Hello Happy Pitbulls

Tweeting through Recovery

Before I had my ankle surgery, someone suggested via Twitter that I would be dealing with a different type of "recovery.gov" -- a bit of Government 2.0 humor which made me laugh, but I wonder if most people were as amused as I am.

First, an ankle update
I guess we're on day 5 or so, and things are going well.  I'm still having some incision pain that the vicodin and ice are doing a good job of handling, so that's good.  This time around, I haven't been spending a lot of time in the boot, since I have my ankle wrapped up pretty good.  I went to the doctor yesterday and had all the dressing removed and the big reveal showed a clean incision, much shorter than the one on the right, and hardly any swelling or bruising.  Again, I am a total rule follower.  Ice, elevation, medication, and this time - coumadin.

Have any of you ever taken blood thinners before?  I guess this is a new protocol for foot and ankle surgeries due to the frequency of blood clots. I am taking coumadin daily and have to go in to the doctor to have my blood clotting factors monitored weekly, at least until I am up and running around again.  Comes with lots of warnings, including the fact that if I get a bloody nose I have to go to the ER.  Crazy.  No papercuts for me!

So the surgery went really well and overall, there was less issues with my tendons on this foot than on my right foot.  This one had more of the issue with the extra freaky muscle.  They removed 3 cm from that muscle to give my tendons more room to move and then fixed the subluxation so I don't have the snapping over my ankle bone any more.  Depending on how things progress, I'll probably be able to start getting back to weight bearing in about 3 weeks, rather than the 6 weeks originally thought.  This is good! 

I am trying to be careful not to overdo it.  Just because I have been through this before and it's a bit easier this time, doesn't mean it's smooth sailing, so I am trying to take it easy this week.

Next, Gov 2.0 Update
I had the extreme pleasure and honor of appearing on Government 2.0 Radio on Blog Talk Radio with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist.  First of all, this was Sunday, and I was very hoarse from the anesthesia and groggy from my painkillers, but I was doing my best to stay in the conversation.  Craig is an amazing supporter of the new open government initiatives in the Obama Administration and is looking for cues on how to help promote transparency in Government.  You can see from his blog that this has become a recent focus.  If you have some time to spare, check out the show from Sunday, then listen for future shows.  Host Adriel Hampton is a real mover and shaker in the Government 2.0 community, as well as a candidate for US Congress in California District 10.  He's doing great work in bringing government to citizens of the web and I have a lot of respect for the work he's doing!

More later when I'm less foggy.  Enjoy.

How would you like your government?

There's a magical transformation happening on the Internet.  Have you noticed?

Not only is your newspaper allowing you to interact and provide feedback, but your government is too.  Locally, the first place this happened was with Matt Rexroad's blog.  As a candidate and now as a county supervisor, Matt gets it.  Matt combines personal, professional and political topics on his blog, and engages the community in sometimes lively discussions about important local issues.

The State of California is catching on too, with a YouTube channel representing many government agencies, podcasts, commenting on assembly bills, and a handful of blogs and other social media activity.

And the Federal government is completely rocking it out with a number of social media tools and channels. I'm excited about the change that's come to the web, and it was on it's way before the new administration.  My hope is that the new administration will deliver on the promise of transparency the transformation will be more profound.

I am working with a group of government employees on the Social Media Subcouncil of the Federal Web Managers Council to help make a case for the continued use of social media in goverment to engage and involve citizens, to increase collaboration within and between government agencies, and to improve government services.

Transparency. Participation. Collaboration.

What does this mean to you?

The joys of civil service

Have you been following my twitter feed?  If you have, you know I have bronchitis.  And that I spent the last week sick, sleeping, medicated, and whining a lot in general.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday and when she asked me where I worked, I told her I worked for the state.  Then she just went on and on about how lazy state workers are and how they shouldn't complain about pay cuts and furloughs and that we don't know what bad pay is because she sees people in there who really don't make money.  And that my job (I told her I did web stuff) should be outsourced to Shanghai to save the state a whole bunch of money.

So, without a voice and in pain trying to talk, I just sat and listed to her.  I'm thinking, "Okay crazy, just give me the cough syrup with the vicodin in it and send me on my way."  Which she did.  Mind you -- not my normal doctor, but it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.  Good thing for the cherry cough drops!

So with that said, I can't listen to the comments in the Sacramento Bee bashing state workers.  I just have to go in, work as hard as I can, make a fun and challenging and rewarding experience for my staff, and focus on providing the best service possible for our constituents.

