Author Archives: Tracey

As I grow more, uh, experienced, I often reflect on an article I read a couple of years ago.

The article stated that groups of large mammals (elephants, whales, etc.) do significantly better when there are older females present in the group.

You might think that a “strong, young king” gives a group the best chance for survival, but older females come with some very strong advantages: for one, we are quick to separate a real threat from an opportunity for posturing.

This tends to be a weakness of strong young kings in particular. :-)

For more, read or view here: http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/03/video-old-female-elephants-make-best-leaders

“If you’ve been in the telecom industry for 20 years and you’re not cynical, then you’re not paying attention.”

I don’t think I’m THAT cynical, but it still made me laugh out loud.

I set myself a goal of getting published, and here we are:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/i-told-a-homeless-man-i-had-no-money-was-i-the-only-one-who-lied/article21766245

I recently found this in an internal newsletter at my current contract.

Employees want you as their leader, to genuinely look out for their best interests and to involve and support them to succeed. Once they feel your support is authentic and know you “have their back,” you become a “secure base” for them. You are then in a position to inspire or “dare” them to strive to meet their potential.

Becoming a “secure base” requires consistently demonstrating positive regard, being accessible, responsive and engaged in your interactions. You will know when you have become a “secure base” when your employees are secure and independent in their work and are comfortable coming to you for support and talking through their concerns.

Some of my proudest moments have been when staff I have mentored or managed have thanked me for providing this kind of leadership.

Loved this note from my colleague:

Frankly, I don’t know what I’m looking for. Alan mentioned something about “scope” documents and I have never heard of, seen or used one in my life. I just thought I’d ask you to see if you knew anything about them. My first stop is always you to see if we have something internal. Second stop is Google.

Awesome.

A project team can work without a lot of big picture structure, as long as each person on the team understands what their task is “today.”

But a project can only be successfully handed off and maintained over time, if it’s presented with some standard features and a clear picture for how you use it. Sooner or later, you have to be able to explain it to people who weren’t there as it was being built.

Some of the tools you can use for this are:

• A RACI that shows who owns which responsibility
• A series of workflows that detail how departments and third parties integrate
• A series of detailed SOPs for Tier 1, and some broader direction for Tier 2 trouble-shooters
• SLAs and OLAs to define the timing and commitments between the project team and other groups in the organization

While project development teams must always be working to a plan, their day-to-day activities are often responsive rather than proactive. An operations team performs best when working from a clearly defined template, so they can proactively drive top performance from the system.

I’ve spent the last decade working for the companies who are building out the Smart Grid. Which means hearing a lot of debates… how to make usage and cost information available to consumers, whether ZigBee has any real-world application (or is even viable as designed).

So I was excited to pick up my very own HAN device from Rainforest, which arrived already integrated with my BC Hydro meter.

Ooh, nice box.

Ooh, flashing lights!

The unit is a little smaller than a deck of cards (and much lighter). It booted up and connected within about seven seconds.

A single button toggles through a number of readings, including:

Current usage

Price per kWh

Yesterday vs today, which will probably be even more exciting tomorrow!

After years of working with designers and customers to develop similar technology it’s really neat to have something like this in my own home.

My mother gave me this picture of me when I was two years old.

I’m not yet ready to grab the bull by the horns, but I clearly have the pony by the nose! (Lucky for me it was a patient pony.)

Update 2014

This one’s a donkey, but it still shows my amazing growth since 1972. ;-)
Though it appears I have the same haircut!