Japi's Blog

Barack Obama for President

Anyone who has known me for any period of time probably knows that my views have usually been either conservative or moderate.  I have rarely backed a liberal candidate.  Well, this coming Presidential election is changing that for me.  Barack Obama has impressed me with his candor, calm demeanor, straight-talk and (this may sound silly) how well connected his campaign is on the Web. 

To me, he seems to be the NEW TYPE OF CANDIDATE... not one that is dependent on special interest money (he has more individual donors than any other candidate).  He is giving all of us individuals a voice and I am very happy to support him.

That said, I would not support a Hilary/Barack ticket (any way it's configured).  Fidel Castro recently stated that a Clinton/Obama ticket is invicible.  Senator Clinton (to me) is a very scary candidate.  She seems to be the polar opposite of the current President... swinging the pendulum that far to one side will not be positive for our country.  I'd like to see Barack join up with Al Gore... THAT would be an unbeatable ticket!

If you want to read more about where Obama stands on the important issues, please visit: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

Below you can watch a video of Senator Obama in New Orleans and some of the efforts he is driving forward to help that part of the country.

Power Cars with Salt Water?

My father, Joaquin Avellan, sent me this video and I was amazed!  I hope this invention is taken to production.

John Kanzius is an inventor from Pennsylvania was looking for a cure for cancer.  He came up with the idea of using radio waves to kill cancer cells.  In the process, the machine he created could burn salt water.  It's an amazing 3 minute video showing a report from a local news report.

Patrick Hughes - amazing musician, inspiring individual

My wife sent me a link to a YouTube video earlier today.  It's definitely a tear-jerker, but it is completely inspirational. 

The story was originally aired on ESPN College Gameday last year (December 2, 2006)... but it's timeless.

Patrick Hughes is a young man at University of Louisville who was born blind and crippled and yet now plays the piano beautifully as well as marches (with the help of his father) in the Louisville marching band.

A Brave Young Man's Blog

Miles Levin started a blog in 2005 to celebrate life, as a horrible form of cancer killed him.  I read an article on CNN.com about this valiant young man who passed away Sunday, he was 18 years old (6 days before his 19th birthday). 

Visit Miles Levin's blog (the site will prompt you to create a free account before you can view the blog)

At one point he wrote "that cancer and the fear of death could expand your heart and mind"... he contracted was pediatric cancer called alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and was an amazing and impactful young man in the last few years of his life.

When he graduated from high school a few months ago, he realized that this would be his final milestone in life and wrote: "I can rest assured that even if I succumb to the rogue cells, I will leave behind a legacy of victory."

"Dying is not what scares me; it's dying having had no impact. I know a lot of eyes are watching me suffer; and -- win or lose -- this is my time for impact."

I can't imagine experiencing life and death the way this young man did, and I don't know if I would be as brave as he was... but I salute and pray for him as he is now in the hands of God.

Miles, thank you for showing us how to live with your heart filled with life.

The "UJF Miles Levin Fund," a tax-exempt fund, has been established to support efforts to combat pediatric cancer and allow the Levin family to work toward new directions in patient care.

UJF - Miles Alpern Levin Fund
P.O. Box 2030
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303
Attn: Susie Feldman

Messages of condolence may be mailed to his family,

Nancy, Jon and Nina Levin
1768 Shaker Heights Drive
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304

BloggerCon at the ASAE Conference 2007

Ben Martin from Virginia Association of Realtors organized a sub-meeting at the ASAE Conference 2007 in Chicago and called it Association Bloggercon 2007.  The idea behind this meeting was to share ideas on how to blog better and reach our intended audiences.

We had abouit 30+folks there and the conversation was very active.  Some of the people in attendance included:

1. Zach Wilson principal at Gulo Customized Internet Solutions - link to Gulo Solution's blog
2. Greg Fine, CAE of Association Forum of Chicagoland
3. Jeff De Cagna from Principled Innovation - link to Principled Innovation's blog
4. Jason Alba, CEO of JibberJobber - link to JibberJobber's blog
5. Sue Pelletier, editor of The Meetings Group - link to Face2Face blog
6. C. David Gammel of High Context Consulting - link to High Context's blog
7. Jason Della Rocca, Executive Director of International Game Developers Association - link to Reality Panic

Many others attended, but I didn't have the opportunity to get their information.  If anyone reading this blog-post attended and would like to be included in it, please submit a comment with your information... I will update the post with it.

The meeting was divided into two conversations:

First we talked about how to get leaders of associations to read, comment and get involved in the conversation that is currently taking place in the blogosphere about associations.  We had many suggestions, including the creation of a central bog that would have RSS feeds from all the blogs with association relevant information.

Our second topic dealt with blogs specific to an association - tips for increasing the level of conversation (comments, more readers, etc).  The blogs discussed here were not about generic nonprofits, these were more specific to a particular organization. 

