This blog has been abandoned.

 For the most up to date information on what I am doing, please go to www.anniesearle.com.

"Tomorrow is always the busiest day of the week" -- Spanish Proverb

Let there be light.

That's been my motto for the past three weeks, after I returned from New York City and turned in my grades.  I have three distinct pieces of work I need to get done by the end of July, another by mid-August.  I know the order that the projects will take, but I cannot seem to make myself begin. Of course I've nibbled around the edges, but that's just pro forma for a Type A like me.

Last week, thanks to my colleague Lauren Du Graf, an unrelated but extremely important and physical piece of work got done,  as she managed the sale of items in the ASA storage locker and the transport of one item to my UW office.

 This is the kind of work I have loved to do in the past, but I was very glad to have her decisive pushes to complete the work a day early.  That's a load off my mind.  I've already started to move books in my home office to the bookcase now in my UW office.

I have garden work and some additional personal donations to make in addition to the electronics we donated to GreenPlanet on Saturday, but I'm feeling lighter in every respect.

That is to say, I am out of excuses to begin.  I spent yesterday curled up with food poisoning, so I'm in recovery/small errands mode today, with everything lined up for a firm start tomorrow.

Rehearsing before class

So much about risk management needs to be re-emphasized on the first day of class.  To paraphrase the key points about risk in a new risk guidebook that I've been involved with:

• Risks are not always negative.
• If you manage risk, you are managing performance.
• Managing risks is about managing opportunities.

I've got 13 students registered for this advanced course that looks at whether or not risk is handled differently in the public sector than in the private sector.  Add to this first class an additional seven visitors, who will be entering the MSIM program next fall.

I'm incorporating feedback I received from my winter risk course evaluation.  We'll still have eight guest speakers in the first hour, but then I'm going to take the next hour or so to engage more in a discussion than a lecture, including scenarios that will allow the students to practice the art of risk assessment before they actually have to present at the end of each week. This quarter's guest speakers are superb:

• Lucianne Phillips, FEMA Regional Private Sector Liaison
• Mike Hamilton, CEO of Critical Informatics, former City of Seattle CISO
• Michele Turner, Sr. Compliance Mgr, Microsoft Universal Store
• Al Wilson, Director of Business Continuity, BECU
• Todd Mack, Deloitte Tech Risk, Risk and Resilience Director
• Mike Howard, Microsoft Chief Security Officer
• Mary Gardner, Information Security Officer, FredHutch
• Aaron Weller, Director of Cybersecurity and Privacy, PwC 

Off I go....

Birthday week.

New book.

New me.

We have good friends who devote an entire week to celebrating a birthday, with events/dinners/movies/visits scheduled throughout the week.  Fortunately, we've never tried that for either Leroy's birthday or for my own.  It has nothing to do with age, only with how busy we are.

 My friend Lance, whom I had not seen for several years, said when we met that I never do just one thing at a time.  That seems like a fair characterization.  I'm teaching full time, which means prep and lecturing for two classes each quarter during the academic year.  I've agreed to become the academic adviser for the UW chapter of ISACA, which will be open to both undergraduates and graduate students.  I'm on two Information School year-round committees and one search committee, and try to attend other events sponsored by the iSchool as well.  So you could say that my plate is full.

Tomorrow is the last day of this session's watercolor class.  There will be another starting late in April. For my birthday, Leroy is giving me 10 hours with a personal trainer.  And in a couple of weeks, I fly to New York City to speak at a risk conference on ethical misconduct.  I'll have time to visit a couple of museums and catch up with colleagues in the city.

When I look at what I've written, I realize again what a lucky woman I am.  I'll be in meetings or teaching all day on Friday, my birthday, but Leroy and I will be listening to Bach at Benaroya Hall the following evening.  Life is good.  We live like kings.

Long time, no posts

There is no possible way to catch up almost a year's time.  Suffice it to say that it's been a great year, one with some profound changes.  My ASA consulting practice is now seasonal, summers only.  I am teaching full time at the University of Washington's Information School.  Six courses over three quarters, as well as a service component and a range of new activities as well.

