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Managing priorities and maintaining balance

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This week marks five years since I started writing this weekly blog. I still get asked how I find time to write each week. That’s a great question. There are weeks when I don’t know how I will find the time.  At canstockphoto9530224 work life balanceindustry conferences, people often come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my blog. I was recently asked how long I’m going to keep writing. My answer was I’ll write as long as I have something to say that’s useful to others.

This is week three of my new interim management engagement. I have many new topics to cover based on all the best practices I’m seeing (PMO, Service Management, and effective meetings to name a few) but very little time to write.

My days are what you’d expect in an operations role while being in a learning mode. My nights are full reviewing documents balanced with addressing the highest priority follow-up work as a principal in StarBridge Advisors.

While I’m trying to keep up some level of exercise routine, gym workouts have fallen by the wayside. When we get busy, we have to prioritize and re-prioritize and be willing to let some things go. And we need to take care of ourselves.

Thursday night is when I usually finalize my blog and get it ready to publish first thing Friday morning. Many weeks, it’s when I finally write what I’ve been percolating on for a few days.

But this week Thursday night was a “date night”. A few years back when my husband and I first discussed the idea of me doing interim engagements, we thought that it could also mean having an adventure in another city if he came with me at times. We decided this was a good week for him to be in Burlington with me. We acted on that adventure goal and bought tickets for the Thursday night performance at the Burlington Jazz Festival. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Continue reading →

Spring can’t come soon enough

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As my daughter says, “You didn’t really think that through, did you?” She wasn’t referring to getting a new puppy which we’d talked about for months. She was referring to getting a “winter puppy” in the North.IMG_0295 (002) puppy

We trained new puppies in the summers of 2006 (Pepe) and 2008 (Coco). We had to let go of Pepe in 2017 due to a tumor on her liver; since then, we focused all our love on Coco. Then, we decided Coco needed an “intern”. Coco would have a friend that she could help train. What a concept!

We got our new puppy, Rosie, in late January. She was about 10 weeks old then.  We bought her a little dog sweater and puffy dog coat. We got her a collar and a leash. We hadn’t really thought that through.

Because, when we picked her up, the breeder said she was like an infant. She couldn’t go outside until probably end of March or she might catch a cold or pneumonia. Plus, she needed her three puppy shots – second was due mid-February and the last one mid-March – before she could be outside around where other dogs have been. Coco is up to date on shots, so they can share space in the backyard. That is, after the snow and cold is gone.

I haven’t even gotten to the two dogs getting to know each other part yet.

We set up Rosie in the shower stall of our guest bathroom. We made a little bed for her, put her food and water dishes nearby and put down papers for her to do her business on at the other end of the shower stall. We leaned a baby gate across the entrance to the shower. We let her out and played with her on the bathroom floor several times a day. We brought her down to the living room at night to sit on our laps while we watched TV. Mostly this worked and she was content. Continue reading →

2018 Countdown – top 10 blog posts

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It’s the time of year for top 10 lists and countdowns so I’m adding mine to the mix. These are my most read blog posts from 2018. If you missed any of them first time around now is your chance to check them Top10out.

I cover a range of topics and it looks like readers appreciate the variety. Here are the top 10 as measured by total views with a countdown from number 10:

#10 – Find your voice, a mentor and be bold – Career advice is always a popular topic whether you are early or late in your career.

#9 – What does a high value conference look like? – There are many ways to spend time and money on professional development, some conferences provide unique value.

#8 – Family ties – we all have a story – It’s important to know where we come from to understand who we are.

#7 – Technology making a difference at scale – One of my personal favorites! The power of technology takes many forms. In Africa, drones can be lifesaving.

#6 – 8 Signs of a strong security culture – Security is always a topic of interest as threats continue to increase and organizations are challenged to keep up. Continue reading →

Holiday stress? Remember your big rocks

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It’s holiday season. Are you stressing or relaxing? Are you hosting or bringing a dish to someone’s house? Are you braving the highways or airports? Are you questioning whether you bought the right gifts canstockphoto11846362 (1) holiday stressfor all the right people? Or trying to figure out when you can possibly take time to do gift shopping. Are you arguing with family over something that later you’ll decide was stupid? So many ways to be stressed at this time of year.

And so many ways to be with people we love. On business calls this week I’ve talked with people anxiously waiting for their college age kids to return home for their holiday break, people getting ready to have housefuls of out of town relatives with them for the next week, and others who are taking their family on a ski trip for the holidays.

