World traveler from home desk in Vermont

Hi,

Thanks for starting this group, Warren, which I think will be a great way to stay connected with each other outside of the normal work tasks. Is this something like a group we had several years ago that was meant to be a place for CI people to just talk about our lives, etc.? I forgot what it was called, but I think it fizzled out at one point, probably because none of us seems to have time. [Side note: I clicked on "Create Group News" to create this post, but I don't know why there are all the keywording options...I only selected the geography one. I also added an image; we'll see how that turns out.]

Well, on February 15, I passed my 14-year CI anniversary, leading several of my 1,060 LinkedIn contacts to congratulate me on this milestone (LinkedIn alerts one's connections to such things for some reason). I found myself hearing from people around the world whom I have never met, which is always such a treat. So, even though I do not inherit my dad's travel bug (he recently returned from Antarctica, completing his mission to visit every single continent by the age of 75) and nor do I have the opportunity or task to travel or live in other places like many of you all do, I feel connected.

Mostly, I feel connected daily to you, my CI colleagues, no matter where you are or what time of day or night it is when we are doing our work.

Yet this extends beyond our little group. For example, I have recently been working on a Polio project as part of my longtime collaboration with Chris that has me communicating with people (in addition to Chris) who are doing frontline, on-the-ground work in places like Laos and Madagascar. I seek and have received from them documents and insights that are not published or available anywhere else. My own research led me to find someone in the Ukraine who has great access to government documents I could have not found otherwise. (And I have learned that I can use Google Translate to make sense of even the most unfamiliar languages.) It is at times like this that I feel really grateful to learn from people working and living in so many different contexts. Sometimes, we have the most interesting and random things in common! It is satisfying to share the fruits of these conversations with The CI network.

I find that being with The CI has given me the opportunity to connect with others in ways that benefit our network in broad and also specific ways. For instance, someone at the SBCC Summit had seen a printed guidebook at a table there; he emailed someone to ask about finding it, who in turn passed that inquiry onto Chris, who in turn passed it on to some of us on the content team. In response, I sent an email to about 30 UNICEF personnel I had communicated with in the past, and one of them came through with the information that this guidebook is in publication but not yet available online. I was able to put that person in touch with the original seeker, who offered to give her some input on the project. I had connected the dots and solved a puzzle with the help of people I had not (yet) met!

So, while the half-frozen pond, snow-covered mountaintops, and road signs in English that make up the scenery outside the window my desk faces here in Vermont may be quite different from what anyone else sees, I feel myself in tune with others far away every day.

~ Kier