Dan York

My 3 Words For 2013

As has become my tradition since 2010, I like to start the year off by posting my "three words" for the year. These are not "goals" or "resolutions" but rather words that I hope will define how 2013 will go for me. They are more guides for how I aspire for my life to be.

EXECUTION

While last year I was trying to focus more on fewer things, this year I want to execute on some of the plans I have had for some time. There are some things I have been thinking about, talking about and even writing about for several years... but have yet to actually start. Not so much in my professional/work life, as I have been all about executing plans there, but rather in my personal life with some of my various side projects. As an example, 2013 really needs to be the year I either reboot VOIPSA or just close it down. There are a number of other similar projects and activities that are stalled, including a couple of boards of organizations I am on where I have not been able to fully participate. There are some projects, too, around our house that I have been wanting to do for quite some time.

Now, in fairness, a lot of these projects have been stalled for most of the past two years because of the unwelcome intruder in our lives that has sucked up pretty much all of my time outside of work. My wife is and always will be a FAR higher priority than all these other activities (as will my daughters be). She and I are hoping, though, that with her last treatment in early January we can stop living our life in 3-week increments and get back to having a more regular life. We'll see how it all goes, but that is certainly our hope for this year.

Outside of projects, though, there is another aspect to "execution" that hits on a daily basis - it is far too easy to get distracted by social networks and online news sources. Instead of spending time creating content, I find myself reading about other people's content. I need to change the priority there and focus more on creating content first and THEN engaging with social networks. (As an example, it would have been extremely easy to get sucked into Facebook instead of writing this post.) I need to be executing on my content plans first.

AUDIO

In 2012 I came to a realization that... I really miss working with audio. As I have for the past seven years, I continue to contribute my weekly reports into the For Immediate Release podcast and I enjoy that immensely... but I have found a hunger to do even more again. There is something about working with the medium of audio that I just really enjoy. It is a wonderful way for telling stories, explaining topics, providing education and interacting with people.

I don't know yet the full form this will take this year. We've been toying with adding a podcast component to the Deploy360 Programme. I have been thinking about reviving the Blue Box Podcast, at least for some interviews. I am intrigued by SoundCloud and may expand my experiments there. I have half a dozen other ideas running around inside my head for new podcasts and other projects... all I know is that I would like 2013 to be the year I expand my usage of audio.

TRANSFORM

In a 2012 leadership workshop for one of the boards I am on, we were asked some questions that could perhaps best be summarized as "how are you using your life to transform the world?" To make it a better place? To bring people together? To strengthen connections and build stronger communities?

That question stayed with me because in all honesty the last two years have really had to be all about surviving. In the process of just getting through each day, I haven't had the luxury of spending much time to contemplate the bigger picture. But as we move through all that, the question returns to my mind.

Obviously, as a parent a large part of this work involves the raising of our two daughters and giving them the foundation, strength, knowledge and skills to affect change in the world. That is perhaps the ultimate transformation that all of us can do as parents.

But is there something more direct... that can even involve them in some way?

Not necessarily something grand and glorious, but perhaps something simple and local... I have ideas... It all kind of comes back to that first word earlier in this post! :-)

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What are your aspirations for 2013? What are your goals? Or guides?

Whatever they may be, may 2013 be a great year for you all - Happy New Year!

 

Walking In Red Square - Reflections Of A Child Of The 1970s

I was born in the late 1960's and grew up in the U.S. in the 70's and 80's when the Russians were the enemy. When the Soviet Union was the evil empire bent on the destruction of freedom, democracy and everything we held dear. When calling someone a "Russki" was an insult and when the news media routinely showed images of the Soviet military parades in Red Square. When we were sure that the Kremlin was sending spies into our country to steal all our secrets and would do whatever it could to destroy our lifestyle.

And when the doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" meant that we didn't practice hiding under desks, as our parents might have, because we all knew that if the Soviets launched their missiles, we'd launch ours and the world as we knew it would end. (How many movies were made on this theme in the early 80s?)

Of course, the only "Russians" we really knew of were the evil villians of the James Bond movies and countless spy thrillers... or the state-sponsored "super athletes" that we saw in the Olympic Games and who we understood to be intent on showing how Communism was so much better and would triumph over Capitalism.

In many ways it was a much simpler world-view.

The Russians were the enemy.

Period.