The family is all doing well.  Cassandra is on her way to another Grammy with Phoenix Chorale. Sabrina's Villa Siena is booked continuously for special events.  James is teaching and finishing his Ph.D. dissertation at the State University of New York at Albany.  Leroy is pleased that I've joined him as faculty at the UW, and he continues his own work teaching, publishing and speaking.

That's about it.  We are extremely grateful for our happiness, and for the orderly nature of our life.  Though the house got renovated ten years ago, it still feels fresh and special.

Here's a few photos, one of which is a watercolor I painted in 2014, from which a detail was extracted for our holiday greeting card.

Holiday card 2015

Seattle Art Museum Impressionism show

Thanksgiving weekend with Cassandra and family

Christmas Eve Luminaries Walk, Ravine Bridge

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Butterfly, 2014.

It's been months since I've posted, and I have a hard time accounting for where the time went. Winter quarter seems always to be the hardest, perhaps because it was dark at 5:30pm on Thursdays when I started teaching.  I had a lovely trip to Amsterdam, via Iceland, in February at a very productive international conference on operational risk.  In March, I flew to New York City to speak at a Governance Risk and Compliance conference for the financial sector.  I was able to have most of the following day to visit both the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museums of Art, not always possible anymore, so doubly pleasurable.

I came back from each of those trips with a cold, which in each case I managed to get myself over without prescriptions.  I believe it's because of the plant-based diet I've been on for a little more than a year.  My resilience is just a lot higher without all the sweets and processed foods and dairy.  I have also been able to keep off the weight I lost over the past year, no small accomplishment.

I've started a new round of watercolor classes with my same instructor, Jan Morris.  In fact, this evening we are opening a six month exhibition of watercolors by her students at the Laurelhurst Community Center, including one I did last year called "Canyon," which is on the lower left side of my kitchen gallery below.

Last week, I started teaching my advanced risk seminar to what look to be about 12 graduate students.  And I'll resume public speaking on Thursday, when I talk about leadership and professionalism with the Washington State Association of Continuity Planners.


And now that I'm over being sick, I can return to the joy and assorted belly laughs that come from my weekly mat pilates course.


Life is good.

New Year's Resolutions

This will be the first time in many years that I am not making a resolution to lose weight.  Since last March, with further modifications to what has been a vegetarian diet for 19 years, I have taken off over 15% of my prior weight by moving to a plant-based diet often called "Eat to Live."  I've focused on my core muscles with Pilates and yoga classes at the University Y.  The upshot?  I sleep better, I have more energy, and my arthritic knees feel sooooo much better!  Having waited nine months to see if I could keep the weight off, I donated a large number of pantsuits with accessories to the YWCA "Dress for Success" program just before Christmas.

My other big step forward last year was to stick with learning to paint in watercolor.  The classes, led by Jan Morris and available through the city parks department, require me to step away from my office for about 3 hours on a weekday...they take me out of my comfort zone since I am a rank amateur.  I will be continuing with watercolor, yoga and Pilates, and  walking at Green Lake in 2015.

So the big resolution is not about weight, but rather about focus.  I have not made time to work on my Executives and Risk book this past year.  And I've cut back somewhat on public speaking.  Both are possible, even with my regular consulting and teaching engagements, if I sit down and schedule it.  My first venture out of the country this year will be in February, to Amsterdam again, for the international OpRisk2015 conference, where I'll be part of the debate faculty.

I wish each of you a happy and productive New Year!

Autumn walking.

I started this blog some years ago when I was learning to walk long distances.  Seven years later, I walk shorter distances but find each walk to be more than exercise.  Usually, I walk at Green Lake, and  I use my eyes as much as my legs.  I take great pleasure in the act of walking, to use the time to re-balance, or to perform what I have called elsewhere "cleaning out the gunk."

With my eyes and my camera, I look for what Carolyn Scott Kortge, author of one of my favorite books, "The Spirited Walker" (Harper, 1998) calls "the fields of light," and what Bono calls "...a light we cannot always see."

And yes, puddles still tempt me!

Human rights are everyone's rights.