So...furlough us and cut our pay, raise our taxes, do what you want to do...but stop bitching about us already.  We're doing the best we can, and we care!  We really do!

Being a geek comes easy for me...

On a typical day, I spend about 10 hours or so at a computer.  At work, if I'm not in meetings, I'm at my computer either responding to emails, writing emails, managing emails...you know the drill.  At home, I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, or just surfing.  What I do in my personal time tends to overlap into my work life, which makes it difficult for me to separate out my work persona from my personal self.  I'm always researching new communication methods, web 2.0 tools, reading about government use of these tools, and looking for ways to apply what I love about the web to my work.

So, my challenge for 2009 is to try to figure out how to separate out the two aspects of my life...if at least just a little. 

The way I really see it is that I am lucky to do for a job what I love to do in life.  I'm a geek girl, and I love the web.  I love connecting and communication with people (strangers or not).  So, in order to look at making my personal self more "whole", I need to look at whether being online at night after a days work is really my way of relaxing (which has been my assertion for years), or whether it's causing me stress because I'm not able to disconnect from my work and focus in other personal areas.

Someone recently suggested that I stop doing research about new Web 2.0 tools and communication methods because I would feel less frustrated about how long it takes to introduce them at work.  That doesn't make any sense to me at all.  My feeling is that you fill yourself with as much information as possible, so that when the opportunity arises, you are ready to go.  I don't know -- maybe it's the overachiever in me.

So, just to see if it helps, I'm going to try to fill my time with things other than geek things outside of work.  You know...dogs, music, getting out and about...we'll see how that goes.  Any suggestions, please holler!

In the meantime, I'm enjoying another 3-day weekend with my husband.  We'll be looking for movies and firewood, but not necessarily in that order.

Happy New Year, all.

Reflections on 2008

There's nothing new and original about an end of year blog post, reflecting back on all the major events of the year.  In fact, I must have read about 100 of them so far.

There's been so much on my mind the past few months, and as I start to plan for the year ahead, I had to take stock in all the things that happened this year that will help shape my year to come.

1. Work.  Too much work.  I love work, but anyone who knows me or who has been reading for a while knows that I work way too much.  Sometimes I think it's a way to avoid real life, the stuff I have going on at home, with family, etc.  Sometimes I know it's just the overachiever in me.  So for 2009, a little less work, a little more efficiency, and a little more "me" time.  That's the menu.
2. Woodland.  Our hometown hero, Dustin Pedroia, won the MLB MVP award.  How cool is that.  Enough said.
3. Change.  Yes We Can. Yes We Did. We elected Barack Obama president.  Again, enough said.
4. Social Media. I've gotten serious about my Tweeple, my Facebook pals and my Mob Wars Mob.  Both personally and professionally.  And because of item 3 above, we have a real hope of having government be truly transparent through the evolution of social media tools being used for communication, first through the campaigns, and now through the change.gov site.  Love it!  And as a government employee, I'm working hard to introduce the same level of transparency through our web communication strategies.  It's exciting (a contributing factor to item 1).
5. The Dead Pool: George Carlin. Paul Newman. Eartha Kitt.  Tim Russert. Majel Barrett-Rodenberry. Bettie Page. Odetta. Michael Crichton. Studs Turkel. Don LaFontaine. Isaac Hayes.  Bernie Mac. Harvey Korman. Sydney Pollack. Danny Federici. Charlton Heston. Anthony Minghella. Steve Fossett. Heath Ledger.  My mother-in-law, Angela Cabias. RIP, all of you.
6. Mexico. A perfect end to a hectic year. I have had my personal reboot.

The list could go on and on. It's almost time to call it a day for 2008. Here's hoping 2009 brings happiness, health, and prosperity.  And peace.  Yeah, we need us some of that.

Post-Halloween Wrap Up

After spending 4 days in Indian Wells in the middle of the SoCal desert, I got back to work absolutely exhausted!  I made it through a couple days of meetings, and now I've come down with the full on evil sore throat cold thing.  Must be from the airplane.  Airplanes are the biggest cootie generators in the world!

This year was one of the most fun and creative halloweens we have had at work for a while.  Last year Mike and I were hiding out in Mendocino, so I missed it. My office pals from Internal Communications land dressed as the banana bunch in conjunction with our chili cookoff event, an annual fundraiser for the California State Employees' Charitable Campaign. They were serving A-Peeling Chili (get it?).  In addition to these guys, we had a lot of people dressed up throughout the building, including all of our CCI dogs, who you can see here on Carlo's Dog Blog.