I thought of all this tonight as I strolled along through Red Square taking photos. Drinking in the magnificent beauty of St. Basil's Cathedral. Taking photos of the walls of the Kremlin. Stopping to look at Lenin's Tomb.

How could I ever have even remotely imagined that I would someday be here?

Moscow... Red Square!

Unbelievable.

Granted, we were also the generation that watched as glasnost and perestroika took hold in the Soviet Union under the reins of Mikhail Gorbachev. We saw the Berlin Wall fall. We saw the opposition under Boris Yeltsin. We saw the Soviet Union dissolve and simply cease... to... exist. We saw multiple nations and economies emerge.

We watched as the story we'd been telling and retelling for so long was shattered into a million shards... to be reborn anew into new stories of new nations... of a new worldview... of new threats... of new powers.

It's been 20 years now since Russia was reborn, and no sooner do you arrive than you immediately understand that this is a vibrant market economy full of energy and full of passion. I've had the privilege of spending the last two days in a room full of technologists and business people, of marketers and politicians ... all focused on how to make the Internet more capable within Russia and the surrounding countries. To make the Internet faster, better, safer, more secure, more powerful... and more open. It's been an outstanding event where I've both learned a great deal and met some truly remarkable people.

Yet still... I am a product of my childhood.

As I went for a morning run looping down through Red Square this morning... and then walked back there tonight... I could not help but be utterly amazed by how our world has changed. How different it is today from those decades ago.

Alas, I will not get to explore more. This was my typical business trip where I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, spent two days inside a hotel and now will leave in a few hours to go back to the airport to fly home. My morning run and evening walk were the only times I got to see anything beyond the hotel walls.

But I have learned much from this visit - and would welcome the opportunity to return.

Perhaps there was no greater sign of the change in Russia... at least for those of us grew up in the 70's and 80's and can appreciate the exquisite irony... than this, an advertisement for the latest James Bond film, prominently displayed on the sidewalk in Moscow:

Our world has indeed changed. And this is a good thing.

Sometimes There Are Things Worth Doing

Sometimes there are things worth doing, even if they make no sense, financial or otherwise, and seem to serve no purpose. Sometimes things just need to be done.

Sometimes we need to tilt at windmills... and let the universe perhaps reveal the value at some later date.

Image credit: brianscott on Flickr

Flying A Foreign Flag - One Day A Year

Today, July 1, here at our home in little old Keene, New Hampshire, USA, we flew a foreign flag from our our front porch.

As we have done on every July 1st since 2002... and probably will do for every July 1st in the years ahead.

You see, today is Canada Day and our 10-year old daughter was born in Canada during the 5 years that we lived in Ottawa, Ontario. Through the beauty of the great relationship between the USA and Canada, she is both a US and Canadian citizen.

So today we proudly flew the Canadian flag to honor our daughter, to honor her birthplace and to honor all the friends we made up there. At something like 5:30am she was softly singing "O, Canada" and we all joined her in singing renditions of the tune multiple times during the day. (In English only, of course, as none of us know French well enough to do that verse, although our daughter is learning French in her school.)

This we all do gladly for her.

Tomorrow, the Stars and Strips will be back on the flagpole... for another 364 days...

Happy Canada Day to all our friends living up north of us... and to our daughter!

P.S. And I hope that any of you celebrating today up North did get a chance to have a beavertail, some poutine, or at least a double-double or some timbits from Timmy's, eh?

My 3 Words for 2012

Following on the tradition I've started over the past couple of years (2011, 2010) after enjoying Chris Brogan's take on this, here are my three words for 2012. They aren't goals, per se, or resolutions, but more just three words to guide my actions through the year.

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FOCUS

In our age of distraction, it's insanely easy to lose focus and suddenly find yourself hours later not having accomplished anything you set out to do. It's an inherent challenge for those of us who are by nature bright-shiny-object chasers and whose job involves being on the edge of communication technologies...

Over the past six months or so I've been taking some very deliberate steps to reduce distractions and give me more time to focus.

I've reduced or eliminated many of the notifications on my computer. I've gone to checking email only at certain times of the day. I've blocked off time in my schedule where I just shut down all social media, IM, and email and just work on specific tasks. Friends would not recognize my desk these days because it is CLEAN... as I've worked on simplifying the distractions in my home office.

Still, these are just steps... and one of the areas I want to work on in 2012 is really bringing some discipline to this and trying to focus more on what is important to get done. (Oh, look, there's a butterfly.....)

