Although Day 1 and Day 2 are busy and interesting, Day 3 is usually the main day of the conference, since it culminates in the Gala Awards dinner. The morning started off as well as can be expected, with us still battling PST while being in EST.

Breakfast and the plenary session started off with a piano player who struggled to be heard over the constant clang of dishes and rude people talking - but with a crowd of over 2000 people, it’s really tough for them to be quiet, especially while eating.

After breakfast, John Amaechi, former NBA player (and Brit), took the stage (all 6 foot 9 of him) for the plenary speech.

He is a very eloquent and engaging person, and shared a lot of great thoughts and quotes with us - some his, others borrowed.

Here’s a sample:

“It only takes a tiny light to scare the monster under bed.” - in reference to his mother, who used her inner light to bring change to the world / spread joy to the people around her.

“Why speak if not to change the world.” - he did not remember who told him this quote, but it’s a good one.

“Before you, I didn’t realize black people could be gay.” - this from an old woman who came to one of his book signings.

“What John Amaechi doesn’t realize is that being gay doesn’t make him any more interesting.” - this from a British reporter who has covered John’s career in the past.

John’s main message was about writing our future history. He likened it to sci-fi writers who create elaborate visions of the future, writing in such great detail you would think they had actually lived there and were writing a history book. He also shared a good statistic - only 5%-10% of the people in an organization need to innovate and change, 80%-85% will follow if led properly, and 5% will never change and will likely leave. Which percentage are you?

After the plenary we were off to the next round of workshops. The first one I attended was a feature panel on Workplace Equality in the American Spotlight. The presenters were a mix of media moguls, including editors and reporters from the Washington Blade, Fortune Magazine, Washington Post, Metro Weekly, a blogger, and the president of GLAAD (who also happens to be the former mayor of Tempe, AZ). It was an excellent session on the impacts of ENDA - Employment Non-Discrimination Act (just a note here - we are one of the only companies in our sector who did NOT publicly support this bill and one of the few companies in our sector who do not provide or require mandatory diversity training for employees and managers), the Hate Crimes bill, and the roll of the media in sharing GLBT information.

In case you do not know what this really means - in 33 states it is legal to fire someone for no other reason than their sexual orientation. This means that regardless of whether your company guidelines prohibit discrimination based on GLBT, you could be fired for it and have zero legal protection.

Next up - Visibility and Profitability, Marketing to the GLBT Consumer. More and more, companies are realizing the massive consumer opportunities from the GLBT population. Some of this comes from the “DINK” phenomenon - Dual Income No Kids. Basically it means that the GLBT population has a LOT of discretionary money available for purchases. This session included representatives from Nike, Fannie Mae, and Winmark Concepts. They showed various new advertising campaigns which have allowed their companies to target market a new segment of the population who has money to spend. One interesting thing I would point out here is that stockholders in companies need to start caring not only about return on investment, but also whether the company treats its employees and environment with integrity. Do the companies you invest in support employees of all diverse groups? If not, why are you investing in them?

The last workshop I attended today was Executive Sponsors - Use ‘em or Lose ‘em. This was the best session so far, and was filled with a panel of very senior execs from Ernst & Young, Raytheon, and PepsiCo.

The executive sponsors of these employee groups attend Out & Equal, participate in Pride events, actively work with the employee groups for change, and one of them even joined the group on the AIDS Lifecycle Ride in California. This was a huge wakeup call that we are not effectively using our executive sponsor to help raise visibility and awareness, and to educate senior management on the issues we face.

After a quick break we were off to the Gala Awards Dinner.

After a leisurely start to Day 1, I regret that today’s session (the first official day of the conference) started bright and early at 8am. Which translates to 5am my time. Which means we woke up at 3:30am my time to get ready (showered and dressed) to start the day.

We went down to the plenary event (which included breakfast - thank goodness for coffee), and listened to Chrissy Gephardt (yes, daughter of dick Gephardt) speak. No offense to her, but I think she must have been asked to do this at the last minute. In the program guide it said “speaker to be announced”, and it appeared as though she really was not prepared to talk to us. Even some of the questions were diverted to the facilitator, Wes Combs.