I was rather totally taken by Ken Burns' series, "The Roosevelts" last week.  I started reading more about some of the issues raised in the series, and have been particularly taken by how relevant Eleanor Roosevelt's small book, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for A More Fulfilling Life is today -- even though it was published in 1960.  As I watched the series, I tried to mark the differences in how technology operated then and now, knowing that a key reason FDR was able to enter us into war with Congress' consent was because there was a certain vacuum, or time lag, in when information, especially nasty information, was delivered.  As I read the book, I marveled at how little the human spirit has changed over the years and how adept she is at identifying those ideas and beliefs that draw us together. 

It covers such topics as how to be of use and comments on everything from overcoming shyness to raising children to be part of the world.  It includes sections in nearly every chapter on her fundamental commitment to human rights and to enlarging one's world view.  I have been particularly taken by her comments on the role of women, and how important it is for them to be part of the world, even while they raise children.

I doubt there is ever a woman who has ever better understood her purpose than Eleanor Roosevelt.  She may have wanted to hide many times, but she never did.  Despite ridicule and even hatred, she took her place -- and, because she did, I am able to teach a wonderful document called the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, created as one of the first products of the new organization after World War II.  That declaration, like our own U.S. Declaration of Independence, begins at the right level, with a grand and sweeping tone:

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world;"

It is especially of interest to me as I teach my first class of the quarter today in the course called "Policy, Law and Ethics in Information Management"  We're actually going to read the Declaration of Independence together, out loud, sentence by sentence.  And talk about how the U.S. government is structured so as to produce checks and balances, and to guarantee certain "unalienable rights, and that among them are the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."  That's from memory, so I may not have it quite right.

I do not envy President Obama his job today, as he launches attacks against both ISIL (everyone does agree that ISIL is real, in part because of their effective use of YouTube and other forms of social media), and deploys military units to help organize the containment of Ebola in Western Africa.  Every move he makes is scrutinized closely. He lacks wriggle room.  And he clearly knows more than he is telling us about just how bad the threats are at this point.

Ten that have stuck with me.

 My friend Tracy Kudrna challenged me (and others) to come up with the ten books that have stuck all our lives.  I read a lot, so I modified the assignment slightly to cover, in some cases, groups of books.  

Here's what I posted.

"I can't do it in single books, but here's my best attempt: 1) The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery books; 2) the complete works of Mahatma Gandhi; 3) the Pathfinder series of books, featuring heroines and heroes like Annie Oakley, Amelia Earhardt, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Wild Bill Cody; 4) the letters, sermons and speeches of the great leader/orator Dr. Martin Luther King; 5) biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt; 6) mystery novels with a single detective in a series, like Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout), Adam Dagliesh (P.D. James) or Inspector Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh) 7) all Inspector Thomas Lynley novels by Elizabeth George; 8) the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson; 9) the complete works of William Blake; and 10) the poems of William Butler Yeats. I love to read."

Growing up.

I started using a personal trainer when I still worked downtown, in 2007.  Amy got me in shape for two 3 Day Walks for breast cancer through a combination of training sessions and holding me accountable on daily walks that got longer and longer.  In 2009, when I left JPMorgan Chase, my son James suggested I look at the University Family Y, which is right here in the neighborhood, for personal training.  And he was right!  The diversity of staff and members is unmatched in any private gym you'd find. 

For the last couple of years, Ruth Collard has been my personal trainer.  Most Mondays and Fridays you can find us downstairs with the weights and machines early in the morning.  We've had a great run.  She sets up programs for me that mix up work on machines, with balance and core  work.   And I have really enjoyed getting to know her better. She's a CPA, an avid gardener, and a force behind the Freeway Estates Community Orchard Project.

Down 40 pounds from those days in 2007!

I started trying to add a group class at the University Y a month or so before Ruth announced she was retiring at the end of this month.  Since then, I've been more assiduous in trying out various group classes, which are part of my Y membership.  I've tried yoga, zumba and mat pilates.  I've integrated the Pilates into my work calendar, and am looking for 2 other sessions each week.  Ruth is leaving me with explicit instructions on everything we now do together, and I should be able to get to the weight room once a week at the usual early morning time.

