Fresh Perspectives

The Golden Rule

I recently watched a TED talk by Karen Armstrong.  She advocates that the “Golden Rule”, not convoluted dogma, should be the basis for all religion.  Imagine if all of us did our best to follow that Golden Rule; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”! 

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Disability - A Realistic View

Amy Dunaway-Haney is the 2003 recipient of the Muscular Dystrophy Association National Personal Achievement Award.  Like me, Amy has Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and uses a wheelchair.  She teaches high school spanish, and takes her teaching seriously!  Check out her Spark Enthusiasm website.  In an MDA publication, I found an interesting quote from Amy;

"We have our savings account, my husband and I, and then we have our van/wheelchairs account," she explains. "People think that the hardest part of having muscular dystrophy is not being able to be a cheerleader and not being able to run. But for me, one of the hardest parts is just being able to afford it."

"If you want to be a vital, working person or be out and about, doing your thing, it takes a lot of money," she adds. "You either have to be really impoverished or you have to be really loaded just to get around and be able to work and do all the fun things you'd like to do."

My story is similar.  In 1998, when I first began using a wheelchair full-time, I needed extensive home modifications, an electric wheelchair and independent transportation for work.  Without financial help from my state office of vocational rehabilitation, the transition and continuation of employment would have been impossible.  Even with that help, my cost was over $22,000.  My 2 boys were in their early teens at the time, and ours was and continues to be a one-income household.    11 years later, I’m in the same situation; new van, more home modifications and an expensive rehab-style wheelchair.  Even with financial help, I’ve had to incur long-term debt both times in order to pull this off.  Plus, I pay $60 per week for attendant care and all repairs to adaptive equipment; in addition to a mortgage payment well past my retirement age.

Again, Amy and I both love our work and want to continue working and remain contributory to the system.   The alternatives are long-term disability, Medicaid and fully paid attendant care; unnecessary extraction from the system rather than contribution!  As Amy said, you need to be either impoverished or wealthy just to get around.

Neither of us are complaining, but the fact is that being disabled is expensive.  The cost to society of keeping people with disabilities working is far less than the cost of the alternatives.  People with disabilities generally want to be able to pursue the same opportunities others can.  Right now, that pursuit is costly!  Systemic change is necessary.

Wisdom of an Old Dog

Back in February 2008, we adopted a 12 year old dog named Copper.  He is a wonderful old fellow who is enjoying his retirement home to the fullest.  There's a bonus for me as well; owning Copper has been instructive.  Comparing his way of living to my son's puppy's outlook provides a lesson about zealotry.

1. Copper isn't motivated by the insignificant.  Puppies, on the other hand, are motivated by everything.  Copper is  selective about his directing his attention.  He doesn't crowd his brain with the unnecessary.  We shouldn't either! 
2. Copper lives entirely in the moment.  He thoroughly enjoys his food, his sleep time, his play time and his interaction time with his human caregivers.
3. His hearing has gotten progressively worse.  That doesn't seem to bother him in the least.  Copper rolls with what life presents and isn't the least bit concerned with situations he can't change.

Three simple concepts; PRIORITIZE, ENJOY AND ACCEPT!  It works for Copper, and it can work for us.

Skills National Competition

As a follow up to my prior post, 4 students from the CTC of Lackwanna County, a career tech school in Pennsylvania, competed in the national Skills USA competition in Kansas City.  These students did very well, and scored in the top 10 nationally.  Of note here too; they had a problem with the overhead projector, and the team leader improvised and turned the laptop around instead.  They continued with their presentation.  Now THAT is impressive!  Congratulations, girls....Great Job!!

Driving with a Disability II

In my prior post, I gave you a summary overview about driving with a disability.  Today, I'd like to expand on that.

Again, primary driving controls are gas, brake and steering while secondary controls include everything else.  The systems I will be using come from 2 companies; Drive Master and EMC.  As you might imagine, there are not many companies around that manufacture products like this.  It is a specialty, and I'm sure the liability exposure, hence the cost of insurance, is considerable.  That applies to the dealer network as well.  Installing these systems requires specialized expertise, and generally the dealers offer driver training and evaluations as well as installation.  The company I'm working with locally has been doing this for well over 20 years, and they are indeed experts.  

I'll be using mechanical horizontal steering which connects to the steering column.  It can be adjusted on all planes.  Drive Master also retrofits steering boxes and rack and pinions for reduced and zero effort steering.  Among other innovative products, they offer backup steering systems as well.