What I did find interesting, however, is that she, and the president of Out & Equal (Selisse Berry) did share some common non-verbal communication. Let’s see if you can spot the similarity.

Uncanny isn’t it?

After the first plenary, we went to workshop #1. I chose a workshop called The Importance of Human Capital. It was supposed to be a workshop telling us how to use quality methods like CMMI and Six Sigma to quantify the value of people in the corporation. It did not achieve the stated goal. It was basically and hour of introduction to quality analysis, and information on the Malcolm Baldridge award. Very disappointing.

After lunch, my second session was about the New York Times, and their use of media to support GLBT issues through time. It was a somewhat boringly delivered presentation, but the information was very interesting. Too much preparation by the panel caused it to be less interactive than it should have been.

Afternoon plenary (presented by Dell) was a musical presentation by Bernice Johnson Reagon and her daughter Toshi Reagon. Very entertaining and enjoyable.

We had a dinner break, then came back for the evening entertainment. It was a three part session, with some native dancing from an India troupe, a comedy troupe from the DC area, and the band Betty (who has been featured on the L-Word).

Although the first sessions I attended were not what I would call superb, I am looking forward to the sessions tomorrow, including an executive manager panel in the morning.

We arrived in Washington, DC yesterday, got a good night’s sleep, then got up today for our pre-conference leadership seminar presented by the GLBT Learning Institute of UCLA.

Very disappointing. We did not learn anything from this session that we haven’t learned from any number of company management training sessions.

I really don’t want to say much more - it’s feedback more appropriate to give directly to our corporate diversity team, but again, very disappointing.

After the session, Rachelle and I joined the rest of the folks from the company at Buca di Beppo (which stands for Buca’s basement I think) for dinner. Unfortunately, the only way they could accommodate 21 people was to put us at four tables next to each other. It wasn’t very social.

Anyway, we sat with a couple folks and chatted for a few hours through dinner - unfortunately had to sent my plate back at one point because they didn’t tell us that the cannelloni had meat in it. Me and my special needs :-).

Tomorrow starts the main conference. We’re going to spend a few hours tonight going through the conference book to determine which workshops we plan to attend and then it’s to bed. We’ll be up bright and early for the breakfast and 8am plenary session.

Rachelle and I arrived safely in Washington, DC for the 2007 Out and Equal Workplace Equality Conference…

It was a long trip, getting up at about 5am to finish packing before Rachelle arrived to get me at 6am. Flight departed at 8am - thankfully a direct flight to Washington Dulles, then a cab ride over to the wrong hotel, then another cab right to the correct hotel.

The highlight of the flight was the VAST amount of space I had to use my laptop. As you can see I was able to full open the display, and it couldn’t have been more ergonomic. That … person … in front of me apparently didn’t feel he had nearly enough room in Economy Plus, and so he needed to recline his seat back into the economy section.

We got two movies on the flight - Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer (which I watched with no audio but still completely understood the entire movie), and Blades of Glory, which I watched with audio and laughed through the entire thing.

After we finally arrived at the correct hotel, we found ourselves on a smoking floor. We went right back to the check-in desk and found a new and fresher smelling room. This room has a semi-lovely view of the Washington Monument…set against the um…boring skyline of DC.

We went down to the hotel restaurant and had some drinks and delicious baked brie, then did a bit of work before heading to bed.

Tomorrow we have some free time in the morning, then have a special leadership seminar for our company, provided by the GLBT Leadership Institute of UCLA.

As I start to look at re-branding this blog, I wanted to take a moment to call your attention to what I feel are 16 of the most interesting posts that have flowed from my brain in the last couple of years. You may not find all of them hilarious or funny, as many of my posts tend to be, but you might find them interesting.

Insightful, inspiring, informative. The 3 I’s of blogging. Well, interesting as well, so really the 4 I’s of blogging. My four eyes. You get the point.