For me, it’s all about being with loved ones. There will be the annual Schade Family Christmas Sleepover this weekend with my two daughters and their husbands and what I fondly call the “Fab Four” – my four grandkids who range in ages from 2 to 6 years old. Yes, it will be chaotic, but fun.

There will be the Christmas day dinner at my daughter’s house an hour away with her in-law’s family. It is her first time hosting everyone on Christmas and her stress is building. 15 adults and 6 kids for dinner. She works a 12-hour shift as a nurse practitioner on Christmas Eve so she’s trying to figure out when she will get everything done and ready. We’ll get there in time to help before everyone else arrives and she and her husband can delegate any task to us that they want to.

My holiday gift shopping is done. I subscribe to the “keep it simple” approach. It’s too easy to go overboard. For each grandkid, there will be one big present to unwrap. Then each pair of siblings will get an “experience”. Choice of more gymnastics or swim lessons for one family. Annual zoo membership for the other. As one of my daughters said to me a few years ago – get them experiences, they have plenty of toys.

The stockings hung at our house will be from nana and papa, not Santa. Continue reading →

Widen the circle

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Thanksgiving is often that day when we gather with family and friends, eat too much, maybe argue over politics, watch a lot of football, and generally have a good time being in the presence of people we carecanstockphoto21096824 (1) starts with you about. It’s that day when families widen their circle, make room at an already crowded table for friends and friends of friends who have no family nearby to be with.

I remember the last several Thanksgivings well. They represent our growing family.

Two of them were in Ann Arbor on long distance “baby watch”. In 2012, I was on my own having just started a new CIO position at Michigan Medicine. I was anxiously awaiting the call from our daughter in California to say she’d gone into labor and that I should get a ticket and fly out. It was our first grandchild. The plan was to help her out for the first week when they came home from the hospital. A couple I had met at church invited me to join their family on Thanksgiving as I waited. Two years later our second grandchild was due in Boston. Our best friends in Ann Arbor graciously invited my husband and I to join their family for Thanksgiving dinner as we waited for that call.

2013 was the only time we had our family at our Ann Arbor house – they travelled from both coasts for Thanksgiving. We also celebrated our grandchild’s first birthday together that long holiday weekend. And for my football fan son-in-law who grew up wanting to play for the University of Michigan, I bought tickets for everyone to go to the Michigan-Ohio game at the big house. A year to remember!

Over the next few years we became part of our Boston area daughter’s big extended family of in-laws. Now that my husband and I live in New England again and our California daughter and son-in-law live nearby, we have all been welcomed into the Boston area clan at the holidays. This Thanksgiving we were again part of that family but on a smaller scale. Continue reading →

Family ties – we all have a story

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I am the youngest of my three siblings; I have a sister and two brothers. My husband, Tom, grew up the middle child with an older brother and a younger sister. All of our parents were deceased by the time we Blooming Grove cropped icaruswere in our mid-30’s and raising our own children.

My husband’s brother, Ted, died last November. Tom and Ted had an up and down relationship over the years but had come to a good place together last year. They got together for dinner on Wednesdays and had become good friends.

Yesterday, Tom and I drove 350 plus miles to a small community, Blooming Grove, near Williamsport, Pennsylvania to bury Ted’s ashes. Tom’s sister flew in from Arizona and several of their cousins who live in New England joined us. Why Blooming Grove? This is where seven generations of Schade’s are buried. It is a small community of Dunkard Baptists who first immigrated from Germany in the early 1800’s. A place in the Schade family history I’d only heard stories about until this trip.

Several of those generations are on our family photo wall. It is a work in process. Tom continues to add pictures from both of our families as we go through old boxes of photos. Our oldest granddaughter is five. She loves the movie Coco and understands it is about honoring and remembering your ancestors. When she visits, we often review the family photo wall and explain who everyone is.   Continue reading →

Family first

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With a family vacation in our future that includes four grandkids between 2 and 5 years old, I am reminded who my big rocks are. While there may be times that vacation week when the level of chaos is more than I want, just being able to spend extended time together will be worth it.

I executed a new master plan two years ago that included living close to my daughters and their families. Since then I have had a chance to spend far more time with them than when I lived and worked halfway across the country.

I hope you all know who your big rocks are. And more importantly, that you make time to spend with them.

With that in mind, I’m sharing the “Do you know your big rocks?”  post I published in April two years ago.

Do you know your big rocks?

April is a mixed month for me. No, I’m not talking about the fact that we had snow this week. In April, I celebrate many happy milestones, including my birthday and my wedding anniversary. Andcanstockphoto25793802 now, both my daughters have April wedding anniversaries. And the blooming daffodils along the road remind me that spring is finally here. 

