Great example of small just, just ahead
by Anton Zuiker on September 10, 2018
Winds of Hurricane Florence (https://earth.nullschool.net)
I refer to the ‘small just, just ahead’ strategy for communication nearly every week as I try to improve the way we inform people at Duke University (and among my family at home).
I defined and explored that strategy, which I learned from Erin, Dave, and many others, in this blog post — “Actively sharing and reviewing and evaluating information about the world around us helps children learn, the blinded navigate and teams coalesce.”
In my inbox just now, anticipating a potentially devastating Hurricane Florence, is this email from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools superintendent Pam Baldwin, a perfect example of small just, just ahead:
Greetings CHCCS staff and families. Walking around Lincoln Center this morning, I noticed a lot of computer screens monitoring various weather websites. The damage from Hurricane Florence has the potential to be devastating, and many components of our school operations are likely to be impacted.
To that end, our team is working hard to prepare for the storm and its aftermath. Our two biggest concerns are power outages and water damage – particularly at our older buildings which, in most cases, have underground storm water systems that are ill-equipped to handle the amount of precipitation currently forecasted.
Our amazing maintenance crew has been checking our chainsaws, tools and other gear to ensure everything is in good working order. All emergency generators have been inspected and fueled, as well as our vehicles. Schools that may get used as shelters (that determination is made by Orange County Emergency Management in conjunction with the Red Cross), are being stocked with food and water. Sandbags are being prepared and our custodial staff is ready for the hard work ahead. We also remain in very close contact with our local police, fire, emergency and OWASA colleagues.
If we have to announce school closings, we will plan to use the standard communications tools. You can expect to hear from us in a variety of ways including phone and email. If you have not already done so, please consider downloading our district app (search “CHCCS”), following us on Twitter (@CHCCS) and liking us on Facebook. We will also communicate via our local media outlets.
Please take this situation seriously and make the necessary precautions to keep your loved ones safe. We will be back in touch if there is a need to alter our school schedule later this week.
Thanks,
Pam Baldwin, Superintendent
Finally, Voices
by Anton Zuiker on September 5, 2018
At work today, we held an open house to show off the Voices of Duke Health listening booth. It’s a space inside the patient resource center, repurposed as a temporary recording studio. A dozen doctors, administrators, communicator colleagues, and others stopped by for a peek inside and to learn about our project to facilitate meaningful conversations.
We’ve posted initial audio clips from previous forays of our mobile recording cart, and our first podcast episode, at listeningbooth.info. We’ll share many more voices in the weeks and months ahead.
I’m lucky to be working with a talented team on this project. They’ve helped make this idea a reality, and for that I am grateful.
I’ve been talking about an audio project since at least 2005 — here’s a blog post with an idea for Narratives of Your Life, or storyblogging. That was right around the time my friend Brian was organizing podcastercon; Brian now is my colleague at Duke, and podcasting is resurgent. Hence it’s good timing for Voices of Duke Health.
Over on my microblog, I’ve been having fun with the microcast feature, and have posted short conversations with Malia and Oliver, and recorded myself stalking an owl through the woods beyond our house.
All this is bringing back memories from high school in DeKalb, where I once volunteered to read for the radio service for the blind, and where I was one in a pair of seniors to read the morning announcements (and occasionally play a funny tune) over the school PA system.
You go where?
by Anton Zuiker on July 31, 2018
We returned from our epic trip to Vanuatu three weeks ago, and work and house and garden and kids at camp have filled nearly every waking moment. I haven’t been able to dedicate time to gathering the photos, editing the sound recordings, and writing my thoughts about the trip. There’s much to report.
But just now, walking from the hospital coffee shop to my office, as I passed coworkers and exchanged the briefest of greetings, I was reminded of Paama, where it doesn’t seem possible to walk past someone without stopping, shaking hands, and slowly reporting your activity, hearing what the other is doing, and each giving permission to go about the day.