There's no doubt that it's easier to get fit when someone is telling you what to do and saying "good job!"  I certainly walked in the early morning more often when I was in training for actual events.   If I can't stay fit on my own, then I'll find another trainer.  But a small part of me sees this as a graduation of sorts, a commitment outside the contract.  Only time will tell.

Happy anniversary to ASA!

 

It hardly seems possible that we launched Annie Searle & Associates LLC (ASA) five years ago today.  I have posted some pictures from the launch on the Advice From A Risk Detective website.  Here I wanted to reflect briefly on how much I owe to a large network of colleagues across the globe, who have complementary interests in risk in general;  in how technology has impacted ethics, policy and law, particularly in the workplace; in privacy as subject matter in and of itself; and in security, both the physical and the information aspects. 

Our world is changing rapidly, and so is ASA's.  Initially, we thought most of our practice would be consulting work with an occasional bit of public speaking. In the past three years in particular, that's shifted somewhat to make room for writing books and articles; and for teaching graduate students at the University of Washington's Information School. 

Next month, we'll have a couple of announcements to make, not the least of which has to do with opening a wider access point for those who wish to write on risk-related topics for what will be Volume III of Reflections on Risk.  As of last February, we have published 48 research notes through these volumes.  Another 13 have since been published on our website since Volume II.  I consider this more than satisfactory progress toward beginning to influence how experts think about real world risk, and what solutions might be proposed to better handle them.

As I said, more announcements next month!

Endless summer!

Early morning light

Summer of the Hydrangeas

Every place beckons the eye

Patriotic pots of flowers

As I read a gardening article by Robin Lane Fox this morning in the Financial Times, called "American Pioneers," that looks at the impact of six US women on landscape design and photography in the early 20th century, I felt extraordinarily lucky to live in Seattle.  We have the Olmsted Brothers to thank for the mature large parks that we enjoy.  Many of us are fortunate enough to have our own spot of garden adjacent to our homes.  I've certainly photographed my own often enough.  It is a source of endless delight to my eyes and hands.

2013 dinner in back garden for Leroy and his graduate seminar

2006, after renovation of the back garden

This is the first morning in several weeks where it has not been 80 degrees or more by noon.  I hope to spend some time this afternoon trimming up things out there.  I think there is no greater sense of accomplishment than to work in your garden.

In memoriam Diana White Adams

2009 birthday, on the deck

2009 birthday:  her son, Perry Adams (rear), Leroy, Hazard Adams, other friends

Always insightful comments on the world and politics

Using her hands to talk, as usual

2009, to the table

Last summer, birthday dinner.  Diana and her oldest son, Charles.

All Diana's birthdays over our 37 year friendship come to mind today....here's what I wrote last September when she died.

"We arrived at the University of Washington in 1977, the same year that Hazard and Diana Adams arrived from the University of California, Irvine.  As colleagues, Hazard and Leroy went on to edit and update several collections of critical theory; and Diana and I became fast friends.   She read more than I ever could, and was deeply knowledgeable on culture, politics, travel, gardening and history. We celebrated our four birthdays with dinners each of those years, including this past July.  She died on September 6th, 2013. 
Her influence and ideas live on in all of us."

I think of Diana regularly, most often when I am using the gifts she gave us; or in my garden, where there are so many additional evidences of our friendship.

Please yourself first

For workaholics, pleasing yourself first is a real challenge.  There's always more work to do, meetings to arrange or articles to write.

I have finally come to realize that not every hour of the workweek needs to be spent in a meeting or pinned to your office chair, no matter how lovely an office you have.

I started small, forcing myself to go out for lunch rather than eat at my desk.  If I don't go out to lunch, then I work in my garden for at least part of that hour.

Then I signed myself up last August for a watercolor class on the premise that painting would exercise some additional parts of my brain.  And because I had never had lessons before.   I knew that whatever I might understand from looking at art most of my life might be of some peripheral use, but that I was in uncharted territory with a steep learning curve.  I was fortunate enough to pick a wonderful teacher, Jan Morris, who is the least directive teacher you can imagine, but who conducts the classes with grace and humor, and helps whenever asked.

