The Change Commission’s first meeting

Today marked the first of the Change Commission meetings. 

Who & why we are:

 A group of 37 people – a wide range of backgrounds - (incredible people and I’m humbled to be a part of this group) – - assigned to provide a recommendation on how the presidential nominating process should be done in the future. 

Up front caveat: these notes do not reflect any decisions by the commission nor any DNC recommendations.  Today was all about background from experts.  I also want to caveat that, while I was taking copious notes, I missed my calling (at least according to my prescription -ready handwriting) to be a physician – so not all of my notes were easily decipherable and some points may not fully represent the expert’s commentary.  In those cases, I did a bit of interpolation.

The issues for the Change Commission to examine as put forward by the DNC resolution include (more detail in a separate post on the session led by Patrice Taylor)

1. the issue of timing and frontloading of primaries
2. the issue of superdelegates and their out of proportion representation
3. the question of caucuses and how to run them better

Here’s a photo of our illustrious chairs – Sen. Claire McCaskill and Rep. James Clyburn:

 

Today’s meeting agenda (I will be posting separate blogs on a couple of the sessions that had more detail)

• They ran a tight meeting – it was supposed to go from 9:30-4 and we were out by 2:45.
• Today’s session focused on history and analysis of how things have been done in the past.  Our next 3 sessions are slated for August, October and December. 
• Opening remarks from Gov. Kaine, Sen. McCaskill, and Rep. Clyburn
• The History of Modern Day Democratic Presidential Nomnations (1976-2008) by Rhodes Cook (here’s his picture)

• Presentation on Unpledged Delegates by Dr. Elaine Kamarch (Kennedy School of Government)
• Interests and Goals of the Party, Presidential Candidates & Voters by Dr. Melanie Springer (Wash U)
• Overview of the Change Commission Issues by Patrice Taylor (DNC)
• Presentation on the Caucus System by Mitch Stewart (Heads up Organizing for America)

Highlights/Key takeaways:

• Fundamentally,  it was incredibly enlightening and humbling – not to mention incredibly fun – to re-live some of the campaign moments from last year – especially during the session
• As was stated by DNC chair Gov. Tim Kaine – we have a bit of a luxury to come up with something that’ll be thoughtful because we don’t have a major battle coming up in 2012 – whereas the Republicans, who are going through this in parallel, are also jockeying for what will serve their own candidates best.
• The key is not just reverse engineering the 2008 victory – because we don’t know whether that is the new normal or a complete anomaly.  Rather – the key is coming up with plans that are long-lasting and non-reactive.
• I feel like the group was still very focused on the “issues” we were designated to resolve but didn’t really work to set out the objectives.  I mentioned to a few key folks that I thought it was critical that we stay focused on the bigger objectives of getting a great candidate and building up the wave behind them.  Hitting the objectives and conflict resolution are not necessarily the same thing here. 
• From the sessions – one big point I took away was that having a single national primary day would not benefit our objectives – but that it’ll be very difficult without incentives to get the states to voluntarily change their dates, spread the map or move to a same day primary.  Two ideas raised were: bonus delegates for later states and allow later states to do a winner take all strategy. 
• Caucuses – there had been some fear among friends that the commission intended to do away with caucuses.  On the contrary – i think that the commission and the DNC recognize the value of caucuses and, if anything, seem like they want to make them better and, perhaps, more systematic. 

welcome to civics!

Here’s another site with some analysis on the makeup of the commission.

 Press coverage so far:

ABC News:

Washington Post

Thanks!

Suzi

 

 

Microsoft Imagine Cup – students showing that nothing is insurmountable

I’m here in Cairo at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup (been here since July 2nd) and am blown away by both what these students can/are doing and by the fact that we need to figure out how to take impediments and speed bumps out of their way.