I wish I had more pictures of the various pirates, the Addams family, and the other ghouls that were floating around.  As for me, I was a disgruntled Red Sox fan, which obviously wasn't that hard to pull off for me.

So for now, I'm nursing my cold with chicken soup and cough drops.  And recovering from all the excitement.

Social Media Revolution at eBay and on the Streets of San Jose

Well, folks -- I am just back from 4 days down in San Jose where I attended a conference at eBay about the current trends happening in communications due to social media technology.  I've considered myself an early adopter, a geek girl, and a social media junkie for some time now.  I've been blogging for 6 years in one form or another.  I'm on Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, and even Dogster.

I heard more times than I want to count at this conference that you have to be 25 or younger to understand the social media revolution. Or that all the communications organizations are relying on people at that age to join their teams to enter the social media space.  The conference was full of self-deprecating communicators who endlessly reiterated their lack of technical prowess.

Somehow, I don't feel like I fit in with this camp.  I'm a mildly technical geek girl with a passion for connecting through the web with people at any age.  I don't believe that our target audience should have a cap, though.  I know other "old" people who love these tools and they're my social network.

I have a lot of thoughts about what I learned this week, so as I start processing this information, look for more of my social media experimentation gone wrong.  I do it all here -- because I can.  And cuz it's fun.  Look -- I am already breaking all the rules!

Packing impairment

How do I pack?,
originally uploaded by marlinex.

I am the world's worst packer. When ever I travel, I take enough stuff for twice the amount of days that I am traveling. I have no idea why. I wasn't a boy scout (well, I sort of was, but that's another story), so what's with the over-preparation?

Any time I travel for business, I always bring a couple of outfit options, just in case. Then casual clothes. Extra shoes, just in case. Then of course, the laptop.

The only reason I took this picture is that one of my team members at work is preparing for a 2 week long trip to Vietnam. She's taking a backpack. I'm only going for 3 days!

What is wrong with me???

How Do You Really Feel About State Workers?

Before I became a worker bee for the State, I was probably like you.  Making fun of the State workers, walking around downtown in their lovely skirt/sneaker combos on their lunch breaks; waiting for their smoke breaks; punching the clock at 5:00 and congesting the Sacramento city streets.

I've been employed by the State of California now for the past 7 years.

I am a manager. I get to work around 7 a.m. and I usually don't leave until 6:00 p.m. or later.  I make less money than my private industry peers, and although I have excellent health benefits and will hopefully have a great pension when I retire in another 18 years, I am making about half of what I could be making in the private sector.

I am not lazy.  I don't do things because "we've always done them that way."

I challenge my staff and my peers (and sometime my management) to be innovative, creative, and to have a competitive edge.

In the news, you've heard that the Governor is threatening to pay state workers minimum wage until the budget standoff is resolved.  What sense does that make?  Take away the pay from the people who are making the state services available for citizens, just to make a political point.

In the shadow of this recent posturing (which is what my personal view of this is), the Sacramento Bee has started a new blog, The State Worker.  As a worker bee, it's interesting to follow what the Bee thinks, and read the comments of state worker bees and worker bee haters alike.

So now, you have another outlet to let the world know your attitude towards us State workers.  How do you really feel?

To post, or not to post?

I've had a lot going on in my life, both at home and at work, and it makes me not feel like blogging.  And at the same time, it makes me feel like blogging even more. Sometimes I wish I had a secret blog where I can rant and rave about fun stuff like "good times" with my dad, random stuff at work, or how I really feel about some heated issues.

This week is off to a rough start. Work is crazy; lots of changes going on. Regardless of how prepared I am to face each day, I realize the second I step foot in the door, all bets are off.  The best skill I have developed (or at least I think I have) is the ability to roll with it throughout the day.  Especially the stuff I can't control. 

Easier said than done.

Other topics that I feel strongly about have been fodder for conversation.  Gay marriage. iPhones. Twitter.  So many opinions. So many options.

When it comes right down to it, whether you're talking about same sex marriage or whether to use a paper or electronic organization system, it all comes down to this: being open to other people's opinions, preferences, belief systems, etc.  Respect.  You know?

I've been privy to some conversations lately that I just can't fathom.  I know I am being cryptic here.  Just too big to really go into here, since I can barely articulate it in conversation.

So with that.  I'm out until some inspiration strikes.