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B. Obama Walks the Walk - Helping Americans Impacted by Gustav

This article summarizes one of the main reasons I back Barack Obama. In fact, I'm one of the people he mentions as being on his e-mail and SMS contact lists. I believe in community service and helping out others in need and apparently so does he. We don't have to wait for him to finish being president to see him interacting with people who make less than $500k per year.

To see him doing this stuff before he can score political points shows that this is the real him. Not a put on. The fact that he's called on to do these events shows how much people respect him and think he can help. Here's a link to the blog post on the BarckObama.com site, asking for help, "Hurricane Gustav: How You Can Help".

clipped from www.dailykos.com Barack Obama, not only talking the talk, but WALKING THE WALK- UPDATE: McCain jokes about Katrina Sen. Obama gathered the pool outside after services at St. Luke's Lutheran Church. He told us that his camapaign plans to mobilize its huge e-mail list of supporters to volunteer or send money once the impact of Gustav becomes apparent and authorities know better what kind of help is needed. He said his campaign is coordinating with local authorities. "We can activate an e-mail list of a couple million people who want to give back," he said. "I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary." He even rolled up his sleeves and went to work in the part of Illinois that bordered Iowa to fill sandbags: And he did the same thing with Hurricane Katrina BEFORE he was a candidate for President. the following is from a diary I've written before about Katrina: Senator Obama visited New Orleans FIVE times since the Hurricane hit in 2005. McCain visited twice.

Last infoBayArea Mixer Event in Rotunda?

Earlier tonight, I attended the infoBayArea Silicon Valley Business Expo IV at San Jose City Hall Rotunda. I've been going to Cesar Plata's infoBayArea and muyBueno events since the summer of 2004 and I think this one was the best. He started as a regular Mechanical Engineer and now he's a Silicon Valley Dynamo. Not bad for a Dot-Com boom washout. I look forward to the events he puts on in the new name, everyCircle.

Some pictures I took at the event. I wished I had my real camera, but my iPhone didn't do too too bad. I did network and socialize after taking the pictures.

Coming around the corner from the 4th Street to get the first view of the Rotunda. AKA the Ovary, according to some skater kids going by.



Stairway that goes behind Rotunda to a walkway to the Towers.



View of the stairs and catwalks up to the top of Rotunda. I wish I could have gone up.



Modernistic concrete and metal restroom. Everyone else was on the other twin side while I was in there.



Looking up Rotunda towards towers next door.



Looking straight up at the top of the Rotunda from the inside.



Fountain on East Santa Clara Street & North 5th Street

Yum, my favorite booth. Fruit on a stick! I had a flower shaped pineapple and chocolate dipped granny smith apple. Yes, it was as good as it sounds.

Thank you Edible Arrangements Fresh Fruit Delicious Bouquets and Gifts!

Sticky Floors Will Getcha!

I attended a very interesting Business Book Breakfast Club event put on by the SD Forum. The breakfast meetings are hosted by Frank, Rimerman + Co. LLP - Certified Public Accountants at their building next to the Robert Royston Wall Street Journal Building at the corner of Foothill Expressway and Page Mill Road in Palo Alto. Somehow I managed to drive by these buildings on the way to work at Hewlett Packard almost every day for over a year without knowing they were there.

Anyway, the speaker, Rebecca "Becky" Shambaugh walked us through the high points of her book, It's Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself From the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success

The gist of it was that there are two sets of challenges facing women in management.

One, the things women can't do anything about such as ingrained sexism and the old boys network. Factors that make up the Glass Ceiling. These are forces out of the scope of her talk and book.

Two, the things women do have control over and can actively work on to improve their career situations. From what I understood, because of the way girls and women are socialized, certain behaviors put us at a disadvantage in the work world. Stumbling blocks such as the resistance to ask for what we want/deserve/earned or avoiding jumping into high risk work challenges unless we're sure we'll succeed. The so called sticky floor.

Of course Ms. Shambaugh gave us only a teaser of different areas and potential workarounds. With the invitation to buy the book or take one of the SHAMBAUGH program workshops or take advantage of a personalized Coaching Development program. Fair enough. I'm game. I'll probably pick up the book and read the details when I have the chance. Though I'm mentally kicking myself for not having a copy there, during the workshop, so I could get it signed.