We started out the first official event at the Citadel.  An incredible event during which students run in and are recognized by country.  Several amazing things about this event:

1. Probably the first time many of these students have had an olympics-like experience.  Sappy mom that I am, I was completely crying – being proud of them and also projecting to how I’ll feel in the future at my own kids’ accomplishments. 
2. The students’ projects are truly mind-blowing in quality, presentation, and consideration

The theme is how they would address the UN Millenium goals using technology.  Just like a person unfamiliar with gravity will try something that others might not for fear of falling, these students assume they can resolve these enormous issues.  And their projects are real and effective.  From one group creating a way to ameliorate hunger by creating protein powder from bugs to another group creating a volunteer matching system (I so wish I had that for Kavana and the other volunteer programs I do) to agricultural simulations and more. 

From a personal standpoint, it’s been incredible to also see the truly global nature of this event.  It is the opposite of US Centric.  In fact, in terms of media, there aren’t any US media here.  There are members of the press from Australia, Kazhakstan, Kenya, France, Canada and more.  But no US. 

Today (the 7th) they’ll hold the world festival in the shadow of the pyramids and will announce the winners.  Should be very emotional and special.  I encourage you to read about some of the projects here.

Today, I sat in on a press roundtable with some of the judges from the Unlimited Potential category.  It gives some insight into what the judges saw and were thinking and how the overall event helps the world.  Here are my notes:

MSFT is trying to reach and use technology in communities in sustainable and scalable ways – Unlimited Potential – next 5 Billion

Technology can address some of the most basic challenges. 

• Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala - from India – Railway reservations were one of the first ways that technology transformed existence in India.  IC has been eye-opening for him.  Getting them to try to understand problems of society is eye-opening.  Very simple things: one of the biggest problems is how to vaccinate each child.  They’re available and free, but how to make sure that they’re actually deployed.  A simple tracking of which has been vaccinated and how do we send SMS messages to parents to remind them and track it.  One of the teams built a system to do this.  Thanks MSFT for getting students together and getting them excited to think about this.  Trying to get the to believe that if tehey use tech & biz acumen, they can make a difference
• Nick Hughes – did something called M-PESA – gives a person with a phone a way to manage money.  Impressed with how the students used mobile technology to address issues/concerns in the world.
• Kentaro Toyama – research at Microsoft – has both social scientists and computer scientists in the group.  This has enabled them to do some major projects.  Pleased that all 5 teams went and did research before they came up with their solutions. The more technologists get out – the better the solutions will be.
• Ed Granger-Happ – CIO at save the children and Nethope – Feels that this year’s students have matured and appreciate the sometimes connected world well & how does tech work within that space.   An oppy to have the students become the teachers. Thought there wree 3 key trends:

1. sharing bite sized info (ie mobile use)
2. automating paper-work (ie vaccination forms, medical records)
3. notice factor (ie students have grasped that reminders via cell phones are very important

Dr. J: feels that MSFT is enabling that maturity

There was more, but those statements were really at the heart of their commentary.

It feels incredible to see the  focus on impact!

History of Modern Day Democratic Presidential Nominations

What could easily be an entire survey course (and should be), was conducted in about 18 minutes (I don’t think Rhodes Cook – who delivered this session – took a breath the whole time!)

The speaker, Rhodes Cook - has written for the Congressional Quarterly for a very long time and, as you’ll see on his site, also wrote about the Presidential nominating process.

Ordinarily, I’d put highlights at the top, but in this particular blog, I’ll pretend that it’s like you’re sharing my course notes and let you read all of the way through to the end before I include highlights:

In the past, typically Rhodes is in the audience reporting on the news.  He was excited to be at the front speaking in front of the commission.

Overall, he was doing a retrospective on 1979-2008.  However, he went all the way back to the founding fathers. 