That’s what I captured in my 2000 essay, From There to Here
“Anton, yu go long stoa nao?” (Anton, you’re going to the store.)
“Si. Mi pem bread.” (Yes, I’m going to buy bread.)
“Ale. Yu go. Mi go long solwata.” (OK, go ahead. I’m going to the ocean to bathe.)
On Paama last month, that Ni-Vanuatu cultural practice was still in full force, and it felt familiar. I liked the interaction, and I was keenly aware of how this slower life on a tropical island compared to the hectic pacing of an academic medical center. (Some people on Paama have cellular phones, on which they seem to rush their conversations to minimize data costs, but face-to-face conversations are still stop, exchange, and go.)
Vanuatu reminded me to make my hallway conversations more meaningful. So that’s one of the reasons we took our Voices of Duke Health mobile recording cart into the Duke University Hospital hallway last Friday near the weekly farmers market to invite passersby to record a short answer to our questions of the day (What’s your favorite fruit or vegetable? and For what are you most grateful?)
Back from the South Pacific
by Anton Zuiker on July 13, 2018
Coconuts for sale in the market at Port Vila, Vanuatu.
Our epic family trip to Australia and Vanuatu finished up last weekend. (Erin and I served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Vanuatu from 1997 to 1999, and we’d saved up miles for nearly 20 years to return.) We arrived home Sunday evening, tired but completely satisfied with our two weeks in Sydney, Port Vila, and Liro. I meant to start posting photos and notes immediately, but we have had to focus on work and house—the water stopped flowing, and the plumbing was backed up, so the well-pump tank has been replaced, the septic tank emptied, and the pipes snaked. We all found it funny that, for a night at least, our Chapel Hill bedtime routine was similar to the bucket showers and rationed water that we’d just been through on Paama Island.
Anyway, I’m hoping to sit down this weekend and write about our time in Sydney (Blue Mountains, Opera House, Bondi and Manly beaches) and Vanuatu (visiting friends and the Peace Corps office in Port Vila, standing atop Yasur volcano on Tanna, and reuniting with family in Liro).
It was a memorable trip. I’m glad to have been able to introduce Anna, Malia, and Oliver to the Vanuatu experience and our Ni-Vanuatu friends. And I’m so grateful to have an amazing life partner and traveling companion in Erin.
Blog posts and photos to come.
Transitions
by Anton Zuiker on May 19, 2018
At Duke this week, Dean Klotman (my former boss) announced that Dr. Kathleen Cooney, from the University of Utah, will be the next chair of the Department of Medicine, ergo my new boss. Our department is large and active, and in a major academic medical center that is undergoing much change. I look forward to working with Dr. Cooney as she brings her energy and experience and vision to Duke.
Over the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of working for Dr. Joseph Rogers as he’s been the interim chair of the department and a most thoughtful leader during this transition. He’s made great use of our This Week in Medicine newsletter (TWIM), writing a timely, topical message each week to inform our faculty, trainees, and staff of the myriad issues swirling around us. TWIM is one of the products of the departmental branding and design framework we completed last summer with the design firm Thinkso Creative. Thinkso has highlighted our project in a case study on their site.
Here on Zuiker Chronicles, I’ve upgraded the CMS to Textpattern 4.7. This release is dedicated to Textpattern creator Dean Allen (I mentioned here how Dean inspired my blogging). I’m also posting to the growing and very useful Micro.blog (see smol.zuiker.com), where I’m paying for the ability to post audio files called microcasts. I purchased a Zoom H5, and am learning to use that, along with Hindenburg Journalist Pro, as part of my Voices of Duke Health project at work and in anticipation of the trip to Vanuatu.
Up at the house, the renovation is behind schedule but we are very close to moving. The house is going to look amazing, and it will be a testament to Erin’s vision and design sense and tireless weighing of the details. I’ll be swinging by the house today to pick cherries off the four trees. The rest of the four acres is grown and green. Last week I found a box turtle down at the slope, and later a lone-star tick biting me on my hip.