Ben did a great job in keeping the conversation flowing in an organized manner.  I found the input provided by the attendees very useful... in fact, I've I've already implemented this one:

When you receive a really good comment (or comments) on a particular post, it's a good idea to take the comment and make a new blog-post from it (giving proper credit to the person making the comment) and respond to the comment on this new post.

Ben, thank you for inviting me to BloggerCon - I really enjoyed it and learned a bunch!

Response to a comment on "How a Paradigm is Formed"

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog-post called "How a Paradigm is Formed" and I received the following comment

(Thank you for the comment Moo):

I think you need to be less pessimistic about the world.

If those scientists were still there, poised and ready to spray the 5 new monkeys, then those monkeys were actually correct in living by their learned paradigm. Yes, they didn't know why. But one monkey will eventually just try it and the other monkeys will suffer the consequence - getting wet. Then they'd all know why, and remember that sometimes, just because you don't know the reason for doing something, it doesn't mean there isn't a very good one.

On the other hand, let's take a situation where the scientists are no longer there, yet the monkeys still beat each other up for climbing up the ladder.

One day, one monkey will just go for it and reach the bananas before getting beaten up. And the monkeys will learn. Or maybe not, they're monkeys.

We are human however. We are creative creatures. We learn. We try. We seek out improvements. If we reached the bananas, and saw the benefits of climbing the ladder, we'll try to find a legitamate reason as to why we were beating each other up for climbing the ladder.

And in that way, we learn.

In our world, some things change, and some things don't.

Therefore, it's good to keep an eye out, but living by learned paradigms isn't bad, as long as you remain inquisitive.

Take this century for example. In western society, many of the "old ways" have been dropped.

Yet we have a ridiculous amount of.. depression, broken families, broken hearts ... societal suffering shall we say. Did we really need HIV/AIDS to spread as much as it did? Didn't we already have rules about not having sex with whoever/whenever?

Hope you get my point.

Posted by: moo | August 09, 2007 at 11:53 AM

I was so happy to receive such a generous comment.  This was the reason I starting blogging in the first place: to get a real conversation going!  Again, thank you for your comment Moo. 

And now to respond to it:

Short version... I AGREE with you!

It's funny that you say I need to be "less pessimistic about the world" because I am an extreme optimist!  Actually, I'm an absolutist - that's what I call it.  I am completely aware of the difficult and sometimes horrible situatons happening in the world... but I have absolutely no doubt that everything is going in the right direction.  I am a huge believer of the changes currently happening in the world that will make it better NOW.

I totally agree with your assessment of how humans act.  This example was just an example of how a word that usally has positive connotation (like Paradigm) and it could be negative. 

I also believe that even though the story described in the blog-post is negative, it eventually leads to positive.  The dark ages lead to the renaissance, world wars have lead to peace.  So I am very happy with the current direction of the world. 

The internet is helping to put a strong light on all the negative and injustices going on around the world... and THAT can't be bad, right?  It will push us into taking action against these.

And now... for something completely different: Sunday at the ASAE Conference

The opening event at the ASAE conference 2007 was phenomenal, as I previously posted.  So I was pretty excited about how the conference would move along - hoping I would have some valuable information and enjoy my time here in Chicago. 

Sunday morning's event was fantastic!

ASAE hired a PCI Communications to organize a three act musical that would be presented on Sunday morning, Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon at the ASAE conference.  PCI was given the task of hiring the talent, choosing the songs and changing the lyrics, writing a script and tying it to the association industry and creating a fun musical to inform and entertain the people attending the conference (WOW, that's a long sentence!).  The end product (so far) has been excellent!

Sunday, the musical covered the inner struggles of "The American Generic Society". The music was awesome with songs like "There's No Profit in Non-Profit" (sung to "There's No Business Like Show Business") and "A Committee" (sung to West Side Story's "I Feel Pretty").  They were able to tie in conversations with some of ASAE's leadership acting in the show.  VERY entertaining and I think most  of the audience loved it and walked away with some useful information.

The keynote speakers after the musical were just as wonderful!  Ann Compton of ABC News interviewed Bob Woodruff and his wife Lee.  The interview was very warm and emotional. 

Bob Woodruff has been a journalist for over 20 years.  In January of 2006, he was reporting from Iraq and he was seriously injured by a road-side bomb.  The interview offered us a glimpse into the nightmare that he and his loved ones endured.  He was in a comma for over 30 days; his wife and his mother were constant pillars of strength for the rest of the family; ABC News and the Disney Corporation were amazing throughout and continue to be this way.

The story was heart-wrenching and inspiring.

Bob is still recovering from the injury to his brain... but he has come a long way from not being able to communicate to now being able to do his work as a journalist.  He is an engaging speaker and now is a strong advocate for medical recovery of all the soldiers in this war.