Looking back, there were several eras that flowed from all party elites to becoming increasingly democratic.  Here’s the overall history:

• Founding fathers were the original superdelegates.  They held congressional caucuses with the Congress people and they simply went off into a corner and nominated a candidate.  With westward expansion, conventions replaced the caucus in 1830 – and then Jackson was the first convention candidate. For the next 150 years it was that model
• From there we have had a movement for more direct presidential nominations.  In 1912 (Titanic year, he pointed out), Presidential nomination was a mess (Taft, Roosevelt & Wilson) but conventions were still became where delegates were chosen. 
• Heading into 1968 there were only 15 primaries – and the primaries were defined by the primaries btw Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy (although Humphrey got the vp nomination in Chicago after not having done any primary involvement)  From that bloodletting in Chicago, ther ewas a major reform in the process. 
• The 1970s were a decade for dark horses: McGovern (who wrote the new McGovern-Frasier rules) & Carter chief among them.  From 1968-1972, the number of primaries doubled because of the new rules and McGovern leveraged that because he focused on early states (AZ, IA & NH).  therefore – he performed better than expected.  Back then, the primary system was backloaded to May & June and were winner take all.  The early ones were stepping stones for candidates to win one at a time.  The Dark Horse could get momentum.  McGovern had more psasionat supporters & surprisingly even won southern states in delegates.  Then – he won CA (winner take all at the time).  In 1972, there was a challenge at the convetion but they still won the vote.  Carter was not propelled by a fervor, but was the 1st post watergate election (I will not lie).  He focused primarily on early states  -again – to get the momentum.
• 1976 – it was the last year for late starting candidates (but they ran into the fact that if you had a lead in the delegates early on, because of proportional distribution, you have an insurmountable lead.
• 80s changed the process – superdelegates were supposed to counteract the 70s and act as adult supervision to what had become “amateur hour”.  They saw the rise of the regional primaries (super tuesday in the southern states was designed to propel someone from the south but it didn’t work)
• Up to 2008, earlyu ends to the nomination hvae been a feature.
• 1992 – Clinton won by April – winning a lot on super tuesday in march
• 1996 – not a democratic contest.
• 2000 – Look at the calendar.  There was a win for Gore, but the issue is that the stage went dark for a month – while George Bush kept the spotlight.  Some say that he never recovered from that. 
• 2004 – John Kerry – won from the get go (IA, NH) and really started further raising question of influence of IA & NH (more on that in a later post).
• In response to the IA & NH influence, the DNC allowed 2 other states to get at the front of the pack: NV (as a caucus) and SC (as a primary).  Of course, IA & NH didn’t like that – so moved their events earlier.  Plus MI and FL wanted early events too and moved theirs before the official opening.  Net net  – there was an incredible frontloading of the primaries (including the plethora of primaries/events on opening day – Feb 5).

Cook went on to say that “now we’re trying ot put the genie back in the bottle”

 

Superdelegates have only been a big factor in 1984 with Mondale at which time they were, essentially, the 1st primary (not all elected officials were superdelegates – and they represented only 14% of the total delegates).  They made their decision before IA and NH and, in 1984, gave Mondale an insurmountable lead in delegates, even though Gary Hart started to produce better primary results later on.

In 2008 – superdelegate numbers increased to 20% because there’s been “superdelegate creep” (suzi’s term, not Rhodes Cook).  Initially, not all members of congress, DNC, etc.. were included.  in 2008 they were.  (more on superdelegates in a different post)

Regarding caucuses – in the past caucuses were not debated so heavily.  Many reformers thought caucuses were better - as they would reward party activits and would not be overwhelmed by more casual delegates.  Caucuses have been a backwater and a place of passion.

Rhodes finished by congratulating us on driving to make change even when we won.  Typically change is a “losers lament”.

In the Q&A:

Q: thoughts on regional primaries?

A: Tried in 1996 in an ad hoc grouping.  Dismantled cause of lack of opposition but worth revisiting

Q: Internet voting comment?

A: no real comment other than pointing out that AZ ran a primary online in the past and that there was a question of the digital divide

Q: Key issues/challenges?

A: states not wanting to move

Presentation on Caucus Systems (by Mitch Stewart)

Mitch Stewart is the head of Organizing for America (within the DNC and the morph from Obama for America.  They must have wanted to keep the monogrammed OFA hand towels)

I learned the least but enjoyed this one the most – because it helped me relive some amazing experiences from last year.  That said – others in the room learned a ton about caucuses.

