A long time ago, walking around the campus of Tandem Computers we would watch Lockheed P-3 Orion aircrafts returning from their mission of surveillance over the Pacific. One of our colleagues with a military background would explain all this and tested us with a question from time to time as another Orion flew past “and what is its mission?” Around that time, I was attending a Meta (now Gartner) conference in Phoenix along with other participants from Tandem and the night sky was putting on quite a display. Picking out the constellation, Orion, one of our group participants turned and playfully asked our military coworker, “and what is its mission?” And it continues to resonate with me to this day. I am constantly being challenged on what is my mission and, in many instances, the context is unclear. Am I looking at the night sky or am I focused on items much closer to home. When it comes to missions, they can be given to us or self-imposed. To execute we need to accept them, of cou...
As winter days became shorter, Margo and I found our way deeper into Florida. We drove up and down the Florida peninsula stopping by Orlando and then Ft Lauderdale. The temperatures climbed the further south we drove; this was expected. Overnighting in Orlando gave me an opportunity to capture the mood of central Florida in a series of happy-snaps on my mobile phone. The view from our hotel room highlighted a bridge that provided passageway between both banks of the lake. This week I was reminded of this as we watched the Superbowl. There were surprises just as there were a number of outstanding performances – outstanding, yes, just as they were unexpected. However, having driven the length of Florida it took little imagination to think back to 2007 when the Superbowl was played in Miami and to the halftime spectacular centered on the entertainment provided by Prince. Just minutes before Prince was scheduled start his performance, the rains descended in earnest. When asked whether ...