So without further or farther adieu or adoo, here I present them for your review:

1. Back before my wordpress migration, I did a 5 post series on the 2006 Out and Equal Workplace Equality Conference. You can start at the beginning when Rachelle and I arrived in Chicago, enjoy our adventures at a disgusting restaurant called Stetson’s, and revel in the magnificence of us meeting Mr. Sulu of the Enterprise.
2. Continuing on the multi-post theme, who could forget the 5 days of Victoria, BC. Not only did I finally get to meet Bobby Apperson, but we once again experience the awe inspiring Butchart Gardens.
3. Next on the list is an informational page about the Randompedia, the Random Encyclopedia. Are you looking for things you’d never find in wikipedia? Look no further/farther.
4. A pivotal point in my life centered around an event in November 2006. NaNoWriMo, the writing competition to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Well let me tell ya, I didn’t just complete it, I blew it out of the water in 12 days then started on the next one! Here’s the post that started it all. (And the post about my first book published on amazon.com)
5. Ready for something spooky and scary? How about the story behind one of my favourite holidays? Hellaween! (I also shared the true history of Valentine’s Day too, but it’s not one of my favourite holidays because it’s not really a holiday. However, Easter is.)
6. The list wouldn’t be complete without at least one GLBT informational component, and what better than a warning that you should not do business with the gays. Ok, maybe two components - especially a warning about hate crimes.
7. The Hellaween season continued with a quick movie review. Some of you might recall the 8 Films to Die For series, and specifically, the movie Unrest. Yeah - I tried to forget it too. Here’s the review.
8. One of the longest series posts that I’ve done here is the Childhood Journal. After receiving a stack of old notebooks from my parents, I realized there was a goldmine of interesting writings from yours truly back when I was a wee little boy. Here’s the one that kicked it off, which includes a link to the entire series.
9. Ok, so GLBT is a common theme here, and so I should probably fill you all in on what it means to be a Friend of Dorothy.
10. Want to know how to make the world a better place? Try Star Trek.
11. I don’t just care about making the world a better place, I also want to make your lives and relationships better. Who knew that you could learn so much about a relationship from your toothbrush?
12. One of the most popular posts I’ve ever done was about throwing a wine party. It’s really quite easy, and I’ve provided simple instructions on making it a memorable event.
13. Some of you were probably wondering when I’d get to this one, and number 13 is probably appropriate for it. That’s right, it’s my American Idol series.
14. Time for a meme. I’ve done quite a few of these, so I’ll lump some together into #14. What’s on your iPod, iTunes Meme, and What’s On Your Desk.
15. Sometimes it’s important to share your dreams. For some reason I felt compelled to share one of my most bizarre ones with you.
16. Finally, I provided more education, in a post on 8 Quick Tips for Aspiring Amateur Photographers. We don’t just provide entertainment here, we also educate.

So there you have it. 16 posts (actually 22 but in a list of 16) that resonated with me and with my readers (based on a very scientific process that I developed just for this post). Have a great time browsing around, and remember that these are just a sample of what we have to offer here at Digital Heath.

Also remember - safety first!

Awesome.

Here’s the Commercial Closet link.

I don’t know how on earth this item escaped main world news, but here’s an excerpt and link from Towleroad.

A doctor involved in the preparation of a healthcare regulation bill in the Indonesian province of Papua cited dangerous behavior among some infected with the HIV as the reason lawmakers are considering the use of microchip implants in tracking some HIV carriers. [Link]

I’m astounded. I’m also a member of Harris Poll, and in most of the ones I have completed in the last year, there is a question near the end of the survey about “Which of the following things do you consider a serious violation of privacy?”

On that list are things like thorough screenings at airports based on visual profiles, cookies on your computer that track personal preferences, unrequested telemarketing calls, and screening prospective employees for AIDS.

Just imagine if you had to walk through a security portal that not only scanned your badge to see if you were an employee, but also scanned for a microchip inside you that classified you as being HIV+…

Aside from the personal privacy issues, I’m thinking of the complete humiliation for having one of MANY diseases that have no cure and are contagious. Are we going to tag people who regularly get the flu? What about herpes - that could mean chipping nearly the entire population. What if I have a chronic cold - like half the people I work with every day? You can’t cure the cold, and it’s highly contagious - why not chip me for that too?

I’m just picturing big red flashing lights going off above the portal if someone walks through not in 100% good health. We’d all have to wear earplugs, because it would be going off non-stop.

*Airport screening image from NASA Explores *