QUEUE

There are two aspects to this word for me. First, due primarily to the unwelcome intruder in our life in 2011, I have a great queue of projects, both online and offline, that I want to work on in 2012. Naturally I have a l...o...n...g... queue of blog posts I'd like to clear out. I need to update my Migrating Applications to IPv6 book. I really MUST reboot the VoIP Security Alliance (VOIPSA) this year. There are some health issues I've put on hold that I need to address. There's a lot that was put on the proverbial back-burner... and I need to clear out that queue a good bit. There are a great many stories still left untold.

The second aspect of "queue" is that this year I really want to focus on maintaining a healthy queue of blog posts that are scheduled out in advance. Each week I'd like to be lining up some posts for the next week. Certainly there will be posts written in the moment to respond to other posts or to recent events... but I want to keep a schedule queue going so that my content is appearing regularly throughout the year. You do not need to hit the Publish button right now... and I want to work on that this year.

BALANCE

Finally, I've made some lifestyle changes over the past year... I've made a job change which also has brought some changes... I'm looking in 2012 at how to find a bit more of that ever-elusive "balance" between work and personal life. Beyond all that I do at work and online, I'm also a father of two daughters, a husband to a wonderful woman, a son, a brother, a friend, a community member... and many other roles.

This past year has once again reminded me of the incredible importance of all of that.

The challenge, of course, is that when you absolutely love what you do... when "work" is not a chore as much as almost "play"... well... it's hard to shut down the brain sometimes and let it go. Something I've always struggled with... to give that marvelous gift of being truly present with those around you.

So while I've made some changes in 2011, there's definitely further I can go... 

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Those are my "words" for 2012... we'll see how the year goes. What are you going to focus on this year?

My 3 Words for 2011 - How Did I Do?

So as 2011 enters its final hours, it's time to take a look back and see how I did with my "3 Words For 2011". As a reminder, they were:

• CONTENT
• PORTFOLIO
• LIFESTYLE

Well, to start with, they - and most all my plans for 2011 - were rather subsumed by an extremely unwelcome fourth word that dominated my year:

CANCER

Yes, indeed, the defining thread of 2011 has definitely been my wife's diagnosis and subsequent battle with breast cancer. It truly did consume the entire year - she had what was otherwise a routine doctor visit in January that started raising questions... and then her last chemo treatment was in early December.

In between, of course, were horrific months dealing with tests leading to the diagnosis in May, then the operation in July with the long recovery, and then the pathology reports of invasive breast cancer and then the start of chemotherapy in September and all the nastiness that followed.

She's not "done" now... next month she begins five years of a daily hormone therapy called Tamoxifen as well as one year of an every-three-week infusion of a drug called Herceptin.

But in theory we're through the worst of it. We hope.

So looking at 2011 through the cancer-colored lens, just surviving was a beautiful thing... but how did I do with the words that were to guide my activities? Let's see...

CONTENT

My big goal was to increase the amount of actual writing I was doing across my blogs and other sites. Unfortunately I don't have a count for 2010 to know how my writing exactly compares, but I know that I did write more this year. My total was:

• 632 blog posts:
  • 438 across my various personal blogs (primarily Disruptive Telephony and Disruptive Conversations)
    
    
  • 194 posts on Voxeo's blogs

Given that I was manually tracking all those entries across several different blogging platforms, it could certainly be off to a certain degree... but it's probably in the general area. Through the first half of the year I was writing more and averaging out about 2 to 3 posts each day. I had aimed to get at least one post out every day of 2011, but that goal feel by the wayside in March and then with all the cancer happenings it never really became a goal again.

Still, I'm pleased with a good body of work out there for 2011. Some of it shorter content... some of it the longer, deeper pieces I love to write. There's still a ton of stories left untold that are sitting in my queue... but I did get a good bit out.

Add to that, I believe, 51 podcast contributions to For Immediate Release. I seem to recall Shel & Neville taking one show off... and I don't think I missed any of the weeks. (And if they didn't take a week off this year, then it was 52 contributions.)

Plus, I published another book, this time with O'Reilly, "Migrating Applications to IPv6". The idea was that this was to be primarily an "ebook" that could then be frequently updated... which, given everything else going on, didn't happen (updates), despite my best of intentions. I'm looking forward to making some updates in 2012.

Where I had hoped to do more in 2011 was with photography and videos. My camera traveled with me a good bit... and I shot lots of photos... I just didn't have a whole lot of the curation/post-production time to then get photos online. 2012! Ditto video.

