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Endless Knots

Jessica Lipnack's blog about virtual teams, networks, networking, collaboration, Web 2.0, writing, and even yoga, knitting, cooking, family, and friends

Just that. Feels like January here in Boston. How do I know? I had to put on my parka just to run out to get the paper! I miss my garden! Come back soon, planties.

(Note to Typepad users: Testing the new Quick Post feature actually - very clever and easy)

The glamour of travelYesterday

So with no need for further explanation, you get the picture. Traveling earlier this week for a quick one-day with a lovely client, two workshops back-to-back. Flight, despite its customary lack of room, very pleasant, including the incredible good luck of sitting next to a Microsoft exec who, after hearing my woes with Word, hands me a "magic card" (his words) marked "Quick Assistance," which allowed me to call a Microsoft support line, be greeted by "Kathy," who with some instructions, enabled me to trash a few troublesome files and presto! I can drag-and-drop text again. Thanks, Steve Resnick!

OK, we land. Progress to the shuttle bus at this airport, which is approximately the size of Massachusetts, arrive at car rental. No hybrids, no Garmins. Off I go in a car that doesn't use a key. A terrible light goes on. One I've never seen before. I pull over, search the glove compartment in hopes of looking up the light problem, but there's only a CD in it. A CD. I return to rental place. Attendant gives me the "boy, are you stupid, lady" routine, says it's, of course, as everyone knows, the tire pressure light, then says he'll feel the tires for me (no comment) and that I should just ignore it because the tires are just fine. Now it's getting dark and I'm watchin

Socially responsible healthcare consuming?November 20

The Boston Globe is looking into the dirty little secrets of the healthcare world around here in a two-part Spotlight series ("Spotlight Team members [are] Scott Allen, Marcella Bombardieri, Michael Rezendes, and editor Thomas Farragher, as well as Liz Kowalczyk and Jeffrey Krasner of the Globe staff. It was written by Allen and Bombardieri."]

The first article, which ran a couple of days ago, "A healthcare system badly out of balance," discloses that the same tests and procedures receive wildly different reimbursements from insurers depending on where they're done. Look and ye shall see:

So why am I posting this? Because I need an MRI. This is not an unusual situation for me - as previously revealed, I have MS and MRIs are one principal way of tracking whether more plaque is building up in the brain, which is, like plaque on your teeth, not a good thing. My wonderful, beloved, attentive (and suffering from the flu) neurologist promptly returned my call yesterday, listened to my symptoms, and said the expected, that I should subject myself to the impossible hammerjack procedur

Ice cream for RwandaNovember 15

Newton, Mass., native, actor, and Brooklyn ice-cream-store founder, Jennifer Dundas (click for the many films, plays, etc that she's been in), with her Blue Marble Ice Cream (all organic, all green) business partner Alexis Miesen, are teaming up with Odile Gakire Katese, a Rwandan drummer and playwright, to bring the sweet treat - and a message of hope and possibility - to her homeland. Check out this touching initiative in today's New York Times online, "A Taste of Hope for a Tragic Land," by Jake Mooney. Great story - Jennie and Odile met at Sundance, where they were taking part in a theatre workshop.

To help out with this important initiative, click here.

Biology and high performance teams: conference callNovember 15

This sounds very interesting:

Ken Thompson, author of Bioteams ("a blueprint and how-to guide for using nature’s most successful designs in building and working in human teams") partners with friend-of-Endless-Knots and expert in just about everything related to collaboration, Lisa Kimball, for Biology and High Performance Teams, a webcast sponsored by Plexus Institute.

Friday, November 21, 2008, 1-2 PM EST
Call in to: 641-715-3300, access code 485743#