Larry and I live in downtown San Diego, and I cannot tell you how many times we walk around the neighborhood and I say, “Jeez, where’s the camera when you need it?”  Well, this time I had the camera!

I have seen this guy around the cruise terminal at the port, and other places.  This “bicycle” is captivatingly over-dressed, to say it mildly.

We see costumes on people on non-costumey days.  One day I saw a gaggle of women dressed in red and purple and immediately recognized them as members of the Red Hat Society.  They were fully self-expressed indeed.

If we ever got bored, it would be our own fault.  The enticement of living downtown has many facets.  We have thought of numerous photo essays we’ll one day do.  One particularly appealing one is to capture all the old small hotels tucked around downtown San Diego, in various stages of disrepair.

Did I mention we are within walking distance of probably 400 restaurants of one culinary bent or another? Too great!  A fellow USD MBA alum, Darren More, is part owner of two of those restaurants — a relatively new Mexican restaurant called La Puerta at 901 Fourth Avenue, and the other is Confidential (www.confidentialsd.com) also on Fourth Avenue.  Both are excellent culinary experiences, just down the street from one another.

For women readers only:  Could you imagine living across the street from Ralphs grocery store AND Nordstrom?  We live in the Marina District just far enough away from the Gas Lamp that we can’t hear the music until 1 a.m. (but we DO still hear the train at night.)

The downtown San Diego association does an incredible job of keeping the core of our city clean — the trees watered and trimmed, garbage picked up, and homeless who want to go home can get jobs to earn money for a bus ride back to wherever they came from.  I feel safe on the street in the evenings.  Darned it, here’s what I want to say — I am proud of our downtown San Diego, and very happy to be a resident.

This is me April 09, talking about a poster that I created to represent my stand for the world that leaders (and we are ALL leaders in our lives) lead in such a way that trust is present.

Larry and I each presented a poster at the Conference for Global Transformation which is a part of the Power and Contribution capstone course in Landmark Education’s Wisdom division.  At the final of five weekends, graduates are invited back to share what they have generated in results for the world that makes a difference in areas where they are committed to making a difference.

Personally, I am committed to the conversation about leadership, learning more about what makes a leader tick, and particularly I am interested in where leaders get their guidance.  It is my business, coaching leaders, and I know how few are really interested in being open and vulnerable, in looking deeply, in being with the impact their decisions have on the satisfaction, the expression, the experience of others.

What questions should we be asking ourselves, what skills should we be developing, where are we hiding that we should come out of hiding?  I am busy, busy, busy too.  But what for???

If you want to engage in a dialog with me, please do!  I’m moving at the speed of sludge into the social media world, and I am moving.  I’ll engage with you there.  I am also creating a research project around this topic, if you have expertise or thoughts, let me know.

This is Captain Mark Kohlheim, US Navy and SSC Pacific Commanding Officer.  At SPAWAR, he’s responsible for a whole lot of innovation for the world. They employ 4,200 people and operate like a not for profit with revenues of $2.5 billion.  In that workforce are 150 Ph.D.’s and 800+ masters degrees.  Most amazingly, they won the #1 best place to work in the United States!

Larry and I had an opportunity to hear Captain Kohlheim speak to an intimate gathering of MIT Graduates as a guest at the MIT Club the other evening.  I frankly wasn’t looking forward to it, thinking it would be a lot of war talk.  Boy, was I wrong!

Yes, there is the threat of a lot of stuff going wrong, and Captain Kohlheim is in charge of what he calls being on the “left” side of the boom!

There were plentiful acronyms, but Captain Kohlhiem brought me to attention with his capacity to look forward.  For instance, he said, “We are in a global economy, we need to be able to interoperate.  Everything we do as an economy is touched by cyberspace.  What is coming beyond cyber?  The coming ubiquitous environment is to become predictive.  We can’t do that right now.  But we need to.

SPAWAR is currently running 800 projects ranging from ocean to space, many revolutionary, disruptive technologies.  What Captain Kohlheim wants is to get to the next game changer!  He wants to create an unfair advantage.

This isn’t just a good idea.  It’s a process of mixing government/military with cooperative research and development agreements for technology transfer.  And it’s in San Diego!

I was struck by his observation that we do not generate enough scientists and engineers in this country and it’s a national tragedy.  But he is not only worried about that, just like in every other aspect of this rich, diverse resource in San Diego, he’s seeing that SPAWAR is doing something about it in the form of educational outreach programs.  “Society gets what they celebrate,” he said.

I am impressed with the opportunity to have this intelligent and informed military force here in San Diego working for innovation that transfers those innovations not just in keeping this land safe, but in helping this country to generate the next generation of innovations.

We live no more than five miles from the Old Town SPAWAR headquarters, and I had no idea!  I am grateful to have had this exposure so that now I can appreciate another of San Diego’s many rich resources for its contribution to the world, not just the United States.

This is what I heard, it is not an official report from SPAWAR, but I am sure I got enough of it right to appreciate the resource and speak to its power as a generative environment for innovation that makes a significant difference.  Captain, I salute you.