Another helpful tip is Becky's Blog. Some of the content in the book is serialized on her website for free. Can't beat that.

I'm really looking forward to checking out the post on Queen Bees.The blog discusses the topic of why Baby Boomer women haven't set up a version of The Old Girls' Network. Why women in management seem to prefer to be the one and only special girl rather than mentor and groom younger women to fill their ranks. Or even to tolerate having many female peers around. Of course, talking in generalities. I'm sure there are probably senior women managers out there who "lift as they rise." The law of averages say they have to exist.

I haven't been blessed enough to run into many do gooder, career management mentors who are women. Especially in my industry, technology. When I've heard about professional business or technology women manager mentors who feel driven to share their wisdom, the target group to receive their mentoring always seems to be "younger" than me. I feel as if Generation X is not considered worthy of giving a hand up or something.

________________________________________________
The presentation was described as:

Rebecca Shambaugh, President and CEO of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, will address the burning business issue of why we are not seeing more women in senior executive and leadership roles today. The real obstacles, which she cites and backs up with recent research, lie not only within traditional organizational barriers but right below a woman’s feet – the sticky floors.

In this forum, Rebecca Shambaugh, founder and CEO of SHAMBAUGH, a pioneer in the field of leadership development for women, will share her organization’s recent research regarding both current trends and best practices for advancing women in their careers. Having just completed an intensive research study with key executives in Fortune 500 companies, Becky will present SHAMBAUGH’s key findings and recommendations and add some of her own insights from the interviews she conducted for her recently published book, It’s Not A Glass Ceiling- It’s A Sticky Floor, published by McGraw Hill. Her advice to women on how to get from where you are to where you want to be in your careers is both valid and practical!

Discussion Topics:

* Now Is The Time - Business Case for Women in Leadership
* SHAMBAUGH’S Research
* The Sticky Floors – What They Are and Which Are Stopping You
* Some Tools and Techniques for the Sticky Floors

Watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics Online This Year

Beijing 2008 Olympic Emblem

I've been addicted to the Olympics since I was a single digit age, way back when in the 1970s. This will be the first year I'll be watching mainly online. You can e-mail me if you want the whole, sad story.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Mascots: Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When you put their names together -- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni -- they say "Welcome to Beijing."

Last night, I kicked off the Olympics in style by watching a gigantic screen outside in downtown San Jose.

The Saint James Park screening was a promotion by the local NBC11 station to have the ritualistic Opening Ceremony be a community event. The cool things were the pre-show entertainment of a local kids dance group,

seeing the show on such a big screen compared to my TV, seeing people react in ways you don't expect like standing and saluting during the Chinese national anthem,

hearing people clap and cheer for their home smaller countries during the parade of nations and just sharing the experience with other people who are totally into the Olympics too. Although we are all San Francisco Bay Area people, we all have different perspectives. Definitely recommend watching the Opening Ceremonies with a group of "strangers" at least once, it's touching.

The bad side was that it was hella cold (I had a hat, gloves and parka but could have done better than wearing sandals), the toilets were port-a-potties and they were on the other side of the park from the screen, the screen was so bright it practically burned your eyeballs when scenes had a lot of white and you couldn't mute the zillion commercials.

Unfortunately, the event permit only went to 11 pm so they shut it down during the parade of nations. We missed seeing the host nation, China enter.

I had to watch the cauldron/torch lighting online this morning. Watching Li Ning do his thing was still amazing, but I wouldn't have minded watching on the huge screen.

Li Ning, gymnast and businessman

Speaking of amazing, 3 my favorite parts of the opening ceremonies were:

• Tai Chi masters and their perfectly concentric circles. The dynamic fluidity, balance and harmony was awesome.
  

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Tagou Martial Arts School, Donald Chan, Reuters

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Tagou Martial Arts School, Getty Images

The dancer calligraphy (of course). Full body brush calligraphy and painting was poetry in motion.

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Calligraphy Dancers, Getty Images

The women dancers in different colors. All those small but majestic movements were so elegant and beautiful at the same time.

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Women Dancers, Getty Images

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Women Dancers, Getty Images

Beijing 2008 Olympics - Women Dancers, Getty Images

The male drummers at the beginning were frightening, threatening and thrilling at the same time.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Percussionists

Find More Olympics Photos at NBC Olympics.com!

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

As the commercial says, Go World!