Last Day of Beatles Year

The lyrics of “When I’m Sixty-Four” by Paul McCartney of The Beatles start, “When I get older losing my hair, Many years from now, Will you still be sending me a Valentine, Birthday greetings bottle of wine. If I’d been out till quarter to three, Would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me When I’m sixty-four?” Tonight, I end my Beatles Year!

I start my new half-decade tomorrow. Such a delightful adventure!

Katy Dickinson 1957

Katy Dickinson 1961

Katy Dickinson 1967

Wade, Eleanor, Mark, Peter, Katy Dickinson, Bachelor of Arts Commencement, University of California at Berkeley, 1979

Katy Dickinson 1980

Wade, Eleanor, Katy Dickinson with baby Jessica 1989

Jessica and Paul, Nut Tree Railroad, 1995

Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, Wedding 2000

Jessica and Matthew wedding 2011

Jessica and Katy, Beirut, Lebanon, 2013

Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, Lalibela, Ethiopia 2014

Katy and Jessica, Sierra Leone 2019

Katy and Jessica, Horseshoe Bend, Arizona 2019

Paul D Goodman and Katy Dickinson, Cielo Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica, August 2021

Graduate Theological Union, Master of Theology Commencement, 7 May 2022

John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

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Fabric from Africa

Since we are sheltering in place during the Covid-19 lockdown, and I have a new machine, I have been sewing. In particular, I have had time to use some of the sophisticated and beautiful wax print fabrics I carried home from 11 trips to Africa since 2010. Some of it has become face masks and some curtains. My dining room is now bright with potato print tablecloths featuring elephant and guinea fowl patterns from Zimbabwe, and fish pattern curtains I made from fabric purchased in Sierra Leone. In the curtains, matching the leaping fish on either side of the center took some planning!

Earlier Katysblog posts with pictures of arts and crafts from some of my travels in Africa:

• 2014 Ethiopian Art, Crafts, and Icons
• 2014 Crafts in Rwanda
• 2015 Crafts in South Africa
• 2015 Camels and Crafts in Tunisia
• 2017 Fabric Arts and Crafts in Sierra Leone
• 2018 Crafts and Souvenirs from Egypt
• 2019 Arts and Crafts in Sierra Leone

2014 Rwanda
2017 Sierra Leone
2019 Sierra Leone

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Images Copyright 2014-2020 by Katy Dickinson.

20th Wedding Anniversary on 4 July

John and I are looking forward to our 20th wedding anniversary this weekend. Thinking back on some of our adventures and looking forward to many more. It is fun to be married to your best friend!

2020 virtual family dinner
2020 Mother’s Day
2018 family vacation
2018 Paul SJSU graduation
2018 St Andrew’s
2017 Reno
2016 Ashland
2016 Ashland
2016 Dunsmuir
2016 Klamath River
2015 Amtrak trip
2015 St Andrew’s
2014 Lalibela Ethiopia
2012 St Andrew’s
2012 Natural Bridges
2012 Jessica CMU graduation
2011 Jessica + Matthew
2011 Jessica + Matthew
2010 Lair of the Golden Bear camp
Lair of the Golden Bear camp 2010
2010 Teatro Zinzanni
2010 Teatro Zinzanni
2010 Teatro Zinzanni
2010 Egypt
2010 Cairo, Egypt
2008 Flying to Baja Mexico
2008 Baja
2007 India
2007 India
2007 WP668 Caboose move
2007 WP668 move
2006 Dead Sea, Israel
2006 Dead Sea, Israel
2006 St. Peterburg, Russia
2006 Russia
2005 Beijing, China
2005 China
2000
2000 wedding
2000 wedding

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Images Copyright 2000-2020 by Katy Dickinson.

Process for Online Video Services

Since 2014, my husband John Plocher has been running the Video Ministry for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Saratoga, CA. What started out needing a few hours a week using spare equipment has grown vastly since the Covid-19 pandemic took over our lives this year. John now routinely spends 12 or more hours a week creating and editing videos of music and worship services using sophisticated software and hardware. (Some of which were paid for by a 2018 St. Andrew’s Opportunity Fund grant.) John has been mentoring Youth Group members for over a year to develop their technical skills and extend the Video Ministry. In the hope that recruiting and training even more helpers will reduce his own load, John has written these process documents.