I'll also be using the gas/brake system from EMC.  Their entire EMC system is called AEVIT (Advanced Electronic Vehicle Interface Technology).  They also offer secondary interface controls and "drive by wire" steering.  Their website is extremely informative.  This page gives a very nice overview of the AEVIT  driving system. 

Another very innovative company in this arena is MPD, Mobility Products and Design.  The hand control in my current van is an MPD product.  It is amazingly reliable, even after 11 years of use. 

Learning to drive with these devices is a little challenging and will require over 10 hours of training.  Mr. Keller has an older trainer van and is in the process of outfitting a new one.  You can imagine the expenses involved in such a specialty, hence the reason for the high cost at the consumer level. This is indeed a very specialized business, and the companies and dealers involved are indeed quite innovative.

I'm enjoyed doing this research.  I hope you enjoy it as well. 

GM - A Lesson Learned?

General Motors is now officially "Government Motors", no longer listed on NYSE.  The reasons are obvious...GM remained an old company whose management style remained in a 1950's mindset.  In the 1980's, W. Edward Deming predicted what is happening now to GM and other companies in the same situation.  And Bob Sutton clearly reflected this mindset in a blog post.

When will we learn?  The learning is happening in the auto industry at Ford Motor Company.  They operate lean in much the same way as Toyota, and they have trimmed down their vehicle offerings.  Ford is now setting the pace for American business.  They are learning to compete globally; GM never learned that! 

Having spent 30 years in public education I can tell you, however, that American public education will learn more slowly.  Education, and more specifically career/technical education, needs to be reflective of the direction industry is taking.  That happens slowly because public education is an extension of the government bureaucracy that created it.  Education remains in the "top down" management mindset where the customer (student) isn't always the priority.  But in this time of unprecedented change, I see a glimmer of hope for public education....the mindset is beginning to change.  Because for public education to survive, it must change!  I hope to be part of that.

In Pursuit of Elegance

Matt May's book, In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, is being released tomorrow.  I read an advanced copy a few weeks ago, and could not put the book down!  Matt traveled the world to find cases where something was made to be elegant through subtractive means.  He strategically uses stories to drive home his ideas. 

This book is incredibly easy to read, even though it tackles some deep subject matter.  Check out his blog by the same name.  Mark Graban of Leanblog.org has posted a video podcast with Matt.  This work is entirely different than any business related book I've ever read.  It is a book about elegance written elegantly.

Story Musgrave

The video below is compelling!  Story Musgrave was the astronaut who led the team charged with fixing the Hubble telescope several years back.  Although the main focus of the video is teamwork, it is compelling for other reasons.  To me, it shows that an astronaut, who one would assume would be an analytical person, can be creative.  Dr. Musgrave has advanced degrees in both arts and sciences.  Plus his presentation style is wonderful.  Worth watching:

Story Musgrave and the Hubbel - Click here for the most popular videos

2009 Skills USA Pennsylvania CTC Lackawanna Pics

I'm so proud to be associated with all of the students at our school.  Here are some pics of this years state Skills USA trip which I posted about the other day.

   
Strategy Session

 
At the closing ceremony

 
Shannon ready to go - What a smile!

 
Stage at closing ceremony

 
The crew - CTC Lackawanna

 
Speaker on stage

 
Kyle takes his medal

 
Entrapreneurship crew takes their gold

 
I don't think Shannon (far left) expected to win!

 
Everyone heading home

 
Back home, Kyle Dileo displays his medal

 
Entrepreneurship crew - Shannon, Ashley, Ryannon and Holly.

Congratulations to all who participated!

Entrepreneurship Competition

I'm CFO at a Career-Technical school where students from area school districts attend to acquire job and college prep skills.  Each year, students participate in Skills USA and compete with students from other schools at the district, state and national level.  This year, around 20 of our students advanced and competed at the state level.  All of them had a great time and enjoyed the experience.

This year, 4 of our students participated in an entrepreneurship competition in which they developed and presented a business plan.  Several of the staff at the school, including myself, mentored these students in preparation for the state competition.  The student's tireless preparation paid off; they won the gold medal!  Each of them received a scholarship at Penn Tech College as a result of their efforts.  Also, they now get to compete at the national level in Kansas City in June.  The students are (from left) Shannon Cawley, Ashley Hiller, Ryannon Boyle and Holly Demianovich. 

The amazing thing is that none of these students had any business experience a month ago!  In a short time, they developed an excellent plan, and the materials they presented were outstanding.  I am proud to be associated with these fine individuals.  Their work was an inspirational.  Congratulations to them and all of the students involved.  These are our future leaders!