Yet, there is always a sad part of April for me. My father died from Hodgkin’s disease on April 23rd, just a few days before my fourth birthday. Losing a parent as a child leaves a hole in your heart and shapes who you are.

Stephen Covey has a great story about “big rocks”. If you’re not familiar with it, just google it. Our families are our big rocks and my daughters remind me of that. And as little as they are, my grandchildren are also big rocks for me.  Every time one of my daughters calls me on FaceTime and I see a cute little toddler smiling at me from my iPhone, I fall in love with them all over again. Continue reading →

Guide to HIMSS18 – onsite or remote

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If you work in health IT, you know that the annual HIMSS conference is the biggest annual industry event whether you are headed to Las Vegas next week or not. The number of emails, blog posts, social media HIMSS Blog Imageposts, and articles providing guidance and recommendations on HIMSS18 continues to grow with just a few more days before it all begins.

With so much info out there, I decided to pull together a few more resources that might help in your final preparation:

Here’s the good news! You don’t have to attend to benefit from all that’s happening there. HIMSS TV will be launched for the first time ever. There will be live coverage from the conference. You can also follow on Twitter using #HIMSS18 or specific hashtags for your area of interest.

Whether you are attending in person or following the happenings from a distance, the “Official HIMSS18 hashtag guide” will help you focus in on your areas of interest. And of course you’ll want to follow all the social media ambassadors.

Check out “HIMSS – are you ready?” from StarBridge Advisors to see our principals’ top picks for this year – mine are #WomenInHIT, #HITventure and #Connect2Health.

If you are still trying to pick your education sessions, the topical guides provided by HealthITNews as “Don’t Miss Education Sessions” may be helpful to review.

HealthSystemCIO.com has a special HIMSS18 Preview aimed at CIOs and health IT leaders you’ll want to check out.

Are you an introvert? Continue reading →

This can’t be the new normal

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I am sickened, saddened, and angry all over again.

Yesterday as I did my early morning check of Facebook, I smiled at a memory that popped up from 3 years ago. It was a picture of my then 3-month-old granddaughter dressed in a little Valentine’s outfit withcanstockphoto50204846 school icon a little red and white stuffed bear next to her. She was propped up in a chair and holding a sign that said, “I love Nana Sue and Papa Tom”. It made my day.

Early afternoon, I talked to my daughter who is the mom to the oldest of our 4 grandchildren. She had just finished registering her 5-year-old for kindergarten next September. She learned that she’d be taking a bus to school and not going to the school within walking distance. The 5-year-old was excited at the thought of a school bus with her friends.

I learned about the latest school shooting in Parkland, Florida just before my husband and I headed to that daughter’s house to babysit the 5-year-old and her 3-year-old sister, so the parents could have a Valentine’s Dinner date night. The story was still unfolding, and the number of injuries and fatalities were still unknown as we drove to her house.

But watching just a short news piece I saw the anguish of parents anxiously awaiting news of their children. And I saw the fear and pain of the students who survived as they were being escorted out of the school by armed police officers.

Parents send their children to what should be a safe and nurturing learning environment every day. Yet, parents now with increased frequency wonder if their children will return home. Continue reading →

One year anniversary, how are we doing?

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For the first birthdays of my four grandkids, there have been party hats and “smash” cakes. But what does a small team of entrepreneurs do on the first anniversary of founding their firm? They take stock and plan canstockphoto48088945for year two.

David Muntz, Russ Rudish and I launched StarBridge Advisors in October of 2016. So how does a health IT advisory firm measure success after year one?

Number of clients – We have already assisted 12 healthcare provider organizations with some repeat engagements and have national reach.

Revenue – Any first-year projections can be a crapshoot but you need to start somewhere. We may have been overly optimistic but we are well on our way with our client base and pipeline.

Size of our team – In addition to our three principals, we now have almost 20 advisors on our team available for interim management, leadership support and consulting. Their IT leadership experience includes serving as CIO, CTO, CISO, CMIO or CNIO in healthcare organizations.

Channel partners – We work closely with several larger consulting firms who offer services that we don’t. We partner with Healthcare IT Leaders, a leading staffing firm and Rudish Executive Search, which specializes in healthcare.  And we are working with a few start-up technology vendors who are bringing to market new and novel solutions for healthcare providers.

Referrals – Our principals combined have over 90 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Our relationships are a key component of growing a new business and getting known in the market.

Name and brand recognition – A year ago we had decided on a name and incorporated, but had yet to figure out our branding. That was some fun work at first; by January we launched our website and social media presence. Continue reading →