I was in tears and, at the same moment, utterly surprised at my reaction. Crying? I was watching Iron Lady, Meryl Streep‘s Academy Award victory lap in which she portrays Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979-1990. The movie caught me off guard. The twist for me came in the movie’s lens into Mrs. Thatcher’s life; the view is of her nearing dementia with life ‘highlights‘ told in retrospect. A wave to young children who were pleading with her not to go as she sped off to the Conservative Party‘s leadership. An aging person alone washing out her tea cup in the sink of a lovely, closeted London home. Adult children operating on the periphery. Why did it hit me so? Continue reading…
Trials, experiments and transition
This week a conversation from almost a decade ago popped into my mind. In it I was speaking with a brainy friend of mine who was a coder at Microsoft. He and I were talking about how small teams of coders were independent but highly linked. For example, one team might be given the challenge to build the “slide show” function for Powerpoint; another might be given the “inserting pictures” function. Each group would work on their own piece. Every night they would run a routine to integrate all of the code written that day by the various teams. Sound groundbreaking?