Just what the doctor ordered...
Wednesday, November 2, 2005 at 5:11PM Dateline: hotel, Crystal City, Arlington VA, 2 November 2005
Up at 0500 in San Antonio. Driver to airport. Short fligth to Dallas-Fort Worth (some airport!), then the long haul to Baltimore. First class, so relaxed. I set up the boilerplates on 10 blog posts, but then start dicking with the brief and I do that the rest of the way. Put together what I now feel is the killer package of PNM greatest hits plus slides that cover the first half of BFA (the prescriptions--just can't get to the back-half material in these one-hour briefs).
Land at BWI, hop in rental and drive to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (hope I remember that acronym correctly). Speak in same big auditorium there I spoke at about two years ago. SRO plus another 100 or so on closed-circuit. I give them 70 slides in 70 minutes in that bang-bang rapid-fire way that my slidemaker Bradd Hayes prefers. It goes over very well. Some Big War crabbies frowning throughout, but a lot of young faces very excited.
Then I hop in rental and drive to hotel in Crystal City, steam wrinkles out of my pants, switch ties, and walk several blocs to Principles of War seminar talk I give to another SRO audience of defense community types. Event is Office of Force Transformation sponsored and hosted by current head of Navy plans and policy, a good guy named John Morgan (think he's a three-star). I get two hours here instead of one, so I really relax and have fun with the 70 slides. Probably my best performance to date with the BFA brief. Signed books. Made a lot of contacts. Got some feedback from people inside the Pentagon about how BFA already being put to use. Extremely gratifying to hear. The reform movement in the direction of the SysAdmin force is real and it's happening.
Good example: just got invite from Lt Gen David Petraeus to address big command school student body audience in late Jan at Fort Leavenworth in KS. Gonna have to quid pro quo that one. Want some face time before then.
Yes, yes, the wheels are turning.
Tomorrow is chock-full for me. May be looking at a super blog post on Friday.
Reader Comments