Imagining and planning for the future is not always easy. Sometimes we just can't foresee obstacles until they are right in front of us. But then we must pivot, and quickly.
A busy first quarter of 2024 culminated in my near-death experience (due to medical negligence). This was followed by a long recovery, and new physical realities that have shifted my life, irrevocably. Cancer was essentially the one-punch; and being back in the Emergency Room in April with septic shock, fighting flesh-eating bacteria, was the uppercut. On the bright side, the extra rest provided some time for long-term introspection and decision making.
It also put the interplay between high-performing systems and people, front and center of my hospital bed. In Healthcare, the systems and people have to work well together or patients die. But that's the case in many industries.
The truth is, if you have touched Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon, Spotify, you have already been using AI and integrating it with your everyday life. The only difference is what type of AI you interacted with. Have you played chess on your computer or dialed a customer service line and went through a phone tree? Then you’ve interacted with reactive machines. Have you ever watched a movie Netflix suggested, sat in a self-driving car, accepted an autocorrect or used a spam filter? Then you’ve interacted with Limited Memory. If you’ve talked to Siri or Alexa, or played ChatGPT lately, you’ve interacted with Theory of Mind. If you know about the movie Her where Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with OS system, you have seen the Self-Aware machine played out.
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I've been really enjoying heading to the gym in the morning, greeting the sun and feeling those soothing rays on my face to match the warmth of my muscles when I workout. Periodically I reflect on how a little over a year ago, I couldn't really do this at all while soldiering through chemotherapy and radiation care. My transitions lenses block out a very different kind of bright light radiation from my eyes, as I head eastbound to exercise. And fortunately for all of us, Punxsutawney Phil didn't see my trailing shadow, or his own, so it's a sure thing that our short Winter has now come and gone. Let's hear it for leap years!
2024 has arrived with a flurry of new resolutions, the turning over of a new leaf, and all the best intentions in the world. Decluttering our home, after nearly two years of enduring cancer treatments and recovery, has been the first priority. As a result, my husband Paul and I have been hard at work Fung Shui'ing our home into a new status quo, removing the accumulation so that my home office desktop and our family wall can regain prominence within their respective spaces.
With the holidays upon us, I thought it would be fun to introduce some levity with a riff off of an old classic song. However, there are a lot of syllables to try to match up. Especially when you match up Change by Design solutions to a department's challenges, all while trying to rhyme with words like birds, leaping or doves. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this small labor of love!