Online Worship Services and Music

• An Overview
• The Structure behind our Online Ministry
• Online Service Recording Process
• Postlude Slideshow Guide
• Virtual Music Recording Guide

John has developed a chat and video best practices exchange group – contact me if you want to join. He publishes stand-alone videos of the classical and folk service music on  Saint Andrew’s Sings. Go there to hear “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” the “Navy Hymn,” a folk Taizé “Jesus Remember Me,” “Rest in the Lord,” “Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise,” “We’ll Meet Again,” and other favorites. Or, hear the music as part of the weekly worship service videos. (More in my blog post New Music for Quarantine Times.)

I have been helping John by reviewing videos during development, finding memes for the end, and providing photos for preludes and postludes:

• Trinity – Images of God (7 June 2020 Prelude, 3 minutes) – based on my 2017 “Images of God” Katysblog post for EfM
• Stations of the Cross, Harare, Zimbabwe (14 June 2020 Prelude, 5 minutes) – with pictures I took during the TechWomen Zimbabwe Delegation, 2016
• Tocatta on Amazing Grace, Photos from Lalibela, Ethiopia (14 June 2020 Postlude, 4 minutes) – with pictures I took in Lalibela, Ethiopia, 2014

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Images Copyright 2020 by Katy Dickinson.

Africa: People, Food, Technology, Business

Tomorrow, I am giving a presentation to my home congregation of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) about my nine trips to Africa since 2010. The talk is called “Africa: People, Food, Technology, Business”. I have linked the talk here so that my audience can access my pictures and stories after.  My bold intention in giving this talk is to present a small part of the wonderful complexity of the African continent, and to encourage them to visit and get involved in African enterprises.

“If you only visit two continents in your lifetime, visit Africa – twice.” – R.Elliot

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Images Copyright 2010-2017 by Katy Dickinson

Crafts in South Africa

During the January 2015 TechWomen mentoring program Delegation to South Africa, I was able to see (and buy!) many remarkable crafts. Even though I try to buy directly from the craft workers (rather than from brokers), or at least buy local rather than imported goods if possible, within Africa craft sales are quietly international. Some of the crafts for sale in Cape Town were clearly imported from Kenya and Rwanda (confirmed by the shop keepers) but I also realized that a wood carving I purchased in May 2014 in Ethiopia was probably from South Africa. All of the cloth I purchased in Rwanda last year was from Congo, and the cloth I purchased last month in South Africa was from Zimbabwe (again, confirmed by the shop keepers).

The most remarkable crafts I saw in South Africa involved glass beads: jewelry, pottery with beads, bead and wire animals. Some notable craft sources:

• Arts on Main in Maboneng Precinct, Johannesburg – a location for dozens of small craft shops and food stalls in an old warehouse, including a very creative photo vendor called iwasshot in joburg – “a platform for former street children to learn skills and generate an income”
• Streetwires in Cape Town – first rate creativity and execution in a wide variety of designs.  I liked the animals and angels best!
• TheBarn incubator and community center (in Khayelitsha, Cape Town) – featuring several small craft shops, including the work of notable potter Martin Mayongo whose beaded raku ware pottery is superb.
• MzansiStore – a popup store inside of a hotel in Cape Town
• Greenmarket Square, Cape Town – a location for dozens of small craft stalls under awnings outside, some staffed by craft workers but most run by brokers

If you don’t have much time to shop, the Out of Africa store in the Johannesburg airport has a good selection.  Pictures from my craft hunting:

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

Leveraging Technology to Create a Mentoring Program in a Global Diaspora Context

I have been working with People to People since early 2013 on a variety of interesting projects under the general goal of “Building a Bridge to Africa”. This weekend is P2P’s 6th Annual Global Ethiopian Diaspora Conference on Health Care and Medical Education will be held in Washington DC. Although I regretfully cannot attend in person, yesterday I completed a poster for presentation at the conference: “Leveraging Technology to Create a Mentoring Program in a Global Diaspora Context”. (I love that FedEx-Kinko’s can print, mount, and deliver a poster the next day to a conference on the other side of the USA based on my PDF submitted online!)