PORTFOLIO

I made some progress on this... I haven't really publicized it yet, but I've been aggregating my content from across various blogs into a new site at:

danyork.me

It's my attempt to bring together all my content into one central site. There's still much I would like to do with that and it's still not working the way I want, but it's a start.

I never did move my main blogs off of TypePad... perhaps 2012 will be the year I finally make that happen. And I still would like to improve how this site (DanYork.com) presents me...

LIFESTYLE

This is one where I did make serious progress. I had wondered a year ago if running would be something I really continued.

I did!

In fact, I ran 5 miles yesterday morning and will probably go for a similar run tomorrow. (Today's a resting day.) Over the course of 2011 I probably ran 400 or 500 miles... hard to know exactly as I'm not tracking all my running (such as on the treadmill).

I also ran in 6 actual races, including my first-ever half-marathon in September.

2011 also marked the time when I brought my running gear with me on every business trip and speaking engagement - and actually RAN!

Wellllll... except for the trip to Orlando where I left my shorts back in New Hampshire! On every other trip (including multiple trips to Orlando), I managed to get out and run at least once if not more. New York... Miami Beach... Toronto... San Francisco... Orlando... Virginia... Austin... I was quite pleased with this, actually, because it's so easy NOT to run while traveling.

So yes, running has become part and parcel of who I am.

Outside of running, there were some other lifestyle changes, too. Some tweaking of what we eat. Trying to do some more of the offline things I enjoy. Adding curling back into my life. Continuing to try to find that balance between the work I love and the family I love... The sudden job change from Voxeo to the Internet Society also brought some lifestyle changes, too.

Outside of the cancer chaos, or perhaps because of the chaos making me think more about priorities, 2011 was definitely one of thinking about - and acting on - lifestyle changes.

More changes to come, I hope, but this was a big part of 2011.

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What's on tap for my 3 Words for 2012? Well... I'll write about that soon... ;-)

Starting Work Today at the Internet Society

After some of my tweets today I had friends contacting me in great surprise asking if I had really left Voxeo.

Yes, to a certain degree of my own great surprise, I actually did.  

I started today (Sept 19, 2011) in a brand new role on a brand new project at the Internet Society, based in Reston, VA.  I'm still working remotely from my home office in Keene, NH, so that didn't (and won't) change.

The full story of my job change can be found over on my Disruptive Telephony blog.

And yes, with all the other chaos going on in my life, it probably wasn't the ideal time to make a job change... but is there ever really such a time?  And in fact I can say that to a certain degree my change is because of some of the perspective gained from that ongoing experience...

A Monday Morning Reminder About Those Best Laid Plans...

It's Monday morning. For me, summer is effectively over. My vacation week ended yesterday. It's time to get back into the flow of work and life and get out there and kick some serious _____. I was up early and went for a 5K run this morning focused on speed and came in just over 8:30/mile even while pushing the jogger stroller the whole way.

I had all sorts of blog posts planned... I knew I had to run out to Staples to get a printer cartridge so that my fax/printer/scanner could fax out a document (a rant for another day!)... but I expected to be up in my home office around 8:20am pounding away on those blog posts.

Then... I made a critical mistake.

I handed my used-and-theoretically-dead inkjet printer cartridge to my 2-year-old to carry into Staples because she wanted to "help".

Other parents or those interacting with toddlers reading this undoubtedly know what is about to happen...

HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL "FAIL"???

Leave it to the 2-yr-old to discover that yes, indeed, the cartridge did have some ink in it... and to get that ink ALL over her hands... and on her clothes... and subsequently on my hands....

Oops.

So there I was at the checkout counter using some Purelle and paper towels they had to attempt to clean up the major parts of the mess. The cute little hands you see in the picture here are after most of the ink was scrubbed off... but back at home where I could use some more aggressive soap.

As it was all unfolding, I felt myself starting to get agitated and anxious because I had all these plans! I had things to do, articles to write, messages to send... I could feel my blood pressure rising even as I externally was calm and patient.

And then I breathed deeply.

And reflected that this is the reality we all live in...

life happens.

You can plan all you want... you can make incredible plans, in fact... only to have them derailed by some little action, perhaps by your own action as it was in this case, or perhaps by circumstances outside your control.

The measure of ourselves as people is how we choose to react to those changes to our plans and what we learn from those changes.

