Endless Knots

Champions of Freedom (House) 2008

Freedom House, which will be sixty next year, names "Champions of Freedom" each Spring. We celebrated last Thursday night here in Boston.

Pam Cross served as Mistress of Ceremonies,
here with her hubby, Ron Ancrum

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE

David Goodman (middle) received  a special award in honor of his mother, Dr. Carolyn Goodman, who, in 2002 was the first recipient of the Freedom House History Maker Award. Cynthia Bell (left) and Sarah Cleto Rial (right) accepted the History Maker Award on behalf of My Sister's Keeper. 

Paul Grogan accepted the History Maker Award on behalf of The Boston Foundation, where he serves as Pres and CEO

Dr. J. Keith Motley, Chancellor, UMass Boston, received the Ellen S. Jackson Award for Excellence in Education, as did the Boston School Reform Initiative.

And Richard Mintz, who worked with Freedom House founders Otto and Murial Snowden, accepted the Adrienne Williams Spellman Diversity Award on behalf of Mintz Levin.

And here are Freedom House Chair Emeritus, Gail Snowden, whose parents founded Freedom House, with her daughter, Lee Snowden Trimmier

 

"When face time is a matter of life and death"

I was sitting in a meeting a few weeks ago when someone made the most powerful argument I've ever heard for virtual working: having to travel through armed conflict to get to a meeting. For those of us lucky enough not to be in war zones (I've lost track of how many wars are going on around the world - last I checked it was something like 50), we don't have to consider taking our lives in our hands when we go to a meeting. It got me thinking and I ended up writing "When face time is a matter of life and death" for The Industry Standard. I linked it back to the discussion we've had here on green teams. Here are the opening paragraphs:

"Many people have been killed going to meetings in Iraq.” It was an offhand remark made by a US military advisor in a casual conversation about virtual work -- its benefits, its pitfalls, its resisters, its committed participants. Until that moment, it had never before crossed my mind that traveling to a face-to-face meeting could be lethal.

Turns out Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken measures to reduce travel. “One of the first things I did here was set up a collaborative network to offset the fact that we couldn't travel easily or safely," Lieutenant General Jim Dubik explained in an email to me. "Needless to say, doing so contributed hugely to the coordination of our work.” Dubik is Commanding General of Multinational Security Transition-Iraq. Dubik’s work follows a decade-long history of Web 2.0 and other media experimentation in the US Army (see The Social General)...

Continue reading my Industry Standard article here.