Next week I'm going to a big meeting in Basel to try to define the future vision of the ITI Academy.
This is my big job, the one I got in April after my last visit to Basel when I presented something entirely different and ended up with a totally unrelated job.
This is difficult work.
Trying to set a vision forward for the next 3 to 5 years, which will still be solid 25 years from now, in a world which is changing all the time and where technology is moving faster than the speed of light, is challenging and tiring and difficult.
And so, it's only possible to do that with others.
In preparation for the meeting in Basel, which will be a full day facilitated by a professional facilitator in an environment which is designed for professional facilitation, which is mainly used by people like Novartis and Moderna (Novartis are next door to the ITI headquarters in Basel).
We will try to formulate a plan.
In my job description as editor-in-chief of the ITI Academy, the strategy of the academy is my responsibility.
With that in mind, we were asked to share any relevant documents before the meeting so the facilitator could get an idea of what was going on.
I needed to share a document on my vision of the ITI Academy for the next five years (leading towards the next 25 years), which had to be produced by Wednesday.
I am on holiday this week, at home, but still, that needs to be done because my job dictates that I am the person who should provide that.
On Sunday, I was able to dictate for about 30 minutes everything that was in my head and the stuff related to the ITI Academy that I'd already worked on.
I shared a presentation with Millie on the structure of the ITI Academy moving forward.
I then passed that to Marie, who was able to type it (she understands my crazy Scottish English and has worked with me for so long that she intuitively knows what to type and what to correct and how to make it better).
She passed that to Millie together with the presentation, and Millie designed an extraordinary document (I might share it with you later).
I then asked someone to look at the document on Wednesday night (asynchronously, we didn't actually have a face-to-face conversation).
That somebody is somebody very special, and it's such a privilege to be able to ask, but I won't embarrass them by naming them here.
The somebody special individual put together a 10-minute video suggesting how we could change the presentation to make it better and more understandable. So that was changed and sent (by Marie, by email and uploaded to their portal).
The moral of the story is that I did not spend 60 minutes on that project this week.
Everybody else listed here spent a lot more time than I did, although prior to this, I've spent an awful lot of time trying to figure out what this should look like.
Big projects take lots of people who are brilliant, doing lots of work to try to make things better.
The people in charge of those projects need to understand where their skills are, but more importantly, where they are not.
I can speak it, but I can't type it (certainly not fast enough or accurately enough), I can't see the vision of what the document will look like graphically, and I can't give the insight the superhero gave.
I can see it; that's my bit.
The rest of it is for everyone else.
Understanding your insufficiencies, your deficiencies, and your lack of skill in certain areas allows the project to move forward at the speed of light.
HT to Marie and Millie and the special secret sauce guy.
Blog Post Number - 3527