From my local dems, I think there had been a concern that the Change Commission might be on a mission to get rid of Caucuses.  from this meeting, I didn’t get a sense of that at all.  Instead, I sensed a deep appreciation for what caucuses can do/provide.  Here are the notes.

Caucus 101:  (the video from Iowa)

• Most of the caucuses are tier leveled
• Dates & rules for each are determined by the political party
• Paid for by the party
• Anyone can participate if you’re eligible to vote
• Representatives

Benefits enumerated:

• Grassroots activism
• Fosters party-building
• Emphasizes participation

Considerations:

• Adequately planned and organized
• Maximizing democratic value

Q&A:

Question from Suzi: Commonalities/economies of scale solutions to address some of the woes of the caucuses and expand the benefits?

A: Could be technology:

• Ie – IVR at Iowa
• IOWA has a number of different levels of technology
• Online capabilities potentially

In Iowa – had 238,000 caucus attendees

• believes that they did get more folks on board
• Believes that the caucus value is high in terms of leaderships and in terms of the pure democracy to it.

Steve Horsford from Nevada talking about the value of the caucus in building up the party

Additional comments/qs:

Helps build up a Database  - not just registered democrats (from suzi)

Idea: Need “caucus in a box” (from suzi)

Democratic AND inclusive? (question from suzi on how you maintain both. Stewart’s answer was that you can’t really.  absentee caucus won’t work)

Interesting data to explore (staffers to look into this)

• Caucus state – pre/post democratic registration and activitism V. primary states
• Can you show the relative value with the caucuses – especially looking at 2010 – are those folks behavioral democrats
• Idea – for a deeper study on caucus v. primary states and the ability to contribute to the goal.  A study of best practicesstor

Overview of the Change Commissions Issues

For 2012 – the opening of window must move to

• Pre-window events : Feb 1
• Window first Tues in March

Issue: window timing

Advanteges:

• addresses concerns that nominating process begins too early in the calendar

Challenges:

• How do we get states to move to march
• 20 states hheld government run/finance primaries in February
• 14 states held party run events

Issue: frontloading

• 23 states on the opening day of the calendar in 2008
• Consider:
• Does frontloading have negative impact on calendar

Issue: enforcement:

• Are the current sanctions in place sufficient – should there be add’l ones in plcace

Issue: collaborating with the RNC:

 (this year, for the first time, they have a commission as well)

• RNC has ruled their window opening on Feb 7, 2012. 

Interests & Goals of the Party, Presidential Candidates & Voters

This presentation from Dr. Melanie Springer (Wash U) was an excellent overview of primary timing and effects.

Aspects of primary timing and then survey results about what voters might want to see.

Primary reform: within American federalist system – it’s mostly been States determining rules of credentials and such. With decentralization, there’s  a lot of variety/fragmentation.  States get to decide rules is impressive –but tension between state & national objectives (around equality, fairness, etc…) – become more important when looking at presidential selection.

Extreme fragmentation – then named all sorts of different goups.  But fragmentation interpreted as irrational and disorganized.

Frontloading – in 2004 , iowa had a disproportionate value.  “Frontloading”= selection fo delegates earlier and earlier)

First super Tuesday in 1984 – 9 states  In 1988 – 21 states  = thus – huge % of the delegates selected on super Tuesday

By 1996 – evolved to a virtual national primary

In 2008 – had the most compressed schedule in history .

Showed map from Stateline.org of 2004 v. 2008 of states and when they held their primaries. 

Why frontloading has happened: self interest so that they can have more impact. 

Sequential voting allows voters to learn how other shave chosen before they have to choose.

Earlier voting decisions convey 2 types of info to later voters.

1. Information about a canddiate’s polity positions or general qualities
2. Information about how successful a candidate can be in defeating “the opposition”

Early wins & resources

• Money raising is key here  -people want to give to a winner (and campaign costs increase over time).  Virtuous cycle
• Therefore – a lot of the early voter states’ money has that much more emphasis. 

