray Ozzie, who has said he will not be re-joining Microsoft) isn't 100% clear. Both the Microsoft and Talko posts today are vague, with the latter saying:
As part of the Skype team, we'll leverage Talko’s technology and the many things we’ve learned during its design and development. We'll strive to deliver the best of our product’s innovations far more broadly than on our current path.
and:
Looking forward, we hope to hear from you again as we find ways to deliver the best of Talko in Skype.
We'll have to see what pieces of Talko they bring into Skype.
Congrats to Ray Ozzie and the Talko team - and to Microsoft - on this acquisition. I hope it does work well for all involved.
Meanwhile, we can look and wonder which of the zillion new messaging apps out there will be the next to fold into a larger player...
P.S. There's a thread on Hacker News about today's announcement and there was a really long thread on HN back in 2014 when Talko was announced that may still be of interest.
Dec 17
Deadline of Dec 21 To Submit Nominations for 2016 Internet Society Board of Trustees (Featured Blog)
Are you passionate about preserving the global, open Internet? Do you want to help guide work to connect the unconnected and promote / restore trust in the Internet? Do you have experience in Internet standards, development or public policy? If so, please consider applying for one of the open seats on the Internet Society Board of Trustees.
The Internet Society serves a pivotal role in the world as a leader on Internet policy, technical, economic, and social matters, and as the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). More...
Dec 16
ISOC At WSIS+10 Day 2: Kathy Brown Speech, Access Side Event, Cybersecurity Sessions
On this second day of the 10-year Review of the World Summit on the Information Society (a.k.a "WSIS+10") at the United Nations Headquarters in New York our focus is on the main plenary session where our President and CEO, Kathy Brown, will be one of only 10 speakers from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society and industry to address the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Here's what the day looks like:
Our Schedule Today
At some point today, Kathy will be addressing the UNGA. We don't know precisely when, though. She is the 82nd speaker on the list of speakers and we anticipate it will be sometime between 3 and 4 pm New York time (UTC-5). You can watch all of the sessions on "UN Web TV" at:
Dan York
Dec 15
ISOC At WSIS+10, Day 1: Women’s Empowerment and Building on WSIS+10
Today marks the official start of the 10-year Review of the World Summit on the Information Society (a.k.a "WSIS+10") here in New York at the United Nations Headquarters. All year long our policy activities have been building toward this event, and as our President and CEO Kathy Brown wrote yesterday, we are encouraged by the "outcome document" and are looking forward to the discussions this week - and to translating the statements into actions in the months and years ahead.
Dan York