In my case, I just sighed and went about the actions of trying to clean up all the ink... (and I made a note to myself that it's probably better NOT to let the wee one hold "dead" ink cartridges ;-)

When The "1 in 8 Women" Stat Hits Home...

A fascinating aspect about being as open as we have been about my wife's breast cancer is that you learn this:

Breast cancer really impacts a LARGE number of people.

It's one thing to hear a statistic like:

1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime

But it's a completely different thing when that "1 in 8" stat is brought home by the sheer number of people in your own life who turn out to be affected by breast cancer.

In the few weeks I've been public about it, I've had many friends and colleagues come forward and tell me that they or their spouse either have dealt with breast cancer in recent years or are currently dealing with it. Multiple colleagues from Voxeo... friends from IETF and SIP Forum... colleagues from former employers... friends from social media circles... and many folks on Facebook, Twitter and more...

It's truly been amazing to experience (and has been greatly appreciated, as well).

"1 in 8" may not immediately sound like much... but when you start thinking of how many women you know, it turns out to be a pretty significant number...

Of Inverted Nipples... and Breast Cancer

I've learned a lot about breasts lately. More than any guy really wants to know... and not in a good way.

We of the male gender generally have a rather simplistic view of female breasts. (Some/most women may consider it a "juvenile" view in some/most/all men.) We may enjoy looking at breasts... in various states of dress or undress. We may want to touch them... or fantasize about that... or... or...

But I'm pretty sure that outside of those in the medical profession the vast majority of men don't really want to know how breasts are put together... about the plumbing inside of them.

Classify that in the "Too Much Information" category and stick it in that folder with all those other aspects of female biology about which we really have no clue.

I'm learning, though... all about lobules and ducts and lymph nodes and so much more. Not by choice. Two weeks ago I added a new term to my vocabulary: Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, a.k.a. DCIS. As a bonus, I learned the correct way to pronounce "In Situ" (at least, the way one doctor said it)... but that was really the only bonus I got that day.

My wife was diagnosed with very early stage DCIS in one breast. It appears to be "non-invasive" from the biopsy and at this point the good news is that there seems little danger of it being life-threatening. Today.

Cancer. My wife.

And so life was thrown into a chaotic holding pattern that will unfortunately continue for at least two more weeks until we meet with her next team of doctors up at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center to understand the next steps in her specific process... and when that will all occur. Meanwhile, they've sent us DVDs for what will surely be an über-exciting "date night"... and booklets that dive into deep detail. And of course, there's the glorious Internet... which is sometimes helpful... and sometimes NOT.

Along the way, I've also learned that 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime and a hundred other stats that I didn't know.

I'm writing this in part because writing is what I do... it's how my brain works... it's how I deal with things. And also, if any of you wonder perhaps why I may not be as focused on some projects (like, oh, restarting VOIPSA, or helping launch the SIP Forum's IPv6 SIG) or as excited to jump into something new ... or why I'm not traveling to events much lately... my priorities have drastically changed a bit for this next while.

I'm also writing this to let my female friends and readers (and their male companions) know about the way in which my wife's breast cancer was found.

She didn't have a "lump". It did not show up on a mammogram... nor on a follow-up ultrasound of her breast. There is no family history of breast cancer. She has none of the other indicators for cancer. She's in fact in the best physical condition she's been in for years.

There was only one sign... and one that she didn't really think was significant.

She had an inverted nipple.

Instead of pointing outward as nipples usually do, this one started withdrawing in upon itself.

It changed.

My wife just casually mentioned the change in her annual checkup a few months ago when the physician asked that standard question to which they probably don't expect an answer: "anything else you've noticed unusual?"

The physician thought it was probably nothing, too, but said it should be looked at... which led to several months of testing, a horrid course of super-strong antibiotics (to see if an infection was causing it) and eventually multiple MRI scans (including a "MRI-driven biopsy") where the cancer was detected and confirmed.

An inverted nipple.

That was it. The only sign. And one that could have been easily overlooked.

Since that time, naturally, we've found various articles that mention this as a potential symptom of breast cancer... but it was certainly one that neither of us, nor anyone we've mentioned it to yet, knew about.

So, should you (or your female companion if you are male) ever notice a change like this... get it checked out. It may be absolutely nothing. Or it may be something more serious.

Meanwhile, life here continues in a holding pattern while we wait to understand what lies ahead in her specific case...

Image credit: hygienematters on Flickr