The earliest states:

Iowa & New Hampshire

• They’re not considered reflective of the country and have disproportionate influence
• They have extremely polarized parties. Therefore – average party member is more extreme than other places.  Therefore – perhaps the candidates they’re selecting are more polarizing candidates
• In Iowa – rural dominated economy affects their decisions
• If early voters are ideologically different than the later voters – does it mess up the ideological balance of the candidates.

Advantage of frontloading:

• More media attention
• More expenditures of time and money in state
• More influence

Effect of frontloading:

• To speed up the choice of nominees to months before their praty’s national convention

What happened in 2008?

• Going last/close to last – gave states big exposure and impact
• Many complained about how long and contentious the process was this time around.

Some recommendations  about how we reform this process:

1. Set of regional primaries scheduled 2-3 weeks apart, with a randomly determined starting order
2. Or a single national primary day

By slowing down the process – candidates could focus on a particular area – with incremental info gathering process to occur with voters.  Sequential still remains

Nationalizing campaign & unique fragmentation of the process

What the public wants (survey conducted in 2007)

• Americans don’t care about the issue
• They want continued control of the process and would be hostile about elite power
• Support a national primary system compared to any other reform alternatives

Polling done in 2007 (not after the2008)

• 42% are unhappy to some degree
• 53% are unhappy to some degree

 Partisan  answers:

• 65% of Republicans were happy
• 52% of Dems are happy
• 48% of Independents were happy

Primary timing?

• 62% favor national primary
• 55% favor not allowing New Hampshire to vote first

Fundamentally: 93% want it to be more predictable orderly & fair

 Q&A:

Suzi Question: how do we unpack how Obama got elected and the value of the length of time he had to build up a head of steam and get to know each other?

A: Didn’t really answer the question.

Primaries have historically been all party insiders and not about general.

Unpledged Delegates (superdelegates)

This next session with Dr. Elaine Kamarck was all about the history, utility and viability of the superdelegates.  What’s especially interesting about her giving this session is that she was the research director back for the Winograd Commission in 1976 – so has a very long history with this topic (and is coming out with a book this next month on the topic)

This ABCNews article does a pretty good job of summarizing what came out of her session.

She harkened back to what Rhodes Cook had said that, for our first 150 years, our nominee was selected by superdelegates.  In 1972, there was a total revelation in the nominating process.  That said – it’s interesting to note that the McGovern-Frasier guidelines (developed after the Chicago debacle in 1968) didn’t call for more primaries.  However, the number of primaries went from 15 to almost 30 between 1968 and 1972 – giving McGovern a major advantage since he had written the rules and understood the importance of going out early to garner delegates.

How we do this is unique in the world.  Most democratic countries do it by party (ie Prime ministers)

In 1972 – several became caucus systems (it’s just easier)

Because people had to run for delegate, members of congress who had previously been delegates didn’t want to run against their constituents.  Thus – the number of elected officials dropped off at the conventions.

In 1980 - one of the bitterest conventions ever - spurred the Hunt commission.  This opened the door to superdelegates.  There was disstisfaction – led heavily by organized labor.  They looked at the last 10 years and saw that they gave us McGovern & Carter (who didn’t win a second term) and saw that it was bad news.  They didn’t see that it was a realligning era & a Republican resurgence.  They said they wanted party leadership back at the convention and on the floor.  The original proposal was for 30% to be supers, but they were concerned about diversity (most of the supers would be white men). SO – they settled on 14% and determined that those delegates would be elected by the house caucus. 

In 1984 – Mondale got a lead at this first caucus.  However, in every other election, supers have simply ratified the party results.  After 1984, the number of supers also continued to grow (to include all congresspeople, all governors, all DNC members).  The only major opposition raised was by Jesse Jackson. 

In 2008, it was the 1st race where it mattered – because the delegates were neck and neck.

