Sara Mooney

Do not worry about a holding high position; worry rather about playing your proper role.

Attention grammar police: This is written exactly as on the fortune cookie paper. Trust me. I had to do a double take as well!

If only more people would take this advice. Sometimes a person isn’t cut out to be management, and can better serve the organization in another role. Management takes mad skills, and I respect anyone who can relate, motivate, and actively engage their team without underhanded tactics.

I didn’t make it there, but I did manage to squeeze in the Parnassus Group party at the Atomic Testing Museum on Friday. Many, many, many more people than last year, and I managed to catch glimpses of Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur, Brent Spiner, and LeVar Burton — but not much has changed from last year in the way of being a party wallflower. As always, the Vegas Twitteratti were there: Manya, Jess, Dustin, Rodger, Chris, and Bill.  Met Andrew, who’s a super-nice guy who made his way from Toronto to NYC,  Mick, a former theatre tech and serial entrepreneur, Barb, an editor for Mashable, and reconnected with Jeff. (Yep. That’s a lot of name dropping so that I don’t forget.) Overall, the party was fun even though I was extremely tired after the long week back at work.

3D TV, tablets/slates, eReaders, Nexus One… that’s what it’s all about!

It not Polite To Point by Cayusa

Wow. Been too long between posts again.  The fall semester is long past (a whole month!), the show is in previews, and holidays with the family is now completed.  I needed the past two weeks to mostly unplug and regroup my energies for the next month and a half until the show officially opens *and* start my last semester in school. At least for now.  Besides finishing grad school, my only other goal for the year is running the Run Away With Cirque du Soleil 5K in March — and getting myself back into shape now that my medical issues are identified and being treated. Oh, and creating more blog posts once things are settled with the show and school.

I’ve been an avid reader of Seth Godin’s blog for a few years. I always take away pieces of wisdom and nuggets of observation and information that stick with me.  He posted an entry, “Put A Name On It,” and felt moved to share my insights on this idea.

I recently a week with my nephew, a very high-energy and intelligent 4 year-old. His favorite question right now is, “Why?” especially when he gets tired. He wants to know everything. “Who is that person? Where is he going? Why is he doing that?” My nephew wants to put a face to the action or rule. Seth’s post deals with this.  We need to be that 4 year-old and question the rules, asking why and who made them. A point person needs to be designated to answer questions about new rules (Mom/Dad is usually that person to a kid until they reach school age), and this is often overlooked in organizations and the U.S.A.’s government.

By not assigning a point person, responsibility is shirked. A game of he said/she said ensues, frustrating both the consumer/customer and the organization since fingers point in every direction. Who made the rule? Why was it made? How do we need to act or work within its parameters? Giving the rule a face shows that the company is responsible, approachable, and open to a conversation. And if you come across one of those nameless rules, ask to talk to its creator for an explanation. Be that 4 year-old that constantly asks why.

It’s approximately 30 days from the show’s opening. As with any large show, there’s a heck of a lot still to be completed.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s actually going quite well.  In fact, the documentation is coming along pretty well.  There’s a big scramble this month to finish all of it — What was changed? What paint was added? Anything new that we need for permitting? — and thousands of other questions.  But I’m doing the time to get it as complete as I can.  I also find it cool because I can knock something off of my wish-to-do list, albeit slightly modified.  When I wrote the list 5 years ago, I wanted to open a large show on Broadway as part of the lighting team.  But doing documentation on a Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas is just as big (if not bigger) as a Broadway show. So I’m very content.

It’s also the last three weeks of the semester.  Which means I should be working on my usability or cataloging assignments, but instead I’m procrastinating by blogging.  It kind of sucks since I really could use a day off from everything to decompress, but that won’t come until mid-to-late December.  With any luck, I’ll be able to take off Christmas and my birthday (yay! after holiday sales!) at the very least.  Which would be nice. Not that I’m going to go anywhere, but a few days off before January and starting my last semester (!!!) of grad school would be really nice.  May cannot come soon enough so that I can knock another thing off of my wish-to-do list — although slightly modified.  This was another area where I went from a lighting MFA to a M(L)IS, and I’m okay with it. Change is good!