The poster presents how a company like Everwise can uniquely support mentoring in the global professional diaspora with effective technology. Dr. Anteneh Habte generously agreed to add the poster to the display area and I hope to get many inquiries from conference attendees.  The image above shows the 36″ wide x 24″ high poster, below is the text:

Introduction to Mentoring:

Mentoring is a developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person (definition from Wikipedia).

Mentors advise and inspire. In practical terms:

• Mentors make introductions.
• Mentors give recommendations to resources.
• Mentors give feedback for the protégé to consider.

Members of the global diaspora need mentors to:

• Learn from success and failure of other diaspora members.
• Make connections for particular diaspora value and benefit.
• Understand concerns of diaspora culture, language, ethnicity.
• Leverage home-country context to support the community.

Technology & The Diaspora:

Global diaspora technology usage is both like and unlike that of other social communities. Technology such as cellphones, mobile banking, healthcare solutions, social media, and philanthropy may all be approached and implemented in new ways by the diaspora.

Because the diaspora conceptually-straddles two cultures and countries, Geneive Brown Metzger writes that “… existing technologies are being applied in diaspora-focused markets and new technologies are being developed exclusively to address diaspora consumers’ challenges and needs.”

Mentoring & Technology:

Effective global mentoring programs are complex to manage and require excellent technology for long-term success. Many local programs start with a spreadsheet, emails, and an energetic Program Manager – but these are not enough to grow a larger program beyond a few hundred participants or between countries. Managing a successful a global mentoring program at scale is not simple.In a recent global survey of more than 10,000 professionals: 83% said they would benefit from mentoring. Yet, fewer than one in three report actually having participated in a corporate mentoring program. That is, mentoring is under-used in most organizations. Despite this, the success metrics for professional mentoring are excellent. Sun Microsystems reported in 2009:

• 93% Satisfaction
• Protégés twice as likely to receive a promotion.
• Twice the number of “superior” annual ratings.
• 88% partners worked across distance (not local to each other).
• 70% of mentors were senior executives
• 1000% Return on Investment (ROI)

Successful local-area mentoring programs exist around the world, particularly for university students (such as MentorNet in the USA, Mowgli in the Middle East and North Africa, WeTech for girls in India). Enterprise corporations (HP, Salesforce, Tata) and large-scale social enterprises (Virgin Unite, Irish Executive Mentoring, InovAtivaBrasil) usually end up hiring a professional mentoring company such as Everwise to create and manage global mentoring programs. Everwise can provide technical / professional features such as:

• Multifactor matching process based on a database of successful prior mentoring relationships.
• Cross-organizational matching (bringing together protégés and mentors from a variety of locations and companies).
• Easy to use software to support and enable partnerships.
• Automatic metrics reporting to track and manage success.
• Trained professionals to add human understanding to the algorithms and databases.

People to People is now planning several mentoring programs. Please volunteer to be a P2P mentor when the call goes out for volunteers!

Conclusions

1. Top professionals in every field routinely attribute their success to their mentors. Mentoring is just as successful for professional members of the diaspora.
2. There are extensive benefits for employees, their mentors, and sponsoring organizations – both corporate and social enterprise.
3. Corporate and community leaders can leverage this time-honored process for developing and retaining talent (at scale).
4. Technology is required to manage successful large mentoring programs.

References

1. Bergelson, Mike. “Why Your Emerging Leaders Need Mentors” 2014 Everwise white paper.
2. Branson, Richard. “The Importance of Having a Mentor in Business” (August 2014).
3. Dickinson, Katy, Tanya Jankot and Helen Gracon. Sun Laboratories Technical Report “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009”, TR-2009-185, 2009.
4. Metzger, Geneive Brown. Metzger “Diaspora Tech: Five Innovations Keeping Us Connected” (September 2012).
5. Mehari, Enawgaw, Kinfe Gebeyehu, Katy Dickinson, Matt Watts, Triangular Partnership: the Power of the Diaspora (People to People, September 2013)
6. “Robert Walters Employee Insight Survey” 2013.
7. Russell, Karen “Modern Mentoring: The Good, The Bad and The Better” TEDxOverlake, June 2011
8. Sadoway, Daniel “The missing link to renewable energy” TED Talk, February 2012.

Image Copyright 2014 by Everwise

19 October 2019: Links updated. The conference book version of Triangular Partnership: the Power of the Diaspora is available for free download. Links updated 13 June 2020