Jeff Berman (Obama’s “delegate hunter”) really undertood the system the deepest and the Clinton folks didn’t.

Kamarck commented that she felt the supers should simply have positioned themselves to ratify the popular vote – and believes that this marked the end of the supers era.  Turning back the clock doesn’t work.  The deliberative role of the supers has been supplanted by public process. 

She also feels that this is at the root of caucuses and that they, too, are an elite system (note from Suzi – she obviously hasn’t been to a caucus in WA state ).  Therefore – anything that diminishes the public voice  becomes a problem.

In terms of regional primaries and state timing - the challenge is – who decides.  There are really 2 choices:

1. you can hope that the respective parties, state legislatures, etc… all agree on a calendar.
2. you can have congress mandate a bill – but there’s a big constitutional question about whether they have jurisdiction here.  plus – they’ve never shown an interest here.

she reminded us that conventions don’t deliberate -they ratify the results of the primary.  Last time the convention was deliberative was in 1980.  the convention is only deliberative if candidates take the fight to the floor.  the 1976 Ford v. Reagan race is worth looking at in terms of this situation. 

Q&A:

Q: Motivation of states for regional primaries?

A: None

Q: Deliberative nature was the basis for funding conventions by the FEC.  Does that persist?

A: yes. 

Kamarck want on to a slightly different topic – talking about the motivation for states to go first.  One big motivator is revenue.  States who get more attention make more money.  Thus – how do equalize the delegates & voters in later states to spread the calendar?  Bonus delegates?  a “sliding window” in which you allow winnter take all rules later in the process.  It emphasizes big prizes at the end.

Q: PLEO (party leader and elected official) – does that address the need for a designation for elected officials to make it to the convention?

A: not really. you could expand pleo ,but you still have the issue that those elected offiicals do not want to displace the mayors, councilpeople, etc… – and you also have that some folks won’t/shouldn’t state their preferences

From my Son…Jog-a-thon Fundraiser for his school

Please email me if you are interested/able to help.  Here’s what my 6 year old wrote to share why you should help him/his school (I corrected the spelling, but these are his words).  If you could consider a contribution of $10, that’d be tremendous!

This year, there is going to be a Jog-a-thon at Coe which is the school I go to.  Right now, I need help raising money because , well, for example, i learned to write poems.  This is how you think of something.  To start with, then instead of doing sentences, you do line breaks where you do words and then you do little lines to show the reader to pause. 

In other words – his school is raising money for covering a myriad of core programs (as I’m sure all schools are).  We’d be so appreciative if you could help him/his school.

Logistically – he has a deadline of May 29th.  If you can make a pledge, it’s fine if you can get the $$s to us within the next couple of weeks.

Thank you so much!

Suzi

Feel good moment du jour…

This morning, I’m having a meeting at a coffee shop on Capital Hill (Seattle neighborhood where I lived when I first moved here).  En route to the meeting, a frail, slightly disheveled, elderly gentleman who exuded warmth and humor was getting out of a car.  Trying to negotiate his walker, his bag, the car and the curb, I offered help.  He happily took it, holding onto my hand and offering me his bag.  As we walked into Ladro, everyone greeted him “Hi Ted” came from about 3 different people.  I helped him into his seat and then, on my way out, one of the people who said hi to him shared a very mini-version of Ted’s story with me when I asked why everyone knew him.

Turns out Ted has spent a lot of time at the coffee shop.  Plus – he used to play piano up the street at Victrola and, a long time ago, was a vaudeville performer.

In addition to feeling blessed that I had the opportunity to help  a person, I feel so honored that I had the chance to interact with a very local icon.  It makes me realize even further that everyone has a story and, given the chance, we should take the 2-3 seconds/minutes or whatever timeframe is needed to help others (i know – sounds totally trite, but get over it! I’m feeling mushy right now).   It also makes me hope that, when I’m that old (he seemed about 80) that people know and help me and feel a positive connection with/from me.  I also hope that when I’m 80 or so, that I’m getting out to the coffee shop! (although by then – who knows what the vice delivery vehicle will be).