I noticed many people in the audience engulfed in tears, but also laughing with the wonderful stories told by Bob and his wife.

If you ever have the opportunity to watch or listen to Bob, I highly recommend it.

Monday morning at ASAE Conference

I am going out of order on my blogpost (I will blog about Sunday after this one)... because this morning's opening event sparked me to discuss it here.

As you will read in my next post about Sunday, the ASAE Conference morning events are fun and informative because they are presented as a musical.  Today's was too funny with songs like "If We Had a New Brand" (sung to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man" from The Fiddler on the Roof), "There's a Space for Us" (West Side Story's "There's a Place for Us") and "Who is Advancing America?" (Also from West Side Story's "I Want to Live in America").  Very entertaining and informative... I loved it!  The music, the dancing, the message were all presented excellently.  I am certain that most of the audience (in a HUGE auditorium) feel the same way.

EXCEPT for the "keynote address" at the end of the event.... OH MY GOODNESS!  I have not witnessed a worse speaker in my life!  That may sound harsh, but it's true.  The message was fantastic (well, the little I remember) but most of it was lost because it was presented so badly.

The address was titled "Associations as Agents of World Benefit" by David Cooperrider.  Sounds really great, doesn't it?  David seems like a brilliant man and he's probably doing some amazing work... but he either needs to take a public speaking course and get a PR agent to prepare his presentations (may I suggest Dan Keeney of DPK Public Relations), or he needs to get someone else to present his message.  Not everyone is a good public speaker, so the former may be a better solution.

David's message seemed to have a lot of value, but I could not follow it.  I looked around the auditorium and noticed a lot of people whispering and falling asleep.  I was saddened by this... I was also BORED OUT OF MY MIND!!!  I've sat through a lot of presentations that were very entertaining but had no value... this was the opposite.

The few take-aways I got from his presentation were that he attended a World Summit (Compact as they called it) sponsored by the United Nations in 2004 (he could have provided something more recent) and a couple of examples where organizations were helping (I can't remember the specifics because I was nearly passed out).

He seemed nervous throughout the presentation, pacing back and forth.  He was not very apt at reading from the teleprompter so it sounded like he was reading (the times where he seemed to not be reading, and speaking from his memories... it was well done and heartfelt).  He also had not timing to his talk, he didn't emphasize specific words and phrases that would have driven the message home; he hurried through the presentation (there was a LOT of material) so most of the information was lost.  Most of the presentation was spoken... very little was shown on the screen which caused him to lose a good percentage of the audience (the visual learners).

I am not trying to attack David in any way in this post... my hope is that someone will read this and reach David to get him to fix his message.  If David does read this, I hope he does not take it personally... I think he needs to find a way to enhance the experience of his message to help recruit and inspire others to join his wonderful and worthy quest.

ASAE Welcome Event - WOW!

I attended the ASAE Conference night-time event today and it was great!  They really went ALL OUT for this extravaganza.  The music was awesome, the food even better and the dancers.... WOW!!! Gorgeous.. no, not THAT kind of dancers.

I walked into the grand ballroom in the West building of McCormick Place.  The music playing was really fun and upbeat - the band members were spread out all over the place and they were on top of tall stage-like structures.  The center structure was the largest and had four bridges where these very pretty ladies were dancing.  It was fun to watch the dancers and listen to the cool music playing.

There was all kinds of food and drinks all over the room.  From beef to shrimp, from fruit to italian sausage.  The variety of food was matched by the variety of exotic drinks. 

The event was well organized, beautfully decorated and presented.  I congratulate everyone who was involved in putting this event together.  GREAT WORK!

Saturday in Chicago... ASAE Conference

My first day in Chicago has been fun... I went to McCormick Place early to register and was AWED by how gigantic this convention center is.  On the ride from my hotel, the taxi driver (in a strong slavic accent) kept asking me which building I wanted to go to... I didn't understand what he meant until we arrived... WOW!  IT'S HUGE (I can hear my 16-year old boy saying "that's what she said"). 

The taxi dropped me off at the main building and since the ASAE National Conference is expected to have about 7,000 attendees, I figured the main building was a safe bet.  But I later found out that this convention center could easily hold over 200,000 attendees.

NOTE for Houstonians reading this: McCormick Place Convention Center has 3 buildings (North, West and South - I imagine they are working on an East building)... and each of those buildings is larger than the George R Brown Convention Center.

I registered and looked at the event schedule.  The next session that pertained to me wasn't until 2:30 PM today - the first-time attendee orientation.  So I went back to the hotel to get my bearings on the surrounding areas. 

This was cool because I found out that 1 block from my hotel, the newest Batman movie (The Dark Knight) is being filmed.  So I walked over with my camera and took a few shots, check out my Flickr photos to see them.

I've organized my schedule for the next few days to optimize the sessions I attend.  Let's hope there's a lot of good information and I make great contacts at this event.