On 5/4/2012 10:18 AM, Ilene R. Tyler wrote:
> Ken can be Shaman any day, but even better is that he is my "moderator" at APT-PTN IN Charleston. Thank you, Ken!
Ilene,

You are welcome., for sure.

For those who do not know, and since the bag is out of the cat (which 
took a great deal of shamanic meditation to accomplish as the bag was 
ten times larger than the poor cat), Ilene's presentation concerns work 
at the Fort Gratiot Light Station Tower in Port Huron, Michigan. What 
particularly interests me is, "Within two weeks the paint began to flake 
off the tower masonry! What happened?!! Everyone had been doing their 
job superbly well and with great efficiency, making this a textbook case 
of the collaborative process." It is rare in my experience at an APT 
I/PTN co-conference (well, sort of more rare as there has not been an 
APT/PTN co-conference per se, though PTN was born out of APT) that 
presentations talk about failures, though I have seen a few (the grand 
Swedish boat, Vasa that immediately sank comes to mind) and I encourage 
a discussion of what happens when the undesired and unexpected occurs.

As I said to the young fellow yesterday that worked with me after I 
demonstrated the need of two-half hitches in our process, it is not how 
one ties a knot that is as important as how easily a properly tied knot 
can be untied (eyes closed on a sinking dirigible and all that). 
Unexpected events occur on projects and what I love best about a 
collaborative process is the pathways by which team members work 
together to obtain resolutions in the face of potential failure. I also 
have personal experience, not my fault, with coating problems on the 
Montauk Lighthouse. So, in short, I very much look forward to Ilene's 
presentation.

> Exploring old buildings with many of you would be great fun; let's do that instead of coffee klatches. \
The coffee & bagel allows us to invite and spend time with folks who are 
not necessarily in the practice or interest of exploring buildings. I 
agree though that the walk-and-talk exploration of a building with 
someone who has some intimacy with a structure is an incredibly 
efficient manner of conveying knowledge. Mutual exploration and 
discovery is even more fun. I also. on a structure where I have worked, 
like the questions that come up that I never thought about or observed 
when I was focused on a particular task and tried my best to not see 
everything else. Lately I have considered that the ability to look 
closely at anything, anything at all is a gift and a blessing.

][<en

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