Honorary Board of Directors

This was originally posted at Joyful Jubilant Learning
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In this month’s celebration of men I would like to acknowledge the male members of my inspirational and honorary Board of Directors. Yes, sometime I’ll reveal the female members. It is only fair to provide equal attention. This time is for the men. If there are modern day heroes, these are ones that have worked for me.

The first, without question, is my father, Gerald Sherlock. Recording and sharing his life story is one of my projects. It has been on the back burner while Franklin Matters took some priority but time will be allocated to swing back to Jerry’s Story. I have recordings to edit and many pieces of the story to follow upon. Jerry has a few more years to talk about as we are just getting into the 1950’s when I came along into his and mother’s life.

Representing the athletic endeavors I attempt from time to time:

Bill Bradley The former Senator from NJ, the former forward for the NY Knicks. I read with great interest his story as told in John McPhee’s book “A sense of where you are”. The tips and tricks that Bill used drove my basketball preparations.

Edwin Moses between 1977 and 1987, he won 107 consecutive finals (122 consecutive races) and set the world record in his event four times. Edwin was superbly prepared for each race. He also advanced the technique in the intermediate hurdles becoming the first man to stride between in only 13 steps. I attempted the hurdles but was no where near as successful as he was. None the less, he was a great inspiration.

Representing the poetic writing I attempt:

Robert Bly I first saw Robert when I was a student at Assumption College. My work study job assignment was to video tape the lecture series on campus. I’ll never forget his reading when he tried on his “death mother” mask to read his poem, “Counting Small Bone Bodies”. The horror of war was made more horrible with his remarkable performance.

Billy Collins He created the paradelle as a parody and inspired me to create sherku. You can read more about Billy’s influence on the origin of sherku here. I had the opportunity to meet Billy a couple of times at the Dodge Poetry Festival, once getting an autograph of his for an important person.

Representing business inspirations:

Kirk Weisler – I encountered Kirk at a Help Desk Institute conference. I was attending a full day session on metrics and reporting. His full day session was next door and they were having way-too-much-fun. I needed to find out more about who that was. I didn’t need to wait too long. He was part of the conference welcome session and did a skit mimicking Forest Gump. I juggled my prepared schedule to attend one of his track sessions and have been an admiring follower since. His Thought for the Day (T4D) is well worth the daily dose of an email.

Mark Hurst – One of the more interesting folks I found early on in my blogging days. I found his newsletter and subscribed learning all about “good experience”. This resonated well with me as I had been striving for that in my own work. I managed to attend his conference, Good Experience Live in 2005 and have also managed to attend each one since then.

Representing new media aspirations:

Chris Brogan & Christopher S Penn – In social media, Chris and his good buddy, Christopher S Penn, have few equals. Chris had let Rosa Say know about the first PodCamp Boston. Rosa posted the notice on Talking Story where I found it. Now, for an unconference, a free conference on podcasting, to be held here in Boston… well there was no chance I was not going to be there. I signed up on the wiki, and volunteered to work at the registration desk with Sooz. I met Chris there, attended his session and have been helping with PodCamp Boston since then. Christopher S Penn, is a co-founder of the PodCamp movement. From that first weekend, the PodCamp movement has continued to grow and evolve to be held around the world. If you wanted, you could attend a couple of events a month. Through Chris and Chris, I have been exposed to new technology and how it can be applied. I have been exposed to so many people doing really good work that I don’t believe I could have accomplished as much alone. In fact, much of the technology I share with this JJL Community comes from Chris and Chris either directly or indirectly via the connections they enabled.

Representing the teacher training education I received during my college days:

Mike O'Shea, who had a passion for Irish literature and theater
Joe O'Brien, who has a passion for teaching and process
Robert Cormier, who had a passion for running and exploring limits

These teachers were all associated with Assumption College, my alma mater. They have moved on from this world but I am sure they are continuing to inspire from where they are watching over us.

I feel honored to have been able to work with and learn from these individuals; most directly, some indirectly. I can return the honor in two ways: one, with this public acknowledgment of their place on the honorary Board of Directors; two, with my own daily performance. If I do what I need to do, I should be able to reflect something of them in all that I do.

Do you have a "Board of Directors"? Who would be on it?