It reminds me of a few weeks ago when we were getting off of I-5 and my 6 year old son, Sidney, saw a panhandler on the left side of the offramp.  Unfortunately, we were in the right lane.  We discussed how we might get that person the apple we had.  As I continued on without trying to get that person the apple, he got mad at me saying something like: you traded a small amount of time for a big amount of time.  (his statement was more crisp and more profound than my butchered version).  In other words – this kid put me in my place for trying to save a small amount of time in exchange for what could have really helped that person for a longer amount of time stay away from hunger (or so Sidney explained).

Net net – if only to avoid ridicule from my kids, I now take the opportunity to do good deeds whenever possible. 

Oh – and here’s one we do all the time that takes no time – but contributes to the positive energy in the world (and I got it from a book by a Rabbi about 365 good deeds we could do) :

If you see an emergency vehicle rushing to or from somewhere, send a little blessing/wish that the person/people they’re helping will be okay and that the responders will be able to do their jobs well and safely. 

Have a great day!

NEO ‘93 vs. NEO ‘09

I spent from about 8:20am until 3:15pm today in Microsoft New Employee Orientation.  Throughout the day, I had incredible flashbacks to my first NEO on July 19th 1993 – some mundane, some more profound; some obvious, some surprising.  Here are some  of those flashbacks and comparisons to today’s orientation.

• Size of the organization: approx 15,000 in ‘93 with 80-90% in Puget Sound v. approx 95,000 in ‘09 with somewhere less than 60% in Puget Sound (the data point I heard was that +40% is overseas – so am assuming that, with so many US folks in non-Puget Sound offices, it’s got to be less)
• Attitude – ‘93 - there was a pervasive sense of immortality and infectious infallibility – laced with the knowledge and excitement of being able to change the world with what we were doing.  In ‘09 – there’s still a sense of impact and being able to change the world, but in a more sustainable way (they even talked about not wanting people to be heroic – instead, wanting there to be more sustainable performance).  There’s also a lot more self-awareness of MSFT’s reputation and of areas that MSFT needs to improve (ie – they talked about wanting to improve the fact that people use their laptops during meetings). 
• Lasting friendships – ‘93 – there were about 40-50 people, if I remember correctly, in that NEO – and I made friends with Yoram Bernet – with whom I’m still good friends today.  ‘09 – there were about 30 people today and it was fun getting to know a couple of the people at my table.  In particular – I met Pradeep – a recent graduate from a Masters program who is going to be a developer.  From him, I learned a lot about the school system in India and expectations/stress.  Fascinating! 
• Lifestage of the organization – ‘93 – everyone at the training was young, there was hardly any mention of families.  ‘09 – almost every slide had something pertaining to families.  I’d guess the average age of the attendee was about 35 (I was older than some and younger than some) and many were asking family questions.
• Work/Life Balance – ‘93 – they shared that “Microsoft will take 120% of you 150% of the time if you give it. Your job is to make sure that you give enough that you’re still excited to come in to work every day”.  ‘09 – it’s recognizing that it’ll never be a real “work/life balance”  – but it’s critical that employees take ownership for their  own work/life plan – knowing that the company recognizes the importance for it.
• Spit and/or Polish – ‘93 – it was in a windowless big meeting room with a simple powerpoint and a presenter.  It took about 3-4 hours.   We did our paperwork at our seats.   ’09 – I walked into a very clear and well prepared set of paperwork filling out zones – and then spent the day in a gorgeous room with a high end projection system.  Over the course of the day, we did see powerpoint, but it also had videos and a demo built into the day – along with a tour of the Library and it’s amazing resources.  Extremely impressive.  While it may be tempting to wonder why the company should incur the extra expenses, it’s also important to recognize that happy, excited, fired up employees will work harder and do better.

Tomorrow – the work really begins and I can’t wait!

Note: It doesn’t escape me that Neo was Keanu Reeves’ character’s name in the Matrix.