Finally, I plan to recognize summer as a time I can loosen up a bit.  I plan to add a couple of other classes at the YMCA to increase my core strength and flexibility.  And I've got three four hour painting workshops booked.

This week, when I travel to New York for meetings and a conference, marks the formal beginning of my summer.  Once I'm back, I'll be full on the new book.

Phoenix wedding

Our grandson Alexander Porter and his lovely bride, Lindsey Walker, are by now in London on a backpacking trip around Europe.  But above, left to right:  Kate Porter, Alex's sister; Reed Porter, our son-in-law; Lindsey; Alex; Sabrina Porter, my stepdaughter; and William Porter, Alex's brother.

They were married on Saturday evening at Villa Siena, the amazing Italianate event space imagined and run by his mother, Sabrina Porter.  The courtyard ceremony was followed by a reception, then dinner, then dancing.  Here are a few more photos we took during the evening.

Leroy suited up at the reception.

Me too!

Leroy caught on the dance floor with Kate, Sabrina and grandson Matthew.

The morning after, Sabrina and Reed hosted a brunch where the couple opened presents.  Here Alex holds up the French knife and steel that we gave them.

The weekend flew by, and we are now ensconced back in Seattle, with this, the last week of classes, while Alex and Lindsey explore Europe before they move to Boston for graduate studies this fall.

The Student

I live with the best of men.  He has always been a student as well as a teacher.  The same is true of my son.  I have come only recently to university teaching, and find it to be quite energizing, ground upon which to engage and perhaps rethink operational risk models and practices.  I take that same love of the practice to clients.

When I took up watercolor last August, I was prepared to be a student again, much as the time when I took up photography and used a darkroom to produce black and white prints of what I saw though the lens.  I suppose I thought that all the art I have looked at in my life would make it easier for me to learn to paint watercolors.  And I did not realize how complex the medium of watercolor is.  Here's Winston Churchill recommending the use of oils, by way of comparison to the difficulty of watercolor:

"I write no word in disparagement of water-colours. But there is really nothing like oils. You have a medium at your disposal which offers real power, if you can only find out how to use it.  Moreover, it is easier to get a certain distance along the road by its means than by water-colour.  First of all, you can correct mistakes more easily. One sweep of the palette-knife 'lifts' the blood and tears of a morning from the canvas and enables a fresh start to be made; indeed the canvas is all the better for past impressions.  Secondly, you can approach your problem from any direction.  You need not build downwards awkwardly from white paper to your darkest dark.  You may strike where you please, beginning if you will with a moderate central arrangement of middle tones, and then hurling in the extremes when the psychological moment comes...."

Nine months in, I have to say that I am still a mere rank amateur.  It's not easy to paint with coherence, though I do love mixing shape and color and water on the paper, then watching it dry so much lighter than I intended.  We have a month left in our current class, then this summer I am going to find a drawing class to better ground myself as a painter.  For those who ever thought that the great painters like Van Gogh or Cezanne were mere abstractionists, here are a few of their drawings:

Cezanne, Three Skulls

Cezanne, drawing/watercolor of his beloved Mont Sainte Victoire

Van Gogh Line Drawing example

Boston Strong.

Building's tribute to its great architect, Charles Follen McKim.

Front left steps of the Boston Public Library pays tribute to science.

Right side of the steps pays tribute to arts and humanities.

Inner doors.

No lion is complete without inscriptions.

And also the other half of a pair.

Looking upstairs from the central entry.

More of the ceiling and second floor.

A busy reading room.

A look at the stacks.

A fine second floor room in which to hold receptions among those who think.

Geography anyone?

Could you work here?

Temporary Exhibition Space, probably where they will present the Boston Strong exhibition.

I shot these photos in January of 2013, when in Boston for a conference.  Since it's National Library Week and also the place where so many will go to view the Boston Marathon exhibit, I thought you might like to see what a magnificent building it is.  The library dates to 1848 and is the second oldest publically supported municipal library in the United States.  All residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have research and borrowing privileges.

CBS did a moving segment  last night on the new exhibit that opens Monday at the library.  The library, like the historic Trinity Church across the street, was just blocks from the finish line of the marathon.