First, watch this, I will wait patiently:

Thanks for coming back and reading now.  I don’t normally blog about work but I really did have a wave of gratitude wash over me for several reasons.  I work on a team of web developers and engineers at an insurance company.   Last night, we had a production deployment where we had to make some changes on several of our websites.   We all logged onto a meeting on the web, using technology that allows us to connect in one chat room, observe my screen as we worked through t he deployment and chatted both online and on a conference call to complete our work.  Our team is dispersed currently with two people on the west coast, 2 people in the midwest and 2 people across an ocean in Trivindrum, India.

The web and telephone tools we use now are standard fare for most enterprises both large and small… but take a moment to step back and enjoy the magnitude of this.  We all worked remotely and yet we could all watch one person work, offer guidance, troubleshoot, and continue sideline conversations to resolve issues that came up.  Not only do these tools give us the convenience of working in our Family Guy boxer shorts in the comfort of our own homes, but it actually gives us the ability to work closer to each other and provide an unparalleled level of support as if we were all huddled around one screen.  We have great technology at our disposal.  I know that sometimes I take it for granted, but I really did want to take a moment to pay my respects and appreciate this technology that allows us to be so far from each other and yet so close.

However, the best information and communication technology is all for not if you don’t have the people behind it to make the most out of it.  I work with a stellar team,  some of which I’ve worked with for more than 10 years.  I am lucky to be able to work with such great folks, but I have to say, last night really made me proud to be a part of such a great group.  All of us worked cohesively, we were all focused, we all worked calmly to solve the couple of hiccups that came along, and we worked quickly and efficiently to come close out the work that we started earlier in the evening.  It wasn’t just the work that struck me but how well WE worked together.  So, as I am grateful for the technology, I am also grateful for the great people, Marilyn, Candace, Dennis, Ajith and Deepu, that I worked with and that Iwill continue to work with while on our litle web team.

We really do live in exciting times.   We have a lot of adversity in front of us, but while we are faced with a mountain of debt, unsure financial times, we can also see that yes…everything IS amazing.  We don’t even need to look closely, just look.